Focusing the focus…

Today my driving license, credit card and and bank card and an Ikea Family card got lost or stolen, but I don’t have anxiety. A few years ago this would have caused me a really severe panic attack and possibly a melt down, I would worry about every little detail of it, digging into all possibilities, putting intensely all the focus of my energy on it, but I don’t. 

I learned a very simple way of coping that I wished I had found out about years earlier. 

The answer lies first and foremost in a tool that we are especially equipped with and that is the intense focus of our mind. 

What we focus our mind on we tend to be totally drawn into to the point that nothing else exists. Like that we spiral into topics of our interest but also totally to the deepest and darkest parts of all our worries.

Our focus can be a stare that is fixated on the medusa of our worries, or it can stare at something that is simply wonderful and fulfilling us with wonder. 

To escape from one spiral we only need to spiral into another one and leave the first one be. Like that we can spiral out of our worries into what isn’t part of it. 

This works for everyone I believe but especially well for autistics because our minds are hyper-compartmentalised. When we focus enough on one thing then the rest disappears. We only manage to have successfully one thing on our mind. Two things is already chaos so we should stick with doing one thing at the time and put our undivided attention there. 

What we put our minds into “comes to life” in us, so we better pick something that brings us joy. 

Our attention may have the tendency to drift back to worrying, but it’s then a bit like keeping our attention from running all over the place by keeping it on a short leash. We can catch ourselves slipping back into the vortex of worries and refocus on something that gives us happiness, so that we will soon be back on the breeze of our inspiration. 

When we learn to focus our undivided attention on what’s positive, real, beautiful and in harmony, then we naturally have less space for worry. 

And what with the practical things that need to be resolved? We will be able to see the problem with much more clarity when we don’t  jump into them or dig around in them. 

So to boil all this down to a simple formula. We shouldn’t fuel our worries with the focus of our attention, but bring the fuel of our attention to that which brings us joy.