Being Present
Being present, really being present requires the ability to acknowledge self. Much of the actor training that I deliver at Acting Coach Scotland, my Glasgow-based acting studio, is based on taking the focus from ourselves and putting it onto the others around us.
But being present, being truly present, requires being connected to self in this present moment. So before we can be really present with others, we must first discover ways to be present with self.
Our minds race forwards and backwards. Imagining futures bleak and rewarding, remembering past times good and bad. Tension, stress, worries and concerns about the future can prevent us from dealing with things affecting us in the present. Memories, traumas, past-related beliefs all impede us in our present progress by constantly relating our present to our experience of the past, chaining us to our past experiences.
All this from our noisy mind, takes us out of this present moment, and it has probably done it many times since you started reading this blog post.
Welcome Back. When we are truly present, we sense our feelings, we become aware of all our sensations, we hear the chatter of our minds but feel the impulses clearly.
The way to access the present moment is through the breath. When we focus on the inhalation and exhalation, we focus on the body and in that moment, we are present. We clear away distractions, we acknowledge our feelings, we allow ourselves to be okay with them and we are unhindered. The actor’s body is their present. The mind constantly shuttles between past and future. To be present in your body is to live in the here and now, and when you do this, you are at your best.
Welcome Back. Acknowledge the present, acknowledge the return to the present. And when being present, unhindered and uncluttered, we will do our best work, we will be affectable by others and unselfconscious in our own actions.
As actors, we must strive to be present, to throw off the restraints of the past, preventing our current success, cast aside the ‘what ifs’ of the future, preventing our current success.
All this begins with the breath.
Do it now. Breathe in, inflate the barrel. Focus lightly on the breath entering your body, and the movement of the body as it does this. Release, let the breath slowly leave you, deflate the barrel. Focus lightly on the breath leaving your body, and the movement of the body as it does this. You are here, and you are now. You are present. You are here, and you are now.
Do this for another few minutes, be present on the breath. You will start to ‘hear’ your noisy mind trying to interrupt. Sometimes it will succeed. When you want to return to the present, do not chastise yourself, simply say ‘I am here, I am now’.