attention
The kind of attention we pay actually alters the world: we are, literally, partners in creation
from The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist
attention
At heart, magic embraces the power that small solidarity networks have to change the world through changing their own perceptions of reality.
Medium • Magic, belief systems + web3
only when we have shifted into the rest-and-digest response of the nervous system will our brains allow us to reclaim our attention, access the power of our imagination, and unlock our subconscious.
James Doty • Mind Magic
the importance of escaping survival mode and fear in order to reclaim and control your attention
Because attention determines what will or will not appear in consciousness, and because it is also required to make any other mental events—such as remembering, thinking, feeling, and making decisions—happen there, it is useful to think of it as psychic energy. Attention is like energy in that without it no work can be done, and in doing work it is
... See moreMihaly Csikszentmihalyi • Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)
“We create ourselves by how we invest this energy.”
The more fear we bring to an event, the more we are telling the amygdala that the salience of the event is very high and very threatening; and the less fear we bring, the less we are going to activate the threat salience, leaving our attention free to be directed as we choose.
James Doty • Mind Magic
We like to think of external reality as being absolute, but experience is always subjective because of how we shape it through how, where, and when we choose to look and the preconceived ideas we hold about what we are seeing.
Just a moment...
And where the so-called prosperity gospel would have us believe that our desire is the primary engine of manifesting, I am here to tell you that it is in fact our ability to direct our attention.
James Doty • Mind Magic
direct our attention
your mind has a tendency to dwell on the aspects of you that need improvement, fuelled by established patterns of subconscious self-scrutiny in the name of self-improvement
to counteract this, make a deliberate effort to recognise the goodness, sweetness & delightfulness in you