Serious focusing issues

[Amannl3in]

When I sit down to do any kind of task let's say reading for 2 hours. First I start focusing for the first 20 minutes. I may take a small break then push myself to focus another 20 minutes but here it starts to get really hard. my mind starts to want to change the task and do something else no matter what I do. 

The more I push it the more my mind disobeys me. I may divide this task into two hours one in the morning and the other in the afternoon or evening. but my mind can't tolerate more than  1 hour in that morning and will not let me add more until the next day.

So the pattern is if I focus more than 1 hour on anything my mind will not be able to focus more. it's very strange how I can't control it.

 If I read for more than 1 hour I don't understand what I read anymore. If I am watching a course I take notes my focus is great in the first hour, after that, I take a pen and doodle around so just I don't listen. I force myself to focus but as I said I no longer understand the meaning of anything. It's the same with any task. I always take breaks but it does not work.

How can I control my mind and not let it control me? so I can focus more. and why does my mind behave like this in the first place?
 

[flowboy]

@Amannl3in  I have struggled with focusing issues for half my life, and have a lot of experience fixing them.

Let's begin.

1. I need to know whether this is something you "have to" read, or if it's something you are really interested in and there's no pressure.
   Just tell me the level of pressure you put on yourself to read it, and also how interesting you find it. Both on a scale of 1 to 10.
2. Please tell me what other issues you struggle with. How calm and peaceful do you feel throughout the day? Do you have other neurotic tendencies, anxieties, insecurities, fears, triggers, anything like that? They could be more related than you think.
3. Please tell me how much caffeine you consume and at what times, and how many hours you sleep.
4. What other interests do you have besides what you are reading? Is there something your mind wants to rather do instead?

[flowboy]

Also, rather than taking breaks or doing pomodoro, you could try the log method:

Very cringey old video, but perhaps worth a shot to get you back into that flow state after your first hour of focus has passed.

[Nahm]

1 hour ago, Amannl3in said:

How can I control my mind and not let it control me? so I can focus more. and why does my mind behave like this in the first place?

Are you already meditating every morning?  

@flowboy

Subscribed. Keep it comin. ?? 

[Amannl3in]

@flowboy

1- No body is forcing me to read. The subject is about design and color theory so I am super intrested in it.  I can tell you that I 10/10 force myself to read more but I don't grasp what I read,  my mind want to change the task. 

2- thoughrout the day I think too much about my future. I get worried about why thing don't work the way I want. But I am not neurotic about it I just fell deep sadness an ampthy toword myself 

3- I don't drink caffeine at all.  I sleep well evryday 8-9 hours. 

4- I have one thing that I am thinking constantly about doing but this is not the right time. I will do it next month if the circumstances allows it. 

 

 

[Amannl3in]

@Nahm @Nahm No. I don't know what to meditate about.  I tried it before I sat down in silence for 30 minutes. I did not know what I am supposed to do.  As I heard,  I should clear my mind from any thought.  I did that so what.  I didn't feel like I am doing something that has a purpose. 

[mememe]

10 hours ago, flowboy said:

pomodoro

oh  amazing - why not? is it a bad technique? i just fell in love with the name.

i guess i understand that kill bill joke just now.

[flowboy]

@mememe  It's not a bad technique, I've used it. I've just found something that works a bit better for me, which I explain in the video. But feel free to continue doing what works for you!

[flowboy]

1 hour ago, Amannl3in said:

@flowboy

1- No body is forcing me to read. The subject is about design and color theory so I am super intrested in it.  I can tell you that I 10/10 force myself to read more but I don't grasp what I read,  my mind want to change the task. 

2- thoughrout the day I think too much about my future. I get worried about why thing don't work the way I want. But I am not neurotic about it I just fell deep sadness an ampthy toword myself 

3- I don't drink caffeine at all.  I sleep well evryday 8-9 hours. 

4- I have one thing that I am thinking constantly about doing but this is not the right time. I will do it next month if the circumstances allows it. 

 

 

@Amannl3in Thank you for answering.

My read on the situation you are describing, is that there is tremendous tension around you making yourself read, despite all the worries about the future, and why things don't work the way you want.

It can feel stressful to make yourself focus like that, and it's very hard on the mind when the mind is busy with other worries.

My invitation for you is to take some space to get clarity on the worries about the future and why things aren't working the way you want.

That could involve you asking another question, doing some journaling, some visioning, and/or even some shadow work.

When you get to that place of peace, of: "Aaaah....  Now I can relax. Now I know that things will work out for me, one way or another."

That's when you won't have to strain as hard, in order to read.

And you'll get tired of it less quickly, because it's just inspiring and interesting, and you don't have to battle other worries at the same time.

[Nahm]

@Amannl3in

Meditation is the resolution because there isn’t actually an issue with focus, focus is just clouded by over activity of thought. This may not be readily seen without meditation, due to the nature of thoughts about ‘my mind’. It’s not a ‘problem’ and ‘solution’ scenario really, it’s allowing thought activity to settle, thus experiencing directly that there is no problem with focus / experiencing more than ample focus, for however long.

A sort of ‘unclogging’ occurs, and I’d write each day about how you feel, as an allowing of expression, instead of the thinking about what ‘my mind’ is doing. 

All of the thoughts about ‘my mind’, ‘focus’, etc, are thoughts. The difference is the thoughts would be recognized as thoughts, and the underlying suppression of emotion is expressed… whereas presently, the thoughts are believed to be true. When the thoughts ‘something is wrong with my mind and or focus’ are believed, what is actually believed is ‘something is wrong with me’. But nothing’s wrong with you, focus, or mind… and this is revealed by meditation, expression & understanding (vs suppressing) emotions. 

