Journey with Your Intuition

Chapter 6: Focus

Once we have gained more clarity and cleared our minds from all the things that are unnecessary, we need to get ourselves ready, alert, focused and willing to take action on the things our intuition shows us and not be distracted by all the noise that goes on in our day to day lives.

Sometimes it's good to say no to a few things here and there and shut off electrical appliances or any form of social media so you can give yourself time to breathe, relax and focus on your inner-voice. When we choose to focus, we give our minds the clarity and discipline to be able to go directly in one direction. This also causes us to be more sensitive to our intuition when it communicates with us.

Shutting everything off is a very good way of taking control and silencing all our distractions and help us pay attention to what our inner voice is saying. You'll also begin to discover a lot of things you obsess about aren't very important at all.

Practicing focus isn't always easy, but with time and practice you can soon attain the ability to cultivate a good amount of focus. From focus comes will; from will, tenacity; and from tenacity comes the achievement of your goal.

Being able to focus is a priceless faculty that we acquire as we grow into adults. Some of us however still have trouble with focus and many of us in this new age have a very short attention span. There are some reasons that may contribute to this. First, as I mentioned before, we're in a time when things move faster - we have things like social media being consumed every second, adverts thrown at us in every direction at a very fast rate. According to certain statistics, the average person is now estimated to encounter 6,000 to 10,000 adverts every single day! That's a lot of ads!

There are countless stimulants at our fingertips that we load our bodies with, like sweets, fast food, caffeine (such as energy drinks), alcohol, cigarettes and other recreational drugs I don't need to mention. We've also become a generation that likes to text somebody, watch a video and eat a meal all at the same time. And of course, even I've partaken in this from time to time, so I'm also guilty of this too.

Truth be told, as our world changes, develops and entertainment becomes more accessible at a tap of a finger, our ability to focus is being impeded and lost in the midst of all the noise, pleasure and action we consume everyday.

I'm not saying that some of these things in and of themselves are bad and we should cut them out all together, I love watching a good Netflix movie and having sweets is fun every now and then. But too much of these things however really throws us off balance and makes us quite neurotic, and this makes it hard to really focus and have a balanced, grounded, clear and stable mind.

Once you're calm and centred in your body, then you can start to tackle the big goal here which is focus.

So, how does one focus?
What does it mean?

Why is focus so important?

The definition of focus means 'The center of interest and activity'. This is why multitasking, in fact, hinders focus. When you multitask, you're not allowing yourself to be completely present in one thing. Imagine how great you would be at one task if you did it with undivided attention?

You may be wondering at this point "Why is focus so important for intuition?"

Well, I'll tell you...

I grew up in a Christian background and when I was little, my mum bought us animated bible stories. We also used to watch things on TV like 'Superbook' on religious channels. (Shout out to my mum by the way for buying all those cassettes and dvds, they were amazing. But not nearly as amazing as you!)

I enjoyed these films and watched as these bible characters would have encounters with God. There would always be a bright light and this loud, heavy, booming voice as if it would seem to appear from the sky. I saw that so much as a child, so as a small kid, that's how I thought God spoke.

But the truth is that intuition is usually much more subtle than that. Instead of a loud voice you'll probably get a gentle whisper, instead of a blinding light, you'll probably come across a picture that seems to capture your eye and draw you in.

When you harness your focus you make yourself more attuned to the information you intuitively receive. Constant exposure and consumption of stimulants can be a problem because they will over excite your nervous system and can overwhelm your ability to focus.

Imagine you're in a room with 10 people, picture one of them being somebody that you cherish very deeply and they have something very important to tell you. When they try to talk to you, they keep getting drowned out by the voices of the other 9 people that are in the room with you. Your obvious move would be to get them to be quiet or leave the room so you can focus on your loved one, right?

This is one of the many things that focus helps us do. It gives us the ability to silence and exclude everything else that isn't of our interest and pay attention to what we are getting.

I remember a time in University when a bunch of us used to meet up every Friday and practice hearing God's voice for messages regarding each other. During the time when we were listening out for it, there was probably a minute or 2 when I was like "Umm, Jes, where you at?" Then I began to realise that I had the answer the whole time! I had already got this picture of bricks and an unfinished wall. Long story short, the picture and all the other things I got with it were all accurate!

You can regain your focus back by taking the time out of your day to do the exercise mentioned in chapter 4. Physical exercise is also a great way to clear and enrich your mind and body. Remember that with anything, the best way to start is small, 5 minutes a day of exercise is fine as long as you stick to it. Make sure you do what is best for you.