How to Feel the Presence of NOW

Will and effort, push and pull, struggle and control don’t guarantee success, or happiness. Life’s humble lessons have taught me to stop, listen, and watch. I’m learning to allow, and then witness, the unfoldment of direction, opportunity, and honest fulfillment. 

This kind of experience demands our full presence…calm, certain, focused, and in tune with our Divine. 

Being truly present – at peace, clear, free, grounded in joy – poises us to see and feel the unfoldment of our unique, inspired identity and purpose. It calls us to release the things that keep us from being open and receptive to feeling Love’s infinite presence, and our own equilibrium.

We’re often tempted to compare our lives to others’, to want to mimic or fake, while our genuine lives are beautiful in their unique way.

Life’s demands can often distract us from standing still and aligning our thoughts and heart with the wholeness and opportunity of the immediate moment. 

This Christmas, I learned to let go and be present and deeply satisfied in the simple moments. With three littles ones in our family, nap schedules, two households, and shifting weather keeping us inside, we enjoyed plenty of time together cooking, binge watching Master Chef, snuggling on the sofa, and watching the next generation play and grow before our eyes. It was a sweet time all together. 

Letting go of grand images of the perfect holiday or home, and memories of a more adventurous past within a different family time, I began to see the eloquence of simple moments and embrace the present need and opportunity.

After all, life is about BEING, not just doing. 

A dear, inspired friend recently shared her ongoing take-aways from an Honest Heart Journeys trip.

She said that, during the trip, she learned to poise herself in the present. As a planner who’s always thinking about the future, always doing, she is now witnessing her gentle transition from “doing” to “being.” 

While she used to focus on achievement – and she’s had highly successful careers and a gracious sense of family and community – she is now “appreciating and trusting unfoldment as its witness.” In this exercise, she’s finding her spiritual authenticity.

“Throughout our experience, we get labeled as planners, schedulers, caregivers,” she said. On the trip, she didn’t have a specific role as leader, as she usually does, and realized she could let go and embrace being cared for by our guides. 

She could just “be” and appreciate the moment. 

Now, she’s more alert to catch herself so she doesn’t fall back into labeled roles. 

She’s also finding again the childlikeness we all naturally expressed when we were young, when we trusted, found joy in what was immediate, and didn’t worry about what was next. 

The present is enough. It is full, and filled with promise…if we stop to see and be with it. 

This friend shared that the trip allowed her to “unlearn her labels and look towards what is becoming.” This profound recognition is the beautiful growth of a true woman.

Nineteenth century metaphysician, Mary Baker Eddy, said that, “Spiritual sense is the conscious, constant capacity to understand God.” 

I’ve always loved this statement. Recently, it occurred to me that this is what presence is…being calmly and consistently tuned in, aligned with, and focused on understanding the Divine, and our relationship to it. Not needing anything outside of ourselves to define, approve of, or complete us. It is be-ing.

Not too many years ago, I was able to successfully fulfill my job duties and care for others while I felt like I was frozen internally and living in survival mode. Though others didn’t detect it, I beat myself up over it regularly. 

I felt misaligned with my core integrity, alone and misunderstood. I can now pull back, forgive myself, and recognize the lessons that, if I’d been truly present, I’d have seen and accepted and just been with. 

That would have been enough then….and it can be enough now.

I repeat: life is about being, not doing. I release now all the things that I didn’t do then, and embrace with full presence the blessings of that time, and look forward.

And now I've learned to relax, be present and satisfied, and cherish the sweet, simple joys of Christmas!

Tomorrow is a new day;
you shall begin it serenely
and with too high a spirit
to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

 A self that goes on
changing is a self that
goes on living.
― Virginia Wolf