‘Controlling’ the mind is actually the outcome of letting go of control, not forcing, as forcing or controlling the mind is a facade of thought activity & believing thoughts. What’s actually desired, but is yet unrecognized, is allowing, and not controlling. What’s chiefly desired, is feeling better, and better feeling arises within you, whenever allowed. 

[Amannl3in]

@flowboy that makes sense. I have not thought about it in this way. You are right, because my mind is busy thinking about other thing that I want to do,  which is causing me focus issues. 

I should sit down and seriously think about my goals. thank you so much for your advice it was accurate. 

I don't know how to thank you this is the exacte reply that I needed ?

[JonasVE12]

There can be so many causes and so many different contexts.

I second what @flowboy says. I was diagnosed with ADHD and most of my symptoms went away or significantly diminished after I started to act from the heart. The heart is a lot more authentically connected to the present moment and it is the center where we experience feelings of joy and love in relationship to experience. When you experience a lack of certain feelings now, your will be in a wanting vibration that influences the mind in the sense that you will constantly project yourself into the future through thinking, visions, images etc. And that of course can construct these goals that come from a vibration of fear, shame and other lower contractive emotions. Those goals are there purely for fulfilling the desire for certain feelings or state that would come after achieving succes. 

But then of course it is so difficult to achieve succes in that area which you are focussing on because you feel no heart connection to that stuff. And that is why most likely you can not focus. Because you doing things you are not, which is not pleasant, but still have the pull towards it because it will fulfill you in a way. It generates tension in your mind and will create this lack of focus.  An example could be that you have low self esteem and maybe low financial resources. That emptiness creates wanting. And that wanting goes into the mind creating a vision through which you would be able to fulfill those needs. Becoming a doctor maybe. That would surely give you social status which would increase self esteem and money. But then in pursuit of the goal, you can not focus because there is no heart connection to that. It is not what you authentically want. You do not want to become a doctor, you want to embody certain feelings. So hence you do not enjoy studying 1000 page medical books. It is an inner conflict. This thinking applies to when you can not focus on a goal that comes from lack. 

fear, shame, guilt all create resistance to the present moment that manifests in different forms like above example. There is many more hiding places. Dr gabor mate talks a lot about these things. Trauma generates ADHD because you become dissociated from the present moment through the influences of those experiences.

If you see a pattern of this behavior, it can help to analyse your life from a big picture overview, where you can start to see the interconnectedness of all the individual pieces of you. You have to answer the following questions for yourself when experiencing focus issues and see if it gives you intuition about your situation: Is this something I enjoy doing? Why am I doing it then? If it is lack of experience and feeling, (this can be anything, like joy, love, passion, power, money), you have to understand that your lack of focus is normal through the lack of connection to that which you are doing. It is escape, and this happens through the mind. 

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You can also experience focus issues with things that you are interested in and that come from the heart connection to that thing. But then, that something can have various aspects of engagement to it. Like playing guitar. Maybe you enjoy playing guitar. It can give you a feeling of freedom and expression which come from the heart. You feel the joy through your body when playing.  But when learning guitar, you also have to study some theory which is very intellectual and cognitively demanding. If you are more a right brain kind of guy, you enjoy less absorbing the individual pieces of information because it engages different parts of yourself which can be experienced as less enjoyable. And then of course you will naturally be less one with that. It is like back when you were in school, you had these sports lessons once in the week. Every week there is a different kind of activity. Some activities turn you on, like soccer. Others like basketball you were rather in math class and you end up talking to your classmate the whole game. But you have a positive attitude and connection to the whole of the sport lessons, and that includes the parts you like less. And less engagement is natural in those things you don't enjoy as much. The key is seeing the frustration, tension and neediness that exist when you cant focus. If it is there, it is because of those emotions.

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No matter the context of your focus issue, meditation is always something that is non negotiable. It is something you have to implement and take serious because it can get you to a point where you feel whole and peaceful in the present moment no matter what you are doing. This will make focus a lot easier as the emotional resistance removes. 

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The solution in most cases is clearly that you have to do right goal setting. Choose things you connect with on a feeling level. Then if,you have to do things you enjoy less doing the thing, you have to accept. The frequency of acceptance is very powerful. See, if you have done right goal setting, you have chosen a goal which has a strong authentic pull, and when going about your day, working towards it, you face more difficult aspects of the goal, you have to walk through it and accept that it is less natural for you. Like reading for example. You just do it. After doing it enough, you enforce your brains neural pathways to be in acceptance in relationship to tension, to push through difficult things. If the goal setting was right and you are reading a book related to the goal that feels difficult, then you see that as a beautiful opportunity to work on weaker parts of yourself. And that shift in perspective from frustration to acceptance happens naturally when choosing right goals and being emotionally free from future and past. Feeling love and acceptance in yourself will make you flow with whatever you choose to flow with.

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And something which you have to do as well is to build your physical infrastructure to set you up for succes and happiness. Like right diet, eliminating chemicals, detoxing and all that stuff. If you have clarity in your inner world, and you still have trouble with focus, this is what you should try fixing as well. But dont wait for clarity, health is something you can choose now. 
 

Edited January 29, 2022 by JonasVE12

[flowboy]

15 hours ago, Amannl3in said:

@flowboy that makes sense. I have not thought about it in this way. You are right, because my mind is busy thinking about other thing that I want to do,  which is causing me focus issues. 

I should sit down and seriously think about my goals. thank you so much for your advice it was accurate. 

I don't know how to thank you this is the exacte reply that I needed ?

[Amannl3in]

@JonasVE12 I really appreciate your detailed reply ?. I definitely need to start meditating daily. Thank you again for opning my eye ❤️