Step One For An Extraordinary Life: Pay Attention

While driving down the busy artery through town, I noticed patriotic lights flashing behind me.  What?  Me?  What did I do?  I honestly had no idea.  I wasn’t speeding.  I didn’t run a red.  Maybe I had a light out?  My face flushed hot as I desperately looked for a place to pull over, wanting to halt the embarrassing parade-of-two on the busiest road, at the busiest time, through town.

The amiable police officer approached my van as I nervously located my registration and insurance (thankfully I hadn’t left my license in my other purse, as I have been known to do…).  He told me he saw me drift into the adjacent lane while making a left-hand turn and wanted to be sure I hadn’t been drinking.  I was confused, because at the intersection in question the dividing lines are, well, nonexistent.  And confused because I always take care at that particular spot.  I try to pay attention.  But the officer was doing it better.

I thanked him for his keen observation in keeping our roads safe and was on my way, although a little paranoid in my driving after that.  My senses were heightened as I was uber-attentive to everything surrounding my motoring.  Especially all the erratic moves other drivers were making (Where are you now, officer?  Grrr….)

Paying attention can be life-saving.  It can save you money (avoiding fender-benders, plugging that parking meter generously, price-comparing…).  Those are the obvious necessities of paying attention.  But paying attention can make life more interesting and fulfilling, a tougher mission to accomplish in our busy lives.  But attentiveness is necessary to living the extraordinary life.

In “Happy New Year 2018: a Resolution Revolution” I passed along the list “10 Ways to Live An Extraordinary Life” and number one on that list is “pay attention.”  Each month this year I plan to focus on one of these steps, building on the previous, to make strides toward living the amazing life.  And each month I’ll write about my journey and hopefully inspire you to do the same.  It’s not only good for the soul, it’s good for our kids to see us live well. (Ok, clearly I need more work in the paying attention department as January has been in the books for more than a week…it’s a work in progress.)

A therapist once shared with me a great exercise for settling the mind and becoming more aware:  simply sit quietly and mindfully observe through the five senses.  Note everything you see, hear, taste, smell, and feel in a tactic way.  I like to add emotional feeling as well.  Note it all and peace and heightened awareness will prevail.  It’s a pretty cool meditative exercise.  I use this method when the mental hamster wheel churns at 2:00 am.  When I run or practice yoga I modify this process as I check in with my body:  is anything stiff and sore or outright painful?  Is my breathing labored or easily flowing in and out?  If anything is out-of-place I scale back my efforts.

Paying attention can reap the most out of the little things.  Like spotting the snow-covered buck in a snowy field (also important if he decides to sprint across the road).  Like watching last week’s blue supermoon rise over the amber ranch land and then sneak behind a ridge, its halo of silver just visible over the pine trees.  Even better is experiencing these awe-inspiring moments with your kids, sharing with them the power of paying attention.  And even better than that is letting your kids know you are paying attention to them.  Kids misbehave when they are hurting.  But it’s so darn easy to yell and reprimand when they lash out and lose it.  Once, after my son had a testosterone-driven outburst, I sent him to his room to cool off (yelling my orders at him…).  Then I realized something.  He’s hurting.  He’s sad.  He’s frustrated about something unknown to me and I just kicked him when he’s down.  So I went to him and gave my bear what he needed most:  a big bear hug.  You know what?  He opened up and we had a healing conversation.

Yes, amazing things can happen when we pay attention.

Listen to your gut.  We’ve all heard this before, used it to make decisions, and given it as advice.  When we heed this advice we’ve taken that trip, started that business, tried the kale and may even have liked it.  Listening to the metaphorical gut is really a form of paying attention.  And oh, to quote Dr. Seuss, the places you’ll go when you do.

Or at least hope to go.  As I was pulling into that parking lot for my embarrassing traffic stop, I spotted a rare-stateside Hawaii license plate.  How cool is that?  I was grateful for the little gift at that time.  And the kids and I could start off our next round of the license plate game (darn it, West Virginia, where are you???) with the hardest plate to find.

Paying attention can sure be fun.