Building Presence - One Moment At a Time

Just one thing, then another

Sometimes in my self-reflection I realize I hadn’t consciously thought about presence during the day in some time and I wondered if I had been present at all. I hope that my practice over time, and my cogent reminder, work subconsciously to keep it up.

But I also beat myself up sometimes. “This should be, like, my thing. I should be practicing what I preach, always.” Which, of course, is ridiculous. But it’s also human nature.

We all set expectations of ourselves. “I am the type of person who practices presence on a daily basis.” Well, I shouldn’t strive to be a type of person. Just be. And be present. Tackle today head-on. You can plan for tomorrow when the day is over.

“The secret of life is getting today right. Everyone can get today right, and if you can do it once, you can do it repeatedly,” Stuart McRobert

Getting today right takes nothing more than presence. Be present, starting now. Bring all of your attention to these words. Hold that presence as long as possible. Find reminders, return to presence as often as possible and hold it as long as possible. But if it takes weeks before you remember to be present, that’s ok. Do it again. Find the presence when you remember, hold that presence as long as possible. But don’t skip it cause there’s no time to hold it. Just do it, again. Then again.

Time moves, inevitably. If you find a little bit of presence, for those moments, it moves in your direction. It moves where you take it. Don’t wait for meditation to find presence. Don’t plan it for that meeting in the future. Start now. Once you start it’s so much easier to do more. But starting is the biggest hurdle and the height of that hurdle is all in your head.