On how what you pay attention to, pays attention

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

The first time I heard the line, “What you pay attention to pays attention,” I was sitting in a yoga teacher training session. The line felt so meaningful to me that I wrote it down immediately. Something in me understood it and knew it to be true.

At a surface level, it makes sense. If you pay attention to your pets, your spouse, or even someone you barely know, they tend to pay attention back. It could even be a stranger behind the coffee counter each morning—positive or negative, attention has a way of being returned. It doesn’t really discriminate.

But what about things that aren’t alive? Can they “pay attention” too? That’s where my curiosity was piqued, because I feel that in some way, they do.

This idea brought me back to a time in 2001, when my ex-husband, our two children, and I moved from Cape Cod to Naugatuck, Connecticut. At the time, I had my first real sense that there might be something to the idea of energy we can’t see.

We had been living in military housing, and after the movers packed up our belongings, we stayed for a couple of weeks in temporary housing on the base. The units were identical, clean, and fully furnished. When we first arrived, we were able to look at all four units and choose the one we wanted.

Around that same time, while staying with my brothers on Long Island, I picked up a book on Feng Shui from a bargain table at a bookstore. I had heard of it before, mostly in passing, but didn’t really know what it meant. As I read about the concept of “chi,” something clicked for me.

I started thinking about the temporary housing unit we had just left. Even though all four units were the same, I had a strong sense that the one we had lived in would feel different to the next family. It would still be clean, but something about it would carry the imprint of our time there.

When I mentioned this to others, they had more practical explanations—air flow, dust, things that couldn’t be seen but could be detected. That made sense, but I still felt there was something more to it.

Over the years, I’ve come back to that idea in different ways. What I’ve consistently noticed is how often things I pay attention to seem to be noticed by others shortly after.

I’ve always liked to keep a clean home. Even when I was busy, I made time for it, sometimes with help and sometimes on my own. When I had the time, I would focus on small, specific areas—corners, drawers, the tops of door frames—places that weren’t obvious but still felt important to tend to.

What struck me as odd was that later, without me saying anything, someone in my family would comment on that exact area. Not always the surface, but the object itself—a desk, a table, something I had quietly given attention to. It was as if the attention I gave it somehow made it more noticeable.

The same thing has happened in other ways. I’ve had moments where I noticed something about myself—like a pair of shoes I had worn many times but suddenly appreciated in a new way—and then someone else would comment on them that same day.

One of the more personal examples goes back to when I was younger. As my features were changing, I became very self-conscious about my nose. Many of the women in my family had a similar shape, and I didn’t like it. I focused on it in a negative way, and it seemed to draw negative attention.

Years later, I saw a woman with a similar nose, and it looked beautiful on her. It fit her face perfectly. That shifted something for me. I started to see my own features differently, and over time, others began to reflect that back to me in a more positive way.

It felt like I was being seen in the same way I was seeing myself.

To me, attention feels like a direction of energy. We can’t see it, but we experience it. It shapes how we move through the world and how the world seems to respond to us. Whether we are aware of it or not, it is always there.

What we focus on—what we think about, what we give time to—becomes part of the way we experience life. It also becomes part of how we are perceived.

I don’t always remember this, and I don’t always believe it in the moment. Just yesterday I had an experience that brought it back to the surface again.

I was out for a long walk in my neighborhood and passed a dog barking loudly behind an invisible fence. I knew I would have to pass the same dog again on my way back. The barking was disruptive to what had otherwise been a peaceful walk, and the dog itself seemed agitated.

I started thinking about energy and what it might mean to approach the situation differently. As I walked by again, I intentionally shifted my focus toward a sense of calm and openness. Almost immediately, the barking stopped.

For a moment, I felt like I had figured something out. But then the dog started barking again. It made me laugh, because I realized I had shifted from calm to control. I had changed the energy I was bringing into the situation.

When I returned to a more open, relaxed state, the barking stopped again and stayed that way as I continued down the street.

It was a simple moment, but a good reminder.

Life is a series of experiences like that—different situations, different “streets,” all offering something to learn. The way we approach them shapes what we experience in return.

