“I enter fully into each experience, and I come out fully from each of them, too. I put the whole of me into all I do, and out of all I do.” - Krishnamurti
The late 19th century psychologist William James wrote, “My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind.” Over a century later, his writings continue to guide our assumptions about human attention and how it shapes our experience of the world. Just as William James proposed in the late 1800’s, we still assume that what we pay attention to is largely influenced by choice, driven by our desires and interests and remaining largely within our control.
I wonder if William James would have come to the same conclusion about attention had he been alive today. Although people in the late 1800’s most likely had their own types of distractions, it is doubtful their attention was hacked quite as strongly as ours. The distractions during William James’ lifetime were part of the backdrop of their external environment—street noise, pollution, overcrowding—and not experienced quite as intimately as those of today. Modern distractions are, for the most part, largely held in the palm of our hand. What would William James say about choice and attention if he experienced the seductive pull of technology? How are our choices influenced by the instant gratification offered with the swipe of a finger, along with access to an internet that is intentionally designed to hack our attention with tweets, news feeds, social media, and videos of grumpy cats and dancing grandmothers?
William James’ treatise on attention still rings true—much of how we experience life is related to what we notice and attend to—but in an environment loaded with emotionally charged distractions perhaps his theories do not go far enough. There is simply more noise to tune out today than ever before. It is easy to get overwhelmed—touch a button to see if it will rain and those hiking boots you’ve been thinking about suddenly appear. Fifteen minutes later and you might find yourself scrolling through the shoes on Zappos or planning a trip to the Adirondacks. It’s true that we still have a choice about what to attend to—we can ignore the ad for hiking boots—but it takes a level of vigilance that was previously unnecessary. We could all use some support to help stay focused, some sort of tool that strengthens our resolve to keep our attention centered and help us resist the endless distractions of a digital world.
It is much easier to filter out distractions when we focus on our values. Studies have shown that people are less likely to be distracted and will exercise higher levels of self-control when they are engaged in activities that are meaningful and resonate with their values. It’s safe to say that what we decide to pay attention to is related to how well we know and understand ourselves. Perhaps self-knowledge could prove to be a useful tool in resisting distractions.
Patanjali understood the dangers found with the constant swirling of the mind. In his Niyamas, he offers five practices to help us develop the steady concentration needed to develop a deep level of self-knowledge. The term “Niyama”, which appears in both Hindu and Buddhist texts, is Sanskrit for “rules, guidelines, and observances.” It refers to the positive actions and personal observances that help create a steady state of mind and promote inner strength, clarity, and discipline. Whereas the Yamas are broader, providing guidance in how we might interact with others and the world around us, the Niyamas are more practical, offering ways to improve our relationship with the inner self.
Saucha, which translates as purity, is the first Niyama. It refers to cleanliness, simplicity, and refinement, describing a wide range of behaviors--from personal hygiene, diet, exercise, and physical surroundings to our emotions, thoughts, and behavioral patterns. Saucha asks us to strip away the behaviors that weigh us down and develop practices that offer us the greatest potential for growth. It reminds us that our external environment affects our internal state of mind, and that what we expose ourselves to will shape our attention, behavior and, ultimately, our future.
Of all the Niyamas, Saucha is perhaps the easiest for most of us to embrace. At its very core, it encourages us to develop healthy habits. It speaks to daily practices that keep our body and surroundings clean—eating organic foods, getting rid of clutter, exercising, breathing practices, using a neti pot, refraining from violent imagery. Hardcore Saucha adherents may even follow some esoteric purification practices like fasting for several weeks, running string through the nasal passages, or drawing cotton through the digestive system (yes, that is a thing…). But cleansing does not need to be weird or extreme to be effective. Simplicity is the goal of Saucha, encouraging us to strip away habits that create the kinds of clutter and mess that weigh us down. At its core, Saucha is a practice of subtraction, asking us to strip away our expectations, judgments, and illusions so that we can simply be with the moment as it is.
