Tag Archives: attention

Chuck’s Place: No Worry

Stay focused on the truth of the light…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Worry issues from the mind, located in the astral body, in the form of a thought, wrapped in emotion, that is transmitted to the central nervous system of the physical body, which then activates a biological response for action. This often results in the sensorial experience of shallow breath and racing pulse, the very definition of anxiety.

The genesis of a thought that first attracts the attention of the mind, the mental component of the astral body, has multiple points of origin. Thoughts are independent energetic units that roam the universe in search of receptive minds willing to seed their potential. Human beings are natural storytellers, always in search of a fertile thought.

Thoughts can also be self generated by the mind itself, particularly in individuals who live mostly in their minds, largely dissociated from their physical bodies as they navigate life in abstract thought.

Thoughts can also issue from the largely subconscious section of the mind in the regions beneath consciousness. These include the rejected parts of self, what Jung called the shadow, as well as the preprogrammed archetypes that run the programs of the physical body.

The subconscious also houses the history of all human experience, what is esoterically called the Akashic library, what Jung called the shared collective unconscious of humankind. Psychics, like Edgar Cayce, tap this source of knowledge in trance in search of healing prescriptions for the afflicted.

At the superconscious level, thoughts issue from the transcendental realm of the high SOUL, wisdom and guidance offered, generated through the solicitation of consciousness seeking truth.

When a thought is presented to, or generated by, the mind, a decision is made whether to focus continued attention upon the thought or to dismiss it from further consideration. Generally, the thought arrives with enough of an energetic charge to attract attention. That charge is a feeling; the thought might be pleasing or potentially frightening.

If consciousness chooses to attach its continued concentration upon the thought, it gains in emotional momentum, as a potential drama begins to formulate in the mind. This abstract astral body play attracts a physical audience, as emotions activate chemical processes in the body that take on physical form. These can include tightening of muscles, racing heartbeat, shortness of breath, headache, etc.

Subjectively, these sensations are experienced as a myriad of feelings and emotions that gain in intensity as the mind continues to allow the drama to deepen its plot. The worry of many a sleepless night is a function of this runaway train of thought and emotion, as it writes its story on the astral plane and engages the body as its captive audience.

The crux of worry is attachment. The core goal of all meditation is non-attachment to thought, a formidable goal given the attractive power of  thoughts, incessantly seeking a home through grabbing the mind’s attention.

The time we live in is rampant with thoughts of all persuasions, crudely pressing to infiltrate our minds. How challenging to avoid these thoughts that so quickly activate intense emotions. Emotions are the energizers of action. Calls to action abound, constantly bombarding the mind’s autonomy.

The most rudimentary action one can take to free oneself from such influence is to limit exposure to the marketplace of thoughts that seek every avenue to attach to one’s mind. For instance, limiting one’s exposure to news and social media.

Of course, to be oblivious to the events of the world is not recommended, however, regulating exposure time can stop the development of unnecessary pictures that merely drain vital energy. Furthermore, through saving one’s attentive energy from outer influence, one is available to guidance that is always synchronistically available but rarely received, as all energy is monopolized by abstract possibilities.

Synchronicity is guidance from the superconscious, the fourth dimension of the high SOUL. Reading this energy from infinity, in all of nature, often presents a perspective of such depth that the mind and emotion of the astral body sends deeply calming impulses to the physical body. The nightmare of thought is branded illusion, as one is enveloped by love and awe.

Trust deepens in the guidance of the light of the high SOUL, as synchronicity is recognized as the true harbinger of the truth. Even without any knowledge of outside events, synchronicity will safely and appropriately guide action.

If thoughts, like weeds, manage to find their way into the mind’s garden, weeding involves refusal to nourish the unwanted intruder. This calls upon the discipline of shifting one’s attention away from the developing plot. Thoughts require the active participation of the mind’s attention to continue to write their lines. Unattended thoughts either wither and die or leave, seeking new takers to feed their hunger for life.

One shift could be to focus one’s astral attention on the physical body, with the intent of deep relaxation and calming suggestions. The body is largely governed by its astral body partner’s suggestions. Positive affirmations result in physical calm.

Another practical shift is to walk in a different direction, literally changing one’s physical posture and direction. The mental focus accompanying the shift is the repeated mantra, NO WORRY.

