In the fast-paced digital age we live in, our ability to stay present and focused has become increasingly challenging. A simple way to create a healthy space in the mind which allows you to relax and always see the bigger picture is attention training. With distractions at every turn, it’s essential to explore how we can regain control of our attention and foster meaningful human interactions.
In this episode, we are thrilled to have Dr. Mary Meduna-Gross, an esteemed expert in the field of focus and success, returning as our special guest. Dr. Meduna-Gross introduces us to an innovative approach called “The Open Focus Approach,” which offers powerful insights into how to transform our mindset and tap into our full potential, and the four styles of attention.
Join us as we explore the principles of this approach and discover how it can unlock new possibilities for success.
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Unlocking Your Potential: The Open Focus Approach to Success with Dr. Mary Meduna-Gross
Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. Obviously, one really important aspect of anything that we engage in is what kind of mindset we bring in to something. There’s a big difference between coming to an event where you’re interacting with people but you’re constantly pulling out your phone or pulling out your laptop or even getting distracted by every little thing that you see around you or have something prominent on your mind, something you’re mad about, something you’re really anxious about, versus being truly present somewhere. Today, I bring back to the program the second time, Dr. Mary Meduna-Gross, who you probably remember from a previous conversation, we talked a lot about having the mindset for success and what kind of thoughts we’re putting through our head. Today, we’re going to talk about a different new approach to how we’re actually focusing.
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Mary, welcome to the program.
Oh, thank you. So good to be with you again.
It’s always wonderful to talk to you, it’s always wonderful to hear about all the different things that you’re doing because you have a podcast of your own.
Right.
And the magazine that really is helping bring people of this type of mindset, of building something new, building something better together.
Exactly. The magazine, The ConsciousPreneur Magazine, is really all about conscious entrepreneurship. Validating these values of the conscious entrepreneur, you can build a successful business on them, that how do we do that, so lots of information on how to do that with some inspiration. The podcast I have now is Fully Alive and we dive specifically into mindset for leadership.
I know that this episode is mostly going to cover this open focus technique, as promised, but one thing I’m wondering as we’re talking about conscious entrepreneurship and I’ve read conscious capitalism and some other similar books is is there still a lot of resistance to the idea that you can, through business, make an impact while also earning your money and everything else? Is there still a lot of people saying no from either one end saying, “No, business has to be business and being nice and being philanthropy, whatever, has to be separate,” or, “Your business has to focus only on it, you can’t consider all those shareholders,” is that still fully alive, not to use your podcast title, but is that still fully there, fully present in our society?
I think so. In fact, I had some conversations recently with some marketers. He was talking about the challenges that he was having in terms of shifting beliefs of his prospects and shift that one belief that I can have purpose or I can have profit but I can’t do both.
Yeah. You said it so much better than I did.
Well, we got to the same point. Again, one of the reasons why I created this magazine was because I think there are a lot of us who, whether we’re consciously aware of it or not, but we don’t really buy into that. And if we don’t really buy into that and we don’t know it and we’re asking for people to help us build our business, most of those people are going to also hold this belief, “You can have profit or you can have purpose, you can have both,” and they kind of make their clients then choose which one are you going to go with. So, it’s still very prevalent. I don’t know, like my hope is that, eventually, conscious entrepreneurship or conscious business becomes the way that we do business. And I think with each generation, I think we’re going to move closer to that. It may not get there before I’m checking out. I think it’s coming.
Yeah, so it’s moving in that direction.
Definitely.
Obviously, every single issue of The ConsciousPreneur Magazine, you have a bunch of different people following that kind of paradigm to showcase, to share stories of, so it seems like it’s growing, it’s just a matter of whether or not like the old school, like you said, you can either have profit or you can have purpose is still the dominant culture at this point.
And that one core belief then dictates all of the other decisions that you’re going to make.
Yeah.
So that’s why it was really so important to identify those values of the conscious entrepreneur or purpose driven and we care about people, profit, and planet. We’ve got all of them on our plate. We’re not leaving any of them off. There are no sides here. These are all the main course.
Yeah. Well, and one thing I love about it is how it takes away this idea of things fighting against each other —
Exactly.
— and brings it together to say, “Okay, I wanna make a good profit, I wanna be an investor, I wanna 10X, 100X,” whatever it is that you decide you want to do, “but I also want to feel good about what the purpose of this business is.” You could do Have a business collecting garbage and if you do it in a conscious way, you’re serving a purpose because that garbage needs to be collected, even if it’s not this like weird, oh my god, world changing, you’re bringing about a whole new era for humanity type of thing.
