Monday, Feb. 20: Attention, Learning, Like/Love

ATTENTION, LEARNING, LIKE/LOVE
Where is my attention now?

What am I learning now?

What do I like/love now?

These, I am realizing, are three questions that can always get me back on course, can always bring my life and awareness back to the moment and to what is important. “Where is my attention now?,” not only brings me to the present, but makes me responsible for when I get in a funk. Because if I’m in a funk, I can be damn well sure that my attention is on some split milk I’m crying over, some unwanted way that I was treated, some fallen apart expectation that wasn’t met.

“What am I learning now?,” again focuses me on what’s best about human beings, our ability to learn and change and grow. It also helps me out of rigidity and stuckness. If I don’t’ like something, I can complain, or I can learn how to change myself or the situation so I can like what’s going on. Even mean people, if I don’t like how they treat me, I can learn ways of being calm inside, or of talking with them in a way that directs their attention and behavior to another path than their habitually mean one. (This coming up big time from the family reunion; lots of meanness there. Lots of learning I still need to do to be able to divert and reroute situations and behaviors to more kind and positive channels).

“What do I like and love now?” If I’m paying attention to what I don’t like, that’s my life, a sinkhole of feeling deprived. If I’m paying attention to what I like, then I’m rolling with the joy of life. And if I do the work of Byron Katie, I can get back to loving what is, which means whatever is going on, I can like/love it. If I’m not in this state, then, goody, I’ve got something more to learn.