Power of Attention - Dr. Becky Bailey - "Becoming the Best You Can Be" Webinar Series

0:39 Welcome to Conscious Discipline and our time together. The goal of Conscious Discipline is permanent behavior change in adults and children. It's based on brain research so that we can start distancing ourselves from the guilt we feel about our behavior it's almost like looking under the hood of the car and we can see that certain behaviors are related to certain brain states and once we can loosen that guilt about something we think we should have done or need to do then we also release that need to punish and once we release the need to punish we're ready to look for alternative ways of interacting with children and we get to choose where we want to focus our attention and how we want to focus their development. Today we're gonna talk about the power of attention, it states what you focus on you get more of. Okay, so, now look at these, look at this next slide here it comes, I want you to look, it'll happen brief but just look at this next slide.

1:43 Okay what did you notice? What did you see in that slide? Did you see a child pushing another child that seemed clearly oblivious is to the fact that he's being pushed or did you see two kids who need new skills? Okay watch this next slide. What did you see there? Did you see a wounded infant or hopeful firefighter? The power of attention is the ability to consciously focus our attention on what we choose to attend to.

2:17 Now that's not as easy as it sounds, it's almost like if we had on one of these great little miner's lights and... and we get to direct it so wherever I turn my head I get to focus it. I'm in charge but if you... this isn't as easy as as you think, let's take some Sunday, Sunday I'm going to um... to the kitchen to get some green tea so I'm heading to the kitchen to get some green tea, as I walk into the kitchen I go phew, look over here on the coffee table is a book I thought, "Oh my gosh I think I just wanna glance through that." So I walk over to the coffee table as I'm looking down to read the book I see the dust, so as I see the dust I go, "Gosh all mighty how did this house get so dirty?"

2:57 And next thing you know I'm in the kitchen trying to get a dust rag but when I'm in the kitchen getting the dust rag voila I've got green tea, so if you imagine what that looked like, it looked like this *buzzing noise* But the... the downside of it looking like that wasn't the fact that I was distracting, the downside was that what was aiming my headlight was not me. I'm walkin and next thing you know something some stimulus out there a book goes woah over here, green tea over here, dust over here, so outside stimuli was running my headlight not me. Now that's how babies start, that's how infants start, that's how preschoolers start, but you would think by the age 59 I'd have a better grip on the game.

3:49 So the goal of development is to shift so that we're not pulled to this, Oh I want this, this of course is what commercials want us to do, I gotta have this, I gotta have this, I gotta have this, I gotta have this the goal is to maintain and develop this ability so I have my headlight and I Becky Bailey choose where I put my attention. Now if any us do get ahold of managing our attention and focusing and all we often focus on what we don't want.

4:24 So you will hear all the time "Stop hitting your sister!", "Oh my god I'm so fat.", "Don't talk to me in that tone of voice." or "Look at that woman, look at, she's texting in her car! She's going to kill us all, she's gonna kill us! I'm know she is!" So we're really good at aiming our headlight at what we don't want to happen, remember, the power of attention... the power attention says, "What you focus on you get more of". So in the situations I just went through if you go "Stop hitting your sister!" Well, you're gonna get more hitting.

5:03 If I say "Stop talking to me in that tone of voice you're get more sass and mouth." If I say, "Stop... Look at these people they're gonna kill us all!" then I get more negativity. Now here's... here's the downside, the more I focus on what I don't want, what I think I'm lacking, 'there's not enough money, I'll never pay off this debt, oh my gosh.' The more I focus on lack, the more I focus on people not doing it right, the more I focus on what children do wrong, the more lack, wrong, and not enough-ness, I experience, I experience. Also something we generally don't think about is that what I focus on, where I'm choose to put my light or allow my headlight to be jerked to is what I value.

5:59 So if you say, do you value hurting, than keep saying 'stop hitting your sister'. Do you value learning, than you might want to say, 'when you want your sister to move say move please'. And therefore I'm teaching a new skill focusing on what I want that child to learn. Now there are two types of people, there are givers and takers, and most of us know a lot takers and a lot of givers but if you think about it to be a true giver in life that means you must live in life knowing there's enough so we have to feel good enough inside.

6:43 How do we do that, if we focus on what's not good enough we can't if we focus on what's not good... good enough, we experience not good enough-ness and then we try to pretend we're being a giver when we're really a taker, so it turns out with us having little hidden agendas, "You know, I just wanted to tell you all those wonderful things you do wrong because I really wanted to be helpful, so that you can improve as a person." Now when has anybody telling you how rotten you are made you inspire to be something greater? So, we often then higher hide our giving by giving.