Yeah, no, you’re right. It really is about shifting how will we see the value in what we do. And you’re right, I’ve talked about dog walkers could be conscious business people, garbage collectors can be conscious business people.
If we're doing it for the purpose of serving others and, again, people, profit, and planet along the way, then that falls into that conscious entrepreneur model. Share on XMost of the time, what we’re doing, though, is it’s very transactional. Where’s the next sale? Who’s the next person that I can pitch this to? And conscious entrepreneurship really relies on collaboration over competition. So, you and I, some might look at the two of us and say, “Oh, they’re competitors, I wonder why they would be collaborating together?” Well, that’s how we do things, right? Because you and I having conversation, even though maybe our specific topics are a little bit different, we’re talking to the same audience and really talking about solving the same kinds of problems. Not only do I want to see purpose and profit but it’s that people part in there as well that’s important to me. That really starts with us as the entrepreneur because if I’m not taking care of myself as the entrepreneur, regardless if I’m a solopreneur or I’ve got teams of hundreds, the leadership is about me and what’s the point of me being purposeful for everybody else and even making a profit if I’m running myself into the grave?
Yeah.
There’s no point to that.
I actually had this conversation with a friend of mine yesterday about — so when I was a kid, there was this movie called Clueless out there and it was a movie about a teenage girl in Southern California and her dad was a really powerful lawyer and I remember looking at this and seeing this huge house, fancy yard, maid, staff to take care of everything, but this guy, her father, would always be working. And I remember even thinking to myself all the way back then like, “What’s the point? What is the point of having all these wonderful things and making so much money if all he ever does is work and all he ever does is stress out over some sort of multimillion-dollar litigation process?”
Exactly, exactly. So that’s why I shifted the podcast, the Fully Alive podcast, to be specifically about mindset and leadership, because that’s where all of that part of our business is going to originate from.
That mindset. And so that is a perfect segue into our primary topic for today’s podcast which is open focus, because we’ve seen the dichotomy, we’ve seen all the way back in 2009, I read a book by Dr. Maggie Jackson called Distracted about how some of our modern technologies are already starting to cause us to not be able to focus very well and so this idea between are you focused or are you distracted, but open focus takes this entire idea and flips it on its head, gives a whole new parameter to it. So explain what open focus is about for my audience?
Absolutely. I love this, and I love how you’ve set this up because open focus, while it looks like and feels like meditation or mindfulness, the purpose of it is to retrain how we pay attention. So, the underlying theory here is that we’ve been conditioned to function in a very narrow way of paying attention. So we’re taught to look around our environment, what is the priority, what needs my attention now, and then, like a flashlight with a laser light, we just shine our attention on that one thing and so all of the other rest of our experience is really kind of in the dark. And so that’s how we’ve been taught. I was the kid staring out the window at the birds and my teachers and my parents would lament, “Mary, why can’t you pay attention more?” I wish I knew then what I know now. I guess I’ve learned to meet their expectations.
Yeah, yeah, so they want you to be —
I learned to pay attention, yeah, to what they told me I should pay attention to.
Yeah, like the chalkboard in school, it’s like the chalkboard is — your life should be laser focused on the chalkboard and nothing else. If someone passes you a note, you’re going to detention. It’s the chalkboard.
Exactly. Yes, yes, exactly. So, we get conditioned, again, to really what is it that I’m supposed to be paying attention to and then I focus all of my attention on that to the exclusion of everything else.
Yeah.
Right? And so then we function in our lives like this. So, even multitaskers, like I think multitaskers are our way of saying, “Oh, well, I realize I can’t just focus on one thing, I’ve got to have several —- there’s several things going on,” but when we’re multitasking, what we’re doing is you’re taking that laser flashlight and we’re just shining it from one topic to another. We’re not opening up the flashlight to let more light out, we’re just changing the direction of this flashlight.
So what I hear most often recently about multitasking is it’s really shifting back and forth between one task and another and some people are better at it than others but it’s not really efficient for anyone.
Exactly. That would be my core belief as well. So, we’ve been conditioned for this very narrow way of attention, so what really that means is everything else, like you said, we define as a distraction, which means that because that’s our belief, we say, “Well, everything else is in the periphery, it’s in the dark, I don’t need to pay attention to it.” Especially in entrepreneurship, there’s always a problem that needs to be solved, so when we have this narrow attention, we go after these problems like a dog on a bone. Our narrow focus on this because we want to get this solved so that we can get back to all of these other issues. And so then we just move from one narrow focus attention problem to the next and that keeps us in a state of chronic stress.