If we move through the world with curiosity, openness, and a sense of care, it tends to feel different than when we approach it with tension or resistance.

What you pay attention to pays attention.

So it may be worth paying attention to what you’re paying attention to.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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On Being in the Dark

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

A light breeze blew in from across the street when I opened my blinds and cracked my bedroom window while it was still dark this morning. The sound of the Long Island Sound filled my ears as the semi-salty air drifted into the space where I stood. A bell buoy chimed in the distance. A nearby bird sang. The cool, damp air felt refreshing against my skin in the otherwise still, sleepy room. I took a deep breath and let it all in, appreciating the quiet of that moment in the dark.
I moved through my morning routine and into meditation. Since the clocks changed last week, it is dark again in the early hours, and for a short time we get to watch the sunrise earlier along the horizon. It had rained overnight, and the world felt just a bit more crisp—renewed. I chose a different space to practice this morning, turning off the lights and opening the curtains to let the darkness slowly give way to light.

I stumbled around to find my meditation pillow while carrying a glass of lemon water. My animals moved around me, a little confused and curious about the change in routine. As I felt along the floor for the doorstop, I struggled to find it and eventually had to put everything down to search more carefully.
At some point, I knocked over the water. I heard it spill and felt the dog walk through it moments later. I sat down on the floor, slightly defeated, and then laughed as I felt wet paws and kisses on my face. My mood lifted almost immediately.

There was a lesson in it.

We can’t see well in the dark. We can move through familiar spaces by memory and touch, but our sense of sight is limited. We don’t fully know what is around us—we only know what we remember from when there was light.

Nature ensures that we spend half our time in darkness. Depending on where we are in the world, that balance shifts across the seasons, but the presence of darkness is constant. It’s part of the rhythm.
In many ways, our internal world operates similarly. There is so much we don’t know—about situations, about other people, even about ourselves. When we don’t know something, we are, in a sense, in the dark. Often, we don’t even realize what we don’t know.

There is something humbling in that. Accepting that we are not always seeing clearly can change how we move through the world. It can soften certainty and make room for curiosity.

This becomes especially relevant when we form strong opinions or beliefs. Whether the topic is something as large as politics or something as small as a personal interaction, it’s easy to assume we understand more than we actually do. We operate from our own experiences and perspectives, which feel complete to us, but are still limited.

When we stay open to the possibility that we are only seeing part of the picture, it changes how we listen and respond. It doesn’t mean abandoning our views, but it does mean holding them with a bit more flexibility.

There are countless sources of information, perspectives, and experiences that shape how people see the world. Not all of them reach us, and not all of them are easy to understand. Accepting that we may not have the full picture allows for a different kind of awareness—one that is less rigid and more receptive.

After cleaning up the spilled water as best I could in the dark, I made my way back to my practice. My cats and dog settled around me as I sat, the door slightly open, the cool air still moving through the space.

Without relying on sight, the other senses became more vivid. I noticed the sounds—the birds, the water, the buoy, the distant hum of a car, the steady rhythm of my dog’s breathing. The feel of the air on my skin was more pronounced. Things I might normally overlook became clearer.
As the rain began again, a new layer of sound filled the space. Gradually, the darkness gave way to light, and with it, my attention shifted back toward what I could see. It became easier to rely on sight and, in doing so, easier to overlook everything else.

There is something in that as well. Our strongest sense can sometimes become the one that limits us the most.

My animals seemed to take the whole morning in stride. The change in routine, the spilled water, the unfamiliar movements—it was all simply part of what was happening. They adapted without resistance.

There’s something to learn from that.

When we accept that we don’t—and can’t—know everything, it becomes easier to move through the world with a bit more ease. We make decisions with the information we have, understanding that it may not be complete. That awareness can feel less like a limitation and more like a kind of freedom.
It allows space for learning, for adjustment, and for seeing things we might otherwise miss.
And perhaps that’s part of the rhythm, too—moving between what we can see and what we can’t, knowing that both are always present.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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On Our Human Inchoate Brain

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

Have you ever considered the possibility that our brains are quite inchoate?

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines inchoate as “being only partly in existence or operation.” Dictionary.com describes the word as “just begun and so not fully formed or developed; rudimentary.”

