July 2023 Newsletter

Hello, and a juicy July to you!
Welcome, or welcome back, to my newsletter. Today's issue is about interest and attention. Enjoy!

What interests us pulls us toward it. In old cartoons a character was tugged forward by the nose to a delicious smell, say some freshly baked pie or cake cooling on a windowsill. Their feet left the ground while their body drifted in the direction of the temptation. When a sight or a sound happens to pique our interest, we zero in on that too, wanting additional detail or intensity, and we give that stimulus more of our attention.

What's it like when our natural interest is led to something, yet we're told to "Pay attention!" to something completely different? This could happen with a boring teacher in school, or with a demanding parent. The student may really want to look out the classroom window at a scampering squirrel, or at that fascinating new student a few desks away. The child may not want to be disciplined or held accountable for his behavior right then. Yet the student's or child's focus is forced to somewhere which is not their choice.

In my years learning about and teaching vision improvement, I've realized how often our eyes are looking at a scene which someone else made us watch, when we really wanted to look away, or to be anywhere else. Now that we're not children any longer, are we doing this to ourselves? Be honest: do you find yourself continuing to look at something upsetting, even though that may be increasingly uncomfortable?

Regarding disturbing scenes, I recently gave myself permission to read fewer details about the news, and could feel my whole body relax as a result. I want to be well-informed, yet checking the news more than twice a day now feels excessive. Since I have a tendency to worry, interest was not driving this obsessive focus on the next imminent disaster, as much as anxiety was. Reading 3 or 4 articles about the same political situation isn't necessary, and I can find something more enriching to do.

After my long computer career ended, I was freer to devote my attention to what interested, even fascinated me. Yes, since I was a small child I've liked math and numbers, but that corporate tech job didn't do much for my interest in words and writing, or in health and fitness, especially visual health and healing. Continuing to learn about human behavior and emotions, how we get in our own way and how we can untangle our own knots, is like practical magic to me. We can program ourselves to have a bad experience, or a satisfying one, at any time.

What do you need to have a good visual experience, or a good body experience, even with your "bad back" or "bum knee" or "sore shoulder"? Is all your attention on what's not going perfectly? Shifting your focus to what feels good now, that your ears work to let you appreciate the birdsong outside the window, or your sense of smell lets you savor and anticipate the dinner cooking, can take some tension and strain away from the problem area. You deserve to feel good as much as you can, with your eyes and everywhere else. Notice the negative, yes, then shift your attention to what you can do about it, and especially to what's going right.

For more on the connection between attention and vision, click here.

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Please send me your questions and comments
Let me know what you've wondered about concerning energy medicine or vision or dreams. I'll be glad to write a short article addressing that topic. Thank you to those who have sent me questions, or see a question you asked me in a private session written about here. You're helping many other people! Enjoy the start of this jam-packed month of July. I'll write again in a few weeks. Take care!