A few weeks ago, I went to breakfast with a dear friend and we were talking about presence, about showing up, about breadth versus depth.
As a person, I like to choose depth and, yet, all the choices in my life say otherwise. My life isn’t nearly as deep and narrow as I would like it to be. It’s pretty broad.
“I am practicing availability,” Erin shared. And when she said those words recognition flashed in me.
For so long, I’ve been focused on a desire to be present, to practice presence as a fundamental priority and value, and for there to be stillness in that presence not the frenetic-ness of having somewhere to be next. Because I always have somewhere to be next. And somewhere to go right after that. There is so little breathing room.
I know that I am not precious or alone in that. So many of us are managing these broad swatches of living, sprinting into exhaustion.
“I don’t know you do it,” someone says to us, and the reality is that we aren’t really doing it all that well. And if that’s the case, we aren’t thriving, we aren’t living our best lives, we aren’t, even though we are everywhere, really all that present.
Here’s the irony of being present. You have to show up to less in order to show up more.
Show up to less so more of you can show up.
And so the challenge I am giving myself is to not just be even more discerning when I am reminding myself of and using the Wholehearted Continuum. That’s a start, yes, and it is a start that will help with my current day-to-day but what I want and need is even deeper reflection on this.
Here are the ten big questions I am asking myself right now for greater clarity, in case they can serve you:
What do I most long for at this stage in my life?
What do I want to do more of in my life?
What do I want to do less of in my life?
What feels effortless right now?
What feels fraught right now?
What parts of my life need to shift to give me more of the deep presence I crave?
What do I need to do differently?
What is one simple decision I can make right now given what I know?
What other decisions are possibilities and how do I feel about each one?
What else do I need to learn or understand or consider?
Here’s to practicing presence and embracing life’s journey and the growth that it always allows for us.
