What you stay focused on will grow – Ray T Bennett
In celebration of the Summer Solstice that blessed us in the Northern Hemisphere on Thursday 20th June we would like to talk about focus. The advent of longest day and shortest night takes us to a place each year where we are bathed in warmth and light. There is a point of perfect stillness where the light is neither growing nor receding, where we can be remined and inspired to ‘press pause ‘and fully soak in the moment. It is a time of joy. The dawn chorus is a symphony, and all is in bloom.
It is a festival of the senses!
Where then, will you choose to put your focus?
We have written in various articles and in our book about the Law of Attention. Universal Laws are not well explored in the scientific world, but most of us have seen them at play within our lives. We all know that what we give our attention to increases in intensity and importance to us. What we focus on gets bigger. For example, pain, love, conflict, money problems, addiction and fear.
We also know from our years of exploration of and writing about Self-mastery that it is entirely possible to choose where we put our focus.
Why then, do we often have a propensity to choose to focus on the negative?
We write in our book about the ‘negativity bias’ first discussed in the 1970s by Kanouse et al and further explored by various writers on human behaviour. It describes the human tendency to project into a ‘worst case scenario’ during times of uncertainty, and a bias towards focussing on the negative. It is suggested that this comes about as a mechanism for planning for disaster so that we are not taken by surprise and doomed as a result. We may also be to some extent, conditioned towards negative thinking because our parents do not want to see us fail and so they prepare us by warning us that we may not succeed. As we have said before, we come into the world as infants with a hard-wired drive to survive. We seek at all costs to avoid abandonment or rejection as they would incur death. This means that we seek their antitheses. These looks like approval, love, attention and acceptance. If we are looking to be accepted by the whole tribe, we are more likely to focus on our flaws than on our positive attribute so as to stamp them out or at least hide them from view so that we can stay safe.
The above survival mechanisms are unconscious. They exist within our programming and even though they feel automatic, when brought into conscious awareness, they can be changed.
Try this
Set the intention to choose where you put your focus.
Begin by practicing viewing yourself through the eyes of your Observer.
This is the part of you that notices what you are thinking, feeling and doing, without taking part and without judgement or analysis. This part of you can also witness where you have placed your focus.
Make a plan to check in with yourself at regular points within the day to notice where you have put your attention.
Are you focussing on:
Mistakes or achievements?
Goals or obstacles?
Illness or healing?
Pain or therapeutic intervention?
Fatigue or Self-care?
Conflict or reason and compassion?
Fear or hope?
Failure or success?
Solitude or connection
Sorrow or love?
Death or rebirth?
When you notice that you are giving your attention to something negative, send yourself a message of gratitude, support and compassion. These tendencies come from fear and primitive survival instincts. But the narrative can be reframed. When we give ourselves grace, we can learn to shift our focus towards the positive. We can acknowledge the fear and walk alongside it whilst gently restoring the balance with conscious choice. We do not seek to ignore those things that cause us distress but to bring our attention to those things that alleviate it at the same time as allowing our fears to be heard. We can also examine the narrative to ascertain whether it is true or simply a scary story that we have been telling ourselves out of fear of not being enough.
You are enough. You are more that enough. You are a one-time only, never to be repeated miracle!
Now go out into the midsummer sun and bask in its warmth and light.
For more insights and a host of tools and techniques for exploring the Self and improving your
human experience see our book:
