Being present is not a skill
Some meditation advice has a vibe like... “To become more present, all you need to do is practice! It's just a skill, like learning to ride a bike 😊”
This never worked for me. When I tried to force presence through practice, I made little progress.
Being present isn't a skill to build — it's the natural state! What blocks presence is unconscious predictions of bad outcomes. Remove these blocks to make presence automatic.
I struggled to be present with emotions in my body. Daily meditation didn't help. Finally I asked: “What bad thing happens if I feel my feelings?” My system responded: emotional pain would be overwhelming, feelings would make me less productive, expressing emotions would anger others. After untangling these predictions, emotional presence became much easier. (Details)
With others' emotions, I felt I'd be obligated to fix their pain if I truly experienced it. After addressing these predictions, empathetic presence improved significantly. (Details)
When investigating my chronic neck tension, instead of trying to "be more present" with the pain, I looked for what bad things I felt would happen if I fully felt it. My system revealed: feeling the sensation meant acknowledging I could leave social situations that felt unsafe, which itself felt dangerous. After untangling this and other blocks, most of my tension resolved. I'm still finding and untangling more blocks. (Details)
Now, you might wonder: if presence isn't a skill, why do some people seem to benefit from meditation practice? Well, meditation can help with noticing blocks and creating space to work with them. The practice itself isn’t “learning as skill” so much as it’s creating opportunities to identify and unlearn (release) blocks that get in the way of presence. This would explain why some people can meditate for years without becoming much more present, and why others grow quickly once they notice and integrate their core blocks.
Most of what I’ve done to develop more presence is scan my system for bad things that would happen if I was fully present. Takes skill:
One last thing: Once you become fully present, you may be tempted to think “Oh, I get it now! Being present is so simple! Just be present!” But that will overlook all the little blocks you untangled along the way. (Once blocks are untangled, they are forgotten!)
Natural presence is already there, waiting to be uncovered. Integrate the blocks!
Thanks to Stag Lynn and Shailen for help editing. Thanks to CFAR, Anna Salamon and my clients for support.
Related:
How some give the advice to “learn to set boundaries” when actually what you need to do is unlearn your insecurities.
Much of the advice in The Courage to be Disliked makes a similar error.
I'm largely in agreement -- that cultivating presence is the natural outcome of removing the inner impediments to it (i.e., the emotional/psychological blocks that get in the way.)
However, I'd argue meditation (and similar activities) also develop meta-cognitive capacities and attentional regulation. Easiest example, phone/tech/social media use has a way of hijacking our attention independently of our emotional capacity. So meditation offers a deliberate means of training collectedness/concentration/awareness, which supports presence versus the external impediments.
(Of course, more emotional blocks/insecurities will lead to more escapist/avoidance behaviors as well, not to down play that.)
I love what you’ve written. Often my practice feels more like getting out of my own way than learning a new thing