Focusing Within Gives You More Control Than Focusing Without
I need to put less into focusing on the things outside of my control.
We live in a crazy world.
After a year that featured massive, necessary social change due to a pandemic, an awful election and ongoing ugliness after it, and massive uncertainty – there is a light at the end of the tunnel. But that light isn’t the same for everyone. For some people it’s daylight – for others, it’s an oncoming train.
This is largely dependent on your mindset and what you are focusing on. If you are distracted by the ongoing crazy of the outside world – chances are you’re facing that oncoming train.
I am not, in any way, advocating for neglecting the world at large. We need to be aware of what’s going on other there, lest it overwhelms us. Nobody, not even the most introverted among us, can live in a vacuum. Thus, we need to know that shit is happening in the world – and when it’s something we don’t desire or want to see grow do our individual part to change it.
No, I personally cannot shake sense into the Trump Big Lie supporting Republicans, nor the leaders of Israel and Palestine. But I can do my part to focus on what I can impact directly and control. That empowers me.
When you become empowered, you become better able to find and/or create solutions to your personal life situations. Despite notions to the contrary, this is not a selfish act.
Self-care is not selfish
One of the lies that those in power use to remain in power is that self-care, and personal growth, are selfish. They will imply or tell you plainly that when you strive to make yourself better, you’re being a selfish jerk and lessening the collective.
If you don’t buy this, just look at the primary acts of many in government. They do all they can to disempower to prop themselves up and remain in power. Why else would there be resistance to making voting easier on the masses, universal health care, and a reasonable minimum wage? It’s all about the disempowerment of the masses to empower a “chosen” few.
This is where the bullshit notion of “coastal elites” gets spat out. Because self-care is a progressive concept of empowerment. And, since most of the people on the coasts of the United States work in the service industry and produce nothing tangible, it’s easy to perpetuate the lie.
The irony of this is how self-care truly empowers. Because when you care for your mind, body, and soul you make it possible to assume more control. Because there is only one thing over which you have any real control: Yourself.
Self-care is not frivolous and selfish. It’s developing a broader knowledge of who, what, where, why, how, and when you are. That knowledge opens you to make choices and decisions that can and will improve numerous aspects of your life.
When more people are empowered, they make better choices – and see how interconnected we all are. Almost all the division we recognize is an artifice created by those who use their “power” to disempower.
Authentic self-care isn’t massages and shopping sprees – it’s practical mindfulness for empowerment.
Focusing within creates more clarity without
The body you occupy is only the physical manifestation of you.
Inside your body are organs that vary only slightly in other people. Yet we all have hearts, lungs, livers, kidneys, and so on. Our musculoskeletal systems vary some – but feature all the same parts.
Deeper than that, we’re comprised of subatomic particles, which themselves are composed of pure Universal source energy. This is why and how – no matter the manners with which we identify ourselves individually – we are all one.
At our core, every single one of us is pure energy. Energy that can neither be created nor destroyed – it just transmutes from form to form.
Hence, focusing within provides more clarity the focusing without. When you know better your inner being – and recognize your core energy – you can see it more clearly in the world around you.
Our focus tends to be on the past and future. But the past has passed and can’t be changed (despite numerous attempts to do so) and the future is unwritten. But the present, the here and now, is the one true place you exist.
Better understanding of yourself – by focusing inwards – makes for better understanding of the world outside of yourself.
For example, if you don’t know your own feelings – how can you get to know the feelings of anyone else? So many of our misunderstandings come from a sense of disconnect between us.
Many of those in power love to widen the disconnect. But when you see the interconnectivity of everything, here and now, you gain more understanding overall. Both within and without.
What does that even mean?
To put it simply – no matter how many ways you and I may be different – we are the same.
Putting your focus on things outside of yourself disempowers you. Besides voting, signing petitions, making calls, and sending emails – what can you do about politics? Nothing. You have ZERO control. Focusing on all the insanity happening in Washington, DC disempowers you. Because you have ZERO control of it.
Yes, we need to be aware of it. But it can’t be where our primary focus goes, or else we cede all our power to the ethers and our so-called leaders. Then, they use our fears as weapons to maintain and increase their personal power while distracting and disempowering us.
Don’t believe me? How else can you explain how the same assholes, who almost literally steal from their constituents time and again, keep getting re-elected? They create blame for the “other” and distract while acting in bad faith. How else can you explain our acceptance of a corporate culture where the stockholders earn obscene wealth on the backs of the workers who get paid less than a living wage? They convince you that a $15 an hour EMT is worth more than an $8 an hour fast food employee – rather than everyone being worth a minimum of $15 an hour and more.
When you are focusing on the outside world, it’s the same as looking at the symptom but not the disease. Focusing within, on the other hand, provides you with that missing clarity.
Inner focusing leads to inner peace
When you allow the outside picture to dominate your life, your paths and the choices therein can look pointless and hopeless.
But that’s not the truth. The truth is that you matter. You are worthy and deserving of having a good life. Finding and/or creating what you desire to have is your right.
That can and will be differently challenging for people depending on their present circumstances. But I assure you, if you keep focusing on all the outside happenings beyond your control – you complicate your ability to take control of what is yours.
Focusing within is practical mindfulness. By being consciously aware, here and now, of your sensory input combined with your thoughts, feeling, actions, and intentions – you become familiar with your inner being. That means you merge into your mindset/headspace/psyche self, here and now, to know where, what, how, why, when, and who you presently are.
That, in turn, opens the way to get into your subconscious and look at your values, beliefs, and habits – and alter, change, expand, or otherwise work your control on them.
That is how you give yourself control. That control helps you find, create, and choose the paths you desire to take for your life. Which gives you inner peace.
When you have that internal focus, it’s easier to work with the outside pictures. Then, when you are self-empowered, you’re less likely to cede control to those who want you disempowered for their own selfish reasons.
When more people have internal peace – that leads to more external peace.
I know that I need to put less into focusing on the things outside of my control. It’s an ongoing process, but time and again it proves itself to be utterly worthwhile.
Can you see how focusing within provides more clarity without?
This is the four-hundred and ninety-first exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Additionally, I desire to empower myself and my readers with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. My additional writing, both fiction and non-fiction, are available here.
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