I have been using the Presence Process now for about six months and I would like to share some of my experiences and ideas.
I think the key thing I learned is that everything is in the now. We bring all our prior experiences to the presence and sometimes they are really emotional baggage that have nothing to do with the current situation. For me, I carry around emotional baggage about things should be be fair and my inner child has a little temper tantrum. I clearly am not being present to the current situation and dealing with something in my belief system. Over time I have reduced much of my negative emotional charge. However understanding is only a small part of the change. Really it really is more at an emotional level. People who really annoyed me do not ellicit the same reaction in me.
Being a very intellectual guy, I really want to understand things and the why of everything. Having a mental model of presence is really important to me. I am gradually understanding presence is really an experience as opposed to issue of understanding. Gradually I am getting to "know" is a different way what presence is.
I am a very serious Roman Catholic and for us the Real Presence is an important aspect of my faith. I am thinking that the presence process is helping me to experience what that really means. The process helps me experience how I am connected to all living things. So what is real presence. A priest I admire gave a homily many years ago about presence that I will never forget. He talked about who are we really. Am I my flesh and blood or am I something more? I think if you cut of my legs I am no less who I am, so who am I really? What is my flesh and blood? He suggested that our flesh and blood were symbols of me rather than the real me. So our flesh blood are symbols of our presence but we are much more. Thus is a bread and wine are also the real presence in symbolic form as my flesh and blood are symbols of me. So what does this mean? I think it means that, for me, presence is an experience well beyond my intellectual understanding and much more an experience. Therefore the words to express the experience are difficult to find because most of our vocabulary is rooted in a time paradigm.
Also I see this presence process a journey that will go on for all my life. I am enjoying the journey and all the insights of the way.
