Showing posts with label Attention. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Attention. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 6, 2022

Wednesday Mojo: Savor Everything!

Be happy.
Mojo =s the spark of life, of energy, of creativity.



 Savor Everything!

The wind, the rain, the warm sunshine on your face.

The smell of a baby’s neck, bubbling soup on the stove, 

   the unmistakeable aroma of wet dog.

The persistence of dandelions, the danger of high bridges, 

   the comfort of a crackling fire, the hushed embrace of falling snow.

       — Gratitude Mojo, Week 6: Optimism


Savoring is the capacity to notice, appreciate, enhance and prolong the positive experiences in your life. Gratitude practice opens you to the world around you as your senses dance with light, color, sounds, music, the taste of food, the smell of rain, and the velvety feel of a baby’s skin.


Sam Horn says, “Appreciative attention is a shortcut to awe.” It is also a way to feel more alive and joyful. It turns out that the frequency of positive experiences is a much better predictor of happiness than the intensity of those experience.


However, the world is too massive to pay attention to every detail. When we open our eyes, a kaleidoscope of colors, shapes, lines and shadows engulfs us. There’s too much to pay attention to every detail, so our brains scan the environment and pick and choose what registers depending on evolutionary requirements and our own history and preferences. 


While that process is highly efficient, we can also choose to slow down and savor particularities, study things we haven’t noticed before. That study or savoring expands our world, opening us to wonder and awe.


The image above occurred as I was sitting and watching life on a creek running into Lake Almanor. I began to watch the ants scurrying through the bark crevasses of a tall cedar. Deciding to capture one with my iPhone meant sitting there for many minutes and dozens of shots, just observing them and being part of that peaceful moment.


Attention also brings funny, unexpected insights. A few days ago, a photo of a Native American man named Walks with Thunder struck me. Why don’t I have a power name, I wondered. On my walk that afternoon, I started riffing on the name Walks with Thunder … Speaks with Thunder … Thunder Woman … Making Noise Woman … and so on. I began to feel powerful, like I was making an impact on the earth. I swear I felt taller just having those words roll off my tongue as I walked.


Find something near you to explore and savor. It could be a memento on your desk, or a flower in a vase, or a thousand other things. Touch it and explore the details of it: the colors, shapes, smells, textures, as well as it’s history and how it came to be part of your life. Pay attention to how enjoying this tiny moment of attention makes you feel.


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- a gratitude-focused mindfulness practice that takes about 5-minutes per day,

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- a simple progression toward your authentic self through exercises, daily gratitudes, weekly reflections, recognition of emotions, and habit creation.

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Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Gratitude Mojo: My gift to the world


I am water and stardust
walking through day
treading on earth
receiving a cedar branch
receiving belonging.

watching
sunlight make sugar
in the graceful, bright
Ponderosa needles.

watching a bee
gather nectar
in a yellow flower.

me witnessing him
he witnessing me

time is not
what the world wants.
it wants my attention,
my devoted,
passionate
attention.

--Joyce Wycoff

Monday, November 22, 2021

Daily Gratitudes: Attention

Day 25/365, 2016: I am grateful for the cycle of life that is beautiful in birth and in death, in ascendance and decline.

This image was prompted by the quote of poet Jane Hirshfield, "Zen pretty much comes down to three things: everything changes, everything is connected, pay attention."

I like simple things I can remember, and particularly commands that you instantly understand but can take a lifetime to master. It seems appropriate to pay a little more attention to "attention." So a few more quotes.

"When you approach something to photograph it, 
first be still with yourself 
until the object of your attention affirms your presence. 
Then don't leave until you have captured its essence."
  -- Minor White

"I think the one lesson I have learned is 
that there is no substitute for paying attention." 
 -- Diane Sawyer

"The only factor becoming scarce in a world of abundance 
is human attention." 
-- Kevin Kelly, editor "Wired"

"There is a spiritual basis to attention, 
a humility in waiting upon the emergence 
of pattern from experience."  
-- Mary Catherine Bateson, from Peripheral Vision
"Love begins with paying attention to others, 
with an act of gracious self-forgetting."
-- John O'Donohue, Anam Cara

Gratitude Mojo is the new, advanced journal for gratitude practice which takes you even deeper into the amazing gifts of gratitude.