I know it sounds impossible to dissolve pain, but consider the ratio of particles to space in the atom.
It’s 200,000 to 1, which means that there is 200,000 times more space that matter in every atom. We can do a lot when we open our focus to include all that space and dissolve those particles in it. When pain is not taking up all your attention, the experience of pain dissolves. In terms of brainwave pattern, our brainwaves differ between regions of the brain – called asynchronous – our focus is on the particles. When we engage our brains in synchronous alpha by imagining space, we can let go of being gripped by our experience of pain – all by the way we shift our attention. This week’s podcast includes an Open Focus session on dissolving pain. That session starts at 0:20:56. We hope you enjoy it. The transcript is right after the recording.
0:00:00.3 Kat: In the immortal words of Ferris Bueller…
0:00:03.6 Speaker 2: Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while. You
could miss it.
0:00:13.1 Kat: But is there an art, or a science, to stopping and looking around once in a while?
0:00:18.1 Liz: I’m Liz.
0:00:19.6 Kat: And I’m Kat, and this is Beyond Resilience. When Liz and I met during the COVID-
19 pandemic, we discovered that we shared a passion for exploring accessible ways of experiencing and incorporating trance into our daily lives. In particular, we were interested in how different
trance-inducing practices might promote physical, mental, and emotional healing, enhance
creativity, and inspire liberation. So in the first season of Beyond Resilience, we explore Open
Focus, a practice developed by Les Fehmi that helps us retrain our brains to access all the different
types of attention available. Please join us as we explore Open Focus and learn about the benefits of
daily practice. Hi Liz.
0:01:06.2 Liz: Hi Kat.
0:01:08.8 Kat: How are you today?
0:01:10.9 Liz: I feel calm. I feel that my focus is already open. And I’ve been thinking about, I’m
not sure why that is, but I’ve been thinking about our episode today.
0:01:31.8 Kat: Yeah. Can I do a little bit of an interjection or are you going to let me go off track or
no?
0:01:34.7 Liz: I never want to stop you from going off track.
0:01:38.7 Kat: I was just going to say that when you said that, I feel calm. It reminds me of that
film, What About Bob? Do you remember that with Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss? Anyway,
Bill Murray plays this guy who’s got a lot of mental health challenges, as it were. And so one of the
ways that he was taught by a therapist to manage it was to every day, as he’s getting ready, and then
dealing with like, he’s got like agoraphobia, he’s got like every claustrophobia possible, is to say
over and over again, I feel good. I feel great. I feel wonderful. I feel good. I feel great. I feel
wonderful. So as he’s like going out through the city and all these chaos is happening, he’s like, I
feel good. I feel great. I feel wonderful. Anyway, so when you just were like, I’m feeling calm, it
just reminded me of that. So there you go.
0:02:32.3 Liz: It’s a little bit of a sign…
0:02:33.6 Kat: There is…
0:02:34.6 Liz: For everything too, right…
0:02:36.6 Kat: Serenity now.
0:02:36.6 Liz: Serenity now, exactly.
0:02:39.5 Kat: So today we’re going to dive into sort of one of the, I guess maybe more practical
uses of Open Focus, and that is to dissolve pain. So why don’t you talk to me a little bit about how
Les Fehmi found that Open Focus could do this? Because I think of attention, I don’t think it’s going
to make me not feel pain. Right.
0:03:14.0 Liz: Yeah, exactly. It was by accident like so many discoveries are. I think I picture Les
Fehmi like alone in his little room in his little rubber room, essentially with his neurofeedback
equipment stuck on his head, just trying stuff and learning what is possible by just flexing our
attention. And this I picture him, he had he had a kidney stone, which I’ve never had and I hope to
never have. But I understand is incredibly painful and maybe more so for men than for others
because of the tortured path, exit path for a kidney stone. And he was in incredible pain. And when
you have a lot of pain, what it does to your attention is take all of it. It’s really difficult. It’s very
grabby when you’re in pain. And as someone who’s had a lot of pain in my life, physical pain in my
life, I know that the minute it has your attention, your future looks bleak. It’s like not only are you in
pain right now, it’s going to persist and it’s going to get worse. And it’s just so easy to catastrophize
when you have a lot of pain.
