This week, I’ve been having many conversations with people about who gets our attention. Unfortunately, we tend to give a lot of attention to those who might be a threat to us, which makes sense from a survival standpoint but which also gives toxic people too much free rent in our heads. Also, toxic people crave attention and all the attention we give them inspires them to keep doing their toxic behaviors.
I remember a training group I participated in years ago where one of the group members was incredibly toxic — hateful, attacking, and constantly attention seeking. At the end of the training group, I gave the group leader this feedback — Why on earth did you give that guy so much of your attention? It gave so little room for the rest of us and that only made us hate him more.
And yet I see that pattern everywhere. Who does the media give attention to? Not people who are good role models or inspirational leaders. No. Again, we give our attention to the toxic attention seekers, the people who fill headlines with their bad behaviors.
If you doubt this, look who is getting attention in the news today. For the most part, it’s people I would happily never see or hear from again. (I’m not going to name their names because I don’t want to give them more attention.)
Who gets our attention in my images for today?
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Here’s what I find when I search for “who gets our attention” on YouTube.
Since so many people are telling me that they are avoiding the news these days, I’m hoping to provide some news you can use, here and now, including these headlines:
My panel discussion of providing therapy groups remotely during the pandemic went very well yesterday.
