BECAUSE ALL OF THE THINGS THAT WE CONSCIOUSLY EXPERIENCE
ARE PRODUCTS OF ATTENTION.
Attention is the magical power of your conscious mind. When you focus attention on something it becomes active within and around you. You become attracted to those ingredients needed to make what you are focussing on happen and the ingredients involved become attracted to you.
Mastering this magic means using your attention deliberately. Knowing where it is going and why. Being aware of the feed back that comes when you are alert and attentive. Then you will begin to say “ahhh, I see what I did! So that’s how it happened!”
You have been employing attention ever since your birth.
You already have a vast repertoire of responses to life that are active within you.
These are your practiced habits and routines. They were learned and developed using attention.
Your habit is the guardian of your daily life. You don’t have to learn everything all over again each day.
You’ll still be able to read, write and drive the car tomorrow.
If you fall in the water you’ll start swimming. You don’t have to work at these things any more.
But the irony is that your habits prevent you from doing anything new. All of the new experiences each day are handled in the same old way. You unthinkingly jam each day into the same old frames and boxes. Your guardian has become a guard, a ruthless guard who keeps you imprisoned. Habit locks you into routines and mindless repetition.
So where has the magic gone if we are running on habit? Where is the conscious mind? Well, it is all working beautifully, but to your disadvantage.
When your attention goes to something that involves your habits they are instantly activated. Most of your day is a routine! Just think of an activity and it begins to happen. Your body responds so fast that habits seem to happen to you not from you.
Fast! Now that’s an understatement! Your attention is back before you know its been. You say “There I go... again!” It’s over before you can stop yourself. If it is a good habit then you are pleased with your self. If it is a bad habit then you often feel helpless and frustrated with your self. Everything appears to be out of your control and to run on automatic.
But this is not so! Habits are dynamic loops and a loop must be triggered by your attention or it doesn’t happen for you.
This is saying that you ‘have to think about it’ to trigger it. When you say “Hey, I wasn’t thinking about that!” you are simply saying that you didn’t notice your mind working or the instant flick of attention that resulted in your experience.
Good and bad habits happen from you. What you want and what you don’t want both happen from you. These can be all be directed, altered and reorganized with your conscious attention.
That is why mastering your own attention is the most important skill you ever learn.
To be free again you must wake up the waking self. You must practice being present in the action! Use your attention deliberately. Focus on what you have ignored and taken for granted.
See how other people have intercepted your attention and told you where to put it! Notice how the world requires you to be unthinking and uncritical. Examine the ideas that have been arranged for your attention.
This is how you will find the magic, recover your Power and become the you that you really want to be.
