Archive for the ‘Attention’ Category

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Three Types of Focus

March 21, 2014

Can you maintain focus long enough to read a book in the Bible? A chapter? A story? Can you read a book?

Many people feel that a combination of today’s information deluge and our attachment to the instant gratification of smart phones with email, Facebook, Twitter, and so on are ruining us of our ability to sustain focus on a task.

This problem can affect relationships, career, and a living a good life.

My current reading is Daniel Goleman’s Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence. You may have heard of Goleman through a previous book, Emotional Intelligence. If you have not read that one, grab it today.

Focus can be described as placing one’s attention on one task/event. When you are at a reception and talking to someone, do you focus on them? Or on everything else? Or have an urge to pull out the old iPhone and check for texts?

Focus affects ability to study, pray, even worship.

Goleman says that leaders especially, and everyone eventually, need to cultivate three types of focus.

  • Inner–keeping you in touch with intuition, values, reflection, making better decisions
  • Other–building relationships with others, connecting with others, being aware of other people
  • Outer–lets us navigate in the greater world around us

As that Star Wars Sage, Yoda, says, “Your focus is your reality.”

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Finding Focus In a Busy World

March 18, 2014

Over the weekend, I compiled a list of topics for this blog. Yesterday morning during my quiet time, I pulled up the list an contemplated what I’d write about.

First on the list was “focus.” Then I scanned the remainder of the list. Then I went back to focus. But I couldn’t.

So, I didn’t write.

After my workout, I had a phone call. Lasted an hour. Then answered email and another call and it was lunch. Another call. A little preparation, and conference calls from 2 until 5. I had dinner alone at my favorite little Italian place (I’m not aware of any good Irish taverns in the area, so my Gannon ancestors were probably reprimanding me) scanning my news feeds.

A day totally without focus. Maybe it’s the full moon.

So much busy-ness. I guess I focused on each call, but there was no focus on Getting Things Done.

Remedies

  • Usually when I have trouble with focus, I get up and move. Often the movement is taking a brief walk through the neighborhood. A little fresh air and exercise is a great reset.
  • Another good thing is to pull up my Nozbe next action list. Check out what I should be working on and do the next action.
  • Or, return to the open document and decide to finish it. Read what I’ve done thus far and then just start typing. Just writing the next words draws me into the task.
  • Sometimes I look at a task that I’ve been putting off and consciously decide to start working on it. Two hours later (as in last Saturday), it’s done and I can check it off. A great feeling.
  • If I’m tired, I push back and just close my eyes and meditate for a few minutes. Then I return to the task refreshed.
  • A cup of Tazo Zen tea is a great refresher.

What works for you? A life without focus is a life lost.

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Be Intentional About What You Want

March 3, 2014

“Do you want to be well?”

Jesus asked the man with an unspecified illness at the edge of the Pool of Bethesda at the Temple that question.

We would expect the man to answer, “Yes! Of course! Please!”

Instead, the man whined and complained. “There’s no one around to help me into the water when it stirs and other people get there first.” (There was a superstition that when the water stirred in the pool an angel caused it and was there to heal the first person who dipped into it.)

Jesus evidently ignored the whining. He told the man to stand up, pick up his mat, and to go and sin no more and he would be well.

There is so much we don’t know. What was his sin that caused his illness? Indeed, what was his illness? Why did Jesus pick him? Why did Jesus ignore his whining and heal him?

None of this is the point of the story that John tells in his Gospel. But that’s OK. It’s worth contemplating.

How do we answer?

If someone walks up and offers help, what is our response? Thanks? Or some sort of whining excuse?

A guy I know uses the term “intentional” often. Pray intentionally for things, he’ll say. Pray intentionally for God to bring people into your life or bring the right circumstances into your life.

I thought about that word as I contemplated this story. Are we intentional about seeking healing? Are we intentional about seeking help for our challenges? Do we even know what we want?

Self-help gurus talk about goal setting. That can be a useful activity. However, being intentional about the kind of person we want to become or about healing us of our problems (physical, mental, emotional or spiritual) is really our first step toward a life in the Spirit.

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Misplaced Focus

February 25, 2014

The kids were fascinated. Their attention and focus was on the simple black push button on the display. There was no label at the button. Just a push button.

I volunteered for some community service yesterday serving as a guide and teacher for one of seven displays at the Shelby County Historical Museum. Each year, the Museum has a display that all the schools in the county bring their 5th graders to tour.

I serve as a volunteer for a sorority (go figure). My wife is the president of the local educators’ sorority, Delta Kappa Gamma. Finding volunteers is a sorority project. Guess who gets to help?

So, as I guided the students around the 3-part display explaining about how and why people came to North America in the 17th and 18th Centuries, I got to the third panel about the group who didn’t choose to come–African slaves. Facing them was a picture of children who would have been on a ship. And the button.

