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“The human condition isn’t a competition. It’s an experience.”
— Scott Barry-Kaufman
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In Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization, psychologist Scott Barry-Kaufman provides a more enlightening—and historically accurate—view Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Maslow, it turns out, never created a “hierarchy” or a pyramid. To right this wrong, Barry-Kaufman provides a helpful sailboat metaphor instead:
This is great… but something’s missing from this sailboat.
The Imperative of Presence
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“Wherever you go, there you are.”
—Jon Kabat-Zinn
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Self-actualization is built on a foundation of presence. In the modern attention economy, our capacity for presence is more important than ever.
And besides, what good a sailboat if we can’t savor the sun and sea?
In Buddhist psychology, mindfulness practice provides the basis for concentration and insight, and further, for radical self-acceptance, loving-kindness, equanimity, joy, energy, investigation, and other factors of awakening.
In modern scientific research supported by the National Institute of Health, mindfulness — here defined as intentional moment-by-moment non-judgmental awareness — can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, lower blood pressure, and improve sleep.
Further, the American Psychological Association suggests that mindfulness is correlated with greater meta-cognitive awareness, a decrease in ruminative thoughts, and an increase in attentional capacities. Mindfulness, in other words, helps us harness the power of thinking and attention for good.
Five Pathways to Practice Presence
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“The present moment, if you think about it, is the only time there is.
No matter what time it is, it is always now.”
—Marianne Williamson, qtd. in Inside This Moment (thanks Paul!)
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Here’s the good news: we can cultivate more presence in our busy lives. We can train our attention to be here, now, without judgment.
This week, we will practice presence to improve our relationships with ourselves and others. Here are five potential pathways to do so.
(1) Write Your Morning Pages
The go-to. I wrote an entire post on writing for mindfulness here. TL;DR: Don’t write for something else. Write, each day, to attend to here-and-now: your surroundings, the arising thoughts, feelings, and sensations. All without judgment. Mindful morning pages has become a kind of prayer for me — a plea for continuing practice.
(2) Savor Your Tea
Japanese Tea Ceremony masters abide by a principle of Iche-go, Iche-e — a way of “treasuring the unrepeatable nature of the moment.” Getting better at savoring our experience may be a powerful buffer against our negativity bias. Excellent resources on the science on savoring in on this Hidden Brain podcast.
(3) Move Your Ass
Close your laptop. Put down your phone. Take a walk. Practice walking mindfulness, a way of arriving with every step that gets easier with every step. Resources for Walking Mindfulness from the Greater Good Science Center. Breathing also helps here.
(4) Listen to Your People
Kate Murphy’s You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why it Matters highlights being generously present, moment-to-moment. Mindful Listening further suggests that good listening is a powerful gift to others. Take a moment to connect heart-to-heart when you see someone you love.
(5) Mind Your Thresholds
There’s an opportunity every time you enter a new space. If our lives are a sequence of in-betweens, take special advantage of physical thresholds — whether a doorframe or a Torii gate — to remind yourself to be here now without judgment. Pay attention. I scratched the surface of this by writing about mindfulness in the gaps.
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“It’s a cliché to say that ‘the journey is the destination.’
It’s also true.”
— Anonymous
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As always, wishing you a wonderfully wise Wednesday,
Sean
Great article Sean. I thought it interesting that connection in the sailboat graphic is at the waterline. If you want to stay afloat in life - I agree you need presence (be the sailboat) and that waterline is where experience happens. We connect with the moment, with others, with meaning...