Choosing To Pay Attention (A Mindfulness Practice)

The ultimate freedom, is the ability to choose; to choose where our attention goes, and the meaning we make of the moments in our lives. In this meditation we explore our ability to choose where are attention goes by exploring the dilation and contraction of our attention. Whilst being able to choose where our attention goes can be useful, it's important to not use is to simply avoid difficult emotions. We also touch on the practice of RAIN, as a model to compassionately investigate further into the habits and patterns of our mind.

Transcript

It is said that what we pay attention to,

We become.

Our lives made up of years,

Months,

Weeks,

Days,

Minutes,

Moments,

And choices.

The contents of the lives we seek,

Connection,

Meaning depth,

Richness,

Wholeness,

Require us to arrive,

To meet each moment with our full selves.

Yet we are always moving on to the next.

Retraining our attention and choosing how we meet each moment is our path to true freedom.

This meditation is dedicated to building the capacity to direct our attention,

To dilate into open environmental awareness,

And tune it in for a more focused and targeted attention.

As if our attention was the aperture ring on a camera,

Opening up to allow more light,

More data,

And focusing to pick up the finer details and subtleties.

To remember that we do in fact have the ability to choose where our attention goes and the stories we tell about those places.

Let's begin by firstly taking a moment to find a seated posture that is both alert and relaxed.

A sense of dignity in the spine and softness in the shoulders,

The face,

The palms of the hands,

And the hips.

When you're ready just closing down the eyes if you're comfortable too.

And then just allowing your next inhale to be a little longer than you think you need to.

Elongating the crown of the head up towards the sky.

And taking another inhale,

Holding for a moment.

And exhaling through your mouth and letting it be soft,

Slow,

And long.

Taking another two breaths like this,

A deep inhale,

Feeling the stomach and the chest longer than you think,

And holding.

And exhaling softly and slowly through the mouth.

The exhale bringing with it a sense of descending,

Melting,

And dissolving.

The greatest companion to the quality of presence is the quality of kindness or friendliness.

So just begin to sense the curve and shape of a smile across the forehead,

Across the eyes,

Across the mouth,

And across the inside of the mouth.

What does it feel like to smile on the inside of your mouth?

And we're not smiling to cover over what might be there,

But smiling simply to create an opening,

A readiness and willingness to receive and to listen to all that arises.

With a sense of warmth and welcoming.

So keeping this smile,

This sense of openness across the front of the face and the front of the chest,

Just start to widen or dilate your attention to become aware of the sounds you can hear in the space that you're in.

Just allowing the sounds to come and to go without the need to grab onto them or try to know what they are.

And just see if for a moment you can pay attention to the qualities and the textures of the sounds,

The characteristics of the sounds,

As opposed to needing to know what the sounds are.

Starting to experience them through a little bit more objective lens.

And just see what the furthest sound from you is that you can hear.

As if you've cast a net across the space you're in or beyond if you're inside.

What is the furthest sound you can sense?

Just noticing how this broadening of attention and environmental focus cultivates a strong sense of place,

Of being here,

Centered,

Amidst the coming and going nature of our environment.

Just letting the sounds stay as they are,

Simply shifting your attention now to the space between your eyebrows.

Firstly noticing if you are furrowing the brow in any way,

Holding tension there,

Squinting the eyes.

And if you can,

Just allowing it to soften,

Creating more space across the forehead.

Maybe bringing that smile shape back,

Remembering the quality of openness and friendliness.

Now as we focus the attention a little bit more,

Bringing your awareness to the soles of your feet.

And seeing if you can attune your attention or deepen your focus to become aware of the very subtle sensations of the soles of your feet.

There might be tickling,

You might feel the socks,

The fabric of your socks up against your feet if you're wearing them.

You might feel coldness or warmth,

Just noticing what's there.

And sticking with the soles of your feet so we can dive deeper into the subtle sensations.

And then bringing your attention to your left thumb.

And seeing if you can trace your attention across your thumb from where it connects to your hand,

Right to the tip of your thumb.

Maybe wriggling it if you need to,

To create sensation.