0:04:25.6 Liz: So instead of doing that, he went into his little rubber room, stuck the electrodes on
his head. This is in my imagination. I have no idea what he really did. But he started experimenting
with how he could open his attention, open his focus. And not with an intention to dissolve pain, but
just what would happen if he added space, if he located the pain in his body. The three tenets of
Open Focus embodiment, effortlessness and space. So what would happen if he could get to know
the spot in his body that was so painful and make in his imagination, give it a shape and fill it with
space, surround it with space, dissolve it into space. Not that he’s dissolving the kidney stone, right?
He’s dissolving in his imagination where he imagines the pain isn’t what it looks like and filling that
with space. So if this is effortlessness, you’re not performing psychic surgery on yourself.
0:05:29.5 Liz: You’re merely using the practice of Open Focus to put space in and around and let
this spot in your body dissolve. So shifting your attention from the particle in the atom to the space
in the atom, which is much more 200,000 times more space than particle. If I can kind of shorthand
that, every atom. And those of you who know a fact that’s different than that, I’m sort of
shorthanding it. So stay calm.
0:06:08.4 Kat: But also feel free to send it in and we’re open to learning and growing.
0:06:10.0 Liz: So absolutely true. So he did that. And what he found is that he was successful in
dissolving that so thoroughly and shifting his attention so thoroughly that his kidney stone pain
went away for three days. And when it came back after three days, he did it again. And it was also
durable. Might have lasted for quite some time.
0:06:41.5 Kat: Do you know if he ever experimented with like phantom pain stuff?
0:06:47.7 Liz: I do not know. Yeah, I don’t know.
0:06:50.8 Kat: That would be interesting.
0:06:50.9 Liz: It would, wouldn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if you all would need to in that case still
do the thing with mirrors, right? So you.
0:06:58.6 Kat: Yeah, exactly. So that you do.
0:07:03.5 Liz: Or not. It would be interesting.
0:07:03.6 Kat: Yeah. Anyway, sorry. That was a little bit of a sidetrack. I’m sidetracking us today,
Liz.
0:07:06.3 Liz: If there’s anyone who wants to do that and let us know what happens.
0:07:10.9 Kat: Exactly.
0:07:11.0 Liz: We’ll be all over it.
0:07:11.1 Kat: If you’re experiencing phantom pain. So like that, I think that’s interesting to me
because there’s that, what is it? The gate theory where the like the brain wants to prioritize pleasure
over pain. So that’s how like sort of palliative massage, for example, can help somebody if it’s, if it’s
a condition that like manipulation can’t actually help with, just the act of giving someone a massage
can decrease their pain because your brain says, I, Oh, that feels good. I want to pay attention to
that. It prefers pleasure over pain, which is kind of how opiates work. Right?
0:07:58.6 Liz: Hmm. Yeah. That’s interesting. It’s funny. Well, not ha ha funny, but that’s a theory.
And my response to that is, Oh, but no, but we’re so, we’re so wired for being protective and
defensive. And then I’m like, Oh, wait a minute. That’s exactly what Open Focus is meant to address
is the habitual overuse. Right. Narrow objective, protective, stress-based attention style. So I love
that.
0:08:29.1 Kat: Because I mean, like you said to me years ago, now that we’ve known each other for
years, Liz that like the alpha state is like, that’s sort of where we should be. That’s our natural state.
And that kind of speaks to that. Like the natural state, our body wants to be in is kind of a
homeostatic balance is kind of like I want to dig the world around me. But obviously we have all
these techniques to stay alive enough to dig the world around us. So, but because we’re in a
circumstance where we’re constantly doing that, then it’s just like kind of, we’ve created these
habitual patterns that are difficult to get out of. So when, when you are thinking about dissolving
pain with Open Focus, do you like, what is, I mean, I know we’ve talked about space and think
about an atomic level. Like, are you envisioning or kind of imagining, not envisioning, imagining
the area that kind of is the source of pain?
