by Glenn Hartelius

What if you found a way to make the inner changes you have given up on? What if you learned how to access your own creativity, intuition and self-healing abilities whenever you wanted? What if you discovered how to use your mind in a completely different way, a way that gave you the power to go right to your inner resources whenever you needed them?

With instructions that are clear, direct and detailed, we can achieve many things that otherwise seem impossible.  A friend of mine told me the story of a basketball coach who accomplished incredible things with a junior basketball team.  The coach, whose name was Ralph, used to play for the Phoenix Suns, and word had it that if he coached one of the teams in the league, you might as well hand them the championship trophy at the beginning of the season—he was that good.

Ralph took on the job of coaching a team in the Arrowhead resort area where my friend lived.  The first day he lined the kids up and said, “Let’s see you do lay-ups.”  One by one the kids dribbled the ball down the court and leaped up to “lay” the ball into the basket.  Some of them had been playing basketball for years, and were able to do a fair-to-midling lay-up.

Then there was Larry.  Larry was the fat kid who had never been good at any sport.  He was the kind of kid who got to be the butt of every joke, and who spent most of the season on the bench.  When Larry dribbled the ball down the court and tried to do a lay-up, his arms, legs, and the ball flew in five different directions.

When Ralph saw Larry’s performance, he instructed the rest of the team to keep on practicing lay-ups.  Then he took Larry to the next court to show him a few things.  “This is how you flex your fingers,” Ralph said, as he moved Larry’s chubby digits in just the right way, “and this is how you pivot your wrist.”  In a few minutes of precise, joint-by-joint instruction Larry learned how to move his hand without the basketball, then with the basketball.  Then Ralph showed him how to move his arm, first without the ball, then with the ball.  Finally Ralph showed him how to jump up on one foot, then how to jump up on one foot while moving his hand and arm.

“OK,” Ralph told him, “now I want you to run down to that line just below the basket and stop.”  Larry ran and stopped.  “Now come back here and run down again, and when you get to the line, I want you to jump up and move your arm the way I showed you.”  Larry ran and jumped.  “Alright, now I want you to run down while you dribble the ball, jump up and push the ball toward the basket.”  Larry ran, dribbled, jumped, and laid the ball neatly into the basket.

Because of Ralph’s precise, practical, step-by-step instructions on exactly how to use his body, Larry was able to shoot baskets as well as anyone on the team, and play in the championship game (which they won).

Attention Dynamics is a cutting-edge approach that breaks down complex processes of inner change into simple, step-by-step instructions.  First and foremost, Attention Dynamics takes you out of the part of the mind that holds your story, and into the part that creates transformation.  If you are thinking about your issues and conflicts, you are living in the story.  This is not where change happens.  You can’t think your way to transformation.

Imagine you are looking at a reflection of your kitchen in a mirror.  Trying to think your way to inner change is like trying to clean the kitchen by polishing the reflection. No matter how hard you rub the mirror, the kitchen always stays the same.  Instead, what if you could learn how to use your mind in a simple but radically different way—a way that actually helped you start getting something done in the kitchen?

The remarkable thing is, it isn’t even complicated.  Attention Dynamics uses resources that are so obvious we usually overlook them.  As you are reading this article, can you see your nose?  Notice how it sits at the lower edge of your field of vision, each eye with its own slightly blurred image.  It has been there every time you looked at something since the moment you woke up this morning.  Have you noticed it?  This might be the first time today that you have been aware of its presence in your field of vision.

The sensations used to track and guide the mind go similarly unnoticed, because they, too, are there all of the time.  We take them for granted.  Yet they have value far beyond their humble appearance.  As you learn to use these simple sensations, you transform the “hard jobs” of inner change into satisfying work that leads to success.