Day 3: Where you place your attention matters.

That the old refrain “What you dwell upon grows” could also be said as “What you pay attention to amplifies.”

Before we talk about Sacred Attention and how to use it, let’s define the word attention. When I want to really understand the deeper meaning behind our everyday words, I scoot over to the Online Etymology Dictionary, a treasure trove of clues.

Attend (V) c. 1300, “to direct one’s mind or energies,” from Old French atendre (12c., Modern French attendre) “to expect, wait for, pay attention,” and directly from Latin attendere “give heed to,” literally “to stretch toward,” from ad- “to” (see ad-) + tendere “stretch” (see tenet). The notion is of “stretching” one’s mind toward something.

Wow. Just think about it for a minute. When you pay attention, you are literally stretching your mind toward the thing (or person) you are focused on. You can picture your mind as a tentacle or a probe reaching out to connect with that which you attend to, creating a two-way current.

In this experiment we are choosing to stretch our mind toward the numinous instead of the mundane. Rather than attend solely to the external daily vortex of emails, Facebook, text messages, voicemails, television, our laptops and smart phones OR to the habitual noise of our inner worries, fears, doubts, regrets and more, we are choosing to PAY ATTENTION TO our own Soul.

This is what I call Sacred Attention. We are not just focused on our inner mental processes or the outer business of daily life. Instead, we are choosing to attend to a third option—what I am loosely calling Magic, but which can be narrowed down to the a range of manifestations: synchronicity, telepathy, precognition, deja-vu, spontaneous healing, thoughts becoming near-instant outcomes and highly non-ordinary events (also called miracles).

When you stretch your mind toward the possibility of Magic, you are inviting your Soul, or Quantum Self, closer. It’s that simple. Inevitably, the QuantumSelf will be so close the intimacy will become a merger, the separation will disappear and your ordinary life will indeed by extraordinary because the perceiver will have dramatically and irrevocably shifted. (For more on that, you can read my post Enlightenment Magic Trick Number One: As You See It, So It Is.)

Before we get to the homework, how did yesterday’s dream petition go? If you got no dream answers, don’t worry. You have two more days to play with it. I asked last night before sleep for guidance on how to best create this 40-day Challenge. On waking my first thought was: Get a Leadpage set up so that late starters and current participants can simply get the challenge straight to their email box daily. Doh!

So here is a LINK TO LEADPAGE where you can subscribe to this Forty Day Challenge directly. If you are already subscribed to Awakened Dreamer, you won’t need this, but for the readers coming directly off my Awakened Dreamer Facebook Page it would make things easier.

HOMEWORK: Today simply stretch your mind toward the idea that you are a magical being. That magic is not exceptional but ordinary for those like you who recall the truth of their being, which is non-local, infinite and exceedingly playful.

Then, pay attention as well to the gaps in your daily attention, those spaces that open up today where magic can appear. The moments between emails or phone calls or your thoughts. Most often magic shows up when we are inattentive to the habitual and there for fully attending to the present moment. It’s not top secret to say that your soul can only speak to you in the presence of your PRESENCE, which can’t happen when you are thinking about the past or jumping into the future—even if that future is only the next thing on your to do list.

And report back tomorrow: How does the simple act of stretching your mind toward the magic that you are show up in the happenings of your day? What mini-miracles graced your existence today?

Can’t wait to hear from you,

PS: Please share with us on our private FB group HERE.

PPS: And if you prefer to get these daily assignments directly to your email box, just click here.