Focus for Work

Hi, and welcome to Focus When We're Working From Home. So I think a useful way of framing focus actually is to think less about concentrating and more about noticing distraction. So we are focused and arguably at our most productive and creative when we are present in the moment. And that's not something we have to manufacture through our own effort. It's more, if we can notice when we are getting distracted, in that moment, we find focus. There's nothing more to do than that. So the game in the mind is less about how do we through force or effort try to create a state of concentration, it's more about keeping it relaxed and light. How do we notice when the mind's wandered off? And the more we can train that muscle of awareness, noticing the distraction, letting it go, then automatically, we find that quality of focus is innate to the mind itself and it's innate to each and every moment. So that's what we're gonna practice in this exercise today. You can do this lying down, sitting down, whatever's most comfortable, but we're gonna begin with the eyes open, a nice, soft focus. And whenever you're ready, just starting with a couple of big, deep breaths, breathing in through the nose, and out through the mouth. As you breathe in, just noticing how the body expands as it fills with air. As you breathe out, noticing how the muscles soften as the body exhales. And just closing the eyes with that next out breath. And as you pause for a moment, okay, I'm forgetting any ideas of trying to focus, just taking a moment to be still, to enjoy that feeling of having stopped. Just feeling that sensation, that physical sensation of the body pressing down against the seat or the floor. Noticing perhaps any feeling of agitation or stillness in the body today. And starting at the top of the head, just gently scanning down through the body. So in many ways, this is the beginning of training and focus. So the mind is very busy. You might like to do the body scan a little bit quicker and multiple times. If the mind's quite quiet, you can just slowly scan down, take 20, 30 seconds, just to scan down through the body. As always, just allow thoughts to come and go. Just staying with the sensations in the body. And beginning to notice the breath as well. So we don't wanna change the breath. It's almost like the breath is a barometer, it shows us how the body's feeling, how the mind's behaving. So just checking in with where we are and that natural rhythm, that rising and falling sensation of the breath. So we're gonna stay with the breath in this exercise, but we're only gonna count the out-breath. So we're still gonna be aware of each in-breath, but the out-breath has our full attention, from the very beginning to the very end....