This paper discusses my performance piece and electronic music composition, Self/Work. It is divided into two parts. The first focuses on the broader concepts leading up to the idea of creating Self/Work, and the second focuses on the actual creation and decision-making processes involved in developing performances of Self/Work. The first section of the paper discusses my exposure to Milford Graves' heart sound research and Pauline Oliveros' Adaptive Use Musical Instruments project in 2007, citing the influence that these projects and artists had on the development of my early ethos regarding the healing efficacies of music, sound, and live performance. From here, I investigate the notion of what constitutes a "healing performance," bringing together research from the writings of homeopath Edward C. Whitmont, scholars in the fields of anthropology and medical ethnomusicology, and Pauline Oliveros. The discussion of Oliveros is focused on her Sonic Meditations, her subsequent theatrical work Crow Two, and her concepts of attention and awareness as they are at play in these works. Through this discussion, I clarify the meaning of the phrase that I use in the title of this paper, "performing attention." The second part of the paper discusses the creation of my MFA thesis project, Self/Work. I begin with a discussion of the notion of kinesthetic empathy, using it as a framework to analyze audience relationship to live performance that involves unpredictable electronic tools. I discuss the work of Jerry Hunt and ideas of Laetitia Sonami, considering how the design of an intentionally-inefficient electronic controller or instrument may stimulate the imagination of the viewer watching a performance, as well as the composer or performer creating the performance. I proclaim my allegiance to exploring control systems that use unpredictable tools, borrowing Sonami's term "exploration systems" as a term for these systems---the source for the second portion of the title of this paper. In the final section of the paper, I provide a brief overview of two performances of Self/Work, comparing and contrasting their narrative through-lines and the essentials of their visual and physical presence. I then discuss how I envision the work in the future as a solo performance, an installation, and an ensemble performance and practice. Conceived as a story of influences on Self/Work, the paper is intended to encourage further investigation of the possible healing-related efficacies of performance practices that take place inside of electronic performing systems.