Presence is our natural essence. When you are fully present in your body, you switch to an egoless state. As attention is taken away from your ego mind, the essence of who you are comes quite naturally to the fore. Somewhere under all the layers of thoughts and emotions, we know this. Aha moments can spark an intuitive remembrance of what it’s like to live in the moment:
“Mental and physical ‘clicking into place’ of the intuition that tells me - live in the moment”. (J. M., client)
Making a conscious choice to focus on Presence at all times transforms the quality of your awareness:
“Since the initial AHA when I realised that I could be (and stay) in the present moment, being mindful, I now consciously direct my attention to present awareness in all situations”. (S.W., client).
We deny ourselves Presence by being so thoroughly wrapped up in our ego mind. Obsessive thinking closes us off from our present life experience. The ego is a mental disease designed to shut us off from our true nature by numbing us to the only true reality there ever is – whatever is arising as this-moment-now. Thoughts cloud over reality, disrupt the flow of life and imprison us in a self-imposed virtual reality game:
“I realised that in order to live, i.e. experience my life fully, I have to occupy this moment now. I realise that if we’re not experiencing the flow, we’re living in a virtual reality of our own making”. (J. Mc D., client).
Of our own making! We’re doing it to ourselves by allowing our thoughts to wander all over the place. As long as we remain unconscious, they time-travel between an illusory past or and an equally illusory future. Thoughts of the past bring regret and thoughts of the future bring fear. The choice to live in the here-and-now eliminates all this anxiety. As fear fades into the background, the figure that comes into consciousness is one of innate joy and bliss:
“In the moment, there is nothing to fear – no memories, no anxieties. And as I rest in the moment, a good feeling settles on me, then joy, then bliss” (M.L., client)
You have the free will to choose Presence in every moment. Choosing Presence overturns the ramblings of the ego mind and touches into a higher wisdom. With practice, the ego begins to take a back seat to the intuitive wisdom that comes forth:
“With more and more presence I feel that I am no longer dominated by my ego but from a centre deep within, an intuitive, wise place” (S.H., client)
The body in conscious movement can encourage Presence, as demonstrated by the transformational potential of Tai Chi and the martial arts. Dance can express your feelings and expand your emotional intelligence: (Future self is a guided visualisation to tap into your own inner wisdom for guidance)
“As soon as I started to dance my future self, I realised that this was a way I could really “tune in” to my body. I regularly dance now to expand my understanding”. (N.G., client)
It is amazing to think that Presence is our fundamental nature, the natural background state in which everything in our experience should arise. Only the fog of our own thinking blinds us to this deepest understanding, the truth of who we really are.
It’s time to wake up! Presence should be the figure and thinking just the background hum. When you habitually shine a light on what’s happening right NOW, you pierce through time with the Aha insight that in Truth there is no other ‘moment’ than the eternal Now.
Presence Practice
You can practice being present with any painful emotion. Let’s suppose you suffer from low-level anxiety, a dis-ease that plagues many people today.
Think of a flower, a tree, a mountain or a river; they are all simply here, being present. Connect to this same presence in you, an open, wordless state. From this background of presence, take these 3 steps:
1. Become very present with the feeling of anxiety and settle into it. Stay OUT of your head, do not use language or images, just fully feel it in your body.
2. Feel, acknowledge and confess the feeling. Let it reveal itself. What are you really anxious about? If you can identify it, acknowledge it and let it express, it dissolves very quickly.
3. If it fails to dissolve, confess it out loud to God or to anything in your environment, even if it’s a plant on your windowsill. Saying things aloud helps you understand them and lets them begin to wash through you.