Recover Your Attention From Digital Fatigue

Psychotherapist, author, and meditation teacher Shannon Algeo is helping us restore our minds and nervous systems from technological overwhelm and digital fatigue. You'll learn philosopher William James's three types of attention, what he calls the "three lights"—spotlight, starlight, and daylight—and practice connecting to them in your own body and soul. This practice is for you if you are wanting to remember what is most important to you so you can be the author and architect of your own attention.

Transcript

Hello, Welcome to Insight Timer. My name is Shannon Algeo and I am a therapist and a meditation teacher and the author of The Power in Your Hands. Liberate yourself from attachment to technology. And this practice is to reclaim and recover your attention in this age of digital fatigue and technological overwhelm that so many of us are experiencing. You know, These technologies have rapidly shifted the way we relate to our inner worlds. Have rapidly shaped the way we relate or don't relate to one another. And ultimately they have affected our personal attentional agency, As the School of Radical Attention calls it, Attentional agency, And our ability as a collective society to build a sense of consensus, Understanding, Compassion, Dialogue around the things that are most important to us, Our values, Our goals, Our aims as a species. This is a really big deal that affects all of us collectively and each of us individually and uniquely. So. This is going to be a practice of reclaiming your attention and your agency. I am a therapist, But this is not a replacement for mental health treatment or psychotherapy. Obviously, But I just like to say that because in addition to this practice, You may wish to explore the nature of how technology is impacting your life with a professional, Perhaps. So. . . I want to, Before we begin, Talk about this philosopher who wrote a book called Stand Out of Our Light. And this philosopher, James Williams, Talks about three different types of attention, Three different types of awareness that we're going to practice today. So they are the three lights. And these lights. R. Spotlight. Starlight and daylight. And I'm going to explain what each of these are because we're going to attune to these qualities of our attention in our practice. This is a practice, I believe we are all tasked with the continual ongoing practice of attending to our attention. And noticing where we are losing power and agency over our own attention. And how we can actually practice in our days, Day to day, Hour to hour, Moment to moment, Breath to breath. To breath. Reclaiming our ability, Our capacity for human attentional staying power to stay the course of what matters most to who we are. To who we're becoming and what we want to do. That question from Mary Oliver's poem, The Summer Day, It sticks to me and it stays with me. What is it that you plan to do? What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? The spotlight attention. Spotlight awareness, This is our ability to direct our attention onto a point that we want to focus on. And this involves the realm of doing. So right now I am focusing my attention on this camera lens and on offering this practice. You might focus your spotlight attention on the road in front of you when you are driving or if you're biking on the other bikers and the road around you, The stoplights. You might be focusing your attention on an assignment, On someone who's speaking to you. This ability to have spotlight attention allows us to do what we want to do. James Williams says. And then there's this starlight attention. And starlight attention is this ability to focus on the stars or the higher stars of our values and our goals. What's important to us? And this involves the realm of being. Who do we want to be? What values and goals and aims and aspirations are directing our attention? And then finally there's daylight attention. And daylight attention is our attentional faculties. This is our capacity to have attention, To think, To take in the world around us. This is like insight, Metacognition, A higher perspective. This is kind of like the angels of our better nature. Or in psychology, The superego, A higher aspirational capacity. Capacity for reflection. And this is what allows us to want what we want to want. So this daylight attention, I like to think of it, It allows us to see the room that we're in, The world that we exist in. And this, William James says, Sorry, James Williams, Not William James. James Williams says, This is the realm of knowing. So this is a higher knowing capacity. So Spotlight attention doing what am I focusing my attention on throughout my day moment to moment? Starlight attention, Being, What's important to me? What are my goals and values? Who am I becoming and being right now? And then daylight attention, What is my capacity to know and to want what I want to want, To have insight and metacognition and to have the ability to connect the dots of my life because I'm not just attending to what's right in front of me in every moment or the app that's trying to pull my attention, But I actually have this capacity to see my life through the lens of daylight. Understanding myself in the world, And to want what I want to want, To be a steward of my insight, My reflective capacities, My mind's schematic connections, And the metacognitions of higher knowing. So. Let's practice attentional agency. So we want to become the stewards of our attention. And becoming the stewards of our attention means noticing when our attention is being pulled, Grabbed, Exploited, Sold even. And how to divest from the commerce and the marketplace of attentional grabbing and diverting and to return to the internal authority, The