Presence

Presence

The heart of your practice is to choose to be here. You attend to whatever you are feeling right here and now. You choose to feel what is happening, rather than to engage in internal dialogue. There’s no need to compare this moment with other times and places, because this experience is unique. This experience is valid, if only because you are having it right now – whatever is happening is what your life is at this very moment. Mindfulness (paying attention) teaches us that what we are feeling is mutable from one distinct moment to the next. Your journey may include exploration of how your attitude, posture, breathing, thinking, and feelings influence your perception of what is happening. The suggestions I offer here invite you to study and practice yoga as the approach to conducting your life experiment, using yogic tools for living a conscious and deliberate life that is and feels meaningful, joyful, and vibrant.

Let’s put it into practice by learning to pause. In other words, we will ask ourselves: What does it feel to be me right now?

Make sure that you can be uninterrupted for the next 5 to 10 minutes. Turn your notifications off and find a position where you can be comfortably alert. Close your eyes and notice what happens. Choose to feel the sensations in your body to find the position that feels best for you, it may be lying down, reclining in a comfortable chair, sitting on the floor or in a chair.

As you are in this comfortable position, where does your attention go? Does it go to your list of things to do? To a memory, perhaps of something pleasant, or of something that created discomfort or irritation. Or does your mind try to identify the sounds that are coming from the environment around you? What if you decide to feel the sensations present right now. Start from the outside, notice the noises and sounds coming from outside of you, they may be distant or near, they may be loud or soft, pleasant or unpleasant. Can you just notice the sounds? What about feeling other sensations, like light filtering in through your closed eyes, or the scents and smells in the space you are. Focus on your sense of touch, what are the sensations at the points of contact between your body and whatever surface is supporting you? Can you discern the sensations where your skin feels the texture of the clothes you are wearing or of the air it is exposed to? What are the sensations in your mouth? What is the taste in your mouth? Now shift your attention to the subtle movements in your body as your body breathes in and out on its own. There is nothing to do other than attend to what is happening, perhaps feel all the sensations at once, without having to focus on any one sensation in particular. There is nothing to get right or wrong. You can choose to stay here for as long as you wish.
So, how does it feel to be you right now? I know it is impossible to describe the myriad details that make up this experience. Perhaps a better question is to ask: What is the overall feeling of being myself? Is there a general feeling to this experience? Or a general attitude? Rather than rushing to answer these questions, can you savor them? Can you live with them for a while?

You may find this exercise relaxing, frustrating, annoying, enjoyable, or some combination of these and other feelings. You may have even noticed something you had not noticed before, like an ache or a pain, or some underlying preoccupation. Many of us feel busy inside. Perhaps you heard an internal voice constantly talking, describing, liking or disliking, narrating, endlessly giving opinions, and asking “Is time to stop?” For some of us this exercise helps us see that our experience of the present moment seems fragmented, and that our mind keeps running between the past, the future and the present. If that was the case for you, welcome to being human in the 21st century. Despite all these internal activities, let me assure you: There is nothing fundamentally wrong with you.

What would happen if you decided to do this exercise for a few minutes every day? Would you notice some patterns in the experience of being you, across different days and times, and even different spaces?

If you prefer, you may listen to the podcast:

This is an excerpt from the book Unravel the thread: Applying the ancient wisdom of yoga to live a happy life

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