Interesting.
Now, a lot of people recently talk about the state of flow, this idea of flow. Does flow often involve a narrow focus or is that another misconception?
Flow, I would call that an immersed style of attention. So, Dr. Les Fehmi, who, again, created open focus, has identified four styles of attention. There’s the narrow way that we’ve talked about. So we have two continuums. From narrow to diffuse. So, a diffuse style of paying attention is that flashlight shining light all around, 360 degrees, which means now that we’re aware of all of the information that is coming in through our senses. We don’t stop and focus on, “Oh, I can hear the fan running,” we just say, “Oh, the fan’s running but I can also hear the birds outside, I can also see somebody walking by the window.” We just take all of it in at the same time without really stopping. So the other dimension is objective to immersed. Now, immerse is that state of flow, where I’m in this task that I’m doing or I’m creating something and everything else really is kind of blocked out, everything that’s not related to the task is blocked out but anything related to that task is within your awareness, which means that gives you the opportunity to really be flexible even in a flow state. The opposite of immersed is objective.
So objective is when we take an object or an idea or a person and we separate ourselves from it in a way to understand that a whole another entity separate from us. Share on XLike a narrator of a show, like you have a play and there’s a narrator and that narrator is not part of the play but the narrator is telling you all that’s going on.
The narrator does have a very objective point of view because they’re not invested in any particular character, they’re really invested in the storyline.
Yeah, whatever the purpose of telling that story is to the audience.
There’s goods and bads about every one of these styles, right?
Yeah.
Objective, it’s good to be able to separate ourselves from something so that we can see it outside of ourselves as much as possible. It’s also good and fun to be in that immersed state. But the immersed state, negative would be that image of that absent minded person, just forgets things, their mind is always on something else as they’re trying to function the rest of their life, right?
They don’t notice what’s in front of them.
Exactly. Yes, exactly. So these are the four styles of attention that we naturally and normally move in and out of.
Yeah, different situations call for the different styles.
Exactly. So we know how to do this and we do do this but I think the point that we’re making here is that we tend to default to this narrow style and we get stuck in it.
So when you talk about like narrow versus diffuse and immersive versus objective, is this like a two-dimensional spectrum or are these like four different styles? You know what I mean, like can you be like —
They definitely overlap. I think of them like overlapping like a cross.
Yeah, like a quadrant so someone can be narrow and objective, like the narrator of a show is narrow and objective, they’re focused on the show and they’re very objective, whereas like narrow and — what was the opposite of objective again?
Immersed.
Immersed, yeah, narrow and immersed is like someone that’s like a coder really focusing on getting their code right and getting all the bugs out and getting something released.
Great examples. Great examples. Yeah. So that is what open focus is here to teach us to do is to really, the practice is moving into a diffuse state of attention. Just like at a gym, right? You do push-ups, you do your reps, but you’re not actually going to go out into the world and do push-ups. You do that to build up the muscles. So, in an open-focus exercise, we go into that diffuse state so that we become one with that state, we know what it feels like, we can bring ourselves back to it more often than we could if we hadn’t done the practice.
That makes sense. So, you’re talking about like how these are all natural parts of the human focus repertoire but because of the conditioning we have, we’re kind of trained to focus on the narrow, trained to the narrow as opposed to the diffuse and open focus helps you reengage that diffuse focus.
Exactly, really strengthen those muscles in that diffuse state. And that is why open focus can talk about this practice reduces stress because, again, when we’re in that narrow state, we’re triggering our nervous system that there’s a threat out here. We got to bring all of our energy into this one particular topic, we got to shut everything else out. And so our body goes into a stress response for that. And then when we’re practicing in this diffuse state, our nervous systems are so responsive, they’re just like, “Oh, we’re taking in everything now, we’re sitting back,” now it moves into a rest and relaxation state. That’s one of the immediate benefits of this practice is that you can go from a stressed state into a relaxed state very quickly.
So are there examples, even in our current modern culture, of where people commonly go into this diffuse state just naturally in activities we’re doing?
