When my mother was a little girl, she used to listen to a song at Christmas where one of the singers would say, in a spoken voice, "Presents Nice" over and over again. It became a catchphrase tossed about my family through all of our Christmas celebrations. So,that's your explanation about how I came up with the title for this entry.
So, presence. Presence Nice. Can you see I'm stalling a bit as I scramble to stream together words to make some sense of coherent thoughts that will inspire and entertain, or perhaps just entertain. I don't claim to be an enlightened guru. I just like to write. Maybe you take something away from it. Who can tell?
I guess what comes up when I think about that hot button word, presence, is the way my mind works. Yes, its hot button. People toss it around in all forms of spiritual circles. The Presence of God. Be One With The Presence. Be Present. Be In The Now. And, what I have found through my spiritual seeking is that no matter the spiritual leanings the practitioner, of sorts, will end up enforcing his or her beliefs in a way that comes out as judgmental, controlling, and condemning. What happens, then, is that we who are on the receiving end of this behavior develop feelings of inadequacy, feelings of shame if we don't measure up. And, as I said this is the majority of spiritual or religious practises, so no finger pointing at the Christian worldview, no indeed.
I think in general this may be a facet of human nature, not merely a component of any spiritual belief or practice. That's right. As I wrote last week, anything can be a drug and in that the need to enforce said feelings or beliefs merely for our own comfort and peace of mind. "If everyone behaves in this way, according to my limited understanding and construct, then the world will be right".
What happens though, is that everyone is thinking this and everyone believes differently, even if they profess to follow the same religious or spiritual doctrine. With this in mind, no one can satisfy another or fall in line with their own personal decrees, if inwardly everyone has their own description of right and wrong behaviors. Consequently, no one truly makes a connection, no one listens, and everyone is at odds with one another.
So, there is your presence nice, huh?
Here's the thing. All of my life, I have had an extremely active imagination. I was highly skilled at creative imaginative play as a child. Parents who would drop off their kids used to tell my mother how much they loved having me over because we, their daughter and I, would just freely play without needing any outside input. This is because our creativity would join together and provide hours of entertainment. This sense of creativity has continued into my adulthood and has often been used as a means of escape from the humdrum of every day life.
In the past, I often felt bad about this and recently have felt myself slip into that self-damnation. I can dissociate, in a sense, while still having a partial mind in the present reality. (So, maybe that's not really dissociation, then? Well, humor me.) I create whole stories and alternate lives for myself and live them truly as I go about my daily activities, only stopping when I have to address certain individuals or circumstances in the real world. But once that interaction or need has passed, back into the imagination I fall.
I felt shame about this recently. Am I missing out on the moment at hand, not fully being present, if I am locked into my imagination? But, then I came to this conclusion. Allowing my brain to play as it were is a way of keeping it active, allowing the creative juices to flow even in the midst of the daily necessary and not so fun life chores, which allows me to be open, ready, and flexible for the time when I need to be creative, during a film shoot, an audition, during a play, a writing session, or what ever it may be.
The takeaway here for me and perhaps for you is no matter what is going on in your mind and subsequently in your body, just allow it to be. If you are at peace, than you are present.
As a character from an original play says, "Live your life and be happy. No matter what, be that."
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