Spiritual writings or therapies often promote that what you give attention to, will grow, so if you do not want to be in trouble, shift your attention from that trouble to what you do want, and then that will be what you will get.
Some truth lays in that thinking style however I do not believe that troubles go away by trying to not think about them.
In my office in Amsterdam we actually give difficulties the required attention to place things in space and time so that we might find ways that enables personal or professional development.
Another way of giving attention is to just listen to a person, be there fully for the other person. This means that you make yourself be present in their world, and you witness their way of experiencing. To be present in somebody else’s world implies that you are not in your own. As far as I understand a person can be present at one place at the time.
To offer your presence or attention in this way requires the capacity to compartmentalize your own world, and with that your knowledge, experience, and history, so that you do not refer to that when you are hearing the other person’s words. Only then can this person experience your attention as a witness that directs them to self knowledge.
That kind of attention has got power to help a person find answers inside their self that have been there all the time.
Thoughts behind this wisdom is that we cannot know the other if we refer or compare what they tell us to our own knowledge.
The power of attention can work small miracles and large ones.
