Freedom

from the

Food Fight

My intention in writing this article is to use my life experience, knowledge, creativity, and humor to inspire greater amounts of laughter, love, and well-being in people by encouraging them to awaken and listen to their own voice within.

Everything I say stems from my own experience, and may or may not be right for you. I respect that every individual has his or her own unique path, and what works for me may not be suitable for another. I am here to encourage you – not to tell you to do what I did, but rather to cultivate a listening to your own voice so that you may hear what is right and appropriate for you. I am not a doctor or scholar or degreed specialist of any kind. I am a woman who has pulled herself out of hell and is well on her way to creating her own heaven on earth. If my story and my steps help even one person find more joy and relief in life, then I have accomplished much.

Many of the concepts that I share are not new; however, my perceptions of them may be. I have gleaned much information and wisdom from many sources and am thankful for all that I have learned. It is my desire to bring what I have learned and experienced from the area that has been my biggest teacher: loving myself, loving my body, and ending the war with food.

Have you ever wondered why one person can eat two hamburgers and be a skinny as a pencil and another can just look at one and gain weight? Have you ever thought that perhaps it isn’t about the food, but rather the person? And maybe, just maybe, it has to do more with the person’s thinking than it does genetics, metabolism, luck, or some other outside circumstance.

We often blame what is OUTSIDE of ourselves for our problems. We were all taught to do that to some degree or another. In doing so, I believe that many people have lost the ability to hear answers within themselves. It is for this reason that we turn to things or people outside of ourselves for answers that lie within.

What if nothing outside of us causes anything?

What if our reality is shaped solely by our perceptions?

For instance, have you ever felt fat or ugly one day and the next day you didn’t? What happened? Did your body suddenly morph into something disgusting and horrible secretly overnight?

Did you ever look in the mirror at one time and feel great about the way you looked, and then the next time you glanced in it you wanted to run screaming for the hills? Do you think it was the mirror that changed?

How about that piece of chocolate cake that you eat one time absolutely guilt-free, but another time you eat it and want to commit suicide over the heinous crime? Is it the cake that became more decadent?

The answer to all of these questions is, of course, no. It is your perception of these things that changed, not the things themselves.

Most of us have no clue as to what makes us feel rotten. We often point the finger at something outside ourselves, when that finger should be pointing right at our own heads! It is not food or our bodies that are the enemy; the enemy is our thinking. The result of listening to self-destructive thoughts is that many of us just walk around oblivious, letting the judgments we have in our minds dictate how we feel. How powerless is THAT? And many of us feel bad because we are usually believing something that isn’t even true!

I will say it again. It is nothing outside of ourselves that makes us feel negative emotions. It is the thoughts we have about things that make us react the way we do. It is our perceptions.

The good news is that we can train our minds just like we can our bodies. It takes awareness. It takes discipline. It takes time – often a lot of time. It takes courage. But hey, it also takes the blues and turns them into shimmering rainbows and infinite possibilities. I mean, what’s the alternative? If you like your life, so be it. If you like your body, so be it. If you can eat anything you want without feeling any guilt, so be it. Don’t change anything. If you can’t, then you gotta change your mind.

Diets only work if your mind changes along with your body. I am not suggesting that diets are necessarily bad. On the contrary, they can often be a kick-start to feeling better. What most people do not realize, however, is that it is the feeling better that brings success, NOT the diet. If it were the diet, the results would remain intact even when we start to feel bad again. They do not, though. With most people, as soon as the stinky thinking comes back, so do the restrictive behaviors, the false promises and, of course, the weight. Diets – all diets that restrict you in any way – are temporary outside fixes that attempt to address internal problems. That’s why, for the most part, diets do not work. No diet will ever, ever, ever work, except one. It is the diet that says, “‘Listen to your body. Eat when you are hungry. Eat whatever your body wants. Stop when you are full.”

“WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTT?” you might be screaming. “I can’t do that! I’ll be the size of a house! I’ll die. You don’t know my body!”

Breathe easy. Let me assure you I thought the very same things.

The truth is that you do not know your body. How many books or magazine articles have you read about health and losing weight? How many diets have you tried in order to be healthier or skinnier?

How many exercise classes have you signed up for? How many meetings have you gone to? How many doctors, psychics or friends have you talked to in hopes of feeling better about yourself – but you don’t, at least not permanently? It’s because the only voice you can trust is the voice of your body. Why in the world do we think that what works for someone else is going to work for us?

Okay, here’s the truth. Are you sitting down? Are you holding onto something?

YOU CAN TRUST YOUR BODY.

THE THING YOU CANNOT TRUST IS YOUR MONKEY MIND.

It is your ornery monkey mind that is telling you mean and hateful lies, not your body. Lies like, “You can’t eat that… you should be a size nine… that’s bad for you… if you’re fat, no one will love you… you’re ugly… you’re not good enough.” Yadee, yadee, yadee, yadee, ya. Blah, blah, blah… all lies. Don’t believe any of them.

It’s actually a really good thing that you do not trust your mind, until it changes anyway. And the principles that we use can be applied to any area of your life, not just your body and food.

YOU ARE NOT A VICTIM TO YOUR THOUGHTS.

IF YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND, YOUR WHOLE LIFE CAN CHANGE.

Seventeen years ago, 95% (and I am not exaggerating!) of my waking thoughts were self-destructive. 100% of that 95% was about food or my body. I was obsessed beyond belief. I exercised six hours a day. I starved. I threw up – sometimes ten times a day. I binged. They called it bulimorexia, the worst of both worlds. I had it actively for 14 years. I had it in my mind for another ten. It is amazing I am still alive. I’m glad I am though, so perhaps I can prevent people from going through what I went through. I am actually thankful for all those dark years, for without them I would not have gained all the wisdom I have now. Was it a high price to pay? Yes. But in the end, it was worth it.

Today I celebrate that 95% of my thoughts about food and my body are positive. I am happy to say that when the other 5% of the icky ones kick in, I have a zillion tools not to listen to them.

And what happened? I changed my mind! I became aware of what my thoughts were doing to me and to the people I loved.

I CHANGED BY CHANGING MY MIND, AND

MY BIGGEST COMMITMENT ON THIS PLANET BECAME TO LOVE & ACCEPT MYSELF.

I am no different from you. I am a woman who got tired, really tired, of hating herself and I turned it around. It took over twenty years, but I did it. If I can do it, if I can crawl out from the self-created hell I was in, I swear you can too.

So HOW do you change your mind?

You have to become aware of what you are thinking before you can do anything about those thoughts. You do that by slowing down enough to hear them. Once you do that, then you can start deciding if they have any validity or not (I can guarantee you 99% if not 100% of the thoughts that your ego mind has are the exact opposite of what is really true). Did you know that the faster our thoughts go, the more we believe them? Well, what if you were able to slow the thoughts down enough not only to hear what it is they say, but to let them pass right on by for the nonsense that they are and not be driven by them any longer.

That, my friend, is true freedom and that is what Open Focus™ allows you to find. Open Focus™ can teach you how to create enough space between you and your stressful thoughts so you are no longer at the mercy of them.

Please see other articles and website for a deeper explanation of the Open Focus principles.

Inner peace can be found when we create enough distance from our thoughts and emotions to see if what we thinking and feeling has any real validity.

We then develop the ability to let those worrisome stories go. In any given moment, we have the power to let a thought pass by as if it were a cloud drifting past. When we become present, using our senses to bring us into awareness of what is happening now with Open Focus™, we can begin to recognize the world we live in as an illusion of sorts, made up by the stories our minds tell us. When we realize this illusionary state, we begin to awaken to a new way of seeing.

