Happy Life or Crappy Life

I wish I had learned about focus earlier in my life, but I'm grateful to have finally learned how vital it is.  Better late than never.  I certainly never learned about focus in school.  I didn't learn it at home from my parents.  I didn't read about it in the newspaper or see it on t.v.  Never read a book about it.  Never heard anyone talk about it in either casual or serious conversations.  I did hear a little about it in terms of dealing with attention deficit disorder since a big part of that disorder is an inability to focus.  But I just assumed that if you didn't have ADD, focus didn't need to be a concern.  And yet it turns out to be one of the most critical pieces of information I needed to create the life of my dreams.

I'm not a big fan of "goals" since so often they're artificial - based on what the culture tells us will give us the life of our dreams and they are largely unconscious.  I know that I just assumed that what I had picked up from the culture was correct - that I would be happy if I worked hard, followed the rules, made money, got married to a guy that was good-looking, smart and law abiding, had kids and raised them right, went to church and kept my hair combed, etc.  This illusion persisted long into my adulthood even though I was noticing as I went along that although I was working as hard as I possibly could to do what I'd been taught, I never felt like I was any closer to the life of my dreams.  I began to suspect there was something wrong somewhere. 

For a long time I thought that other people and the world in general were what stood between me and the life of my dreams.  The culture certainly told me that that was the problem.  Unexpected circumstances provided me with another perspective, though, and I began to realize that it was me that was the barrier.  Then I worked even harder at doing what I had been taught were the "right" things.  Still no feeling of getting closer to the life of my dreams.

Quite a few different experiences accidentally (accidents are God being anonymous) gave me information I needed.  I had a couple of jobs where I designed training materials and delivered the training.  I researched adult learning and found out that adults are not listening 90% of the time.  If you just tell people things they miss most of it and forget the majority of what they do hear.  So just talking is a big waste of time.  I learned to use visual aides, examples, group projects, repetition, pre and post tests, etc. to enhance participants' ability to remember.  Focus - that was what was missing.  People were paying attention to their thoughts rather than the training material.  Apparently that's what we're all doing all the time.  It's a wonder the world works at all!

I also have had the experience of practicing meditation.  It's in the steps of my recovery program.  It's a discipline I've practiced off an on over several years.  I don't really like doing it.  I have to pay attention (focus), and that's really hard.  What meditation has taught me is that my mind is just randomly running thoughts about this and that and none of it really means anything.  Before meditation I thought my thoughts were the same thing as me and that they were always right.  Really though, it's just my brain running on neutral with the purpose of scanning for any possible danger so it can alert me.  Most of the time any danger it comes up with is just so much baloney.  Plus my ego likes to make judgments about other people (which keeps me from thinking judging thoughts about myself) so I can have a pleasant feeling of self-righteousness.  That feels good for awhile and then starts feeling crappy.

I can't even remember how I ran into the concept that we tend to bring into being whatever we think about.  There are whole philosophies and branches of religion that focus on this as the central theme.  There's way more to say about this than this post can handle so I will just say whether you believe in this concept or not, wouldn't it be better to think about things that are positive and helpful rather than think about the negative, useless things we usually think about?  So...I eventually arrived at a place where I made it a central concept to my life to make decisions about what to think about and then work at the discipline of thinking helpful and positive thoughts.  It is true that our thoughts arise without our input, but utilizing focus changes those thoughts into helpful ones.  It's the hardest discipline I've ever tried to bring into being, but I am quite sure it's been the most beneficial!

The Artists Way

Getting rid of the ego's thoughts is one way of getting in touch with what we really want.  The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron is a book written to help artists who are blocked get past the block.  One of the primary tools is the "morning pages" activity.  By rapidly writing three long hand pages every morning, the ego gets its ideas recorded and it finally shuts up so that the creativity of the writer can come to the surface.  If we listen just to our egos, we will always be caught up in the "stuff" that needs to be done in order for us to look good to other people. Stuff like clothes, hair, cars, houses, jewelry, etc.  Of course a certain amount of maintenance is needed to get along in the world, but none of it really contributes to the life of our dreams.  What does contribute to the life of our dreams is the love we give, the fun we have, what we create, the enjoyment we have in the world. 

