Be Present

So what does it mean to be present? Well, to me being present is about being very mindful and very aware of what’s going in your life. That means that whenever you have any kind of challenge, any kind of difficult situation, you need to understand why you’re going through it. You need to understand where it’s coming from and most importantly, what do you need to learn from that situation? That is the single most important question to ask yourself whenever you are faced with something you fear or something you find particularly challenging to deal with.

You have to be like an investigator. You’re searching for the deepest truth. You’re searching for your inner motivations and you’re trying to understand yourself better. That is, after all, what we’ve come here to do. To understand ourselves.

What is it that you’re meant to learn from this fear or challenge? Whenever I’m faced with any fear, what I do is to go straight into it. For example, if I’m afraid of speaking up or I’m afraid of speaking in front of a large audience, I would actually go and put myself in the situation where I have to speak in front of a large audience because that’s the way I’m going to conquer my fear.

What I will learn and gain along the way is more confidence in myself, I will learn to handle perhaps nervousness and to overcome it, and I might also learn to trust myself, to believe in myself. There are so many wonderful lessons that can come out of any challenge.

We all have a story. We’ve all come with some kind of a narrative. I call that a program or a life pattern or even a theme that seems to repeat over and over and over again.

The way to get any pattern or loop to stop is to learn what you’re meant to from that situation. For example, if you’re constantly in relationships where you are taken for granted, maybe you feel neglected, not noticed or appreciated; well that should direct you to check if what is going on out there in your relationship is stemming from what’s happening within you.

So are you paying attention to yourself? Are you neglecting your own self? Are you appreciating and acknowledging yourself? If something is happening in our external world, it’s really a mirror of what’s happening internally. And to understand what is surging beneath your surface will require you to be very present with yourself and try to understand what is transpiring inside you. So I would look at that and I’d ask myself— “Is this my relationship with my own self mirrored in my relationships with everybody else?

It’s very important to ask questions. We tend to go through life kind of on auto-pilot. We never stop to think: "Why?” “Why is this happening?” “What am I supposed to learn?” “What am I supposed to gain?”

And so just stopping to ask questions through a process of introspection or inner reflection will help you to get in touch with the ‘why’ of things happening. It will help you resolve those challenges and you will feel so much better.

You have to be like an investigator. You’re searching for the deepest truth. You’re searching for your inner motivations and you’re trying to understand yourself better. That is, after all, what we’ve come here to do. To understand ourselves. To really develop and grow into the best we can be. To experience everything our life has to offer us and to enjoy it while we’re at it.

So, why not start today. Ask yourself those questions. We all have a story, and it’s time to see if can unravel yours.