The Direction of Intention

217.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Lately, I’ve been paying attention to how people describe their day to me. What I hear are discrete chunks of time compartmentalized into little outcome boxes. It sounds like this: “I was crazy busy this morning because my alarm didn’t go off. It was nuts getting the kids ready and out the door but once we were out the door I tried to slow down, to use the commute to catch my breath, commute as meditation, right? When I got to work I put my game face on because we had a meeting right away and I needed to at least look present. The rest of the day was a grind, same-old-same-old, no lunch again, but I cut out early because I wanted to hit the gym before I had to be home for the kids. My workout was so-so because….”

It’s become a fascination for me.

I write a lot about focus placement and focus placement is perhaps the most abstract, least translate-able idea in my canon (so I’m told). What does it mean to place your focus? Why does it matter? Simply this: most people I know feel fragmented or somehow separate from the greater experience/meaning/power of their lives. If what you choose to see every day is a series of compartments, little contained outcomes not necessarily connected to each other (work, home, laundry, gym,…), each with it’s own peculiar standard or judgment attached (that comes with seeing outcomes or products), what you will experience in life is fragmentation, reactivity, and most likely you will wonder were you left your wholeness. You see fragments because you focus on the fragments and you measure the fragments.

If you desire wholeness, you have to place your focus on the whole and not the parts. I know that sounds too simple but shifting your focus onto process unifies your focus and allows you to see the meaning in your day – or at least to make meaning that isn’t based in “life as a product” thinking. Meaning is always found in the relationships, the connective tissue, how the textures of your day play with each other. There is a Native American term that I like, “the long body,” which means to see the whole of your life, the entire arc, and not the pieces.

It is true that, if you grew up in the western world, you’ve probably been reinforced in the fragmentation, but you can choose to practice another focus placement. If you do, it might surprise you to know that your mind, body and spirit are already connected, as are your head and your heart, those compartments, like all the other compartments, are constructs and do not exist outside of your seeing. You simply have to shine your light on the river of your life in order to see it.

Filed under: Awakening, Truly Powerful People |