They noticed right away. “What’s that button?” I had 14 small groups. At least half of the groups had kids that were poised to hit the button. A couple got into a contest of hitting the button over each other. I had to put a stop to that. Several just came close and sort of leaned toward it. They didn’t hear a word I was saying.

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about observing my grandson and how he had trouble controlling his urges–specifically to annoy his sister.

It’s the same thing. But these kids were 11, not 6. Most could restrain their urges (except for a couple). They were growing up.

But their attention and focus were completely diverted from the lesson.

Ever go to church or a lecture and notice something about a person in front of you? Maybe the tag is out on the dress or sweater? Maybe they didn’t get their hair combed in the back? Something that captured your focus to the detriment of hearing the speaker?

Part of growing up is noticing that our focus is on the wrong thing and intentionally bringing it back to where it should be. We conquer the urges and focus where it matters.

Throughout Scriptures, writers and teachers remind people to put their focus first on God. Then good things happen to your soul.

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Release Hidden Tensions

February 7, 2014

Neighbors called the rescue squad. There was something unusually quiet about the apartment of the old woman. They entered, found her in distress, and took her to the hospital. She had one hand tightly clenched into a fist. They could not get her to release. Finally, a doctor in the emergency room pried open her hand. Inside was a quarter.

Henri Nouwen tells this story in the beginning of his book “With Open Hands.” It is an image that has stayed with me for many years. The image of someone desperately hanging on to something valuable. So incredibly tensed up. Hanging on.

Jesus told stories about people trying to hang on to things. And he taught about the futility of that. Today I’m told there is a TV series (maybe more than one) about “hoarders” who can’t bear to throw anything away.

I’d like to relate this to the mindfulness discussion I started with this week. And prayer–which is where Nouwen took the story.

Part of being mindful is to open up. Become open to the world around you. Become open to God. You cannot walk around and really be with people if you are tensed up with worry about things which are of no value to God and actually impede your relationship with God and people.

In Yoga, I put people into positions where they hold a pose designed to stretch and strengthen a  particular muscle or muscle group. Then I will suggest that they do a mental scan of their bodies at that time. If we are working the upper leg muscle (say in Warrior pose), we discover often that we are holding tension in our shoulders. We should not be holding tension there. We should only be working the leg muscle. We remind ourselves to relax.

While warming up, I will have the class in sitting position cross-legged on the mat. We sit erect, stretch our arms out straight, then bring the palms of the hands together in front. Breathing deeply, we bring our arms back until we are pinching the shoulder blades together. We put the thought in our minds that we are opening ourselves up to greet the day. Then we bring our arms forward on the exhale and put the thought in our minds that we are releasing all the tensions of the day. Repeat about 4-6 times.

We have our minds and bodies intentionally working together alert to the moment–and only the moment. Now we can pray.

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Give the Gift of Your Attention

February 4, 2014

Give whatever you are doing and whomever you are talking with the gift of your attention. Jim Rohn

My thoughts on mindfulness resonated with many yesterday. There are three words, or concepts, that play well together–attention, focus, and mindfulness.

In my youth, I loved the murder mystery series by Earle Stanley Gardner about the legendary attorney, Perry Mason. There was a comment Gardner made about Mason’s personality that stuck. “He had such great power of concentration that he could move from the murder case he was on to complete concentrate on another case.”

Our current age is marked by “multi-tasking.” That’s a term borrowed from microprocessor hardware developement. Chips can be so designed that they partition off parts and can therefore support many tasks running simultaneously. Humans think they can do the same thing. (Actually, the chips usually use “time slicing” where moving at an extremely rapid speed, they work on each task a little at a time and it only appears to the much slower humans that the tasks are accomplished simultaneously.)

Humans cannot multi-task. Period. Humans can try time-slicing. Doesn’t work well.

When you are at a task, give it the gift of your attention. When you are in conversation with someone, give that person the gift of your attention (ouch, my weakness at times).

There is a mindfulness diet. It’s not what you eat (but please make good choices). It’s how you eat. What was the taste of the last thing you ate? The texture? Are you like so many humans who eat so quickly that the flavors and textures are lost in the speed of eating?

In the mindfulness diet, take a bite of food. Stop your hand and arm motion. Chew the food with attention. Notice the flavors, aromas, textures. Enjoy it. Then, and only then, take the next bite. By slowing down and becoming aware of the food, we actually eat less. For most of the people in the world, that’s a good thing.

Don’t fall into a trap thinking this is only a Buddhist or New Age concept. If you carefully read the stories about Jesus, not for what he said, but to gain a sense of how he acted and related. He had marvelous powers of concentration and focus. Remember him being startled by the woman who touched him seeking healing? He was concentrating elsewhere when he felt energy leaving him.

Thank you for your attention 😉

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