The less I am present, the more I can be present

I love what I do and have found, over time and practice, that I have developed a level of mastery at being a sounding board, with the key to that having little to do with knowledge and experience around leadership and business, it is far more to do with the ability to deeply listen.

As I wrote about yesterday in “Presence and asking the right questions”, I am constantly looking to deepen my practice. As with yoga, it is called practicing yoga. We are never “there”, it is a lifelong practice to grow, to improve.

Today a reflection on a particular exercise we ran at the Modern Elder Academy this week, ultimately leading me to come up with the Koan:

the less I am present, the more I can be present

As the monk Thich Nhat Hanh notes, is a Buddhist practice to “dissolve the self”. His message in the image above, though, takes it to another level. There is always another level on the journey of practice, and so it is with the practice of presence.

This week with my cohort of compadres at Modern Elder Academy, I have observed us all at different levels of mastery in different areas of what we bring in service of ourselves and others.

One of those areas has been the level of presence (or otherwise) we have each been able to bring to different areas of the work.

This absolutely includes me, as for personal reasons I have found it difficult at times to be fully present, as for those…