What are you saying to yourself?

Energy flows where the attention goes.

What we give our attention to determines our predominate thoughts and ultimately what our experiences will be.

This idea was at the forefront of my mind during “Awesomeness Report” portion of our weekly staff meeting. This is where we share what has happened during the past week that we are either grateful for or something awesome that has happened in our personal lives or within the spiritual community.

I shared that I was grateful that we have the ability to choose where we place our attention and how this was helpful for an experience I had gone through.

Earlier I was in what seemed like an interminable conversation with two health insurance agencies seeking to resolve what I thought was a simple matter. Along the way, what I believed to be a no brainer became increasingly complex and seemingly irresolvable.

I found myself focusing my attention on all the things that were wrong with the insurance institutions and getting myself in an exhausted mental frenzy over the matter. I realized I was focusing my energy on finding someone to blame and who was wrong when in fact no one was either right or wrong. The situation only had the meaning that I placed on it.

In that moment I decided to focus my attention on what was working and began to search for possible solutions. As a result, my entire experience was transformed to a feeling of lightness and upliftment.

There is a story about the Dalai Lama that demonstrates not only how powerful this can be in daily experiences, but that it works in seemingly big matters as well.

His Holiness was before a group of Western reporters when he was asked, “I notice that you have this countenance of joy even though your people in Tibet have gone through and continue to go through horrendous atrocities at the hands of the Chinese government. How is it that you are able to maintain such joy, and more importantly, why can’t we in the West, who have so much, are often unable to have the joy that you have?”

The Dalai Lama responded by saying, “Wrong Mantra”.

He went on to suggest to the reporter that what you focus on and allow to pass through your awareness on a regular basis is the negativity that you are experiencing in the world. As a result you say to yourself: “Life is hard. There is not enough to go around. There is not enough love or not enough jobs. It’s impossible. It’s incurable. It can’t be done.”

He was letting the reporter know that what you give your attention to, think and speak about is a “wrong mantra”

The Dalai Lama was serving as a reminder that we want to lift our attention and awareness so that what we are constantly saying to ourselves is the truth of our being. Divine solutions, as well as the power and the presence of God are everywhere. And therefore must be where we are.

We want to practice the Dalai Lama’s way of being with such conviction that a seed is planted in our subjective or subconscious mind and it begins to grow. We then find that we no longer react to circumstances or situations, but respond from deep eternal place within us.

When we respond from that place, we will look back to an experience that was not to our liking are realize we acted differently.  Instead of being totally upset or blaming or accusatory, we discovered something else has taken over. We’ve moved into prayer, or meditation or got an insight that helped us respond in a higher way.

Such is the power of taking control of where our attention goes.