Add & Subtract - Focus

Today we look at Focus (excuse the pun)

ADD FORWARD

Where we place our attention changes our thoughts, our mood, our experience. We have enormous power in our lives simply through how we focus our awareness.

To milk a ‘car’ metaphor, we cannot see too far ahead as we drive; we don’t yet know what is around the corner. It would be very distracting to see too far into the future.

And while we need to be aware of what is behind - especially a truck looming up our backside or a motorbike about to pass on the ‘sui-side’ - the rear view mirrors cannot be our primary focus.

If we changes Max’s word ‘future’ in the quote below to ‘present’, our view through the windscreen is all about NOW. We respond to what is before us, dealing as lovingly as possible with the current road conditions.

Suggestions: Remember a time behind the wheel when you were in a rush? Having to get somewhere quickly (future focus), but every idiot driver seems to have come out just to annoy you? How stressed did you get? Did you make it without a bingle?!!!

Now feel how smoothly the trip goes when you are calm, present, relaxed; how much easier is it dealing with challenges in road conditions, weather, great and not-so-great driving by others?

Notice the expansive visibility looking forward. You are driving in ‘present’ gear.

Clergyman and writer Max Lucado:

“There is a reason the windshield is bigger than the rear view mirror. Your future [present] matters more than your past”

SUBTRACT BACKWARD

We need to know where we come from, what is unresolved within us. While the past is gone, our unprocessed residue stays very present.

A driver who never checks their rear view mirrors is dangerous, changing lanes without checking, causing chaos others have to deal with: a person without awareness of their unfinished business is also dangerous, projecting their baggage in unpredictable and destructive ways.

However, we cannot drive from rear-view alone. It is not helpful to get stuck in analysis paralysis, navel-gazing, turning over the compost of the past. Once we face-feel-know the stuckness of old experiences, we have more freedom to throw it in the fire, forgive, let it go. We process so we can return to a forward-looking view.

Spiritual writer and teacher Eckhart Tolle:

“All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry — all forms of fear — are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence”

Source: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Hope these suggestions improve your driving.