Being Present.

It should be pretty easy shouldn’t it?  The idea of being with the present moment.  Without fighting it or denying it or doing much other than being in it and with it.  Yet, it’s tricky for our brains, for us.  At least it is for me.

I started this practice consciously, with intention, around five years ago.  I am still a work in progress; the being present part of my practice is a work in progress.  That to me is what a practice is; it isn’t something that is done or finished or a pinnacle reached.  It is a life long practice.

I’ve learned lessons about me and practice, much rooted in my childhood music lessons. I loved to play, I loved music but practice, not so much.  I’d often ‘binge’ practice the day before.  When I look back, a lot of that for me was about the availability of ‘free time’ of time to rest and ponder; time to think.  This is still a consideration, around forty years on.

What I can see with the power of hindsight, is the impact of a short regular, daily practice over a long intense period.  For me the short, daily practice is what allows me to embed things.  It allows me to take fairly steady steps; it allows me to develop a habit and a  rhythm that helps sustain me when the going gets tricky.

What I can also see, accept and feel good about is that it’s not an end point, it won’t be finished or done.  The aim is more to make this practice an intrinsic, embedded, habitual part of my day like getting up, cleaning my teeth, even going to the loo!

With that thought in mind, I find I can be so much more compassionate and gentle with myself when I am not present, when my mind wanders or is distracted.  I think this is because I am not working towards a finish line or an end point.  The process is the purpose of this.  The process of striving to be present; it truly is all about trying and working on the idea of being present.

Each time my mind wanders or is not present, I have an opportunity to practice being compassionate and kind and being present again.  It is not a race or a competition.  There are no grades or scores or leader boards.  There is just me and the process.  Me and the present moment,

I can see how resilience and perseverance has developed.  I can see how I am more aware and notice the path of my thoughts.  I can see how I am able to respond with care and thought rather than react with judgments and harsh words.

As I have followed my curiosity and learned more and thought more about being present I have arrived at the idea that there is more than one way to be present.  Here I will try to articulate two of them.  The first, is the kind of being present I began with.  Being present with focused attention on a task.  Being present with what I am doing or experiencing.  For me that is more often than not being present with the process of creating. Although it does sort of seep and spread into all areas of life.  I can find myself being present with the feeling of brushing the dog, of eating a crisp apple fresh from the tree and of being fully present in a conversation or game with my family.

The second is similar but different.  It is something, that for me, I tend to do mostly when I am creating.  I open myself up to being present with whatever I am feeling and the emotions and ideas that arise as I am creating.  Sometimes there is a deliberate focus, perhaps when I am using journalling and creating to explore my feelings around a topic or issue; other times I simply allow myself to be with what comes up.  I think that what is most important about this is that I notice my emotions, I acknowledge them and I accept them.  I don’t label them as good or bad; I don’t try to alter them or change them or deny them.  Acceptance is really important when I am being present in this way.

There are certainly more but, mostly, my ‘being present’ falls into one of these two categories.

I was reading, a while ago, about multi tasking.  Multi tasking is really a myth, at least according to what I was reading.  The brain can’t focus on tow or more things at the same time; what it seems is actually happening is really rapid task switching.  I couldn’t find the article I was originally reading but this one was pretty interesting.

It came to mind as I sat down to proof-read this and my Husband asked if I could multi-task and also do the menu and shopping order together.  I found I couldn’t.  In fact I was getting frustrated with trying and not being present with either.  So I stopped trying to do both and focused on one. It felt much more efficient and my frustration eased.

For me I can have lots of art projects on the go sometimes, in various stages but I don’t switch between projects using very different media and often I really have multiple projects on the go to help me let watercolours dry properly.  Currently i am working on  two projects and they are both watercolour and art in the round.  These connections between them, help me to manage moving from one to the other.

I feel like I don’t actually want to multi-task any more.  I want to enjoy focusing on the one thing I am doing now.  I find it tends to be more efficient and take me less time (I think there is research to support that too).  Also I find myself feeling less like a headless chicken walking round doing a bit of this and then that and forgetting the other.  This is a way being present has impacted all of the areas of my life.

One thing I haven’t mentioned about being present is breathing or my breath.  I find that when I pay attention to my inhale and exhale, I am more present.  It is a simple, simple thing but it reconnects me with the here and now and my own body as opposed to my thoughts.  Talking about the breath is definately a blog post of its own but it is also something that belongs here.  Sometimes, reminding ourselves to take a breath, iterally take a breath and pay attention to that feeling of the innhale and the exhale, is amazingly powerful.  I’ll leave you with the words of Thich Nhat Hanh.