"You are where you put your attention.."

JULIA LALLY

ATTENTION IS POWER

One of the things I love about being a coach is how I get to put attention on other people.

For example, it is perfectly possible that I am having a shit day. And that the last thing on earth I want to do is get my zoom open and start a coaching session. But then always, without fail, just a few minutes in, my state changes. Something clicks into place. And I am aligning with my best self once again. As I sit before another human being in cyber space and focus on them instead of me - I am renewed.

This rapid internal transformation has nothing to do with anything grandiose about my higher path or my life purpose or anything else (though in part it does.) But, more importantly, it has to do with the capacity I practice to gain mastery of attention.

Think about that.

Power comes down to mastery of attention.

And the choices one makes thereof.

we don't own our attention

In fact, I write a lot about attention - as you will know if you are a regular with my blogs.

Because as women we tend to have a pretty uncomfortable relationship with it.

In our world, the acceptable face of attention for women is to focus it purely on the needs of the other.  We don't own our attention. Indeed, I would argue that it doesn't matter if we are giving or receiving attention, either way it is according to the expectations placed upon it by external factors. We float around in the sea of others. 

Being the Object of Attention

Let's have a look at how we are conditioned to receive attention then, from this place of powerlessness and lack of ownership:

As women, we grow up gaining attention for all the things we don't necessarily crave attention for. The size of our breasts. The appearance of our camel toe (or not.) The curve of our hips. The twinkle in our eye. Unfortunately,  the very fact of this constant objectification can make positive attention hard to accept or receive. It hurts. We crave a specific type of attention that truly sees us and gets us. And yet more often than not the type of attention or appreciation we actually receive misses us completely.  We receive because we feel we have to. We are the subject of the gaze. And the gaze is about the needs of the person gazing. This leaves us deeply dissatisfied. 

So we harden. We shut down and we come to expect nothing.

Oftentimes, women come to me far down the road of this path. desperate for a certain quality of attention that they are not getting in their lives. They are curious about how to help get more of the kind of attention they need.  (And I have some specific advice about this which you can read all about this here.)

attention drains

Giving Our Attention Away

The other way in which we are conditioned to not own the power of our capacity for attention is when we let it leak.

The way this pans out is when we give attention because we feel we have to, but don't necessarily want to. As women, we are prone to complaining about the constant demands that life puts upon our attention. We lament that our attention is drained on the daily.

Think the kids, for example. Or that annoying friend who keeps popping up and you can't say no to. Or your mother/spouse/relative/boss who starts demanding when you least need it. Or the fact that you sit there and give empathy for 30 minutes when, deep down, you actually think the person is a bit of a twat.

If you are one of those women who feel compelled to listen, just because another is expecting it of you, then you are making this mistake. You are letting the precious resource of your attention bleed from you and your energy will no doubt be shot as a result.

own your attention

To stop this kind of self-sabotaging behaviour?

Firstly, realise that attention is yours and yours alone. It belongs to you. And you get to decide exactly how and where you will spend it.

When you realise this, you are liberated - because you are no longer beholden to receiving attention from others just because they want to give it to you. You are no longer coerced into giving attention to others just because they feel you should.

Attention has a life of its own - it  springs from your body. You can literally do what you want with your attention minute by minute, day by day.

This becomes even more urgent when you understand exactly how precious your attention actually is.

I like to think of my capacity to give or receive attention as being the most valuable resource I have. It comes pretty close to time and money. Because when push comes to shove, attention is how I determine my life. It is literally how I make my life go a certain way - or not. I create what I focus on. 

And when you see attention like this, you tend to use it more carefully.

attention is always directional

Once you own your attention - you get to choose how and when to give or receive it. You get to play with the direction of it's flow.  And this is where things can get really fun.

Because I have written extensively about how to master the art of receiving attention, and how to get exactly the kind of attention you crave from others, the focus of this article is slightly different. Here I am going to look in particular at the skill of applying attention OUT in a wholly different way. How to do it. Why to do it. And how to benefit from mastering it.

So, let's think again for a moment about women and attention. As I have said - generally speaking we are either victim to the wrong type, or compelled to lavish this precious resource on others, whether we want to or not. That would be our conditioned response.