I think one of the most common times is going to be either before we go to sleep or just as we’re coming out asleep. Because what’s also associated with this diffuse state is our brainwave states. So when we’re in a narrow state, that’s our beta frequency and that’s our daily thinking kind of state that our brainwaves are in. The alpha state and the theta state are the two states before we get to delta, which is deep sleep. So alpha is that state where we can actually consciously, we’re still awake, we’re still conscious, but we can move into our intuition and our creativity, and so as we’re going to sleep and as we’re waking up in the morning, we pass through these brainwave frequencies. Just as everything is very personal for the individual, some of us might move through that very quickly and not take advantage of it, others of us like to kind of linger around maybe in bed in the morning or before we go to bed, we give ourselves extra time just to kind of unwind and just let everything flow through us. We’re not trying to control anything at that point because we’re trying to get to sleep, we just let it be there and then we can move into the theta and then into delta. But if we’re having trouble getting to sleep, it’s probably because we’re still stuck in that beta brainwave frequency pattern. We’re still in that narrow way of paying attention. So, this practice, and I’ve used this before, because sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night, not necessarily anything on my mind but apparently awake, and this practice can move me back into that alpha state, which just feels good, like I’d be happy to stay in that state, I don’t even need to go to sleep. But, again, because then I’m so relaxed in that alpha state, then it’s easy to move into theta and back into delta.
Yeah, that makes sense and alpha state, like alpha and sometimes even theta are associated with meditation —
Yes.
— and some of those exercises. Is there an activity, like, for example, if you’re just listening to music and dancing at a party where everyone’s on the dance floor and stuff like that, is that an example of diffuse focus in a way because like maybe the DJ is there but you’re not just laser focused, like, “Oh, when’s he gonna drop the beat? When’s he gonna drop the beat?” like the people might be dancing over there, someone might be dancing over there, someone might be dealing drugs in the side or something, but you’re going to notice it all kind of.
Yes. That’s a great example. And that’s also I would say a very immersed experience, very diffuse and very immersed. You’re in it, you are there to intentionally take in as much of this experience as possible so you’ve opened your attention to everything that’s happening, not just the DJ, not just the people that you came with, not just the bartender. You’re taking it all in.
If you really want to be so functional and practical, the DJ and the bartender are the two people you need for that experience, the person who’s going to give you your drink and the person who’s providing you the music, but we’re still out there kind of looking everywhere, even noticing whatever decoration, whatever design, whatever patterns are impacting the way we’re going about our day.
Exactly. And we’re also tuning into that sixth sense of being connected to the other people around us, because we get into resonance with one another and we start moving at the same pace and maybe even in the same way that the people around us are moving. That’s a perfect example of that immersed and diffused attention.
And then, real quick just so we cover all the quadrants, is there a good example of objective and diffuse?
I’m sure there would be, nothing is coming to my mind right now.
Yeah, I’m guessing like maybe meditation but…
I’d have to get back to you on that. That’s a really good question.
Even that — yeah. That’s another example of how our society has, over the last century or so, there’s been a lot more value attached to that, to all the aspects of narrow focus, like the industrial, like how many did you do, how long does it take you to do it, and how many did you get right the first time methodologies.
Yeah, a lot of measuring in that objective state.
Do you think humanity, after a century, some would argue two, three, four, of really focusing on one state is just kind of craving this balance, this return to utilization of some of these other manners of focus and that’s possibly behind why, all of a sudden — I have to say, I hear about meditation so much more than I did the turn of the century.
Yeah. I do you think and I think that’s also in alignment with this whole conscious entrepreneur movement, I think that, culturally, we’re really starting to challenge all of the rules that we thought we needed to live by.
So that narrow mindset says, “I have to have a rule for everything, I have to have a law for everything because if I don’t, somebody’s going to violate it and they need to be held accountable for it.”
One of the interesting things that I’ve observed somewhat with my generation but a little bit with every generation is this idea that we’re going to challenge the rules but challenge the rules by creating a different set of rules as opposed to challenging the rules by creating that space for everyone to be who they are. What causes that phenomenon? Is that still in that narrow focus? Is it still the fact that someone says, “Well, we need to accept more people but now we’re gonna create rules around accepting more people,” as opposed to just kind of letting people be where they are?
You know, I think humanity has been dealing with these rules for centuries and it’s going to take some time for us to find our new way into it, but even when the one set of rules is exchanged for another set of rules, hopefully, that new set of rules gets us even closer to this idea of full inclusivity and trusting one another, really believing in one another.
