The Practice of Presence and the Art of Letting Go
Belinda Gore, copyright 2003

The Practice of Presence is a fundamental skill for spiritual unfolding. It leads to liberation from the fears that drive us all down into our more unhealthy behavior patterns. By learning to live in the present moment-right here, right now-we can get free ourselves from the ego's attempts to continually fix itself and begin to enjoy the moment, where the only true and meaningful satisfaction is available. 

The practice we explore in the Practice of Presence workshops offered through The Enneagram Institute of Central Ohio focuses on three steps: Awareness, Allowing, and Active Presence. Here are stories from the lives of three people who have attended Enneagram workshops to illustrate each step.

AWARENESS: KAREN LEARNS TO SHOW UP

It is surprising to most of us to realize how little time we spend living in full awareness of the present moment. Let me give you an example. Karen is a high-level manager in a large corporation, very bright and very responsible. At 45, she has never been married and has a significant weight problem. She knows she has to make some changes in her life if she doesn't want to be alone forever, but she doesn't know how to begin.

Karen has a Type Nine personality (Enneagram type) and learned very early in her life how to check out and go numb rather than have to feel anxiety. She knows she is overweight, but never really lets herself look in the mirror or pay attention to how hard it is to climb stairs or walk for any distance.

Even though Nine's are the experts at denying disturbing internal feelings as well as avoiding external conflicts, we all have these characteristics in some situations. None of us likes having our boundaries violated or our autonomy compromised. Nine's have just learned to deal with these conflicts by withdrawing from the pain while appearing to still be involved.

Basic as it sounds, Karen had to begin with learning to just show up in her own body. You might want to try this too.

EXERCISE: sit quietly and let yourself be aware of your feet. Keep your attention there, feeling the floor or ground beneath them. Now notice your body sitting in the chair, feeling the pressure against your body and the sense of support the chair offers. Pay attention to your shoulders and let them relax, and then notice your face and let it relax as well. Now focus on your breathing. See how long you can just keep your mind empty, sensing only the air flowing in and out of your nostrils. Don't be surprised if your mind starts to wander after a couple of breaths.

It's hard for most of us to keep awareness focused on the here and now for even thirty seconds. But keep practicing, counting each breath. When your mind wanders, just notice it and quietly return your focus to the breathing. This practice will keep you in your body if you are diligent about not letting your mind wander. When you have counted fifty breaths, you will probably find that you feel calmer and more rested. This is a good exercise to try when you cannot sleep because your mind is spinning after a busy or emotional day.

Once Karen could stay focused in her body, she realized that her body was in pain. We decided to have her start seeing a massage therapist to help her learn to identify the pain and how to relieve it. She is starting to realize that she has a lot of emotional feelings, too, that have been lying dormant under her numbness. That leads us to the second step, Allowing.

ALLOWING: RICHARD ALLOWS HIMSELF TO FEEL LONELY

A.H. Almaas writes, "the most elementary, most external requirement for growth is the willingness to let go of what you believe should happen." Just allowing life to be what it is gives us a chance to show up for life, to experience what is really happening in the moment, and to receive inner guidance based on what is happening NOW instead of what was going on thirty or forty or fifty years ago.

Trying to be good doesn't get us very far in our spiritual development--even though that seems to be what most people learned they were supposed to do when they were children. The problem is that as adults we are still unconsciously trying to be good little girls and boys according to what we believed our parents, school, or church were teaching us-or rebelling against the same teaching.

In psychology, we call that internalized learning the SuperEgo and it is the core of the Inner Critic or judge that makes life miserable for a lot of people. Allowing means letting go of the Inner Critic.

My clients in psychotherapy get pretty nervous about this step. "If I just let go, there's no telling what I'll do, what kind of trouble I'll get into. And I'll never reach my goals in life, I'll just be a loser." Most people discover that they don't have much trust in a higher source of guidance than the SuperEgo. We can learn about basic trust by allowing and accepting our experience of the moment, in order to see where it leads us.

Richard is recently divorced and is feeling depressed and anxious. He has decided that in order for his life to be happy and meaningful, he has to restore his relationship with his ex-wife. He has a type Five personality, so he has spent most of his life living in his head and believing that analyzing and strategizing will provide the solutions to his problems.

We spent some time just identifying his loneliness and the fear that he will never be happy in his life. I give him credit for the courage it takes to just allow himself to feel those difficult emotions without trying to change them. As Richard worked on allowing himself to feel the depths of his loneliness, he discovered that he has been lonely most of his life. He had fallen in love twice and each time hoped that the relationship would save him from his loneliness. And when each relationship ended, he sank deeper into despair.

We focused on his early life to discover the experiences that lead to a belief that he was alone in the world. The Type Five characteristics in all of us give us a sense of feeling overwhelmed by the world and in our darkest moments believing that no one is really available to us, that no one knows what they are doing and so we can only rely on ourselves with all of our inadequacies to just get through life the best we can.

However, as Richard faced his fear of loneliness, he slowly began to feel the welling up of a deep inner connection to the world. Presence is a real experience and when we feel it, we know we are not alone. Presence is what we contact when we allow whatever is happening in the moment.

ACTIVE PRESENCE: MARIAN'S NEXT STEP

Once we have learned to be aware in the moment and to allow whatever is occurring, something mysterious moves us forward in our lives. I call it Active Presence. We don't just sit on a rock and let the world go by for the rest of our lives, but we find an inner force that directs us from moment to moment.

Marian has been in Alcoholics Anonymous for three years and during this time has quit smoking, lost weight, got back on her feet financially, and maintained her sobriety. The second and third steps in the Twelve Step programs are a good basis for the practice of Active Presence.

Step Two says "We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity," and in step Three we make a decision to turn our lives over to the care of that Higher Power.

Marian has learned those steps well as she worked on changing her life in so many ways, but now that her life is in order, she sometimes feels stuck. She got used to seeing what needed to be fixed. If there was a problem, she could find a solution.

As a Type Seven personality, she has a great gusto for life and has been willing to do "whatever it takes" to live well. Through therapy and her recovery program she has learned to sit with her feelings and experience her pain, something that is a challenge for all of us. Now she is learning the next step, that Presence will guide her into a future that she cannot imagine because she has solved all the problems that she thought she would be her baggage for a lifetime.

We all need inner guidance, whether we call the source of it a Higher Power or higher Self or Buddha nature or God. When we have learned to be aware of ourselves fully in the moment and to allow whatever we find there, we naturally connect with that source.

Once you have experienced it, you know that it is true. The challenge is to stay connected and listen, rather than be overtaken by our very active minds that usually insist on solving the problem rather than listening for guidance

EXERCISE: One tool for learning Active Presence uses journalling. Take out a sheet of paper and set a timer for at least five minutes. At the top of the sheet of paper write this question: What do I really need to do today? Now write a brief answer to that question, just one or two lines, no long "to-do" lists. Then close your eyes and ask yourself the question again. Write another answer. Keep up the process until the time is over. You will discover that clarity begins to emerge, revealing simple guidance about what is really important in your life today.
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For information about The Enneagram Institute of Central Ohio and upcoming workshops, visit: www.enneagram-ohio.com or write to Dr. Belinda Gore at mailto:bgore@enneagram-ohio.com