Finding Presence: A Guide to Showing Up in Your Life
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This week, I was reminded of the art of showing up in our lives. Re-reading a familiar book and discussing themes with clients was a gentle nudge to activate presence in my life. Over the weekend, we traveled to Lake Michigan to visit family. There were so many moments of awe: meeting my nephew for the first time, catching the sunrise over the water on a run, capturing my son’s reaction as the sunset, and listening to my other son’s reactions with the boom of each firework. It’s so easy to miss these moments as we’re stuck in the day-to-day of our lives.
But we don’t need a vacation or holiday to notice the glimmers, the special moments of each day. We need to reorient how we show up in this life.
Presence is Showing Up
This last month our team has spent time developing new knowledge and practices for helping clients find secure attachment - within themselves and in relationships. We have an interpersonal model for relationships, called PACS. I love to use this model when discussing parenting and family dynamics. The first letter of PACS stands for Presence. It’s so illusive, isn’t it? We may understand the concept - to be present - yet find it so difficult to feel into it. Just a quick dictionary search and presence can be as simple as “existence.”
What does it mean to exist? For me, I like to think of presence as aliveness. It’s a being instead of doing. Alive to our choices, alive to our routine, alive to our reactions, alive to our environment. It’s an awareness of being - of knowing we are the observer, the co-creator and participant in shaping our own reality.
What Gets In the Way of Presence?
But then, why is it so hard to be in our lives instead of just going through the motions? I’ve found that one of the major contributors is that our priorities are misaligned with our values. Here’s how to overcome this:
Figure Out Your Values. I love this tool for understanding our values. Once we know our values, we can act in accordance with them.
Identify Your Glass and Plastic Balls. It’s a simple concept - what in your life are glass balls, things that, if you dropped, would shatter and it would be consequential? Alternatively, what plastic balls are okay to drop without major issues? For example, exercise may be a glass ball because it makes you a calmer, more patient human. Making dinner from scratch may be a plastic ball.
Measure Your Priorities Against Your Values. Now that you know what both are, it’s time to do an analysis. Where are you spending time that is against your values? What are you not giving enough attention to that is really important to your values?
Adjust and Make Habits. Consider small, iterative steps. If you realize you are working too many hours and missing family time (family is a value), then set reminders to clock out 5 minutes earlier each day. Alternatively, try to wake up 15 minutes earlier each day to get a little work done before the house wakes up. Be small and mindful with your changes, but consistent.
Consistency over Perfection
To truly show up in our lives, we have to do the hard work to make space to be present. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but if we’re constantly rushing from one activity to the next, not prioritizing planning or preparing for what’s next, just surviving, then we’ll never empower ourselves with the opportunity to feel alive in this life. And no, the feeling you get from being stressed, adrenalin pumping through you as you work harder, faster, and longer, is not aliveness. It’s a recipe for burnout.
I have found that consistency in taking care of myself through routine and boundaries sets me up to move slower and more mindfully through my day. While waking up at 5 a.m. isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, consistency in doing so allows me more space to lean into the opportunities within each day. If I set my boundaries with my schedule, I can pick up my kids on time and even carve out a little moment for meditation before they exuberantly jump into my car after school. Being consistent with my structure provides me patience, peace and a more regulated nervous system. A calm mom = a better mom.
Show Up for the Hard Stuff Too
I know it’s not all glimmers, though - it’s not just being present to and alive to the little moments of joy and wonder. While it can be grounding to witness the way the light and wind twinkle in a tree’s branches, we also experience hard feelings like sadness, grief, fear, anxiety and pain. These feelings demand our presence too.
When we notice a feeling that’s uncomfortable, a common reaction especially in survival mode (not alive mode) is to shove it down, ignore it, repress and depress. However, when we sit in the middle of it by allowing ourselves to meet it head on, it actually gets easier to manage.
Think of the eye of a hurricane - it’s calm in the middle. It’s also calm in the middle of our big feelings too - we just have to venture there. Instead of running away from the edges of discomfort, we can practice leaning into it. Once we are really in it, we practice once again being the observer, knowing that we are a co-creator of our reality. From the middle of it, we can see it more clearly. We can get curious and reflective. We are not so overwhelmed and instead can find clarity and a sense of calm in how we react.
We’re Here to Live This Life
A mantra I often tell myself is, “I am safe to live this life. I am safe to enjoy this life”. Anxiety and other big feelings, along with trauma and mood disorders, can dysregulate our system so much that it becomes uncomfortable to feel joy, contentment, or slowing down.
I promise you - this life is a gift and we’re not meant to suffer. When we suffer, we’re missing the meaning and the experience of our lives. We’re in auto-pilot, disengaged and shut down from our own presence. Even in immense pain, there are glimmers, moments, of hope, beauty and joy. The sunlight through a window, the smile of a stranger, the laugh of a child, the smell of fallen leaves, the soft fur of a pet… life is about these moments and it’s a theft to miss them.
The Gift of Slowing Down
So many of us have never felt peace. Maybe moments in the glimmers, but a profound sense of peace that is a full body experience is not a common experience. As a long-time meditator and yogi, I’ve found this embodied peace in some longer practices, and it’s shaped my worldview, keeping me longing for a stillness within me at all times. It’s a sensation worth working for.
In our newly launched Reset Intensives, we have a program called the SUMMT. This is a model I developed over 3 years and have had nearly 100 clients and colleagues experience it themselves. Named for the Subconscious Memory Meditation Therapy, the SUMMT is a journey into deep, deep relaxation - into a liminal space of peace where all insight and self-compassion are available. While we may use this space for trauma and inner child healing, it’s also an experience of embodied safety and peace. If this sounds interesting to you, I hope you check it out as we’re now, for the first time in years, taking new applications.
Thank you for being here. I hope you find some glimmers today. As always, remember you are not alone in this journey. Deep breath, we’re all in this together.