Yeah. So —
I was reading, I don’t remember the name of the book, but they were talking about our inbred biases, right? And talking about when you go way back to prehistoric times, the weather and other beasts were not our biggest challenges. Our biggest challenges was the clan next door. And so we learned to really recognize who our clan is versus who the others are. And so prehistoric people were already falling into this objective style of attention. “These are my people. These are not my people, and not my people is dangerous to me.”
The tribalism.
Exactly.
As they say, but there was like a reason for it. Obviously, there’s a reason for everything.
Yeah, right. And so I think meditation and practices like this give us an opportunity, even just to play with the ideas, like maybe we’re not ever going to rewrite the rules that that we lived by but if we can play with this enough and share our experiences with others, then, eventually, all of the energy comes together and there will be some agreement on, “Ah, we don’t need to do it like this anymore. We don’t need to have all these rules anymore. I don’t need to separate myself from you because you really are no different than me.”
One of the things that I say so frequently, said it once again yesterday, is this idea of a history textbook from the end of this century, the 21st century, looking back at the beginning of the century saying, “These people had indoor jobs on computers and they chose to do it during daylight hours all the time. How stupid is that?”
Right. Oh, that’s brilliant. I haven’t even thought about that. Wow. Yes, exactly. I do think it’s those kinds of things.
What are the exercises, with this open focus, to help kind of reengage your brain into these other forms of focus?
Well, I think that is one of the things that makes open focus different. There’s lots of ways to meditate, right? Countless ways of meditating, countless ways of becoming mindful, but what open focus really uses is space as the focus. This is what we’re going to put our attention on. And I didn’t understand that, and to be honest with you, I don’t know that I completely 100 percent still understand why space is so important. But here’s what I think I know. Whether we’re talking about narrow or we’re talking about objective, we’re really talking about something aside from us, outside of us, and so when we’re talking about space, while we may have these concepts like spaces in outer space or even if we’re willing to consider space like within the rooms that we’re sitting in now, there’s this assumption that space is empty.
Oh, yeah, that’s the idea.
That’s the idea. The reality is there is no empty space between you and me, you in Colorado, me in Chicago, there is no empty space. It is completely filled with some sort of hydrogen molecules, again, I don’t know the specifics about that, but it’s filled. It is completely filled.
So even along that really boring drive across the state of Nebraska is full of things.
Full of space. It is full of space, which then, let’s bring that assumption back to us then, we are space. We are space, we are filled with space, we occupy space, the space that we occupy, the space that I’m occupying here today is continuous with the space that you’re occupying in Colorado. It’s continuous. And so when we use space, there’s a couple of things. One is the prompt is usually or almost always can you imagine feeling the space. And so there’s a couple of things here I think is important. The first word is “imagine.” “Can you imagine?” Because if we just said, it made a directive and said, “Feel the space that your thumbs occupy,” your brain is going to say that is ridiculous, space cannot be felt. That’s the end of the exercise. The prompt is “Can you,” you can say no if you wanted to, so it’s an invitation, “imagine,” we’re not going to facts and all of that, we’re imagining which automatically puts us in that more diffuse state already because there’s no specific right, wrong, black and white, “Can you imagine feeling the sense of space that your thumbs occupy?” And so it becomes a practice of what would that feel like if I was imagining the space that my thumbs occupy? And your listeners might even be taking an opportunity to do this right now.
I mean, that’s what I’m doing.
Can you imagine feeling the space that your thumbs occupy? And then can you imagine feeling the space around your thumb? So now it’s not just the space your thumb occupies, now, you’re trying to imagine feeling the space that’s around your thumb. And so then we go through the whole hand like this. Can you imagine the space that your index finger occupies? Can you imagine feeling the space around your index finger? Now, there’s, again, lots of different prompts for open focus but we usually start with the hands because the neuro sensitivities that you have in your hands is the most concentrated in the body. We also talk about feeling the space in between these digits, particularly the index finger and the thumb. Can you imagine feeling your fingers moving through the space between your thumbs and your index fingers? So if you’re moving your fingers and your thumbs away from each other and toward one another, can you imagine feeling the space that they’re moving through? And can you imagine feeling that space even after your fingers are no longer moving? And so I like to build on this because that’s what worked for me is because once I could imagine feeling space in my thumbs and the space around my thumbs, in my index fingers and the space moving through it, then it was easy for me. Well, if I could feel it in these fingers, then I can surely feel it in my middle fingers and my ring fingers and my pinky fingers and then I feel the space that my hands and my wrists occupy. For me, it kind of feels like clouds, like it’s as though what is a physical object starts to feel more like a cloud to me. That’s just my experience.
