Finding focus in the eye of the storm

The Yarrow Letter

December 2, 2023

It is my intention to be a lifelong learner. On this path, you may find that there is much to learn, and life can get in the way sometimes.

We grow and learn like a tree, extending new branches of consciousness into reality.

Looking outward from our trunk or “center” each young branchling of understanding can seem very separate from the rest, with little overlap.

Topics like running, singing, and law may have little in common as you begin to develop your understanding in those areas.

But as branches grow denser, the overlap between subjects deepens.

As we are preoccupied with the business of living, our times of study easily slip into a habitual segregated learning style.

We spend time researching one topic and a few closely related topics, like politics and history, nutrition and fitness, philosophy, and religion.

How can we expand our awareness to all of our amassed knowledge at once? That would require entering the creative state.

Creativity requires only your observations of the world followed by a time when your brain can shift into the default mode network.

This is the time when your mind wanders, when you are not focused on anything.

Think of the times you had a “shower thought” or “aha!” moment. This is the default mode in action.

Through use of our creative minds, we can build connections in our knowledge, leading to greater understanding.

This perspective is what makes you uniquely YOU!

But when times are tough, stress is high, and tasks come at you from every direction, what are we to do?

A violent storm comes to shake our branches, and we look to them for an answer - but we cannot make anything out of the mess.

It is taking enormous focus to handle our outward reality alone.

To find clarity we must enter the eye of the storm.

A place where the air is still, despite the surrounding chaos.

I am not suggesting that you uproot yourself to find clarity. Rather I would have you practice the art of focus.

Today I would like to share my strategies for balancing stress and improving focus.

Meditation

Meditation is not easy, it takes consistent discipline to see growth.

It is hard to want to meditate in the beginning. As a novice meditator, it was so frustrating to have unsuccessful meditations, day after day.

Oceans of thought filled my head and swept me away in their riptides - leaving me face to face with a beeping timer, thinking:

"Agh! How could I forget, I set aside this time to NOT think!"

For meditation, I apply the 100% mentality. I have committed to meditating every day for the rest of my life.

Allowing myself a single "pass" day invites complacency. 1 day off can lead to 2. 1 week off can lead to months.

At the end of this tunnel is a harsh light that feels like:
"Why did I forsake my commitment?"

This is why I meditate even on my hardest days, whether I've broken up with my girlfriend or I have 3 midterms to study for - I find time to meditate.

There are 5 things I seek from my meditation right now:

- Building focus

- Reducing allostatic load

- Training myself to lucid dream

- Being

- Feeling and processing my emotions (ecstatic dance)

—Focus has been easier for me lately thanks to mediation. I have reduced my tendency to drift and mindlessly pick up my phone, scrolling the YouTube for you page. I've taken steps to mitigate my phone usage, more on that later.

—Our level of focus is impacted by our allostatic load, our built-up stress in the nervous system. Without proper relaxation of the nervous system, we lose the ability to focus.

Relaxation in the familiar sense - maybe watching a show and chillin’ on the couch - does not return our nervous system to balance.

It is activities like meditation, walking, sleep, and ice baths that reduce our stress buildup.

—Sleep has become extremely important to me as of late - I need all the time I can get to restore body and mind to handle life as a polymath and college student.

But more interesting than a solid 8 hours - is the dream state.

As a child, I had the most vivid dreams of light and dark forces cyclically engulfing one another.

But as I grew up this recurring vision left me, along with all of my others more lighthearted dreams.

Only after I began to meditate did I start to get vivid and insightful dreams again.

Just the other day I had my first fully lucid dream. I realized that I was dreaming and took control of my dream reality. For a moment I entertained the story laid out before me, but I decided I’d rather do my own thing.

So I flew.

I was free.

This experience was so uplifting; I was able to wield boundless control of my dream reality without the need to micromanage it.

For myself, lucid dreaming is but one of the golden fruits born of training one’s mind.

Ecstatic dance

Meditations bring us into an altered state of consciousness.

In the common practice, we try to empty the mind of all thoughts, and if thoughts do arrive they are allowed to pass on by.

Ecstatic dance is a kind of meditation that brings consciousness to the body and feelings.

Dance is a timeless form of human connection, and through it we can release emotional blockages.

Allowing emotions to flow through and out of your body is integral to finding stillness in both body and mind.

This is a dance where you move according to how you feel rather than how it may look. Primarily it is dancing for you, not for anyone else.

I have found that there are 5 stages to growth in the ecstatic dance practice.

