Attention & Focus · “You Become What You Hold”
Turning All Thought on One Thing Now
To train focused attention by deliberately turning all of one’s thought upon one thing in the present, gently and repeatedly calling the mind back when it wanders — without strain — until single-pointed attention becomes a settled poise.
Pick one thing, now. Relax the body first — no strain. Choose it whole-heartedly (“I CHOOSE to do this with all my might”). Give it your full thought. When the mind wanders, take a slow breath, straighten up, and call it gently back. Practice on small daily acts a few times a day (try it at meals). Aim not just to focus, but to focus and release at will — that is poise.
What it is
Elizabeth Towne’s concentration practice is the deliberate gathering of a scattered mind onto one thing, in the present. Her definition is the whole method in a sentence: “To concentrate one’s mind is to turn all of one’s thought upon one thing NOW.” Crucially, she insists it is effortless gathering, not clenching: “There is no straining about it, no tension of mind or body, no hurry, worry or fear.” Concentration, for Towne, is “polarization of our faculties” — pointing the whole mind in one direction — and its mature form is poise: the ability to drop one focus and take up another, smoothly, at will.
The Method
Faithful to Just How to Concentrate:
- Choose one thing, now. Pick a single object, task, or idea and decide to give it your whole thought. Towne stresses the present: you cannot truly concentrate on past or future, only on what is Here and Now.
- Relax first. Before fixing the mind, let go of bodily tension. “When we are relaxed we follow the same instinct that the hen follows as she settles contentedly.” No grip, no glare — settle.
- Decide, with the body. Make the choice deliberate and whole-hearted: “Say, I CHOOSE to do this with all my might; stamp your foot and say it.” The act of choosing pulls the faculties to one point.
- Practice on small daily acts (the graded drill). Don’t start with an hour of forced focus. “Practice concentration three times a day” — Towne’s favourite beginner exercise is eating: give your whole attention to the meal, the taste, the act. Build the muscle on easy, pleasant tasks.
- Stop and collect when scattered. Whenever attention frays: “Stop short, collect your thought and turn it all on this one thing you do.”
- Call it back, gently — every time. Wandering is expected. The whole training is in the return: “Call back your thoughts, take a slow, full breath, straighten up a moment,” then resume. The breath and the slight postural reset break the drift.
- Let interest do the lifting. Engagement, not force, is what makes a thing stick: “In proportion as you are interested in a thing, in that proportion will it cling to your memory.” Find the interest in the object and concentration follows more easily.
- Grow it into poise. As the drill matures, aim for flexible mastery, not rigid fixation: “The power of POISE is the greatest power of all” — to concentrate fully, then release fully, and move to the next thing without leakage. (Sourcing note: the quoted lines are Towne’s; the numbered sequence is attributed paraphrase of her chapters “Applied Concentration,” “Memory Drills,” “Just How to Concentrate,” and “Concentration and Poise.”)
Source & Lineage
Elizabeth Towne (1865–1960) was a leading New Thought publisher in Holyoke, Massachusetts and editor of The Nautilus. Just How to Concentrate (1904) is her practical manual on attention; it sits in the same turn-of-the-century New Thought stream as Atkinson, Haddock and Besant, all of whom drilled voluntary attention.
Towne’s distinctive notes are the relaxed, present-tense framing (“one thing NOW,” no strain) and the elevation of poise — the ability to release a focus — as the real goal. Contrast (don’t duplicate):
- Trāṭaka / candle gazing and Sadhu’s afterimage/second-hand drills fix the eyes on one external object; Towne works mostly through ordinary tasks and choice, not a gazing object.
- Haddock’s voluntary-attention drills frame focus as will-training with effort; Towne explicitly removes strain and leans on relaxation and interest.
- Dhāraṇā is the yogic one-pointedness aimed at meditative absorption; Towne’s aim is practical poise for daily living, not samādhi.
Common refinements
Straining. The single most common error, and the one Towne names first. Force narrows and tires the mind; relax, then gather.
- Starting too big. Don’t open with marathon focus on hard material. Towne’s graded path — three short, pleasant reps a day (eating, a small task) — builds the capacity.
- Treating a wandering mind as failure. The return is the rep. Each gentle call-back is the exercise working, not proof you can’t do it.
- Fixation without release. Concentration that can’t let go is not Towne’s goal; cultivate poise — full focus, then clean release.