0:09:41.0 Liz: Yeah, they’re really specific steps that Byron Katie in her workshops always says,
follow the simple instructions. And there are, there are simple instructions. It’s kind of a recipe and
it, well you just do the steps and repeat them and repeat them until the pain goes. And the steps are
simple and they’re worth memorizing. The first thing you do is find the pain in your body and you’re
imagining doing that with your imagination. You’re not taking out a measuring tape or saying, I’m
going to get an MRI. No, that’s not helpful. Your imagination, let it do what it does. Can you
imagine where the pain is in your body? And then let your imagination do what it does. And then
the next step is to give it a shape. Can you imagine the shape of it? So I say give it a shape, but can you imagine the shape? What does your imagination do with that? And it can be anything. It’s not
like we’re looking for, if it’s a sharp pain, it should be a spiky shape. It doesn’t matter. It can be big
or little. It can be a whole region of the body. It can be three dimensional, two dimensional,
depending on your imagination, four or five dimensional. Go crazy. Perhaps.
0:11:02.2 Kat: Embrace the multiverse, right?
0:11:03.5 Liz: That’s right. Your imagination in the multiverse. So you, once you can, and that’s just
a way of making it more, almost palpable, more real. Because the next step is to fill that shape with
space, a lot like we fill our index fingers and thumbs with space, right? We feel, Can we imagine
what it feels like to have space fill our thumbs and index fingers? So you’re doing the shape so you
can use the other practices of Open Focus of filling various places in our body with space. It gives
us a way to do that that isn’t just completely unbounded. So you can fill it with space in your
imagination and then you surround it with space. And these, I’m going to speed through these, but
these take a little time. Can you imagine the shape of it? Can you imagine it full of space? The more
sensitively and intimately you imagine that, the more effectively you’ll be able to fill it with space,
surround it with space. And then the final thing is to dissolve it into space. Let it dissolve into the
space all around it. You can think of letting the space inside expand. You can let have the particles
dissolve and spread out through the space around. You want to go for immersion in this step. So you
want to dive into it or let it surround you, right? Let those particles surround you. And you repeat
those as needed, repeat those steps as needed.
0:12:48.3 Liz: So very often what happens, so I can tell you about my experience with some pain
that had me writhing around. It was so painful. I had driven for several hours without being able to
move my right leg, right? I was on the accelerator and it was a bit stressful driving situation. Three
hours of that and by the time, and then I stood around at a gallery opening on hard floors. And then
I went to the photographer’s house afterwards and socialized mostly standing. So it was not, it’s a
little bit of a workout for my already very arthritic hip joint. It was not, and it let me know it was
not happy. So I got to the hotel and started to limp before I got to the hotel. And by the time I laid
down in the bed, I was in so much pain. I literally was flopping around like a fish out of water. And
I thought, okay, now would be the time. So I did Open Focus and the first time through that process.
All that happened was I was settled down enough to go through it again a little more deeply, right? I
could do it a little better.
0:14:07.3 Liz: I would say it took about five times through that process. And each time the little
layer of pain was peeled away, the quality of the pain changed. It got quieter. It got a little easier to
kind of approach it and feel it more sensitively. Because what I really wanted to do is focus away
from it. I didn’t want to do any of that. I just wanted it to go away. So by the fifth time through, it
was gone and I could sleep. So I just kept peeling it away and I got more and more willing to look
at it, to really perceive it, to let my imagination bring me into a more intimate relationship with it
and to immerse myself more fully in it. And to let it wash over me. And to include that perception
of pain in the space inside my body and all around my body, really out to the edges of the universe.
There’s that much space that it took to unwind my narrow objective focus and the wish to push it
away.
0:15:27.9 Kat: So I guess that’s kind of interesting. First of all, full disclaimer here, right? Acute
pain, you should probably pay attention to, right? I mean, if you have an injury, you should not try
and do this process in order to…
0:15:48.2 Liz: Yeah, this is not medical advice, people. Get help.
0:15:48.3 Kat: No, no, no. So yes, if you break your ankle and it hurts, go to the ER. Do not try
Open Focus. But afterwards you do it, once you’re treated. So I think that’s important to clarify. But
then I think the other side of it is that kind of acceptance we’ve talked about a little bit. I think that
when you have sort of lived with chronic pain for a while, there is a lot of emotion that’s connected
to it. And there’s a lot of fear and a lot of sadness sometimes, inhibiting how you’re able to interact
with the world. And so that sort of gut instinct to just reject it is kind of a deeply layered experience
and perspective because that rejection in many ways can be like, I don’t want to accept this as part
of my life because I don’t want to live the life that this is telling me that I might have to live. I might
not be as mobile as I used to be. I might not be able to do this activity that I used to love to do or
something like that.