1st is finding the time to begin dancing. For those with intense stage fright, even beginning to dance is a monumental challenge. This is ok, when the time is right, you will feel called to the dance floor, until then simply relax and take in the scene on the sidelines.

2nd is freeing oneself from stage fright. It will be tough for you to dance freely in front of a group of people but once you break through, a massive weight is lifted off your shoulders.

Dancing with a large group of freely expressive people can make this process easier or harder, depending on your severity of state fright and your perspective.

At my first ecstatic dance session, I was able to dissolve a blockage of stage fright that I had been fighting for years.

3rd, dropping into the body. In my experience, the will to dance freely in front of others does not necessarily mean you will be fully conscious in the body and feelings.

It will take practice to fully drop into the body and out of the analytical mind.

4th, reading the energy of others. As you come to experience consciousness in the body and feelings through dance, you will grow in your ability to read, flow with, and lead anothers energy in ecstatic dance.

It is this kind of partner dance that can bring about a raw, authentic connection, regardless of whether you relate platonically or otherwise.

With this kind of dance, we have the opportunity to be with another in such a way that we are reminded that we are not alone.

As our perception is at the center of all our experiences, we rarely get the chance to feel that another is there with us at this core of our being.

5th, the flow state. Athletes in extreme sports experience this during their incredible feats. The flow is a state where your body executes faster than you can think.

With a laser focus on the direct experience, the world peels away as the body and mind act in perfect unison.

Ecstatic dance provides a safe place to experience this flow.

Those who bring their consciousness into their body will have a great chance at feeling the flow.

It can happen when dancing alone or with a partner, and it looks like an incredible succession of moves that would be impossible without the flow state.

This unique form of consciousness can generate unparalleled joy - thus “ecstatic” dance.

The phone

Using my phone without intention has always been the biggest boss among my distractions. I’d like to show you the system I’ve implemented to discourage this mindless use.

If you are an iPhone user I would encourage you to try this system out.

The most important step to reduce mindless use is to organize your home screen in a way that presents relevant apps to your preferred use of the phone.

I use my phone for a few things:

- Communication

- Studying books, YouTube videos, podcasts, and articles.

- Keeping notes and a to-do list

- Guided meditations

- Music

With this in mind, I have created 3 home screens for school, work, and personal workflows.

I made the topmost widget to swap between home screens with the native IOS shortcuts app. It also brings up a speedial prompt for a select list of numbers when I press the call button. No more hunting in the messages app to call my loved ones.

As I switch between screens the to-do list changes to match the current workflow and my notifications are restricted to certain apps. This app is called “Things” and it can be purchased on the app store for $10. For me this app is well worth the price.

Below is the speedial interface and my second page which is consistent among the school, work, and personal focus modes. If I want to access any of my other apps I have to manually search for it in the app library.

Putting obstacles like this in my path to distraction - YouTube in my case - is a great way to curb the habit.

If I find myself misusing my phone I will quickly click my power button 3 times to make the whole screen greyscale. This makes everything much less interesting, encouraging me to put down the phone.

Here’s how you can implement all of this on your phone:

1st design some new pages for your focus modes.

2nd, create focus modes in settings, tune whichever settings you’d like to block/receive in that focus mode and set a schedule if you’re interested. Don’t forget to select the home page you just designed for this focus mode.

3rd download the IOS Shortcuts app, open to “gallery” and add a Pomodoro shortcut.

Here’s where it gets a bit tricky, refer to this walkthrough I made on the whole process:

Lastly, the most crucial step in this focus system is accountability. Just because your distracting apps are now harder to get to does not mean you won’t be drawn to them.

Every time you open your phone and see your new organizational system, remind yourself why you are doing it. Cut off the mindless habit.

If you are having severe trouble focusing on a task and find yourself constantly gravitating towards the phone for an escape - meditate. It is likely that your allostatic load needs to be addressed.

Today’s song goes out to one of my favorite jazz artists, the criminally underrated Yusuke Shima.

From Shima’s recent album, Wind Loop Case 1 (released just this September), Stompin at the M perfectly blends a playful keyboard, strong beats, smooth brass, gentle woodwinds, and silky smooth vocals to evoke a classy and fun lounge n chill sound.

I would highly recommend this new album for your leisure or cooking time.

Remember to breathe in deeply, breathe in fresh energy deep into your core. Throughout your day, morning evening, and night, take 10 deep breaths before continuing with your day. Energize, revitalize and restore. Your depth of breath correlates to your presence and awareness in your body.

Breathe in the beauty of life.

-Yarrow Achillea