There was a time in my life when it felt as if my well-being depended on my next appointment with my life-coach, Katie Peuvrelle. She got me through my divorce. She got me out of Los Gatos and into New York City where I finally realized my dream of writing a book. She helped me see myself and my life in healthier and more realistic ways than I had seen them on my own. She taught me something she called “soft focus” that I loved and often forgot to use. I’d teach it every year to my students at San Jose State and then we all, I think, love it and then forget to use it.

But I never fully forgot it. I still use it as a tool to put myself into an optimal learning mode, but rarely. Why? I never took the time to really dive into soft focus and make it a habit. Why? I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t use great tools until I am really, really ready.

What is soft focus? Here’s how Katie taught me to get into it: look straight ahead while you hold your hands about a foot away from your eyes. Lightly wiggle your fingers as you move your right hand to the right side of your head and your left hand to the left side of your head. The trick is to get your wiggling fingers to the edge of your peripheral vision so, looking ahead, you can still see both hands. You can drop your hands if you want, but hold that soft focus for a few minutes and breathe. You are looking ahead of you and to the side of you with equal intensity. When I used to do this exercise at San Jose State, the energy in the room would shift dramatically while the students were in soft focus. The room would get so calm.

I decided last week I’m ready to reengage with soft focus. I got a book called The Open-Focus Brain—Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body from the library so I could more deeply educate myself into soft focus (or, as it is called in this book, open-focus) and make it a much bigger part of my life. Why? My eyes are tired and I can feel how tightly focused they generally are on whatever’s in front of me: a person, a screen, the road while I’m driving. I can feel my eyes working to gather into tight focus, and I remember how much more gentle soft focus felt, like an egg spilling out from its shell. Like a sigh. Like ease.

I’m always surprised when I get a book from the library and find someone had written notes all over the pages. Someone went to TOWN with their pencil when they had read The Open-Focused Brain, and as I read, I could see why. THIS IS GOOD STUFF! I feel like I’ve essentially been in narrow focus since I was born (Where is she?) and could do with a reminder that it’s time to relax and get out of fight or flight.

I’m going to do something that probably violates copyright laws and copy one long paragraph from the book to convince you to order it (I think you can order used copies—the CD that had come with this book was missing, but I’m not complaining. It was free after all.) so I don’t have to invest tons of energy writing about the book here.

“When we narrow focus we engage our fight-or-flight response, which tamps down some physiological systems that aren’t needed for an emergency—immune and digestive functions, for example, get back on the back burner—and ramps up others that are needed, such as muscle tone, quickness of mind, and heart and respiratory rates. That’s why stress can lead to digestive problems such as acid-reflux disease and irritable bowel syndrome. Facial pallor is associated with emergency because blood is being shunted away from the skin—that’s why stress can lead to dermatological problems. That’s the mechanism for pallor, but when stress causes acne it’s because high cortisol blood levels cause additional oil secretion, which blocks pores. Also, rashes can be caused by stress when it triggers autoimmune reactions with skin as the target organ. Large muscles become more highly toned during an emergency, preparing us for an attack or an escape, and so chronic narrow-objective attention causes chronic muscle pain. Emergencies slow introspection and induce externally oriented, narrow attention, scanning the environment. And because blood flow is reduced in the front lobes of the brain during the stress response, executive functions such as thinking become reactive rather then penetrating and deductive; as a result, one’s ability to exercise good judgment and pay appropriate and effective attention is hampered. This explains, in part, why there is such an epidemic of attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).”

I could go on and on about all the benefits of the open-focused brain, but you have to do some of the work here. Get the book, do the exercises, and let me know what you think!

Now! (The book is available used on Amazon for about $7.)

Here’s looking at you and at the lovely world that surrounds you.

The Open Focus-Brain was written by Les Fehmi, PhD, and Jim Robbins.

If you guys want to sue me for copyright infringement, could you look at this as advertising instead?

Katie wrote a wonderful book called Leap: Own Your Excellence and Engage Your Best Self. You can get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Leap-Excellence-Engage-Business-Sports/dp/1612061397