When you increase focus and concentration sure you become a smart cookie who’s able to hold a conversation without forgetting what the hell you’re talking about, but it’s also a key to supercharging your entire consciousness.
Increased focus and concentration are whopping game-changers.
Focus and concentration are the magic duo that press PAUSE on your thoughts and programs. It’s like a steely wall that keeps limiting narratives and damaging old programs out.
When you do this repeatedly, you become able to bust through limitations of all kinds – because these limitations and programs come from the mind.
I speak from experience when I say this has FULL potential to change your life.
I never gave my ability to focus and concentrate a second thought – until I lost it. Then it sucked bad. When I entered my rock bottom, my brain was fried, I couldn’t read three lines of a book without forgetting what I’d just read.
This is frustrating for anyone, but for someone like me who was counting on reading as a lifeline to help me through my darkness, it was gutting. The books were there – I just couldn’t extract any information out of them because I couldn’t focus.
The damage went further than trying to read. I couldn't focus on anything.
My brain jumped around so fast, I couldn’t switch it off. I’d trained my brain to move fast years ago – it’s how I dealt with trauma. I moved it fast to stay ahead of emotional triggers, thoughts and anything I was not comfortable with.
I didn’t have any insight to understand what I doing to my brain. I’ll make an educated guess and suggest my long-term whopping addictions to alcohol, weed and meth also contributed to my inability to concentrate.
After the collapse of my old life I moved into my sister’s house. It was only now, in the quiet of my new existence, that I got to truly witness how frustrating and scary losing your ability to focus and concentrate really is.
I’d sit in bed and try to read at night, and I’d reread the same page over and over until I stopped in frustration. Often, I’d lose track of what I was talking about, and I couldn’t meditate because I couldn’t focus on anything for even 30 seconds.
Sometimes I’d be on my way somewhere and I’d totally forget where I was going – now that’s bloody scary. When it happened I’d whimper and freak out inside, because the severity of it smacks you in the face. You know it’s some kind of brain damage, and you don’t know if it’s permanent.
In the second month at my sister's house, I thought I'd kick my brain while it was down.
I was so determined to make good things come from my mess I enrolled into online university to study writing, so I could raise awareness to mental health, suicide and addiction recovery – the three monsters that affected my life.
As I laid out my future as a full-time uni student and got all excited, I hypocritically was still stuck in the grip of addiction myself. My soul was in the right place, but my brain and nervous system resembled scrambled fucking tofu. I was frantically running on insanity at this point.
Within two weeks it became apparent I wasn’t able to concentrate. I couldn’t learn. I couldn’t even navigate my way around the online classroom because I couldn’t focus. So I dropped out, more defeated, more distraught than ever.
I’ll skip the big middle section where I took a journey into the bowels of hell itself, but a year into my rock bottom I picked up a pen and I began drawing. And that was it – I drew and drew like I was drawing to save my life.
I didn’t realise it at the time, but through my consistent practice, I’d begun rewiring my brain.
I also started journaling at this stage because I couldn’t talk to anyone. My shit was too horrendous, so I began writing about mindful drawing in detail. I analysed what was happening to me, and I wrote about my progress.
I began to see I was training my brain through focus and concentration on what I was drawing. Every time my mind wandered into thought, I brought it right back to focus. Over and over, while really starting to enjoy my practice. I began to feel sparks of life for the first time in ages.
It is so bloody glorious to feel your life force again after over a year of being stone-cold dead inside.Holy geez….gratitude plus.
Gradually I began to increase focus and concentration.
I observed my brain, ever so gradually become steadier and steadier. Soon, I was able to read books again and now I was able to understand what I was reading, because I could concentrate again. My memory got better because I could pay attention. I could absorb information. And these ‘repairs’ increased every single day, because my practice continued every day.
Consistent practice is the key.
My mind still functions fast, but now it’s coherent.
When my brain runs fast now, it’s pinging with awareness and multiple layers of insight at once. It’s lit up like a Christmas Tree, not with monkey-mind thought chatter, or useless junk and clutter.
I’m also consciously able to slow my mind down, by entraining with a slower rhythm, or through my will and intention when I choose.
I don’t have burnt-out fragments of precious thoughts or broken streams of information anymore. My mind is never wired into anxiety. I can focus and concentrate and I can absorb and recall information much faster than I’ve ever been able to.
And it goes beyond the physical benefits. Learning to increase focus and concentration are super powerful when used to expand consciousness.
When you fully focus on something repeatedly (whether it’s a mantra, a flower, the breath, a flame or drawing patterns), what this does is it presses STOP on your thoughts and programs.
This is the key to busting through limitations, and the parameters of your 'reality'.
These limits are an illusion that comes from the mind. Focus and concentration is key to breaking through limiting programs that hold us back because these parameters and limitations do not really exist. They seem real to us because we believe they are real.
Humans have infinite, limitless ability. The only reason we’re not accessing it, is because our thoughts, programs and beliefs will not allow us to. When you press pause through focus, attention and concentration, you become able to crack a hole in this illusion to get to the truth.
This is the key to accessing higher states of consciousness.
There are many ways to increase focus and concentration. All of them, involve consistent practice - there is NO way around that.
But there are ways to increase focus and concentration that are fun and engaging. And once you begin to collect the rewards, you’ll begin to see it is THE BEST WORK EVER.
Mindful drawing, is the way I know to get there – and I know it inside out and upside down. I can teach you how to do it right here.
Expansion is the name of the game.
You can start whenever you’re ready.
Feature image: Cameron Gray
