A Conversation About Presence
August 2, 2011
This SpeakingPresence blog addresses the experience of presence in speaking through articles I write. I have a second blog, RevealedPresence, that explores presence through photographs and questions. Last month, Rabbi Jordan Rosenberg asked me the following question in a comment on that blog:
I am curious about what you mean by presence? Is it more or different than mindfulness? What is the source of the ‘presence’? Internal? External? Human? Divine?
This seemed a pretty fundamental question, so after some thought I wrote a response in a comment on that blog. Rabbi Rosenberg and I have emailed about ways to keep this conversation going and we’ve decide to cross-post on our respective blogs. I’ve moved the entire conversation to a blog post on that site and thought I’d share the link on this blog because my response is so relevant to the subject of this blog. You can read the entire conversation by following this link. I welcome any comments that people would like to make as a contribution to this conversation…
Authentic presence… What is it really?
August 16, 2010
After having had the pleasure of being in the presence of a number of “masters” in the last couple of weeks, I’m deeply immersed in this inquiry. What is authentic presence really?
Here are some examples of presence that I’ve experience:
- I attended a facilitated gathering of folks recently where the lead person demonstrated a remarkable ability to simply be himself whether he was talking to me one-on-one or talking to the entire group. There appeared to be no separation between his public self and his private interactions and all his interactions seemed casual, easy going, and relaxed while at the same time right-on and very direct.
- Later that week I attended a concert performed by two young singer/song-writers/musicians. The woman of the pair, especially, was mesmerizing whether she was singing, talking to the audience, or “off-line” dealing with issues of managing the sound system. As my friends and I tried to identify what it was that made her so intriguing we agreed that, once again, she was just herself, perfectly comfortable in her own skin, and not trying to put on a good “performance”. She was, though, completely engaged with her songs, her connection with the audience, and what was happening in the moment.
- Just this week I have begun an amazing two week movement immersion opportunity with a professional dance company, Pilobolus, where we are spending a lot of time focusing on this quality I call “embodied presence” when dancers are on stage. What I’ve learned so far is that everything, from the slightest movement of the eyes to the twitch of a little finger, will communicate something to the audience. Dancers on stage need to be deliberate, specific, and conscious of themselves or the quality of real presence is shattered. Even a casual, relaxed smile can be a distraction.
- In several exercises we did as part of the improvisational dance experience in this workshop, I became very aware of letting go entirely of my sense of self as the group of us dancer responded without thought and moved as a collective, a single unit, much like a flock of birds or school of fish. I became aware of a non-personal sense of presence that was held within the group as a whole rather than each of us as individuals. Yesterday, there was a moment when three of us were moving together in a frenzy in the center of the room to some rather chaotic music, when suddenly, with absolutely no forethought or signal all three of us froze in space. In that very same instant, without any warning whatsoever that I was aware of, the music changed, becoming softer. For the second time in two weeks, in two very different contexts, I heard someone use the word “us-ness” to describe this kind collective presence.
Last night I went to a party which ended with an open mic. In a very casual way, musicians of all sorts stood up and sang and played well known songs or songs of their own composition. There were many very talented people in the crowd. One young nine year old girl stood out for me with her presence. She came to the mic with her guitar in hand preparing to sing and play her own lovely composition. Her feet were planted wide. She stood tall and confidently. Her smile was brilliant. Her energy, passion and enthusiasm was clear in every cell of her body.
So, what is authentic presence really? Each of these examples touches on some aspect. What examples of presence have you seen recently?
Self-consciousness vs. Presence
October 30, 2009
In response to David’s comment to my last post about fear arising not at the beginning of a talk but rather 3 or 4 minutes into the talk, I thought I’d share the first article in a 26 week article series I’ve written entitled The ABCs of Presence in Speaking, Leading, and Life! This first article explores the what happens when we become self-conscious and compares it with presence. Here’s the article:
A is for… Arrows of Attention
Recently I had the privilege of watching a lovely young woman at her high school graduation party as she performed a modern dance she had choreographed. A living room had been cleared and we were all sitting and standing within five feet of her “stage.” Not an easy place to perform because the scrutiny was so close!
