Spiritual Development Articles

The Practice of Presence and the Art of Letting Go
Belinda Gore, copyright 2003

The Practice of Presence is a fundamental skill for spiritual unfolding. It leads to liberation from the fears that drive us all down into our more unhealthy behavior patterns. By learning to live in the present moment-right here, right now-we can get free ourselves from the ego's attempts to continually fix itself and begin to enjoy the moment, where the only true and meaningful satisfaction is available. 

The practice we explore in the Practice of Presence workshops offered through The Enneagram Institute of Central Ohio focuses on three steps: Awareness, Allowing, and Active Presence. Here are stories from the lives of three people who have attended Enneagram workshops to illustrate each step.

AWARENESS: KAREN LEARNS TO SHOW UP

It is surprising to most of us to realize how little time we
spend living in full awareness of the present moment. Let
me give you an example. Karen is a high-level manager in a
large corporation, very bright and very responsible. At 45,
she has never been married and has a significant weight
problem. She knows she has to make some changes in her life
if she doesn't want to be alone forever, but she doesn't
know how to begin. 

Karen has a Type Nine personality (Enneagram type) and learned very early in her life how to check out and go numb rather than have to feel anxiety. She knows she is overweight, but never really lets herself look in the mirror or pay attention to how hard it is to climb stairs or walk for any distance. 

Even though Nine's are the experts at denying disturbing internal
feelings as well as avoiding external conflicts, we all have
these characteristics in some situations. None of us likes
having our boundaries violated or our autonomy compromised. 
Nine's have just learned to deal with these conflicts by
withdrawing from the pain while appearing to still be involved. 

Basic as it sounds, Karen had to begin with learning to just
show up in her own body. You might want to try this too. 

EXERCISE: sit quietly and let yourself be aware of your
feet. Keep your attention there, feeling the floor or
ground beneath them. Now notice your body sitting in the
chair, feeling the pressure against your body and the sense
of support the chair offers. Pay attention to your
shoulders and let them relax, and then notice your face and
let it relax as well. Now focus on your breathing. 

See how long you can just keep your mind empty, sensing only the air flowing in and out of your nostrils. Don't be surprised if
your mind starts to wander after a couple of breaths. It's
hard for most of us to keep awareness focused on the here
and now for even thirty seconds. But keep practicing,
counting each breath. 

When your mind wanders, just notice it and quietly return your focus to the breathing. This practice will keep you in your body if you are diligent about not letting your mind wander. When you have counted fifty breaths, you will probably find that you feel calmer and more rested. This is a good exercise to try when you
cannot sleep because your mind is spinning after a busy or
emotional day.

Once Karen could stay focused in her body, she realized that
her body was in pain. We decided to have her start seeing a
massage therapist to help her learn to identify the pain and
how to relieve it. She is starting to realize that she has
a lot of emotional feelings, too, that have been lying
dormant under her numbness. That leads us to the second
step, Allowing.

ALLOWING: RICHARD ALLOWS HIMSELF TO FEEL LONELY

A.H. Almaas writes, "the most elementary, most external
requirement for growth is the willingness to let go of what
you believe should happen." Just allowing life to be what
it is gives us a chance to show up for life, to experience
what is really happening in the moment, and to receive inner
guidance based on what is happening NOW instead of what was
going on thirty or forty or fifty years ago. 

Trying to be good doesn't get us very far in our spiritual
development--even though that seems to be what most people
learned they were supposed to do when they were children.
The problem is that as adults we are still unconsciously
trying to be good little girls and boys according to what we
believed our parents, school, or church were teaching us-or
rebelling against the same teaching. 

In psychology, we call that internalized learning the SuperEgo and it is the core of the Inner Critic or judge that makes life miserable for a lot of people. Allowing means letting go of the Inner Critic.

My clients in psychotherapy get pretty nervous about this step. "If I just let go, there's no telling what I'll do, what kind of trouble I'll get into. And I'll never reach my goals in life, I'll just be a loser." Most people discover that they don't have much trust in a higher source of guidance than the SuperEgo. We can learn about basic trust by allowing and accepting our experience of the moment, in order to see where it leads us. 

Richard is recently divorced and is feeling depressed and anxious. He has decided that in order for his life to be
happy and meaningful, he has to restore his relationship
with his ex-wife. He has a type Five personality, so he has
spent most of his life living in his head and believing that
analyzing and strategizing will provide the solutions to his
problems. 

We spent some time just identifying his loneliness and the fear that he will never be happy in his life. I give him credit for the courage it takes to just allow himself to feel those difficult emotions without trying to change them. 

As Richard worked on allowing himself to feel the depths of
his loneliness, he discovered that he has been lonely most
of his life. He had fallen in love twice and each time hoped that the relationship would save him from his loneliness. And when each relationship ended, he sank deeper into despair. 

We focused on his early life to discover the experiences that lead to a belief that he was alone in the world. The Type Five characteristics in all of us give us a sense of feeling overwhelmed by the world and in our darkest moments believing that no one is really available to us, that no one knows what they are doing and so we can only rely on ourselves with all of our
inadequacies to just get through life the best we can.

However, as Richard faced his fear of loneliness, he slowly
began to feel the welling up of a deep inner connection to
the world. Presence is a real experience and when we feel
it, we know we are not alone. Presence is what we contact
when we allow whatever is happening in the moment. 

ACTIVE PRESENCE: MARIAN'S NEXT STEP

Once we have learned to be aware in the moment and to allow
whatever is occurring, something mysterious moves us forward
in our lives. I call it Active Presence. We don't just sit
on a rock and let the world go by for the rest of our lives,
but we find an inner force that directs us from moment to
moment. 

Marian has been in Alcoholics Anonymous for three years and
during this time has quit smoking, lost weight, got back on
her feet financially, and maintained her sobriety. The
second and third steps in the Twelve Step programs are a
good basis for the practice of Active Presence. 

Step Two says "We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity," and in step Three we make a decision to turn our lives over to the care of that Higher
Power. 

Marian has learned those steps well as she worked on
changing her life in so many ways, but now that her life is
in order, she sometimes feels stuck. She got used to seeing
what needed to be fixed. If there was a problem, she could
find a solution. 

As a Type Seven personality, she has a great gusto for life and has been willing to do "whatever it takes" to live well. Through therapy and her recovery program she has learned to sit with her feelings and experience her pain, something that is a challenge for all of us. Now she is learning the next step, that Presence will guide her into a future that she cannot imagine because she has solved all the problems that she thought she would be her baggage for a lifetime. 

We all need inner guidance, whether we call the source of it
a Higher Power or higher Self or Buddha nature or God. When
we have learned to be aware of ourselves fully in the moment
and to allow whatever we find there, we naturally connect
with that source. 

Once you have experienced it, you know that it is true. The challenge is to stay connected and listen, rather than be overtaken by our very active minds that usually insist on solving the problem rather than listening for guidance. 

EXERCISE: One tool for learning Active Presence uses
journaling. Take out a sheet of paper and set a timer for
at least five minutes. At the top of the sheet of paper
write this question: What do I really need to do today?
Now write a brief answer to that question, just one or two
lines, no long "to-do" lists. Then close your eyes and ask
yourself the question again. Write another answer. Keep up
the process until the time is over. You will discover that
clarity begins to emerge, revealing simple guidance about
what is really important in your life today.

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For information about The Enneagram Institute of Central Ohio and upcoming workshops, visit  www.enneagram-ohio.com or write to Dr. Belinda Gore at mailto:bgore@enneagram-ohio.com

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