Willpower rests on the brain’s set point for pleasure. Get used to indulging doses of dopamine, and the mind goes numb to any lack of stimulation.
Redirecting the spotlight of attention enforces a deliberate curb on the amygdala’s hijackings. Overriding how we feel is at the core of managing life’s compass. When we’re under control, there is no fight nor flight, only stillness of thought before taking purposeful action.
Analysis need not be paralysis; rumination need not beget catastrophe. The gears eventually unstick from loops of doom.
We can’t understand the anxieties of the present without understanding what caused the trauma of the past. When the going gets tough, we draw on experience and competence to accommodate the nakedness of confusion.
Being mindful is not just a suspension of judgment but the pursuit of discomfort. Reality bites, and it never makes an identical shape twice. There are always new challenges posed to the human mind, requiring we pay attention differently.
The attention habit of consciousness determines the design of aliveness. The inner narrative is the artist now, and it embraces our story before animating onto the canvass of the external world.
