Ampersand Answers: Present

When you are not present, you are in danger.

Patsy Rodenburg, head of voice at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama 

The Question: 

How can I learn to stay present?  

&mpersand Answers:  

Yowza. That’s quite a statement, isn’t it? But it’s also true. The first time I read it, I felt as though a gong had been struck in my chest. 

Spiritual teachers cite the present as desirable all the time, but few tell us how to get here. Strangely, more of us spend our time in the future or the past rather than, as Ram Dass so candidly recommended, Here Now. 

The thing is: the present really is all there is. This moment. Then, there will be another moment, but that moment isn’t here yet, and we’re still in this one. 

There are all sorts of tricks to get present, but the best one I know is stamping your feet. Now, I know it’s hard to do that in the middle of a meeting, but fake it. Stomp lightly. Another way is to wash your hands. Jumping jacks work, too. Focusing on an object right where you are, and really seeing it is another. 

Find the tricks that work for you, and then begin to ask yourself what makes you flee to past or future, and not be present? Once you resolve whatever that is, it’ll be much easier to stay here. True presence, here now, is the energy of survival.

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