More about our innate need for attention

The context for these videos

Each post in this short series is from Alec’s weekly livestream to the Facebook group Finding the Balance with Anxiety Freedom Cards. Each week I focus upon one of our innate resources or needs as depicted in the Anxiety Freedom Cards. And the reason I’m doing this is to show you how you too can live a life free from anxiety and stress.

Please let me know what you think by scrolling to the bottom and commenting below!

Below is a direct transcript from the video shown above.

Well, hello again, everybody it’s Alec here, back for another Tuesday Two o’clock Topic on this Tuesday, the 2nd of February, 2021. Isn’t it great that January is over? Excuse me. It’s one of those months that can seem to drag on forever, I find. Oh, I’ve got a frog in my throat. Excuse me. Not a good way to start.

Anyway, nice to be with you again this week. And if you’re watching this live as ever, please do put a comment in on this post so that I know that you’re here, I’m broadcasting this using Streamyard. So I don’t see the Facebook comments directly, but I do get them eventually through Streamyard. And if you’ve got any questions or just any observations at all, on what I’m saying, please share your opinions. This is all a very friendly space to, to explore these ideas. And I’m very grateful for people who comment and I have a “Good afternoon” already with a guitar. And it’s interesting. It’s a square box, but I’m thinking it might be a skateboard on the Facebook group. I’m sure that thats CG. Hello, CG, welcome. I wonder how you are today. Hope you’re surviving. And I think you have deep snow up in the North from the, what I saw of the weather forecast. We don’t have any here. In fact, it’s a sunny day in Wiltshire, which makes a change. I went from my regular walk in the woods a couple of days ago. Oh my goodness. It was so wet. It’s the wettest I’ve ever seen it. I was wading through mud at times and stepping on floating logs to get across streams and things. It was exhausting. Anyway, I still, I still love it completely. And yeah. Anyway, I hope you’re doing well.

Today the topic… it’s the second week of me talking about the huge topic of attention and the format for these weekly broadcasts is that in the first, every two weeks I choose the same topic. So last week was attention. This week is attention. In the first week I invite people to watch a video on attention. And in the second week I share a worksheet which you can see, in the, in this post in the Facebook group, Finding the balance, and you’ll see a worksheet. Now this is a worksheet that people in the in8 membership have access to all the time, but I’ve decided, Bindi and I’ve just talked about it. And we decided to, to share these in the random order that they come up and for the benefit of anyone who wants to look at them and use them. We have used these worksheets in group work. There’s one for every one of the cards, the Anxiety Freedom Cards, and they are useful pieces of paper.

They’re all single A4 sheets and they help people just focus on the, on the topic under discussion. So obviously this week’s worksheet is all about attention and it looks like this. And so you will see that there is a description at the top. And then there’s a picture of the, the card. Incidentally, under the picture, it says, click the image to view the video. That isn’t going to work, unless you happen to be a customer of the illuminate professional programme. And I’m going to change that link so that people in the membership can access this as well shortly. But at the moment, please ignore the little bit of text under the image that says, click the image to view the video that will not work for anyone unless they’ve bought the illuminate professional package.

So there’s a description about what the whole topic’s about. And then there is the little section where you can describe how you currently get your need for giving and receiving attention met. Something which is particularly difficult during lockdown. And I’m going to come back to that in a moment, actually, because I’m doing things slightly out of order today. And that’s because I was rushing around trying to get everything ready for this talk.

I normally give myself plenty of time. I thought I’d given myself plenty of time today, but then when I switched the light on the bulb failed. The light I use to illuminate myself when I’m on video. And so I had to run around looking for a bulb and it all got a bit hectic. And last minute, ish. So bear with me. I’m slightly out of order.

Please download the worksheet and have a look at it. I’ll be talking through it in a moment. I was just going to summarise last week before I dived into the worksheet, that’s where I was going wrong. And CG described perfectly last week the topic as being about “paying attention to where we place our attention”. I thought that was a very succinct way of putting it.