And that’s an interesting reference there because cloud is like you walk in and out of a cloud, like anyone’s ever been through fog or driven or rode a bicycle in and out of fog or I’ve even hiked up into a layer of fog knows like there’s no physical boundary that separates the cloud from the non-cloud part of the sky, it just is there, but if you look at it from a distance, it definitely looks like this object is here and that object is not there.
Exactly. That’s another example of objective versus diffuse. When you’re in the fog, it’s diffuse. When you step away from it, it’s objective. So we use space. I feel the need to explain that because, at first, it was a barrier for me because my brain wanted to figure out, well, how is space supposed to feel and what’s the right way? So much in that narrow mindset.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. So, really, that’s it. And so then the practice is incredibly simple. And just as I said before, even if you spend five minutes just imagining feeling the space that your hands, each of your digits and then your whole hands occupy, that is going to put your body into a state of rest and relaxation almost immediately. So it can be something that you do when you’re sitting at a stoplight, it can be something that you do while you’re waiting in line. It can be one of those things that you do almost any time that you, (a), you have an opportunity, or maybe, (b), is I feel like I’m really wrapped up in this whole thing and all I can think about is this particular issue or this particular problem. And just recognizing that, you say, “Okay, well, I have an option here. I have a choice.” I could literally just sit back in my chair for five minutes and start to tune into what are all the sounds that I’m hearing right now? What’s the light looking like, are there light flashes and — what’s the word I’m looking for? Prisms. Maybe light is bouncing around. So can I take in what I’m hearing? Can I take in what I’m seeing? Can I take in what I’m smelling? Even if there’s nothing to smell, right? We’re still asking ourselves, “Can I imagine smelling what is in this space?”
And are these exercises, you said you can do them anywhere, so let’s just say you decided to go to Chipotle at 12:15 p.m. and so, as a result, there’s a long line and a lot of people would have the instinct to just pull out their phone and scroll through their Instagram feed but instead of that, you can do some of these exercises to help you develop this open focus.
Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s a perfect example. And I would like to add to that. There’s practicing it for the sake of practicing it and then there’s practicing it in on the hoof, so to speak. In action. So when we practice this and we know what that feels like then and we know that we can get ourselves back to that state, even while I’m scrolling, I can still put myself in a diffuse state with intention. How closely are we really paying attention as we’re scrolling anyway? It’s pretty — we’re like, caught my attention, didn’t catch my attention, moving on, moving on, moving on. It’s a very narrow way of paying attention. But I could still do that and pay attention to the sounds that are around me. I can still do that and feel the warmth of the concrete on my bare feet. I can still do that and feel anything, right?
Yeah.
Whatever else I can bring my attention to while I’m also scrolling. That’s not something a beginner would do necessarily but it’s possible to do and that’s really, getting to the point of living the open-focus life is then being able to, regardless of what you’re doing, being able to be intentional about how do I want to pay attention here. Do I want to shut everything else out because I’m looking for something in particular as I’m scrolling through or is this I’m just scrolling through anyway, I really don’t need to focus intently on this, I can take in more information around me, give myself an opportunity to rest my nervous system and enjoy whatever it is that I’m scrolling through?
There’s still situations you want to be narrow.
There are, yes. Right, so all of those four styles that we talked about, there’s necessary and appropriate times for us to be in those states. It’s just that our default tends to take us right back to that narrow state. So as you’re talking about standing in line, we have a perfect opportunity to really be in a diffuse state of attention. It’s the perfect place to do it. But what we tend to do is we don’t, (a), we don’t know that, and, (b), if we’re not used to it, seems absolutely pointless, why would I do that when I could have pulled out my phone and I could do something purposeful.
What you said earlier was that too much time in that narrow state could lead to stress, anxiety or could exhaust us because it’s a naturally anxious and naturally stressful state and one of the reasons why some people may be more tired than they feel like they should be is because they’re spending so much time in that narrow state and not enough in that diffuse state and so when you’re thinking about waiting in line at Chipotle or waiting in line anywhere and saying, “Okay, what am I gonna while waiting in line?” by allowing yourself to just kind of be a little bit more diffuse, you can reduce the overall level of stress cumulative over time that you put on to your brain and put on to your body and then, as a result, possibly have more energy for something later in the day that you’re going to want your energy for.
