A Positive Vision Of The Future, And The War For Your Attention
Attention is a moral act - where are you disposing yours?
Dear friends,
Imagine that you want to get up from your couch, where you’ve been enjoying a hot cup of coffee, and take yourself on a long walk in the mountains. Blue skies and sunshine draw your attention away from the creature comforts of home towards the crisp autumn air of early morning.
Picturing yourself walking up well loved trails towards a familiar vista, inspiration grabs hold of your will and overpowers any thoughts of weariness and to do lists that might keep you warmly nestled inside. Today, a vision of adventure urges you to move.
Placing your feet on the ground in order to stand up and get ready, your left leg begins its rebellion. As your right leg attempts to move you upwards, your left digs itself into the couch, dragging you back down.
Falling back onto the soft cushion, you wonder what the hell just happened. Focusing your attention on your left leg, you notice it relax.
You wiggle your left toes. You move your left knee side to side. Your left leg appears to be working now.
Maybe it was a fluke?
So you move to stand up again, and this time your left leg simply refuses to engage at all and buckles under your weight, causing a sharp pain in your knee. What the hell is going on?!
Giving in, you take a seat and shake your head in confusion. Once again, you discover that your left leg moves normally while you are seated; but now you are paranoid and afraid to get up.
What will you do next?
What should you do, when confronted with such a perplexing conundrum?
What can we learn about human freedom from the phenomena of walking?
In order to walk, your left leg and your right leg must be united - in relationship to the rest of your body - in their efforts to propel you forward.
In order to walk, your fascia (and everything in its domain - muscles and muscle memory, tendons, ligaments, blood flow), and your brain, or nervous system (and everything in its domain - sensory perception, cognition, logic, beliefs, stories, fears, hopes and dreams) must be united in their efforts to move you forward.
In order to walk, you must first be possessed by a positive vision that inspires your will and moves your whole being into unified action.
If any part of you isn’t on board with this vision, you will either be unable to walk, or walking will be miserable. You might be able to force a resistant part into compliance, but the ensuing experience will likely be full of tension, anxiety, pain, and exhaustion.
You probably don’t think about this much anymore, but there was a time in your life when you didn’t yet possess the skill of walking. Once a helpless infant, you had to earn the ability to walk. Walking is such a complex movement that it is a marvel any of us figured it out! The fact that we did is in large part due to our utter inability - as babies - to form thoughts.
Maybe you take this for granted today, but it’s worth thinking about (thinking is our superpower, and it is our kryptonite) in order to understand how brilliantly designed you are; why a positive vision of the future is an absolute necessity; and the importance of uniting your fragmented parts if you intend to pursue that vision.
As a baby, you learned to walk by first watching all of the upright human beings in your life moving around rather effortlessly on two legs. Over time, you were possessed by such a powerful vision of being like them that everything in your own being united towards that singular goal.
You had to start at the beginning, however; which meant flopping around on the floor with a head that felt like a bowling ball. After learning to hold your head up on your own, something catches your eye and you learn how to roll over in an effort to move closer to it.
The muscles in your neck and spine get stronger every day, along with your limbs as you practice pushing into the ground and lifting them up in the air like superman (but you wouldn’t know who that is yet).
One day while lying on your stomach you see a colorful object on the other side of the room, and you’re overcome with a desire to grab hold of it. Commitment overcomes any and all weakness as you crawl across the floor towards the object of your desire. Once accomplished, it never got old; you merely found new objects of interest that called you towards them.
After many months of rolling over, looking around and crawling towards whatever happens to catch your eye, you summon a strength you’ve never known and stand upright for the very first time.
Balancing on giggly legs that have never done this before, you lift your head up…and fall right back down.
There is nothing that will deter you from your mission - not the pain of falling down, the laughter of your older siblings, or the feelings of weakness and instability. Every single step is a triumph, and you can’t wait to do it again.
You are going to walk one day.
You succeed because your body, soul and spirit are all united in this goal.
Unlike babies, adults are fragmented.
We’ve learned to be afraid of certain experiences and feelings.
We learned to move away from painful experiences and feelings, and towards pleasurable ones.
If you’re like most of humanity today, then you’ve learned to hide your true self. Which is paradoxical, because it is painful to hide our true opinions, feelings and the deeper longings of our soul. But (for a time anyway) it is even more painful to be rejected or ridiculed after revealing those parts. So we trade the pain of rejection for the pain of self censorship.
There is probably something that you long to move towards in your life right now, but you stop yourself - because you’ve learned what it’s like to face disappointment, disapproval, loss, rejection, abandonment, ridicule, betrayal…
If you can’t even imagine a positive vision for your future, then you must start there.
But vision alone is not enough.
Imagine that two people who love each other are embroiled in a conflict. They have agreed (prior to the conflict) to aim at the highest good - the best possible ideal of relationship: one that is based on truthfulness, collaboration and love.
However, one person harbors a belief that her pain is a burden to others and that sharing her pain will lead to disconnection at best, and abandonment at worst. The other person harbors a belief that he will never be good enough, and he longs for nothing more than to be loved as he is.
It doesn’t take much for these fragmented parts to cause all kinds of havoc.