Take command of the mind’s capacity for attention. Consider orienting that attention to the communications of the high SOUL, passing on its directives to the physical body. And, if you happen to get caught in a worry, no worry. Shift, find the light, and follow it.

No worry,

Chuck

Chuck’s Place: The Currency of Attention

Sign of the times…

“Pay attention” is a frequently delivered command. Indeed, when we pay with our attention we deliver our energy to the object of our focus. Attention is a powerful energetic currency.

Notice, for instance, the impact on your personal energy when you tune into the news, or some form of social media. The impact can be either depleting or empowering. Either way, we spend our energy in our emotional reaction to the news. That expended energy is delivered, on a subtle level, to the person we are reacting to in the news.

Children, most dramatically, seek our attention. Child educators know that getting attention is the child’s goal, good or bad. Once the child has our attention, they thrive on the energy of our focus, as well as on our emotional reactions. Tantrums are energetic goldmines for the tantruming child.

Even inanimate objects can absorb our energy. A trip to a museum is a case in point. Though fascinating and educational, objects of art demand our attention and can deeply drain our energy. We could say that a sculpture at a museum is imbued with self-importance. Were it not so, it wouldn’t be on display. Be careful how much attention you give it!

Self-importance measures the quantity and quality of attention we are paid for being alive. The ego, as the orphaned ruler of the personality, seeks the attention of others to validate its worthiness. This extrinsic dependency is the consequence of the ego’s separation from its wholeness, at the time of birth into this world. A blank slate seeks the approval of others to find its worth.

Shamans have astutely addressed this energetic stalemate. The fragmentation from Spirit-self, that accompanies finite life in a physical world, has led to obsessive dependence upon the attention of others to replace one’s lost Spirit. This attention-seeking behavior is considered by shamans to be humankind’s greatest energy drain.

Shamans discovered that a shift in focus, like the social isolation the world is currently experiencing, can result in the accrual of vast sums of energy within the self. That energy, combined with the intent to reconnect to one’s Spirit, can result in a deeply healing, inner soul retrieval.

To be connected to the life of one’s Spirit is to become guided by omens, the synchronicities from infinity that guide and inform life; to be in the world but not of the world, at an attention-seeking level. Attention-seeking is then completely replaced by the pursuit of right action, the best decision to be made under the presenting circumstances.

To dance with omens is to feel constantly renewed by participation in a fuller life, one that includes one’s essence, at a cosmic level. Attention received is not attention sought, but it is attention provided to guide the way to right action.

Save the currency of your attention for that which truly guides you to your wholeness. This is the world we are morphing into, a world of interconnected oneness. Let’s attend to that!

Attending Spirit,

Chuck

Chuck’s Place: The Commodity of Attention

Where are you putting your attention, on the chaos or the calm?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Advertisers scramble for it. Politicians pay and compete for it. Children crave it. All of us long for it. More valuable than money itself is the commodity of attention. More important than anything  to the stock markets of the world, at the current moment, is where investors place their attention. Attention is the prime mover of humanity.

We enter the world at birth, archetypally programmed to receive  attention. Attention is critical for us to, literally, come on line. Without the attention of good enough receivers we perish soon after entry.

With the outside validation of attention, good or bad, our attention is cultivated to fill out our personality, as our inner nature is sculpted through the process of socialization. Our attention is consolidated into an identity, a consistent sense of self. ‘I’ is molded through the solidification of our commodity of attention.

In school we are taught to cultivate our attention, to focus it upon the task of learning and creating. This training introduces us to the power of attention that we all possess. However, we are also heavily constricted by the rules of how attention should be practiced and upon what it should be focused.

Our freedom to exercise our attention is highly controlled by forces seeking the energy of our attention to uphold the primacy of their own belief systems. Without the mass attention of believers, belief systems have no currency to influence the world.

The consensus reality we live in requires a critical mass of attention to remain solid. This consensus means that we give our attention in support of its premises and leadership. If we withdraw that support it loses the commodity that upholds it, our attention.

Attention is more powerful than a vote or the ability to win an argument. Attention is focused energy, a powerful commodity. When we develop our dreaming attention, we develop the ability to explore and consciously exist as a substantial, multifaceted being in many dimensions of life.

