How to Be More Present in the Moment, Fully Engaged, and Substantial

Image by Larisa Koshkina from Pixabay

A good friend of mine asked how I could both feel a lack of confidence in myself and yet have had a successful corporate career. It’s an interesting question and one many people might resonate with. The answer for me is quite simple; I never really brought all of me to the workplace, just the parts I was confident would be accepted.

But, as I often say, I wanted to learn how to learn to live life from the inside out, rather than keep parts of me packed away that I deemed “unacceptable” in some way. When I left my corporate career I moved cities, changed my lifestyle and my predominant focus was on the job of raising my kids, it still is.

Along the way I have listened, read, studied, analysed and absorbed huge amounts of information on the human psyche and really taken a good look at that inner world of mine whose entire landscape looked so different to my outer world nine years ago. I have regularly shared all that I’ve learned in a bid to find my true voice, and to presence the “real me” in the world.

Tomorrow I am taking a trip back to that city I left all those years ago. While I have done some consulting and coaching over that time, for the first time in nine years I will be attending a corporate type event there to support someone close to me. It’s a strange feeling, not at all negative, quite the opposite; I’m looking forward to it.

I’m curious to see how the conversations flow and how I feel. Incidentally someone mentioned to me earlier today about focusing on receiving – as me, the authentic essence of who I am rather than a version of me I deem acceptable. Well that can only happen if I presence the whole of me.

A small thing that used to regularly happen in my old roles, my skin would often get flushed when I was talking to someone I didn’t know, or directly to a group of people, the feel inside was “who am I to say this?”. I would also commonly see it in other people in interviews and other high stakes situations, but for me it was an indicator of the level of comfort I felt in my own skin.

I was knowledgeable and experienced in my arena, and I was knowledgeable about personality types, style preferences and the many other facets of human psychology and motivation that had been commonly dissected and prolifically written about in the last fifty years or more but there was so much more I sensed and felt.

As I listened to Tami Simon, Founder and CEO of Sounds True – a large, successful multimedia publisher – talk about her tussle with the phrase “spiritual entrepreneurship” I recognised that one of the biggest mismatches within me back then was not just my reluctance to talk about the context in which I see, approach and navigate life, but I lacked the understanding and the language with which to draw it out and discuss it on any level far less one integrated with my work.

Yet in the intervening years, many of my deep dives into learning have been on the topic of energy. Back in my corporate days, when asked, I simply stated my belief that we are all part of one energy coming into and out of form. This was an incredibly ambiguous understanding of life, and was something more just as a felt experience. Since then I have learned much more on how to harness my energy and find it an endlessly fascinating subject regardless of whether it’s scientific, experiential or anecdotal in nature.

The other major aspect about people I had a more of a sense for back then but, again, lacked the knowledge and experience to put it into useful language, is the outdated, dysfunctional and destructive patterns of behaviour that often occur between people whether in work, personal or other types of interdependent relationships.

Really I was “in it” all back then, I was living the dysfunctional patterns, I was sucked into a world that had me competing for energy, and only by being “in it” intensely for an extended period of time was I able to fully grasp the understanding of it all when I finally decided enough was enough.

What I wanted was to be and have all of me understood, seen and present, for that to be good enough and not too much. In order to do that I had to understand myself, then I had to learn skills to presence those parts of me that I’d kept hidden, and put the dysfunctional parts of me that were no longer serving a purpose in their rightful place – the past.

Just this week I had been talking to my partner about updating his bio on a particular website and we were contemplating the wording around the presence he brings to the learning arena when he facilities leadership development courses. A recent participant in one of his courses had been talking about this, and how comfortable they had felt in his presence in being able to open up and learn and share.

This is because he is so comfortable with himself, the materials and the technology (which can often go wrong) that there’s very little focus on his inner world, he is able to be more fully present on the learners’ side of the fence. That is the comfort level I want to feel within myself and embody when around others.

In fact one of the principles Tami Simon was talking about was Leading with Presence. She took some time to define what she meant by the state of presence and started by defining what it feels like to her when she is with someone who is embodying presence:

“There’s an openness, a spaciousness, a welcome anything quality about them, both grounded and big at the same time – big as in receptive, anything could be said or shared. There’s a feeling of care, their hearts are present, and a type of immediate generosity, they’re not distracted, they’re not sketchy, they’re not trying to convince me of something and , also, it’s attractive, it’s a quality I want to be around, it soothes me, helps bring out my best, I feel connected.”

She makes the point that we can be these people who embody presence for the people we work with, and when we do we bring out the best in other people “Being in presence, acting from presence, creating from presence is tremendously rewarding. We experience ourselves as undivided, we are in the moment, fully engaged, it feels good, we feel good. It feels substantial.”

That is exactly where I set my compass when I exited the corporate world in that city all those years ago, and now as I revisit I can feel just how far I have come on that journey. I don’t think I’m comfortably operating there “out in the world” consistently by any means, it’s more like I was transplanted and the shoots are now emerging.

I am now in a state of curiosity rather than fear, and I know I have the skills to stand in my authenticity and navigate whatever life throws my way. It might be that my conversations start out a bit clunky, but with time and continuing curiosity in others I know that my own confidence will grow. 

What about you? Are your inner and outer worlds in alignment? Are you able to return to a state of presence time and again? If so, what advice do you have for others? And – if not – what can you do to experience yourself as less divided, in the moment, fully engaged, and substantial?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Live ‘what is’ – Choose This Moment, Meditation – the Cornerstone to Your Success, Give Yourself the Gift of Presence to Relieve the Torture of Stress, Presence Your True Needs, Talents and Desires to Step Into the State of Fullness, You Will Flourish When You Take Alone Time to Hear Your Heart and Normal Is Dysfunctional That Is the Growth Opportunity. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.