attention is love

Originally posted Oct 23, 2022

I want my life to feel better, to feel as good as possible; and if I want my life to feel better, that means I need to meet it with all the attention it deserves every day.

Imagine waking up and greeting a lover with a grunt, half-heartedly, too tired to muster up any sort of enthusiasm or romance. No appreciation, no gratitude. No thoughtful check-in or meaningful eye contact. No warm hand squeeze.

Imagine waking up, mumbling "hey," and then rolling over to open your cell phone or bury your head back under the pillow or draaaaag your body out of bed to go through the motions of getting ready, frought with many distractions and disappointments.

This sounds dramatic, sure. But it's the truth of how I often start my days. My romance with my own life is sorely lacking in the morning, and an interesting thing is, sometimes, in order to create the freedom, the whimsy, the good feelings, the romance that you're looking for, you actually need some structure. Sometimes in order to be free you need some rules, and you need some discipline. You need to stick with something meaningful.

What's not meaningful is waking up without the energy or intention to greet your day -- to greet your life -- like the love story it is.

Laura McKowen wrote a really cool poem that goes, "Do not be mistaken / this is a love story / your whole life is a love story / it's just not the kind you think."

Every single day of my life is another intimate adventure with this love story.

Every single day is an opportunity to woo my life and in turn allow it to woo me back.

If I wake up and I am the thoughtless lover, rolling over to zombie out on my phone, no energy mustered for connection with life, no joy offered at seeing my morning, how can I expect the rest of my day to unfold as beautifully as I could ever imagine? How could I expect the rest of my day to woo me when I've started off on such a foot?

If I want to be enchanted by my everyday magic, by the surreal and miraculous life I get to call my own, then I probably better wake up and give it all my attention.

I may not wake up amazed and delighted every morning. Some days I'll wake up really exhausted or with a sadness in my chest or feeling afraid for what I need to face in the day.

But that never means I'm powerless in how I respond.

Every day, I can wake up and choose to build some gratitude, brick by brick, choose to nourish joy in my life...

That may seem really abstract. But maybe it does just mean getting a few really supportive practices that can be on repeat, can be a menu of options when I need them. Like waking up, ignoring my phone in favor of paying attention to my life, and washing my face, brushing my teeth, putting on my coziest walking clothes, tying up my shoelaces, and walking my dog while the sun comes up. Not hiding from my day. Not letting any distractions come in and interrupt that process.

On that note, so many distractions wanted to interrupt me this morning! Getting distracted by ideas of things I should look up, things I want to Google, stuff I need to write on my to do list, mail I could open and sort through and read, maybe a message waiting for me on my phone or emails to check... I mean, there are so many distractions everywhere. Being indistractible is powerful (and very difficult, at least for me).

In his book Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad, Austin Kleon wrote, "Your attention is one of the most valuable things you possess, which is why everyone wants to steal it from you. First you must protect it, and then you must point it in the right direction." He also quoted John Tarrant, who said: "Attention is the most basic form of love."

Now imagine me waking up and greeting my day, greeting the love story of my life, with full-focused attention. With the love it deserves.

Love does not always mean you feel warm, fuzzy feelings. I do often feel warm, fuzzy feelings for my life! But that's not what love always means.

More than that, love means the loyal promise, the dedication, the action sometimes in spite of the lack of warm feelings, the commitment... I am committed to my life, to letting it feel good, to living my best, to living Wholeheartedly, in the same manner that I'm committed to my marriage, to my romance with my husband and the relationship we build and partnership we practice together every day.

That's love. Sometimes it feels warm and fuzzy. Sometimes it's just a constant.

Sometimes it is the steady thing that pulls you through.

Sometimes it's faith and hope. Sometimes love is believing that how it feels today is not how it will always feel.

So if I wake up and love my life, even on days when I feel scared or have a sadness or am tired, days when things aren't going my way or I'm having a really hard time -- maybe that just looks like waking up, facing it head on, staring it right in the eyes with a gentleness and a courage, offering myself compassion and holding onto the faith and belief that things won't always feel this way. Having that loyal dedication and committment to keep romancing, keep doing my best, keep showing up for the life-sustaining practices to weather the love story, to hang onto it and coax it along, to keep building it, to shore it up in the hard times.

The best approach when things are down is not to make life feel even harder and more buried in all the things we do to numb and run away. The best approach is to look it in the face with courage and compassion. Be brave and keep going. Choose intentionally.

So if I show up intentionally for the everyday magic, every single day, just imagine! Imagine the rebellious act of joy and bravery. Imagine the power in waking up, looking my life squarely in the eyes, choosing to be grateful, and setting forth just a few simple intentional actions to start my day, to build on the best foot possible, and to not get distracted. To offer love in the form of attention.

Imagine waking up and giving my beautiful life all of the wholehearted attention it deserves. I cannot picture possibly doing that, day after day, and not feeling better.

I cannot picture showing up and offering undistracted, compassionate, courageous, wholehearted attention every single morning, to no avail.

I think the rewards of doing that would be unfathomable.

And some days it will be hard! On those days, it can be really simple. Just show up. Just resist the urge to hide -- actually or metaphorically -- first thing in the morning.

Say hello to your love letter of a life.

Greet the everyday magic.

Be open and willing and honest with yourself. Practice the things that sustain you. Practice love. Choose gratitude. Choose joy.

Hold onto hope and faith, and you'll be okay.

P.S. I recorded almost this entire post as a voicememo in my phone on a 7 AM walk with my dog... feet crunching on the gravelly ground, birds chirping in the background, a car or two driving by, my voicememo audio quality changing as I pause and start the recording, my sleepy and quiet morning voice conveying my ideas to write down later. :) I can all but feel the air quality and see the sun rising all over again as I listen to the audio recording. As I re-listened, I typed and edited on my laptop: