New day, new over-riding theme that covers the themes for the week. My normal focus is improving my self & my life every way possible & helping others do the same. Each day I focus on a different aspect of these things & respond to the messages, the over-riding theme of the day. I also respond to the needs of others as they arise each day. I am a regular caretaker for myself, 3 women, my cats, & whomever else is brought before me each day. I respond to these priorities each day. This is what I've chosen for my life to be about.
Lately I see around me those who are not in touch with their focus or who are simply not focused. Two of the women I care for are focused on the men in the their lives & the situations are causing them great difficulty. They are out of balance & experiencing many ups & downs because of it. But they've been unable thus far to shift their focus. I'd so love to shift it for them! This was my fear of a romantic relationship - that I would lose myself in it, lose my focus on what truly matters to me. In September 2010 I chose my current life focus & worked on freeing myself from all that wasn't working in my life, all that didn't fit that focus. Life as I thought I knew it was over & I made a choice about what I was going to do with that opportunity. It truly was a wonderful opportunity (even though it was a very scary & painful release process) & it helps that I recognized it as such, set my intent, made the most of it. As I've said recently, endings are also beginnings. I know so many experiencing endings in their lives right now & my wish for them too is that they make conscious choices on where they go from here. And I'm very proud of those I know who are recognizing their ends as opportunities & are working to make conscious choices, make it all work them. It takes great courage & will to do this.
One person I help regularly is entirely unfocused. He has great trouble with that because of the way his mind works. He gets bogged down in every tiny detail & therefore doesn't get the important things done. I'd so love to teach him that production is more important than exact content in the long run. One thing needed for him & all others like this is entirely letting go of perfectionism. Perfectionism is totally limiting, & true perfection is impossible for humans. When you are locked in perfectionism, you spend too much time on one thing to the exclusion of the things that really matter. Another aspect of this is the "all or nothing" mentality. It usually leads to just about nothing & never leads to the "all" that's desired. And it's so easy to get into that mentality without realizing it. I'm going to use housecleaning as an example of both. I tended to think in terms of getting all the vacuuming on one level done at one time. That was too daunting so I didn't do any of it. When I figured out that it didn't have to be all or nothing, that I could do 1 or 2 rooms at a time & keep that up each week, I transformed the situation & was able to get it all done within a couple of days. It didn't all get done in one day but it got done. I did a thorough job but didn't obsess, wasn't locked into perfectionism with it. You never get up every single speck & next time you go through a room, there are more specks on the carpet. I'd never have progressed from room to room if I'd kept going back to make sure the first one was perfect. I'll catch the accumulated specks when I do the rooms next week.
When you have no focus or are too narrowly focused, including as in perfectionism or the "all or nothing" mentality, you don't accomplish what truly needs to be done & fall behind. Then you're forever playing catch up & that's very difficult. It then takes radical action & change, something that could have been avoided with focus. When you aren't in charge of your focus, aren't focused or are too narrowly focused, you allow anything & everything to distract you from the truly important things until they reach the crisis point & you're forced. No one thrives in those situations. They greatly contribute to the "if I can just get through..." mentality. Some people move from one situation like that to another because they've failed to choose to focus & stick with it. Now I'm not saying that maintaining or even choosing our focus is always easy. And the more time you have on your hands & the more options you have, the more difficult that is. But it's one of the most vital life choices we make.
With focus, you're able to weed through the choices we each end up making moment to moment each day. With focus you take charge of these choices & exercise control in your life. I look back to one of the times I felt so out of control of my life. I unconsciously tried to control my kids because I had such an unrecognized need for control in my life. Without focus we make so many unfortunate unconscious choices!
I now use many tools to help me focus with intent & I highly recommend them. One is my written life mission statement, written last year on the recommendation of a great metaphysical teacher I'm so privileged to know & learn from. Just focusing & writing it grounded me & I've actually only had to go back & read it once but it's there when I need it. In it I set my intent for how I would conduct my life & it's the basis for my choices. Another was recommended by an adult friend with ADHD (especially difficult for these people to focus), & is a daily planner I've talked about before. I was a list maker who had lists all over, half done & oppressive. I also constantly had a list in my head that bogged down my thinking & my ability to sleep & rest. More than a year ago, this planner changed my life. It helps me focus on what truly needs to be done each week & each day. It frees my brain because if it's in my head it goes down in the planner & I can release it. I know my brain doesn't have to hold it & remind me. And I no longer have to find those little lists or carry them over. The planner has carry-over capacity, can be used effectively for current & future priorities, help manage priorities. I also use my journal to help me focus in on what I'm feeling & needing. I could so easily get lost in my head like my friend does. My mind multi-tasks constantly, runs on many tracks at once & my conscious & subconscious seem to constantly stream. This is something else ADHD people face, by the way. My journal helps me focus in on the most pressing tracks & capture them. It's a great tool. Often I'm not aware of what my subconscious is streaming. When I journal it kicks in & I'm able to tap into that stream. Often I start out writing about what's in my conscious thoughts, usually pretty trivial & not worth writing. Those who don't journal often use that as a reason. But what I find is that once I clear out that stuff, what really matters right now, the subconscious stream, comes forth. Once I'm able to pay attention to it, my brain quiets for a bit & I find some peace. I also use baskets to keep me organized but you can use any gathering tool. I used to be famous for going into a room & forgetting what I went for, having to go back over & over. I used to get so distracted from my little purpose, do something else I saw needed to be done when I got to that room instead of what I went in there for. Once I developed the reliance on a basket to carry with me, I solved a lot of that. I carry a mental list & put things in the basket & take them out & put them away as I go. That basket has become my anchor point & calls me to action, has become a fixed reminder of what I wanted to do. It's become a working symbol I can fix on. These symbols & tools are very important for becoming organized. I can look at my basket as a focus point & retrieve my intent. My intent becomes fixed on that symbolic object. My final tool is my daily devotions. I use prayer, "I Am" statements, manifestation statements & angel work to renew my focus daily & ground me. It reminds me & powerfully energizes my intent & focus.
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