by Graham Sampson
“The primary power of successful people is the ability to control their attention.” Harry Palmer, Author of the Avatar® materials.
Harry Palmer developed a method, where, through a series of easy-to-do exercises you can unravel the mystery of how and why you experience what you experience in life.
To be successful requires having free attention; attention that is not stuck on one thing, divided between too many suppressed memories or attached to fixed viewpoints. Having free attention allows us to be more aware of possibilities, read the situation, be empowered and enjoy the game.
Our attention can get caught on certain thoughts or memories and cause our attention to be stuck. Our minds have amazing abilities. We can suppress or push aside issues, but when we have emotional attachment to them through fear, guilt, or judgment, we fix our attention and cannot use it for other purposes. With this diminished attention we become overwhelmed, discouraged and disillusioned.
One of the most interesting aspects of this is that we remember, all too easily, the bad things that were done to us by others.•••••
I was the seventh child in the family. We lived on a farm and went to a one teacher school which had only nine pupils, four from my family. My teacher did not like me and I did not like her. When I was nine-years-old, she saw fit to take me downstairs, have me stand on a table and hit my legs repeatedly with a strap.
It was with some pride and determination that I saw this as a contest for power. I decided that if I cried or reacted in any way, such as striking back or apologizing for my behavior, she would win. If I remained silent with no reaction I would win. I decided that nothing would ever get me back to that school. I was leaving.
The next morning my father drove the four of us to school. We waited in the farm truck while he went inside and met with the teacher. After what seemed a long time he returned simply saying that none of us were going back to that school. On that day we enrolled in the school in town, with some 300 pupils. From then on I loved school. The small school was forced to close due to lack of students. For years I proudly boasted of how I, as a nine-year-old, had closed a school.
Later in life I realized that carrying bad feelings toward my childhood teacher was a burden to me. Even though I could easily blame and justify my attitude toward her (after all she was an adult and I was just a child), it was still unecessary baggage. I sincerely did my best to release the judgment I had on her and forgive her to the point that I thought I would have welcomed seeing her again.
Almost 55 years after the event I found myself working against myself, sabotaging my successes and not understanding how. Anything that has us divided is a sign that we are out of integrity, not whole, not one. I was torn inside, and felt pulled in more than one direction, so I did personal integrity work during an Avatar Masters Course.
The materials I used are freely available in Avatar Mini-Courses, via The Personal Integrity Course and The Forgiveness Option. In the moment that I was preparing to do The Forgiveness Option, I was experiencing difficulty choosing a situation where I had not forgiven. Interestingly, Self-Deception Signals is the foundation of the Personal Integrity Course. I could only think of my nine-year-old experience with my teacher. I thought, what the hell, I’ll explore that again.
During the exercise called Releasing Fixed Attention, I became aware that there was a part to the story that I had never acknowledged, never confessed—my contribution. I became aware that since before I met this teacher, even as a five-year-old, I was belittling, ridiculing, demeaning and profaning her. In revealing this to myself, I felt the beating I had received was small change compared with what I had done to her. Finally after all those years of delusion and self-deception where I had smugly played the innocent victim, I took responsibility and felt remorse. I now have a natural flow of compassion, appreciation and gratitude towards her which is the essence of true forgiveness. Taking responsibility for my actions gave me freedom beyond my greatest expectations.
Doing the exercise freed up attention with fixed viewpoints and bad intentions that had been misdirected into self-serving ego gratification and wasted for nearly 55 years. From a more humble and real perspective, that attention is now available for me to follow my inspiration for living, which includes helping others connect with their inspiration for living.
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