The Life Changing Power of Presence

In presence, we can tend our wounds - then set our compass

I’m Kate, a psychotherapist writing about mental health, for you to explore and flourish in a life you love. Upgrade here for tools, resources, meditations and if you’d like to support my work. Thanks for being here!

Hi friends

Watching the news in the UK at the moment is pretty depressing. Not only the horrors and unease from around the world, but at home there are endless jaw-dropping scandals, mindless violence, rioting, and abuse. A lack of awareness and egocentricity cloaks the full spectrum of privilege.

Whilst a ray of hope now lights our way following the recent election, and there is much joy in celebrating human potential in the Olympics - though these chaotic behaviours flame on. Violence and abuse wreck our communities. Are these people present? Do they understand their emotions and the actions that follow? Do they connect with the feelings of others, their impact, or know or care about the destruction they create? You know the answer.

They carry their hidden pain and spread it to the rest of us. We grapple for the words to talk to our children about it. To make sense of it for ourselves. We are present enough to acknowledge our helplessness, and at least to try.

Life Without Presence

But what about when we are not present? When we yell at our kids or our partner, instead of acknowledging and tending our hurt or fear the split second before. The times we blamed, judged, or accused, and pushed it out to others rather than owning it.

Those times we indulged in more snacks and booze to comfort, instead of seeking real comfort because we didn’t know that’s what we craved. Or when we bought clothes and things we didn’t need, to make up for the sense of lack we couldn’t bear, and haven’t addressed. We scrolled for hours to fuel a warped self-belief of not good enough, whilst wondering why we felt so shitty. We let the clutter build too high instead of noticing our pain hidden inside it.

We often hide our true feelings deep under a boulder of fear, and add a smile on top. Without presence, we miss the truth of our life. Those glinting secrets held in tiny internal shifts within, and those in our loved ones. We too often hide our light from ourselves and others.

Like the rioters, the trolls and abusers we may differ from, we often could not sit with our pain. Maybe our hurt and fear turned to rage too. Our feeling of inadequacy flipped into a quick fix. Perhaps we stagnated in victim mode. When we could not accept that those uncivilised feelings are part of us too, we projected them onto others, while we remained holy, in our minds at least.

We sometimes did not have the internal or external support to hold our own overwhelming swells of humanness.

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Reclaim Your Life with Presence

In presence, we experience our full selves in the moment. Our emotions, sensations, thoughts, and all that surrounds us and informs this experience. This moment is told to us by our senses, not by our assumptions or our fear. In presence we notice and invite others in too, even the universe itself, swirling beneath our souls.

We may have to battle through the cacophony of thought and emotion, but in presence, we find the beauty and strength of the stars inside us. When present, we bring ourselves to the world, empty handed, and bursting with life.

Why Should We Cultivate Presence?

1. In presence, our relationships improve, our parenting, friendships and daily life.

2. In presence, we know our needs, our limitations, and when to ask for help, and what to say.

3. When present, our past falls away, and the future is yet to come. We experience the powerful now as it unfolds.

4. In presence, we find order in chaos, and put our stake in the ground. We find choice.

5. Presence sometimes hurts, since it births the future - but we are strong enough.

6. In presence, we harness our emotions like a wild horse. Presence increases our capacity to tolerate difficult feelings. We notice the first emotion, the one that matters, before the other feelings cascade on top of it and cloud our actions. We can ask, are we responding to something old, or what is happening now? We can experience the gap between our thoughts, and our reality. In presence, we track.

7. Presence is noticing. We can clean the windows of our mind. We see ourselves and others as clear as a pool of spring water.

8. When we are present, we know ourselves and others. We experience life from our true self. We gain courage for our choices in that moment. By developing our self-awareness through the gateway of presence, we deepen our clarity on who we are, what we want, our intentions, direction, and meaning.

9. In presence, we can tend our wounds - then set our compass.

10. Presence is the path to a rich, authentic and satisfying life.

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Cultivating Presence in Daily Life

If those that riot and abuse would stop and look inside themselves in presence, they would find the splinter that started the infection, so they could tend it. They may find the courage to get the support they need. They may hold in mind those whom they harmed and develop empathy and sorrow. We too can smooth our lives as we embrace our humanness in presence.

A spinning wheel with spokes looks like a disc. But when we slow it down, we can see all the spokes. We tend to the broken ones, the bent ones, and see what missing or needs replacement. We can ensure we are heading in the right direction when we are present enough to slow down and see what’s there.

• Take time to slow into your experience of this moment. Use the anchor of your breath, (start with this Simple Calm Reset if being present feels hard, or hold your forefinger and thumb together as a gateway to explore). Check in with your thoughts, feelings, what your senses tell you about what and who you are with, now and in your most difficult moments.

• Let courage and curiosity lead you.

• Cultivate engaging your senses (sounds, sights, touch, scents, taste) to come into the moment. Read The World Will Hold You to help.

• Try mindful walking, attending to all your experience and what’s around you.

• Practicing gratitude can calm us into presence (read Gratitude that Lights the Dark), giving us confidence and perspective.

• Practice loving kindness to shape life in loving presence, for you and those around you.

• Paid subscribers can unravel unruly processes of your mind that interfere with presence in the Heal Your Past series.

• Reveal unhelpful thought patterns here and here, as they also interfere with our ability to be present.

• I’ve added ten therapeutic journaling prompts in the members therapy tools page here.

Presence will keep us from falling into painful chaos, or creating it for others. It will expand our strength and courage to face difficulties, and prevent it getting worse. We can rise strong in presence. We will have capacity to hold ourselves together, to find a way through. We will be able to listen to the pain in others and ourselves, and what leads to those things. To bring love and order where it is absent. In presence, we will be better able to find forgiveness, without diminishing ourselves.

The present moment is all we ever really have.

I hope you’ll practice presence today and all days. Thank you for reading, friends. If you enjoyed this post, do let me know by clicking the like, and tell me your thoughts in the comments. What resonates? What do you want to work on? Do share this if you think it may help someone; and it helps me find more readers too. Paid subscribers make my writing possible, so I am especially grateful to you!

With love and gratitude,

Kate