Lowering Our Gaze

In a world of abject overwhelm, we must find ways to narrow our focus

So, another week, another disturbing round of national news. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, bless you. But for the rest of us mere mortals, the world has felt overwhelming, exhausting, and filled with grief over the past few years. Whether it’s individual or collective grief matters not – it all hits our hearts, our souls, and our bodies the same.

You don’t need to hear my commentary about the events themselves. For one, there are far too many voices speaking on those things already. And two, no amount of correct interpretation will remove the weight. Instead, I offer what has worked for me countless times when I feel overwhelmed by the demands of the world.

Lower your gaze.

Restrict that which you’re taking in. If the world is too big, limit your scope to your neighborhood. Still too much? Focus on your house. Still too overwhelming? Attend to one room. Or even one surface. Often, it’s not space that overwhelms but time. The same protocol applies - if the week is too much, look to the day. Or the hour. Or the minute. Or the moment.

Anyone who has benefitted from meditation knows that much of the value is in lowering the focus to just the breath. Hard as that may be, we still are healed and nourished by the attempt. Similarly, those who are suffering from addiction and find themselves in a 12-step meeting are encouraged to take it “one day at a time.” I had a friend who, after several near-fatal encounters with his own attachment to drugs and alcohol, accumulated ten years of sobriety. I asked him how he did it; he replied, “it was ten years of one day at a time.”

We are not meant to live worlds at a time, years at a time.

In Smoke Hole, Martin Shaw talks about how this a time when our eyes are drawn every which way, and with it our imagination, our attention, our focus. In mythological terms, we have been handed a magic spyglass. We can see across nations, across oceans, throughout time. We can zoom in and out on our neighbors and enemies. This unrestricted seeing creates for many of us a soul-sickness. It is far beyond what we have the capacity to endure on our own. So Shaw encourages us to lower our gaze. He speaks of a prayer mat – a small piece of woven material just at our feet. Our peace lies there.

I don’t have a prayer mat, but I do have a desk. At this desk, I partner with people to discuss the deepest, richest hopes for their lives, and to help negotiate their stopping points. It is sacred work, seeing people wake up to their power. Along the way, we by necessity discuss some of the things that have stolen that power. I’ve had the dubious honor of being on the receiving end of women and men getting clear about just when they forgot what they were capable of. This includes assaults of all kinds, betrayals, parental shame, failures, brutal addictions, neglect and abandonment, character assassinations, and more.

To say I get good and truly triggered while I’m coaching is an understatement. So one of the ways I’ve learned to navigate this with my soul intact is to carefully curate my space. My desk is essentially a menu of grounding items that gently ask for my attention – they never shout or interrupt. But sometimes they whisper encouragement, and sometimes they sing. I have a small yoga chime to bring sound. I have candles, Orthodox frankincense, and palo santo. I have an analog clock to limit checking my phone. A small travel icon of saints, a jar full of my favorite pens, and a few different journals; one for daily morning pages, one for poetry and other scraps of beauty, and one for brainstorming tasks.

These are the things that bring me back

I have 16 different plants arranged around me – living things in need of care. On the shelves behind my chair sits a stack of books. They are all over a century old, and they include Robert Burns’ poetry and a New Testament given in love to a soldier going off to war (that is, the American Civil War – the inscription is dated 1863). I have a deer antler discovered during a hike, a throwing tomahawk, and a tiny drum. There are little bottles, props from my son’s birthday party a few years back. My bookshelf has Steven Pressfield, CS Lewis, Dante, Toni Morrison, Stephen King, Julia Cameron, and Ranier Maria Rilke. On the windowsill is an Aztec death whistle, a stack of military challenge coins, and jars of lemon peel, salt, lavender, and sage.

I share this with you because these very real things – these things made either by the earth herself or by loving human hands – they give me a place to focus my attention when it’s getting pulled all over the place. This is my prayer mat of sorts. It is intentional that all these objects have a pronounced sensory component. None are purely functional. All are meant, among other things, to be seen, heard, smelled, or touched on their own terms.

So if you’re struggling with all the pronouncements of “new year, new me”, or the wholesale dehumanization we see all around us, or if things are tough for reasons you can’t quite pinpoint, let me lovingly encourage you to lower your gaze. Shrink your world, even if its just for a time. Wash a dish with your whole self. Spend ten minutes studying the intricacies of the nearest tree. Do nothing but breathe for awhile. If you’re inclined to pray, do so with the fewest words you can manage – stay away from “prayer speeches” and lofty proclamations. For God’s sake, stop with the multitasking. And when you find those moments of gaze-lowering respite, share them with people who matter to you. Share them here.