Awareness

The aperture of life.

While reading this, you probably aren't thinking of awareness as something you use.

Locking in to these words seems natural. Second nature.

Everything passes smoothly in a malaise of functions that do as they are intended to do.

The words start sounding like a voice or your voice in your head.

If this was a descriptive fiction, you would probably be hallucinating the scenes by now.

There is nothing wrong with any of this.

It means you are focused on the task at hand and the peripheral seems to be background noise.

What if I told you that this “locking in” or focus isn't just automatic. That you can train it. Use it as a tool for your own good?

What if your life could change by simply practicing what you focus on?

What you focus on.

I have been focusing on whatever my attention gets pulled towards all my life.

If a threat arises I react accordingly.

If something interesting directs my attention, I am there.

I never thought about focus or attention that much at all.

Focus is something I was taught to do when I dozed off.

Attention is what was needed of me to graduate high school.

These are all wishy washy words to me, that never demanded further exploration.

I only learned about focus and awareness through my “research” on meditation and mindfulness.

I learned , like many others who meditate, that your focus or awareness dictates your state.

What you focus on is what you give your energy to.

If you constantly focus on negative things, your mind thinks your life can't be that great.

If you focus on things that produce fear, you are living with anxiety.

These things are important to address ofcourse.

But our awareness has been running around causing all sorts of unnecessary problems for us.

Let's test your awareness.

I want you to look around in the room you are in.

Focus on everything that is that is black.

Close your eyes and try and identify them in your mind.

While reading this, and without looking around. How many green items did you spot?

I bet you can't name more than a handful.

This is how awareness works on the outside. The brain filters out everything else and focuses only on the task at hand.

This is great for colour coordinating, but not so much for negativity.

The brain will do this same trick with any negative things you focus on. It will remind you of these things and simply filter out the good stuff.

Can you see how problematic this is?

Focus on the inside.

We don't just do this by looking on the outside.

Thoughts, earworms, Instagram reels, heck anything that gets stuck in your head can demand focus.

Replaying bad events in your head demands focus.

If you have been rejected by someone, you know what I am talking about. Those words pop up and you replay it over and over by focussing on it.

I have memories of some really stupid stuff I have said in my life, and my brain likes reminding me.

Humans apply awareness willy-nilly in our lives, and we wonder why we feel terrible most of the time.

You are the captain of your awareness.

Start taking control of your flashlight.

I see awareness as a flashlight that shines in the darkness.

Whatever is lit up gets highlighted.

The most empowering thing I can tell you, is that the flashlight can be directed at anything.

It just takes practice.

Practicing awareness.

I don't really meditate myself that much. But I realise how powerful meditation can be to train your focus.

If you can sit still and simply focus on one thing, such as your breath, then you can practice awareness.

That is what meditation is in a nutshell. It is simply an awareness practicing tool.

Give yourself subtle reminders throughout the day.

If you lose yourself in a stream of thought. Gently nudge yourself back to the present.

You will lose yourself in thought most of the time, and that is okay.

It's not about controlling awareness fully. It is more about realising that your focus starts doing its own thing, and you can always direct it back to what you need.

If I can leave you with one thought, it is this: “ you become what you focus on most of the time”.