The Gift Of Attention

I watched, intrigued.

The 12 year old lad, with whom I was sat in the school chapel for his mentoring session, was teaching me something that morning which will stay with me. We had met most weeks for two terms. He was a talented artist and had ideas for his future but had missed a considerable amount of school with anxiety-based issues. "My tummy goes mad", he said, "then my migraines come on, and I just want to hide for days" he said. He gazed through the stained glass windows as if imagining what was beyond them. 

My question loitered in the air: "So, what do you already know that can help you?"

For the next twenty minutes I didn't drop my eyes from his, although he mostly looked through the window. Occasionally he checked I was still there, watching. Watching with my eyes, posture, face. But more than watching. Paying attention.

That's a funny phrase isn't it, "paying attention". It makes it sound like a transaction. Is attention an expenditure? Something which costs us? No, I didn't feel like I was paying attention, but giving attention. The gift of quiet, holding back as best I could my adult-styled interruptions, and letting him think for himself. Is that against the rules, for young people to think for themselves?

For twenty minutes we sat, and he thought out loud. My not-very-clever question simply intended to challenge the assumption that he wasn't the expert on himself. He is. He knows himself best. For twenty minutes. Silences and murmurs, and then he emerged with conclusions. "Now I know I can face people, it's just sometimes I think I can't. But I know now how to change a bad thought into a good thought." He looked up and glowed with a smile.

I asked him to repeat what he'd said. It was illuminating: to know you can (in your heart) but think you can't (in your head); and therefore decide you can change your thought. What else changes when you change one thought? Remembering thoughts are just that, thoughts. Not reality. Not truth. Just thoughts which come and go.

Maybe he left the school chapel changed, maybe not. He seemed to enjoy the chance to think. What he demonstrated is what happens when we give deliberate gentle attention, and get out the way of trying to be the Big Answer. 

The gift of attention is a gift we can all give.