Your Presence is a Gift

I wanted to share something that came up for me this week with one of my monthly mentorship coaching clients. 

You can hear it here or read the transcript below.

It's something that I think is really, really important and it's also really simple to grasp, but not necessarily so simple to enact. 

It's all about how do we give the greatest gift to those that we care about in our interactions with them.

When it comes down to it. The most important thing that we can offer others is the quality of our presence, the quality of our attention meaning how we listen. 

How do we show up and be with them? In a world that is full of distractions in a world that uses technology more and more and more...yes, a medium of communication, but also a medium of distraction, right? 

We use technology so much now to communicate with each other through text messages, through instant messages through emails, it's meant to connect us more to each other, but really, it creates so much distraction when we're actually with another person as well. 

That's what humans are really craving, but I find that I hear from the people that I work with, just from my friends from so many people is that we need connection, real human connection with others. 

And that is the best gift we can give others. 

So I was speaking with this client this week, and she was talking about having a really beautiful but intense weekend with her beloved stepdaughter and really wanting to be there and show up for her in the best way that would help her because she's such a loving heart and she cares so deeply about her daughter. And it's just gorgeous. Her care for her. And I offered that the most precious gift, the way that she could help her stepdaughter in the greatest way, is just to show up and be there with her for her. The quality of presence. The quality of attention.

Sharing our attention, or undistracted attention for the other is such a gift.

We may worry about knowing how to support those that we care about. Because we don't know what to say to make it better for them. But the really beautiful thing is that we don't need to make it better. 

Each of us are on our own soul journey. We're here to learn the lessons and have the personal transformation and evolution that we came to experience through our life experiences. It's through our experience that we learn and so we're not here to make it better for those we care about, to save them from learning through their experience. Absolutely. 

We want to help them but we don't need to give them the answers because we don't know the answers for another.

That's all up to us to discover what's right for us. So we're not here to save our loved ones. We're not here to even guide them. They may ask for our guidance. And we can offer our perspective if they're asking for it. If they're asking for it. I will say we're not here to offer it without them asking without their consent because then they're really not in a space to receive it. Yes, we can offer some of our own perspective. 

However, the most important thing that we can do is show up and attune to them. So what is that? 

In the Somatic method, we talk so much about attunement. Attunement is CO regulation. We are really opening ourselves up to hearing and seeing the person in front of us and without an agenda. 

We are here to be present and to really listen to them and be there for them and with them through the quality of our own energy with them. What people really need from us is to be seen, to be known, to just feel that we have them that we're holding them in our attention and our our presence and our focus and our love and our care and the way that they truly feel that goes so much deeper than our words. 

So if you don't know what to say to someone that is maybe having a hard time that you care about. You don't need to know all you need to say you can say these things, you can say, "I hear you" or "I hear that's hard for you. And I'm here for you. I care about you and I'm here" 

It's that simple. It's not about having answers, or trying to fix the problems or save them from what they're going through. It's about showing your support through truly listening, looking at them eye contact or relaxed energy in your own body to be able to receive them. Being there with them. Feeling them hearing them seeing them without your own mind running about what's happening solutions. What am I going to do what am I going to say? What am I going to how can I say them? No, no, no. Take a breath. Just relax. Just drop down into the present moment. Be with your own body and be with your loved one and just be there for them. 

That is the greatest gift you can give them. So I'm going to read a quote that my client shared with me after we had this conversation that she came across that perfectly sums up what I'm talking about here. It is by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk that I have been reading for decades. He is really a beautiful and brilliant man. So I suggest you read some of his books. 

The quote is, "The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers." -- Thich Nhat Hanh

That's exactly what I'm talking about. Our presence, our care, our openness, our attunement with the other is the most precious gift we can give others. 

I'm here for you. I hear you and I'm here. Just try that next time you find yourself in a conversation with someone else that you care about. That's all you need to do this offer that and the quality of your presence with them.