This has become a fundamental question for me and my mental health and stability. I oft ask if of myself.

No idea about you lot (every one of us is richly unique – how absurdly, fricken cool!), but a challenge I’ve always faced is that my brain’s default has been to look at, or look for, or focus on, the negative.

In my younger years, I was one of those obnoxious people calling themselves a “realist” as opposed to a pessimist. It wasn’t my fault bad things happened in the real world, I just called it how it was – or something like that. Blergh. It’s okay little me, I forgive you and I love you.

But the reality was, and has been, that my mind typically focuses on the negative more oft than not. In different ways too! Sometimes it goes straight to it, first thing. Other times it’ll sneak in behind the positive thought as a little nudging reminder of sorts. And sometimes it’s all there is. Past, present or future, it had no tense. It didn’t feel like depression, or anxiety, it was just was. “I wouldn’t get the job anyway”, “I think those people hated me, I was annoying.”, “My girlfriend deserves better, she’ll leave me one day.” and so on and so forth.

I will always be searching within myself to try and work out where it came from. Doubt is easily one of my greatest enemies and I know it stems from insecurity, but I’m still working out why, where and how it’s so rooted inside of my thick, tough, you-dont-wanna-headbutt, noggin. (Oh my… side bar, typed noggin as a typo for a second there… it could have gotten me quite cancelled… you can work it out, the letters are close.)

ANYway. The negative, or doubt, has been my default for some time – as far back as I can properly remember. HOWEVER! I want to change that. I ‘m working to re-program my brain to a new default. I’ve had periods in life, to be sure, that I’ve been more conscious and been much more positive, lifestyle and circumstance has been different, or what have you, and it feels like my usual default was much less prevalent. It has inevitably returned to claw my soul into darkness again.

That’s why I’m reprogramming. And I use that word deliberately. I like to metaphorically consider our mind a computer. It’s a complicated network receiving, managing and directing data. We are both the program it runs, and the programmer. Sheeesh, what a contradictory little paradox that seems to be. Let me explain my perspective… or theory?

Firstly, our thoughts are the code that runs the program.

We are the program because as the mind thinks, our actions follow. That simple. Like a program reading its code and executing its functions. We are quite often just slaves to our thoughts and on we run as they command or lead. “I’m going to the gym.” Then off I go. Etc.

But if we take the controls back, we can be the programmer too, instead of leaving it to run in auto-pilot – which is what I think too many people have become conditioned to do (by deliberate design too I say! But that’s a who0o0ole other conspiratal post). We just let our thoughts devise themselves and we follow on like a program does. But if we stop before we act, and assess the thought. Decide if we like it, want it, or believe it helps us, we can reshape that thought and redirect our action.

“I’m tired, I can’t go to the gym tonight.” You’ve just executed the code that you can’t go, so guess what. You won’t.

Program ran line “can’t go” so, by the rules of programming, it can’t go. Same any time we say we can’t do something. Or whatever it is our thoughts say. If we let it be what processes, it leads our actions. Unless you execute a new code, overwrite the last one – which I think is just that wee bit harder to do, for every instance of execution of the neg. So the habit I’m trying to create is catching my thoughts before they get run, so to speak. That moment between when the code is written and when it is executed, to edit the code to better suit the outcome I truly want to work towards. Starting with even noting where my attention is after the code has run and I’ve let it hurt me, to run a new code to get me out of the pain. Is it perfect? No. Will it always work? Not yet. But with persistence, it will start to become a mental habit. Soon after that, the better thought pathways I’m shaping will start to become the default instead and wont need changing.

(Even just in how I’ve typed this blog. I’ve said negative has been my default, I’ve made it past tense, rather than saying it is.)

Our brain or mind, might be like a program, but its an organic one. Like a muscle. So it needs reps. If I go to the gym and expect to squat 150kg first time – hard chance. But if I set that intention and work my way towards it, soon enough the muscles will adapt and I will lift it and more. Set the intention of seeking positive thoughts and they will come.

It’s abundance mindset, in simplicity. Maybe even tied to this manifestation thing! It’s just a tool for me to get there.

This is what “where’s your attention” is designed to do for me. I’m catching myself out when I’ve let doubt in, or I’m wallowing on some negative. Everything is polarity – in some sense. There’s always an opposite. So when I ask myself this and then recognise my attention is on the negative, I deliberately find the positive. Whatever it is. Related to what’s got me down or not, there’s a positive somewhere I can give my attention to instead.

Attention is all we are (in my view). It is what other people call consciousness. Whatever our attention is on, is what we are digesting or processing in our minds, so it is the only thing that exists in our own world in that moment. Can your attention really be on more than one thing at once? I don’t think so, not directly. Multi-taskers can flip their attention between things at lightning speed, but its still switching, it’s not actually on both at any individual moment.

Attention is in one place, the only duality is that there is the focal point of attention and the world or context around it. That’s the only “two” things your attention can be on simultaneously, but because they are two parts of the same thing.

If this doesn’t give you an idea on how important attention is, let me reveal how important it is on another level, because if you think money is the currency of the world, consider this.

It’s attention.

Companies SPEND THEIR MONEY to get our attention with their advertisements. Social Media platforms manipulate algorithms to retain our attention. Our attention spans are under attack so we are more easily distracted and compliant.

Enough of the doomsday-ness. But do you see what I’m saying? Attention is what everyone is trying to exchange. Even in a nice way. You want the attention of your family and friends, that’s what hanging out is. Jobs want our attention so things get done, then they give us this bullshit money, so we can spend it to give our attention away elsewhere. Attention is everything.

(I’ll do another more robust post on this some time I think! There’s some fun things to explore and unpack. Like people doing things “for attention” and the negative connotations etc.)

After sharing this strategy with Charlie, she suggested we create an icon or symbol for this question I’d brought into focus. Something we can put somewhere, or wear as a tattoo, as a constant reminder to check ourselves and ask where our attention is, so we can refocus on where we want it to be, and thus live in the reality we want to live in.

I simply modified this concept a touch. It has the same elements as a question mark – a line and a dot, the line even has a curve! Since we’re asking a question about attention, it seemed only too obvious. So here it is.

A symbol to represent something that I am using to help reshape my mental wellbeing. A beacon of hope and focus to remind me that the negative exists in the greater world, but once I give it attention it engulfs my world. The positive that may seem hard to find can flourish when I give it my attention instead. My world can shine with it because its all that exists in the moments I hold it… So.

Where’s your attention?