What you focus on grows

There is a saying that “what you focus on grows.”  It's something I first learned as a yoga teacher and then again as a qigong teacher.  The idea is that our thoughts affect our reality.  Another way to think of it is: “the energy we put out is the energy we attract.”  And our body, our thoughts and our emotions are all made up of energy.  But is it really true?  Can what we think actually affect our reality? Let’s take a look at a couple of scenarios

Have you ever had a morning like this: “ Great! My alarm didn’t go off, I’ll be late and this whole day’s gonna be a mess!”  Or maybe you didn’t get enough sleep and think: “What an awful night! I’ll never make it through the day.” And then you stub your toe on your way to the bathroom, your hair doesn’t want to cooperate, and the milk for your coffee has gone sour, just proving your point.

Like Attracts Like

But what if I told you that by focusing on the negative right away, we only start to see more of the negative in our day. It’s a snowball effect.  Think about it. Does lack sleep really mean the day will be miserable?  I know that’s not true because I distinctly recall not sleeping well one night, as I was so excited to go on a vacation to Europe, that when the alarm rang, I bounced out of bed with pure joy. Even the grumpy guy at the airport couldn’t affect how happy I was. And truthfully, I couldn’t think of anything that spoiled the day. In this case, my thoughts were apparently all about the fun I was going to have.  In other words, “like attracts like.”  The more you focus on what’s fun and exciting the more of it you get

Not yet convinced?   

There are many studies that do show that our thoughts affect our reality, but why not do your own experiment and attract some fun into your life as well?

Here’s the idea:

In qigong, we sometimes focus and meditate on the word “qi” to increase the energy or qi in our body.  (The idea that what you focus on grows!) So why not take a minute each morning and “meditate” on the word ‘fun’? Just allow yourself to think of all the feelings, visuals, and activities that come to mind when you think of the word ‘fun’.  

That is all you have to do.  For 1 minute each morning, meditate on the word ‘fun.’ Then see what happens.   Try it for at least a week. If you really want to go all out and see what happens, meditate on ‘fun’, while you wait in line at the grocery store, during your walk and even before bed!

When I did this recently, I ended up with a 10 minute giggle session with my daughter over a wardrobe malfunction that brought tears to our eyes, a spontaneous visit for dessert with friends across the city, a day where everything just worked out, a surprise free coffee, and several dinner conversation filled with ease and laughter. It was truly a fun week!

To get you started, here are a couple of videos of what fun looks like.  😉

Now that’s fun!

Go on, send some fun to a friend and share this post!

Need to de-stress? Try my Qigong class!