Absolutely. You said it beautifully.
Doing those exercises over time trains our brain to be in this diffuse state more frequently or to feel more at home or engage it easier.
Absolutely right. So, again, we’re moving through that alpha state at least twice a day, on our way to sleep and on our way off from sleep, so that is also a very natural place for us to be, we just don’t pay attention to it as we’re moving in and out of it. We didn’t even know we could. And so now what we’re doing is saying, yeah, you can basically stop at alpha and you can stay there for a while. This practice is, one, like being at the gym and giving myself the practice of being in that diffuse state so, (a), I’m resting my nervous system and, (b), that when I do get back into my work, I can still kind of stay in that state. The other thing that we can do with it is because this practice puts us in that alpha state, then we can go into, it’s almost like a self-hypnosis, because self-hypnosis puts us in that alpha state as well. When we’re in that state, now we can do creative kinds of things that we can’t do in our beta way of thinking. Here’s one way that I used it. I had a contract been approved last September and it just kept getting kicked down the road, kicked down the road, January came around, they still weren’t ready to kick it off, still weren’t ready to start it, and I was at this place of we’re either going to do this or we’re not, and my logical brain would have been more defensive and said, “Hey, obviously, this is of interest to you. I’m just gonna withdraw the contract.” But I didn’t want to do that because I really did want to work with this client. And so I went into this alpha state and I had a conversation with the woman who’s leading this charge, she’s responsible for saying go on this, and in that alpha state, I was able to have this conversation with her about what is it that you need, what is it that I can do to help you, what would it take for this to get started as soon as possible because here’s what I need from this, like all of these are things I would never literally say to her but in this imagined state, in this alpha state, I was able to have those conversations and literally, within a week, I had a contract.
When I think of alpha state, I traditionally think of meditation. In meditation, you’re not having a conversation, you’re just kind of sitting there meditative, but I’m trying to wonder how many other scenarios we have, like if I’m on an open road bicycling and I have 20 miles until the next place I’m turning and I’m just pedaling and I’m not going up a huge hill or doing anything crazy or trying to get a speed or get a certain time, am I oftentimes in that alpha state there in my brain?
Well, let me ask you this. Do you feel connected to things around you during that part of the ride?
Yeah, I often do. I can actually imagine how it smells right now just thinking about that idea of that kind of ride. Out in the sun, I smell this mixture of like the moisture level of the atmosphere, the sap of the trees, whatever, the water —
Asphalt or whatever you drive on.
The grass by the side, all that stuff, like how that all mixes together and varies.
Yes, so what I’m hearing is a very diffuse state of attention, because you have your objective and it’s kind of like on autopilot, but now you’re not quite literally but kind of sitting back and just enjoying the ride.
You mentioned the narrow state or the really immersed state, the downside being you’re not going to notice something else, that you could be so immersed, like there was one time I was so immersed at a blackjack table that I didn’t even notice the fact that the server came and asked if I wanted a drink. I didn’t even notice that, which is like — and she had even tapped me on the shoulder to ask me if I wanted my next drink and I didn’t even notice. So that’s like the downside of that like narrow or immersed state. But then, of course, there’s the upside of it in that when you’re really immersed, you can get things done really fast and I talk about these like 90-minute power sessions that I do for work to get a lot of work done in 90 minutes. Is there a way, and I’m thinking about even people with a situation, say, you have children and when you have small children at home, you can never be 100 percent so narrowly focused that you’re not going to notice if your children are crying or screaming or hurt themselves or about to set the fire alarm off, whatever it is, all those things that parents need to pay attention to, is there a way to get to that best of both worlds where you can get the benefits of this flow state while also still being able to notice some of these great things around you, whether it be your children or whether it be, I don’t know, a bunch of birds flying across the sky?
I would say that an individual who, I’ll just use the word “mastered” open focus is going to be able to do that. Because, again, once we’re no longer stuck or locked in this one narrow sort of way of paying attention, now we can open up and we can be more diffused, we can know when we can be immersed and when we need to be objective. And so when you have your 90-minute power sessions, I’m guessing that you’re very immersed in it. There’s probably not a lot of objective, like you already have done the objective part, now you’re ready to use it and apply it. It is diffused, because while you’re focusing on whatever your topic is that you’re working on, you’re also taking in other information. I don’t think that you could do a 90-minutes and call it a power hour if it was just — well, you could, I guess, but you would come out of it exhausted. Do you come out of these power sessions exhausted or do you feel rejuvenated?
