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.