Authentic Attention and the Evolving Mandala That Is Us

This book by David Richo was suggested to me by someone I am close with, and I have found many jewels within its pages. Among them is the below. Many of us grow up within our families of origin without the role modeling and consistent experience of what this author describes as the "Five A's" - attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and the allowing of our authentic selves. The modeling of these essential qualities of healthy relationships are also difficult to find in our culture. This neglect or inconsistent attending to our deepest needs impacts us all. Gratefully, there are pathways to the heart we can learn to embrace, heal, and experience which transforms our relationships with ourselves, our partners, our children, our extended families and friends and beyond. I am so grateful for these wise nuggets which hold the potential to assist each of us in our journeys of awakening. Blessed be. 

Namaste ~ Molly

Attunement is mirrored attentiveness from one person to another. Attentiveness means noticing and hearing words, feelings, and experience. In a moment of authentic attention, we feel that we are deeply and truly understood in what we say or do and in who we are, with nothing left out. Likewise, we can attune to others' feelings, needs, bodily reactions, comfort levels with closeness, and degrees of willingness - for example, whether someone is acting out of coercion and compliance rather than true concurrence. We cannot attune if we assume certain feelings are right and wrong. To attune to someone, we need neutrality toward all feelings, moods, and inner states and the fearless openness of mindfulness. Only with such pure attention can we see beyond his bravado to his terror, beyond his stolidity to his turmoil. This is how attention becomes compassion.

What has failed to find attunement stays folded up within us or becomes a source of shame. Faulty attunement in early life may lead to fear of standing up for ourselves later or keep us from trusting that others will come through for us. Faulty attunement can make us scared and lonely of our inbred despair of ever finding the requisite human mirroring.

Attuned attention creates an ever-widening zone of trust and safety. We feel encouraged to look for - rather than wait for - our submerged longings to emerge and our stunted hopes to assume their full dimensions. We believe they will be attended to at last. This is love in the form of mindful attention, and we feel safe in it. Implicit in such attentiveness to our truth is truth from the one providing it. We trust him to say what is true to him; this is where our sense of safety comes from.

The first A - attention - is the core of mindfulness. Attention means bringing something or someone into focus so it is no longer blurred by the projections of your own ego; thus it requires genuine interest and curiosity about the mysterious and surprising truth that is you. A parent or partner who has gotten to know you in a superficial way may only be meeting up with her beliefs about you. These beliefs, or biases, can endure for years, preventing the person from taking in the kind of information that would reveal the real you. The real you is an abundant potential, not a list of traits, and intimacy can only happen when you are always expanding in others' hearts, not pigeonholed in their minds. Our identity is like a kaleidoscope. With each turn we reset it not to a former or final state but to a new one that reflects the here-and-now positions of the pieces we have to work with. The design is always new because the shifts are continual. That is what makes kaleidoscopes, and us, so appealing and beautiful. Parents and partners who give us attention love to see the evolving mandala of us.

The desire for attention is not a desire for an audience but for a listener. Attention means focusing on you with respect, not with contempt or ridicule. When you are given attention, your intuitions are treated as if they matter. You are taken seriously. You are given credit when it is due. Your feelings have such a high value to those who love you that they are on the lookout for them. They even look for the feelings you are afraid to know and gently inquire whether you want to show them.

When others give attention, they also confront you directly when they are displeased, harboring no secret anger or grudges. But they always do so with respect and a sincere desire to keep the lines of communication open. Attention, like the other four A's, is given in a trusting atmosphere of holding.

- David Richo, excerpted from How To Be An Adult In Relationships:

The Five Keys To Mindful Loving