Let’s take a moment to audit your attention—your greatest asset in personal growth and learning.
Is your attention caught in the endless scroll? Be honest with yourself. How many minutes or hours a day?
Or is it ruminating on the past? Projecting into the future? Fixating on what you cannot control?
And maybe the more important question:
What is the quality of your attention?
Does it prefer depth or surface?
Does it linger and contemplate?
Or is it easily pulled, distracted, and fleeting?
Do you feel mentally exhausted?
Because attention is not passive.
It is active, directional, and powerful.
It shapes your nervous system.
It shapes your emotional state.
And over time, it shapes your identity and reality.
What I See in My Patients
Most people don’t come in saying:
“I have an attention problem.”
They come in saying:
“I’m anxious” or “I’m stressed.”
Those statements don’t offer much clarity, so we dig deeper and uncover what they really mean:
“I’m overwhelmed” and “I’m stuck.”
And when we look closer, a pattern emerges.
Their attention is constantly pulled toward what’s wrong.
Challenging relationships.
Internal dissatisfaction.
A steady loop of resentment, anxiety, powerlessness.
They are stewing in a particular emotional state.
And over time, that state becomes:
their identity,
their personality,
their reality.
A Patient Story
I’m writing this between treatments.
My patient is resting on the table.
He represents an extreme case:
easily triggered into anger, blaming, frustration, and powerlessness.
I asked him a simple question:
“Are you able to notice beauty in anything right now?”
He told me he tries.
But he can’t stay there for long.
He goes to the beach almost daily and instead of noticing the ocean, the light, the sound of the waves, wagging tails, laughter—
he notices everything that’s wrong.
Trash. Noise. Disrespectful people.
Now, I live in the same town.
It’s really not that bad. In fact, it’s quite beautiful.
But that’s the reality he’s created for himself.
He’s broadcasting:
“Give me more reasons to be angry.”
And the world responds accordingly.
Changing the Channel
You can think of yourself like an antenna.
You are constantly broadcasting a signal.
Your attention and emotional state tune that signal.
If your attention is anchored in frustration, resentment, or anxiety…
you will find more of it.
But if you change the channel—
and yes, it is a choice, even when it doesn’t feel like one—
your experience begins to shift.
Not because the world suddenly changes.
But because you do.
What Attention Feels Like in the Body
Distraction isn’t neutral.
It has a physiological experience.
It feels like:
restlessness
fragmentation
chasing the next hit
never quite landing
Presence feels different.
Presence is:
grounded
focused
regulated
safe
When you’re present, your nervous system settles.
And your body registers:
“I am safe.”
From this place, you don’t just react.
You respond.
There is a pause—a moment of awareness, and then a choice.
My Own Experiment
At some point, I had to take my own advice.
I noticed a low-grade anxiety constantly running in the background, but without any obvious life stressors. Work, family, community, home, health—all stable. Sources of joy, not tension.
But when I took an inventory of how I’m actually spending my time, I was checking all the boxes for a healthy and happy lifestyle- exercise, fulfilling work, connection, eating well, occasional journaling, meditation practices, etc.
But there was one thing quietly eroding my experience.
Social media and all the garbage that comes with it.
So I stepped away.
From social media and from podcasts—especially the political ones.
Not because they are inherently bad.
But because I needed to reclaim my attention. I didn’t want my attention—my entire inner world—to be curated by an algorithm.
And I shit you not… something shifted.
My attention span grew. I felt calmer. Clearer. I read several books back to back.
My sleep, (notoriously and historically terrible,) improved tremendously–and I have the Oura ring data to back that up!
And for the first time in a long time:
The anxiety was gone.
Like… gone.
Quieting the noise was more powerful than any herb, supplement, medication, or lifestyle adjustment.
Learning to Be With the Quiet
Through my training in Sa’am acupuncture, I was taught to ask:
“Are you uncomfortable with stillness?”
That question stayed with me.
And eventually—even though I had asked it a hundred times—I had to answer it honestly myself.
Yes, I was.
So I practiced.
I stopped filling every moment.
I started sitting in silence.
And over time, something changed.
What once felt uncomfortable…
became something I preferred.
Even my meditation practice shifted without much effort or control.
In my first year of practicing meditation, I relied heavily on guided meditation tracks–for which I am so grateful because they helped me build a habit and get results quickly. But once my attention expanded, I no longer needed another voice gently guiding it.
Silence wasn’t empty.
It was full.
I’ll Leave You With This
Pay attention to your attention.
Because every moment…
is an opportunity to change the channel.
And in doing so,
change your emotional state, your nervous system, and ultimately, your life.
Your experience of reality—
the reality of your own making.
Oh, and my patient on the table…
As I was getting him up, he said to me,
“I’m going to walk my dog on the beach and pay attention to all the beauty around me.”
He chose differently.
Powerful.
Beautiful.
And I’m so happy for him.
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