Focus, Patience and Concentration

"For the first time in our history we are becoming neurotically impatient. We’re becoming socially dysfunctional. We have cell phones attached to our ears.” So stated acclaimed mentalist and entertainer the Amazing Kreskin in a recent interview. Kreskin once predicted that, “Americans would become an attention-deficit disordered culture that is all about immediate gratification.”

Kreskin is not the only figure who has voiced concerned about how technological advances may be diminishing our capacity for the absolutely essential mental talents of focus, patience and concentration. A continous stream of info can overwhelm our ability to distinguish the important and the trivial, eventually causing us to tune out. In addition, the unrelenting stimulation these tools supply can condition us to expect that the pace of life should also always be rapid and instantaneous, which is simply unrealistic. True mastery of anything worthwhile involves focused and determined effort whether it is in education, work, sports or the arts.

This situation is not unlike how labor-saving devices like the automobile have contributed to an overall decrease in physical fitness levels. However, just as some people choose to maintain excellent physical condition, mental fitness can also be chosen and cultivated.

As mentioned previously, focus, patience and concentration are necessary for success in almost any aspect of life. These mental skills are also the cornerstones of active listening skills, essential for good personal relationships. Perhaps you’ve heard of how people with magnetic personalities have a knack of making you feel like you were the only person in the room? Well, who would be attracted to someone who seems to be focused everywhere and anywhere except the HERE and NOW?

There are simple action steps you can take to safeguard your ability to focus, these include:

-Arrange set times away from mass media and communications technology. Although they have their useful and rightful place, over usage just leads to further distractibility. Consider spending more time in a place of natural beauty like a beach or park.

-Practice active listening with those people you really care about. Truly LISTEN without judging or forming a rebuttal. This is an amazing gift to give to another person as it makes him or her feel truly valued, unfortunately it has also become quite rare.

-Practice self-hypnosis or meditation daily, it helps to maintain healthy brain-wave activity.

-Stimulate your psyche with new challenges like studying an unfamiliar subject. Select activities that force you into a meditative "single point of attention."

-Remember to BREATHE, RELAX and BE in the present moment, make a habit of it.

As the wonderful old saying goes, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift, that’s why it’s called the PRESENT.”


P.S. I came across a wonderful link relating to how the age-old Sabbath tradition of taking off one day in seven can help us deal with modern stress. If interested visit: http://theholisticmall.com/_wsn/page15.html

Switch Words, Switch Your Life?

Have you ever found yourself wanting to do something, yet feeling unable to get into the right frame of mind? For example, you may encounter a situation where you have to interact with an aggressive personality and start retreating when you know you should be assertive. Or maybe you want to let your creativity flow, yet that energy seems to be blocked. Is there a switch we can flip so we can do what needs to be done?

Practices like hypnosis, self-hypnosis and meditation can teach us how to regulate the functions of mind, mood and body. While these sessions can be deeply relaxing and comforting, their true value is the carry-over effect into the stressful environments of everyday life. Quite often a post-hypnotic cue or anchor is developed so the calm and empowered feelings can be triggered at will post-session. Post-hypnotic cues can take many different forms like certain physical gestures or having certain environmental stimuli like colors or sounds acting as a reinforcement for the transformational work. The Switch Words technique is a lesser known option that also fits that description.

A switch word is a single specific word that you say like a mantra in order to influence your subconscious mind towards a desired state or course of action. The word is repeated a few times and it acts to switch on the inner mind, which can work quite well on its own once given a direction to move towards. Although this approach may seem too simple to be effective, actually the subconscious is very responsive to basic symbols- a single word can have great potency when thoroughly contemplated upon. More elaborate affirmations may have a tendency to engage the conscious mind, which can be especially problematic when in the midst of a difficult or trying situation.

Switch words were first identified by self-help writer James Mangan over 40 years ago. His best known contribution was the use of the word “cancel” as a signal to negate unwanted thoughts, although he created a master list of switch words for over 100 different situations. A couple I have found particularly useful in addition to cancel are "reach" and "slow."Reach is used whenever we want to locate something. Perhaps we hope to find a missing object and by silently repeating the word reach, we are giving the subconscious mind the directive to dedicate its resources towards its retrieval. Quite often we will seem to "spontaneously" locate that item later on that day, whereas a determined conscious-mind search would have probably just led to ever-increasing frustration. Reach is not just limited to lost objects either, it can be used to discover new ideas and creative solutions to problems. Slow is the word that evokes mastery and wisdom. Masters in all sorts of disciplines are oft noted for the careful and unhurried pace of their speech and movements as well as the ability to listen and observe deeply. We can use the word slow to help put ourselves in a similar state of mind and body.

Recently, Hawaii-based artist and author Shunyam Nirav has assembled and updated Mangan’s work into a beautifully designed e book that both the general public and helping professionals alike would benefit from owning. You can download a free version of the book at http://www.switchwords.com/holisticmall