 | Your attention is your choice. |
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 Lately I've been thinking about the idea of attention
and personal choice - where we put our attention is our own decision, and yet often we feel the opposite - that we are forced to place our attention where our emotions or situations or other people dictate.
Let's say you're in terrible traffic, late for an appointment. You may be so upset that you focus a lot of angry attention on the cars in front of you. The intense feelings can be so strong that you may think you are unable to change this angry attention and you have to stay in that place.
But the truth is, in traffic and everywhere else, we are actually completely in control of where we place our attention, even when a lot of strong feelings are present!
So why would we even want to move where we place our attention? Well, if we use the traffic example, all that anger directed outward doesn't actually improve our commute, in fact in may make it worse. Our angry energy is not teaching the other drivers to get out of the way or to drive better, and we will not be any more on-time because of it.
A good litmus test of whether we should direct our attention towards or away from certain thoughts and feelings is "Are these thoughts and feelings helpful to me or unhelpful?". If they are not helpful, we can learn to direct our attention elsewhere.
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Can you picture what your attention looks like?
When I think of attention I think of a strong beam of light, like a powerful flashlight that one holds in a confident hand and can point in any direction. Each of us has the capacity to say, "this is not worth my attention right now, so I am going to shine the flashlight elsewhere".
When unnecessary worries crowd our minds, when we replay unpleasant situations over and over, when doubts are stopping us from moving forward - these are all times we may want to gently move our attention elsewhere so that we can get on with what is important to us. But, of course when we are flooded with feelings, this can be difficult to do. Here are a few practical steps you can try to practice moving your attention when you need to.
- First of all, notice. Notice what you are feeling or thinking. Our thoughts are very automatic most of the time, so being aware and just noticing our thoughts as they happen is a powerful tool.
- Next, using the litmus test mentioned above, decide if the thought or feeling is helping your or hindering you -not if it's true or untrue - just if it's helpful or unhelpful. We can learn to move our attention from only the unhelpful ones.
- Make room for difficult feelings by breathing, being still, and allowing them to be there. We all tend to fight against our tough emotions and that only makes them bigger. The idea here is to give them space to exist and to be open to them. They won't stick around forever.
- Next, for those thoughts and feelings that aren't helping you, decide to gently move your attention, like the flashlight beam, elsewhere - perhaps to something more important or to something enjoyable. Know that feelings come and go and this impermanence is a good thing! You don't have to stay stuck.
- Finally, we can't expect this to work perfectly all the time. Practice once a day or even once a week at first. It may not always an easy process, and feelings can be messy! But keep going even if it seems hard. It's worth it to have a clear bright flashlight to shine wherever you choose!
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