Why Being Too Focused On Our To-Do-List Might Not Always Be Such A Good Thing

The Focused Brain And Our Never Ending To-Do-Lists

Setting up a new business as a solopreneur (just me doing it all) in today’s world requires skills on many fronts. Apart from those skills that relate to my services I need to get my head and heart around marketing my services, setting up record keeping systems, engaging with social media (which is a bit of an ethical conundrum for me) and of course write and design marketing materials, newsletters and blogs. The list goes on.

Much of my work is informed by neuroscience and some of the tools I use directly work on creating new neurological pathways that are aligned with our goals and hence make it easier for us to take goal-oriented actions. I love how neuroscience highlights what yogis have known and taught for eons, i.e. how to manage and work with our minds in a constructive way that brings fulfilment and inner peace.

To-Do-Lists vs Intuitive Guidance

Even though I am progressing nicely with my goals, something started to not sit quite right with the way I had been working. As passionate as I am about neuroscience and applied positive psychology, as made popular by Martin Seligman, I felt that something was missing.

I wondered how the effort and focus I put into achieving my goals and dreams compared to the spontaneous inner knowing and guidance that I had come to experience many times in the past.

I decided to reconnect more deeply with this inner guidance and wisdom (the yogis call this aspect of mind Vijnanamaya kosha). It is what I have lived by most of my life; that sense that I am guided by a deep knowing; that there is a bigger picture that my rational mind can’t grasp; that I am part of a greater whole; that there is a purpose to the madness and that the answers are within or around me if I care to listen. I knew I had lost this awareness somewhat during my academic studies a few years back and again lately by working in such a focused and goal-oriented manner.

Vishuddhi Yoga & Meditation Centre, 2010

I thought of the ease with which my yoga studio in Christchurch manifested itself in early 2000. I still remember sitting on the floor in my half-finished studio contemplating the many synchronicities that had led me here.

I thought of all the people and resources that had shown up exactly at the right time to make this project happen – it was truly mind-blowing. I felt like one small actor in a vast production which I certainly wasn’t the director of.

Life felt dynamic and full of possibilities.

Finding My Way Home – The Neuroscience Of Spirituality

My intense focus on working effectively had somewhat overshadowed this more expanded part of my awareness. It was time to bring it back into the light.

So, still stuck in my left brain, I googled “neuroscience & spirituality”. I was looking for something that would help me see these two aspects of my experience through a new lens. I was looking for some kind of framework to help me integrate the two and reap the benefits of both equally.

Google, in response to my search, brought up a podcast by Rich Poll in conversation with the clinical psychologist Lisa Miller. During their conversation Professor Miller shared stories and research findings from her latest book The Awakened Brain which explores the neuroscience of spirituality.

(Surprise, surprise our local library had the book in stock.)

Focused & Receptive

Professor Miller’s research was able to back up what many of us instinctively know, that feeling connected to something larger - the source, god, universal intelligence, oneness, the quantum field, whatever you want to call it - supports us in dealing with adversity. And it makes us more receptive to new possibilities.

With MRI technology we can observe this deep connection, also described as spirituality, as changes in the brain structure and brain function.

What Lisa Miller’s book provided me with, apart from new learnings, insights and inspiration, is a language to talk about the different modes of awareness that I described above - the focused, goal-oriented approach that helps us get things done and the more expanded view that allows us to be receptive to emerging insights and directions.

The important thing is to recognise that we all have access to both modes of awareness and that it is up to us which one we engage at any given time. We need both to function well in this world and we definitely need both when making important decisions.

Lisa Miller termed these two modes Achieving Awareness and Awakened Awareness.

Achieving Awareness

When thinking and acting from achieving awareness we feel that it is up to us to organise and control our lives, which at times can feel like a heavy burden to carry.  We unconsciously live the question: “How can I get and keep what I want or need?”

Achieving awareness is useful and highly necessary as it focuses our attention on our goals and commitments and allows us to get things done.

However, when we overuse or exclusively act from this level of awareness we start to override and change the structure of the brain. This makes us more receptive to depression, feelings of isolation, anxiety, stress and cravings/addictive behaviour.

We start to lose sight of the bigger picture, never feeling quite satisfied. Emptiness seeps in, trapping us in a cycle of motivation and reward, which in turn makes us only try harder and harder to take control and fill the emptiness.

Awakened Awareness

Awakened awareness makes us use a different part of the brain that literally lets us see more.

“Instead of seeing ourselves as independent makers of our path, we perceive ourselves as seekers of our path. …. and ask ourselves: “What is life showing me now?”  - Lisa Miller

Awakened awareness lets us tap into a different kind of intelligence that does not rely on our analytical mind. We are open to perceive new and diverse opportunities and feel more in tune with our life’s purpose and meaning. We still have desires and dreams but instead of being too narrowly focused on our goals we drop the blinders that were previously limiting our perception.

We treat life more like a dynamic force to interact with rather than something we need to be in control of. We are open to what life has to show us and learn to look for synchronicities and new doors which are ready to be opened.

What Lisa Miller explains through her research makes complete sense to me and reminds me of a way of being in the world that is familiar to me but had eluded me in recent years. Reading The Awakened Brain has given me a new framework to recognise which awareness I am engaging at any given time and acts as a timely reminder of how I want to be in this world – focused and receptive.

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