I'd like to have a conversation about what it is to be present - in the
sense of being available to people.
Being present and available to people is communicated by being
present and available to people. When I'm present and available to
you, you get it. You get the experience I'm being present and available
to you by osmosis. It's a harder row to hoe
describing what being present and available is unless the
description of being present and available is accompanied by being
present and available.
How do you distinguish what it is to be present and
available? You can be present and available, but how do
you describe what that is? When you're around someone who's present and
available, you have a sense of the quality they're bringing forth
making them present and available. You sense it ... but could you
describe what it is so you can distinguish it for someone else?
For me, being present and available is taking charge of, occupying, and
owning the front and center position, so to speak, being
source
and communicating into the World.
The way I'm deploying the phrase front and center is as a
language pointer, if you will, pointing to the experience of
being present and available. When I say the experience of being present
and available to people is the result of taking charge of, occupying,
and owning the front and center position, I'm pointing to
being present and available like a place to stand ie like a
possibility. In this place to stand like a possibility, people are
in front of me, and are the center of my
attention.
The most present and available I can be with people is when I'm
front and center with them: out there in front with
people, being with them in their conversations rather than
in the conversation I've got going on
in my head.
You can experience an experience you're having. But you
can't describe an experience you're having because when
you're describing the experience you're having, it's no longer the
experience you're having: it's the experience you
were having. A described experience, since
description is always after the fact, is never the experience
you're having now. Whenever you describe an experience
you're having, describing the experience diminishes
experiencing the experience. It may even get in the way of
it to the point of damaging it.
Front and center isn't a description of the experience of
being present and available. Neither is it literally where I'm standing
like I'm an actor on a stage, although that's a key aspect of what
being present calls for - front and center, after all, is a phrase
borrowed from the world of theatre and drama. Rather, when I say I'm
front and center, I'm referring to who I'm being when I'm being
source
- in charge of, fully occupying and owning the space, coming into the
World communicating with people on behalf of and for Life
itself.
For me, what it is to be fully present and available is standing front
and center in the space of communication with people.