Are We Absent from Our Lives?

How do we spend the days of our lives? Are we on autopilot most of the time, doing things mechanically? Are we living in the past or in the future? Or are we mainly present in the moment?

Most of us are swamped by our daily obligations and activities. We are trying to catch up with the requirements of our jobs, families, friends and planned and unexpected happenings. And this often results in states of worry, stress, or exhaustion.

Conscious Presence vs. Presence in Disconnect

There is a difference between being present in the detached parts of our being and conscious presence.

Conscious presence happens when we align with our core being rather than with detached parts of our being run by ego.

Example: Let’s take an example of a person with clinical depression who states that she is present. While she may believe she is present, this is actually a presence in a detached part of her being that is stuck in depression. This is a state of powerlessness and surrender to difficult emotions, rather than conscious presence.

Why Do We Struggle with Being Present?

Why is it that we struggle to be present and conscious in every moment? The reasons for our hesitation to be present seem obvious:

• the reality entails painful states, difficult situations and disturbing emotions
• is seems easier to choose an alternative reality – in which we are more comfortable in

True presence is a willingness to be conscious of what exists within and around us and stay in the moment.

What is in our reality may include pain and suffering – whether personal, collective, or experienced by those in our immediate vicinity. But we are not attached to suffering. We are connected to our core being and consciously present.

Presence with(out) Effort

In our blog Ease of Existence we have already been discussing effort. And how many of us lately felt that our efforts did not pay out?

We may have a belief that we need to put effort in what we want to achieve. If we want to be precise, and go deeper in the topic, we will see that the word effort is usually burdened with meaning involving difficulty, tension, and pressure. While investment of energy is essential and necessary for achieving everything we are set to achieve, it is important to invest this energy in the right things and in the right way. What is, then, the right way to invest energy?

We can “replace” effort with investing our energy with conscious presence.

Let’s view a couple of examples to make this statement clearer:

• Exercising – we can all recall that conscious exercising brings more results than doing many repetitions or forced exercises in an absent-minded state
• Cooking – tasty food comes from cooking with presence (with love) rather than following recipes mechanically
• Studying – when we study with an absent mind, we can read the text ten times and not remember a thing; when we study with presence, we are in our subject and can understand and remember what we study

How Do We Start Avoiding Present?

The choice (most often subconscious) to avoid being present often stems from moments in our lives when the pain was too intense to confront it directly.

Escaping reality and distractions became coping mechanisms, habits that may have formed early in childhood. The Paradox-x practice reveals that individuals who have undergone surgeries, endured painful illnesses, or faced emotionally challenging experiences tend to develop mechanisms for avoiding the present, as the moments were too difficult to bear.

Absent States – From “Harmless” Fantasising to Mental Disorders

There are numerous types of absent states of being.

The absent states can also be as simple as absent-mindedness or “harmless” fantasising. The moments of daydreaming comfort us and seem to “sedate” the pain of our reality.

Worry is a continuous anticipation of potential negative outcomes, and since we spend our time in anticipation, we surely are not present in the moment. This perpetual state of concern reflects our evasion of the current moment and a preoccupation with an uncertain future.

Mental disorders are some of the most extreme escape mechanisms – they are often characterised by escape to a completely different or imagined reality.

For example, schizophrenia is characterised by hearing voices and distorted or false perception (inability to distinguish between reality and imagined worlds).

Another example is irrational fears which are present when there is no real threat. Or when we fear imagined future situations. These fictional fears come with intense thoughts and strong reactions that move us intensively from the present moment and keep us focused on the imagined scenario.

We can use the following list of escape mechanisms as an inspiration for identifying the habitual mechanisms that we may have:

• Fantasising and daydreaming about the future
• Reliving past memories
• Social networks or binge-watching TV
• Alcohol, medications, drugs, indulging in food
• Excessive exercising
• Being consumed in work or other activities
• Worries, fears, numbness, depressive states, other mental disbalances and disorders

Challenges in Becoming Present

Being present is easier said than done, particularly when our bodies and emotional states are “a mess”. And when we have already developed escape mechanisms that are our go-to refuge from pain and suffering. The escape mechanisms become our subconscious habit and we are often not even aware of when and how they are triggered.

The places of escape, our imagined worlds and intoxicated states are often “places” that provide us with the comfort of being taken out from our reality and suffering. Still, we all know that return to reality after an escape is even more painful than the original state. The pain and suffering we tried to escape from are still there, but they turn out to be even more challenging.

In the experience of Paradox-x practice, the only way OUT of the painful reality is THROUGH the painful reality.

How to Become More Present

Cultivating a greater presence demands courage. There are numerous mindfulness practices that can be helpful in strengthening presence.

The Paradox-x processes take us a step further and deeper. We are able to identify the causes of our escape from presence, transform our beliefs and negative emotions and adopt or strengthen virtues that are the basis for being present.

The virtues that we may need to strengthen can include acceptance, understanding, stability, or other virtues specific for each of us.