Practicing >> Presence

Today's guest poster is Rebecca, who is a fantastic life coach and photographer. Her blog is filled with lots of inspirational goodies! Definitely check her out -- her photography is beautiful, and she writes in such a touching, personal way. She also has some cool projects going on, like her storyteller course, and her kindred storyteller series.
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3 ways presence, and practicing it often, can change your life…

> You’re no longer subject to the whim of a madman…

Yes, I just called your brain a madman. If left unchecked anyone’s mind can spin tall tales, manufacture massive misnomers, and deliver devastating doubts. Sure, it might be well meaning in its efforts, but that’s hardly the point. Your life is meant to be bigger than the average fear-mongering mind will entertain, so you must be willing to push past it. Presence opens the door for you to do just that.

> You’ll have fuller, shinier hair…

When you’ve tapped into the here and now, and your mind is blissfully entertained by what truly is and not all the tragedies that MIGHT befall you, you can stop stressing. Literally your body can stop stressing, and fewer stress hormones means a healthier body and mind. Redirect all that freed up energy towards things that actually make you happy and you’ve got a recipe for joy like you’ve never seen before, but you WILL see it, reflected in the health and vibrance of your body. Better hair is only a few deep breaths away!

> You’ll get more done!..

Nothing puts the kibosh on a sense of motivation faster than the over-achieving, over-zealous, over-bearing chatterbox that is your brain. Sure you start out all fired up to write that blog post, paint your masterpiece, go for that run, or apply for that job, but before you know what happened you’re back on the couch, watching another rerun of Supernatural and wondering why your life isn’t more exciting. What happened? Well, you probably fell victim what I like to call: present-moment-itis; symptoms commonly include dredging up every past failure for proof there’s no point to trying again, paralyzing fear of the future should you make any effort today, and a general sense of doom all around you. You stop being IN the present the minute when your mind dips into either the past or the future. Sadly this is often where most of us live. Cultivate a sense of presence, and practice it often, and you’ll stop being sidelined long enough for your motivation to actually get you somewhere. To-do list? BOOM.

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So, now that you know all about how awesome presence can be, you want to get some for yourself, no? Well, ok then. Just for you here is my #1, all time favorite method for practicing presence…

Breathe. Breathe deeply, on purpose, and with full awareness of the air as it passes through your nose, down into your filling chest, and then back out. Take no less than three DEEP breaths. This slows the fight or flight response from your body, focuses your mind on a tangible thing, and let’s the onslaught of thoughts slow down log enough for you to become conscious of them. From this calmer place you can listen to what your mind is telling you, and give your attention and energy only to those ideas that make you feel good, peaceful and at ease. Don’t worry when three minutes later you find that you need to do this all over again; that’s why it’s called “practicing” presence. And lucky for us, we have our whole lives to master it.

How about you? Do you have a favorite method to bring you back to the here and now? I’d love to hear it!
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Thank you, Rebecca, SO MUCH for contributing this! This post couldn't be more perfect, since finding and experiencing presence is one of the reasons I love travelling so much.