Pay Attention

Now a days we live in a world that is very busy compared to only 100 years ago. Our nervous systems have not had the time to adjust to the amount of sensory inputs that we take in each day. Life is filled with work, family, expenses, education, exercise, eating right, vacations, meetings and all the errands to run... How do you fit it all in and still have the time to create health and happiness?

Ultimately, how do we find time to be fully alive? What do we need to cut out of our lives to create the life we hope to live?

How we utilize the limited space in our lives can help us make those decisions. This is where attention comes in. When you can focus your attention you can cultivate the ability to reflect and make those difficult decisions. 

What are attentions? 

Quoted from Psychology Today “The ability to pay attention to important things — and ignore the rest — has been a crucial survival skill throughout human history. Attention can help us focus our awareness on a particular aspect of our environment, important decisions, or the thoughts in our head. Maintaining focus is a perennial challenge for individuals of all ages, and people have long sought out strategies, tricks, and medications to help them stay on track.”

If you cultivate time to pay attention in your life you can become more calm and less stressed. With becoming more attentive you are giving attention to the things that really matter – the things that make you thrive and become the toe-tapping on top of the rooftops kind of happy. 

Then, the next question is how do I develop attention within myself? This question has been asked for 1000’s of years from many different angles. There are several theories on how to hone your attention skills and this is not an article to tell you how, but to try things and learn from them. You will find something that works for you. My advise would be to pose questions with a child-like interest, but not in a childish way. 

When you bring more attention into your life you can experience more joys but you may also passively effect your community around you. Others will gravitate to you to just experience presence with you. The presence you develop can help others find deeper attentions within themselves without ever having to say a word.  I think if we can give the people around us our real attention that is one of the largest true gifts you can offer someone. 

If you are interested in developing more of your attentions in your life come on in to Enso for some ideas and ways you can make that happen. We would love to help you. 

By: Thomas Schiffer