0:16:52.0 Kat: And so it kind of sounds like that process of layering is like also going through that,
right? You were saying like accepting things in, right? You don’t have to love it, but just being with
it and fully experiencing it. And then that enables you to kind of let it or not. It’s not requiring your
full attention anymore because in some ways you don’t have a panicky kind of fight or flight
response to the pain because you’re not trying to run from it, right?
0:17:25.7 Liz: Well, yeah. And even if you do. So we’re going to talk about the dissolving physical
pain this week. We’ll talk about emotional pain and then mental agitation or pain. The process is the
same in Open Focus, but the way what we bring to it, as you’re describing this, is different. The
reason we’re breaking it down this way is the process is exactly the same. And all we’re doing is
making our attention flexible and including space, effortlessness and embodiment. The other stuff
that we’re talking about, the emotional response that we have are all the things that drive that
narrow objective focus. They are driving our attention. And that’s the I think the power of Open
Focus is that where we place our attention is one thing. How we attend to it is what we’re after in
Open Focus. So did I did I distract myself from pain? No, I went right there. And instead of doing
anything else, all I did was add space, effortlessness and embodiment. So it’s like it’s super.
Everything you say is absolutely true. All that stuff happens. And we can use attention the way we
pay attention, how we pay attention to dissolve all of that, to be with what’s happening differently,
not in that automatic emergency response like you were describing others.
0:19:01.0 Liz: I can’t do it. I’m really sad that I can’t do it. This is going to go on forever. I’ll never,
I’ll always, you know, those words, those catastrophizing words can take all of that and just isolate
how am I paying attention now? How am I paying attention now to all of that? Just I’m going to
change that one thing. I’m going to change only how I’m paying attention. And then my body and
mind know what to do. It gets back to that gate theory you’re talking about, once I interrupt that
super narrow objective focus on or away from, my body knows what to do. It knows what to do if I
just can help it by doing that one simple thing. So I want to say yes to everything you’ve said and
distinguish Open Focus as almost like a precursor in a way or a master switch. And it’s so simple.
It’s so easy to mistake it for something else or think it’s something more or less than it is. Simply,
how am I paying attention to this pain? I’m going to change how I’m paying attention to it. I’m
going to go from narrow to broad, from objective, separate, get that pain away from me, to
immersed. I’m going to let it, and I’m going to give myself all the space to accomplish those things.
0:20:29.0 Kat: Well, I’m excited for this because I, you know, we’re in this really kind of dry, super
dry, cold weather that gives me sinus headaches every day. And so I’ve been struggling with that. So
I’m excited to go through this Open Focus session with you to see if that helps, though. Are we
ready to rock?
0:20:47.3 Liz: I think so. Yeah.
0:20:48.6 Kat: Okay. All right.
0:20:56.5 Liz: Okay, so we’re going to start the way we always do. The way you start so many
things probably with your feet flat on the floor. This helps to ground you physically and reacquaint
yourself with your body. You’re going to be sitting or standing erect, comfortably erect. And that’s
just so you don’t fall asleep. And if you are sitting in a chair, you’re going to want to just notice that
you’re fully supported. Where your rear end is contacting the chair is holding you up without any
effort from you. It’s just effortless to be held up by the chair, effortless to sit in the chair and let the
back support you. Can you imagine the distance between your eyes? And can you imagine the distance between your ears? Can you imagine the volume of your thumbs? That is the three-
dimensional space they occupy. And can you imagine that your imagination is able to effortlessly and fully respond to all of these questions without any effort or direction from you?
