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Good morning. Welcome to another episode of Jubilee Life Coach's blog. This is Coach Brian, and I'm so glad that you're able to join us this morning. So, as you know, um, whenever I come across some useful material on the internet, I do the following, which is I check their sources, I check their information, and I uh filter it through the uh Christ-centered gospel-driven lens. And this way I feel confident uh that I'm presenting to you, that I'm sharing some of the resources that I feel that you would find very useful. So, this is one more of that. So let's take a look. Four ways to fix your attention span. This was on a TED Head talk. Um and uh the following is my filtering. We stay with one thing for about 40 seconds. Can you believe that? We stay with one thing for about 40 seconds. So my blog, my my podcast um has definitely exceeded 40 seconds. So if you are still with me, thank you so much. Congratulations. You're staying with one thing for more than about 40 seconds. Now, then the mind drifts off again, according to the studies. So in 2016, researchers measured how long we hold our attention. On a single screen, people lasted about 40 seconds on average, down from 75 seconds just a few years earlier. Now this does not mean our attention is broken, it means our attention is pulled in more directions than ever before. This is why focus for work, for study, even for the things we love can feel almost impossible. Now there is good news, which is attention can be protected and it can be trained. So the brain. Our brains receive a constant flood of information, sensory input, cues from the room, thoughts from within. The front of the brain decides what to attend to, and another region shines a mental flashlight on that one thing, leaving the rest in shadow. The hard part is keeping that flashlight in one place. The brain moves the light the moment something novel, unexpected, or emotionally charged appears. A knock at the door, a notification, a passing thought, these are all stimulations that the brain pays attention to. Now, this ability was built for survival. So getting distracted is not a failure per se. It is part of the way in which that we are created. Now, if focusing feels like work, that's because it is work. Now, limits. Researchers treat attention as a limited resource. It is fullest when we begin and it drains over time. Mistakes rise, destruction grows easier, trying to do several things at once empties the resource faster. So one thing at a time with intentional breaks helps. A short pause, a walk, enough sleep, less stress. These restore attention. The video ends with a gentle word be kind to yourself. Now here we want to pause. Why should we be kind to ourselves? Why? Well, scripture gives us a reason. We are creatures not machines. Our limits are not defects. They are a good gift of God. Kelly Capic puts it plainly. What we often name as sin is sometimes just a natural reality of reaching our limits. A mind that scatters after forty seconds is not proof that you are failing. No, it is proof that you are finite. And God called that finitude a good. So let's speak some IFS language here. So inner parts. Let us look inward for a moment. When we try to focus, the flashlight is often grabbed by certain parts of us. The part that says check your email. The part that worries about what is next. The part that craves something new. The part that just wants the discomfort to stop. Richard Schwartz, who developed Internal Family Systems Therapy IFS, sees these parts not as enemies, but as protectors. Even the part that reaches for the phone is trying in its own way to keep us safe. We can meet it first with understanding rather than internal war. But here we say one thing clearly the one who quiets these parts and gathers them into one is not an autonomous self within us. No, it is the Spirit of God. The psalmist praise, Unite my heart to fear your name, O Lord, Psalm eighty six. And it is this God who works in us both to will and to do. Philippians two thirteen. You see, stillness is not an achievement we produce, it is a gift God gives. So the gaze. The video closes with its simplest advice get rid of distractions, close the tabs, silence the alerts, find a quiet place, and that is very wise. Yet scripture said the same thing long before, long before any digital stuff ever came out, and from a far deeper place. Hebrews, the book of Hebrews urges us to lay aside every weight and look to Jesus. Look away to Jesus. Hebrews twelve, one through two. The Greek word for looking means to turn our eyes away from everything else and on to one person that is Jesus Christ. Getting rid of distractions is in the end for the sake of looking at that one thing, one person. And the Psalm says, Be still and know that I am God. Psalm forty six verse ten. The Hebrew for be still means to loosen your grip, to cease striving, to loosen your grip, your control, your self-control, and to cease striving. Biblical stillness, therefore, is not an emptied mind. It is laying down our striving, our self-justification, self-righteousness before the God who is our fortress. Where mindfulness empties the mind and pretty much that's it. Faith and Christian mindfulness, I suppose, fills it with the spirit of that one person. So if your mind keeps scattering and you have been blaming yourself, set the blame down for a moment. A wandering mind is not evidence that you're not enough. The walk, the rest, the sleep are all gifts from God, and you're free to receive them with thanks. And here is the deepest news. The gaze did not begin with our effort. Long before we ever looked to him, he looked to us first. In the joy set before him for which he endured the cross, you were there. So be kind to yourself because God loves you and God is gracious and kind to you. Focus is not a triumph of willpower. No, it is rather leaning on grace. If today's focus was not perfect, that is alright. You can simply and quietly look away from those things, look away to that one person again, who kindly looks at us and loves us with his own life. Well, that's it for today. Um, on my JubileeCoach.com website on this blog, I have several Jubilee Coach's questions that I hope you will find helpful. Godspeed.