What is being present?

Present means in the present. Acting, doing, feeling, thinking… now. And you are always in the present because you are always doing these things now. To be fully present in the moment is to pay attention to what is going on. When you are in your head, you do not pay attention to what is happening. There are signs everywhere that you miss because you are not paying attention, you are engaged in your mind and not in the reality you are playing.

Whatever you are doing, you need to be present, as in fully engaged in that activity. When you are with someone, you need to be fully present. Some times messages are passed on through someone else. But if you are too busy analyzing what they said, judging them in some way, then you are not listening, and therefore missing any vital information that could be passed on to you.

Present means engaged. Wherever you are standing, are you being engaged with your environment or are you disconnected from your environment, living in your head? Your head is filled with stories. Your head is filled with questions. Your head is not in the present unless you choose to stay there. Engaged is the word we use. Because really, you are always in the present for there is only the present moment. Even when you are thinking of past or future, you are still in the now moment, experiencing the past or future.

You are always here, always now. When you are engaged in the here and now, you can get the cues coming to you. In other words, you are not trying to escape anything about your now. You are not trying to shove your head in your device to escape a conversation. You are not shutting the door on someone asking a favor. When you are engaged, you can respond, without having to run away. And when you are engaged, present, the larger part of you also present can give you the best answer, point you to the perfect solution, so you don’t have to turn away from anything.

When you are present, you are honest with yourself and others about how you feel. You are not trying to bury your emotions nor are you trying to hide them nor run away so as not to express them. You are there. Whatever comes up is expressed. Whatever you need is expressed. Whatever you feel is expressed. At one point, one must learn to stand up for ones self and that can only happen if one is willing to be honest, without thinking of what the other will think.

Present means here and now with all that is happening, here and now with the people I am engaged with, here and now fully engrossed in that activity I am doing. That is here and now. Being present is being here and now so I can feel what is coming up, so I can speak what I feel, sense, what I need, so I can have compassion and love to those in front of me, so I can enjoy what I am doing, so I can decide what I prefer from the menu before me.

It is easier to hide than tell someone how you feel and risk hurting their feelings. It is easier to run away from a situation you don’t want to face and wish it disappears. It is easier to get mad at someone rather than be honest about what you need, rather than tell them that you come first. And these are things your society needs to work on if you expect to live in a world of authenticity.

In a way, present, engaged also means authentic. You are not trying to be someone else, to please another. You are being you. And it shouldn’t matter what another thinks because what they think in that particular moment is also colored by their current state of mind, mental and emotional state which has nothing to do with you.

So that is being present. And it is not something you do once and immediately learn, but a practice that you must apply daily, because you are so used to living in your stories, so used to hiding the truth of who you are, the truth of you being a priority, the truth of how you feel in the moment.