7:27 I was in... This year I was... I had the opportunity to go to Tanzania, Africa. And went to a school and the kids were learning English and this is... they're like twelve-years-old learning their third language and up on the board was a multiple choice question that you'll see... you'll see on slide that you're watching right now, and it said "He eats a lot of food everyday. He is A) kind. B) mean C) generous. D) Greedy.

8:01 And of course the answer is greedy, so I think maybe we're more takers then we'd ever imagined on some level. The brain's day job is not learning, it's safety. The deep structures of the brain are constantly scanning the environment looking for threat, constantly looking for threat. So these deep structures, our instinct is to focus on what's wrong, to focus on what might be a threat, so we have to do something, we have to learn a skill set, we have to be able to develop within ourselves and within children this power of attention so that we can...

8:40 this part of our brain, this prefrontal lobe can override the impulses of this lower centers of our brain to look and go, "Oh my gosh a bear!" "They're going to stab me in the back!" "Oh my gosh they're talking about me!" I've got to override that impulse. So what do we need to do that? We're getting two skills and I'm gonna talk about those now. But first I want to see the summary, so let's go back and we recap now.

9:04 The power of attention what you focus on you get more of next I want you to hear this, everyone breathe with me. When you're upset you're always focused on what you don't want and we become upset because we resist what is. Okay, so holding that frame in mind, let's go to the first skill called pivoting. So pivoting says I catch myself going "Oh man! What're these kids doing?! Look at that stop hitting your sister, stop it, I said stop!"

9:41 So I catch myself, I hear it, I need to pivot, I literally need to turn around and focus on what I want instead of what I don't want, kinda like a military term you know, "Oh. Pivot." Like this, okay so we're gonna pivot, how do we do that? We become conscious of it, we take a deep breath, we calm ourselves down, and we focus on what we want to happen consciously. So, instead of "Stop yelling!" it becomes, "Match your voice to mine and talk just like this.".

10:16 Instead of "Don't run!" becomes "Walk, walk. Watch me. Do it just like I'm doing, here I go." And "What are you doing?!", becomes "Hey, what are you doin?" Now, what I want to do is I want you to watch the next slides, because this is critical to understand. It's not just that we're helping children develop their ability to focus their own light, so to speak. To choose what they want to see in life, to choose to be good enough instead of not good enough, we're doing way more than that, because what we're doing when we help children learn this skill we need to make pictures for them, we need to make pictures with our words.

11:00 "Pick up the toys just like this, walk over here put them in them in the bin." In this bin, not bend, well we can bin or bend. "Put it in the bin, so we know where it is so we know where it is." Now so we wanna make pictures now what do these pictures do or these images that we create for children. They're used by children to govern their behavior, they teach them how to treat others, they don't around going, "Stop pushing me!"

11:25 They go, "Walk around me, please." And they show them how to assertively move through life in problem solving mode because you can't solve a problem by focusing on you don't want. Okay, so, watch these slides here you'll see it, so the first one is, "Stop yelling!" the other one is, "Match you're voice to mine." I'm making pictures in your head that will govern you the rest of your life. The next slide, "Don't run!" Now when you hear that, the image in your head is "Here I go!" But if you say, "Walk, watch me." I'm making this image of how you govern yourself.

12:06 The next one. Look at these, "What are you doing?!" as apposed to "What are you doing?". So you'll see by the slides is it makes images in your head, images in your head. First skill is pivoting, the second one is noticing. We cannot change anything without conscious awareness. Now it is estimated that we have 77,000 thoughts a day. Eighty percent of them being negative, and when you asked anybody, "Hey so what are you thinking?" and they go, "Ah. Nothin." So obviously were not aware of what's going on inside the most powerful tool we have.

12:46 Which is called focus and attention and creation. So, what are you thinkin? Nothing. So what I want to show you is we've got to start noticing our thoughts, so I'm gonna do a little experiment here. So here comes at thought. So here's my trustee kleenex. Opps! And here comes a thought like, "Let's see if we can run over that woman pushing her golf- grocery cart." And I know that sounds silly but all of us have had this thing like, "Oh. two points for her!"

13:15 Okay so here comes the thought and the idea is to notice it and let just go by like a kleenex, like a cloud just float on by. And you can start seeing things, the other day I saw a thought when I was resting, I thought "Oh my gosh! I heard myself thinking, 'things have to be hard for me to be successful.'" And I was like "Oh my gosh. I didn't know I was carrying that around. But now I do. I can let go."

