Overlooking Positive Points in your Life
by Karen Chin.
Have you ever noticed what you place your focus on?
Ever wondered how you can get so fixated on something that you can’t see an alternative solution?
Whatever you focus on is generally what you see in life!
When I was going through adrenal fatigue some 6 years ago, I was constantly exhausted and had no energy. I just could not be bothered my focus was on lack. Lack of energy, lack of motivation, lack of self-appreciation, you get the picture. My complete focus was on everything that was going wrong that I was overlooking the many wonderful positive aspects to my life.
WHY was that?
It came down to my sense of focus and the reticular activating system.
Our sense of focus is very important. It represents our physical eyesight - what we visually focus on, and it can also be representative of our mental focus - what we mentally picture.
We use our sight and visual pathways to determine what is safe and what is not within our surroundings, to see what might be harmful to our survival, this allows us to react in ways that ensure we stay alive. Once we have survived a threat or perceived threat, it is important that our brain stores this in our memory banks so that the next time we encounter a similar experience we have a successful survival program to act upon.
The reticular activating system is a complex part of the brain that filters sensory information, it is essential for maintaining and directing our attention or focus to what is important or not. It is this process that can keep us focussed and locked in on what we direct our attention to or not.
For example, ever been walking through bushland and come across a snake. You really do not like snakes. Your survival mode kicks in and you jump or run, the snake slithers away and you are no longer in danger. You continue, on your walk through the bush only to find you are now vigilantly aware of your surroundings hoping to avoid another encounter. Your attention is focussed on snakes or anything that might look like a snake. Now you find yourself jumping at every noise or the sight of sticks.
We have just created a survival pattern. These patterns are being created all the time and do not have to come from a significant event, they can be positive or negative events. We create these patterns for all sorts of reasons and most of the time these patterns run subconsciously so we are not aware they are happening. The amazing thing is that we don’t have to continue running these same patterns, we can choose to change what we focus our attention on and choose to see things in a different way.
For me, my negative focus was not allowing me to see the positive areas in my life and once I was mindful of this patterning it allowed me to consciously change my focus. One tool that assisted me with this was Kinesiology. It allowed me to uncover the patterns I had created and helped me bring back clarity and focus to the many wonderful positive aspects to my life.
What would you like to focus on in life?
Image courtesy of Pixomar at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
