On how the way we attune to our wold changes what we see and do - individually and collectively.

Attunement is a matter of how we orient ourselves toward ourselves and the world. What are we paying attention to? Not just out there, but inside.

How does the experience of life change based on what we are attuned to?
How does the experience of life change based on the quality of our attention? How does out there make us feel inside?
How does how we feel inside change what we see or how we feel about out there?

I’ve been asking myself questions like this for as long as I can remember. This type of inquiry also informed the style of sensemaking I developed in my media career which I’ve called Embodied Sensemaking.

The very nature of how we attune changes what we feel, see and can know, but also how we then create story, culture and action. Said differently, the depth of the relationship we have with ourselves on an emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual level changes how we see the world.

If we want to make sense of our world and experience a more beautiful one, don’t we need to consider what about us is driving the world the way it is today?

Lately, I have been thinking about a few different ways of expressing the types of attunement I see. As I think out loud, I’ll share what I’ve been working on.

Literal attunement is one way we make sense of life, conversation, people etc. It’s often surface-level and lacks deeper context. In this attunement, things can be very reductionist. Cut off from a deeper sense of complexity and humanity. It sees the world in parts, is highly logical and often mechanical. Almost entirely utilitarian with no room for soul or spirit.

In Literal, we can be very focused on a small framing of what someone is saying but not listening to the intention or spirit behind what they are saying. We aren’t all that curious about it either.

We are more combative in this space. Seeking to point out, corner, and debunk based on the words emerging. In practice, we are not seeking to understand clearly what someone means but are just looking to see if we agree or disagree, and we respond accordingly.

I would suspect this way is driven almost entirely by being too heavily focused on attuning to the world via the left hemisphere of the brain. We lack complexity, emotion, the sacred, connectedness and a sense that we are one.

It’s like saying, we’re ignoring many parts of ourselves as beings by attuning this way. We miss out on many parts of the world and will only ever understand things at a basic clinical level.

I would suggest most of our world attunes in this manner.

To use Martin Heidegger’s words, a poetic attunement, in my eyes, connects to something deeper. To something more complex. It is inherently driven by something MORE within ourselves and our logic is guided in concert by our heart, emotional experience and a sense of something greater.

We are connected and aware of connectedness. We are attuned to the body and are astutely aware of how we feel as much as how we think. With more sensation comes more information, which comes with a greater ability to make sense.

Here we do things for the sake of it because it is beautiful to do it, not just to achieve something. We develop because development is beautiful vs. to develop only because we want to make more money or because there is a market-driven purpose to develop. In those, beauty is often lost.

In conversation, we are curious, but we are also more open and connected. We don’t intake just the band of frequency that is someone’s words (literal attunement) but we take in how they feel, and how it makes us feel. This opens the door for clarifying questions, not just about their words but what led to those words and how someone truly feels.

With depth comes compassion and empathy. It creates the ability to connect with others more deeply. Not just via their words but to their own field of mind, body, and emotion. This is done because into our awareness comes a greater complexity of information from them but also ourselves.

This is our natural state. It also helps us make sense of the world because we have a greater ability to sense beyond the basics. Poetic attunement is guided by Embodied Sensemaking.

Then there is what I currently call an Empty attunement. It is like knowing words, phrases and intellectual ideas - being able to spit them off as needed -but not making them truly lived. Not embodying them and applying them to our current moment.

This is not the same as “I’m still learning to apply” it’s more so that the journey stays as just knowledge, and the knowledge is the achievement. It doesn’t become wisdom. The ideas are in our awareness but don’t travel down to the body or show up in our lived experience in a deeper way.

I see this a lot in spiritual circles where there is discussion about things like 5D consciousness, higher vibrations, positivity etc, but very little ability to live in the world now or understand how to practically embody these states of consciousness within the human experience. Instead, the human experience is deeply judged or seen as an abomination of sorts.

This can result in a constant focus on transcending the human experience. Meditating all day long or conversing only in the realm of “the 5D” such that it becomes a spiritual bypass. Deep wisdom and knowing cannot enter into the realm of the human experience because it’s too far gone can become a common idea.

When ‘problems’ or issues of our world current world are brought to discussion, this type of attunement pushes away discussion and often sees it as less than. With things like war or chaotic global events, discussing them with fellow humans and practically bringing wisdom to the moment becomes difficult or nonexistent.

Within this people often avoid their humanness and their body. They avoid their emotions or don’t know what to do with them so they try to continually access to quantum and transcend what they feel when things don’t feel that great.

It’s not just spiritual bypassing, it’s somatic bypassing. It’s bypassing the human experience and how much we can truly sense into the lived experiences of the collective.

What drives how we attune? It’s not just skills, practice and awareness, but also the state of our nervous system. I won’t get too much into this in this piece, but the state of our nervous system intimately shifts how our brain and physiology attune to the world as well. More on this some other time.

It’s also worth mentioning that I don’t think anyone is ever stuck in any state, and may venture in and out of these attunement states from day to day or situation to situation. Perhaps there are even hybrid states where a little light comes in from one state while another is dominant.

This is where the nervous system comes into play too.

But in general, I believe most of the time we’d be best served via a poetic attunement. And I believe the pathway to that is through things like embodiment, awareness, slowing down, presence, the breath, and a connection to something deeper within us.

These concepts are still a bit exploratory for me, I just hoped to get some more coherent words around these ideas, feelings and observations I’ve had for many years but haven’t fully expressed. I find talking about and expressing these things can produce many helpful ‘aha’ moments where we now have awareness about how we place our attention and what changes when we experiment.

Perhaps you can let me know your thoughts and perspectives on these ideas too.

My goal in this is to spark curiosity about how we attune to ourselves and life.

What do we bring into our consciousness and awareness?
What parts of ourselves are we avoiding?
To what degree can we create more beauty based on how we attune?
Can we solve ‘problems’ when we only understand 10% of what’s causing it?

Reflections like that.

In conveying these types of words to people over the years one common misconception that can arise is the idea that by asking these questions there is a sense of trying to STRIVE to change or FORCE change upon the world. That is not the intention here.

Instead, what emerges naturally from our consciousness and state of being when we attune differently? What type of world naturally emerges from a different attunement?

We still take action. We still create. We still be. But it emerges from a place of acceptance and fullness.