2014 ms item03 03 07 b phillips masteringattention day7
FORMULA FOR MIRACLES VIP CLUB SPECIAL EVENT Mastering Attention ©2013 Brent Phillips
Day 7: Living in Open Focus Now that we've arrived at Day 7 of our series on Master Attention, I hope you now better understand and perhaps share my incredible enthusiasm for this work! It really has the potential to powerfully and profoundly change your life, and I hope you follow up and practice until you can easily and quickly access open focus even in the midst of even stressful and difficult situations. Today we're going to focus on learning to apply flexible attention and open focus to your day to day life. As with all spiritual tools, it's fine to start practicing and learning this in a controlled environment, ideally where it will be quiet and you will not be disturbed. At first, it’s probably easiest if you lie down and close your eyes; however, if you tend to space out or fall asleep, you might want to instead stand up or sit up to ensure you stay awake. I think you will find that open focus meditations put you into a powerful state of relaxation and rejuvenation, and if you're like me, you'll feel so good during your meditation that you might not want to stop! However, you will find that there is only a limited amount of benefit to be gained from learning to use flexible open focus attention only in quiet, dark rooms where you can lie down, close your eyes, and be undisturbed. When you feel ready, you may wish to start inching towards making your open focus practice closer and closer to your normal day-to-day life activities. Following are some modifications you can try with your meditations; they are presented in no particular order, and you are welcome to mix and match them or go back and forth or use them however feels right to you.
Practice open focus while sitting in a chair Practice open focus while standing up Practice open focus while laying face down, instead of on your back Practice open focus with your eyes open, instead of eyes closed Practice open focus at different times of day (for example, if you usually practice in the morning, try the afternoon or evening, or vice versa) Practice open focus for different lengths of time (for example, if you usually practice for 20 minutes, try 40 minutes one day and then just 10 minutes the next day) Practice open focus with distractions (such as a TV or stereo, or people talking nearby)
Practice open focus with other people in the room (you might listen to the meditation on your i-pod or something if you have trouble getting to open focus on your own) Practice open focus while sitting on a park bench, or at a coffee shop, or at the food court at the mall, instead of being alone in your own space
The goal is to gradually broaden your open focus practice so that you can apply flexible attention anytime, anywhere, no matter where you are or what you are doing! This is so important because the time you most need to use flexible attention is when you are under stress in your day to day life. For example, if your boss is angry and yelling at you, accessing a relaxed, flexible open focus state may immediately start to diffuse the tension, and you may be amazed when your boss calms down and maybe even smiles! The exception is when you are driving, operating machinery, using knives or sharp tools or when you are around dangerous object or circumstances where you need to be using narrow objective focus to keep yourself and others safe. Fortunately, once you learn to master how you pay attention, it will be very easy to apply any and all of the various forms of attention in all sorts of different situations. Hence, when you do need to use narrow objective focus, you can later quickly relax out of it when you are done. For those who are looking for shortcuts to rapidly accelerate their spiritual journey and master flexible attention, I've found two meditation aids that I think are worth trying. The first is a particular form of Buddhist chanting developed by Nichiren Daishonin, who was a latter day Buddha who lived in medieval Japan. Long story short, he devoted his life to helping others achieve Enlightenment by chanting "Nam yo ho renge kyo", which roughly translates to "I surrender my life to Divine Law." My goal here is not to promote any particular religion or philosophy, but instead to simply share awareness of powerful tools that have helped me on my spiritual journey. And I love the chanting because (even years before I knew what Open Focus was) I found it took me an Open Focus state and helped me to get out of my head and become more present "in the now". (Of course, your mileage may vary – as with anything, some people love it and others don’t.) The second meditative aid is an LED light system that I use with open focus meditations, and it absolutely blows me away! I don’t yet understand exactly how it works, but for me using the lights in conjunction with Open Focus produces a noticeably more powerful and more pleasant meditation, and I can get deep “into the zone” much more quickly than I can without the lights. But he lights aren't necessary to train your mind for open focus, and they are expensive, so don't fret if you aren't interested or can't afford them – the lights are just a short cut. If you are curious to learn more, contact me by opening a support ticket at formulaformiracles.net or by posting in the VIP Club Forums, and I'd be happy to point you in the right direction. (And if there's enough interest from VIP Club members, I could do a special live event to demonstrate the system and do a Q&A.) As with the Awakening material, you will be tremendous benefit simply by reading these articles and doing a little bit of practice in developing flexible attention. However, the life-changing rewards will come with continued practice, as you learn to embody flexible attention and apply it to your day to day life. Because it's so easy to fall back into old habits and forget about this stuff
when life throws you a curveball, I encourage you to make some form of commitment to yourself to regularly "wake up" and remind yourself that you have this amazing tool! Working with me or another professional who knows to access open focus is an effective solution. And staying in the VIP Club is a great and inexpensive method of keeping your head in the flexible attention game, but ultimately it doesn't matter to me how you do it: I just hope you keep practicing because it's SO powerful and can easily transform your life in ways you never imagined were even possible...and I say this only because that's exactly what it's done for me! :-)
Day 7: Living in Open Focus Now that we've arrived at Day 7 of our series on Master Attention, I hope you now better understand and perhaps share my incredible enthusiasm for this work! It really has the potential to powerfully and profoundly change your life, and I hope you follow up and practice until you can easily and quickly access open focus even in the midst of even stressful and difficult situations. Today we're going to focus on learning to apply flexible attention and open focus to your day to day life. As with all spiritual tools, it's fine to start practicing and learning this in a controlled environment, ideally where it will be quiet and you will not be disturbed. At first, it’s probably easiest if you lie down and close your eyes; however, if you tend to space out or fall asleep, you might want to instead stand up or sit up to ensure you stay awake. I think you will find that open focus meditations put you into a powerful state of relaxation and rejuvenation, and if you're like me, you'll feel so good during your meditation that you might not want to stop! However, you will find that there is only a limited amount of benefit to be gained from learning to use flexible open focus attention only in quiet, dark rooms where you can lie down, close your eyes, and be undisturbed. When you feel ready, you may wish to start inching towards making your open focus practice closer and closer to your normal day-to-day life activities. Following are some modifications you can try with your meditations; they are presented in no particular order, and you are welcome to mix and match them or go back and forth or use them however feels right to you.
