Recently, I have been resisting creating space for myself. I find it easy to put this element of self-care to the bottom of my to do list when life is so busy and my 'Off' switch seems to be broken! At first glance, from a productivity perspective, this might appear great. My paradox is that as I gain momentum, the side effects can include overthinking, blind spots and freeze state.

For example, thanks to an incredibly helpful tutorial discussion, I realised that I missed seeing the wood because I was hyperfocusing on the trees. Now that my tutor has helped me to stand back, I can see how I have been creating a problem for myself and how I have been triggering myself into certain emotional responses.

Productivity is not only about being busy and being naturally busy-minded, that can be problematic. 

And so I have something to work on here if I am to maintain an interested, curious distance.  Reframing my research question is hopefully part of the work done, but not all of it. My preparation for research needs me to show up able to  transfer more of my counselling practitioner skills into my research approach. Bracketing anything that does not belong in the space, asking, 'to what benefit?' and being able to resist diving down every rabbit hole are skills I have to implement all the time as part of my practice.Yet  I suspect mastering this challenge to impulsivity in my research will take a bit of trial and error because I have different motivations and different understanding of the task at hand.

My revised target: Pausing, spacing, noticing, reminding myself to be curious and not to solve. 

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