AWARENESS / NOISE

Awareness is the flashlight beam of attention.  Some people are penlights held close to a surface.  Their world is small and bright.  Other people are large flashlights whose beam covers a bigger area.  Some are spotlights who light up huge fields.  In each case, the area that is lighted is the world that particular individual lives in.

The size of our flashlight depends on what we pay attention to.  If I am a penlight that is curious to see more, I can pull back from the surface and light up a bigger spot.  I can keep backing up to see more, more and more.  My curiosity will cause my beam to grow and, without noticing it, I will become a bigger flashlight living in a bigger world.

This is all about what I pay attention to and how much attention I pay to it.  If my attention is diluted or clouded, I can’t see as well and my world gets smaller.  I am living in a fog.

Our media provide the fog by overstimulating and misdirecting our attention.  Our media provide the noise that blocks the signal of our clarity.  This noise can overwhelm the signal.  We can become confused.  We can become lost.

Fortunately, we have remedies to this confusion. 

We need to get quiet.  Inwardly, we can bring our attention the here and now with meditation and mindfulness.  Outwardly, we can turn off the TV and radio and put down our cell phones.

The noise has an on/off switch.  Use it.

CHANGE THE SUBJECT

Thoughts are like birds that fly through the sky of our attention.  Some may sit on a wire and hang around for a while if you pay attention to them.  Otherwise, they simply fly by.  One thought follows another. 

What you pay attention to is the key.  You have control over what you do, or don’t, pay attention to.

Some thoughts are sticky and hard to let go of.  They have aroused an emotional response in you.  In other words, you can feel them.  If you have gotten stuck to a bad-feeling thought by paying attention to it, it can be hard to shake.  You do have a choice, though.  You can change the subject.

Choose a good feeling thought.  Since you can’t really think more than one thought at a time, the new, better feeling thought, will push the bad-feeling thought aside.  You can replace your thoughts as often as you wish.  Change the subject until you find a really good-feeling thought and stick with it.  This is just as arbitrary and artificial as it sounds, but it works.

Good feeling thoughts are the ones that are consistent with your highest good in some way.  That’s why they feel good.  Concentrating on them will bring positive experiences into your life.  This is automatic.  You don’t have to think about it.