Ep #37: How to Be Present
episode summary
Being "present" has become a bit of a buzz word these days, but it's not just another new age-y concept meant to make you feel bad about how you're living. Being present can reduce stress, help you get more done than multi-tasking (true story!), and best of all, allow to you really live and enjoy your life.
If being fully present doesn't come easily to you, that's okay! It just takes practice, and I'm here to help!
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Your Best Year workshop
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CHAPTERS:
4:48 - What Does "Being Present" Even Mean?
10:11 - Why Does It Matter?
11:59 - Tips for Being Present
listen to the episode:
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Hey, I'm Michelle Gauthier and you're listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. Hello friends, happy holiday season again. This week, I'm going to be talking about being present. A lot of times, when I'm talking to just friends or clients or people about what their goals are, a lot of times what they'll say is I just feel like I'm always doing a million things and I just want to be present somewhere. And I recently posted something on my own on my personal Facebook page about what people wanted the most for the holidays, and being present was one of the biggest ones. They don't want to miss out on the magic of the season or the holidays with their family. I went to a concert last night, which was a Sunday night - look at me going out on Sunday nights - with my parents. I took my mom for her birthday to a John Denver concert. I'm using air quotes because John Denver died, I don't know 25 years ago or so, but he is her absolute fave and I saw that there was someone coming who was an - I was going to say imposter - impersonator, who was an impersonator of John Denver. He dresses like him, he looks like him and he sings his songs, and I just thought it would be fun. So my mom and my dad and my brother and I went and it really got me thinking, as we were sitting there in the concert: why is it so different to sit at a concert than to just listen to music? So like to listen to John Denver versus to see a pretend John Denver in person? It's so much easier to be present when you're there in person because that's the only thing that you're doing. You're just there to watch the concert and I don't know about you, but when I listen to music, I don't ever just sit down and think, "I'm going to listen to this music, that's the only thing I'm going to do". I will turn on music while I'm like doing the dishes or driving my car or whatever else. But I noticed how much I enjoyed it because that was the only thing that I was doing. Same thing for the night before - you can tell it's the holiday season, I've got so many fun things going on - but the night before I went to Cirque du Soleil Christmas show. It was great and of course, if you've seen a Cirque du Soleil show, you know that they're like jumping through hoops that are nine feet high and hanging from the ceiling. I'm like clutching my pearls, so to speak, as I'm watching it, like, "oh my gosh, they're going to fall or whatever, and I was with my daughter she's 13, and I was looking over at her and watching her watch the show and thinking, I mean, they have videos of this and more at their fingertips at all times. But there's just something about being there and being fully there, and the only thing you're doing is just watching that show and listening to the music and seeing the performers, and so it just really made me appreciate being present at big things like that. But I also think that it's really important to be present at all the little things in life. So today I'm going to talk about what it means to be present at home, at work, in relationships, why it's good for you - it definitely the lowers our stress to be present - and then the hard question: how to do it. If it doesn't come naturally to you or it's not something that you've practiced, there are some pretty easy steps that you can take just to learn to be more present. It's just a muscle that you need to flex. Before I jump into that, if this being present really resonates with you, that might be your word for 2024. I just wanted to remind you that I'm offering a class called Your Best Life, and it's going to be on January 9th, which is a Tuesday, at noon Central Time. It's going to be a live workshop, and in that workshop, we're going to go through a whole workbook that you'll get when you register for the class, so that you can look back at your 2023 and see what went well. Think about what you want to create in 2024. Choose a word for your year and then make plans to execute on that. So by the end of the workshop, you'll have a blueprint, a whole plan, for what you want to do in 2024. I would love for you to join me. I think it's going to be a lot of fun and it's also going to be very productive. The link to sign up is in the show notes, and the cost of this class is $24. So $24 to set up your 2024. A nd if being present isn't your biggest goal, maybe you're already rocking that part, but you've got something else you'd like to work on, like feeling more calm and less angry, or more relaxed and less overwhelmed, I can help you with that too. I can help you with whatever your goals are. Okay, so let's get back to being present. First, let's talk about what it means to be present. So to me, being present means just being in this moment, that we're in, without thinking about the past or what you're going to do next or what worries you have about the future, and really you're focused on what you're doing and nothing else. So right now I can say I am fully being present at recording this podcast. It doesn't mean that you're always happy in that moment. So, for example, you could be really present to a feeling of grief or sadness. So it's not the pressure