Driving by the headlights
What is my attention for?
photo by Joshua Woroniecki
Other people in my life sometimes disagree with me about what my attention is for.
This very dissonance only reinforces what my attention is for.
Driving by my headlights, I can only see a short distance in front of me. My backseat passenger is screaming in my ear:
“Step on the gas!
Let’s GO!
We’re gonna be LATE
. . . And if we’re late, EVERYTHING will be fucked up!”
Yet if I pump the gas, I could easily drive off the side of the road and over the cliff. There is no guardrail here. I must remain focused on what is right in front of my eyes.
Nor is it helpful to tense my body. I must be clear that the passenger’s voice is noise not signal. And stay in my body.
When I stay connected to sensation, I can feel the small adjustments that are already taking place without need for my conscious direction, how my weight shifts slightly to one side for a time as I take the car around a curve, then slowly shift back when the road gets straight again. When the voice yells in my ear, there is a natural contraction to protect against its violence, but in the very next moment that contraction no longer serves me. I can let it go.
Beneath the surface of this whole unfolding scene is what I believe. When I am not consciously thinking there is still nonetheless a buried thought that lives deep in my flesh, a judgment about myself or the world which I take to be the truth. Because I believe it is true, I do not say I ‘believe’ it, I say that I ‘know’ it.
Anything that contradicts what I “know” to be “true,” I experience as “wrong.” This could include any sensation in my body. If I “know” that I “should” feel bad, then feeling good will feel dissonant to me.
Right now, the backseat passenger “knows” that I am “wrong,” and “knows” that the car must go faster, that if it doesn’t do so, the world will end. My passenger “knows” that I am the one who refuses to put my foot on the gas pedal, and even “knows” that, because of all this, it is a “good” thing to scream in my ear.
If I slow down and feel into this scene with greater sensitivity, I can see that my passenger is suffering. Yet I can also see that doing what is being asked of me does not solve my passenger’s problem, the imagined apocalypse.
I can see that neither of us knows what is up around the next bend in the road. It could be that the road disappears altogether.
All I can claim to know is what I experience in this moment. All I can trust is my capacity to pay attention, keeping my eyes on the small patch of road just ahead, that unfolds with the high beams of my headlights.
I know that I can expect the hollering to continue. But apart from monitoring for escalations of hostility, there is nothing to gain by attending to the unending litany of complaints and dire warnings.
The headlight beams illuminate my life.
Life, I choose to believe, is a gift.
To remind myself, I call forward embodied memories of making music, making love, making mischief, deep communion with other souls, being overwhelmed by beauty, and being moved by forces much greater than my body or my lifetime.
This is what my attention is for.
This is what my attention is for.
This is what my attention is for.
This is what my attention is for.
A glimmer arises in me as I repeat these words to myself.
This is what my attention is for.
Yet, I also detect a skeptic who claims that I am only performing, that I only say that which I believe I am supposed to say. So I repeat these words again, paying attention to how the skeptic reacts.
This is what my attention is for.
“That’s too easy,” it says. “You aren’t DOING enough. You are being negligent.”
This is what my attention is for.
This time the skeptic’s voice is fainter, but it still distracts me. In fact, being quieter, it is somehow more insidious.
“You have made poor choices. You have done so much damage.”
This judgment, this blanket condemnation of past events is presented as irreversible truth, a permanent stain on my record. By this logic, I am not only culpable for past harms, but all future harms as well.
If I listen deeper into this condemnation, I can hear its desperation, the claim of victimhood in its expression and the utter futility of ever hoping this voice could be silenced by giving it what it claims to want.
This is what my attention is for: to KNOW what my attention is for - and what it is NOT for - and to distribute my attention accordingly.
This skeptical voice is my enemy, whether it belongs to me or the backseat passenger.
A friend once told me, “the enemy of your enemy is your friend. So you can be sure that whatever your enemy says, the opposite is true.”
The voice calls me a criminal. I must be an angel.
The voice says I’m late. I must be on time.
The voice says that the world is going to end.
It must be that that things are going to be just fine.
This is what my attention is for.
This is what my attention is for.
This is what my attention is for.
For the movement of my breath, never doubting this ongoing source of nourishment.
For the sensing of the responsive support of the ground that bears my weight and provides me with leverage for movement, the opportunity to rest.
For the wide open potential of infinite space all around me that only contracts if I restrict the scope of my attention.
For the sounds of the world which are always singing to me, including the notes of dissonance which remain unresolved. Despite areas of tension in my body, I can still dance to the music that is here right now and, the more that I do, the more I can let go.
My attention is for what the headlights reveal, for anchoring again and again in the ground of reality, for knowing the difference between story and what is.
My friend is my friend. The backseat passenger is my enemy It is not for me to pretend prematurely that I will “love my neighbor” as they brandish a knife overhead.
This is what my attention is for.
My attention repeatedly gives me a reality check:
Am I nourished?
Am I aware of the support and leverage that is available to me?
Do I acknowledge my full potential?
Am I listening - with my body - to the flows of this music?
Are my eyes open?
Is my attention focused on what my attention is for?
In today’s world, keeping your attention on what matters is no simple task. Whether its the algorithms, recurring thought loops or other people’s expectations, there is no shortage of static between you and the organic signals of your own needs and desires.
I’ve been working with clients for over a decade on the cultivation of higher quality attention in service of greater well-being in body, mind, heart and soul. To learn how I can support you, get in touch.