Reclaiming Attention

Spring 2024

I feel…different these days. Like I’ve reclaimed a part of my self, my capacity, my creativity that had been lost sometime over the past decade, and now my brain is making up for those years with an overflow of thoughts and ideas and stories. It has been overwhelming, but exhilarating at the same time.

I sense that there’s two things that have been part of this shift for me. The first is the fact that I’ve been writing consistently for about a year now. I think there’s something so regulating and cathartic about making something tangible with my mind and my hands, whether it gets put in front of other people or not. Perhaps showing up for myself again and again, using words to make sense of my world, is a part of how I validate my own experience, rather than fearfully looking to others to do that for me.

It also gives me something to focus my attention on that isn’t just doom scrolling. Which leads me to the second thing that has helped this shift. I’ve been reading the book “How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy,” by Jenny Odell. It’s the book I told myself I shouldn’t buy, but went back and got it anyway while we visited Canmore, and I’m glad I did. The main title is a bit misleading in some ways and think the second half is a bit more telling.

In one chapter, the author describes social media companies as “exploiting our attention,” by profiting off of click-bait headlines and the rapid transmission of content, not because it’s quality, but because it’s polarizing. That hit me hard, and I see it every time I log on, because I have to scroll through 30 ads and other pieces before I see someone I know; it feels like a content sweatshop.

She goes on to say that our attention is vital to making personal and communal change by using examples from history, the world of art, and even hippy communes. She provides beautiful evidence to show how, contrary to our productivity culture, it can be a transformative experience to resist the urge to “do” and allow our attention to rest in the present moment.

I think I’ve often felt guilty about doing nothing. I’m guessing you’ve felt it too? In any given moment, I can think up a list of 30 items that I *should* do. Then, I feel overwhelmed and sit down and scroll or keep letting Netflix autoplay. And, honestly, I’ve done my best not to feel guilty about that over the past year, cauz damn, I can’t have all the “good” habits all the time! I do so much that’s beautiful and healing and heart-full, it’s okay if some of what I do is comparatively not.

Buuuuuuuut I’ve also noticed that these habits were becoming unbalanced with other life-giving habits. My self-talk goes downhill fast the longer I stay on, and I just am so…tired?…after. Like I have nothing left to give to what actually matters to me, or I’m so overwhelmed by what everyone else is doing that I have no sense of my own internal state. So I’ve slowly been replacing those habits with something different, something that felt uncomfortable at first but I’m now gravitating toward.

Nothing.

Except…it’s not really nothing.

I was having a rough time in my head a few days ago, feeling really discouraged and uncertain about the path I’m forging this coming year. I wondered if I could do it, if I’m capable, if anyone wants what I’m offering, and I just felt yucky. I went with Sage to the bed for her nap, and as she drifted off to sleep, I just…laid there. No screens, no books, just me and my attention.

I noticed the plants hanging in the corner by my round, yellow mirror; I saw the spackled roof and let my gaze drift over the curves and bumps and valleys; I watched Sage breathe and saw her little eyes scrunch at some unpleasant dream. I got up about 15 minutes later and felt…fine. Totally calm and unbothered by the thought-storm I was in just moments before. Without even really meaning to, I had released the shame spiral I was travelling down and found my way back to an even keel.

I don’t know if I’ve ever done that. Maybe when I was a child or a teenager, back when I was able to be alone with my thoughts without feeling the urge to numb or disconnect. I felt fairly gob smacked. I mean, that must be the point of practicing mindfulness and all that, but I had never done it unintentionally and unguided.

Not only that, I’ve actually found myself compelled to just…shut off screens—not through shaming and guilt-tripping myself, but because I’m now remembering what it feels like to call my attention my own. I had to get past that initial hump of “well, what do I do now,” and force my itchy fingers to rest, but it’s starting to feel like anything is possible in any given moment. When I use screens to check out, it becomes hard to explore the expansiveness of my own mind, or ponder the unknowable beings that are my children, or look, really look, out my own damn window.

It may look like doing nothing on the outside, but there’s so much that’s becoming visible to me every day.

Spring 2025

As the year has gone by, and so much has changed in my life, I wonder if I would be where I am now had I not reclaimed the presence of my own attention. It’s funny, because I had hoped to write here regularly as part of my work, but apparently getting paid to write is something I still feel guilty about, so I prioritize everything else. However, I have been writing in my journal daily. Since August, I’ve finished two and am halfway through a third. (Y’all, it’s mostly about boys, like I’m some 16 year old with a crush on my classmate in homeroom. Dating is hard right now, okay??)

The things I learned in the book have really stuck with me in such a good way. I am now so much more attuned to my capacity when it comes to social media. As soon as I feel pressure in my head, or start the comparison games, or just feel numb, I recognize that I’ve reached my personal limit and put it away. But it doesn’t feel itchy like it did a year ago.

It feels like reflection, growth, and learning. It feels like watching a swirl of my own ideas instead of looking around to see what everyone else is doing and telling myself I should be doing that. It feels like permission to let go of the hustle for love, validation, and worthiness. It feels like imagining the most beautiful life for myself and my kids and realizing how much of that already exists here and now.

I’ve received so much support and positivity for the work I’ve been doing since last May (happy 1-year-anniversary to me!) There has been growth in places people did not expect, more growth than even I anticipated. And it’s weird, because I’ve actively spent this year removing myself from the grind culture we find ourselves in. I rest when I need to rest. I leave work early when my brain has reached its limit. I go for walks and talk to friends and sit within nature. And I’ve told myself it’s valuable that I am paid for the time to do these things.

I can’t pretend this is comfortable. Somedays, I’m terrified someone will find out and…I don’t know…fire me? But there’s a sense in my inner knowing that it is deeply necessary. I’ve looked around me at other people who work in the church, and I’m struck by how tired they all are and, I feel awful when I say this, how lifeless they are. These are wonderful people who have given too much for too long, and I just don’t want that to be me. How can I create a vibrant community of belonging for young people and young families if I’m emotionally drained, energetically starved, physically run down?

Perhaps what I’ve also discovered this year is that reclaiming my attention makes me feel so alive, and it reminds me how much we need people who are fully alive in their communities, work, and places of faith; how much more important presence is than programming; how much more we long for connection than curriculum. I want to be a part of a church that values people just as they are, that says “Your presence here is enough.”

After I wrote that, I reread a very fitting Howard Thurman quote:

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

But…you can’t always see this work, can you? Maybe the call to the hustle is so that we can look around at everyone and say, “See? This is everything that I’ve done! I can show you my worth by pointing to everything I’ve accomplished!” It’s tempting, so tempting some days. How do we hold ourselves in the knowing that doing what makes us come alive matters deeply, even when we can’t provide specific measurements or trophies or accolades?

For me, it comes back to story telling. Even as I write this, I’m reminding myself of what is actually important to me and why I’ve chosen to do what I do. It reminds me to look back and appreciate the beauty of what has been while also looking forward to the hopeful uncertainty of what will be. Stories also help me bring other people along on this journey in a way that lifts their spirits, sparking their own imaginations of what could be true if we choose to keep showing up in all our messy authenticity.

Friends, I am SO thankful for you, your presence here, and the conversations I’ve had along the way. YOU are what brings me life and keeps me believing that there’s something so amazing in the reciprocity that happens when we live life alongside each other, share vulnerably, and dare to keep throwing spaghetti at the wall.

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