Heidi Kyle is a well-known hypnotherapist and counsellor in private practice in the incredible Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa. Heidi started her career in the corporate world in London and has since used her experience to craft a unique style in the helping professions.
There is a reason we use the term “paying” attention. Many people use this without thinking about what it really means. It is just another expression in the wide use of expressions in the English language, other languages use this expression too. In French, we would say “preter attention.” What we pay attention to is fundamentally a function of our early childhood experiences, however, it can be influenced by media and others as well. In my articles on Regression, I explain some of the ways our developing psyches make “decisions,” and it is these decisions that can determine where we “pay” our attention.
What does it mean to “pay” attention?
This article is about considering the concept that it is not just an expression to “pay” attention. When we pay attention, we are giving something of ourselves and if we do not understand what that can mean we can find ourselves in an unbelievably bad place emotionally.
“Paying attention” means something deeper, more spiritual, and of great interest to us as a species on Planet Earth right now. I am also going to explore ways that hypnosis can help us with identifying what is important to us and where the most benefits of our time and attention can be had, at an individual level.
We are giving of ourselves…
To pay attention in simple terms is to pay something of ourselves, from our inner reserves. When we pay attention, we “give” something of ourselves, and it is worth taking a moment to consider what it is that we are giving.
If we think of how much is available to us in the world – the plethora of experiences and relationships we could have and how wide those experiences are, we have so many choices available. When we put our attention onto something we truly do “pay” something of ourselves. Sometimes we are not even aware of the price we are paying for the attention we are giving. We have not yet as a species really started to collectively notice this.
Many extraordinarily successful people have learned the lesson of how important attention paid is and they are highly protective of where they put their own attention. They can often appear abrupt or dismissive. That protectiveness around attention is partially the secret of their success.
Do not be seduced…
There is an element of seduction to what we pay attention to – it is particularly important to understand how this seduction works so we can understand better how our attention can be misdirected. We can see examples everywhere in the media and in the world of literature and in the general experiences we have. It is extremely easy to binge-watch a TV show or to hang out with friends having a negative gossip session about someone else’s life. That can feel good – we enjoy the program; we enjoy the sensation of feeling we are not the only one with problems in the world. We might even feel superior and that makes us feel good too. However, often after these experiences, we notice that we do not really feel good. We do not feel a real sense of power or positivity at all. We can sometimes feel ennui and a sense of disquiet or that we have not been our best person. Sometimes we regret our nasty comments about others and worry they may find out or we just feel like we have been unkind, and it doesn’t make us feel better about ourselves. It is important to notice that our attention has been seduced and that is something to be aware of.
There is collective and individual attention
Let us focus now on what it means to “pay” attention. We first need to be aware there is individual attention and there is collective attention. Let us start with individual attention first. When we pay attention individually, we feel the effects very rapidly. An easy example is the example above of a person who gossips about others in a negative way. So, we can feel the effects of this rapidly. We leave feeling those negative emotions. So, in this example, we are “paying” attention in a negative way and consequently we then “pay” for this later by feeling sad, bad, or just not ourselves or a version of our best selves.
Collectively, as a species, we also pay attention negatively, but the effects tend to be less obvious than on an individual level. For example, Mainstream Media tends to report many negative stories. The stories often make us feel fearful. Stories on topics like war, famine, the economy, high unemployment, poor education outcomes, immigration, crime, lonely older people, environmental catastrophe, and other depressing and fear-inducing stories. Unfortunately, for people who make a habit of “paying” their attention to this the price they pay is exceedingly high.
People who routinely consume negative media report feelings of hopelessness, a loss of faith in their fellows, a sense of purposelessness and a lack of hope for the future. Unfortunately, when we pay too much attention to all these things, that individually we cannot change, we also feel a heightened sense of stress. Stress at a fundamental level is a sense of pervasive fear but feeling like it cannot be changed, and it results in feeling powerless, negative, and hopeless. All that sounds like a high price to me!
How about “paying” our attention somewhere else?
However, as a complex species, we can hold two simultaneous thoughts at the same time, but we cannot pay our attention effectively at the same time and it is important to understand this. So, we can be aware of some of the negative aspects of life on Planet Earth at this time, and at the same time, we can choose to pay our attention to other things which have a greater payoff for us.
