Having control over your attention is a critical skill. As our culture has become more mobile, information cluttered, and media saturated; we are losing control over our attention and often times don't even realize it. We accept as normal a chronic state of being either overactivated or exhausted. We wind up in a state of partial attention in which our choices unknowingly slip away from us and our quality of life, particularly our health, tends to suffer.
The foundation for having control over your attention is mindfulness. While there are many ways to describe mindfulness, I think of it as intentional awareness and recognition of the present moment. It sounds relatively simple and yet in practice it can be very challenging. In our fast-paced culture where information is hurling at us every second, it can be hard to be still and recognize something small in the moment that we are in to ground us. One powerful thing to take notice of every once in a while, is our breath.
Even the simple act of taking a couple deep breaths can be useful in grounding in the present moment rather than thinking forward to the next thing on our list or back to a difficult situation that tends to be on repeat more often than not. When we can root ourselves in mindfulness, we can then be aware and recognize where we are directing our attention in any given situation.
This is important because where we direct our attention impacts our energy state, perspective, and experiences. What we choose to focus our attention on impacts our mood. Our mood in turn impacts our perspective. Typically, when we are experiencing a form of positive emotion, we see the world in a more positive way.
Our perspective in turn impacts our experiences. You could experience the same exact situation in completely different ways depending on how it is perceived or framed in your mind. You may be surprised by how often attention and energy can be directed towards stress, frustration, or anxiety just to name a few negative states.
This is problematic as what we repeat in our mind and experience over and over again creates hard wiring in our brain; and therefore, when we are perceiving and experiencing more negative states as a result of where our attention goes - we can stay caught on that hamster wheel. And unless we are mindful, we may not even realize we are on the wheel nor recognize that we have a choice to get off.
The negative state hamster wheel takes a toll on our health, relationships, and goals. I encourage you to elevate your awareness of where you are directing your attention. A couple times throughout the day, take 30-60 seconds, breath, and recognize where your attention is being drawn to. Perhaps that focus is appropriate and supportive, perhaps it's not. Be aware and decide if a redirect is needed. Stay mindful.
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