The Presence Process: A Healing Journey into Present Moment Awareness Paperback – October 1, 2005

Michael Brown's 2nd edition of The Presence Process, is an amazing work. In this book, Mr. Brown explains what's happening in the human experience at the deepest possible level and he gives a very effective, practical tool to make it better. With The Presence Process, we are able open ourselves up to the fullness and aliveness of who we really are. What could be better than that?Granted, this book isn't for everyone. To be ready to take this journey means that you will have to have convinced yourself that what you've been doing to feel good and get what you want out of life hasn't worked, if indeed it hasn't. And, you would have to be willing or able to really experience the uncomfortable feelings and emotions that the whole of human race has been avoiding for generations.As an EMDR psychotherapist, I strongly recommend this book to all my clients. Not to `read' it but to `do' it; which means to `feel' life as it is showing up in each moment! The only thing I see missing, in this teaching and in all spiritual/psychological teachings, is effectively addressing a means to resolve the neuro-biology of how emotions, body sensations and beliefs-about-the-self are stored as limbic memory. Indeed, this is how EMDR therapy dove-tails nicely with the method of emotional integration and resolution that Mr. Brown is revealing to us.Having read the 1st edition and done the 10-week presence process twice, and now reading this edition and doing the process again, I'm really just starting to get it. For one thing, Mr. Brown is writing on many levels. For me, each time through it has been like reading an entirely different book!Repetitious? Yes.Indeed, his repetitions can certainly create dissonance for the mind, which is a meta-teaching in itself. When that happens, notice the resistance to, "He's, telling me this again", release the messenger (frustration towards the author), get the message ("this uncomfortable feeling is me"), and then `feel' it without condition. In return, insights, new understandings, and emotional resolution can slip unnoticed into awareness, often bringing with them a new perspective and way of being in life.This book offers movement and direction towards emotional freedom, which comes through facing internal emotional discomfort head-on. Presence is used as the solvent for receiving what is showing up in our lives as what-is-required and learning to effectively be in that state of apparently negative emotional felt-resonance overtime is the process; hence, The Presence Process - it's a life changer.

I have done the presence process twice since a friend brought this gem of a book to my attention in June of 2008. It has been one of the most empowering, challenging, and rewarding experiences of my life:~ Empowering because it teaches very simple and practical steps and tools to learn to listen to the wise inner teacher within us who can facilitate our journey to self-realization better than anyone else;~ Challenging because the 10-weeks process requires facing all the ways in which we have been controlling and cutting off the flow of life, rather than trusting and surrendering to all it has to offer; that involves being willing to feel feelings and embrace experiences we have been fearing and trying to avoid all our lives, but past the initial discomfort, this actually turns out to be fantastically freeing, and ultimately joyous!~ And rewarding because... it truly delivers on what it promises! I have now experienced over two thirds of the forty plus shifts Michael Brown claims can be expected out of doing the process (p.272-299). These below have been the most life-changing for me: responding in situations where I used to react; no longer hurrying through the day; experiencing spontaneous creativity; finding that circumstances and people that once annoyed me no longer take up my attention; no longer interfering in other people's lives; laughing more and being a lot more playful; enjoying solitude; experiencing a whole lot less drama; becoming more gentle and compassionate toward myself and others; experiencing wonderful waves of spontaneous gratitude; finding that what I need increasingly comes to me instead of seeking it out; finding that my inner/voice intuition has grown and has become a real companion; feeling blessed with a deep sense of purpose.If you have been longing to become who you really are, this book will teach you how to find your way! And the 10-week long process is shockingly simple and do-able... basically, if you can breathe, and read, and are willing to carve an hour a day for 10 weeks, you can do this!