An example of this would be the person who does not slavishly tune into the negative loop but is aware of the themes however the individual chooses to “pay” their attention in other ways.
They may decide, for example, to pay attention to cleaning up their environment in their hometown, they may decide to join a local neighborhood watch scheme, and put their “payment’ of attention there or volunteer at a local literacy project. They may decide just to pay attention to their neighbors, knowing how much a simple greeting and a conversation could meet to an older person, giving something positive of themselves feels good. Once we stop making attention payments to the wrong areas we notice immediately a positive change in our outlook.
How can therapeutic hypnosis help?
Moving onto therapeutic hypnosis now and how that can help us to understand our attention and better pay attention to things that really matter to us. We can use hypnosis to find out what makes us feel good and productive (as opposed to things that make us feel bad, sad, or indifferent).
Hypnosis has many techniques that are hugely valuable. We can use hypnosis for medical issues such as pain management, for reframing negative memories, exploring spiritual and esoteric subjects (such as past life regression), stopping smoking, changing negative habits, and much more. However, something that people do not realize is that hypnosis is amazing for allowing the individual to realize where they need to pay attention to have more positive mental health as well as realize their potential.
A recent example from my practice was a dear lady who was so sad and depressed, that she felt the world had become a bad place and that there was nothing she could do about it. She was on a cocktail of anti-depressants and had been for a number of years. The first thing I noticed about her was her caring disposition and it occurred to me that she was one of life’s angels who had been thwarted by all the negativity surrounding her.
So instead of focusing purely on depression (which always has an underlying belief system that makes the person prone to depression), I started to ask her what she did daily and what sort of things she was in the habit of paying attention to. Not surprisingly, she described herself as a “news junkie” and that she “always” was on top of everything media-related both for Africa (where we live) and the world. Whew! That sounded like a lot of attention going to underserved places. I then discovered that in her life she was quite disempowered which was partially why she had decided to “watch” instead of participating in life.
In hypnosis, Parts Therapy is a technique to help us choose
For this client, I used a wonderful Hypnosis technique called Parts Therapy ™ where, during hypnosis, we asked the part of this client that was depressed what was happening. Parts Therapy is a fantastic way of identifying what is important to a client and why the important stuff is not getting the attention it deserves. The Depressed part of my client felt hopeless because of all the negativity. However, as hypnosis allows us an insight into our subconscious mind, we also discovered that there was a much more positive part of my client that was yearning to escape all this negative focus of her attention and wanted to join a dance class and start singing lessons!
The eventual effect of this session was that this lovely lady started singing and dancing and by putting her attention to the more joyful aspects of life she started to recover from depression. She also started to discover that there were worthwhile people who were also singing and dancing and expanding their joy to do worthwhile activities such as offering free lessons to underprivileged children and adults and starting a Dance-a-Thon locally that helped to raise funds for a children’s home. This introduced my client to many new people and friends as well as helping her to see how much of a difference she could make.
Good vibrations…
The takeaway for my client was that “paying” her attention to things that she could not change was costing her a huge amount in terms of her mental health. She discovered by choosing to “pay” attention to something that might have seemed frivolous or not as worthy gave her an unexpected “pay off” in terms of both genuine experiences that helped others and relief from the debilitating effects of depression. Her life naturally filled with joy.
When we “pay” attention positively we put a payment into our emotional bank account, when we “pay” attention negatively we take it out.
Who and what are you going to “pay” today?
You can read more about Parts Therapy ™ on Heidi Kyle’s website using this link!
Heidi Kyle, Hypnotherapist & Counsellor
Heidi Kyle is a well-known hypnotherapist and counsellor in private practice in the incredible Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa. Heidi started her career in the corporate world in London and has since used her experience to craft a unique style in the helping professions. With hypnosis and our shared consciousness being the next frontier of evolving humanity, Heidi has developed the "Centred Consciousness" approach to take back our power in our lives and to understand our own unique role in the human story. Heidi's mission is to bring about change in the human psyche to benefit all. Heidi is currently working on her first book "Journeys in Hypnosis".