But there is also a third - and equally conditioned - way in which we get to use the power of our attention. And that is how willingly we tend to crumple into resentment and complaint. We go in. We go down. We use our inwards focus of attention to become complicit in our own submission. So in other words, we are either putting our attention into servicing others, or we are putting attention on our feelings about that.

None of these options are power.

To illustrate this, think about the time your boss said something that made you so mad, but instead of highlighting his/her behaviour and asking for what you wanted, you just...ran away and hurt about it. For days. Attention in.

Or the time you took a lover and you did something sexually that you didn't really want to do , and then you told yourself what a crappy lover you were for the rest of the day. That night you started having panic attacks. Attention in.

Or the time your mother in law made you so angry but all you could do was cry in front of her.  And that night you felt worthless and depressed again. Attention in.

It pains me to put this video in one of my blogs, it really does. But below is an example of a video interview from the dastardly Piers Morgan and a panel of experts around climate activism. Now - regardless of your political persuasion or views on the matter - what I am inviting you to do is to watch this video and see how Piers systematically drives this one climate activist into the ground. The more he pushes, the further she submits.  For sure, she gives a good fight. She defends. But in spite of her valiant efforts (and maybe because of them), he maintains dominance. 

And how does this happen exactly?

It happens because she loses control of her capacity for attention.

Her attention goes in. She struggles to find the counter argument. She efforts to hold her own.

Whereas Piers? His attention is unrelenting. It never wavers from the fact that it is 100% on her. He feels completely legitimate and entitled to his line of enquiry. He refuses to stop it. And every time she answers it, he just drives the attention deeper.

Imagine - if she had just turned her attention back onto him instead.

Imagine - if she had known how to make him the object of her attention.

Imagine - if she had been the one doing the gazing.

using attention to call reality

Hot damn.

How do we take that kind of power in relationship?

Actually, I would argue that as women we are superbly positioned to do it, because we are literally schooled in understanding what is making the person before us tick. We are drilled from an early age to be able to  read other people like a book. Mostly then, as per our conditioning, we use that knowledge to be able to better serve them. My entire point here is - how about if we used that just to see them instead?

This is exactly how power returns.

Once we turn our attention away from our feelings of being victimised, once we turn our attention OUT and focus it on reality - once we are willing to put our gaze on what actually is - we regain agency. We have the rabbit. We turn on the headlights. 

When we look at this video with Piers, we see how this could have been simply done. (And I understand that this woman was being interviewed and so the locus of attention was naturally on her. But, let's face it, the moment and interviewer starts name-calling you, the rules of the game get fucking well changed.)

This is how she could have done it. Attention OUT. Name reality:

"Piers, you just called me stupid on live television. Do you often treat people like that?'

"Piers, you seem to think the Sun is actually journalism. When did you make that assumption?" 

"Piers, are you worried about climate change?"

Do you see my point here?

Make him the object, ladies. Make him the object of your attention.

know the rules we play by

Okay let's take a breath.

Phew.

Let's take it slow. So we don't miss anything here.

Because it's important to understand that these rules of attention we currently play by, are not set in stone. In fact, once we understand the rules of attention that we live by in patriarchy, we have the power to disrupt them. Which, I would argue, works for everyone's benefit. And it is a particularly fun and beautiful game. Because nobody forces you to obey the rules. Patriarchy is not something that you just have to stand by and watch. You won't be arrested if you flip attention OUT, for example. You might ruffle a few feathers, hey Piers? But. Whatever.

Another interesting example (because once you start to see these rules of play you begin to see that they are happening everywhere) is the Trump/Biden debate.

Watch the way attention travels. That's the key. And you will see that there is always someone in the dominant state of attention in conversation, and always someone in the submissive state of attention who gets defensive and tries for the top position. Regardless of your political persuasions, this conversation travelled a similar trajectory. It was an epic battle for power. And Trump mostly had the upper hand of attention. It was Trump, mostly, putting his attention OUT.

My point is, that as soon as we try to "hold our own" against that, we have already lost the battle. We have submitted and tacitly agreed to being the object being gazed upon. The one who must deflect is not the one holding the power of the gaze.

Try flipping it. Is all.

attention is your safety

"Curious exploration, pleasure and trauma cannot coexist in the nervous system."

PETER LEVINE

This whole game becomes more urgent when you understand that you don't just feel bereft as a result of being unconscious about the direction of attention in your life and relationships. You actually also feel afraid. Because losing your attention means losing your agency - and a nervous system without agency knows itself to be unsafe. It knows it is frozen. It knows it has become the rabbit in the headlights.

