The Difficulty Of Presence.

This post was originally published on 11 April, 2023, and moved here, to my new blog.

The hardest thing I fail to accomplish every day is not kindness, love, or compassion (though at times, those can be an ongoing practice as well), but the practice of presence. I struggle with being truly present.

I catch myself on my phone, in my laptop, even kiteboarding too much (for which I have eternal forgiveness for myself).

Particularly over the last five years I have had work, beautiful nose-to-the-grindstone work, to keep myself occupied enough to keep the lids on the boxes in my mind, and the lights turned off up there. Before we became so busy with emergency nursing full-time and house remodeling the other full-time, I have always had at least one job to hide in, and if that wasn’t enough, there was kids, hobbies, sports, training, and a host of other things to blanket over the fires smoldering in the dry cardboard boxes of my avoidant psyche.

I had plenty of shit in those boxes…

The human mind is a complicated place. When you factor in our traumas, failings, guilt, shame, and our general distaste of going to visit what cast of characters lurk in the corners and crevices of our minds, it begs us to forgive ourselves for wanting to run away, to hide in a phone, or in our work, or in a bottle. We are better at avoiding these parts of ourselves than we are at welcoming them into our waking life. And add to that, as we wrestle with our own personal demons, we still have to manage the epigenetic failings of our family, our ancestors, that they also never dealt with in their time. 

Three years ago, I met (searched out) a great therapist. I was struggling, as many of us do, with all of this. Over two years he taught me so many valuable lessons. He showed me how to fill my mental toolbox full with the tools I needed, and, most importantly, he taught me the importance of bringing this intimidating cast of characters out into the light. He inspired me to make them all a part of my daily existence, to sit down on the park bench and feed pigeons with them, to listen to them, and, when necessary, explain to them the failings of their aberrant behavior. And he inspired me to love them.

These demons, the characters in the epic play that is our life, do not like to be ignored, no more than do our beautiful, loving characters. The problem is, that the beautiful, loving characters tend to sit quietly and not raise much fuss when they are ignored. They are always willing to avoid conflict and hide while the demons frolic and demand attention.

In my mental toolbox is a flashlight. I try now to use it regularly. When it is the darkest part of two-thirty in the morning, and I find myself startled awake by that sneaky Fucking Ninja of Anxiety, all decked out in black with his sword, I no longer fight the ninja (I spent a lifetime just fighting the ninja, losing, not knowing that he was an assassin for hire, a mercenary hired by other, more insidious characters).

Now, instead, I trudge over to the toolbox in my mind, dig out the flashlight, go look around in the dark places in myself, and find out which one of those troublemakers hired the ninja and find out why. This is a lot more productive than fighting the ninja. He may disappear into the alleyways, but you never beat him. He will be back. He is eternal, inevitable.

The nice thing is that when we shine a light on the difficult players, we also find the ones we want in our lives, the shy ones, the ones that don’t want to cause a fuss or make waves. They can then be encouraged out of the dark as well, to become part of the dialogue (or at least feed a pigeon or two and enjoy the view of the trees from the park bench to start with). We need them out there too. We are only whole when we have the entire cast on stage. The play cannot be performed without all the players, all the heroes and all the villains.

All of this trudging around shining a light in all of our darkest corners and shelves, and playing director to a difficult cast of characters takes a toll. It distracts us from the thing that I have always believed is the most important in our entire existence: Presence.

I read a quote by a buddhist teacher, many years ago, which is probably why I can’t remember the name of either… the book or the teacher. I can’t even remember the actual quote, so I will have to paraphrase it here. To me it was the most powerful catalyst for change in my life, and has been a part of my daily attempt at practice since. It is (as I remember, and as it is written forever in my mind):

“A lifetime can last a moment, or a moment can last a lifetime. It is a question of presence”.

That all took a while to settle in for me, and maybe you read it and think “okay, whatever”. But it began to settle in on me eventually when I considered years with our children in the house, working, and busy times. How fast those years seemed to fly by, and, in retrospect, how little I actually took away from any of those moments but a laugh, a frown, a photograph or a hope for our next adventure or event. It is easy, and comfortable, for that to be enough. We humans are incredibly future-oriented animals, really good at deferring any losses forward in our lives, “I didn’t get that time with the kids this year, but no worries. We will do it next year”, or “My work is so important that I can catch up with family and friends in the wee spaces between”. These are large allotments of time, and easy to be aware of, and regret, and forget until later. The list is endless, and we all have some form of this list in our lives, the items we defer to a nonexistent promise of a future (this is why I abhor the very idea of the “bucket list”).