Most of us are good at identifying our bad habits and thinking about how we’d like to change. But the real work of Saucha starts when we step into the mess and start the work of cleaning up our life. We tend to fantasize about the trajectory of behavior change, believing that the process is linear. We see the start of the process as hard, maybe even painful, but with practice it eventually evolves into a feeling that is uncomfortable but sustainable. We may even anticipate rough patches, but we assume that, with hard work, we’ll eventually hit our stride and the new behavior will become part of our everyday lives. Fresh starts are seductive—we get excited about the outcome but tend to underestimate the difficulty of the journey. It’s like standing at the base of a hiking trail and looking up to the mountain. We focus on the peak and imagine how great it will feel to be there, delighting in our anticipated success. In our enthusiasm we downplay the work required to get to the top. The practice of Saucha teaches us to declutter our experiences by clearing away expectations, ideals, and illusions. We are asked to give each task our undivided attention, turning our attention away from the peak to focus on the trail under our feet, concentrating on taking one step at a time as we make our way to the peak.
Our “can-do” American culture promotes the belief that one can do anything with the right attitude. We are told that anyone can realize their dreams, provided they have the proper tools, recruit enough support, practice, and muster up enough willpower. We are taught that failure to change is a result of poor planning, a lack of focus or hard work, perhaps even insufficient grit. The American story of opportunity downplays—even ignores—the role of one’s circumstances, seeing them as malleable, while promising that success is always within our reach provided we have enough willpower.
Research does not support the American dream. It seems that circumstances really do matter, and that conscious decision-making plays less of a role in behavior change than previously believed. Changing habits is less a result of our choices and is more strongly influenced by several factors, including personality, state of mind, heredity, and environment, as well as financial and social factors. In practice, the American dream fails to hold up; all the evidence shows that circumstance does indeed trump willpower.
Even with the right circumstances many of us still struggle with changing habits. Although we start out excited about the prospect of a better life, we lose enthusiasm when we hit the reality of the change process: it is not a smooth, linear process, but one that moves in fits and starts, loaded with frustration, guilt, and mental exhaustion. Of course, there are always examples of people who change bad habits without a hitch. My father smoked for over 40 years. When he was diagnosed with throat cancer, he threw away his cigarettes, never to smoke again for the remaining 18 years of his life. But this type of self-control is an exception, not the rule. Evidence shows there is a good deal of variation in our levels of self-control, much of it depending on several factors, including our emotional connection to the change, the environment, culture—even heredity seems to play a role.
Luckily, an abundance of self-control is not the only ingredient necessary for changing bad habits. Some of us might need to work a bit harder to develop healthy habits, but the process moves a bit more smoothly when we are selective about what we decide to change. It is much easier to chip away at habits that are aligned with what we value and see as important to our lives. And those who show tremendous resolve and focus in maintaining their habits are shown to have a higher level of self-knowledge that helps them select more meaningful goals. My father’s mother died when he was young, resulting in a very unstable childhood. If he continued to smoke, his death would inevitably create the same future for his children. His strong desire to provide us with a different life than he had gave him the strength needed to sustain his self-control.
The goal of Saucha is not to achieve perfection. We aren’t asked to make ourselves pure but to be pure with ourselves. It asks us to make peace with who we are. Not all of our habits need to be subject to scrutiny—that type of critical self-analysis becomes its own burden. Being pure with ourselves means not being afraid of all of our thoughts and feelings—our high roads and low roads—taming our endless drive for self-improvement. Saucha encourages us to develop habits that allow our true nature to shine through, ones that align us with what is important, while smoothing out the road we must travel through life. Saucha does not seek to change us, but rather helps us clean things up, it throws away the clutter, and polishes our windows so that our wonderful radiant self can shine through. This week I invite you to sit with yourself, to lighten up, and not take yourself so seriously. If you drop the illusions and lighten your load, just how good can you feel?
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