There is a lot of talk in the world right now about changing one’s thoughts to change one’s reality. It is true to some degree, and in my opinion it is a little backwards. When someone puts conscious positive thoughts (affirmations) on top of un-resolved, un-observed, unconscious negative thoughts, it is kind of like putting ice cream on top of poop. It’s looks good from the top, but underneath it all you’ve still got all your crap. I’d rather just let go of the poop first and then order up the ice cream on a clean dish. To me that is what Open Focus™ allows you to do.

If we look at all the material things most people wish to manifest with their thoughts, we find that those things usually fit into three basic categories, financial prosperity, health, and relationships. When we dig far enough underneath those desires however, we find the true motivation for having those things is love, freedom and inner peace. It too is a little backwards, but we have all been taught to some degree or another, to think that physical things such as having wealth, being with the ‘right’ person or being a specific weight, size or age can bring us the long-term emotional satisfaction we truly seek. That is the biggest lie all of us have been told.

If we truly believe that outside things can bring permanent, inside results, boy oh boy do we set ourselves up to suffer.

I work with people who suffer from pain, anxiety, trauma and food & body issues in my private practice. These people are pretty much at war with themselves without even realizing it. Most of them think it is a war with food or the body, or the world or another person, but the only true war is with the thoughts in our heads. Most clients hold the false belief, “If I were only thin enough, I would be happier… If I were only good enough, I would be worthy… If he would only change, things would be different!” Again, that is backwards. Putting the responsibility of happiness, worthiness and well-being into the hands of things that come and go results in the exact opposite of what is truly desired.

Many people have been taught that pain is a ‘bad’ thing and it means there is something wrong. There are but a few people that have learned that pain is actually a portal to our deepest heart’s desire, and are therefore unafraid to embrace the experience. Again, it is backwards from what our minds tell us is true.

Addictive behavior, be it mild or severe, involves a desire to numb out pain by using some activity, person or substance. Many treatments deal with the symptoms of the di-stress, but not until the cause (underlying false beliefs) is addressed will anyone achieve long-standing results. If abstinence is achieved by sheer will power, that eventually most likely will crumble because we cannot fix the problem with the personality (mind set) that created it.

Until we see that no physical thing, be it a person, place, thing, time or event, can permanently satiate emotional discomfort, we will continue to suffer.

When we are overly stressed, in pain or engaged in addictive thinking or behaviors, we are most likely in what is called a hyper-alert or fight or flight brain wave pattern. This is a common Beta brain wave state called narrow focus that is normally used for heightened, concentrated attention. People who have experienced a great deal of stress, grief or trauma get ’stuck’ in that mode however, and start to use narrow focus at all times in everyday life. This constant over use of narrow focus is called survival mode.

The brain stays locked in survival mode to keep an individual safe, even when nothing life threatening is happening and both the brain and body remain in a stressed, hyper-vigilant mode. Many people get mired in that mode and know no other way of being. Anxiety becomes part of every day life and true relaxation coming from an Alpha brain wave state becomes a foreign and sometimes forgotten land.

I believe that most people who suffer chronic pain (emotional or physical), depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, trauma or the inability to focus are all stuck in this fight or flight mode and the way out is by changing both how and to what one pays attention.

When the attention is narrow, the object of our attention (usually some sort of worry or distress for people in survival mode) has over-powered our awareness. We get ‘lost’ in what we are doing or thinking and then the object of our attention becomes the predominant thing our mind ponders. If the object is one of pleasure, we lose ourselves in pleasure. If the object of the attention is painful, then we lose ourselves in the pain. When we are immersed in the latter, our problems have taken over the majority or all of our attention and therefore our lives reflect the distress. It is like we are wearing glasses with a lens of distress. Most of the things we look at are seen through distress-colored lenses.

Overwhelm happens as a result of losing our connection to our present moment awareness and being ‘taken over’ by stressful thoughts about the future based on our negative experiences of past events. When we are in overwhelm, we are anywhere but in the moment!