You can see from the above videos also, that such fear is warranted - attention can actually also be used to coerce and abuse. Trump bullies. Piers Morgan name calls. It is completely understandable that by being stuck on the receiving end of such attention then, by not knowing how to navigate away from it, we are going to end up in a state of perpetual fear. Our victimhood gets really ingrained. It becomes the natural state. We don't understand the choice at hand. Considering how we have been conditioned to play, considering that we don't know the rules that are unfolding, it's kind of inevitable we would feel thus victimised.

I am not blaming anyone for this either. I would argue that the tragedy of all this is that nobody has fun in this set up. Nobody really gets to the sweet spot of pleasure in their relationships when their use of attention is so unconscious. All we have is distress and powerlessness.

Or the ongoing inevitability of the trauma cycle.

Interesting that Peter Levine - somatic experiencing founder and trauma specialist - would notice that too. He frames attention as curiosity. Same thing. What is curiosity if not - attention OUT?

You can try this out in your own life if you want to experiment.

A coaching colleague of mine recently told me she had been experimenting with this practice of attention OUT and, as a result, felt deeply grounded in her own body and power. And so you can try it too - the next time someone comes towards you with something that triggers you, instead of descending into your own, beautiful emotionality, try turning your attention on them with curiosity instead. State clearly what you see in their actions. And then imagine why. Get curious. 

At this stage I am not suggesting that you do this to help them out either. I am suggesting you do this solely for the purpose of seeing the effect it has upon your nervous system.

A person in fear and victimhood cannot be curious.

A person in open curiosity cannot be afraid.

Work your curiosity muscle, and notice what changes inside yourself as a result.

attention AS dominance

Whilst we cannot use attention out to bypass healing our trauma of course (beware those who can only put their attention out, like a default). For me personally gaining an understanding of how the rules of attention work, and how to better play them for my safety and pleasure, made the entire landscape of healing my trauma much, much easier to navigate.

Everybody needs a safe space, after all. Everybody need to know how to pendulate out of feelings of overwhelm and distress. Nobody heals pain without also being able to come out and into pleasure.  So as I say, personally speaking, cultivating this capacity to flip attention became a very important tool for me. It allowed me to feel more in control. I would argue that you can't really begin to feel the joy of surrender, until the capacity to control is honed and fully available to you.

And this is where the game gets beautiful indeed.

Because as much as you can use attention to hurt or abuse. So then can you use attention to love. And to heal.

And why wouldn't you?

The conscious kink community has know about these rules of how to play with attention for a long time. One of my teachers, a famous ex-dominatrix, recounts a story of the time where a high flying male executive came to visit her in her dungeon. They played for a while - attention on him - as you do when you are in the dominant state.

But there was this moment, said my teacher, there was this moment where her attention became so pristine, she was able to see directly into his soul.

"Oh" she exclaimed, with tenderness. "Your heart. It's in pain."

Attention out.

And yet her attention so penetrative and insightful, her heart so pure, that he crumpled before her. 

He wept. His release was absolute.

And this is a gorgeous way to use attention out on a human being. This is the type of attention we all crave. 

Compare this type of attention out to the Trumps and Morgans of this world.

It wipes the floor with them.

attention AS love not hate

"Love out.."

NICOLE DAEDONE

This is exactly what I mean by mastery of attention then - when we can cultivate attention beyond our own ego and into the realms of curiosity. This is really the sweet spot whereby cultivating the capacity for attention out both soothes your own nervous system, and simultaneously soothes the nervous system of the other. We can begin to co-regulate back into health, harmony and pleasure.

And what is not to love about that?

As we travel farther and farther along this path then, we can really start to leave our attachment to our victim persona behind for good. You can start to become truly masterful in your capacity. You begin to even see that those who would try to abuse you? Are in fact only desperate for your loving attention. The Trumps of this world? The Piers Morgans? It is truly a person bereft of love and affection who always gets to gaze and never gets to receive what he is gazing at. This is the crippled heart and soul of the patriarchy right there. Even when women capitulate to men like that, still the gazers remain starved and hungry.

(I mean okay. Still whatever, Piers.)

Good to know though. That our attention can potentially save us.