That is the macro-awareness version of what I believe that quote is trying to tell me.

The micro version is this, and was much harder for me to get to:

I started to wonder, during all these driven and busy times, if I could remember what birdsong I heard on that summer afternoon. What was the feeling of the air on my face, or what was the feeling of the cold stones beneath my feet? How did my lover look at me on any given day, or what was our son doing in the yard? What did the dishwater feel like running over my hands as I cleaned up, and what smells were outside? Was I breathing? Did the sun set that day, and did it rise?

Was I present?

Was I alive?

Yes, I can answer some of those questions pretty obviously, but if I wasn’t present, if I didn’t see the sunset or hear the birds? 

Our lives are such that we have to be incredibly intentional to be present. It is, in my case, a difficult practice. It can be easy if we fly away to a mindfulness (mindlessness?) retreat for two weeks in some peaceful place. That is why we go, yet we struggle with perpetuating those beautiful lessons and feelings the instant we race to the airport to catch the flight home. It feels so hard to be absolutely present while trying to race around the airport to make connections, and, once again, we get home and the last thing on our mind is two weeks of mindfulness. It is usually  the terrible flight and the return home to our responsibilities that presides over the entire trip.

This is so hard to attain in the real world.

We can get there, with meditation, music, dance, psychedelics, sensory deprivation; with, in fact, anything that can take us to these “flow states” (Ugh. I hate that term). They are easiest if we go “away” to do them. Away from the kids, jobs, distractions, and, mostly, away from our demons and their pesky assassin: the Fucking Ninja of Anxiety.

I have another quote that has always inspired and annoyed me, in equal parts.I really have to paraphrase this one. It also came from an unremembered teacher in a book that I cannot quite recall, but the idea has stayed with me for many years. It is (as it is written in my mind):

“It is easy to find these states when surrounded by nature, in quiet and solitude, away from the demands and bustle of our lives, but the real test is to achieve truly peaceful states when surrounded by demand and chaos”.

I’m sure that if you are reading this blog you will want to point out that I have moved away from my chaos, quit my job, and now live in “one of those peaceful places”, and it is true (Though I do challenge you to find any peace while riding a motorbike in Bangkok). I find my days becoming longer, more full of experience and joy. The longer I have access to these beautiful, peaceful places, the more I find myself able to be at peace.

I hope that this will allow me to find the path to a continuously peaceful state, one that transcends the chaotic world. If I have to leave chaos for a time, to return later to test myself, then so be it. I can face being called a hypocrite to try to make this particular consciousness a better being.

It is because I am terribly human. I am flawed. I struggle with keeping my demons from writing checks to the Fucking Ninja of Anxiety. I struggle with balancing my time for the small things. I struggle with meditation. I struggle with letting go of pride…I struggle with seeing the whole… struggle with smelling and hearing everything… with feeling the earth moving… with truly hearing music… listening to my lover… feeling the waves I ride… tasting the food I eat… truly doing the dishes when I do the dishes… allowing myself these struggles without guilt or shame…  letting go of ego… understanding guilt… embracing my demons… letting go my attachment to shame… allowing myself peace… deserving love… responding with compassion.

I evolve because I am aware of my shortcomings.

 I am already learning. I accept the fact that I have not been able to find peace in a busy ER, or in a place dominated by mass-shootings, corrupt leaders, and impossible demands on our time. I accept that my demons are sometimes stronger than I am, and that the Fucking Ninja of Anxiety still stalks me in the night. And, I accept the fact that the only time I have left to find peace is the time I have left.

I am deeply grateful to have the opportunity to travel to these peaceful places, to have this opportunity for growth and improvement. I only hope that I can honor the opportunity with progress.

And that is the challenge. I may fail the challenge, but I get up, start over, and try again. I feel like I am learning, slowly growing the ability to find peace in chaos, and to be present… to make my moments last an eternity, and to not allow my lifetime to slip away in a moment.