Distress may take the form of negative thoughts, anger, grief, cravings for substances, jealousy or other intense, uncomfortable feelings. When we lose our ability to see anything beyond our distress, our pain body (that part of us which feels suffering) has become greater than our awareness.

The first step in regaining any sort relief from it is to recognize that the majority of our attention has been taken over by distress. Our pain body has awakened and desires to be fed by our negative thoughts and emotions. Our negative thoughts and emotions are the food that keeps the pain body alive, so when we cannot stop this loop of negativity, the pain body gets larger and larger.

When our pain body is bigger than our awareness,

we are rendered powerless.

As soon as we notice that our awareness is trapped inside our distress, however, we are now look able to see it and therefore are on the outside of it. This distinction between the pain body (distress) and the one who recognizes it allows us to regain our power. It is in this powerful position of awareness that the process of returning to a state of inner peace can begin. When we are aware, we are able to bring light to any darkened area and therefore dissolve it. What you can see, you can change. What you cannot see, you cannot change.

How then do we develop this awareness? The answer is by broadening our attention with our senses to include both the form and formless aspect of each of them. What does that mean?

When I refer to form, I am referring to objects or things of substance: people, places, times, things, events, thoughts, emotions etc. Anything of form is always subject to change and therefore fleeting… our jobs, our houses, our lovers, our friends, our bodies, even our personalities, thoughts and emotions. Eventually all form comes to pass.

Suffering happens when we attach ourselves to form and then that form changes when we do not want it to… or doesn’t change when we do want it to! Many of us have spent our lives looking outside of ourselves into the world of form for our happiness, only to be deluded and devastated time and time again.

When there is suffering, guaranteed there is identification with form.

We then believe that we are our pain, our fear, our thoughts, our stories, our past, our future and really, we are everything but that. Our view of ourselves is so obscured when we look through the lens of form. This distorted image of who we are, however, absolutely dissolves in the opposite realm of the formless.

When I refer to formlessness, I am of course referring to that which has no substance… the No-Thing, the Silence from which all sounds emerge, the Space that lies in, between and around all things, the Stillness from which all thoughts arise, the Timelessness of the Now in which everything exists potentially and nothing exists materially.

Our freedom lies in formlessness!

The ego cannot be with what it cannot define and it cannot define the state of formlessness. The ego also lives in either the past or the future, never in the present moment. The past and future disappear in the now and therefore so does the ego and its pain body.

It is in the Stillness & Silence of the present moment, we find peace.

True relief can only be found in that which does not change. And that which does not change is the Awareness that notices all form, the Space in which the objects abide, and the Silence and Stillness from which thoughts and sounds emerge, the NOW. Open Focus™ takes us fully into this realm of formlessness with each of our senses.

This may all sound wildly unattainable, but it is not. In fact, the opposite is true. Like any great truth, it is simple and yet may not be easy at first to achieve, but with enough perseverance…

Peace is inevitable.

When we are identified with ego (thinking we are what the stories in our minds tell us we are), we are basically asleep to the Truth of who we really are. In ego, we are at the mercy of our life’s circumstances. When we start to dis-identify with this false perception, we begin to awaken from the dream.

Awakening then is giving up the notion of who we thought we were in the past and who we hope to be in the future, and becoming familiar with who we are in the NOW.

I believe our senses are the portal to discovering the truth of who we are and that broad (Open focused) attention is the key to activating the senses fully.

All of us have what I call a peace body and a pain body. The pain body is an aspect of the ego. The peace body is the nature of our True Self. In essence, our pain covers up the peace much like the clouds cover up the sun. Like the sun, peace is always there. The pain, giving us the illusion that the peace comes and goes, only serves to mask it. You can tell just by looking at someone, which body dominates at any given moment. The peace body lives in the realm of the formless. The pain body lives in the realm of form. (See Freedom in Formlessness)

Open Focus™ is a way of experiencing both the form and formlessness of reality so as to give us a different perspective and allow us to access the underlying Peace that is always present within us.