to always be like present and happy, it's just to be present and to allow what you're doing to be the only thing that you're doing. So if you're having a conversation with someone and that conversation is making you feel sad, you just allow that. It is impossible to be present when you're multitasking, because when you're multitasking, you're never thinking about one thing. If you're single-tasking, where you're just working on one thing at a time, you can be present. So if we think about this in the context of all of life, an example at work might be when you're in a meeting, if you're not being present, you might be answering emails on your laptop, pinging your work friend on the side on your work instant messenger, checking texts on your phone, and then later wondering why you didn't get anything done that day and why it feels like your brain is spinning and you're feeling overwhelmed. So for me, that really means just focusing on work during work hours. Or if I want to work on personal stuff during what would normally be a work day, I specifically say, okay, now is the time that I'm going to make phone calls, you know, call and make a dentist appointment or whatever it is that I need to do. So really just focusing on work during work hours. And then what works for me - and I know a lot of people with different types of careers don't have this option, but you can come up with a version of your own - what it works for me is to see clients, I'm just naturally present because I'm talking directly to the person, and then it works for me to just focus on one task at a time. So I prioritize them and do one task at a time. Of course, life always brings us interruptions, especially at work. Somebody might come in, knock on your door or send you an instant message. I feel like there were times in my old career where I was trying to concentrate on something and I would get like eight things at the same time and I'd have you know screens popping up all over that somebody needed something for me. So it's not that those interruptions can be helped, necessarily, if that's like a requirement for you to be logged into that but when you get distracted to remember, okay, yes, this is what I was doing, I'm gonna go back to that, I'm gonna put myself on Do Not Disturb for a while. At home, being present looks like participating in family activities without doing anything else. So if you guys are playing a family game, eating dinner, watching a movie, going out somewhere together, that you're just doing that and you're just talking to your family, you're not like leaving to throw in a load of laundry or, you know, looking at your phone or sending a quick email. If your kids are little - mine are teenagers, so this doesn't apply to me - but if your kids are a little, you know, sitting on the floor, playing with them or reading them a book is an example of being present. I just want to say with this one that I think it's impossible, and not even a goal that we need to have, to try to be present at all times. F or example, I cannot be present to my children all the time, even when it's just the three of us home, because I have to sometimes do other stuff. But there are times, breakfast is a good example in my family, where that's all I'm doing. I actually sit down and eat breakfast, especially with my daughter, because she likes to sit down and eat, and I don't eat that early, so I just drink a cup of coffee or have a glass of water and I just sit there with her and that's all I do for that moment. So I'm not suggesting that you need to do this all the time, but just work on creating little pockets, maybe two to five minutes, where you're fully present. Being present in relationships means, when you're at lunch with a friend, for example, that you're sitting and listening and engaging with that person instead of looking at your phone or looking around or talking to the person at the next table. It also means when you walk in the door and you ask your spouse, how are you doing, or how was your day, that you wait and listen to that answer. And that when you're in relationship with someone, that you listen for the sake of listening, for understanding, not for the sake of responding. So when you're listening for the sake of listening, you're just focused on what they're saying. When you're listening for the sake of responding, like, think about when you're in a fight with someone you're like, oh, I'm gonna say this next, and she's wrong on that. That takes you away from the present moment as well, because you're thinking of the future. What am I gonna say next? So next, I'm gonna tell you how to work on being more present. But let's first think about why it's good, why this is important. If you've ever had a moment like I was just talking about at the John Denver concert, or you know just a moment when you're in relationship with someone and you're looking at them and you're talking to them and you're really both listening and engaged in the conversation, it just feels good. It feels good. For me, it feels good in my brain, like I'm just in one place and I can notice a lot more in the moment. So, for example, if I ask the handsome man friend how you doing, how was your day, and he starts to tell me and I'm listening, but I'm also like loading the dishes in, or, you know, pouring us a drink, or talking to my kids, or just real quick checking a text. I might hear what he said, kind of, in between, but if I'm sitting there actually talking to him and listening to him, I can see his body language, I can read more about the situation, I can notice where we're sitting, etc. It's just so much more, such a deeper connection. It's good for you, for your relationships and for your connection even to yourself. I also think it's really good because you get more done. We feel like when we multitask, we're trying to quick, quick, quick, get a million things done. But you know