0:23:13.0 Liz: And can you imagine that as you practice Open Focus, your imagination becomes
even more effortless? Even more sensitive in answering these questions. And that whatever your
imagination serves up is exactly the right thing, the just right thing. Can you imagine the volume of
your index fingers? And can you imagine the space, the feeling of space filling your thumbs and
index or pointer fingers? Can you imagine the effortlessness of each of the questions I ask, the
effortlessness of your imagination’s response only grows. And if there’s any part of you that is
trying, pushing, or performing, that that just dissipates and dissolves with every question. Your
imagination’s response becoming more and more effortless. Can you imagine the space around your
thumbs and index or pointer fingers? And go ahead and move just a little bit your index and middle
of the index fingers and thumbs toward each other and apart just a little. Just kind of waving them
in space just to get a sense of the difference in the quality and the feeling of the space inside your
thumbs and index fingers which I experience as a kind of presence.
0:26:15.9 Liz: And the space all around your index fingers and thumbs, which I experience a bit
differently, almost as an absence or a weaker presence. Whatever you’re experiencing is just fine.
And now using your thumbs and index fingers as a model, can you imagine space filling all of your
fingers and thumbs? The feeling of space inside all 10 fingers, including your thumbs. And is it
possible to experience space all around your index fingers, middle finger, ring finger, little finger
and thumbs all around your fingers at the same time as you are experiencing the space inside them?
Can you imagine space filling your entire hand and wrist and arm kind of the way air comes into a
balloon? Just space filling your hands, wrists and arms, elbows, upper arms, on both sides. And is it
possible at the same time as you are experiencing the space inside to imagine the space that
surrounds your arms and hands and fingers? And if at any time this starts to feel like work, can you
imagine just making it up? That you’re just pretending? Make it lighter and easier, more effortless.
Let it be your imagination effortlessly responding to these questions.
0:29:35.8 Liz: Can you imagine the space inside your shoulders and neck, your arms and hands,
and your entire torso from the top of your shoulders down to where your rear end touches the chair.
That entire torso and pelvis, arms and hands and neck full of space. Surrounded by space. And can
you imagine your head and face, mouth, sinuses, eyes, eyelids and eye muscles, ears, full of space.
Your jaw, teeth and gums, tongue, mouth, full of space. Surrounded by space. And now can you
imagine that space filling your legs, your hip joints to your knees, down to your ankles, your feet
and all ten toes, so that your entire body is full of space and is surrounded by space. And is it
possible to imagine that your body, full of space, surrounded by space, is also permeated by space?
So the boundary between your body and the space outside becomes permeated by space as you
imagine it. And can you imagine that this body full of space, surrounded by space, and now
permeated by space, is in its own space, that is, it is surrounded by space, the space in the room. Out
to the walls behind you, to the walls on either side of you, the wall in front of you, the ceiling and
the floor.
0:33:31.5 Liz: Three-dimensional, effortless imagination of the space the room occupies that
surrounds the space your body occupies. A body that is full of space, permeated by the space that
surrounds it. Can you imagine where in your body you might locate whatever it is you’re feeling in
terms of physical discomfort, which we’ll call pain, but it could be tension, it could be a place you
don’t want to attend to, a blank spot in your awareness. It could be pain of any variety. Can you
imagine where that is in your body, in the space that’s filling your body? Where does that pain
exist? Can you imagine what it looks like? What shape is it? Is it three-dimensional, two-
dimensional, smooth, pointy, flat, tiny, big? Does it have a texture? Is it dense, squishy, patchy, solid? Let your imagination fill in all these details. Is it possible to imagine that that shape is full of
space? And can you also imagine that that shape full of space is now surrounded by space and
permeated by space?
0:37:25.1 Liz: And can you imagine that shape dissolving into space, dissipating throughout space,
letting the particles move towards you, wash over you in the space that you occupy. In the space
that the room occupies. And can you imagine returning to the place in your body? Where the pain
was and may still be in some form. Can you just imagine that place in your body and notice what’s
what’s left. And can you imagine the shape of that, the location of that, can you imagine it even
more intimately than before? What it looks like. What it feels like? What its shape is? Its texture?
Does it have a sound? Can I taste it? Is it smooth or textured? Is it solid? Or not. And as you
imagine it even more fully, can you also imagine it full of space, surrounded by space, and
permeated by space. Can you imagine immersing yourself in the space that those particles are
dissolving into, that that shape is dissolving and dissipating into? Can you imagine the space fills
your body, surrounds your body, fills the room, permeates you? Can you imagine where the pain is
now? If there’s anything left, where is it? Can you imagine what it’s like? What does it feel like?
