This morning I awoke to a Phil Collins song from the 80’s playing on the alarm clock radio. I was immediately brought back to the experience of waking up to this song on the alarm clock when it was “new” and I was a child.
The whole feeling of that time came back to me in an instant of a few recognizable chords at the start of the song. In my emerging from sleep state I was aware of time as an elusive and permeable substance that holds cohesiveness together and is yet totally irrelevant when triggered by scent or a melody from long ago.
Our bodies and brains are amazing in their systems of complexity and communication. Unfortunately humans think that we know so much that we loose our awe and wonder of how truly amazing life is with our ability to label, categorize and set ourselves apart from the majesty of Nature.
Yet, this illusive concept of “mind” and “awareness”, not localized in the brain specifically, but suffused in every cell of your body as well as around your body, alludes many for the simple reason that the amazement of life or the spiritual reality of life is not where some are placing their attention.
Many times while working in public places I’ve had people comment about my “exceptional skills”, be it multi-tasking or listening to someone’s concern, complaint or need and creatively problem solving. I say, “thank you” and go about paying attention to whatever is at hand.
And so I am sharing one of the most important things in life – period. Pay attention, please!
I don’t believe most people are stupid at all, but I do think most people are not paying attention to the full ability of their capacity. They are distracted… And have not learned or been taught how to fully “pay attention”.
I’ve explained in “Let’s Contemplate Our Bodies…” that consciousness is free to roam in this Free Will Zone of the Universe. Just because your body is in one place, it does not mean that your attention is there too. Only if you are paying attention to the feeling of being inside your body and the perceptions of your senses in the moment as you are also aware of your surrounding environment…
Because of this, in order to actually “pay attention” you have to develop this ability with some effort to stay in the present moment and expand your capacity of Full Body Awareness instead of skipping around in your projected experience of time, totally oblivious of your body.
Unfortunately, since technology has progressed, there are innumerable opportunities for distraction. And with children growing up plugged into electronic devices; TV, movies, video games… Short attention spans appear to have been created intentionally along with the dumbing down of our education system, which tragically doesn’t inspire a love of learning, the ability to think critically for oneself or attend to children with different learning styles who get neglected.
Why would children need good attention anyway?
Well, Children… They are only the future of our species and world!
Here is a fact that I learned in my high school Psychology class – “Your subconscious remembers everything you see even if your conscious mind does not.”
The implications of this simple fact are harrowing. This is the foundation that advertising is built on.
Have you ever heard this before, about your subconscious remembering everything you see? If not, how might have this fact impacted your choices as to what you’ve allowed yourself to see over the last however many years?
This fact has not only informed my choices over the last 20 years, but has also impacted my family and anyone who has been open to hearing this and allowed it to inform their choices.
The bottom line is… If you are not paying attention then how can you care?
Caring for and about our lives, our self, our family, our work, our play, the environment we call home… this care is one of the most important qualities of being human. Our ability to care, our integrity, our honesty – these are the Noble Qualities of the Human Spirit!
When everything in this material world is stripped away, when we face the threshold of the transition in to death, it is the love you create and give, through your life, your care, your nobility and honorable Spirit and Soul is all that you have and all that you are.
We live and dance in this material world yet, where do we come from and where do we go? When our body dies we loose from 1.5-5oz of weight, which is our essential self. That is all we are, all we have and all we take with us from this life, beyond.
Ultimately we are born, live and die alone. We are gifted and interdependent with the beings around us through life yet, only you live within you and will live your birth, life and death. And only you can access the realm of the Divine from within yourself.
Sure guides and helpers can point in the direction, but only you can walk your path and go within yourself and seek your inner truth.
Unfortunately and quite intentionally the world of media draws us out of our inner experience and pushes and feeds externalization, materialism and consumerism… And self-identification with objects, possessions, the roles we play in our lives… all the external ways we self identify; the wife, the mother, the executive, the soldier, the caregiver… whatever cog in the wheel that we occupy.
Who are you when all the ways you identify yourself fall away? Can you put your attention on asking yourself that? And look, feel and listen to what bubbles up from within?
When we come to terms with the fact that we are vibrating energy; everything, everyone are all vibrating energy, then the awareness that there is something more than the illusion of the physical/material reality can take root and we can begin to live fuller, deeper, authentic; more noble, caring lives. We realize that how we be, does matter.
Contrary to what you may have been taught – You are important! And your attention does matter!
Be careful what you give your attention to. Your focus, your attention is an expression of your life force, your soul and spirit.
I invite you to put your attention on your inner truth of your heart and pay attention to what is going on within as well as all around you.
I guarantee if you Pay Attention even more, your own exceptional care qualities with shine through!
