Cultivating what's-right attention in a world filled with difficult news
The newsfeed is never particularly good. Sometimes, it's especially troubling.
We watch as the personal trauma of others is exposed and examined in public. Gloria Steinem famously said, "The personal is political." Of course, it works the other way, too. The political is deeply personal.
In my work as a psychotherapist, I see this play out regularly. People sit across from me and process their responses to events unfolding in the world. And as I take in the news myself, I sometimes feel pangs of sorrow and grief move through me.
We humans are social creatures. As Bayo Akomolafe says, "Feelings are public events."
When we witness trauma, whether it happens right in front of us or we encounter it through words and images, our bodies respond. We might feel anger, sorrow, compassion, shame, or numbness. We might experience the effects of vicarious trauma. Or something about what we're witnessing might stir a memory of our own, bringing an experience from the past into the present.
What we witness can affect us deeply, even when the events aren't happening directly to us.
This is why I think tending to our own nervous systems is both an act of self-care and an act of care for the world.
I'd like to share something I consider foundational to healing traumatic responses. It's a practice called what's-right attention: deliberately noticing what is supportive, nourishing, or still good in our present experience.
Our brains have evolved to pay particular attention to what threatens us. This makes good evolutionary sense. Noticing danger has helped us survive as a species.
We don't have to try to notice what's wrong.
On the other hand, paying attention to what's right is a skill we have to consciously build in ourselves, like lifting weights to build a muscle.
I think of this skill as a kind of medicine for living in a difficult world.
Consider what happens when you turn your attention to someone or something you love, when you feel the warmth of the sun on your skin, or notice the steadiness of the earth beneath your feet.
Your experience may begin to feel more expansive, more alive.
This is the invitation of what's-right attention.
What's-right attention isn't about ignoring what's wrong. It's about remembering to notice what else is true.
The world can be frightening, and there can still be beauty in it.
We can grieve what is happening to another person and still feel the pleasure of a good meal.
We can acknowledge uncertainty without spending every moment anticipating what might go wrong.
We can feel sorrow and, at the same time, experience the steadiness of our feet on the ground.
When we're overwhelmed, our attention can narrow until the thing that hurts or frightens us seems to be all there is. What's-right attention invites us to widen our awareness, taking in what supports and nourishes us so that we can return to what's difficult with greater steadiness and capacity.
With practice, we discover that we can experience difficult feelings without being entirely overtaken by them. We develop a greater capacity to remain present to our lives and the world around us.
Take a moment, wherever you are, and try this:
You don't have to wait until you're distressed to practice. In fact, ordinary moments are a wonderful place to begin. This is how we build the muscle of what's-right attention, so it's strong and available when things feel difficult.
We cannot always choose what happens in the world, or even what we feel in response.
But we can practice cultivating the powerful force of our own attention.
And when we make room for what's beautiful, nourishing, and good, we aren't abandoning the suffering of the world. We're tending to the very capacities that allow us to meet it with compassion, wisdom, and courage.
The Good News — Thich Nhat Hanh
I love this poem by Thich Nhat Hanh. It reminds me that even when the world is filled with suffering, there is goodness worth noticing, appreciating, and protecting.
