My three-year son old pulls my hand as soon as I come out of my home office…
Him: (desperate for mommy attention) Play with me! Play with me!
Me: (a little reluctantly) Ok, what do you want to play?
Him: A puzzle.
Me: Pick one out and I will join you in a second
Him: (races off in excitement)
Me: (stand in the kitchen and scroll my phone)
Him: (calling from the other room) Are you coming Mom?
Me: (almost forgetting what I was supposed to be doing) Be there in a second (check email real fast)
Him: (pause) Are you coming?\
Me: (now urgently responding to a message) Yes! One moment (finish and head into the living room to play)
Of course, it doesn’t end there…now we are doing a puzzle…
Him: You flip them all over.
Me: Ok, but you help! (hit the home button on my iPhone to see to see if someone messaged me – they didn’t)
Him: I’ll do the cement mixer.
Me: (start thinking about what I am making for dinner while mindlessly putting pieces together)
Him: Are you helping!?
Me: I’m helping buddy, I’m helping (think about my last call of the day and what we talked about and how I could have said something different – push the home button of my iphone)
And it goes on and on and on. Have you ever experienced this kind of interaction with your kid?
Your body is there…but your brain is somewhere else entirely.
Learning to be present is actually a skill and most people don’t do it naturally. We have to train our brain to focus on the here and now.
During Covid, I started practicing being RADICALLY PRESENT.
Training my brain to be in my body, focusing on moment.
I learned that radical presence starts with the 5 senses.
Noticing how warm I feel.
Recognizing any smells in the room.
Taking in the beauty of where I sit.
Literally bringing to mind everything my 5 senses are experiencing.
Then, deciding it’s ENOUGH.
I don’t have to be anywhere. Do anything. Answer to anyone. This moment – the moment my 5 senses are experiencing – is enough.
I would do this short exercise when I was waking up in the morning, still in bed.
Before I would get on a call with a client.
As I was cooking dinner.
When I was playing with my kids.
It was simple, but effective.
The art of being radically present starts with getting your brain and your body into the same place at the same time and quickest way I found to do that was to focus on the senses.
Try it. Right now. Stop what you’re doing. Get your brain in alignment with your senses and just be present.
Feels good huh?
Yay, I found doing puzzles to be way more enjoyable this way too.