Cleaning Out the Left Brain

Although I believe the Life of Our Dreams can only be found in the right brain where our intuition resides, it's very, very difficult to get to our right brains when our left brain's inbox is full.  For most of my life I got up in the morning already feeling hassled and behind on GETTING THINGS DONE!  I jumped into my life at a furious pace and fell down exhausted at night.  Finally I came to my senses and began to try to learn what to do to quit living like that.  Quite a journey it's been too. 

There are lots and lots of books and seminars out there about how to get everything done.  I've tried all of it.  And the truth that I discovered is that there is no possible way to get everything done.  I don't know about everybody else's brain, but mine can think up important stuff to do faster than I can work.  So it turns out it's about making choices, about deciding on priorities.  And that has turned out to be incredibly difficult because my left brain doesn't know what's really important.  My ego resides in my left brain and will only be satisfied if I get EVERYTHING done.  So now I'm back to needing to get into my right brain but I can't because of all the stuff hanging out in the inbox of my left brain. 

Finally I learned that the left brain inbox can be emptied onto a piece of paper.  It feels so lovely to write down every single thing my ego thinks I need to do.  Then I go back and write down what I think the outcome of each activity should be.  I store this list both in hard copy and in my data base.  Then there is blessed peace in my head so I can think clearly about what my heart and soul are telling me is really important.

Collages

My favorite way of accessing my right brain is by making simple collages.  I gather up some magazines that have pictures of things I think I might like, put on some upbeat music, and give myself thirty minutes to rip out pictures of anything that appeals to me.  I purposely do not censor myself or think about what I'm looking for.  I'm just on an exploration of what jumps out at me and tugs at my heart when I'm rapidly turning pages in those magazines.  By the end of the 30 minutes I have a big stack of ripped out pages. 

I have on hand some scissors, glue and poster board.  My next step is to take 30 minutes to cut out the pictures I've ripped out and put them on the poster board.  I don't glue them down until I have them looking the way I want them to.  I look at the colors and shapes rather than the content.  I usually have many more pages than I have room for on the poster board so I have to cull out some of the ones that don't seem that pretty or that don't seem to fit in.  During this process I am still not looking at the content of the pictures.  I'm just arranging them in a way that is pleasing to my eye.  Once I'm satisfied with the arrangement, I glue them down.

At this point I let my left brain look at the collage I've made and analyze what my right brain has told me about my heart, soul and creativity.  Sometime it takes me a few days to understand the symbols I've pasted down.  For example, the last collage I made I had put a picture of a giraffe with a flower in it's mouth right at the very center.  I had no earthly idea what that meant.  Much later I thought that giraffe's "stick their necks out" and maybe my right brain was telling me it was time to take some risks.

The "Right" Side of the Brain

There's nothing wrong with the left side of the brain if we use it the way it will work the best for us.  It's great at logic, math, language, figuring things out and reminding us to stop at stop lights.  But our whole culture is based on the left side of the brain - to our detriment.  Our egos live over there in the left side of the brain and work hard to make us believe that our happiness and joy will come from making ourselves look good to other people.  For example, when we pay attention to the thoughts constantly passing through our minds, we will probably notice that our egos are trying hard to convince us that how we look in terms of our appearance, our possessions and our status in society will make us happy.  Maybe you've noticed this in yourself and other people and have also noticed that doing everything "right" doesn't help us be happy.  Rather it tends to make us anxious, on edge, and constantly striving for perfection that's impossible to reach.

On the other hand, the right side of the brain is where wonder, creativity, love, intuition and joy reside.  Getting into the right side of the brain in a world where almost everything is about the left side is a huge challenge.  Nevertheless, it's worth the effort to learn to spend a good part of every day seeking to live from the right side of the brain.  Being in nature and really paying attention: hobbies that access the right side of the brain such as art, poetry, dance; meditation - all these can bring us closer to using our brains in a way that can bring us closer to the life of our dreams.