As 2024 draws to a close, this time of year can sometimes encourage space for reflection of the past 12 months as well as looking to the future. However, if readers might forgive a pun, as Christmas draws in, my mind has been drawn to ‘presence’ this month. As Thich Nhat Hahn says, ‘the most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers’. I think the capacity to cultivate presence, is a fundamental ingredient in mental health as well as healthy relationship with yourself and others. Presence has been defined by Ram Dass as the capacity to ‘be here now’.
When we are present with ourselves, in our own bodies, in our own minds, we can begin to recognise ourselves. We can begin to recognise our habits, reactions, our body alarms when a threat is present – perhaps before our mind has even detected it. We can being to recognise what we are drawn to, and what we avoid.
Being present is arguably a building block of what in psychology is called emotional regulation, or in other words how we recognise feelings and respond to them in adaptive and healthy ways. Difficulties with emotional regulation have been linked to depression. That is, difficulties recognising, understanding and responding to emotions which can then lead to ways of coping that may inadvertently make the situation worse. Rumination is a very good example of this. In response to shame, guilt or sadness for instance, the mind may get stuck on a loop, thinking over and over about something.
The implicit (not always obvious or known to us) function of this may be corrective, i.e. so as not to do it again. It may be punitive. This need to punish may be something that has been learnt early on in life and taken in (internalised) as a means of responding without the person being aware this is their go to response in challenging circumstances. Presence is the first step to uncovering these patterns, and eventually stepping out of them.
I have taught a lot on resilience throughout the year and reflected on the possibilities for growth that can occur in the darkest of times. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) values can offer a helpful map here, of asking in the face of struggle and adversity, how do I want to be in this? How do I want to show up here? Again, none of this can be thought about, without first being present to your experience as it is unfolding.
Throughout this year, I have learnt and relearnt this lesson of how to be present not just from mindfulness practice, but through supporting a loved one with dementia. This experience, unwanted and painful as it is, has offered a masterclass in how to experience true mindful awareness of the present moment. The present moment is all any of us have, no matter how much our minds might tell us otherwise.
In dementia, the present can be somehow infinite. With the future often not really in mind, and the past a hazy mist, the only time of existence is now. And what pleasure can be experienced by truly inhabiting the now. Coming home to this moment, in all its beauty, its depth, maybe even its joy. To see this joy unfold, in tasting a potato or a cake, for the first time. Again, and again. To share a joke a hundred times told, only to delight in its fresh new novelty this time, the only time. How it is to join alongside someone in this infinity of presence. Where a love can be expressed in a way that not just transcends language but floats in and between words, without the weight of time stamped verbal memories.
That is not to sugar-coat this condition that can be both brutal and ruthless in its attack on identity, autonomy and personhood. But there are learnings here in how the real-time experience of pain and suffering can flood into the present moment when the mind runs off with comparison, judgement, criticism. How things should be but are not. How we want things to be different.
Our minds are built to constantly provide us with evaluations, what’s safe, what’s not, what we like, what we don’t. It is a function of evolution that keeps us alive but can at times unleash great suffering if we treat the content of the mind as reality or fact.
In depression the mind can often drift to the past in rumination as outlined above. Or indeed in self-criticism and shame. For many with depression, feelings of sadness itself can evoke anxiety or worry that this may herald the beginning of another episode of depression. Understanding this process is a key part of mindfulness which is shown to be effective in overcoming depression and anxiety. To stop the spiral. To stay present and observe where the patterns begin, and where they could end.
As we move into this time of the year, I invite you to consider how to cultivate this gift of presence with yourself and with others. When it may be safe to do so, in a way that can feel ok for you as an individual. Perhaps one way to cultivate presence is through connecting with art, or literature, film or nature. This presence may help to connect with something new and with others both indirectly and directly. Or as James Baldwin articulated it here about reading:
‘You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive’.
Our Aware support services will run through the Christmas period, as will many others throughout the country, so please reach out if you feel alone, need an impartial ear or space to be in during this period.
Our services would not be possible without the generous time and efforts of all our Volunteers, so thank you to all our Volunteers for offering that space for connection and support throughout the year. Every connection matters and has value, often in ways we may never fully know.
Wishing you all the very best for this Christmas period and into the new year.
This blog is by Dr Susan Brannick, Clinical Director at Aware as part of a monthly blog series.