When someone appears to lack attention, the first response is often to tell them to focus. A child hears it. An adult hears it. They may already be making a great deal of effort, but the instruction is to make more.
I want to distinguish attention from focus. Focus narrows onto something. Attention can hold a wider internal and external experience, see what is happening and allow a choice of action. If we use the two words as though they mean exactly the same thing, we can miss other qualities of attention that the person already experiences.
There is a pattern I notice in some people. They are told to focus, try very hard, become intensely absorbed and then feel exhausted. Attention becomes scattered or dispersed. They look for something outside themselves to feel tethered again. This is a place to begin exploring their own experience: what does the effort feel like, how does it change, and what happens next?
Attention moves. It changes. Sometimes it feels constricted, scattered or dispersed. At other times it feels spacious, open, grounded and held. Becoming familiar with those differences gives us more to work with than deciding that our attention is good or bad.
Recognising what is already here
Curiosity, clear knowing, energy, joy, ease, steadiness, balance, kindness and an ability to recognise change: I am interested in these as natural qualities of the human mind, capacities that belong to all of us.
Being told that we have these qualities does not take us very far if we cannot access them. We might agree with the idea and still have no way to recognise it in our own experience. Then it remains theoretical.
Everyone has the capacity to generate the energy of mindfulness. — Thich Nhat Hanh
The course is an invitation to direct experience. We want to begin recognising: yes, I can experience curiosity; I can recognise a moment of steadiness, openness or joy. These qualities do exist within my own experience. Thich Nhat Hanh describes this recognition as something we can verify through experience, rather than simply accept as an idea.
Someone who has heard about their attention mainly as a problem may not have recognised other aspects of it. There might be open curiosity, brightness, interest, a capacity to listen or a moment of steadiness. These experiences can pass without being recognised as attention.
We can look closely at an actual moment, including a brief one. Which quality was available? What was happening around it? What made contact with it possible?
Then we explore the conditions. If changing the conditions makes a quality more accessible, we have something we can recognise for ourselves. We can adjust the conditions, return to the experience and keep discovering how access changes. We are learning what helps those qualities become available and develop.
This is the movement of the course: from an idea about the resources of the mind to recognising them directly, then exploring what helps us access them. The sessions and practices offer a scaffold for that exploration. The person's own experience gives the words their meaning, beyond any single label.
What does it mean to feel held?
Held is a word I find useful. It invites a feeling of containment, bodily coherence and stability: somewhere in oneself to relax, without being pushed or pulled into something.
One image is a balloon inside oneself that can expand to include the experience. It can include what is happening internally and what is happening around us. The interesting part is the feeling of being held within it. A bigger balloon is no better than a smaller one.
The balloon is one possible way into that experience. Another person may connect with a different image or a different bodily experience. We explore what makes contact possible for them.
When attention feels spacious, it can hold more of what is happening. There is room to see the experience and to recognise an action that is needed or helpful. This is something to investigate directly. The description offers a place to look.
A flexible membrane
Another image is a membrane: the sensitive interface of our experience. This sensitivity is already there. In ordinary moments when things feel unproblematic, we may be in contact with it without having a word for it. When we become distressed or contract around something, we can lose contact with that wider experience. The reasons for this are different for different people.
Think of the skin of an open hand, sensitive to the air and what it touches. In a tight fist, the discomfort of that contraction can occupy our experience. If we respond by trying harder to force the fist open, we can add effort and stress to an experience that already feels contracted. The image invites us to recognise the sensitivity that is already there and develop a relationship with it.
The membrane can expand or contract. It can be more permeable in one moment and less in another, responding to what is happening. There is no ideal size or fixed amount of openness to maintain. Contact with this responsiveness is what interests us. We can become familiar with how it moves, rather than trying to hold it in a particular shape.
A short explanation gives us a starting point. Then we return to our own experience. What does it feel like to be held within it? Can we begin to recognise this sensitivity for ourselves?
An anchor in the experience
The pen-and-paper image is another possibility. Imagine an anchor with a line in the ocean. The ocean is the internal mental experience, with its movement and push and pull. The pen can be a point of contact: a way to remain with that experience without getting lost in its movement.
Stay directly in contact with the experience. — Christopher Titmuss
The particular form is something we explore together. Pen and paper might be accessible. Movement might be more accessible. We want a range of possibilities so that the person can find something they connect to.
The practice is to experience the mind as it is, whether comfortable or uncomfortable, without needing to label everything or immediately do something about it. It can be playful. It can begin a little at a time. Five minutes, perhaps twice a day, is one possibility; the person and coach consider what is realistic.
There may have been very little invitation to look into one's own mind in this way. If the mind has become associated mainly with a deficit or something that needs fixing, looking into it can feel unpromising. We want to make room for discovering its resources and capacities.
As we become familiar with our own experience, we can develop confidence and authority in our relationship with it. We have something directly felt from which to respond to life, including what is needed for ourselves and the people around us.
Recognising the qualities of attention offers more words and questions for this exploration. The six-week ADHD coaching programme brings these ideas into supported practice.