All In by Lexie Wolf

I’ve been watching highlights of the Olympics with awe and wonder. The whole-hearted, “all-in” quality of the athletes’ journeys is truly inspiring. The radical presence required to perform at that level captivates me.

This “all-in” quality of bringing all of your attention, energy, and effort to what you are doing without reservation or distraction is a core value of yoga. The teachings of yoga tell us that scattered thoughts, attention, and energy hinder our progress on many levels. Modern productivity experts are also recognizing this. Multi-tasking, once hailed as a productive strategy, has not held up under scrutiny.

Single-pointed focus could be considered the central yogic skill. The term refers to the ability to direct and maintain attention on a single object, thought, or task without getting distracted. It's about cultivating intense concentration on one point, often used in meditation practices. Its close cousins, mindfulness and presence, are slightly less intense forms of this skill. Mindfulness is a broader awareness than single-pointed focus, encompassing a non-judgmental observation of the present. Presence might be seen as a result of mindfulness, where one is completely absorbed in what is happening now. You get the idea: Be Here Now.

We all have our own personal Olympics. We face small mountains during our daily routines and larger ones throughout our lives. Every task or challenge, large or small, is an opportunity to show up wholeheartedly and with presence. I’ve found that fully embracing even unwanted tasks, rather than performing them with a kind of half-hearted resistance, makes them easier to handle.

Even when it comes to things I truly want to do, fully showing up can be a challenge. We humans have created a world designed to scatter our brains in all directions. Walking a yogic path requires pushing back against the “everything, all at once” quality of modern life. But there’s such primal joy and satisfaction in the all-in space.

Yogis utilize the skill of single-pointed focus to turn inward and stay there for longer periods. This journey inward helps uncover the silent, sacred, inner soul-Self. This spiritual treasure, perfectly camouflaged by the noise of human life, can only be found when the mind goes still.

This morning, I took a mindfulness walk, intending to be fully present to the sights, sounds, and smells of the woods. Instead, I ended up writing this piece in my head. How’s that for not walking the walk? I’m laughing at myself right now. I’ll try again tomorrow.