The poppies are blooming in the Antelope Valley north of Los Angeles with wild abandon. You can see large spectacular patches of orange from miles away. Many of the roads are dirt and people drive on them to get to patches that are not crowded with viewers or right off the main road to the official poppy reserve.
Of course, we did that.
When people saw cars at a distance, they would venture that way hoping for another fabulous view. Some focused on the whole scene and others were down on the ground getting just one poppy.
Seeing this gentleman with a super long lens and a very expensive camera made me question, where do we focus? On the big picture, or the detail? On what is beautiful or what is ugly? The flowers are beautiful and it is a joy to experience them. So that was our focus today.
Applying that to our daily lives: do we have a practice of focusing on what is good and what is working? Do we double down on that? Or are we looking for what is wrong? How often do we magnify small things because our big, beautiful lens (our brain) is magnifying and magnifying so all we see is that one detail?
Paying attention to where you focus is a Jedi mind trick. Try it for 24 hours. Start first thing in the morning. Instead of grabbing for your phone, do a series of breaths expanding your belly before your lungs. See how many counts you can do breathing in then breathing out. Appreciate what doesn’t hurt in your body as you get out of bed and stretch as high as you can. Stay off the phone/computer for the next hour as you start your day. Be grateful. Notice what is good in your environment. No negatives allowed.
Notice the good. Stay with the positive. 24 hours.
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