What we pay attention to affects what we experience. And attention is a resource, a currency. The phrase goes, what we pay attention to grows.
In movement practices, this is highlighted, and to me, paramount. Sometimes we pay attention to how we want to look. Sometimes we pay attention to how we want to feel. Other times, it’s attention to goals and progress, and sometimes it’s the distraction of chronic pain. These are all valid attention states, there’s no right or wrong. The magic is in bringing awareness – when we can see what’s happening, we can consider if we agree with ourselves, and open up some agency and options.
In some ways our movement practices set us up for daily offerings to the world (thank you Sendolo Diaminah at The Embodiment Institute). Our movement practices train what we pay attention to in our embodiment, that is to say in our actions, that which we contribute and touch and enact in our daily lives. They create habits.
What do you want to pay attention to? What do you want to practice?