Attention and Direction
Attention leads the direction we head. Attention takes what we value and mixing is up with what we are conditioned, and like a ping-pong match struggling between the heart and the head, finally leads the way to the direction attention points.
The funny thing though about attention is though there can be a truth deep in the heart, a conditioned head can overrule… pointing us further and further away from where we want to head. The results? Awareness… awareness of what we are used to, what is truly in our heart, and which direction the “rubber hits the road” and we follow. .. no matter how crazy it may seem.
About Catherine
Catherine Rosasco Mitchell has taught tens of thousands of people in private and public schools from elementary to university levels, in conferences, retreats, public workshops, and private sessions. For the last thirty years, she has studied how the body works symbiotically with our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Her focus has been to understand how perception is influenced and developed from the sensation of motor patterns. As director of the Wellness Through Movement® program, she has implemented and revised curricula for the last seven years.
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Wow. This is where I’m at right now. I’m at the crossroads between conditioned patterns and my heartfelt desire for a new direction. I have spent many years finding the tune of my heart and true values. The challenge is staying true to what my heart is telling me. At the age of 50+, the patterns are very ingrained; patterns that I have unknowingly been enforcing by just acting without paying attention to my developing awareness or call of my heart. These writings and Catherine’s new book are all key to changing patterns by developing my awareness of the body’s physiological sensations of my perceptions and how they affects my behavior and direction. I am so glad I bought the book. At this time I am not involved with children and education and questioned why I was buying the book. After owning it for several months, I am reading more and more of it. I am realizing how much a book directed towards children can help me personally in my life’s journey. Paying attention to this new awareness and changing patterns, takes strong commitment. Thank you Catherine for helping me and so many others to find that commitment and faith in my heart and soul. Much Love and gratitude.
One way to find a new direction that is aligned with your true self is notice the subtle sensations in areas of the body that cause reoccurring tension or discomfort. These areas are probably areas your mind uses in the familiar behavioral patterns.
Cognition is not just from the brain but from the sensation in muscles of our whole body. “Higher cognitive processes are grounded in bodily experience. The brains low-level sensory and motor circuits do not just feed into cognition, THEY ARE COGNITION!”(Scientific American Mind, Jan./Feb. 2011, p.39-45). Being able to sense the subtle sensations that are wired into patterns (that don’t feel good) are your internal monitors giving you biofeedback on what is an old pattern.
What direction is the correct path of choice will not trigger those areas in the body so commonly giving us problems. Children will have a hard time distinguishing these subtle differences in these kind of sensations, but they can feel the difference of coming from “Home” and not coming from “Home” (See lesson No Place Like Home Breath). And their choices can often shift easily through the sensations of “Home.”
When a child (or adult) cannot shift a pattern (which is also a perception) there is something deeper that needs to come into awareness. The bodily actions will show what is missing from awareness. Watch the movements of a child. There will be something off. Look at the developmental movements of the first year of life and wonder which movements were missing. If these movements are not done in sequential order, or one stage is missing, behavior will be tugged from the weaving of this distortion (motor functioning).