Focus and Refocus #2 Mind Exercise

To illustrate how the mind will give you, or reflect back at you from the outside world, from what you consciously focus on, here is a simple mind exercise which will demonstrate this fact:

Wherever you are, whether sat in a room, out and about, or wherever you may be, consciously think of a colour. While thinking of your chosen colour, notice how all the objects in your environment with this particular chosen colour, seem to ‘pop’ out or resonate with far more emphasis in relation to the objects which are not of the chosen colour. For example, if you choose to think of yellow, all the objects coloured yellow will seem to be highlighted, with everything ‘not’ coloured yellow, fading into the background. You may also notice that this exercise seems to take no effort to little effort to achieve the results stated here.

In essence, by practicing this technique for long enough and focussing on the colour of your choice, which in this case/example would be yellow, will result in seeing a world of full of yellow objects, or at least will be the dominant colour being reflected back at you from the ‘outside’ world. The conscious process of practicing focus on the colour will eventually transfer into the ‘automatic’ part of the mind, thus becoming a habitual ‘program’ or learned skill.

This mind exercise shows in a simple way, how what we focus on will affect how we see the world around us and applies to everything we choose to focus on. Unwittingly, we all use this method of thinking and somewhere along the line, all of us who developed anxiety conditions focussed on the feelings of anxiety at the expense of all the positive things which we have in our lives. We gradually, over time, created a world which reflected mostly or only anxiety back at us.

The good news is, we can use the same method to train our minds to focus on what we want reflected back to us. Again, this will take practice, in the same way we unwittingly practiced focussing on the feelings of anxiety and an anxiety provoking world at the onset of our ‘condition’.

Another wonderful aspect of this method and once the realisation of how this part of your mind works becomes knowledge through experience, is that you find you have a choice in how you wish to see the world, or your own world. Some of us choose to see beauty in the world, whereas others choose to see the world as a depressing place to live. Both view points in reality are most likely true and to ignore the ‘bad’ things (for example, injustice, cruelty, etc.) which happen in life would be morally wrong from my point of view, but what I am talking about here is strengthening the part of ourselves which sees the positive aspects of the world and of our lives at a healthy psychological level. I am not promoting apathy. I am promoting a healthy mind which benefits the individual and who/what the individual is associated with. I believe by developing a healthy mind, strengthening a positive view of ourselves and of the world around us puts us in a stronger position to deal with the ‘darker’ aspects of reality, including our anxieties, concerns and so on. This is the way I ‘choose’ to see things and of course everybody is different and everybody can choose their own realities in which they wish to live, for better or for worse – I choose the better!

Have a wonderful day!

Focus & Refocus

Since experiencing the agoraphobic condition along with panic disorder I have, over the years, employed the method of ‘distraction’ to avoid, or escape any feelings of anxiety and/or panic. Although distraction has served me on many occasion to decrease the feelings of anxiety, I have found it has limited effect and has only helped to ‘take the edge’ away from the ‘unwanted’ thoughts and feelings . ‘Distraction’, in this case, is of course, looking for something to keep one’s mind occupied to force one’s mind away from the thoughts and feelings of panic and anxiety. Most of us know how hard it is to try not to think about something, which maybe fearful, disturbing and so on. Distraction takes a lot of mental energy and the ‘unwanted’ thoughts/feelings pretty much always return.

I have always felt uncomfortable with the term ‘distraction’ as relating to a method to ‘deal’ with anxiety and here’s the reason why: To me, distraction suggests an avoidance, a ‘running away’ from, an escape from your thoughts and feelings and essentially an escape from your own self. The conscious mind seems only to have a limited amount of power to override any thoughts and feelings which are stored in the ‘automatic’ thinking part of the subconscious/unconscious mind. On a more ‘down-to-earth’ level, it may be easier to understand the automatic thinking part of the mind as a program, or an assortment of programs (see the post entitled: Retraining, Installing and Reinforcing Thought Patterns & Behaviours) which have been learned over the years.

Instead of using ‘distraction’ or avoiding unwanted thoughts and feelings which is in effect still focussing on what you ‘do not want’ and in essence keeping the thoughts and resulting feelings alive, I have found focussing on what you ‘want’, is far more effective. Look for things which excite you and interest you – something which is more interesting than the thoughts and feelings which promote anxiety. For example, think of all the positive attributes you have, what positive activities you want to do, where you want to be, what makes you happy, etc. Immerse yourself into an interesting hobby or topic and take it with you in your mind and if you can, into the situations which provide a stimulus for anxiety. For me, when I go out and push through my own boundaries, I think of where I want to be, what I want to do and the life I want to live. Alongside this, choose something which is interesting to take with you while you go out and about or are faced with situations which provoke anxiety. For instance, I have started taking a camera out with me, while pushing through boundaries. I can find something interesting and take photos of what I find interesting and focus on using the camera itself and at the same time, reminding myself of the life I want to live.

There is a difference between ‘distraction’ and ‘focus’. It may appear as if the focus method is the same as distraction, but there is a huge difference. In this case, distraction is avoiding, whereas focus is embracing. Focus is concentrating on what you ‘want’ whereas distraction is focussing on what you ‘don’t want’. So, focussing on what you don’t want, gives you what you don’t want and focussing on what you want, gives you what you want.
I have found, after years of using distraction methods, that the ‘unwanted’ thoughts or thought patterns do not change, but focussing on what is wanted does create new thought patterns, or programs. This is a skill and like any other skill which is to be learned, takes practice and repetition. Gradually, through effort and repetition, the new thought patterns, programs, neural pathways – call them what you will, will strengthen and override the old non-self serving thoughts, creating thought patterns, programs, neural pathways, etc, which will serve you!

Have a wonderful day!

PS: Will soon post a simple mind exercise technique which illustrates how your mind will give back to you what you feed it.

Retraining, Installing and Reinforcing Thought Patterns & Behaviours.

Thoughts, Emotions and Physical Body

When I first started to feel high levels of anxiety and experience panic attacks, many years ago, I learned how, and became aware of my thinking and thoughts which were affecting my emotions and feelings. I became aware of how thoughts, which often ‘run’ automatically, would appear, seemingly from out of nowhere and induce a corresponding ‘feeling’ state.

However, it hasn’t been until recently, I have ‘tuned into’ how my body reacts to my thoughts and emotions.