Breaking Boredom | Kyle McMurray Coaching, LLC

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Remember when you were younger and you used to get SO bored? Oh wait, we just spent nearly a year on lockdown, of course you remember…Well, you were still younger, technically. I’ve heard it said that “The two enemies of happiness are pain and boredom.” Now, we talk about pain quite a lot with our clients, but boredom? No one ever talks about that. Well, we’re talking about it today. You’re listening to Living the Freedom Life, this is Episode 101 and today we are Breaking Boredom.

When you’re bored, how many of you know that you’ll do things that you probably won’t do any other time.

Go and check the fridge…for no reason or something we call “Bored Eating” when you’re not really hungry. We all know what that causes.

I’ve caught myself going out to the garage, look around the cabinets for no reason.

Scroll through the TV apps to find something new to watch.

Check the youtube feed.

Here is another one, how many of you “log off” because you’re bored, only to log back on in 5 minutes because you’re bored?

When we are bored, we consume and we overdo things. We escape. That’s how most of us deal with Boredom. We overeat, over think things (when we overthink, that’s where bad ideas disguise themselves as good ones)

What if I were to tell you that Boredom can actually serve you as a useful tool? Boredom can be useful.

I have a challenge for you. I would like for you to assess yourself and think about what you do when you are bored. The reason I want you to do that is for you to see what your mind is actually going through. I want you to know that when we are Bored, we have a choice.

People tell me “I don’t like to pray or, I don’t like to meditate because I get distracted, I get bored.” That’s actually pretty funny, because that’s the point. Now before you get all religiously offended, let me explain this. It is imperative for us to learn to push through boredom to get to the real stuff. If you want to go through life to be entertained, that’s actually a very shallow life.

When we face Boredom, either we can access or escape. When it’s broken down into just two simple choices, now we can choose to take dominion over our life and be intentional. Because most people have heard the old saying “Boredom is the Devil’s playground.” If the Devil, our enemy, the one who DOESN’T want you to become the person God created you to be, when he can get you to not live intentionally, he’s got you. He doesn’t want you to Live the Freedom Life. He doesn’t want you to listen to this podcast. I’m not saying that the Devil is behind everything. What I am saying is that we have a choice and the devil tries to influence the power of choice that we have, and a lot of times he uses boredom to lure us into searching to be entertained. You may be thinking “I need to unplug sometime.” or “I need to recharge.” Trust me, that is God’s desire for you too. You see, there is no such thing as unplugging. When we are what we call unplugged, what happens? Now, God has all the “other stuff” out of the way and then, He can truly speak to you. That is when He chooses to download the life giving things to us that we are really searching for in the first place.

Being Bored gives us an opportunity to get all the other stuff out of the way.

We can either access what is in our own mind, or we can escape out of our own mind. Depending on what’s there or what we are thinking about. I’m kind of referring back to “Think about what you think about.” I’m sure you’ve heard me say that before.

What we are really talking about is how is the relationship with yourself. For years, I didn’t have a good relationship with myself. When I read “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” Matthew 22:35-40, I felt that I was off the hook because I didn’t like myself at all. I wouldn’t hang out with me. In fact, I went to great lengths to avoid myself.

Because when we are bored and we try to escape, it’s really a question of “What am I escaping from?” That’s the real question. It’s like if you don’t like hanging out with you, then as with anyone else you don’t want to hang out with, you’re out of there. You find a way to escape. Some people even have a fake phone call app on their phone to get them out of situations where they don’t want to hang out with someone.

But I think the real question is “How is my relationship with me?” Because when you get bored and your option is to escape, it never gets better and things will continue to spiral.

Well, if we use that time to access ourselves, to “Think about what you are thinking about”, then you get to know what you don’t like. You get to discover and put the tools God gave you to work. With a sound mind ,access to Him and how He sees you…, together, you can change it. The more present you are with the life you don’t like, the more authority you will have over it. THEN we can start taking dominion!

The more you escape, the less power you have over it and you will find yourself like one of those fishing bobbers, floating out in the middle of the water with nothing anchoring you for purpose. The Bible says in Hebrews 6:19 that “He is an anchor to our soul”.

Now, when you get bored and let’s say you remember this episode and you choose to “Think about what you are thinking about” this takes energy, it takes effort, and it will also take your skill doing it. You may be saying to yourself, “I don’t know HOW to do that”. Well, we can help.

When you are bored, your mind and it’s contents will reveal itself to you. It’s like God created Boredom for just this purpose.

Look at the people in your life and see what they do when they are bored. Does it serve them? Do they allow themselves to be bored? Or, are they just outrunning it? Which is the same as escaping. Filling their life with so many things that they never experience themselves.

When we are Bored, we can either let it eat away our most precious commodity, which is time. Or, we can make the most productive use of Boredom and use it as a fuel gage on the Dashboard of our soul and let it be an indicator that we now have some time to do the things we claim we never have time to do. Which is self-care.

Someone who is “too busy” in this day and age, I heard someone say, this is kind of abrasive, but I heard them say that “Being too busy is the new stupid”.

People who claim to be Too Busy really means:

they struggle with setting boundaries
they don’t have time to let the dust settle long enough for the water to get clear so they can see deeper
they aren’t good at managing themselves
- in other words they aren’t the best at time management
- or it may go as far as they aren’t as efficient as they can be
- I guess that’s a nice way of saying they aren’t good at self-discipline
when someone who is too busy, when they get bored, they see it as a time to finally relax
- which reinforces the choice of escaping when they are bored
- because since they are too busy, they’re not disciplined in their rest

It’s a cycle that really cripples a lot of people in today’s society.

To say it in a nicer way, “Too busy is the new uninformed”. We can help.

So the answer is not busyness but awareness.

Boredom is like that moat we have to cross to get to awareness. Sure, it’s not easy to push through, but as you do it more and more, you will find out where the drawbridge is and how to lower it so you can cross easily.

In Breaking Boredom, we have Clients that have turned their Boredom around, and really made it into this internal traffic signal or like a moat, where either they can stay out, or they can cross safely and go into some really great areas of wisdom.

Boredom tells them it’s time to get to work. And lo and behold, their Boredom is evaporated! The reward is the true meaning of peace.

They aren’t bored anymore. But they are excited, rejuvenated, they have clearer vision in their life, they are stronger, they are wiser, and they are learning to like themselves and in turn, they are liking others more too.

Kinda sounds like they are Living the Freedom Life now doesn’t it?

We can help with that.

Until All Have Heard, Living the Freedom Life, this is Kyle