Every one of our senses has both form & formlessness accessible to it. We are trained to see the objects that hang in space, but do we ever take the time to look at the space itself? We are accustomed to hearing sounds, but do we listen for the silence from which the sounds come? We feel the presence of our discomfort, but do we notice where it resides within our body? We smell & taste a banana, but do we ever actually taste and smell space? Our mind travels incessantly to the past and future, but are we ever here now?

If the attention is allowed to include both form and formless aspects of your senses one at time and then simultaneously, the scope of the attention grows larger and larger and a greater sense of well-being is achieved. You will feel the awareness expanding. As the attention grows larger, the distance between your awareness and any pain or distress gets further and further until everything eventually diminishes into no-thing-ness.

Imagine something is attacking you and it happens so suddenly that you don’t even know what it is. All that you know is that you are being ripped apart by some terrible, unknown thing. All you can see is a violent blur. All you can hear are wild grunts & growls. All you can smell is the scent of musk. The attack is all you are aware of. Nothing else exists for you, even though the rest of the world continues on its merry way. You are inside the experience, every part of you enveloped. Your entire system is in desperate fight or flight mode. Your nervous system is exploding. All alarms are sounding. You are in complete overwhelm.

Then, something tells you to step back and take some space. You step away from the distress. You now can see that it is a bear. You can see it for what it is and now are able to come up with some bear fighting strategies. You place more space between you and the bear and your heart stops racing a bit. You sense you are no longer in as much danger. Your body starts to calm down. The space allows you to assess things differently. You become more rational and calm. You take more space and you can no longer see the bear. You can only hear it from a distance. You can hear the other sounds as well. You take even more space and the bear is no longer a threat to you at all. You know it is in the woods, but you are now outside the woods. You can no longer hear its growls. You run back to a secure area. You begin to relax and peacefully plan the next move. Finally, time goes by and you have returned to the safety of your own house in your own state and the bear, although still alive in that forest, is but a distant past memory. You can remember it but it has no power over you any longer. You are at peace.

Imagine the bear is the awakened pain body, the negative thought pattern, the addictive behavior, the ego, the distress or the stories of your mind.

You are the Awareness that creates the space between the distress and you.

You are the One who is the Stillness, the Space, the Silence and the Timelessness of the Peace that is always (all ways) available. In order to dissolve your distress, you must create space between it and your awareness. You can use your senses and Open Focus™ to do this.

Open Focus™, a series of questions asked to engage both dimensions of your senses, teaches you how to create space between you and your distress and bring you back to the Eternal Peace that is only found in the vastness of the present moment.

As a certified practitioner of Open Focus™, it is my goal to help others cultivate the skills necessary to create space between themselves and suffering and to find the essence of their True Nature. I am certified to teach this fabulous tool and feel certain that, with Open Focus™, anyone can reduce stress, end suffering and facilitate the awakening of Inner Peace.

Please note that the views in these articles are my own interpretations of the spiritual benefits of Open Focus™ and not necessarily the views held by Dr. Fehmi and/or other Open Focus™ trainers.

In the light of the present moment awareness, darkness cannot survive. No pain. No distress. No thought patterns. No addictions. No emotions. No ‘thing’ is strong enough to withstand the light of awareness. It may take time to diminish the long-standing darkness, but what else is there to do if one wishes to end suffering and experience the joy of freedom that is ours by our birthright.

Although the creator of Open Focus™ speaks to such things as anxiety, depression, chronic pain, I believe the process of Open Focus™ gives the HOW of spiritual awakening as well. It shows you how to embrace the pain body and to become deeply connected to the Peace that lives in and through each one of us… if we let it.

I now know to what, and the way we pay attention, is the key to long-lasting happiness, regardless of the circumstances life may bring.

