Intentional Attention

Intentional Attention and Awareness
And so we need to learn how to use intentional attention to bring our awareness to what actually is in the moment.

And we all know that our attention has a limited capacity. It can be caught, it can be harnessed, so to speak, and it can be redirected. And also, there's a capacity for a broad and narrow focus, meaning kind of a meta-awareness. We can move in, we can be in it, or we can step outside of our body and kind of observe what's going on.

Becoming Aware of the Mind's Activity
So, by becoming aware of the mind's activity, all right, somebody experiences tinnitus. And here, let's say that this is the sensation of tinnitus, okay?

They come into your office, and you notice that it isn't just tinnitus that they're struggling with. It's actually the stories around the tinnitus that have, you know, gotten deeper and deeper and deeper.

"Oh, this is never going to go away. This is going to ruin my life. It's all my fault. It's because I listened to all those loud concerts when I was younger. You know, what is this going to mean for me when I'm 60 or 80?"

And, you know, so all of a sudden, we have this whole ball of anxiety, of suffering, right here.

Letting Go of the Stories
And so what we do with mindfulness is we try to let go of the stories, just in the same way that when we were navigating our mind in our exercise, when the mind left the breath, we recognized it, but we didn't cling to it. We let it go, and we came back to the sensation of the breath.

And so, like with tinnitus, can we let go of those judgments and take away all of the stories so that, in fact, we're just dealing with tinnitus?

Okay, and it's my guess that it is just a sensation, and that anybody, in any moment, can live with tinnitus. It's the stories that we wrap around it that can be so paralyzing.