We live in a world where we are constantly targeted for our attention and are being pulled off our center to fulfill someone else’s agenda. So today, I wanted to share some thoughts about showing up more centered and peaceful by reclaiming our attention and time—our most precious irreplaceable commodity.
A few years ago, my meditation teacher—secretly dubbed “The Guru”—advised me that when I’m distracted by my thoughts—or noises or body pain—during my meditation to simplify my practice. She said, “Attend to one thing—your breath or your heartbeat or the sounds within and around you or the sensations in your body. Allow everything else to fall into the background.”
Meditation is called a ‘practice’ for a reason. For me, it’s a continual recentering and ‘attending to’ this very moment. I have very busy brain and a high level of anxiety, so it’s never been easy for me. But it’s no longer frustrating, as I’ve learned to expect that my thoughts will do what thoughts do—think. I silently note, That’s a thought. Sometimes I note, Wow, you are amazingly active today, my mind!…and then I smile and turn my attention back to ‘attending.’
If I can allow my thoughts to fall into the background, I feel like I’ve succeeded in finding momentary peace. I like to think of my barrage of thoughts during—and also not-during—meditation as fertile training ground for living this life with other people who think differently than I do. I don’t get drawn into the energy of crabby drivers and angry shoppers and political turmoil and all the other extremely annoying things that happen that are beyond my control. It’s a daily and sometimes moment-by-moment recentering, as the reality of living life in this world—other worlds are so much easier—means that I am constantly being pulled to ‘attend’ elsewhere.
When I look around me, it’s obvious that this is not only my dilemma. We, as a society, have not only learned to give our power away, but I believe we’ve become addicted to being swept away from our center and toward the edge, some of us even to the extremes. We have been trained to reach outside of ourselves to look for our fixes and hide from the parts of ourselves that we don’t want to face.
In the training ground of meditation, pain still comes up—emotional and/or physical—but we sit with an intention to feel it, to be present with it. But when pain comes up in our daily life, we’ve been conditioned to ‘attend’ elsewhere, to blame others or to deflect that pain with escapism or distractions. This only leads to more pain.
What if instead, we ‘attended to’ what is happening right now and assessed the truth within and around us so that we take our more-centered selves into the world? For example, when I look outside of my window, I see nature and homes filled with the nicest neighbors. I see community. It’s quiet and peaceful. And if I look inside my home, I feel comforted and warm and content. I see my amazing dog sleeping ten feet away from me and notice that I’m safe and healthy and secure. I feel mostly relaxed and notice the breath coming in and out of my nose and my ribcage contracting and expanding. I also notice that I’m a little anxious and am experiencing a mild level of discomfort in my legs. Can I sit with it all? Yes.
Like I said, this is not easy stuff, but the calling is to ‘attend to’ those things you have some control over and surrender to those things that are not within your realm of fixability. When you do, you take a more peaceful ‘you’ out into the world, which has a positive impact on all of us.
So, the calling: For today, throw a middle finger at all the sensationalism vying for your attention and pay your attention elsewhere—like ‘attend to’ your community or to nature or to hanging with your children or your grandchildren or your friends or your pet or sitting in meditation or to some form of creativity or fitness or up-leveling your already kickass pickleball game (yes, I see you). Because if you ‘attended to’ listening to your inner voice as your truth and then acted from there, you might just find that which gives you joy.
Seriously. It’s possible.
p.s. If you haven’t watched The Social Dilemma, I highly encourage you to check it out. It will open your mind to the ways that social media is consciously trying to steal your attention.
As I’m beginning my work with my publisher on my yet-to-be-released memoir, I will not be teaching another Coming Out from Hiding course in the near future. I have some hours each week set aside for personal one-on-one coaching, so if you want help in your journey of reclaiming your life, contact me here.
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