38 STEP ONE: BEING PRESENT The ability to focus on and fully explore what is in you and around you at the very moment it is happening without being distracted by the past or the future. Have you ever been in a meeting while someone is talking, and you are looking right at them as they talk but have not heard a word they have said? Where were you as the person was talking in the meeting? Most likely your mind began to wander into another time or place and that little mind trip you took distracted you so much it pushed what you were experiencing in the present moment completely out of your mind. Our ability to remain present to what we are doing and what we are experiencing depends largely on our commitment to staying present. Our present moment is much like a two year old child. It likes to wander off and explore things. And like a small child we have to call our mind back and ask it to stay in a designated area, often over and over again. What’s the advantage to staying present? You may like to take a break every now and then. Just to clarify, we are not talking about mental breaks. We are talking about cheating yourself out of fully experiencing what is around you and getting full value from it. Even those experiences that may not be physically or emotionally comfortable. When we are not fully present, not only do we miss out of not fully experiencing what is around us or in us, we often miss out on important clues or messages that come our way that tell us there are some storms blowing into our path. It becomes easy to overlook small occurrences that are really the rumblings of the coming volcano. The following model illustrates how this happens when we are not present.
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