“The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will… An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.”
(William James)
The father of modern psychology understood the tremendous importance of attention, not just for education in the narrow sense but for learning in general. In fact, any process or activity we engage in, from having a conversation with a friend or colleague, to cooking, driving, working on a task to watching a TV programme or playing sports entails the placing and sustaining of attention.
If you cannot sustain your attention at will, you will run into problems sooner or later, sometimes with severe consequences.
What William James did not realise when he was writing around 140 years ago is that attention can be trained. Through the discovery of neuroplasticity, modern neuroscience has confirmed what ancient contemplatives had known for thousands of years: the brain can change and adapt in response to what we are doing with our minds: if we reinforce the habit of multi-tasking (debunked as an illusion by neuroscience) we are training our brain to be distracted by default, something endemic to modern culture.
If we learn how to cultivate our attention, the brain circuitry for processes associated with learning and memory will become stronger. We will learn how to bring back a wandering attention at will.
I would love to introduce you to an ancient method of training our attention and counteracting attentional imbalances that has stood the test of time.
Join my free Guided Meditations via Zoom on Saturdays at 10.00 BST!
Click here to register via Messenger https://m.me/claraenlightenedleaders?ref=Meditate
