Standing in line at Disneyland, the child behind her screaming, she focused on the shrill voice, repeating to herself to focus on the sound of his voice until —until she couldn’t stand it another second. (Full disclosure: The woman in line is my daughter, Hiromi. She reads and edits my blog.)
My problem. I had not yet posted “Dissolving Pain.” To dissolve the pain of the child’s screaming, Hiromi would focus on surrounding space, without trying to block the screaming voice.
Let me back up a bit to my previous posts on attention-training and open focus.
Attention Training
In the Attention-Training videos I posted on Youtube, I repeat over and over to focus on each new sound. You focus on each sound, then advance to multiple sounds and spaces. Attention-training therapy, part of metacognitive therapy, counters that pesky voice in your brain droning on and on, ad nauseum, by building an ability to control focus.
Open-Focus Training
Open-Focus training is similar to Attention-Training Therapy, but instead of sounds, you focus on space; space inside and outside of yourself. Virtually instantly, your brain waves shift into alpha.
Open-focus training maintains a balance between narrow/objective and wide/diffuse focus. Narrow/objective focus is the “Pay attention!” school-type, teacher command. When you focus widely and diffusely, you take in surrounding space and sounds.
Wide/diffused focus shifts your brain to the right hemisphere. Narrow/objective shits your brain to the left hemisphere. The left hemisphere is where, with OCD, I have been imprisoned most of my life.
Right hemisphere (wide/diffused focus) immerses you in what you are focused on. The left hemisphere describes, rather than engages. With the right hemisphere, wide and diffused focus, you savor the sweetness, crunch, and texture of a grape. With left hemisphere, narrow-objective focus, you classify the grape as a small, round, fruit of the vine.
Dissolving Pain
Now we can return to Hiromi and the screaming child. Hiromi won’t dissolve physical or emotional pain by blocking it out. Neither will she dissolve pain by narrowly focusing on it.
Focus widely and diffusely on the surrounding sounds and space. Accept the narrow-objective screaming child and at the same time focus widely and diffusely, experiencing surrounding space and sounds.
Les Fehmi hooks his clients up to an EKG, but he says it is not necessary. It is not hard to shift to alpha EKG brain waves by simply focusing on space. The more you practice, the better you get at dissolving both physical and emotional pain and fear. When the internal voice gets incessant, don’t shut it out. Shift into alpha, by focusing on space, any space; between your fingers, between your eyes, inside your skull, inside the room, out into the universe.
Skills Plus Belief
Don’t try attention training therapy, open focus, or ki breathing, and decide it does not work for you. Any skill takes practice. You do not jump on a two-wheel bicycle the first time and balance. You need patience to get all of the moving parts working together. Like learning to drive.
Without belief, though, things fall apart, including sex and a good nights sleep. But that is for another session. Belief alone will not work. It may do the opposite. It takes belief plus action. Believe in something you can do; something you can do that is effective.
Belief is at least thirty percent of pharmicological or psychological treatment. You need to believe it will work for it to work effectively.
I hope you read my blog post of July 29,2015. I am one of the living dead who made it out of the pit of despair and survived and thrived. It took a huge chunk of my life. Now at 80, I am condensing it all into blogs. Though I am fairly new to blogging and social media, the therapies are so effective that I will spend each day for the rest of my life getting fluent in social media so that I can share it with you here.
Les Fehmi, creator of open-focus therapy, published two books, “The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body,” and “Dissolving Pain: Simple Brain-Training Exercises for Overcoming Chronic Pain.” Chronic pain can be physical or emotional.
Self-help books that help:
Total Self-Renewal through Attention Therapies and Open Focus
The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body
