Today we all face an increasing flow of events about which we may feel we can do nothing. This is not true. It is crucial we now experientially realize we are each responsible for navigating the quality of our personal experience. This book teaches us how to embrace authentic personal responsibility. It reveals the mechanics shaping the way we feel about our life and how we manifest our experience in a manner empowering us to respond consciously to every facet of our lives. It offers a simple, practical approach to accomplishing and maintaining personal peace in the midst of accelerating change, discomfort, conflict, and chaos.
Until 1989 South African-born Michael Brown was living what he called 'a blissfully unconscious life' as a music journalist. During this period of his life he developed an acutely painful neurological condition called Horton's Syndrome. After four years of suffering through conventional medical approaches, he embarked on a quest to integrate his experience through personal inquiry.
As Michael's quest for resolution unfolded, he began entering an state of being he calls 'present moment awareness' - a paradigm of heightened consciousness running parallel to our conventional and mundane world experience. He discovered that his repeated entry into this enlivened state of being, which he accomplished through ceremonial practice, plant medicines, and consciously connected breathing, resulted in a decrease of his own painful condition to the point that it subsided completely.
In the late 90s Michael charted a methodical pathway into present moment awareness by developing a practical procedure that anyone, anywhere, could follow to initiate this experience for themselves. This procedure is now internationally known as THE PRESENCE PROCESS. In 2002 Michael returned to South Africa and invited others to experience this inner journey. He discovered that as others embraced present moment awareness, they too automatically experienced the integration of physical, mental, and emotional discomfort, including psychological disorders and addictions. To make this journey accessible to everyone, Michael wrote THE PRESENCE PROCESS: A Healing Journey into Present Moment Awareness. Since then he has toured the US and Canada sharing these insights, compiled THE PRESENCE PORTAL website as a resource center for this work, and also written ALCHEMY OF THE HEART: Transforming Turmoil into Peace through Emotional Integration, which focuses on realizing the resonance of peace through emotional integration.
Michael Brown currently lives in Aberdeen, Eastern Cape, South Africa, where he watches cactus grow and continues to support this work through THE PRESENCE PORTAL.
