Where Is Your Attention?

We all know what it feels like to have our attention pulled in many directions. Recently for me, the book launch and tour, political landscape and family commitments, have all vied for my attention. These last months have been an opportunity for me to live by one of tenets of presence I offer in the book, Drop In and that is: we are always at choice about where we put our attention.When I really embodied this tenet of being at choice with my attention, it offered me a sense of stability and centeredness. How I worked with this tenet was simple, (but not always easy). Repeatedly throughout my day I would ask myself, "what am I giving my attention to right now?" or "what am I aligned to right now?" The bottom line was that my choices usually came down to something like this: In any given moment I could align to presence and awareness or freneticism and instability. When I realized (in that moment) I had a choice about where I placed my attention, I experience a since of empowerment and even liberation from being whipped around by the external world or the constant swirling of my conditioned mind.For me, paying attention to presence and awareness looked like putting my phone down and instead taking a breath and feeling my feet on the ground or choosing to prioritize stillness and silence since that's where I feel most stable and clear. Another tenet offered in Drop In, is that presence is always available and comes down to how often we choose to recognize or acknowledge it.I encourage you to experiment with these questions as often as you feel inspired:

• Where is my attention right now?
• What am I aligned to right now?

The simplicity and potency of these inquiries may help you cut through the chaos of the external world and remember the simplicity and stability of presence. And if you're still not sure tuning into presence will be useful, check out my blog on "The Why of Stillness".