But when I reflected on what I’d really spoken about, I realised I’d been a little bit esoteric. I think attention is a fascinating topic and it’s a very rich form of nutrition. And there’s a lot that can be said about it. And if you didn’t watch last week’s video broadcast than it is in the group. So if you scroll back to last week and I’m sure you’ll be able to find the link to the video.

But I realised having been a little talking about where we place our attention, I’d kind of missed the point a little bit about our innate need for attention, which is really fundamentally about exchanging attention with other human beings. It’s about giving attention, receiving attention, knowing that you’ve been heard and letting the person that you are exchanging attention with know that they’ve been heard.

So having a rapport, if you like with someone. And as I said earlier, that’s something that’s particularly difficult to do in the current lockdown situation. And obviously there are work rounds. There are things that we, compromises that we can make. So, you know, a lot of people are spending more time on screens as I’m doing now, communicating with other people, through computers and through tablets and phones. It’s not the same as being in the room with somebody. It still counts. It still helps. It still helps us to know who we are through that attention exchange, but there isn’t really any substitute for being present with somebody in the same room. And of course, that’s very difficult to do at the moment. So I wanted to go back to the basics today and just talk about this basic need to give and receive attention with other people, which is such a, I say, such a powerful form of nutrition and such a necessary form of nutrition, if we want to stay healthy and feel good about life, which is what this is all about, you know, reducing stress and anxiety and learning how to thrive no matter what challenges we face. So it’s difficult to get this need met at the moment.

And this is where I’ll, I’ll bring the worksheet up again. And if you’re interested to, I would just invite you to describe in a sentence how you currently get your need for giving and attention giving and receiving attention met. How, how are you doing that at the moment? And I would guess that you’re doing it less than you were a year ago. I certainly am. But as I said, there are various things that we can do to try and mitigate this, but it is a challenge. How well is your innate? Oh, God I’ve got my words in a tangle today! How well is your innate need for attention met? Give yourself a score where nought would be not very well at all. And 10 would be really well. I get enough attention. Actually, what I need maybe is more privacy. I don’t know where you’re at on that scale, but just reflect for a moment on that need and assess whether it’s one that’s well met in your life at the moment, or whether it’s one that’s maybe compromised by the current situation. If you get a score under five, that means to me that you may be undergoing some anxiety or stress or sense of loneliness, or it might manifest in lots of different ways, but it’s not a healthy place to be.

And so that naturally brings us on to the next step in this worksheet, which is to ask you, well, what’s a situation in which you would like to give or get more attention within practical limits? You know, is there a friend who you could talk to over the garden wall or a neighbour? Is there somebody that you could ring up out of the blue, who you’ve not been in touch with for a while? Is there a community who meet on zoom for, in any format, whether it’s family or neighbours or interest groups or whatever, and what could you do over next few days to improve this, to get your score up from wherever it’s at, at the moment, to raise that score by just one point. And the reason that I’m focusing on this approach is that one of the underlying organising ideas behind everything we talk about with the cards is that if we can get our needs met in balance, then that is the definition of a good life. We are thriving. We have the problems to solve. We have energy, we feel balanced and we have all of the different forms of nutrition that we need. And attention is one of the key ones. And one of the reasons why I would suggest that it’s key is because it helps us know who we are. It gives us our sense of self to some degree.

So I don’t know whether you live on your own or whether you’re working at the moment and maybe seeing clients, whether it’s face-to-face or Zoom. Do you get attention from your partner? If you have a partner. Do you get attention needs met from your family? Are you having zoom calls? Are you calling random strangers? Are you using social media and maybe interacting with people, maybe not face to face, but through comments and interactions on social media. Are you maybe just currently holding out with your teeth gritted for when lockdown is over so that we can then return to a more normal human way of functioning? All of these are possible. And I think all of us are doing some of them to some degree. So, yes. Rate, well rate how well your attention need is currently met. Describe a situation in which you’d like more and figure out one step, one small step that you could take to just raise that score by one, because when that need for attention is well met we feel more relaxed. When we’re more in the ventral vagal state, we’re more able to be calm and creative and intelligent about the decisions that we make.

