Focus Is How I Show My Daughter Love
Giving my daughter my undivided attention tells her I love her, that nothing else matters in this moment and that I will hear every word, and focus is the tool that makes that possible.
Dandapani says plainly that he does not have it all figured out; when business is under pressure he sits with his daughter and his awareness goes elsewhere, and his practice is catching it and bringing it back. He explains the law of practice, distinguishes learning to focus from practising it, and says the point is never focus itself but what focus gives him.
What this talk covers
- He does not have it all figured out, and there are weeks and months where business pressure means he is not fully present with his daughter, who sometimes calls him out on it.
- His practice is to catch his awareness as soon as he notices it has left and bring it back to her, over and over, until he gets good at it.
- The law of practice is that whatever you practise is what you become good at, so eight hours a day of letting your awareness jump around makes you good at distraction.
- Focus has two parts, learning how to do it and practising it, and most people were only ever told to focus, never taught how, the way you cannot practise the piano before someone teaches you to play.
- How much you practise depends on what you want from it, and focus itself is only a tool; the byproduct is what he is after.
Whatever you practice is what you become good at.Dandapani
Questions
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Bring it back as soon as you catch it, and keep doing that. He says this happens to him, especially when business is under pressure, and that the practice is the perpetual return, not the absence of wandering.
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Because of what it tells the other person: I am completely here, nothing else matters this moment, what you say matters to me, I will hear every word. She feels loved, feels she matters, feels valued. He says he never felt so loved in his life as when his guru gave him that.
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Yes, on the same terms as any other skill. Whatever you practise is what you become good at. But you have to be taught how first, the way you would be taught the piano before practising it.
Transcript
599 words · 2:59
When you talk about that, a lot of people listening will be like, oh, he must be a perfect parent. I'm sure there's moments where, you know, you talk about focus, you wrote about focus, whole books about focus, but your daughter's there and you're not focused.
You're not aware of her, your mind's wandering off, as you alluded to earlier, phone, lunch, coffee. How do you bring yourself back in that moment? Do you recognize it with her?
Do you acknowledge it? Do you recognize it internally? Sometimes I may recognize it unless sometimes she calls me out on it. You know, sometimes people would see me dressed like this knowing I lived just a monk for
10 years and go like, oh, he's got it all figured out. I do not have it all figured out. I run my own business and there are weeks and months where the business is not doing well and there's a lot of pressure in my mind.
And when I sit with my daughter, am I completely present? No, you know, because my awareness is going somewhere else and I have to train myself to perpetually just bring it back. As soon as I catch myself, it's not here.
I bring it back. And that's my practice, perpetually bringing it back and holding it on her. And after a while, you become good at it. And I have a saying, you know, I call it the law of practice.
Whatever you practice is what you become good at. So if you practice distraction eight hours a day, which is letting your awareness jump all over the place, that's what you become good at. If I practice the piano eight hours a day, I'll be really good at it.
So if I practice concentration, focus eight hours a day, I become good at it. You and I probably grew up in an environment where, can you just focus for a second? This one I got told every day, can you just focus on eating your food? No one told me how to do it.
So when it comes to focus, there's two things, learning how to focus and practicing it. It's like the piano. I can tell someone to practice the piano, they won't be able to do it. But if I taught them how to play the piano and they practice, they would be better at
it. Now the question is, how much do you practice? Well, what do you want to do? If I want to play for my aunt Ethel on the weekend, I might practice five minutes a week.
I want to play for Juliet. It might be seven hours a day, six days a week, or whatever. So for me, it's not about being focused. It's what focus gives me is what I'm pursuing.
Focus is just a tool. The byproduct, the outcomes is what I'm seeking. Giving my daughter my undivided attention tells her, I love her. I am completely here.
Nothing else matters this moment. What you say matters to me. I'll hear every word. I'm all yours for this duration."
And she feels loved, she feels she matters, she feels valued. When my guru did that for me, I never felt so loved in my life. I realized he was just 100% present
and I never experienced it in a human being. So I thought, what a gift to give not only my family, but the people I love, anyone I meet. I am just right here, all here.
What a sweet gift. Yeah.