“What you focus on expands.” This concept shows up in online business and personal growth courses, the teachings of Abraham Hicks as written by Esther Hicks, the current behaviors manifested in the political scene, and the rants of some of my friends. There are extensions to this idea. The statement that practicing gratitude creates happiness and success is one. Basics on the craze for learning about manifestation through such coaches as Mike and Andy Dooley are another.. Even the sexist and, for me, exhausting, 1937 work of Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich reflects this basic idea.
While I’m writing this we are experiencing a worldwide pandemic, with people ignoring that a virus is rampant by dismissing simple, if inconvenient, guidelines for keeping it from spreading. George Floyd was massacred in Minneapolis triggering a global confrontation with racism, both systemic and individual. Reactions to both events are being fed by history, politics, and newsfeeds.
Both also illustrate another truism (although I may have made this one up). “What you ignore festers.” In the United States our political leaders have encouraged – and ignored – acts of violence and white supremacy. As a result those who act this way have become more and more visible. Many people, including some political leaders, also ignore health guidelines and the impact COVID-19 is having on our healthcare infrastructure. The news, Facebook feeds, and, often, private conversations focus on inflammatory statements and the apparently ill considered behaviors of others giving these statements and actions increasing power. Each response is defended by “needing to know what’s going on” as well as, apparently, a need to be superior and clever. Note that these responses are focuses. Both the news and the cleverness add to the focus on the situation. And the energy from this attention encourages and fosters additional actions. In the pandemic, we have been encouraged to ignore the situation while others share how it is spreading, are given conflicting information about how the virus spreads, react inconsistently to which measures might be effective, and commiserate as to how unfair and difficult social distancing and quarantine is. There is also reassurance that the danger of the virus and the political implications of racial tension are exaggerated.
So more anger and violence. More illness and disease.
Yet what you ignore festers. Every time we don’t social distance COVID spreads. Pockets of white supremacy and the realities of unaddressed racism explode when given permission in our current political climate.
How do you address (i.e. not ignore) issues by not focusing on them? Absolutely one should name them – that is the not allowing to fester part. But the secret is to give more power or focus to the actions and stories that lift up and empower what you want to happen. The challenge is finding the positive focus. An easy example is Spirit Moxie’s continual emphasis on voting as a response to laws, government, and politics. It is police officers handing out masks at a recent demonstration. It is my friend Karen’s careful distancing measures at a family gathering celebrating her grandson’s fifth birthday where a great time was had by all. It’s my noticing all the people wearing masks vs my friends, visiting the same stores, saying no one was. (I saw only one person with no mask. Really.)
What do you see and notice that you can celebrate as positive and encourage? Delight in discovering Zoomers (i.e., people born after 1996) can be proactive. People practicing social distancing when you take a walk. Realizing it really is fun to cook from scratch – and tastes better. Watching and supporting an organization revising its DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) vision and guidelines. More fireflies and butterflies. Clearer skies. Do you celebrate the heroes in your midst? Are you grateful for honesty and clarity? Are you practicing gratitude period? Can you listen with love and really hear what someone is saying? What are your positive actions in this time?
Share! We need that focus to expand!
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Photos from the top:
You become… — cartoon by Andy Dooley
Pile of masks — Spirit Moxie
Imagine Banner at Salesforce Tower, WeWork. San Francisco, CA — Spirit Moxie
Note: all Amazon links are Spirit Moxie’s, which means we get a couple cents if you buy the book (or whatever), but that doesn’t affect the price you pay.
Meanwhile, there are all the bits I’ve been saying here about listening to our bodies. These comments might sound the same. Specifically, I’ve been claiming that our bodies keep trying to get our attention as we live into our best selves. (I was going to say “true purpose,” but that sounds as if there is only one right path, which I don’t believe at all.)
So is a fall always a sign? I don’t think it is necessarily. A couple of months ago (mid-December 2019,) I fell again while walking a friend’s dog. Somehow, I tripped on a rise in the sidewalk, knew I tripped, and fell in a way that I couldn’t stop myself. Sparing you the details of the next hours (and days), I finally learned I had fractured my right elbow and would be wearing a stylish black sling when I was out of the house. But throughout this experience I was, and still am, very sure it was just an accident. I fell simply because I wasn’t focused on where I was going. It was a painful and inconvenient, but effective way to force me to become more ambidextrous. It was a dramatic way to encourage me to continue to 
Bottom line: sometimes stuff happens just because it happens. Sometimes things happen because there is something important that you are missing and need to learn about or pay attention to. This simply means learn to listen. Without blaming yourself or anyone else about what happens to you, how are you called to be your best self? What are you being told and why?
