What's worth paying attention to?
This year, I've been very connected to world events, more so than usual. I've felt deeply concerned about the state of the world, the ongoing conflict and lack of resolution. It's not a new phenomenon, but somehow it seems the world's problems are worse than usual. I found myself taking in more news and related media. So much so that I think it would be fair to say, my attention started to go there on its own. If I wasn't trying to get at the truth of international relations, it felt as if there was something wrong.
So these past few weeks I decided to take a break from the world arena, even though that's impossible to do completely. I did manage to significantly reduce news and related media. And my stepping back is not changing anything, except my own state. Just days into my experiment and I see how much imbalance there was.
I see how the world has been colouring my state and mood and shaping my day in certain ways. Not to give up on news altogether, but my attention started getting hijacked by it. I was too much in the world and its problems. It was feeling like that was the most important thing to be paying attention to.
And of course it would feel that way. There are millions of years of evolution behind me, we’re primed for safety which means knowing what's coming. When the world is like it is and I’m plugged into it too much, then I need to keep going back to figure out whats going to happen, or not happen. There is a natural comfort in knowing the likelihood of war tomorrow is low. The problem is even in the best of times, the global arena is unstable. And with the world as global as it is, and has been in recent time, we’re connected to too many problems. More than our nervous systems are designed to deal. We just can’t take in that much and stay regulated.
As I bring my attention back to what's around me, it's mostly in good order, the garden is alive, the sun is shining. The ground still feels like the ground. I'm breathing, feeling, connected. There is a lot to be paying attention to in this immediate space around me. There is this model of concentric circles starting from the micro, which is our subjective experience (thoughts, feelings, sensations), reaching out to our immediate surroundings, then to media, and finally the wider macro field. We do well to keep a balance between these and notice when we move too much into one at the cost of the others. In my case, when I'm too much in the world's problems I miss what's happening in these smaller spheres, much of which is very regulating.
So what to pay attention to?
The one crazy idea that very rarely feels worthwhile is to pay attention to nothing. To have moments in your day where you reduce all sensory input, and pay attention to your inner subjective experience. What's happening in your body? How is your state? And can you just for a minute or so, just let it be as it is? Relaxing resistance and being curious about how it already is?
Returning to my story, when my attention is on the "wrong" thing I pay a price. And often that cost is only registered much later, if at all. The price is much greater than the cost of doing nothing. So often nothing does not feel like an option, but if it was, you could take these pauses, where instead of soldiering on with the task you think you need to do, you bring your attention back and notice what it's like simply paying attention inward for a moment. Like putting yourself in neutral for a moment, and seeing how this well of resource flows in this often overlooked gear. Even though you are not actively engaged per se, you are in the most powerful gear of listening.
If you do nothing for too long, however, and the cost starts to catch up with you. We'll move again, but this time from a different place, maybe with a different intention. The irony is that the spaciousness tends to allow the very thing that we don't want. But I find, these small moments of acceptance bring just enough resource to take that one small step towards the obvious, and sometimes hard, task in front of us.
My conclusion: Rather don't do anything than give your attention to the wrong things. When connected to what in us is always okay, the ground of being really, the world can look and feel scarier than it actually is.