"Pay attention to what you're paying attention to."
— Harold Rheingold
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One of the biggest things I’ve learnt is to place my attention on what is good, what is right, what is beautiful, what is here.
Why? Because where your attention is, there your life is.
Our minds, left untrained, will focus 9:1 on the negative –
What went wrong, what’s broken and missing, what’s not right.
How many times do you lay awake at night, unable to sleep because you’re stewing on all the things that went well today or could go perfectly tomorrow?
Exactly!
So a big part of a meditation/mindfulness practice is training your mind to focus on what you want to grow in life.
It’s reversing that 9:1 negativity bias, and that only helps with increasing your energy and lightening your load (because you’re not thinking so much all the time, and about bad stuff) but it enables you to be present, and be effective because you can meet the need of the moment.
It’s weird though isn’t it?
Somehow we think if we can be aware of the problems, and think constantly about them, we can prevent or learn from them. But that’s rarely the case. You’ve already learnt, AND worrying about everything never works because you can’t control everything. You just end up wound up.
Sanity – and a happy and effective life – is staying with what you know for sure and what you can control. And that’s only this present moment, with a few tweaks to help the next moments along.
So practice. Get super clear on where your attention is going. Learn to choose to focus differently.
Now –
Someone messaged me recently saying that being present was too hard – that they kept forgetting.
But at some point everyone remembers, and can be present. In which case, you remembered and that’s what you want to remember!
You see?
In this game, it’s just a variation of the old glass half-full or half-empty business.
You can be down on yourself because of what happened, what isn’t happening, or what might happen, or you can be super present and celebrate the fact that you can do something about now, that you’re alive now, that you remembered now.
You can be down on yourself because you forget and you messed up; or you can make the most of remembering and give yourself a fresh start.
It’s super common to focus on forgetting instead of remembering.
It’s super common to focus on how busy your head is and trying to stop that, instead of finding a different relationship with your thoughts and your emotions.
It’s super common to focus on what could go wrong as opposed to what could go right, or more importantly, what is going right, right now!
But focus on what you want, not what you don't.
This is an endeavour, this is a practice and a skill –
So practice remembering.
Practice presence.
Practice awareness.
Practice appreciating what you have, not what you don’t.
Practice focusing on what you’d like to happen, not what could go wrong.
Practice being so clear on what can be done right now, not what can’t.
Practice celebrating the good times and the good people. Make more good moments. Be a good people.
Practice enjoying the journey.
Practice enjoying the moment.
Fill your attention with what is good and right and beautiful.
When you can freely choose what you focus on, all of life transforms instantly.
Go well!
Arjuna
PS.
Be guided into deep calm, rest, more energy, better mood, less stress and worry.
Here’s some free guided meditation audios I just created for you:
www.arjunaishaya.com/freeaudios
PPS.
I think the greatest tools to choose to shift your attention freely is Ascension.
It gave me the ability to get out of the loops of negativity and choose to appreciate and love so simply.
If you’re interested in more details, just let me know.
Dates for the next course is 7-9 July (starts 7pm Friday)
Talk soon!