The Present of Practicing Presence

We have a special Holiday treat for today and next Sunday! Abby Seixas, author of Finding the Deep River Within: A Woman’s Guide to Recovering Balance and Meaning in Everyday Life , graciously offered to provide two posts about reducing holiday stress and practicing presence as a path to more satisfaction and joy. (Looking for Sherrie Dillard‘s monthly column? She’ll be back with us in 2012. She has a new book coming out in March and is very busy getting it ready for publication.)

The Present of Presence

Experiencing the power of presence is a little like looking at one of those holographic pictures that were popular a few years ago on calendars and posters. It appears two-dimensional, but if you look at it a little differently, another, three-dimensional picture magically leaps into view.  The other picture was there all along, but until you looked in a particular way, you couldn’t see it, even though it was right in front of your eyes.

We are always living in the present moment. But when we wake up to this fact, and actually experience being present, a different, fuller picture of what it means to be truly alive, one that was there all along, leaps into view.

Presence is actually doing what you’re doing when you’re doing it. Doesn’t that sound simple?  If you have ever spent any time noticing the workings of your mind, with its incessant chatter, innate distractibility, and frequent trips into the past and future, then you know that being present is not as easy as it sounds.

When we feel stressed and over-busy, we usually look to our calendars to see if we can eliminate something from our schedule. But in order to experience more ease and spaciousness in daily life, we need to address both outer and inner dimensions of how we live. The practice of presence addresses internal busyness, the constant stream of mental chatter that can fill even the most spacious times our calendar has to offer. This habit of mental busyness effectively blocks us from the one place where we can experience life fully and deeply: the present moment.  It is in the here and now that life really happens: we engage with what matters, open to ourselves and others, experience joy…

When we are caught up in mental busyness and not present, we stay on the surface of life.  In this state, we can certainly get things done, but we tend to feel more restlessness than contentment or joy as we go through the motions of our lives. The practice of presence offers the opportunity to deepen our experience of life and enjoy it more fully moment to moment.

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So how do we practice presence?  The first step is to understand the value of paying attention. I hope it is clear by now that this practice doesn’t just help with inadvertently bumping into doors or spilling coffee.  Paying attention in the present moment invites a deeper, richer quality of life…  Henry David Thoreau said, “Only that day dawns to which we are awake.”  This wisdom, gleaned from Thoreau’s solitary retreat on Walden Pond, intimates that the practice of presence is not even just about a better quality of life––it is at the heart of being truly alive.

Once there is understanding about the value of practicing presence, the next step is to do just what it says: practice. Since there is no better time to practice than now, take a moment after you read these next words, to shift your attention from reading, to noticing that you are breathing. Feel your body sitting, making contact with whatever you are sitting on, and notice the sensations of breathing.  Allow these sensations––at your nostrils, in your chest, in your abdomen––to come into the foreground of your awareness. Notice any other body sensations you are aware of as you breathe. Now gently expand your awareness to a sense of your whole body, sitting, breathing, here, now.

Bringing attention to the present moment un-clutters our minds.  Awareness of breathing is a very immediate––and always available––way to experience this un-cluttering effect. Another way to enter the present is to bring attention to what we are receiving through any one or more of the senses––hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, touching. And the holidays, if we remember to pause and pay attention, offer many moments to practice presence through “coming to our senses.”

Try pausing to listen to the sharp sound of striking a match, breathing in the smell of the blown-out match flame, beholding the circle of light thrown off by a candle flame, and the brilliant glow at the center… Simple acts of presence like these don’t necessarily take more time; they just take more attention. Even just a few moments of mindful presence can quiet a chattering mind, put the to-do list in the background, and help us find the elusive joy that the holiday season is supposed to be all about.

Abby Seixas is a psychotherapist in private practice and author of Finding the Deep River Within: A Woman’s Guide to Recovering Balance and Meaning in Everyday Life (Jossey-Bass/Wiley).  Visit Abby at her website, and on Facebook  or Twitter.

Want to dive deeper?  Join Abby for a Deep River retreat at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, Jan. 29-Feb.1, 2012.