Mental focus is when you direct your thoughts towards something and keep them there. It’s a very practical thing that most people do (or at least try to do) every day. Emotional focus is when you direct your feelings towards something, and pull them back whenever they stray. Few people ever do this intentionally, although it can happen naturally when someone gets very upset.
Mental focus is easy to understand, if not easy to perform. There’s no real mystery in noticing your thoughts, and letting go of stray ones. On the other hand, emotional focus is harder to grasp. How can you control your emotions? You can’t just make yourself feel happy, can you. Well, you can. Read a well written tragedy, and you’ll be sad. Watch a great action flick, and BOOM! You’re excited. This works by causing you to focus on a story. You live with the characters, and feel their ups and down. Emotions are the stories we use to explain the events in our lives, and thoughts are the sentences in this book. So it’s back to controlling your thoughts again.
Ok, then what’s the difference between mental focus and emotional focus?
For mental focus, you concentrate intensely for a relatively short period of time. With emotional focus, less intensity is required, but it’s spread out over weeks instead of hours.
Secondly, emotional focus differs from mental focus in the type of thoughts that you need to release. Mental focus is about catching any and all thoughts, but emotional focus is about noticing a few select thoughts. Wanting something is not passive. Desires are etched through ceaseless repetitions of a story that justifies your emotions. These are the thoughts that you need to catch. But, instead of releasing them, as you would with mental focus, you need to bring your awareness down on them. Did Bob really intend to demean you when he cut you off? Or was he excited? Does he do that to other people as well? Does this need to make you feel hurt or upset? How would you like to respond to that? How would you like to feel about it? Could you? As you question, you’ll notice that your airtight story crumbles at the lightest breeze. As it does, your emotions will likewise fade.
Why is emotional focus important?
Mental focus follows emotional focus. Working on something that you deem unimportant is draining. And why should you even bother? But once you see the benefits, and not just see them, but feel them. Then you’ll work on it. And not just that, you might even be excited to. The next time you struggle to change your behavior, listen to the stories that you tell about it. Are you decrying your goals while trying to work on them? Chances are you know you should do something, but feel that you shouldn’t.