By Liz Charles September 2009
NOTE: This document is not properly edited and references are not properly identified.
Intended for personal use only.
I am a multi-tasker. I like do several things at the same time and derive certain pleasure from being able to do so. I agree completely with the Hollywood Producer, Jessica Klein, who described her strategy for dealing with daily tasks as, “never do just two things at once if you can possibly do four or five.”
Part of this comes from my profession. I was trained as a nurse and part of the job is being able to multitask. I get “patient A” a warm blanket, while getting “patient B” medication, all the while talking to lab on the cell phone. In your room, I walk you to the bathroom, assessing your skin, your gait, and your strength as we go.
I bring the same skills home with me, I think this is the key to true efficiency and improved time management. At home I talk on the phone while sweeping, I practice spelling words with my kids while eating breakfast and math facts while driving them around in the car. Splendid! Right?
So then I tried multitasking with my spiritual tasks. I tried listening to the scriptures while cleaning the house, listening to General Conference while cooking, and making to-do lists during church meetings. Splendid! Right?
Actually, I found as I tried to double up on my spiritual chores, my spiritual health declined. My spirit didn’t want to compete for attention and so it was left wanting.
Modern research backs this idea, indicating that really we can’t do two things at the same time. While we may think we are doing things simultaneously our mind is actually quickly “toggling back and forth between the two different activities.” One researcher reports (Dr. David Myer), “Done to the extreme, [multitasking] has been linked to short-term memory loss… mental burnout, anxiety and depression.”
We’ve also been learning of the fatal danger of multitasking in the arena of driving and text messaging or cell phone use.
Perhaps James in the New Testament is right when he (1:8) says, “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
One of these scientific studies concludes that “There's no getting away from the fact that to do your best work on difficult tasks, sometimes you need to shut everything else out and focus.”
To do our best we need to focus? That’s probably not news to anyone but is harder to do in the modern world than it seems.
“O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with ALL your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day.”
The “ALL” in that scripture commands us to focus completely on God.
Orson Hyde said, “Let the mind be concentrated, and it possesses almighty power. [The mind] is the agent of the Almighty clothed with mortal tabernacles, and we must learn to discipline it, and bring it to bear on one point” (in Journal of Discourses, 7:153).
By disciplining our minds we learn to commune with the spirit, which means to be in a state of intimate, heightened sensitivity and receptivity. Today I ask you to review your habits of focusing your almighty mind and communing in three situations:
#ONE: Focus IN COMMUNION WITH OURSELVES
David O Mckay said, “Meditation is the language of the soul. It is defined as “a form of private devotion, or spiritual exercise, consisting in deep, continued reflection on some religious theme.”
I enjoy the practice of yoga. At the end of each yoga session we lay on the ground in a quiet relaxing environment and meditate, the goal is to focus and eventually quiet your mind. I love taking this time to reconnect with the essential “me” and to think about my relationship with God and my goals and hopes for the day.
If you have trouble calming your mind, consider these principles of meditation:
Make time to meditate
Find or create a quiet, relaxing environment
Breathe deeply
Relax every muscle
Focus your attention
Silence your mind
From the Ensign I read,
“Many people listen to the television while they are performing other tasks—doing housework, mending, reading the newspaper, feeding the baby, preparing a lesson. While watching or listening to television can make many mundane tasks more enjoyable, we need to be careful. It is often while we are doing tasks that do not require our full concentration that our minds can engage in creative, problem-solving activities. This is also a time when the Spirit can whisper to us. Sheryl Condie Kempton
Our high-tech world is filled with “background stimuli”, such as the television, that can distract from our focus on things of significance.
The other day I was extremely anxious, I had a lot on my mind, so I went for a run. I took my IPOD because I thought it might distract me from the fact that I can’t breathe and run at a mile high. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, and what more, the music really annoyed me as I was trying to sort through my thoughts. Eventually I took off the headphones and just ran, listening to the birds, watching the sun come up and heavily breathing the fresh air. As I did so my mind calmed and reached a level of peace and self reflection that wouldn’t have happened with music blaring in my ears. Just as a note, I am not blackening the name of IPOD because it one of my favorite multitasking tools, however, I am suggesting that sometimes our electronics can be a distraction or even a hindrance to our spiritual growth.
I have been reading the book “The Education of Little Tree. “ It is a Cherokee memoir from the 1930s. In it the grandmother teaches the boy about our two minds. The first is necessary for body living, she teaches, but the other is our spirit mind. “Grandma said that the spirit mind was like any other muscle. If you use it, it gets bigger and stronger.” Grandma also teaches Little Tree that if you ignore your spirit mind it shrinks to no bigger than a “hickory nut.” pg. 59-60
Meditation, contemplation, single pointed focus strengthens our spirit mind.
M Russell Ballard said,
“If you will pay more attention to your spiritual self, which is eternal, than to your mortal self, which is temporary, you can always resist the temptations of Satan and conquer his efforts to take you into his power.”
Just as Little Tree’s grandmother said, as we pay attention to it, our spirit mind will grow stronger and we will be following the age old Greek wisdom, “Know thyself”.