Well, that and that Moxie Moves: 10 ways to make a powerful difference can indeed be a new year’s journey. Change the world, change yourself. Or vise versa. Available through your favorite source for books. And an autographed copy is still available at 
It’s late 2019 and I’m writing this in Thailand, a country where I don’t know the language and have only the vaguest knowledge of the customs. While I was here once before, it seems more difficult this time to actually get anywhere. The last time I was here I stayed with extended family members who would talk to taxi drivers for me. But on this trip, these same people are letting me experiment with what it might be like to live here. I have a small, family owned condo far (or it seems far) from any public transportation. The first time I tried to go somewhere the taxi dropped me off at a major bus station instead of the Sky Train that was my destination. The first cab I tried to hail to take me back home wouldn’t take me even though I showed him the address written out in Thai.
Oh, OK. Do I need help? No, I’m fine. I have my Thai phone and have signed up for the equivalent of an Uber service called Grab. I’ve almost figured out how to find locations where drivers can easily find me to pick me up to get home. I can walk from my condo to a mall that has restaurants, a grocery store, and place to buy an umbrella, water glasses, and a pitcher, which were the only things that seemed missing from “my” apartment. I have also learned that I make way too many assumptions. Somehow I expect people to know what I want, but the truth is that they’re waiting to be asked. People are glad when I do ask for whatever.
So who am I? I just found a coffee shop where I can write on my computer. I still haven’t created a space at home where I can write easily. And I’ve met multiple people (well, six) who are concerned about the process of being present. Through that connection I received an invitation to join a writing group. But I’m guessing that these activities aren’t part of a true identity either. There is a me beyond the one who likes coffee shops for writing and enjoys talking about “just being.”
Somewhere beyond this list of would be busyness there is a calm where possibility is created. Unfortunately it is also a place a bit beyond words which is all I have here. It is an extreme manifestation of what I’ve written before in 
Somehow I again forgot to request “no straw” with my water. But maybe I’m forgiven. Wait staff at my usual breakfast spots and a few bars never bring me one, so I forget that at some places people put them in drinks automatically. Why no straw? Straws don’t degrade easily; they increase trash; and I don’t particularly like them. So for me they’re a waste.
However some little and some not so little things have happen as they should and do. Every Saturday, I go to our local farmer’s market. While I’m there, I always collect a hug from a woman selling a newspaper that covers stories about the concerns of street people. The paper is sold by homeless or otherwise indigent people, instead of their begging for money. Somehow I never remember the name of the woman I stop to see, although she regularly bawls me out for being outside with wet hair and tells me about her dog and her husband. So, I figured I’d ask her name! (Again.) This time, I entered it in my phone and, with her permission, took a photo to go with it. As I walked around the market, I realized that these, too, are little things. Connecting with others. Learning names. I also realized I wanted to tell this story to you. So, I found my newspaper seller again. “Do you care if I use your picture on line?” “No,” she replied, “don’t do that. There were these people…[and another story ensued].” “OK, so I won’t use your name,” I said. “Oh, you can use my name,” she answered. “Just not my picture.” So here are other little things. Respect everyone. Ask for permission. Her name is Julie in case I need you to help me remember it.
The other two things happened by my following what my body wanted to do which is part of the challenge of 
Plus, for me there are the ongoing little things such as to remember to 
I’m excited about this new year. Maybe it’s because 2018 ended with an almost violent reset. A relationship I knew wasn’t forever ended suddenly. Maybe because my continued quest to “just be” has become more second nature with practice. Or perhaps it’s because I have an ongoing commitment to hope and possibility.
I did get to Hawaii, the first planned bucket list item I’ve done in years. So, somehow one can plan and “just be” at the same time, which is a skill I’m slowly learning. One buys the tickets or makes the plan — but you know that action is separate from the trip or the event. If it happens, it happens. For example, when I was ill at the end of 2016, I had to cancel two plane trips, but wasn’t penalized at all for doing so. Last year, I bought tickets for an event before my relationship ended and I wound up going to the concert with a completely unexpected someone for a supportive and gentle, and unplanned, afternoon.
On 
I don’t know about you, but when things seem obvious to me, I don’t even think about them. It’s beyond thinking that they’re equally clear to everyone. A communication about whatever it is really isn’t even on my mind. This is why I’m always getting in trouble because I don’t mention things like, well, I’m not coming up with anything because I’m not even thinking about it. It just is. 
These were just off the top of my head. But the first time I realized that what was obvious to me wasn’t always obvious to others occurred during a misguided stint teaching English and theatre. Oh, I had
Recently, while increasingly living moment-to-moment “in the present,” which I began sharing in 
The hiatus of staring out windows and at keyboards has also increased my minute-by-minute appreciation of how interesting and beautiful the world is. It’s increased my gratitude to the couple of people who have read the book and thought it had the right degree of personal-ness and length. And I’ve gotten back to “obvious.” I now have a determination to look again at the book’s beginning, to see where I’m making assumptions. To indeed make it clearer and, ideally, more interesting.
By the way, the book’s working title right now is Moxie Moves: 10 easy ways to make a powerful difference.