What Attention Is

Your attention is not you.

This statement seems simple, but it has profound implications. Most people have completely fused their sense of self with wherever their attention happens to be. When attention fixes on worry, they ARE worried. When attention gets grabbed by pain, they ARE suffering. When attention scatters across mental chatter, they feel fragmented and lost.

This fusion creates helplessness. If you ARE your attention, you have no leverage. Whatever grabs attention controls you.

But attention is actually a function you can observe. Right now, as you read this, your attention is on these words. A moment ago, it might have been elsewhere. In a moment, it might wander to a thought, a sound, a sensation. Watch this happen. Notice that YOU are the one watching attention move. You are not the attention itself.

This creates space. This creates possibility.

The Default State

When attention isn’t consciously directed, it falls into default patterns. These patterns evolved for survival in dangerous environments - always scanning for threat, always processing what might go wrong, always preparing for the future or analyzing the past.

The default patterns include:

• Worry loops - cycling through what might go wrong
• Rumination - replaying past events, often with self-criticism
• Mental chatter - constant commentary on everything
• Future projection - living in imagined scenarios rather than present reality
• Pain fixation - attention magnetically pulled to whatever hurts

These patterns aren’t character flaws. They’re just what minds do when unattended. A dog left alone might chew furniture - not because it’s bad, but because that’s what dogs do without direction. Minds ruminate and worry for similar reasons.

The good news: these patterns can be interrupted.

Why This Matters For You

If you’re in crisis - health failing, life unmanageable, overwhelmed - your attention is almost certainly hijacked. It’s probably fixed on pain, stuck on worst-case scenarios, racing toward catastrophic futures, or turned inward in destructive self-focus. You likely cannot look around the room you’re in and actually see it. The room is just blur while attention stays locked on internal distress.

If you’re high-functioning - successful by external measures, productive, capable - your attention might seem fine. But look closer. You’re probably running on autopilot. Attention scattered across devices, tasks, and mental chatter. Present in body, absent in awareness. When did you last actually see your commute? When did you last eat a meal and taste it? When were you fully, completely HERE?

Either way, whether in crisis or high-functioning autopilot, the first step is the same: recognizing that attention can be directed, and beginning to direct it.

The Mechanism

Here’s how it works: Whatever you give attention to, grows. Whatever you withdraw attention from, fades.

Give attention to worry, and worry elaborates. It finds more things to worry about. It builds scenarios. It strengthens.

Give attention to the present environment - the room around you, the sensations in your body, what’s actually here right now - and the worry can’t sustain itself. It needs attention to survive. Remove the attention, and it weakens.

This isn’t about suppression. You’re not fighting thoughts or forcing anything to stop. You’re simply redirecting attention elsewhere. The thoughts continue - they’re not your concern. Your concern is where attention goes.

Today’s Practice

Sit somewhere for 5 minutes. No phone, no book, no TV. Just sit.

Your only job is to observe where your attention goes. Don’t try to control it. Don’t judge what happens. Simply watch.

Notice: Does attention go to thoughts about work? Worries about the future? Judgments about this exercise? Physical sensations? Sounds in the environment? Plans for later?

After 5 minutes, write down what grabbed your attention most. This isn’t a test with right answers. You’re gathering data about your own attention patterns.