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How To Pay Attention to Your Thoughts
July 20, 2008
"Pay attention to your thoughts!" This is the command we hear that tells us how to improve our lives. But how?
Maybe we have many thoughts going through our minds, or maybe none. Maybe they make us feel bad, so we try to ignore them. Maybe they distract us from deeper thoughts and feelings that scare us. It is certainly different for all of us.
The key to paying attention to our thoughts is acting on them. "Put your money where your mouth is," they say, or "you can talk that talk but can you walk that walk?"
The key to walking that walk and learning to pay attention to your thoughts is simple. We've been doing it all our lives. It is as natural to us as speaking. Unfortunately, though, it is almost completely misunderstood.
The key is ritualing, or the conscious use of ritual. Hold on, now, this is not ritual like you think -- the true essence of ritual is not in routine, but in breaking out of routine. And believe me, when you start paying attention to your thoughts the world will no longer be routine.
In fact, the world will come alive, as if there were an earthquake or some other magnificent crisis turning your world upside down. It may be too much at first, but remember, ritualing comes as naturally to us as speaking -- and we've actually been ritualing a lot longer than we've been speaking.
The conscious use of ritual allows us to pay attention to our thoughts because it provides a framework for breaking out of the routine. It provides a moment of controlled spontaneity when our routine thoughts can disintegrate. It is an in-between moment when a first thought or symbolic gesture pops up for us to try. If it works we try it again and again. Hence, the ritual becomes the routine.
But if we are paying attention, and good ritualers will be paying attention, our one thought or gesture will stand out like a flame in the dark. It will be easy to pay attention to our thoughts if we start with that first one.
Using ritual to discover and develop the thoughts that are the most meaningful and useful to us is the essence of being qualiadelic.
At first it is unsettling to purposely create a moment of crisis using the framework of ritual. But remember, ritualing comes as naturally to us as speaking, and like speaking, if we practice it we can become quite powerful.
There are three stages to ritual. First, we create the space for it. Second, we play in that space. Third, we return to normal, every day life.
Your first conscious ritual could be over your morning cup of coffee. Be sure to set aside the time to enjoy it. It may not seem like a crisis, but the crisis is out there, your life is filled with it.
(Imagine this: long ago a primitive tribe was settling back after a good meal in the forest when a tiger suddenly appeared. None had ever appeared so near their fire before, but many a solitary gatherer had been killed by the large, powerful cat. The crisis upon them, the tribesman all reacted at once, leaping to their feet in fear. The tiger suddenly saw a huge beast with many arms and legs, so it turned tail and ran. This symbolic gesture of suddenly rising as one was not lost on the tribesman. They dwelt on its meaning, and they used it in other contexts, too, such as battle with hostile neighbors. They evolved with it.)
So, perhaps over coffee you had a thought, or you took off your shoes and stretched, or you wrote a letter or a memo. If you have discovered that thought or gesture that lights you up, carry it away, back to the routine. Pay attention to it. It should be easy to pay attention to because it is attractive, or qualiadelic.
When we are attracted to something we change our routine to be near it -- it has a qualiadelic effect on us. We begin a relationship with it. As in any healthy relationship, both parties grow, or evolve over time as they move back and forth from ritual to routine.
Well, our own thoughts have a qualiadelic effect upon us. But we have to learn to pay attention to them, and we begin to do this through the conscious use of ritual. Using ritual allows us to evolve along with the ideas that are important to us. It allows us not just to have a thought, but to move toward it within the framework of ritual.
Pay attention to your thoughts.
Be qualiadelic. Be conscious. Change the routine.
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