Eckhart Tolle and other spiritual teachers tell us that it is time to awaken. Dr. Les Fehmi tells us HOW.

I have used the Open Focus™ techniques with my clients for months now and the changes I see are extraordinary. People are accomplishing in a week what took me years. The changes I see in me and the people I work with are extraordinary and life continues to change for the better as we learn to wield the attention in a different way.

Although it was not taught to me in the way that I am explaining here, this is the interpretation that makes the most sense to me in regards to the spiritual nature of things. The authors are very respectful of everyone’s path, and although they do not tout Open Focus™ to be the powerful awakening tool that I consider it to be, they have given me their blessing to share my interpretation of the work.

In my opinion, the benefits of Open Focus™ reach far beyond the reduction of pain, anxiety and stress into the very soul of one’s being, that it may be cleared of that which prevents it from knowing the truth of who it is.

Inner peace is achieved by becoming fully present in the moment with all of the senses.

It entails experiencing the Space, Silence and Stillness that normally goes un-noticed in every day life and letting all thoughts of past and future dissolve into the NOW. Nothing has been a more effective tool for me in accomplishing this present moment awareness than the gift of Open Focus.

I was shocked to find out that what I was paying attention to and the way I was paying attention was the problem in my life all along.

My mind had always told me the reason for my distress was that there was something inherently wrong with me but this, like all the stories in my head, was completely untrue.

I ‘stumbled’ (yeah, right) on a book written by bio/neuro-feedback pioneer, Dr. Les Fehmi, called Open Focus Brain. When my attention landed in a state of Open Focus for the first time, I realized I had spent my life with my brain stuck what I call fight or flight or a survival pattern I know as narrow focus. This insight was a huge awakening for me, perhaps the biggest one I have ever had. No wonder after more than twenty years of trying to meditate and still my mind, I could never do it; I had been attempting to meditate while in narrow focus.

The state of my brain was no one’s fault. I was born with an extremely high-strung, strong-willed personality and experienced what I perceived to be one trauma after the other well into my adult years. All my life it seemed I suffered much more than the people around me. What I thought to be terrible things happened to me. None of it seemed like small stuff, so I sweat a lot. What most would be able to handle with some effort, often occurred to me as overwhelming, tragic and devastating. All my life I was accused of being too self-absorbed, too sensitive, too loud, too outrageous, too… something.

When I was young, I was prone to outbursts and would throw terrible tantrums if I didn’t get my way. I was extraordinarily bright, creative, anxious and sensitive. Had the labels been around back then, I know I would have been diagnosed as being attention deficit, hyperactive, obsessive/compulsive or something of that nature.

I felt extremely overwhelmed and unsafe in the environment I grew up in and lived in constant fear of getting in trouble. I made up the story that I wasn’t enough and did everything I could to be whatever anyone else wanted me to be. When that did not work, I acted out and became the very opposite. I learned that who I was could be defined by what I did and what I looked like, so I became an outrageously talented, highly competitive beauty queen. For the longest time I held the toxic belief that if others won, I lost.

As a result of living in a constant stressed-out state, I learned early on to live with one foot on the gas & the other on the brake in order to survive. The people closest to me did not understand my inner angst.
There felt like there was always a war going on inside me that no one understood.

Until I started practicing Open Focus regularly, I wasn’t even aware of the extremely high level of anxiety I lived with because it had been the status quo for so long. It was like a fish not realizing the water it was in. As a result of the chaotic distress, at 19 I developed physical pain in my body, which, only now at 49, I am beginning to understand.

When I read and practiced Open Focus with the CD in the back of the book, I sensed I had found the tool I had been looking for my whole life. After practicing the first set of CDs for 6 weeks and then attending the training to become a certified practitioner, I was sure of it. How long will it take to dissolve a hurtful past? As long as it takes to get out of my head and to become aware of the present moment.

ALL POWER LIES IN THE NOW.

OPEN FOCUS IS A MEANS TO GET THERE.