Welcome to the creative presence, a show that’s dedicated to expanding your creative self expression. And at the same time getting your projects done. And I’m your host, Joshua Townshend.

I was thinking about Disney Land and the whole amusement park world the other day, and how they are often coming up with new attractions. And these attractions are so important to keep people coming back. And the funny thing is, is that attractions are what we go for, because we’re attracted. Otherwise, why would you call it an attraction, it’s going to attract you. And that’s fantastic. For amusement parks, that’s amazing for a day of entertainment, that’s wonderful, to go out with the whole family and go to an amusement park and be amused, and go to the attractions.

The problem comes up when you live in an amusement park when you live for the attraction. Because what ultimately happens is the attraction becomes a distraction. And these distractions that we have, on a daily basis in our lives, is one of the things we’re not blaming it, but it becomes one of the things that is creating opportunities for us to not create.

Because we live in a distracted world, we’re constantly being distracted, we’re being distracted by notifications, we’re being distracted by emails, by phone calls, we live in a new cycle world that’s, you know, 24 to 36 hours, we go on to the next tragedy. It’s it’s really craziness and can make you crazy, this hyper connection that we all seem to be a part of. And as artistic creatives, as people who are creating the stories, we need to be able to disconnect from that at will. And how do you do that is a very interesting process.

It’s called focus of attention. And how you do that, it’s very simple. It’s called focus of attention.  And your focus of attention can either be inward or outward, it can either be based on what you’re creating, or it can be based on the circumstances of the moment. And what I mean by that is, is we always have a choice, although sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. We always have a choice of aware what they called locus of control, but basically what it means is is how are you operating? are you operating from the place of always reacting to external stimuli from the outside world, which will put you in a fight or flight situation for sure. And in this world?  Or are you operating your your life, your focus of attention from the perspective of, of having your own inner guidance system of having an intention of something that you want to achieve or something you want to create or something you want to experience, and then having the bandwidth, the wherewithal to be able to focus for the duration of time is required for that to happen?

That is what we are talking about. And until until we get to a place where we have our own locus of control of our own inward space, then it’s going to be a constant battle, a constant challenge, and how do you increase your focus of attention? How do you practice this ideal world where I am the one who’s creating what I want to experience, and I choose the projects and the people in the circumstances that I want to create, to and from, and that has to do with awareness? That has to do with being aware of your thoughts and feelings, being aware of how you’re reacting, being aware of where of where and what is driving you. And being able to take a moment and collect yourself literally and figuratively, so that you can make the impact that you want to have in the world.

And it looks a lot of different ways for a lot of different people. One of the things is I highly recommend you taking the free quiz I have on my website, because then it’ll tell you what creative element you are or what your dominant creative element it is. And when you have that, then you’ll start to understand the language (ing)  that you give yourself, like for instance, so if people say things like I feel stuck or I feel burned out, or I feel like I’m drowning here or I feel like I’m suffocating all of theseways of saying how they’re feeling is actually giving us an indication of what kind of earth element you are. So if you feel stuck, you might be an earth element. If you feel burned out, you might be fire. If you feel like you’re drowning, or aimless, you might be water, if you feel like you’re suffocating. You might be air. You know, you can’t find your direction. You’re in a world when all these are indicators of, of your primary creative element.

And then you start working from how does that primary creative element come into balance? What is the best way for me. And so there’s a zillion different ways of doing this. But it all breaks down to the stimulation that you that you give yourself, it’s either going to be through music, what you hear, it’s going to be through what you see. So that means going into the forest or being around beautiful things aren’t nature, it could be around taste, it could be around, going to the ocean, and feeling the sand and the water, having the deep inhales around the ocean so you can feel the beautiful ocean air come into your lungs. There’s a lot of different approaches that we can start to ground ourselves or earth element and start to navigate the world in a different way. All all with the intention to live a more fulfilled creative life.

So really look for that today. Look for where something that you were attracted to is now become a distraction. And look at how and the ways that you focus your attention either. Are you focusing your attention in your world on an external level or on an internal level, you have a tendency to move towards, see if you can expand that range and be at the center of all that you create. Thanks for listening and looking forward to our next time together. Take care.

Thank you for listening. If you love what you’re listening to please subscribe and then share with fellow creatives. For more, go to  www.JoshuaTownshend.com

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

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