Why and How To Actually Be Present With Your Loved Ones

Shifting into becoming truly present with family and friends happens when someone either comprehends the magnitude of the importance of this relative to their life from a macro view and/or experiences sustained joy and pleasure in their life from applying presence to their relationships with their loved ones.

The problem is that work-life can be the overwhelming perspective one takes. The achievement of things - the outputs of the processes - can be the focus, and when this is so strongly brought into your awareness, simply being simple becomes more foreign. The solution is to tie these things together - work-life and life-life - and see them not as separate activities but as the same activity in different contexts.

Home-life supports work-life. Work-life supports home-life. They are interrelated to each other. However, the home-life must be solid for the work-life to be solid. The home-life is not dependent on the work-life to be solid in the same way. The key is to see the work-life as an extension of the home-life and to stop separating them.

An overflowing cup at home leads to an overflowing abundance at work. See this as pragmatic. See this as important and real and worthy of your creative energy. Presence is tapping into this creative energy. Presence is the idea that you are FOCUSED on RIGHT NOW. Nothing else is there. You are in the zone. Nothing is distracting you because, at this moment, this is the most important thing. You are not split thinking and attributing emotional energy into things that have nothing to do with now.

When you are present in the presence of others, relationships blossom, fun happens, things are lighter, and everyone's cup is filled, not depleted. Thinking about the cup being filled as YOU are the one filling up your family's cup is silly. Cups become filled/overflowing because of the presence of energy flowing through the experience, not because of your effort.

Priorities in your life need to be with you all the time. What is a priority for you at home is also a top priority for you while working on your craft. If you go to work and "become a different person," you will have different priorities. Blend these worlds and carry your priorities with you, just focus on different tasks.

Set boundaries and be gentle with yourself as you would a child. How would you program a child? Being present is the outcome of the mental/emotional state of being that you are. It is not something that just happens. You will likely need to retrain yourself, and the best way to do that for many people is to treat themselves with the love and care that they would treat a small child.

We have a Spirit Science friend that literally COULD NOT STOP checking email at home, even during movie nights and intimacy with his wife. He was not relaxing. He was not seeing himself as supported by his wife ultimately because he did not see himself as supporting her. This affected him via his overworking himself to over-compensate for lack of ease.

Re-prioritize presence. Intellectually understand it, yes. See it in the successful/happy people around you - watch how much they care about their families and friends and find time for them, no matter what. Se yourself where you are right now and love yourself for your journey that you've been on.