Dearest Joyn Community,
November, the season of bright mornings and short days is upon us! Maybe it's just me, but I welcome this season of pause with open arms. The time of year when plans begin to dwindle and we are granted the opportunity to turn inwards and find our own inner light.
You may have noticed there was no newsletter last month, I apologize for the lack of email communication. I missed sharing thoughts with you all! I spent the first few weeks of October in Italy celebrating my brother’s wedding, and the latter half of the month moving into my new apartment in Dorchester. I'm finally finding my way back into a routine and with all these changes and the note of how quickly a winter day passes, I’ve been reflecting on the power of attention.
Your attention is your biggest currency. Where you spend it matters.
Have you ever paid attention to your own attention?
When you're on a walk, do you always have your headphones in? When you're eating, are you actually tasting your food, or are you scrolling through your phone between bites? When you're watching TV, are you solely watching TV, or is your phone in your hand? When you're in a waiting room or on the train, do you immediately reach for something to fill the silence?
I've realized lately that I'm a bit of an addict when it comes to distraction. When there are pockets of silence, I immediately want to fill them with noise. A podcast, a playlist, a text, an email, a scroll. Anything to keep my mind occupied. We've become so accustomed to constant stimulation that simply being can feel a little uncomfortable.
But I've been thinking about how much of our lives we miss when our attention is always somewhere else.
I recently heard Dr. Jonathan Haidt say something along the lines of, "Your attention is the most valuable thing you have." Our attention is finite. Every day, we make thousands of little decisions about where it goes. And while we can't always control what's happening around us, we can become more intentional about what we choose to notice.
I've recently started a class called The Poetry of Attention, and it's made me think about attention in a completely different way. Not just as something we need to protect from our phones, but as something we can actively strengthen.
Think of yourself as the director of your own experience. You get to decide what the camera focuses on. Imagine you're taking a walk in the woods. First, zoom out. Notice the whole scene. The landscape, the trees, the water, the sky. The way the light moves through everything. Then zoom in. Choose one tree. Notice its shape, the texture of its bark, the way its branches reach out. Zoom in again. Maybe there's a tiny caterpillar making its way across a leaf. Then zoom back out. Notice the giant boulder beside you. The sound of the wind. The temperature of the air. The feeling of your feet meeting the ground. Nothing about the scene changed. Your attention did. And that's the practice.
A Few Ways to Practice Paying Attention
You don't need to go on a retreat, meditate for an hour, or completely give up your phone to start. You can practice right in the middle of your everyday life.
1. Take a walk without your headphones: listen to the sounds, tap into your senses. Smile at a stranger and say hello!
2. Actually eat your food: Try having one meal without a screen, a book, or anything else competing for your attention. Taste each bite and notice the textures, the flavors, the temperature.
3. Play the alphabet game outside: This is one of my favorite ways to make paying attention a little more playful. Go outside and work your way through the alphabet, trying to find something in nature for every letter.
4. Let yourself be bored: The next time you're waiting in line, sitting on the train, or have five minutes between meetings, resist the urge to reach for your phone. Sit with the silence, look around, notice how you feel and what is going on in your body and in your mind.
I think we spend so much time trying to figure out how to do more, see more, accomplish more, and experience more that we forget one of the simplest ways to get more out of life: pay closer attention to the life we're already living.
The ordinary moments aren't necessarily ordinary when we actually stop to notice them.
So this month, I challenge you to be a little more intentional about where your attention goes. Put your phone down. Take the headphones out. Taste your food. Look at the trees. Let yourself be bored.
Your attention is one of the few things in life that is truly yours to direct. Spend it wisely.
If you're craving yoga & connection this November, we’ve got you covered:
Every Monday (6:00 PM) run club on Newbury with Tobey
Sat, 11/14 (8:00-9:00 AM) Ritual Fest at Sowa Power Station with Tobey - Tickets
Sun, 11/15 (3:00-4:00) Canna Yoga Class at Garden Remedies Newton with Leah - Tickets
Free Classes with Leah with options to donate to pancreatic cancer: Link for donations