Are you paying attention to yourself? Now, this came up in the counselors’ staffroom Facebook group recently. There was a thread talking about self care. So Bindi, and I were just reflecting on it. I think I put a comment in and I think she did as well. And we were just discussing this idea of self care and whether it was a thing or whether it, whether it should – obviously it’s a thing, but whether it should be something that we pay attention to. And I kind of feel that if we’re living in a way that has our needs met in balance, that actually we are in, by getting these different forms of nutrition, we are naturally nurturing ourselves. You know, we have time for privacy, for reflection, we have meaning and purpose. We have our attention needs met. We do feel that we’re part of some kind of community. So I don’t see self-care as a separate thing, but I am very aware that sometimes we need a tap on the shoulder and to be reminded, to take a break from whatever our attention is narrowly focused on. So I have a bad habit of getting locked into a computer, answering emails, writing emails, responding to things, planning the next week’s talks, but you know, screen in front of me all the time. And sometimes I need to be reminded to get up and take a break and do something else.

Yesterday Bindi and I drove up to a hill that’s quite close to us locally. It’s only a couple of miles away. The Wiltshire white horse above Westbury. There’s usually a terrific view from there. And we thought we needed a little bit of a change of scenery. Let’s just instead of having our mug of coffee that we normally have mid morning, let’s make flask of coffee, let’s make a flask of coffee and let’s drive up to the white horse and just appreciate the view. What we didn’t realise until we got there is that it was shrouded in mist. There was absolutely no view at all, other than at the muddy puddles in the carpark, but it still worked. It still made a break. It still got us out of the house and gave us a different perspective for just a short while.

But this, that in a sense, you could say that and that’s exercising some self-care, you know, we weren’t just working. We weren’t just doing the jobs that need doing around the house. We were doing something that was actually self pampering to some degree, just taking some time out, having a change of scenery. And so when we were talking about this whole concept of self care, we’re kind of thinking about, well, what does it mean to you? Does it mean a long bath with salts and candles? Excuse me. Does it mean a long walk through the woods? Something that I regularly enjoy. Does it mean just doing something that you love just for the hell of it because it’s not important or on your to-do list or whatever. Bindi came out with quite a controversial comment, which I think is, I think I probably do agree with, which is that you only need self care if you’ve lost your sense of self. And this brings us back to the whole argument about attention and why we need it. I should take the screen share off again. Sorry about that. I’ve been talking to a blank screen for a while.

You only need self-care if you’ve lost your sense of self. And this helped me understand that our sense of self is so dependent on attention exchange, on the giving and receiving of attention that we do with other people. Last week, I mentioned that I’d had a bit of a row within the family. I had fallen out with a family member. It was a difficult experience. It was, I’m sure it was difficult for everybody. It was quite heated. It’s over now, I’m happy to say. You know, we’ve let bygones be bygones, but it did highlight some fundamental differences of approach or of differences in values, I suppose, between different family members. So it was a difficult experience to be, to go through. But even that experience, that exchange of attention, angry though it was, helped me to understand who I am and how my values differ from other people. It helped me to focus on what I care about what I’m willing to compromise and where I’m not willing to compromise. It made me get real to some degree and so in the true spirit of understanding that life brings us contrast, I’m grateful for that difficult experience.

Even a painful experience can help you to know yourself. It gave me, actually it gave me some insights into some behavior that began in me as a teenager because my family was at times emotionally turbulent, turbulent. I was always the peacemaker or that was the role I felt I had. Other people may not see it that way, but I felt that there was quite a lot of argument in our house. And I, I didn’t like it. I like a peaceful life. I like calmness. And so I would take off on my bike and go off and ride off into the hills when the emotional temperature rose too high, just as a way of kind of clearing my head. And it made me realise that there were some things that I still do in my life now that began when I was a teenager, which were a direct response to the turmoil that I experienced. And it was my way of coping. And I wouldn’t have realised that because, without this recent falling out. It really brought back some of the emotional things that had been going on when I was a teenager in a painful way. But by reflecting on that, by taking time out, to reflect and by being aware of my emotions, acknowledging them as we were talking about last week and allowing myself to experience them. But without dwelling on them unnecessarily, I was able to get some perspective. And I realised actually that whole emotional upset thing was a formative experience for me in my life.

