Focus on yourself, not them !

Focus on yourself, not them !

I explored with a client recently about how being fully present with someone has more to do with being connected to yourself than the person in front of you. The engrained idea seems to be that being present for someone means putting all your attention on them.

The truth is that being connected and grounded in yourself, your own feelings, sensations, needs etc. opens presence for others.

I want to own that I have an absolute addiction to focusing all my attention and energy on the ‘other’ and abandoning myself.

The function is both trying to please/caretake but also figuring out what’s wrong with them, i.e., criticizing and judging them. This pattern believes that I will only be “OK” if I can make them “OK”.

Aspects of this pattern are actually skills beneficial to my work, but when I’m fundamentally off balance and pouring my centre of gravity into another person, it puts both of us at risk.

When all my attention goes to the person in front of me, it’s a kind of self abandonment. I begin to hinge my wellbeing on them and stop taking responsibility for my own mental/emotional/spiritual state of being.

This happens in micro—feeling disregulated, demanding something from the other to feel OK—and the macro—making life decisions aimed to please others or an idea of who I’m supposed to be.

If you relate to the experience of jumping out of your own body to fix, solve and please whomever is in front of you, you can practice just coming back to yourself somatically.

First off—Notice it’s happening !!! Secondly, feel back into your body. Feel your feet, open and close your hands, feel your breath move your belly, close your eyes and feel what feelings are moving inside you. I would guess for each of us, when we leave ourselves, there’s something in there we don’t want to feel or take responsibility for.

This process requires slowing down!!

If you’re having a hard time with a big decision, try referencing your body’s feelings about what you want or need instead of figuring it out in your head—referencing others opinions or standards of being.   

I’m learning to take responsibility for what is happening inside me and care for myself first. I’m learning to keep my attention on myself while also being with others.

When my attention comes back to myself, I’m actually able to be there there more affectively for others.

(This is why on airplanes they tell us to put on our own mask first.)

Focus on yourself, not them.

With love,

Dov