When we are in command of our attention in waking life we can navigate the world with ease. Meditation is nothing other than full command of one’s attention. Intent is immediately drawn to the beacon of our attention. To command attention is to command intent.

To simply give one’s full attention to the meal one is eating, void of conversation, outside stimulation, and internal dialogue, connects one deeply to the needs and workings of the body. One remains in- body, knows how long to chew, when to swallow and when the body has had enough. The power of this attention reshapes the body and heals its ailments. Yes, the power of attention in such a simple task can radically change one’s state of health.

Come into your full power. Cultivate and store your precious commodity of attention. Be mindful not to spend it all on social media or obsession with world dramas seeking to bind and steal your attention.

No one can ever take away your freedom to place your attention where you want without your consent. And with that freedom, and a critical mass of the commodity of attention, the possibilities for life in all worlds is exponential.

Happy Savings,

Chuck

Soulbyte for Friday October 27, 2017

How do you expend your energy? Where are you putting your attention? Are you doing things that are good for you or are you doing things that deplete your energy stores? Learn to protect yourself from energy drains. Give yourself time to recharge, to replenish, to rejuvenate in good ways, for you are like a battery with a limited charge. You need rest. There comes a time when it is right to slow down, pull inward, and take care of yourself for a change. That time has come. Watch your energy.

-From the Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Chuck’s Place: It’s Time for Ego Refinement

Energy in action…
– Detail of Artwork by Jan Ketchel

We live in the most stupendous of times for ego development. From the moment we awaken each day we are barraged with outer world events, bodily needs, and an internal dialog which all clamor for our attention. Attention is where we employ our vital energy. Ego must decide in rapid succession how it will spend this vital energy.

Will our decisions enhance or deplete our energetic reserves? Will our decisions be in alignment with the state of our body? Will our decisions channel the deeper calling of our spirit? These are examples of the myriad of decisions the ego must make in our hyper, fast-paced, rapidly shifting modern world.

Ego has gotten a bad rap. This is largely because it is associated with enhancing one’s self-importance and outer-world possessions to the detriment of others, as well as to the detriment of the spirit. Indeed, ego can decide to employ the vital energy of the body and the spiritual self to its own aggrandizement.

In fact, perhaps the most exaggerated example of this attitude confronts us daily in the governance currently in power of our world. We all must face the real possibility of nuclear holocaust in the hands of such leadership, but here also lies the very heart of opportunity for the moment we live in.

We must all choose whether to spend our energy worrying about this fact, and this is an ego decision, or not. True, we must acknowledge the threat to our survival, the existential anxiety of pending destruction and disintegration, for not to do so would be to dissociate from our animal knowing of the real and present danger to our existence.

However, as the shamans discovered long ago, death is our greatest advisor. Knowing that we are beings who are going to die is our greatest support to stay awake and take full advantage of the opportunities of life in this dimension. The ego must decide what to do with this information.

The ego can employ the classic defense of denial and go about daily life as if nothing is different, all is predictable and unfolding as it should. Modern events, however, are really rattling this defense.

The ego could become concretely opportunistic, gobbling up power and wealth to enjoy its time here in material abundance, paying little heed to the side effects of its choices. Nature is dramatically confronting this attitude right now.

The ego might alternatively choose to face reality and attend to the impact of its animal knowing on its central nervous system through a variety of meditative and breathing practices.

Further, ego might turn its attention inward to the subtler energies of its spirit. These are the energies of manifestation, these are the energies of intent. These are the energetic pathways open to the evolving human. We all may glimpse them in the magical occurrences that frequently follow shortly after the loss of a loved one when, in heightened awareness, we are opened to the energetic possibilities of quantum connection.

Ego turning its attention materially toward outer control and accumulation are Old World technologies. It is obvious that from an evolutionary standpoint they are not favored. Don’t be fooled by the current last stand of the worst of these practices, they need to have their last dance.

We are being prompted now to discover life at a deeper energetic level. This entails tuning into the subtle energies of synchronicity and serendipity where the ego is presented with feedback and energetic possibilities that can guide life into truly sustainable evolutionary directions.

These are the amazing opportunities for ego refinement in our current volatile times. We are evolving into a  New World of energy as well as a world of concrete objects, a far more expansive world, with a wise ego at the helm.

In refinement,

Chuck

A blog by Chuck Ketchel, LCSW-R