The greatest minds of past and present knew that the key to wisdom, inner peace, maturity, and compassion is found by developing the capacity for a strong, stable and energetic attention.
This skill goes by several names; Present Moment Awareness, Mindfulness, Meditation, and Wakefulness are some of the more popular ones. I prefer to use the term Attention Training.
Attention Training is the practice of gently yet relentlessly returning your attention to your present experience with curiosity, clarity, and energy, and WITHOUT thought.
But before I get to far I should say this; there are some misconception's about what Attention Training entails, where it leads and why one would bother.
First, one of the biggest myth's about Attention Training is that it takes a lot of effort.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
How much effort and energy is it taking you to be aware that you are reading these words right now?
None. Zilch, nothing, nada. It takes no energy to pay attention, but here's the thing:
Not only is Attention Training effortless, it will save you FAR more energy than you could ever expend practicing it. Attention Training is rejuvination, energizing, and it helps you to save energy..
When your attention is asleep and lost in stressful thoughts, or anxious imaginings, or regretable memories, you will expend far more energy than you would by keeping your attention present, energetic and awake.
The second myth I'd like to demolish is that Attention Training is a new age thing. Wrong!
Attention Training is ancient, time proven and utterly anti-new-age.
Why anti-new-age? Because much of the new-age asks you to reformulate, reword, or otherwise revisit your current beliefs in an attempt to come to the more correct, more accurate and more effective beliefs.
Attention Training says hogwash to all that and asks you to believe NOTHING. That's right. NOTHING. (I love that 'hogwash')
The practice of Attention Training asks one thing of you, and one thing only: Look at your experience right now without thought, memory, or imagination. I'm not asking you to believe, I'm asking you to look.
Just simply be where you are, alert, attentive and aware of what is going from within and from without.
Notice how you are experiencing two kinds of input or stimuli. One is coming from your external experience, mostly in the form of sounds or sights. You are being stimultated from without. Experience that now.
The second input or stimuli comes from within, in the form of self talk, thought, or the experience of sensations or emotions. Experience that now.
We are stimulated from within and without.
Many of our problems as human beings comes from our inability to STOP interpreting our experience. We move from direct experience, into concepts ABOUT our experience, into our personally conditioned concepts about experience.
For example: Looking our the window, there is just the simple perception of 'what is'. We see, before we name what we see. There is just naked and direct seeing.
Then, we conceptualize; "I see snow falling...."
Then we personalize; "Darn it, I hate all this snow.
Faster than you can say "1-2-3", we move from direct experience, to conceptual thought, to personal opinion.
Then we mistake our opinion for reality.
Then we spend our lives living in our own 'personally constructed reality', rather than staying awake and connected to the immediacy of life itself.
And THAT requires NO THOUGHT!
Is there a more valuable, life enhancing skill than Attention Training?
Not even close.
Contact me to discuss how you can enjoy the profound benefits of Attention Training.
You'll be glad you did.
* 2008 All Rights Reserved.
Aaron McNaught, aka "The Wake Up Guy", is the author of five books, a Life Coach and Transformational Speaker who practically owns the term. (Google "Transformational Speaker" in quotes and see for yourself). Aaron is known for his demonstration of awakeness and has commited his life to bringing light into the world.
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