13:47 So they pass on by, but that's not what we tend to do. What we tend to do is, we become our thoughts, we don't notice them, we become them. So here comes a thought, "Boy, am I fat." Instead of watching that thought and going, "Oh my gosh I need to pivot and go, "Geez, Becky you need to eat more fruits and vegetables. I love fruits and vegetables! Let's go get the fruits and vegetables." Instead of doing all that here comes the thought and I become the thought. So I'm stuck with these thoughts and here comes the next thought behind it.

14:20 "You'll never lose weight!" And here it comes and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I'm a failure." Now you- as you can see when we become our thoughts it's relatively unattractive. Woah! So we want to let these go and float by. Notice our thoughts or noticing anything is rooted in consciousness or mindfulness research. And this research really came out of many different fields but really came out working with people with OCD.

14:51 So as you watch this slide here we have found that if you can consciously focus your attention on something it literally changes the physical structure of your brain altering your brain function and its structure. Now so you'll see on here what a healthy control brain and this you shows you what areas are stimulated, and you look at OCB there's not much stimulation in there so to relieve that anxiety they do compulsive behaviors but the point I want you know is if you look at this next slide, we know this already, where we put our conscious tension creates a brain state and then our brain state creates a physiology and physiology determines our well being, we know this so let me just show you a couple quick slides and you'll see.

15:38 Check this one out. Boom! That's adrenaline and I'm sure you're feeling it. Check this out. Oh, oh. Opiates, how fun. So one gives us a natural internal opiate you know it's just like we just got a hit of morphine. The other one just gives us a hit of adrenaline which just kinda sucks the life force out of us. So all I did was change your attention for you. But what if we could consciously focus. What we focus on, we get more of. So we're gonna start noticing our thoughts first, not becoming them. Then we're gonna start noticing the actions of children.

16:13 "You picked up the toys and put them on the shelf." We're gonna say that. "You picked up the toys and put them on the shelf." So that children become conscious of what they're doing, they know where their attention is being put. But we often say "Oh. Good job. Good boy. Thank you." So with little babies they go, "Eheheheh." "You wanted down. There you go." So we just notice for them, where they want their attention, instead of just placing the child on the floor and just keep on talking on the cell phone. We also start noticing emotions.

16:49 So as a child gets upset we go, "Oh, your face is going like this. You seem sad." or "You seem angry." And we start noticing or helping children pivot. So if a child comes in goes, "Ah! No! Meatloaf! Again?! I hate meatloaf!" All you gotta do is help them pivot. "You wanted to have something different tonight." Flip it for them. Show them they have the power to direct this any given time. Most of us didn't get that opportunity. So instead of saying, "You will eat what I cook and like it!"

17:27 You could say, "You were hoping we'd get something different tonight." Flip it for them, show them the power of attention. Consciousness allows us to have choice and control over deep brain structures. It allows us to become all that we can be, it allows us to know better and do better instead of just knowing and not being able to to. So, what have we gone through today? Let's sum it all up, let's go back to our summary, 'what you focus on you get more of.'

18:03 'When you're upset you're always focused on you don't want.' Now most people don't believe that so just take a moment think of the last time you got irritated, the last time you were upset. Now I'm not talking about raving lunatic, I'm talking about just mild, "Hem!" irritation, unpeaceful. I will gurantee you, you were focused on something you wanted to stop, not happen, shouldn't have happened, and you're upset because you're resisting what is. "It shouldn't be like." "That shouldn't have happened."

18:35 "This shouldn't be going on." "We shouldn't have economic problems." "The housing problem shouldn't have lasted this long." "Nothing should be like it is." And of course when we focus on that we show we value criticism. As opposed to problems solving. Also when you focus on what you don't want, you can never solve the real problem. The bottom line, bottom line, the power of attention is a huge source in power we have yet to tackle completely. Focus on the positive action you want to see in children. If they push, "Ah. You wanted him to move. Walk around. Walk around."

19:25 Say "walk around." When they push you... Forget all that. Bottom line, focus on the positive action you want to see. Pivot, if necessary, so doing you will shift automatically from of... from staying stuck in problems, to shifting to solutions. You will also always be encouraging, always be encouraging, because you focus on what you want them to do as they take one step in that direction you go, "Look at you. You're doing it." Guaranteed you will be successful.

20:03 And you will always be successful creating a world, creating a life, and creating a vision for children for a wonderful life as we become all we can be. So until next time, I wish you well.