Return to Centre: Presence in Practice
So how do we cultivate a practice of presence? How do we discover that quality of experience where we bring our quiet and thoughtful attention to bear on the matter at hand? How do we ‘step in’ to spaces that help us connect – to both our own sense of the gifts we are able to bring, and to that of another with all of their innate abilities and resources waiting to be noticed, welcomed in and held in mind?
We spoke in the last post about appreciating the value of working from a place of presence; how it can shape the way we pay attention, work with others and create experiences of significance and impact. We linked presence to purpose, passion and practice and began to think about how these 4Ps help us show up and check in. When we have it we are engaged, alive to the moment and awake to possibilities.
When we meet others from a place of presence we can relax, take our time and work from a space of clear mind, attuned awareness and creative thinking. We experience life moment to moment as it unfolds, opens up and where we can appreciate, at a deeply felt level, what in complexity science is known as ‘emergence’ and the ‘self-organising’ capacities of people and systems.
In today’s post I want to share a practice for becoming more present and for cultivating presence. However I need to be careful about how I use the word ‘practice’ here as this is not about learning another technique to add to the back catalogue (in search of that one true and yet tantalisingly elusive intervention to fix everything and make it all better).
There is no technique needed for something you already have quite naturally...
In this discussion of working from a place of presence I am thinking of practice as a way of being more than a process of doing...
Practice in this sense is intimately linked to the ‘how’ of what we are about (presence) and the ‘why’ (purpose). It is gentle, quiet and, when welcomed in and allowed to, tends to happen all by itself.
When we simply allow what we already have to emerge of its own accord we get to clear the path ahead so as to stop getting in our own way. Practice then as I mean it here is more an approach to life, love and work – one predicated on the idea that you already are the resource you seek to discover, the gift that you aim to bring, the skill you would want to best utilise...
Here is where it gets interesting...
How do I talk about this way of being as ‘gentle practice’ without creating a set routine (which might seem a lot like another technique)? Let’s see if I can convey something of this and perhaps you can let me know how well I do from your perspective?
In my own experience when I work with someone I begin something like this. I show up, remember to keep breathing, allow myself a little time to settle in and then wait to see what happens next. I’m tempted to end the post at this point as I think I may have defined a ‘non-practice’ practice which although somewhat contrary is perhaps what I’m trying to point to.
There is though a little more to say about presence in practice so here goes...
This is best described as a space of non-urgent and non-worked at presence (after all how much quality of attention can I really bring to this if I’m straining and working hard to be present?). I have a sense of a clear initial purpose that sits quietly in the back of my mind – I am here to support this person to discover their own innate brilliance and gifts – and that is enough initially to begin with... the person talks, I listen, attend and wait.
It is perhaps this space of presence-at-ease coupled with quiet, undemanding purpose that I would most identify as an experience of ‘my centre’ and which points to the idea of ‘being centred’ with its allusions for me at least to experiences such as balance, bearing, grace and attentiveness.
In this initially quiet inner space I simply look to meet what the psychologist Mark Howard calls the ‘humanness’ of the other person. I am comfortable in the knowledge that this free floating quality of attention, presence and purpose will find some kind of fit with what the other person is saying, doing, experiencing and at that point if I have something useful to share (a sense of purpose and passion unfolding and emerging) I can offer that into the space and see what comes of it.
Because I also have a sense that as human beings we are truly resourceful and capable (again, most often when we get out of our own way) I experience less and less the old urge I used to have to ‘do something!’, be the expert, say something profound or enact the transformative ritual. Ideas, insights and useful questions will arise when I simply sit with presence and purpose aligned. These will be useful to the degree that the quality of the connection between myself and the other is attuned; when there is an inter-subjective 'fit' between us there is an alignment of my presence, purpose, passion and practice with that of the other person - what we may truly name as 'resonance'.
And when, as we all do as fallible human beings, I discover I have drifted off into ‘la la land’ (to borrow Jamie Smart’s delightful phrase) and have become overly hooked by the vagaries and wanderings of thought as it arises, falls away and arises again I can remember that I am the thinker not the thought, metaphorically step back (perhaps onto the river bank and out of the stream of thought) and with good grace and humour...
Return to Centre.
Gareth Evans, Organisational Development Manager
If you like what you've read then please feel free to get in touch at Gareth.Evans6@wales.nhs.uk