It varies actually quite a bit, to be honest. Some of them I come out and I’m like, I even need to lay down but some of them I come out of it and I’m like so energized by what I’ve just done.
Great.
I’m just like, “Oh my god,” and it made me think of this and it made me think of that.
Yes, yes. So, what I’m hearing then is that you — so you’re definitely immersed versus objective, but then on that other continuum between narrow and diffuse, some days, you’re more on the narrow side, some days, you’re more on the diffuse side. The days that you’re going to be on that narrow side is going to be the days that you’re going to be more tired.
That makes sense because I think there’s a lot of people out there thinking about their energy levels and having something just not make sense.
Yes, this is definitely going to impact your energy level.
We don't ever think about how much energy we expend through the way we pay attention. Share on XWell, I hope this exercise helps a lot of people reclaim some of that energy, reclaim some of that focus. We’ve had our focus taken away from us for many reasons, but also it does seem like, I don’t want to call it the industrial way of doing things of like everything being narrow and immersive has caused a lot of like exhaustion and also a lot of creativity lost. We didn’t get a chance today to cover but you did allude to this idea that you could be so much more creative if you get down into the alpha state more frequently.
Absolutely. Because, again, in that narrow state, you can’t be creative. You are limited to what you already know. And the diffuse state is where our creativity comes from.
So do you think if someone’s really good at freestyle rapping, they’re in the alpha state?
I do. There’s yes and no. So the yes to that would be I’ve seen videos of Eminem doing just freestyle rapping. He’s definitely in the alpha state, because he’s not in the beta. You can tell he’s not in beta because he’s not really paying attention to anything around him. He’s totally immersed and he has to be diffused because he’s got to be able to come up with the rhymes and the right words and make sense at the same time. Your logical mind can’t keep up with that. It’s not possible.
I’ve tried it, it doesn’t work.
Yeah, right? Now, they could be in that beta state if they’re repeating something that they’ve already created.
Oh, so if someone’s performing their songs that they’ve already written.
Yes, then they couldn’t be in their head. Now we’re focusing on these are the lyrics, this is what I have to say, when I have to say it, when the music is right, so it can’t go into that narrow state. But I think true performers always put themselves into this diffuse or this alpha state because they know that there’s more stimulus coming in that they need to be responding to than just a small focus.
Whether it’s performing music or even like headlining, like giving workshops, seminars, anything like that, they have a way of responding to the crowd. I even think of comedians that like points to someone in the audience and, I don’t know, make fun of their shirt or something like that.
Yes.
Oh, my gosh. Well, that is amazing. Any last words for my audience regarding open focus or just in general, re-tapping into that more creative side and the side that’s going to help us retain some of our energy?
Yeah.
I think what I would say is the hardest part about open focus is just making the time to do it because it is so simple and the benefits are so immediate that — maybe I’ll just share from my own experience. It seems like it’s right there, like why do I have to do anything? It’s right there.
Yeah.
So making the time for that. So what I’ve decided to do, doing it for myself but I’m doing this for other people, is on Fridays, in my Fully Alive Facebook group, I’m going to be leading open-focus exercises just to get us all into the practice of it, give us a chance to experience it, and then I’ll offer group coaching down the road that will take this and then how do we apply this open focus into this creative space so that we can, like I said with this one contract, how do we resolve our issues so we don’t even need to go into that narrow focus anyway? Because within that particular example, before I started using this, it would have been like, “Well, what is it that she wants? What is it that she needs? How am I gonna manipulate this to get to that and how do I —” manipulating everything, just not in a bad way, but that’s all that narrow focus is all about, but being able to address the issue from a more relaxed state. And I believe, again, we’re all continuous energetically so whether she’s aware that she and I had this conversation or not doesn’t really matter. The results are what mattered.
Nice. Well, Mary, thank you so much for joining us today on Action’s Antidotes.
Oh, this was wonderful.
And taking on this new initiative to help people with this particular tool that we can all use to reclaim some of our time, energy, creativity. I wish you the best going forward and always a pleasure and I would love to also thank everyone out there for listening, anyone that’s listened to multiple or even all my episodes and encourage you to tune in for more of Action’s Antidotes.
Thank you, Stephen.
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About Dr. Mary Meduna-Gross
Dr. Mary Meduna-Gross is a transformational leadership coach helping entrepreneurs break the habit of struggle and experience the joy of their innate power.