As soon as she shares her pain in a genuine attempt to be vulnerable and honest, he mounts a defensive campaign - and her fears are confirmed. Meanwhile, he’s suspicious of anyone who claims to love him - and her pain is proof that his belief is well founded, so he lashes out and then retreats in self protection. She feels abandoned. And around and around they go.
If we are unable to unite our fragmented parts and align our whole being in action towards the positive vision we hold in our hearts - for our body, for our relationships, for this planet, for humanity as a whole - then we are guaranteed to fail.
In order to develop even one relationship that is truthful, collaborative and loving, both people have to move towards that vision with their whole being.
It is impossible to develop a relationship that is truthful, collaborative and loving when there is suspicion, victimization, blame, resentment, contempt, hatred, deceit or fear dictating our actions.
We are, arguably, living through the most fragmented time in human history.
Science has fragmented the human being, and the entire natural world, into their tiniest parts.
With the help of social media algorithms, the survival biology of group think, and highly politicized ideological campaigns, we have siloed ourselves into narrower and narrower factions of “like minded” people. And most of the time, these factions are established on the basis of pitting themselves against an opposing faction.
We are a world at war.
We’ve sacrificed the whole for the baser parts. We’ve replaced the territory (reality) with our carefully edited maps.
What the true cost will be remains to be seen. The destiny of the earth hangs in the balance, and I believe the best possible future for all of humanity literally depends upon each one of us doing everything that we can and ought to do in our own lives to move towards the highest possible good.
How do we move forward?
✦ If we want to resolve pain and thrive in our bodies…
✦ If we want to heal trauma…
✦ If we want to create healthy, loving relationships…
✦ If we want to play our part in the conscious evolution of humanity…
✦ If we want to bring healing to the earth…
Then we must start by establishing a transcendent goal - an ideal worth striving for.
You could ask yourself what the best possible vision is for each area of your life, and then write it down. You could ask yourself what the highest possible good looks like, and write that down. Notice any resistance or cynicism.
There’s “what is” - and what could be.
There’s “what is” - and what ought to be.
Somewhere inside of you are all kinds of visions of what ought to be - within your family and intimate relationships; in your own mind and body; in the world at large.
If we do not unite ourselves and our daily actions with an inspiring vision of what could and ought to be, there are only two other options available to us:
▶ absolve ourselves of responsibility and let evolution to take its course
▶ allow ourselves to be possessed by spirits that aim to create hell on earth
The first is characterized by self victimization, apathy, numbness, checking out and/or shrinking our world in order to avoid all possible pain, conflict and risk. The second is characterized by terror, cynicism, nihilism, hatred and resentment.
If we want to better ourselves, our bodies, our relationships and our world, then we must allow ourselves to be permeated by a vision that is true and good and beautiful; and we must hold onto that vision with all of our being.
Then, we must come back to the present - to “what is.”
Because the only way to get from where we are today to where we could or ought to be in the future, is to be absolutely 100% honest with ourselves about the current reality.
Remember the baby who learned to walk?
She didn’t say to herself “I don’t want to start face down on the floor! This is humiliating!”
He didn’t say to himself “I was supposed to come out of my mother’s womb walking like a champ! This is bullshit.”
Whatever pain or health challenge you’re currently facing…
Whatever relationship ruptures and traumas you’ve endured…
Whatever the state of your inner and outer life…
You must start there.
You must accept that what is, is; that you are the way you are today; and start from there.
As you move forward, a war for your attention will ensue.
One or more of the following will do their best to stop you from moving forward:
fear
doubt
self pity
despair
resentment
skepticism
stories of failure
stories of certain doom
stories of blame
overwhelm
procrastination
hesitation/resistance
lack of follow through
envy
comparison
hatred
pride
laziness
addiction
distraction
longings for security
longings for comfort
waiting for a guarantee that your efforts will be rewarded…
It’s a long list.
Attention is a moral act.
On a podcast I was listening to today, I heard Ian McGilchrist say “attention is a moral act.” He got my attention with that one!
I imagine a whole book could be written in order to unravel the meaning (and potential reality) of his statement, but it immediately felt true to me.
With our attention - and the quality of that attention - we create and destroy worlds, both inside and outside of us.
Our attention is so valuable, in fact, that it has become the most lucrative resource on earth that has ever been brought to market.
What are you giving your attention to today?
For the sake of your soul and the destiny of humanity as a whole, I hope you choose to focus your attention on a vision of the highest possible good. I’ll be right there with you.
There is a war inside of me, just as there is inside of you.
As long as we hold fast to our vision and re-commit whenever we miss the mark, we will make progress.
Everything unworthy of what is true and beautiful and good will slowly burn away in the fires of moral courage. And so long as our whole being is united in action to serve the highest good, then whatever outcome occurs is, by definition, a good outcome.
I hope you embark on that adventure calling you out into the world today!
With love,
Elisha
Dear Elisha...this comment touches my heart!!!
I cry the Mountain of thoughts ,feelings, behaviours that keeps me from even hopping it could be true for me!
And i know for sure that " thé Mountain is me "...
Boy the timing on this! Beautiful read and much needed by this human today. Thank you Elisha!!/Lynn 💗