What is presence? John Prendergast says presence is our essential nature as open, wakeful, loving, spacious awareness. Sally Kempton says presence is your innate sense of ‘being’ inside you. Adyashanti says presence is the spacious unconditioned nature of awareness. Eckhart Tolle says presence is a state of inner spaciousness. All of these definitions point to the idea that when we are present we are in the moment, attending and attuning to what is, with an open quality of welcoming, receptivity, and non-judgemental awareness. There is a quiet authenticity about this presence that is grounded in the universal, the impersonal ‘being’ beyond time and space.
This view of presence is very different from ‘personal presence’ as it pertains to how you ‘present’ to others, the outer trappings of how you appear, your clothes, your confidence, your authority, your presence as a ‘doing’, individual self.
The ‘presence’ I will further explore here is about the deep ground of your presence as ‘being’ (we’ll call it grounded presence) rather than surface presentation of how you present in your ‘doing’.
How does grounded presence feel in you?
Grounded presence to me feels relaxed, open, and welcoming of life as it moves through myself, others and the world. There is an ease with presence. A settling of my nervous system that has me really listen, without fear, without expectation, without gripping for this or that, free of conditioning. Presence feels like being re-sourced to meet the world as it is and to trust the inner attuned knowing which may bubble up.
How do you recognise grounded presence in yourself and in others?
When we are in grounded presence the animating force of life shines clearly and brightly in our softened eyes, we are less judgemental and more in wonder and curiosity, we are less attached to outcome and more available to possibility. I recognise presence in the light in another’s eyes, the timeless and simple joy of meeting another and feeling welcome as I am, there is no sense of competition or needing to be heard or seen. There is just the being, the sensing, from a grounded, connected, steady place.
What does presence make possible for you and for others?
When we meet another in grounded presence there is an opportunity for our nervous systems to influence one another. Co-regulation is the transmission of signals of safety and connection. Our presence wordlessly, effortlessly, beautifully contributes to the settling of others.
What I have come to learn and appreciate is the gift of being in this state of grounded presence together. The influence and interrelation of each on the other benefits all of us. That field of presence grows in an exponential rather than linear way when we come together in community.
This has me reflecting on the work of Rupert Sheldrake, who I did a workshop with in the late 1980’s in New Zealand. He was speaking about morphic resonance, that phenomena where when a number of animals, or people, do the same thing there is a threshold ‘the hundredth monkey principle’ where it is transmitted into the morphic field of the species and spontaneously every member then does it. What if presence were like this?
What if we created a field of presence to strong that it transmitted to the whole?
What if we could do and be that?
What if every time we sit in meditation, rest in presence, and let go of the grip of conditioned ‘doing’ self, we contribute in a positive way to the whole field?
What if when we gather and support each other in grounded presence we create the community experience of safety and connection that is healing the whole?
How can you cultivate grounded presence in your life, right now?
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