And I bet, I bet you’ve got your own stories that relate because nobody gets through life without some kind of some challenges on the way. And I’ve talked about this in the past as being the, the thing I call contrast. And I’m not going to go into that deep, in detail now, unless anybody wants me to, I will talk about it on another occasion again, because it’s such an important idea. And this is the idea that if you’re in a situation that feels in any way, unpleasant or uncomfortable, then what’s going on here is contrast. And the reason I call it contrast is like on a photographic plate contrast is the difference between light and dark. The more contrast there is the more things stand out. If there is no contrast, everything is gray. So contrast, I use that word because it highlights difference between what you were expecting to happen and what, what you’re actually experiencing. And if what you’re experiencing is negative, when you were hoping for a good experience, then you’re experiencing contrast. Now the point about this is that whenever we experience contrast, there is something to learn. There is something that the universe is reflecting back to us, and it’s an opportunity to think, well, Why am I, why am I feeling this way? What are my conscious limiting beliefs or my unconscious beliefs that would, what beliefs would I have to hold for me to be experiencing this contrast so dramatically? So I, I just think that’s a really interesting concept. And one of the time we’ll come back to again, if there’s, if there’s any interest in it.

So other things that we pay attention to, and again, this is a theme that’s been rich in my life more recently. Do you pay attention to your intuition? I started an interaction with an elderly man some years back where we decided to explore together what it meant to trust your intuition and to strengthen it, to grow it. Because I, I, although I’m a very rational person and I like to be thought, I like to think I’m a creative person at times as well. There are musical things that I get up to, and I like making resources and creating things. But intuition is something which is generally undervalued in our society. And yet I think it’s a crucial part of living well.

So how much attention do you give to your intuition? When is it strong for you and when is it not available to you? I’ve been exploring this recently, more, more to follow. Also something else I give attention to is my, my cat, my elderly cat Hendrix. I think she’s 16 years old. Now she’s called Hendrix because I’m a guitar player. And my first pet was always going to be called Hendrix because I love Hendrix as well as my cat. And she comes and sits my lap in the evening. And I just feel a really strong bond with her. She trusts me. I trust her. We’re very laid back together. Bindi likes to wind her up and she likes being wound up. So that brings out the kitten in her a little bit, but it’s more mellow with me and I get great comfort from the attention that I give to my pet. So I like to stroke her, to connect with her, to see how she’s getting on, to communicate with her in whatever way we do.

And then the other thing that I pay attention to on a regular basis. And I encourage anyone to do this, is my breath. Now, obviously I’m not paying attention to my breath while I’m talking to you now, but I have just recently started doing a morning meditation practice again. I used to do it and it slipped because of pressures of life and all the rest of it. But 20 minutes of 7-11 breathing, just paying attention to my breathing and allowing my breathing to take me into a tranquil, calm state, usually with a candle and the lights fairly dim, actually it was before it was before it was light this morning. And without any purpose, without any specific desire to find answers to anything, you know, I’m not going through my to do list for the, for the day. I’m not trying to solve any problems. I’m just paying attention to my breath. And I think that it’s healthy for me. I’m not, I’m not going to tell you, you should do it because you have to find out what works for you. But if I share the value that I find in it, and maybe you might already be doing something that’s similar to that, and it works. Breathing is so important. It’s the secret to staying alive and that you will know that I often sign off by saying, don’t forget to keep breathing.

So I think that’s all I have to say about attention, and it’s probably time to just check the comments in case there are any, and I’ll just refresh the Facebook group and see what I can see there. And yes, it does. It was a guitar and a skateboard. Thank you, CG. It’s funny how it doesn’t always come out. It didn’t come out in Streamyard, but thank you for that. And now I’ve lost my place completely. And here we go back again.