if you've tried this, it never works. It never works. If you're working on a hundred things at a time, you just cannot focus enough to get anything done. So, even though it feels counterintuitive, when you can be present and single- task instead of multitask, you can get a lot more done. So if you're now sold on the idea that being present is a goal that you want to have and something that you want to do more, here are some ways that you can do that. So, first of all, notice when you're not present. So notice when your mind is wandering, or, for example, I have a really hard time sitting still in my own kitchen because there's always dishes to load, dishes to unload, sweep the floor, you know, there's always something that can be done. So when I stand up let's say I'm sitting down having that breakfast with my daughter and I see some crumbs on the floor and I stand up to get the broom, I just notice, "oh wait, I'm walking away from doing that one thing". And then I just gently sit back down. So the first thing to do, as always, is just to notice when you're doing it, notice when you're not being present. Couple tricks you can do if you really have a hard time concentrating. Let's say you're in an all-day meeting. I used to have a lot of all-day meetings in my old life and after a while it is very hard to pay attention. But you want to. You really want to pay attention to the meeting. You take a couple of breaths to center yourself, focus on your breath for just a minute, and it will help you get back in the moment. Another huge thing to do is limit your distractions on purpose. Okay, phones are the number one problem with this. My phone is just permanently on Do Not Disturb. I don't have any notifications of any kind turned on. So if you have social media notifications turned on, if you have text notifications, phone, all that stuff. Every time something happens and you hear a ding, our brains are kind of programmed to think that that's an emergency or something that we need to respond to right away. So a way to change that is to just turn off your notifications and think of your phone like something that you get to check when you want some information from the phone. And you can, by the way, be totally present with your phone if that's the only thing that you're doing. I'm talking about when the phone is a distraction from you being present to something else. Another thing you can do is when you have distractions - so let's just say I'm recording a podcast and I have my phone on Do Not Disturb, so that's not distracting me, but let's just say my dog were to just randomly throw up in the other room and then I have to go clean it up. I shouldn't say that - I choose to go clean it up. I suppose I could leave it there. I go clean it up, then I come back, and I have to remember, okay, what was I doing, let me get back to the present moment, take a breath. Okay, I'm doing this podcast. A nd then the doorbell rings and there's a FedEx delivery that probably didn't need the doorbell to ring. But the doorbell ring interrupted me. And because the doorbell rang, I thought, oh, maybe that's my mom, maybe she needs something (my parents live close to me) so I went and checked the door, came back again. Again. Bring myself back to the present. So when distractions happen, it will take you off course, there's just no doubt about it. But when they happen, just come back, draw your attention back to the present moment. Ask yourself, okay, what was I focused on? What was the one thing I was focused on? And then just get back to it. Another good tip if you're having trouble really focusing is to just notice where you are. Focus on what you can see, what you can hear, what you can smell, even what you can taste, and that will help bring you to the present moment. That particular trick is really helpful to me when I feel anxious. So being anxious is not being present because you're worrying about what's going to happen next, right, you're worried about something that could happen in the future, and so if you could just bring yourself back to the present with using that trick to focus on what you can see, hear, smell, taste, feel, anything with your senses, it will help distract you from those anxious future thoughts and bring you back to the present thoughts. Another thing you can do is be proactive. So meditation really helps you be present. That's the whole point of meditation. So doing a guided meditation is great. Or even just practice being present for like one or two minutes. Just sit quietly and just watch the thoughts in your head, notice what they are. Again, the goal here is not to empty your head or to say I have no thoughts in my head, just to be like, "oh interesting, I'm thinking about... "like when I just did that. I'm thinking about a library book that needs to be returned, for example. And then the last thing is set an intention. So if your goal for the holiday season is to be more present, when, when exactly, do you want to be present? Maybe you want to be present on Christmas morning or on New Year's Day at breakfast with your family. Make it a very specific time and decide I'm going to be present for that event and plan ahead of time. Have your phone off or in the other room, think, "I'm just going to do this for 15, 20, 30 minutes however long it's going to be and set an intention to be present, and that will really help you stick with it. Okay, friends, I made it all the way through without another distraction. Yay, I hope you have a fantastic week and I will see you next week. Good luck being present and as always reach out to me if you have any questions and if you want to register for that New Year class, don't forget, the link is in the show notes. Okay, have a great week. See you then. Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at MichelleGauthier.com. See you next week.
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