From as early as I can remember, I was taught in school and church that humans are the most developed and intelligent creatures on earth. Through my Catholic elementary school training, I had “learned” that we, as humans, have dominion over the planet and all the creatures on it.

In fourth grade, I learned about the solar system. Like many children in the ’70s and ’80s, I had to create a physical model of the planets. I was fascinated and longed to learn more. The church and my classes preached that we are here in God’s image. There is no other intelligent life—but that always seemed like such a boring story to me.

My Catholic school did teach us about the Big Bang theory. They also taught creation. It didn’t make sense, of course. No one, including my parents, questioned what felt like an obvious conundrum to me. When I asked about it, my teachers or mom would seemingly make things up on the spot—explaining that the Bible’s or science’s exact numbers might be fuzzy, or that one day of creation described in the Bible was actually millions of years.

Sometime around middle school, in a science class, I first heard that humans only use 10% of their brain. It was unclear whether that was all we were capable of or simply all we used. I was a disinterested pre-teen and, though I wondered, I wasn’t curious enough to raise my hand and ask.

One night in high school, after a shift at my ice cream scooping job, I lay under my covers with the telephone cord stretched tightly from my nightstand, talking to the brother of one of my coworkers. He was a little older than me. We had flirted a few times, and he had asked me for my number. I had a private phone line in my room, so I was able to talk with a fair amount of privacy. The phone line was a Christmas gift from my parents one year—and thinking about it now as I write, it was likely a gift for everyone in the household.

We didn’t talk about anything scandalous, but the privacy allowed my mind to wander and random thoughts to surface. Somehow, the conversation led to the question of space and other intelligent life. I remember being totally engaged and just expressing thoughts as they arose. Some of them were:

If dogs can hear things we can’t, what makes us think there aren’t things we can’t hear?
Does that apply to our sight too?
Are there things right next to us we can’t see?
We only know the colors on the visible spectrum—what if there are more we simply can’t perceive?

I thought about this conversation many times over the course of my life and expanded on it into other thoughts and theories. When talking with others, I sometimes found myself in heated intellectual debates about science and what we know. Some argued that we would know if there were other things around us or other intelligent life. Others held strong religious beliefs that we are all there is and are made in God’s likeness—so stop asking questions. And some were more open-minded and curious when I shared these thoughts.

Last night, I was lounging on the sofa with my husband while streaming the latest Star Wars movie. Our dog Koji was on the floor below us. At some point early in the movie (before we fell asleep), Koji got up, seemingly perturbed. He stood in front of the TV in full soldier mode—tail high, the hair along his back raised. He was partially growling and partially squeaking in fear. He paused, cocked his head, and tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Eventually, he decided there was no danger and came back to lie near our feet, this time with one ear alert.

I couldn’t help but wonder what Koji thinks of this rectangular box that we sit and watch. It makes noises—sometimes dogs barking or a doorbell ringing. When this happens, he becomes confused, running around barking or growling. He is completely incapable of understanding that we are watching a story. The concept of a movie or even a book is beyond the scope of his brain. We can’t explain it to him—and even if we could, he doesn’t have the sensory ability to perceive it the way we do.

This brings my thoughts back to us.

If we truly evolved from amoeba to monkeys to humans over trillions of years, what makes anyone believe, even for a moment, that humans will not continue to evolve into something even more intelligent than we are now? If we are only using a fraction of our brains, then perhaps our brains are inchoate. Perhaps there are things right next to us that we simply cannot see or understand—just as Koji cannot understand the television.

I personally believe there is so much out there that we just don’t know—and cannot possibly know—because we don’t yet have the sensory organs to perceive it. When I bring this up, people often seem uncomfortable and dismiss it quickly. I’m not sure why. Electricity existed long before we discovered how to harness it. It seems unlikely that we have already discovered everything there is to discover.

It would be even more unlikely to believe that the limitations of our five senses are enough to understand everything the universe contains.

If we evolved from monkeys, we know they are limited.

We are limited too.

Because, in my very humble (and perhaps slightly crazy) opinion, our brains are inchoate.

via Daily Prompt: Inchoate

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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