ability to be the author and the architect, The steward of your own attention through the practice of attentional agency. And so let's begin. By closing our eyes. And if before you close your eyes, Maybe just notice taking in the room around you. A visual detail if that feels right. Love to look at the plant on my desk. Big. Spread open green leaves. Maybe there's something in your environment that's calling to you. And when you're ready to close your eyes, If you haven't already, Just attune your attention. To the listening, The hearing, The sounds that are coming in through your ears right now. Maybe notice the taste on your tongue. Flavor. Tongue or in the mouth. Connecting to the sense of taste. Bringing the attention to The sense of touch, Maybe just notice where your hands are resting right now or. The cushion or the seat underneath you. Feeling the texture. Refilling. Article of clothing where the clothing touches the body or temperature. On the skin right now. And bringing the attention and awareness to the tips of the nostrils. The inner nose. Is connecting to the subtle sense of. Smell the sense of smell. Right now we're engaging with this spotlight attention. Spotlighting the five senses. Taking three breaths with the awareness right at the nostrils. Feeling the cool air perhaps coming in through the nose. And the warm air leaving the body through the mouth or the nose. Now bringing the awareness to the navel center, We're going to attune. Our spotlight awareness and attention to the Interoception, Interoception, This ability to sense the body from within. From the inside. Maybe starting at your navel and just noticing the sensation that you feel. In and around the navel. Abdomen and the stomach. Low spine. The solar plexus. Noticing how anytime you bring your awareness to your own body and to the intelligence, The somatic embodied intelligence within the physical form. This is an act of attentional reclamation. Agency, Authority, And listening to your own intuition. To the embodied brain. Neuroscience calls it the embodied brain of the gut. Connecting. To this embodied intelligence, This human intelligence. Feeling and sensing and listening to. The sensations in your own gut. And then if it feels right for you, We're going to place one hand onto the heart. And one hand onto the belly. We're going to attend now. To the starlight awareness. And this is your capacity to. Connect to what is most important to you. The higher stars of your goals and values. And it's in this starlight awareness that we shift from. Doing to being. Maybe imagine. The stars in the sky. Orienting to toward a higher state of being. Connected to. The larger world. Into a value system, A compass that connects you towards goals and aims. That are in alignment with your internal authority, Also known as your soul. Connecting to the breath. As you listen and feel and sense into your being. And the stars, The starlight of your goals and values and maybe just identify or get curious, Ask your soul what? Is most important to me. Right now. Today. Bye. In my life. What higher stars and value system do you orient towards? What is it like to become the director of your starlight attention? Be a good steward of your being. To orient towards what matters most to you. Notice the breath coming in. Notice the breath going out. And you can keep your hands on your body if you like, Or as we shift into this third light. Final part of our practice together, You could bring your hands down to your thighs or your knees, Palms facing up in a gesture of receptivity. Listening. Open palms. Receptivity, Listening. Open palms. Now we're shifting into the daylight. Daylight awareness. This is a horror. Capacity to know. Higher knowing. Metacognition, Insight, Reflective capacity. Our ability to orient. To the wider web. Of which we are a part. To see the context. To connect the dots. To make sense and meaning. Of this one wild. Precious life. And so for this. Attending to our awareness of the daylight. This knowing we will practice being still. Like the quote, Be still and know. Be still and know. So for this part of the practice, We'll simply Breathe. Stay connected to the body. And in the spirit of receptivity. Sitting with a question. What wants to be remembered? What do I know? Allowing the mind and the heart and the gut, The body, The nervous system and the being to just sit with the silence. To allow the mind to receive some rest and reset. And restore. Taking a deep breath in. And releasing a full breath out. Maybe turning the corners of your mouth upward to feel the architecture of a smile. The anatomy of a smile. And perhaps offering yourself some gratitude for being a steward of your attention, This capacity to do and to be and to know the spotlight, The starlight, The daylight, And perhaps it's an inspiration. I know it is for me to think of attention and awareness as not just one thing, But there's dimensions of awareness. Being a steward of my attentional faculties, My capacity, My agency, Means that I can come back home to myself and my soul, Especially when my attention is being pulled in so many different directions, And to not let the fatigue erode at the will to come home to ourselves. So again, My name is Shannon Algio, And I'm so grateful to have shared in this practice with you on Insight Timer, And I look forward to practicing with you again soon. And in the meantime, If you want to do some journaling, Just take note of your spotlight attention, Your starlight attention, Your daylight attention, And maybe journal some reflections about what you are attending to today and in the next few days. And until we practice together again, Thank you so much for joining with me today, And I hope you have a beautiful rest of your day. Thanks so much.