By Susan Furness, Edgewalkers Senior Associate
As I focus on Focusing, the serious side of me is provoked. I mean if I am going to focus, I must give my full attention, right? I need to carve time to focus on the job-in-hand. I need be fully attentive to be in the game. I need to be clear on the direction to shoot the goal.
Yet, I could confuse the rules of the game. I could miss the net. Indeed, Old Father Time might have other plans, and send in the proverbial curved ball.
These in-the-moment pontifications masquerading as observations convert a word that has an air of delicacy into the energetic of a chore. A chore that comes with its own rules, regulations and standard operating procedures, smacking of a straitjacket when I favour a wardrobe with flow.
Doh!
This is why I have spent years in the lap of procrastination as I labour along giving Susan-styled lip-service to my kinship with focus; I am fearful I might roll the wrong dice, kick the wrong ball, run in the wrong direction, get side-lined and benched on the wrong side of the court in the lap of the competition.
No way!
I am Numero Uno. My Enneagram team shirt says Number 1 – the Perfectionist. My fact of the fiction of Focusing is the perfectionist in me brings out the procrastinator in me and I lose my eye on focus to the mouth of ‘I really am needed over there right, now’.
Blink! Hello Ego.
This is it. To be the art of focus requires the practise of letting go – to surrender into the moment of Now is to Focus. Captain Ego is a misfit in this match.
In this moment, I am living proof of the fact, not the fiction, of Focusing. I am taking each moment to listen to my heart before I ask my head to let my fingers to do the walking on the keyboard and type this blog.
In the flow of focus, I gather and join ‘moments of focus’, newly defined by me now as ‘the journey of Manifestation’ freshly described as ‘the act of weaving moments of focus to deliver the present in the present.’
In her book Edgewalkers; People and Organizations that Take Risks, Build Bridges and Break New Ground, Dr Judi Neal identifies Focusing as one of the five Edgewalker Skills. The good news is she states, “the Edgewalker skills can be developed step-by-step through training, attention and practice.”
I’m all in. To be in service to what is next now, I must be in infinite practise – of letting go.
Dr Neal defines the skill of focusing as “the ability to be very centered and to give all your attention to an action or project that has significance and importance.” She goes on to share that “manifesting is the ability to take concrete, practical steps and bring a thought, idea or vision into being.”
When I live with focus, I can focus and manifest with grace, I can I shoot into the back of the right net and I am able to cross a finite finishing line. This blog stands as example. A non-fiction blog that is a manifested fact of focus.
My favorite line and one we can use for many of our conceptual pontifications. Thanks Susan. “masquerading as observations convert a word that has an air of delicacy into the energetic of a chore.”
And, better late than never, is also another Playful line, Karen! Thank you for having patience with me…..as it has taken me an age to reply.
I love that you love the ‘sentence’ above. I do too! Indeed, I have noticed that the energy of a word has the ability to decrease or increase the value of vocabulary…..and thus the equity in conversation. Hmmmm I am going to play some more with this,
Dear Susan,
It’s a big challenge to be fully present in each moment, and one that takes you out of the usual rat-race that is western society. It is strange that we justify our actions with distractions that move us ever further away from being in the present moment and at peace. I wonder what it is that creates this urgency to ignore what may be important for something else – the ego or what? When we know who and what we are then it gets easier as the distractions diminish. Is it the sense that we don’t have enough time, or not the right skill or what that creates the pontifications? I know when I am wrong when I put so much effort into justifying something that may attract me but isn’t important. What is fascinating is that now I have semi-retired it is so much easier. When someone calls me I just enjoy the openness and ease that I experience as I don’t try to ‘DO’ anything and just listen. During the call I am aware that I have a sense of something and share it with them without ‘thinking’. I am amazed at how often this is just what they needed, as if it were the final brick in the building. It arrived in the open space I created for it and yet was not ‘from me’. In such moments I sense I am ‘fully present’ for the other and yet could not say I intended it, it was now so normal. Maybe its just because I don’t have to be something for the other, just a friend who they felt they could trust and be open with. As it has been said, the truth lies between two people, it doesn’t exist in either one but emerges as they engage in dialogue.