I was looking for help.  Plain and simple.  Maybe I was starting to show signs of wear and tear myself but my real mission was to find someone to help my husband and I with our son (my step-son).  He’s a teenage boy who needed some help, and therapy ended up not being the answer.  We all needed more help than what sitting and talking to someone about our problems and our feelings was able to give.

Enter Alma and Dani from BrainWorx.  I had no idea what to expect from either of them.  It got very real, and then very amazing, quite quickly.  In a relatively short amount of time, all of my lifelong efforts to be a better person and understand more, found a tangible and deeply effective outlet, that has since provided me with real progress.  Progress and discovery that had previously eluded me.

Oh wait.  This was about our son, Caden.  Right?  That’s how quickly things began to change and evolve.  One minute we were searching for some holy grail quicker fixer-upper for our son, and then we were processing stress, anxiety and (more importantly), the old programs and tapes you run in your mind, so much differently.  We were wiring in positive neurological pathways and being kinder to ourselves and one another, and we were doing all that because we were doing the brain work.  The creeping, the crawling, PACE, the rewires, its all integral in the creating of and putting into practice, new ways of dealing with everyday life.  Because as far as I can tell, stress isn’t going anywhere.  It’s how we react that matters.  How we were all reacting to triggers was getting tiring and tedious.  So, we signed up.  We watched and learned.  We noticed and shared.  And we all did it together, as a family.

Listen, I’m completely aware our son is a teenage boy/man and we have created a culture where we come to expect only nonsense during the teen years, and we pray they get through to adulthood without hurting themselves or anyone else, but that has never felt authentic to me in my life.  I have always wanted more than to just “get through the day”.  This programs proves time and time again that there is more, if you are willing to learn, and put in the time to develop your brain.

Our once withdrawn and disengaged son was standing up straighter and he suddently seemed, lighter somehow.  He was better at making eye contact with people, and followed conversations easier, and he had an overall awareness of feeling better about himself.  It was glorious to see.

Luckily for my husband and I, we are in this amazing position of not only seeing our son move in a happier and calmer direction, but we also reap the benefits first hand after going through the program together.  And when I say, “there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for our kids”, I mean it from the bottom of my soul.  What did I have to lose?  Well, some odd ball behaviors and self-damaging thoughts to start with.

Again, while we were on a quest for help, the people we ended up helping the most, was ourselves.  Little things that you just notice over time.  I am calmer.  I am more patient.  I am nicer to myself in thought and deed.  I am far less judgmental.  My large scale OCD is practically gone, and even when the little ones like to rear their ugly little heads, I deal with them by getting to the root of their cause and simply rewiring something far more powerful and beneficial in its place.

I breathe more now.  I can drive all over the city now, but without all the road rage.  People still drive like lunatics since I’ve gone through the program, but I don’t stay stuck in the anger and resentment after some guy cut me off two days ago.  (That’s just seems weird now).  There are just better things to think about and focus on, and most of them are here, right now, in the present. Some of us may have farther way to come, but its usefulness is for everyone.

There’s also another part of this program that satisfies the great skeptic deep inside of me, the brain.  The physical brain.  The pons, the mid-brain, the cerebral cortex?  Those are all parts of the brain I have had memorized since I was in biology in elementary school.  I sure don’t remember learning what Alma and Dani have taught me and yet, there it is so simple and easy and helpful exactly where the help is needed.  Its like the brain knows.

By Sandy Blackwood