Practice open focus while sitting in a chair Practice open focus while standing up Practice open focus while laying face down, instead of on your back Practice open focus with your eyes open, instead of eyes closed Practice open focus at different times of day (for example, if you usually practice in the morning, try the afternoon or evening, or vice versa) Practice open focus for different lengths of time (for example, if you usually practice for 20 minutes, try 40 minutes one day and then just 10 minutes the next day) Practice open focus with distractions (such as a TV or stereo, or people talking nearby)
Practice open focus with other people in the room (you might listen to the meditation on your i-pod or something if you have trouble getting to open focus on your own) Practice open focus while sitting on a park bench, or at a coffee shop, or at the food court at the mall, instead of being alone in your own space
The goal is to gradually broaden your open focus practice so that you can apply flexible attention anytime, anywhere, no matter where you are or what you are doing! This is so important because the time you most need to use flexible attention is when you are under stress in your day to day life. For example, if your boss is angry and yelling at you, accessing a relaxed, flexible open focus state may immediately start to diffuse the tension, and you may be amazed when your boss calms down and maybe even smiles! The exception is when you are driving, operating machinery, using knives or sharp tools or when you are around dangerous object or circumstances where you need to be using narrow objective focus to keep yourself and others safe. Fortunately, once you learn to master how you pay attention, it will be very easy to apply any and all of the various forms of attention in all sorts of different situations. Hence, when you do need to use narrow objective focus, you can later quickly relax out of it when you are done. For those who are looking for shortcuts to rapidly accelerate their spiritual journey and master flexible attention, I've found two meditation aids that I think are worth trying. The first is a particular form of Buddhist chanting developed by Nichiren Daishonin, who was a latter day Buddha who lived in medieval Japan. Long story short, he devoted his life to helping others achieve Enlightenment by chanting "Nam yo ho renge kyo", which roughly translates to "I surrender my life to Divine Law." My goal here is not to promote any particular religion or philosophy, but instead to simply share awareness of powerful tools that have helped me on my spiritual journey. And I love the chanting because (even years before I knew what Open Focus was) I found it took me an Open Focus state and helped me to get out of my head and become more present "in the now". (Of course, your mileage may vary – as with anything, some people love it and others don’t.) The second meditative aid is an LED light system that I use with open focus meditations, and it absolutely blows me away! I don’t yet understand exactly how it works, but for me using the lights in conjunction with Open Focus produces a noticeably more powerful and more pleasant meditation, and I can get deep “into the zone” much more quickly than I can without the lights. But he lights aren't necessary to train your mind for open focus, and they are expensive, so don't fret if you aren't interested or can't afford them – the lights are just a short cut. If you are curious to learn more, contact me by opening a support ticket at formulaformiracles.net or by posting in the VIP Club Forums, and I'd be happy to point you in the right direction. (And if there's enough interest from VIP Club members, I could do a special live event to demonstrate the system and do a Q&A.) As with the Awakening material, you will be tremendous benefit simply by reading these articles and doing a little bit of practice in developing flexible attention. However, the life-changing rewards will come with continued practice, as you learn to embody flexible attention and apply it to your day to day life. Because it's so easy to fall back into old habits and forget about this stuff
when life throws you a curveball, I encourage you to make some form of commitment to yourself to regularly "wake up" and remind yourself that you have this amazing tool! Working with me or another professional who knows to access open focus is an effective solution. And staying in the VIP Club is a great and inexpensive method of keeping your head in the flexible attention game, but ultimately it doesn't matter to me how you do it: I just hope you keep practicing because it's SO powerful and can easily transform your life in ways you never imagined were even possible...and I say this only because that's exactly what it's done for me! :-)