Just training ourselves in our ability to focus on the very fine,

The very subtle.

And then bringing your attention to the sensation of breathing wherever it's most noticeable for you.

And just taking a couple of breaths here.

So in our ability to choose where we place our attention,

It is important that we don't use this simply to avoid unpleasant or difficult emotions or circumstances.

But by strengthening our attentional muscle,

With compassion we have capacity to begin to understand what might be there,

To begin to understand ourselves a little better.

So if we notice our attention being pulled somewhere repetitively,

Maybe stopping for a moment and choosing to listen in.

To focus maybe less on the place your attention has landed and more on the narrative or the story we're telling ourselves about that place.

To understand what's there,

It might be fear,

It might be longing,

Shame,

Desire,

A sense of guilt for being where we are amidst all the things we should be doing,

Any number of things.

So we might start to become aware of what it is that there is there.

We might use a process called RAIN,

The R being to recognize.

To recognize what it is,

To name it.

The A being to allow,

Allowing it to be there,

Bringing that friendliness and kindness,

Not needing it to be any other way,

But just to allow it to be there.

The I being to investigate,

Where might this feeling be coming from?

What might the story be that we are telling ourselves about this situation?

Is it true?

Is it balanced and compassionate?

And then the N being to nurture.

What is this teaching you?

Or what does this yearning or longing within us need from us?

And so by learning to train our attention,

Move our attention,

We have the ability to also choose when we sit with what is here,

To really understand what is behind the activities and the patterns of the mind,

So that we have the opportunity to retrain ourselves,

Or to bring more balance to the way that we meet each moment.

So briefly reflecting for yourself as you take a couple more deep inhales and exhales,

How could you strengthen your attentional focus,

Bring more ease and wholeness to your life?

Is there a thought,

A person,

A project or emotion that seems to grab your attention most often?

And so how could this ability to retrain your attention,

Or to dive into understanding why it's being taken to certain places more than others,

How could it support you?

And then taking one more deep breath in,

Holding for just a moment,

Exhaling through your mouth,

And gently blinking open your eyes.

Our freedom is in the space between,

It's in our ability to choose,

To choose where our attention goes,

And to choose the meaning of the story we tell.

So may you remember that you do have the ability to choose,

And to hold yourself with softness and kindness as you meet each moment.

Reviews

Lovely. Felt some echoes of Tara and Jack? Thank you - we Americans def need this right now. 🕊️🌞🙏

So helpful. Going to send this to some friends thank you!

Reset my day in just the right way. Thank you for the great track! 🙏

Lovely way to start my morning. It’s so important to remember that we do have the ability to choose. Thank you for this!

Brilliant meditation: often times it’s about what your letting go - I liked the reverse of that in todays meditation where we are being mindful of what we are giving our attention.

I love his calming voice and the cadence and verbal cues of this meditation. Lovely way to start the day

I hadn't heard of RAIN before. That "investigate" part is where I often get stuck when it comes to my anxiety. But I'm going to persist, with gentleness & kindness towards myself, until I understand the story I'm telling myself. Thank you.

I just love your meditations, Al. I can hear the kindness in your voice and this meditation inspires me to be kind and gentle with myself.

Beautiful inspiring meditation time.
Blessings 🌸🌸🌸

I really like what you have to say. It can feel a bit quick, and a lot to keep up with when you’re also trying to settle your mind. But really nice and one of the few examples where the music accentuates rather than distracts too much from the meditation.

I CHOOSE to be guided by you Al, and live confidently in the space between. So grateful for your ever present light and love…

Absolutely what I needed this morning! Thank you, Thank you.

I can choose what to focus on.

I really enjoyed it. Great for an afternoon break before tackling the next work load. Thank you!

Beautiful soothing voice & message. Thank you 🙂🙏

Really amazing guided meditation! Highly recommend nfor awareness and specially to focus more in your life, thanks!

Enjoy this very much .. thanks and namaste 🙏

Great meditation to help wake up the body and mind! Loved the soothing music too. Thank you!

Excellent short morning practice. Thank you for sharing!

This is what I need today.