It doesn’t take long for the pop up addiction to take hold and soon enough becoming a deeper problem for the already struggling concentration levels. The apparent novelty and stimulation values of 24/7 new and shiny internet sugar candy soon become irresistible and reaching for the smart phone as the morning alarm goes off can affect your life as much as reaching for the bottle or the nose powder. In terms of over taking our common senses. Eventually health and dreams will almost certainly lay in tatters.
But lets not assume all our focus problems are because of the age we live in, or the evil of AI which surrounds us. Even cavemen got distracted. I imagine. I don’t have their diaries to verify this of course. And if I did well.. I can’t translate grunts. Even Google can’t. Try it.
It’s not just an external frenzy that stalls us. Many distractions are already floating around inside us, like covert undercover agents, not always needing a trigger to build momentum. Just waiting and mixing with the everyday crowd of thoughts and emotions. Pouncing from nowhere. – You felt that as you read it didn’t you?
Anxious butterflies
It’s human nature when you eventually find a way to focus and concentrate more, that your procrastinating soul counter responds and finds a way to create new obstacles and find further elements of worry and anxiety more prevalent than ever. Well it would be too easy just to be able to power through it!
This big bright colourful image of your desired world is clearer when you concentrate intently, which creates flocks of butterflies (do butterflies flock? I googled it for you. They are mainly solitary but a group of butterflies is a kaleidoscope but feel free to check again because.. well you know) and oddly enough lead back to a distracted mind to avoid those feelings. This is why concentration and focus in themselves may not always be enough.
Of course a little worry can be useful, if it is used as a guidance system, helping you take appropriate precautions to benefit you and your loved ones. But for many people worry and anxiety is beyond the sensible levels and the cause of spiralling them away from their dreams. Focus and concentration consumed by worrying and not by achieving, blocks the mind from wandering towards the beach and bounces it back into the jungle.
These kind of thoughts and feelings are the same as those irritating ‘pop ups’ online. Internal conflicts flicking a switch inside to distract and completely turn a useful moment into a uncomfortable and wasted one. Momentum gathers the wrong way and soon the wrong feelings attract more of the same and then…. well lets try again tomorrow, my mood will be better tomorrow, the day which never comes.
Pop up blockers
The consequences of not keeping the internal pop up software updated is the exhaustion that follows continual focus on anxious and worrying feelings and states of mind. Leading to depression often. Of course this is easier said than done when the mind is habitually in the grip of the wrong end of the emotional scale, imagining fearful futures or continually revisiting past regrets.
Whilst we are in a mode of being fully aware we can choose what we think and feel at any moment in time yet we are also prone to slipping our guard and falling into negative self hypnosis or daydreaming resulting in sadness and failure to enjoy life. Energy wasted which could be used for smiling and fulfilling our destiny.
The daydream state we really need to be living is one where we have learned to naturally exclude and over ride these harmful elements of reality or projected fears from our awareness. To include only what we choose to focus on, those things that enhance our life with joy and love and wealth.
Tools such as daydreaming, hypnosis and meditation are all about focus and where to put your attention. They make and break new ways of using your mind, new habits of awareness at any given moment and can be done anywhere, by anyone at anytime.
Used either as an instant way to create a better state of mind or as daily practise in the morning to get yourself ahead of anything that might challenge you later in the day, these calming methods suggest to your subconscious mind that you focus and concentrate better and help you to get on with and complete what you need to be doing.
Naturally working on your choice of thoughts and feelings will completely change the way your mind works including:
calm distracting fears
detach from and banish unwanted thoughts
experience motivation and energy
grow your courage, and
relax so deeply your mind feels clear, cleansed, young and creative
The key is to find a way that suits you as an individual, to inwardly rehearse and practise your desired healthy and productive behaviours, making them feel like a natural way of being. To over ride the negative behaviours. Put the new you on top.
It doesn’t have to be complicated trying to find a pathway through daydreaming, visual practise, meditation and hypnosis to help you clear your mind and forget everything around you. A habit of identifying each distraction on the inside as well as outside and dismissing those to clear the way for those you intend to focus on. Anything non-dangerous can be ignored. But you are always still in control with this form of self hypnosis. Should something important or an emergency arise around you then your attention will lock onto it straight away. Its not a mystical mind wandering away from you.
‘Monoideism’ is the old word for hypnosis and it is clearly defined as the behaviours which fixate one idea excluding all others. Being unable to consider multiple things at the same time. This term highlights the importance of focus in the experience of hypnosis or daydreaming. Being in this state helps you to filter out unwanted feelings of fear and pain and any number of internal and external distractions.
So how about some actual practical ideas and support to put this theory into action and develop deeper focus with your mind. Of course it’s not a one time fix. Practise and dedication to your own well being maintenance is required but soon enough it will become your new habit and a natural state you reach for each morning.
Improve focus and concentration exercise.
1 Sit or lie down in a place comfortable for you. A place you know you wont be disturbed for a while.
2 With your eyes open to start with, focus on one spot somewhere close by, in front of you, maybe on a wall. Stare at that chosen point with all your might. Keep your eyes on that point, don’t let them move. Be that Olympic archer aiming at the targets bullseye. Keep your eyes fixed firmly.
3 Notice that even with your eyes fixed firmly on this one spot, you can still see other things around the edge of your direct vision. The picture on the wall, the door or the curtains. These are the things in your peripheral vision.
4 Notice, the more intently you stare at your chosen spot, the more these peripheral elements fade, and start to vanish.
5 Now your eyes may feel a little strained so relax them, but only after deeply feeling that physical focus on one thing. Feel it and store that feeling.
6 Now close your eyes as you sit relaxed and comfortable. Choose a particular task you need to focus on. Our aim now is to give that task the psychological equivalent of the intense physical focus and concentration you have just been using with your eyes staring at that spot.
7 Now spend 5 to 10 minutes hypnotically practising beginning your task, vividly imagining yourself setting about it, daydreaming how you will behave and act when carrying out all the related activities that will lead to its satisfactory completion. Pay attention to what you see, what you feel, what you smell, what you taste as you imagine doing this task in as much detail as possible.
8 Notice how time disappears as you lose track of everything other than that task. Notice how the old inner and outer distractions become peripheral and irrelevant and rapidly fade away as, like that Olympic archer, you focus your mind totally and exclusively on what you are doing.
9 Now finishing your practise time, as you see yourself successfully completing your task with a big smile, congratulate yourself on a job well done, make a solemn promise to yourself to continue developing your focus, take a deep breath, and open your eyes again.
10 Do the same thing again tomorrow and the next day….
