Are You Tuned In?

Some things are very predictable – daylight will come, the sun will set, and in between the two I will at some point sit down, open my laptop, work on a screen, and do other mundane things I am privileged enough to engage in, like eating and having a coffee. Invariably there will be conversations. And predictably every day someone will mention the phone. Either their addiction to it or someone else’s.

But I am not going to talk about phone addiction here – instead there’s something else I see that is also becoming predictable; the loss of our capacity to tune in to ourselves and to others.  

What do I mean by ‘tune in’? The dictionary definition is: ‘to have a good understanding of what is happening in a situation or what people are thinking’ and ‘to make or become more aware or knowledgeable’. It is generally understood that tuning into oneself means that same awareness but of one’s own body, emotions, and intuitive knowledge.

I am sure I am not alone is seeing the loss of this capacity evidenced all around me; in leaders not tuning into their employees or colleagues, (instead making wrong assumptions about their motivations); parents not tuning into their children’s needs (instead imposing their own interpretations of their behaviour); partners not tuning into each other, (again making often false assumptions about their intentions); and most importantly, people not tuning into themselves or their bodies or their intuition, instead allowing impulses or knee-jerk reactions, social media noise, or ‘addictions’ to determine their choices. Actually, I should rephrase that from ‘their’ to ‘our’ – we all do it.   

The psychologist and holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl observed; The ability to choose what we give our attention to is the last of human freedoms.

That’s the problem, in a nutshell! We are no longer choosing what we give our attention to – it’s being chosen for us. With every scroll, swipe or click we give our power away to whatever is controlling our attention. We become disconnected from our bodies and any self-awareness, and our freedom is stumped.

No wonder, when we need to check in with ourselves to make a decision, we feel insecure or we struggle, often making choices we later regret. And naturally we have a multitude of mis-understandings and mis-communications with others, every day! It’s very predictable.

What would happen if we turned this around – if we took better charge of our own attention and gave it more to the act of tuning in?

When we tune into a device, or TV or radio, we’re tuning into a frequency, a channel or Wi-Fi signal to receive ‘content’, which is only clear when the signal is strong and there is no interference. By the same token, when we are able to tune into our own frequency, it’s because we're fully attentive to ourselves and so the signals are strong and there’s no interference. When that happens, we receive our own clear ‘content’ - insights and perspectives that align with our values and what really matters to us, an innate feeling or sense of ‘just knowing’. (If we also ‘tune in’ to the frequencies of those around us, if nothing else I think the ‘content’ that feeds our interpretation of each other will be more accurate.)

‘Tuning in’ means being aware of, accessing and ultimately trusting our own intuitive wisdom. For that to happen, we need to take back control of our attention!

There are dozens of small things we can do to reclaim our attention. The trick -to make it easier for the brain- is ‘often and repeatedly’, and deliberately. For example, bring your focus to your hands and fingers…take them off the keyboard for a few seconds and shake them out to let go of any tension before you re-engage them to work on the keys. Make it a habit.

You could also start every day with three slow breaths and a stated intention to tune in to yourself at specific times throughout your day, (asking yourself ‘how/what am I feeling?’) - then just do it! You’ll end up feeling generally more focused and fully present within yourself, which is also, I am happy to say, predictable!

Tuning in to oneself is of course a choice, but it can be difficult - what with all today’s noise and distractions! We want to make it easier for you, and because we have successfully helped many hundreds of people learn how to (predictably) tune in to themselves and others, we now create all our programs with this as a central piece – the newest program being The Tuned-In Way – for women in leadership who are also mothers, a group with very specific needs! The program includes personal and groups coaching with both of us, and we only work with a very limited amount of people, so if you feel drawn to work with us or to apply for this program, check it out here.