What is its shape? In your imagination. Making up all of the details, noticing them.
0:42:34.0 Liz: What does that shape feel like? Letting yourself move toward it in your imagination.
Even as we ask, can you imagine that shape full of space, surrounded by space, and permeated by
space? Can you imagine that shape dissolving, dissipating into space, immersing itself in space,
being permeated by space, you immersing yourself in that same space. And can you imagine using
these steps of effortless embodied imagination, locating the pain in the space inside your body,
imagining its shape and feel, size, filling it with space, using your imagination to fill it with space,
imagining it surrounded by space and permeated by space, imagining it dissolving into space,
immersing yourself in it as it dissolves and dissipates past you. And then starting all over again,
practicing this muscle of imagining, effortlessness, embodiment to break our habit of effortful.
Separated, narrow, tight attention. Just using your imagination, effortlessly noticing space inside, all
around and throughout.
10/10/24 Page 8 of 11
0:46:17.9 Kat: So I wanted to talk a little bit about my experience because sort of the pressure, the
pain I was feeling is a pressure, is a closing in. Right. You know, when you have that that sinus, that
real. Yeah. So I found.
0:46:36.5 Liz: Like you had some advice.
0:46:36.6 Kat: Exactly. Yeah. Like in the front. Right. Like it’s like right above my. My nose right
there in the third eye. So when you’re talking, when you started saying, like, you know, imagine the
space between your eyes. I was like, that’s where my terror is. But I am because it was so much
about, you know, it is that space. And actually, I had a real, like, almost immediately positive, like,
experience because it forced me to kind of. Be more expansive and think and move and sort of think
about imagining adding space, which then decrease. I mean, I have a little bit still, but it’s decreased
by about 50%. So that’s cool, Liz.
0:47:28.2 Liz: What a great, that’s such a great picture of what we do with pain, right? It’s like you
need to breathe, but it’s really experienced it as this tightness, this vice. And even air can’t get in
there. And all you have to do is remind yourself that there’s space there too.
0:47:46.6 Kat: Exactly. Especially when those kinds of things where we feel so closed in, you
know, I think that, yeah. So, well, thank you, Liz. And I’ll see you next week.
0:48:01.3 Liz: Yeah, you will. One thing I love about this is I hope you, every time you experience
that pressure and that pain and then what comes next, right, is the fear of, it’s going to suck, I can’t
do anything. I would love to hear next week about what happens when you just add space however
you can in the moment, whether it’s your peripheral vision, whether it’s just taking a minute and
closing your eyes and saying, imagine the distance between my eyes, the distance between my ears,
full of space. Just even, even a, just a little touch in like that.
0:48:42.7 Kat: Yeah. I mean, I would like to be able to kind of incorporate this practice instead of,
you know, living on Advil cold and sinus for. Three months straight basically so yeah so I think I’ll
experiment it with it with it through this week and see kind of like if it enables me to kind of
maintain and not like succumb to like the oh my gosh it’s too much I’ve got to lay down I have to
put you know I can’t have any light you know that kind of stuff it kind of will get to that not a
migraine level but it’ll get pretty intense sometimes so yeah I’ll experiment let you know.
0:49:18.9 Liz: Cool. Thank you, Kat.
0:49:19.4 Kat: All right, thanks Liz.
0:49:20.4 Liz: Always a pleasure.
0:49:22.4 Kat: Are you interested in learning how you can incorporate Open Focus into your daily
life? Consider joining us for our weekly Open Focus Friday group session at 12 p.m. Pacific on
Zoom. Registration details and more information on Open Focus are available on our website,
www.beyondresilience.io. Thanks for listening to Beyond Resilience, which is hosted by Liz
Williams and Kat Oak and produced by Liminal Nation. Neither Liz nor Kat are trained medical or
mental health professionals, and all of the ideas, techniques, resources, and tools we explore in the
podcast reflect our own personal perspectives. Special thank you to Stephen Carey for our musical
ambiance and to John Hughes and Paramount Pictures for the excerpted audio of the preeminent
philosopher of late-stage capitalism, Ferris Bueller. All rights, where appropriate, are reserved. Until
next time, stay open.