So I was looking for a story to go with the topic today, because I like to tell a story. Some, many of you watching this are counselors and therapists or mentors or coaches of one sort or another. And I’m a firm believer in the value of the power of stories to help people get new perspectives on things. And when we’re making a change in our life, or we’re helping someone else to navigate a difficult transition in their life, getting a new perspective is always a key component to being able to do that successfully. I wasn’t really able to find a story that was, that I felt was directly relevant. I bet one will pop up in the next week. If you’ve got any, let me know, because I like to find stories that relate to the topics I’m talking about. But the one I did find was from the, “Just What We Need” parent pods programme, that was created a few years back by Linda and Oh dear, I forgotten her name. Linda Hoggan. It’s cause I’m trying too hard and emotional arousal blanks it out. I’m embarrassed that I can’t remember the name (edit: the name I couldn’t remember was Carmen Kane), in Milton Keynes. And this was a human givens inspired programme, really for parents. To help parents get familiar with their needs and find ways to get their needs met. And they had a really lovely resource pack that went with that course.

And this story is from there and it’s called “The burden”. So are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

The burden. Colleen had looked forward to this holiday. She was hiking in Scotland, enjoying the cameraderie of the group. At home it felt to Colleen that she didn’t have true friends in the way these people helped and supported each other when the going got tough. They’d been walking for many days and were feeling tired and achy.

Stephanie, Colin, Colleen noticed was pale and drawn and her face winced with pain from time to time. Somewhat concerned. Colleen asked her what the problem was. Stephanie had developed a bad back and she was in pain. Colleen offered to carry her backpack for her.

The additional backpack slowed Colleen up considerably, but she was strong and they continued on their way until Colleen noticed one of the party, Lester was limping. He was limping along at the back of a line of hikers. Now Colleen was a kindhearted person. So she asked him what the problem was. I tripped on a blasted rock. He said, angrily. Twisted my ankle. Here, let me Colleen said, taking off both the bags and rummaging in hers for a first aid kit. She bandaged Roger’s ankle expertly to give it extra support. And then despite his protests, she shouldered his bag too.

Inevitably Colleen was at the back of all the other walkers, weighed down now with three bags and moving very slowly. They were climbing up a narrow path. She was tired and the heat caused the sweat to pour down her face. Colleen paused to wipe her brow. Until they heard the noise, no one had noticed that she’d lost her balance and tumbled down a cliff.

The leader secured a rope to a rock and lowered himself down to Colleen who thankfully had broken her fall on a small tree. She needed only a dressing to a small wound on her leg. Colleen, said the leader firmly, carry only your own rucksack. Otherwise next time you may not be so lucky.

So it doesn’t take a lot to figure out the hidden message in that story.

But it’s a nice story all the same because sometimes especially when we work in, as people helpers of any sort, we can be tempted to take on more burdens than we can carry. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the story. I think that’s all I have to say today.

So I will say goodbye and just point out that next week, the, and then the week after that, the topic will be one of the most interesting and perhaps… And I was going to say complex. Complex is the wrong word. It’s Pattern Matching is the topic. It’s the card for pattern matching. And the reason I hesitated, it’s a very rich subject, a bit like attention, really. Pattern Matching is one of our innate resources. It’s part of the way that our brain works. And when you really get a grip on what Pattern Matching means for the way we perceive the world, the way we perceive everything, I’m making it sound a bit mystical, but Pattern Matching is a big subject. And I, once I think Bindi, and I once designed a whole week’s workshop or retreat workshop, all based around Pattern Matching. So I’m looking forward to sharing that with you and I’ll catch you again, same time, Tuesday Two o’clock Topic next week.

So thank you for your attention. Thank you, CG for your comment, which… “Even light bulbs need attention”. Yeah. The scary thing CG is that I put the, the new bulb in and it didn’t work. I think it’s gone. It went with a bang and I think there’s something wrong in the actual light fitting itself. So I had to use another light in the end. So yes, next week, pattern matching. I look forward to that, please. If you’re watching this on replay, leave me a comment too. So I know that you are interested in these things and if you have any thoughts or any reflections, do share them in this group. I love to get a conversation going and whatever else you’re doing, don’t forget to keep breathing.

Thanks and goodbye.

Please let me know what you think by commenting below!
Thanks, Alec

Here is a link to the worksheet:
>> Attention Worksheet.pdf