What We Feed

This morning I caught myself returning to a thought that I’ve spent way too much time on in my head. Nothing new had happened. I was simply going over it again, adding another argument, imagining another outcome, keeping something alive that was not of any value to myself or anyone else.

I stopped and thought, Stop feeding the darkness.

I don’t mean we should ignore what is painful or pretend that difficult things are somehow good. Grief needs to be grieved. Anger sometimes tells the truth. Fear can warn us about something that needs our attention.

But there is a difference between acknowledging darkness and feeding it.

Attention is one of the ways we participate in our own lives. We can observe a thought, a hurt, or a fear without continually giving it more of ourselves. Or we can return to it so often that it takes on life of its own and colors everything around us.

We are both observers and participants in our lives.

I forget sometimes that I am not just responding to life as it happens. I am part of what happens next. I bring my own fears, hopes, habits, and ways of seeing into every moment. That does not mean everything is mine to control. It only means I am never entirely outside of what is unfolding.

We may not always get to choose what enters our lives, but perhaps we have more choice than we realize about what we continue to feed once it is here.

And sometimes that choice begins simply by noticing where our attention has gone.

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