She was quite remarkable and maintained a strong connection with her movement, the music and the emotional tone of the dance throughout her performance. Only occasionally did I notice that she became self-conscious and in those brief moments, the sense of presence I experienced dropped away, and instead I saw a young woman feeling a bit awkward.
This was fascinating for me because it so clearly marked the distinction between self-consciousness and presence. When we are self-conscious, when the direction, or arrows, of attention are directed towards ourselves, we often feel awkward, clumsy, and we feel a sense of separation from the outside world. When we are really present, we are fully engaged in the activity of the moment, our arrows of attention are directed away from our ego, and we no longer feel separate, alone, afraid.
This is especially true when we speak in public. So often, we become self-absorbed and fearful about looking inept, making mistakes or forgetting what we planned to say. If, instead, we turn our arrows of awareness towards the people in our audience, becoming open to receiving them, and being genuinely curious about them, we lose that self-consciousness and drop into a shared place with our audience that better serves them (and ourselves).
A is for… Arrows of Attention
Recently I had the privilege of watching a lovely young woman at her high school graduation party as she performed a modern dance she had choreographed. A living room had been cleared and we were all sitting and standing within five feet of her “stage.” Not an easy place to perform because the scrutiny was so close!
She was quite remarkable and maintained a strong connection with her movement, the music and the emotional tone of the dance throughout her performance. Only occasionally did I notice that she became self-conscious and in those brief moments, the sense of presence I experienced dropped away, and instead I saw a young woman feeling a bit awkward.
This was fascinating for me because it so clearly marked the distinction between self-consciousness and presence. When we are self-conscious, when the direction, or arrows, of attention are directed towards ourselves, we often feel awkward, clumsy, and we feel a sense of separation from the outside world. When we are really present, we are fully engaged in the activity of the moment, our arrows of attention are directed away from our ego, and we no longer feel separate, alone, afraid.
This is especially true when we speak in public. So often, we become self-absorbed and fearful about looking inept, making mistakes or forgetting what we planned to say. If, instead, we turn our arrows of awareness towards the people in our audience, becoming open to receiving them, and being genuinely curious about them, we lose that self-consciousness and drop into a shared place with our audience that better serves them (and ourselves).
Syncing and sourcing
February 23, 2009
Eileen commented on my last blog and included a link to a video of birds moving in sync with each other. This idea of syncing is fascinating to me. I’ve been intrigued with how flocks of birds (and fish, for that matter) seem to have one mind and sometimes have found myself standing stock still when a flock of birds is maneuvering overhead. How do they do that?
This idea of syncing reminds me of several conversations I had today around the idea of listening to the collective wisdom of a group (some people call this sourcing). I believe that when we speak and listen from a place of true presence, we then have access to the collective wisdom that’s present in the group with the potential of then “moving with one mind”.
Inauguration Presence
January 21, 2009
The epitome of true leadership presence!
Presence is about so much more than the words that we speak. Yesterday we had several exquisite examples of real presence. Barak Obama and Elizabeth Alexander were the most compelling for me.
Barack Obama: Most people pay attention to his words because they are so riveting. I’m curious about how he conveys his presence. Check out the video on YouTube (for some reason I couldn’t copy it to this site). He begins to speak at 2:40 min. Notice how comfortable he is in his own skin, how he carries himself. Notice the silences, the pauses between important points. Notice how deliberate he is as he articulates his words. What else do you see that’s beyond the words themselves that conveys that this man is a great leader?
Elizabeth Alexander: Inauguration Poet (video below)
Watch how she let’s herself fully arrive in front of the audience before she begins. She takes a breath. She looks out at the audience. And, then she begins to speak. She too, in a different way, speaks with such deliberate phrasing. I know she is reciting poetry, but I think that there’s something we can learn about leadership presence from how she delivered those words.
