Where is Your Attention?
There is so much competing for our attention these days—political issues, social media, family matters, fads, conspiracy theories, the nightly news, not to mention what’s happening in our minds, hearts and bodies. There is even a new term used to describe the economic landscape of our post-modern society—“attention economy.” Literally, everything is vying for our attention. If a business, marketer, politician or terrorist can tap into your attention, they are now able to hack into your well-being and worth, simply by inferring that something is wrong with you or the world. And, boy is there plenty of evidence to support this seeming actuality of our times.
It is important for us to understand how our attention is influenced by outer conditions and what we become when we believe that these conditions have power over us. When our attention is compelled to make sense of what is happening in the outer, we can easily become in bondage to, or diminished by, outer circumstances.
Whenever fear, lack or separation is our context for what we are having, conditions in the outer will inadvertently seem more real and formidable. What our spiritual principles tell us, however, is that ALL outer conditions arise from within and that the world mirrors what is going on inside of us.
This is actually very good news. If it is originating within and being reflected back to us then we have the means to change it. If we truly believe that there is only One Presence pervading all, One Power sustaining all, One Life living itself through and as all of creation, then whatever is being reflected is not against us. That may be difficult to see when our “attention economy” is tuned to “the enemy,” namely what appears to be wrong with the world or what we don’t want. Our tendency then is to categorize and demonize “the other.” The key to healing and transforming the divide is to shift our focus inward, resetting our context for engaging our outer experience, so that we can come from wholeness and oneness rather than separation and lack.
When we do that, a whole new world opens up to us as we automatically shift from my political party and your political party to our government. From my culture and your culture to our world. From my ethnicity and your ethnicity to our humanity. “Society is not breaking down….something else is breaking through.” Shariff Abdullah assures us. This is what is breaking through – a new paradigm of living starting with the dawning realization that there is no other. We are all interconnected parts of the oneness of life.
Shift to an internal focus and greatly boost the robust value of your attention economy.