#TWO Focus IN COMMUNION WITH GOD
I will speak to three instances when we have the opportunity to commune with God, three instances when we need to resist the urge to multitask: in Prayer, during the Sacrament and in the House of the Lord.
Elder Uchtdorf said, “The tendency to focus on the insignificant at the expense of the profound happens…to everyone. We are all at risk. (However) The driver who focuses on the road has a far greater chance of arriving at his destination accident free than the driver who focuses on sending text messages on his phone.”
First commune with God in sincere prayer:
David O Mckay said, “Great events have happened in this church because of the responsiveness of the soul to the inspiration of the Almighty…You will find that when these most inspirational moments come to you that you are alone with yourself and your God…Great testimonies have come in those moments.”
We must all find our place to be alone and undistracted. Joseph found sacred space in a grove of trees, Paul in the desert, Jesus in the wilderness or mountain tops. First find physical solitude free from distraction and then work on your mental solitude.
President Spencer W Kimbal said, “After a lifetime of prayers, I know of the love and power and strength that comes from honest and sincere prayer. I know of the readiness of our Father to assist us in our mortal experience, to teach us, to lead us, to guide us.”
Second, Commune with God during the Sacrament:
David O McKay said regarding the sacrament “there is nothing during the administration of the sacrament of an extraneous nature…nothing so worthy of attention as considering the value of the promise we are making. Why should anything distract us? We are witnessing there, in the presence of one another, and before him, our Father, that we are willing to take upon ourselves the name of Christ, that we will always remember him, always, that we will keep his commandments that he has given us. If we partake of it mechanically, we are not honest, or let us say, we are permitting our thoughts to be distracted from a very sacred ordinance.”
It struck me that during the Sacrament we promise to always remember Jesus and what a gigantic and sad irony it would be if our minds cannot focus for the 10 minutes each week we have to remember and recommit to that promise.
Third, Commune with God in the Temple
The temple is an extreme trial for a multi-tasker.
President Hinckley has suggested that we not focus so much on the personal benefits of attending the temple, but rather focus on temple work as “work.” Amen! It is work to sit and concentrate for two hours.
Elder David E. Sorenson said, “Often, work is difficult, challenging, and sometimes tedious; otherwise we might think of it as play. Work requires us to be engaged in the process.”
This reminds me of a conversation I had with a woman in our last ward who was a dedicated temple worker. She mentioned how she tries to get the sisters to look her directly in the eye when she is performing the initiatory ordinances. She said when that ‘eye to eye’ contact is present the feeling changes and the presence of the Spirits from beyond can be felt. In other words, there is engagement.
As we focus on the person for whom we are doing temple work, focus on the spiritual lessons being taught and leave the distractions of the world behind, the temple can be a place where we commune with God.
Make time in your life to commune with God in prayer, during the Sacrament and at the temple.
“And verily I say unto thee that thou shalt lay aside the things of this world, and seek for the things of a better” (D&C 25:10).
Perhaps the chastening words of the Savior to David Whitmer may be appropriate: “But your mind has been on the things of the earth more than on the things of me, your Maker, … and you have not given heed unto my Spirit. … “Wherefore, you are left to inquire for yourself” (D&C 30:2–3).
Finally, we need TIME TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE PEOPLE WE LOVE
In the most recent issue of Real Simple magazine there is an article by a chronic multi-tasker. This man recently undertook a Uni-tasking challenge which he called Project Focus. For one month he tried weaning himself off multitasking so that on day thirty he would be able to spend the whole day completely focused on one task at a time – or unitasking. He had only limited success initially but on the final day, day thirty, he comes home from work and there on floor he sees his son, who’s just dumped all the money out of his piggy bank and is slowly working on putting it all back in, one coin at a time.
“Want to help me dad?” the young boys asks.
The author writes, “Just outside my brain, 3,000 things bark for my attention. But right now, I’ve put up a sound proof wall. I am going to put nickels in a piggy bank with my son. It’s the perfect, undistracted 10 minutes.” AJJacobs
We all know how annoying it is to talk with someone who’s not fully paying attention. I can’t talk to my dad while he’s watching a ball game, or to talk to my sister when she on the internet, or my husband when he’s thumbing on his I-phone.
Likewise, I can imagine how frustrating it is for those trying to get through to me while I am busy multitasking. Let us beware. As more and more “things” are created offering constant connection to the world, let us remember our primary concern is to be connected to the ones we love.
Russel M Nielson in a talk entitled Learn to Listen stated:
I learned much from Brother David M. Kennedy as we met with many dignitaries in nations abroad. When one of them spoke, Brother Kennedy not only looked eye to eye and listened with real intent, but he even removed his reading glasses, as if to show that he wanted nothing in the way of his total concentration.
I hope we all remove our reading glasses as we commune with each other.
In conclusion,
Kevin W Pearson said, “Distraction eliminates the very focus the eye of faith requires.”
I believe this, and close with these words of wisdom from the Doctrine and Covenants:
And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you; and that body which is filled with light comprehendeth all things. Therefore, sanctify yourselves that your minds become single to God, and the days will come that you shall see him; for he will unveil his face unto you.
Amen.
0 comments:
Post a Comment