Art of Conscious Attention

Just like learning to play a sport or an instrument, practice is essential. Even given natural talent, we must hone our abilities to become skillful. The same is true for directing our attention. The ability to bring choice into the moment, to direct our attention in a way that will benefit us, to notice if our mood is changing, or if we are being triggered, or if we are mindlessly scrolling through page after page online. It takes practice.to notice, to catch ourselves.

We know that much of our online experience is designed to ‘trigger unconscious responses’ and most of us have directly experienced being triggered emotionally by a loved one, friend, colleague or total stranger. This offers good incentive to develop skills that will enable some autonomy when confronted with unexpected emotions.

Focus and mindfulness practices develop different aspects of our attention. Think about your day and all the different situations you encounter. The degree and quality of your attention varies with any given moment. Your attention often darts around quickly, usually being pinged and unconsciously redirected by your brain reacting to environmental stimuli. Focus and Mindfulness practices can strengthen your attention and help distinguish between differing degrees of intensity and precision of your attention. With this awareness, you can bring choice into the formerly unconscious responses that dominate most of your daily life experience.

Choice is the beginning of liberation from the emotional compulsion that typically governs your reactions.

Internal Focus Practices, like taking long slow breaths, slowly scanning your body or focusing on your heart, brings your attention inside your body, giving you a direct experience of your being, rather than an inner dialogue narrating how you feel.

External Focus Practices, like focusing open-eyed on a single point, develops your capacity to hold and direct your attention on one thing without drifting away or being distracted.

The open-eyed soft gaze develops our capacity to expand our attention into the entire field of awareness, noticing all that arises without directing attention.

Playing a musical instrument, painting or sketching, yoga, dance, Tai Chi, or other physical exercise requiring our full attention, are kinesthetic ways to focus attention.

Experiment with how to apply these practices in your daily life, for any given situation. Pick how to engage and think about your attention, perhaps like a slider reaching from the direct inner experience of yourself all the way to directed external focus.

With so many things vying for your attention, it’s a natural tendency to be externally focused and consequently unaware of your body’s inner state of being, of how you are truly experiencing the moment. This is an exploration to consciously engage in situations with the appropriate attention, by choice - based on your intention.

Remember, most of the time, you are unaware of what you’re paying attention to, and how your attention got there. Given your attention gives you your experience in life and there are formidable forces seeking to access, control and keep your attention…maybe it’s time to pay attention to your own Attention.