Pay Attention

Mastering and controlling your attention gives you the freedom to choose what happens in your life. There are countless things happening at the same time all over the world, however, as long as your attention is not directed to any of it – nothing really happens for you.

This is very important to understand. The more you can control your attention the more you attract only the things in your life that you really want. If you do not pay attention to the crime scene on your television it does not create this reality for you. If you don't pay attention to negative things in your life it will not create that reality. This doesn't mean you should ignore the parts of the world that do not produce peace and happiness for you; it simply means not to give them too much attention. Don't get absorbed in them – decide when enough is enough and move on to something you want your attention to be focused on, for example, the important goals and dreams of your life.

One simple exercise you can do to train your attention is to simply observe your attention and to speak out loud where it is in the moment.

Here is what it might look like:
●I am thinking about tomorrow . . .
●There is a cat next to me . . .
●What I am doing here . . . ?
●So many thoughts . . .
●Am I crazy . . . ?
●The carpet is brown . . .
●It's dirty too . . .
●I should get it cleaned . . .
●Ah, just relax . . .
●How busy my mind is . . .
●What's next . . .

You may find yourself thinking about how crazy this is, but this exercise actually just happens in a short time span of your attention. You may have a few thousand of these each day . . . no wonder some people feel constantly stressed, overwhelmed and light years away from their goals!

Do this every day for about 15 minutes and you will observe that several things happen. First of all, your mind gets calmer but at the same time may also feel exhausted, especially after the first few times you do the exercise. Exhausting your attention is a very interesting occurrence that happens quite often and naturally in your daily life. Training your mind not to exhaust itself will sharpen your focus and free up your attention considerably.

The more free attention you have, the happier you feel and the more power you have to control what is happening in your life!

Your Mind and, umm, Your Bowels.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome anyone? Here is a clip from an article in the NYTimes today about the mind and the colon. Hmmmm . . .

Personal relationships can have a major impact (on IBS). Symptoms are worse if there is conflict in the family, better if relationships are supportive.

The brain has the ability to inhibit sensations from the gut. “I.B.S. patients tend to be hyper vigilant — too aware of what is going on in their gut.” says Dr. Gerson, a leading expert. Through techniques like hypnotherapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy, it is possible to change how the brain perceives what is happening in the body.

In hypnotherapy, I.B.S. patients learn to visualize their colon as functioning more normally. Patients can learn to change symptom-provoking beliefs, like thinking that their colon will always be abnormal or that a given circumstance will provoke symptoms.

In a British study of 204 patients in which more than two-thirds of them were initially helped by hypnotherapy, 81 percent of those maintained the improvement up to six years after the treatment. Learning to practice stress-reduction and relaxation techniques is as helpful as learning which foods to avoid.

Click here for the full article from the NYTimes