Improve Focus to Stop Ticcing (and heal Tourette's)

Key Takeaways:

• External distractions fragment your focus and worsen tics
• True focus lies in turning inward, not just concentrating outwardly
• Inner focus leads to self-awareness and empowers you to manage tics

As someone who has journeyed for over 20 years with Tourette’s syndrome, I’ve learned firsthand how cultivating inner focus transforms our health - physical, mental, and beyond. Like many young people today, I grew up in an age of endless digital stimulation - TV, computers, video games. My mind was constantly racing, thinking of the next thing to check or do. I could hyper-focus on screens for hours yet had no clue how to calm my own inner world.

Only through discovering mindfulness and meditation did I start to comprehend that our focus shapes our reality. When we narrowly laser in on external distraction, we energize the “monkey mind,” leaving no space for inner stillness. Getting sucked into the latest binge-worthy series may seem like good focus, but it only splinters our attention further. As I healed my tics using meditative tools, I realized just how scatterbrained I’d become.

True focus means directing our awareness inward, not just staring intently outward. It’s a skill we must nurture through practice. I teach simple techniques like shifting between broad, relaxed focus and narrow concentration while looking at the same object. This stretches our capacity for conscious presence. It paves the way to observe our racing thoughts rather than getting tangled up in them.

As we steady this muscle of inward attention, we grow more sensitive to our bodily sensations, emotions, and beliefs. We can dismantle old patterns before they erupt in tics. Over years conditioned by digital overload, we forget that calm inner connection is our natural state beneath the frenzy. Each small effort to turn focus back within guides us closer to that eternal wellspring of peace inside.

My own healing journey living with Tourette’s sparked my purpose - supporting others to transform their conditions by taming the unruly mind. For once I discovered my inner compass pointing true North to stillness and joy, the outer chaos lost its grip. Though I still navigate challenges, in moments of feeling lost, I breathe deep now and softly ask within. Then answers come, leading me back home.