Can presence be taught?
Can you get better at having presence? I’m not talking about executive presence—I’m talking about the act of harnessing our attention in our most important moments. Read on for tips to improve your own presence as a leader.
The answer to my anxiety always exists in the present moment. And the next present moment. And the next one.
But I didn’t always have access to the present moment.
For decades, I was stuck in the anxiety loop. All day, just thinking about thinking. And because I couldn't think my way out of it, I'd get anxious about anxiety. This endless loop stole the present moment from me. I was always in the before or after.
I was never in the now.
Presence was not productive. Presence was different than doing. Presence was paying attention with my whole body. Presence was terrifying and made me feel out of control without my wandering mind.
Of course, I can never pay attention for too long. My mind wanders, I think about what I’m making for dinner, and suddenly, I’m lost in my own thoughts.
But presence has the potential to hook us back into the moment, if only for a moment.
It’s like when I first sat in silence and heard my own thoughts for the first time.
Being present was too vulnerable. Like the first time I peered around the corner from my anxiety to the present moment and was terrified to stay and explore. Time slowed down and for the first time, I was present in my body.
I was outside of thinking. I was out of my mind.
Before that moment, I had no idea I was stuck in a loop of recurring negative thoughts that had repeated subconsciously every waking moment of my life until that very second.
I peered around that corner and anchored my body, only to return again and again to the loop (but at least now I could see it instead of being swept up in it’s unconsciousness).
Just being able to see my anxiety loop made all the difference. Learning to be present saved my life.
The truth is that presence feels like opening all of myself (and I don’t always feel comfortable doing that all the time in all of my spaces).
So how can we be present, honor our own presence, bring ourselves to the present moment, but still feel safe and protected?
Executive presence doesn’t exist
When we talk about presence what we’re really talking about is focus. What we’re really talking about when we talk about presence is inattention.
Too many of us have splintered attention.
Just this past week, I worked with two brilliant technical leaders. Both of them desperately want to be more present and have presence at work but when I asked them what they’re focusing on when speaking, they’re over-thinking, trying to sound “professional”, wondering how to structure what they want to say.
This made it impossible to have presence or listen (and so their communication challenges become a self-fulfilling prophecy).
When we communicate under pressure, our attention is being splintered between how we’re being perceived or trying to pick the “right” words to sound a certain way, and very little attention is left to focus on what we actually want to say.
We can’t hear ourselves think when we’re too busy wondering how it’s going to land.
The problem is that “confidence” and “executive presence” have been turned into a communication “issue”.
These phrases have been weaponized, disguised as feedback (you can read my thoughts on executive presence in this WIE Suite article). But we cannot fully express ourselves when our attention is splintered. We cannot be fully present when we’re worried about how we’re going to be perceived.
This leads people to over-think while speaking, especially empathetic, analytical leaders. This over-working splinters our attention and makes it nearly impossible to think on our feet with ease.
We cannot be fully present or confident when we have to watch every word we use, especially due to micro-managers, toxic workplaces, or unclear feedback.
But when we can align our attention, we find full body focus and everything changes… if only for a few moments.
So instead of lumping presence in with broad feedback about communication, it’s important to remember that presence is actually about focus. Presence is about aligning our attention, getting out of our heads and into the present moment.
Becoming more myself
My journey to presence has been more like peeling back the layers of an onion than adding on more things to do. Presence is an unlearning.
I’ve built tools to unlearn anxiety and trust myself to speak with presence under pressure. I’m unlearning performative habits that take me further from myself now that I know who I am after finding words to express my gender identity. I’m unlearning trauma and learning how to let love in through deep work in my parenting and longtime partnership. I’m unlearning fear around driving and learning how to be in my body after my car accident.
And at each layer of this unlearning, I’ve been lucky to have clients going through similar journeys at the same time.
After my accident, I had no anxiety. I broke my pelvis and my sacrum—nurses told me those are some of the most painful breaks you can have. It took every ounce of attention I had to mitigate the pain when moving. There was very little attention left to go to over-thinking or self-criticism.
The pain was clarifying. It was focusing. I had no other choice but to give it my full attention.
Months after the accident, when I finally went from my walker to two canes down to one, my anxiety returned. Suddenly, I didn’t have to harness every ounce of attention to mitigate the pain.
There was some attention left to go to anxiety.
Now that my pain is more manageable, I wonder: Can I consciously unlearn thinking ahead, unlearn anxiety, and reconsolidate my attention in my body instead? Can I re-create full body focus without the intensity of that pain?
What are you unlearning this week, and how can you cultivate more ease instead of effort?
Presence not perfection
My inability to stay present is completely linked to my unconscious desire for perfection. When I'm lost in thought, I'm always thinking about all the things I should be doing to get to where I want to be. But that constant seeking and stretching makes the present moment inaccessible.
My perfectionism is always in the before (what if the worst case scenario happens?) or the after (why did I say it that way?).
But the present moment creates focus and clarity. There is not perfection in the present—there is only now.
Even when I’m reading to my kiddo at night (we’re reading The Wild Robot), I’ve noticed how much my mind wanders. I can even keep reading but be completely distracted. A whole paragraph will go by and I realize I haven’t recalled any of it.
This is where my self-compassion becomes even more important (because I wanna beat myself up!).
I re-anchor to the present moment again and again. Through sound (hearing the words I’m reading and refocusing there when I wander), touch (feeling my kiddo leaning against my body), sight (keeping my attention on the focal focus of reading itself), or even smell if my husband is cooking downstairs.
Have you noticed how much your mind wanders? What helps you return to the present moment?
My presence partner
We rescued a pup a few months ago. Ozzy came from a kill shelter in Georgia. He was found emaciated in a hoarding situation with 25 other dogs and we’ve given him a lot of love (and food!) since.
I wanted a dog for company and companionship and to complete our family, but I didn’t anticipate what he's become! My presence partner.
Ozzy gets me out of my head. He also gets me outside. And of course these two things are connected.
The other week, I took Ozzy on a hike for the first time. I've been hiking since my accident to rebuild core strength after breaking my pelvis and my sacrum and its been a quiet and contemplative on my own.
But hiking with Ozzy keeps me more awake and alive. I don't go into deep thought as much. I'm more fully present.
In Ozzy I've found a partner in presence.
Our pups and our kiddos are always present and I'm grateful I get to meet them there every once in a while.
Who in your life helps you access the present moment?
Sounds of the seasons
When my anxiety was (is?) at its worst, I get stuck in the anxiety loop. I get out of it by focusing on the next moment and the next. To do this, I bring my attention to any sense outside of the thinking mind.
My favorite sense to anchor to is sound—the auditory sensation of letting the sounds in. Out of the five, this is also the sense that I was most resistant to when I started doing this work.
The sounds around us always bring us forward to the next present moment (and the next, and the next…). Focusing on sounds drowns out the sound of my racing thoughts (we can only focus on one thing at a time).
So try this with me. Choose a moment where you don’t have to “do” anything, when you’re by yourself and can sit down. Close your eyes and let the sounds around you in. Release any effort—the chair can hold your body and you can relinquish any imagined control.
Don't analyze or interpret your thoughts—you will go right to thinking, and when you do, re-anchor your attention on just simply letting sounds in.
When you do this, you create gentle focus where you can be fully present if only for a few moments. This gentle focus is your most present self. Practice this alone (its my go-to meditation, always) but also practice this with others. I’ll even anchor to the sounds of voices in a conversation which helps me not get lost in thought.
I even anchor to the sound of my breath. Not to the sensation of breath (too esoteric for me). But when I focus on the sound my breath makes, it makes me zoom in and creates focus in the moment itself.