Growing Present 🌱 Week 1 - Becoming Aware
Noticing your life as it unfolds. Welcome to the first post in Growing Present, where we start gently by placing attention in our bodies, breath, and senses.
Many of us go through life on autopilot. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that. There are times and seasons when we just have to go through the motions in order to survive. The problem comes when we are perpetually in survival mode. We have no time to savour or even notice the moments we actually have.
I’m guessing that you are here because you would like to be more present.
Present in your life, rather than going through the motions. Present for your loved ones. Present for yourself.
‘Present’ simply means existing or occurring now.
Being present is one of those things that we are told will make the difference. It’s also something that I think our embodied wisdom really knows. Buried below the layers of conditioning telling us to hurry up and do more, there’s often a tug towards slowing down and doing less. It’s just that it needs a little encouragement, and maybe some helpful prompts.
Growing Present is intended as a gentle container to provide structure and guidance to weave these threads of presence into the daily fabric of your life.
Each post gives you:
a short video snippet of ‘theory’ about how or why something works
an audio with a guided practice to try that week
a downloadable summary as a reminder
There’s deep truth in the old Zen saying:
You should sit in mediation for 20 minutes a day. Unless you are too busy, then you should sit for an hour.
But I am a realist (and someone who juggles unpaid caregiving with paid work), and I know that even 20 minutes a day can feel completely out of reach. So the practices I share are 5-15 minutes maximum. Each one is designed to help you build the skill of turning towards your present moment experience with kindness.
Here’s what we will be covering in the first 5 parts:
Becoming aware - noticing your life as it unfolds
Pressing pause - learning how to respond rather than react
Holding uncertainty - finding solid ground when you feel anxious
Making space - realising that you are not your thoughts
Being kind - making friends with your inner critic
Sign up below to receive each week of the course to your email or in the Substack app.
If you have already signed up, thank you from my body-mind-heart. I’ve been deepening my relationship with the present moment for over 20 years and I’m still learning. I love that I get to share something of that with you here.
The course materials are below. I will start a special thread in Substack for further support once you’ve had a chance to digest things a little.
Week 1. Becoming Aware - noticing your life as it unfolds
In this first session, I dispel some myths about mindfulness. I introduce the idea of using your senses as a way of shifting your perception.
The practice this week is a simple Breathing Space guided audio.
It helps you to move from your busy mind into inhabiting your experience as a whole in just 5 minutes.
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