Come back to your senses, more often than never. We prioritize making sense without realizing it. Making a conscious decision to emphasize the sensory details doesn’t seem like a big deal. But the more often we consciously shift our attention away from whatever story we’re constructing in our minds, the easier it will be to make this shift when things go terribly wrong—or when they go destabilizingly well.
It’s hard to see what’s right in front of you when you’re picturing scenes from the past or ways things could go badly in the future. Visual details seem mundane and take us away from feeling like we’re preventing or solving problems.
When I carry my infant granddaughter down the stairs, my mind conjures images of us tumbling down them. I feel the urge to either focus on these thoughts or eliminate them. However, I’ve found it more effective to shift my awareness outward, paying attention to the handrail, the carpeted steps, and where we’re headed. Deciding to see what’s in front of me feels like a careless shift, but paradoxically, it leads to taking greater care. The caring itself feels gentler and less hypervigilant.
It can be hard to notice sounds around you when you’re concentrating on solving a story problem in your mind. Ambient sounds aren’t entertaining. Silence can fill a room without asking for your attention. While it may seem counterintuitive to pause your efforts to mentally work out a solution that keeps eluding you to focus on the sounds and silence around you, doing so can help develop your attentional agency and improve your ability to concentrate.
When I wake up in the middle of the night with just enough alertness to keep sleep off the menu, my attention is more interested in figuring things out than listening to the quiet hum of the fan. I have webinars to prepare for, calendars to review, and Christmas gifts to choose and order. I need to unpack toddler behavior, prepare for important conversations, and cook up ways to meet new neighbors without making it feel awkward. It seems like the perfect time to figure out what’s at the root of political polarization and how to repair it. It feels irresponsible to listen to the soft sounds in my room, other rooms, and outside our house, but if I try long and softly enough, my body remembers how to settle back into unconsciousness. When that doesn’t happen, I can at least avoid turning the alertness into misery by doing my best to accept any sensory restfulness in its place.
It can be difficult to notice body sensations when your attention is primarily focused on what’s happening in your mind, but you can learn to redirect it to a more satisfying challenge—detecting and savoring physical relaxation. Rather than seeking narrative resolutions, working to enhance your sensory resolution power can lead to a more vivid, satisfying sense of restfulness in your body—something most people don’t realize as they toss and turn through the night.
After a few hours of sleep, my somewhat-rested mind tends to revert to its daytime attentional habits. If I’ve put in several hours of ruminating about circumstances beyond my control, where else could my brain possibly allocate its attentional resources? However, I can learn to offset my default human settings, more often than never, by seeing what’s right in front of my eyes, hearing sounds around me, and luxuriating in a wide variety of bodily sensations, without the need to create stories around them.1 By doing this, I start to spot doorways of perception I’d walked past without noticing, and discover ways to abandon the urge to solve every problem in my mind before I get the rest I need.2
There’s nothing special about me that makes these liberating attentional skills possible to develop. I’ve been working on it for over twenty years, and sometimes it feels like I’m just getting started. Anyone can work on it, but most people don’t. You can definitely do it. All it takes is a bit of curiosity and a commitment to practicing for the rest of your life.
Really take in what you see in front of you sometimes
Listen closely to sounds and silence around you now and then
Take a few extra seconds to really feel bodily sensations a few times a day
Allow the specific perception you’re focusing on to soak in for a moment without interfering with it, meaning trying not to get rid of it, improve it, or hold onto it.
As simple as this sounds, a lot is going on inside a person sitting on the couch with their eyes closed, or trying to hear the sounds in a grocery store while waiting in line. Keep in mind that here’s as much to learn from easing up as there is from bearing down.
Ways to bear down
Focus on internal perceptions, such as mental images, internal dialogue, and emotional feelings, as if they were sights, sounds, and physical sensations.
Extend the length of noticing to the 5-10-second range.
Maintain a slow rhythm as you track sensations.
Extend the time of your formal practice sessions.
Using an attention strategy while exercising or engaging in tasks.
Ways to ease up
Pay attention to external perceptions, such as sights, sounds, and physical sensations.3
Focus on restful sensations, like closed eyes, calming music, or soothing sounds, and relaxation in your body.
Use a quicker rhythm when tracking sensations.
Shorten the duration of your formal practice sessions.
Sometimes, let your attention drift without trying to control it.
Practicing being more present may initially seem abstract and trivial, but with persistence, it becomes remarkably tangible and significant enough to change the course of your day, or even your entire life.
Just like physical exercise, playing a musical instrument, or learning choreography, there’s an art to finding the right level of effort. Sometimes, trying harder can be effective, while at other times, it’s better to try softer. Learning to calibrate your effort level couldn’t be more personal or significant. We each have to work this out ourselves. I find comfort in knowing that no experimentation is ever wasted in the long-term pursuit of feeling more at home in my life.
Exercise
This exercise encourages you to ease up on the effort to observe breathing sensations.
Circumstances for learning this attention exercise
Spending a quiet evening at home
Stuck in slow-moving traffic
Feeling rushed without anything being urgent
