Whatcha looking at?
Did you know that:
Where you look, there you will go?
Where attention goes, your energy flows?
When you look – you will find?
We don’t see with our physical eyes – we see with our mind’s eyes?
If you start looking at (and for) the things in your world and focusing on what you want to create, and not what you don’t like, are annoyed with, drives you crazy – you will feel the miracle of this principle.
When Joe and I had filed for divorce, I was so RIGHT about how BAD he was. I had a list a mile long. I was focused on thinking and, especially, talking about it with anyone who would listen.
When I heard the deeper, truer part of me ask the question, “Kim, are you really going to go through with this?” (And this voice did not have one smidgen of judgment or guilt. It was pure awareness and love. Just asking. I’ll never forget that!)
I stopped. I thought about it.
Part of me felt like I was too far down the divorce “rabbit hole” to turn back, even if I wanted to, which at the time I absolutely DID NOT!
This is when this principle became so real to me. I had a choice about what I was going to think about. I started with the idea of “Please help me want to want to.” At the time of this crossroads, nothing had changed in my feelings. I still felt exactly about Joe and our marriage that I had the day before. But I paused long enough to re-look at this decision with my logical, rational, brain. I didn’t want to go through the pain and carnage that this divorce would have led to, especially to the kids. I wanted my feelings to change. Or at least I wanted to want them to change.
So the process I used during the next few years (and yes, it can take time…) was when I felt the desire to leave, I looked for every reason I could to stay. I looked for qualities and behaviors in Joe that were always there, but I had not given attention to.
He was loyal.
He was faithful.
He kept his word.
He was tenacious when he decided to do something (which came in handy in deciding to stay to make the marriage work!)
He was a hard worker.
He had valuable life skills.
He was sexy (and still is, by the way! – Sorry, I regress..)
He cleaned and cooked.
He gave me freedom.
He wasn’t a controller (well, I think I had to train that in our early days of marriage.)
He was honest.
He didn’t have a reactive personality.
He was steady.
He was reliable.
Anyway – you get the picture, right?
The more I thought about and decided to focus on the qualities of him that were positive and made me feel good about him, those qualities and behaviors seemingly increased. Whether they really did or I just started noticing them, I’m not sure. But who cares?
I refer to this principle and part of our brain’s reticular activating system, as the “mental bloodhounds.” If you give your brain a “scent” – its job is to only show you what you’ve already told it is true. So, I gave my dogs a new scent, based on what I wanted, not on what I didn’t want.
I also focused on my behaviors, attitudes, and mindset. I noticed the times I was reactive to him, where I may have been tempted to lash out. I stopped this, after probably several failures. It became more natural for us to hear each other. We both worked on ourselves and also how we saw each other.
I write about this principle more in my book, The Monster Under the Bed – Uncovering the Lie that Drives Us. It’s a deal breaker principle. If you abide by the law of attention, you can benefit from it, knowing that if you change how you look at things in your life, those things you look at, can, and often will, change.
