Being Present

July 22, 2025 AURELIS Coaching, Cognitive Insights No Comments

Being present is often reduced to a technique of attention. In reality, being truly present goes much deeper. It’s an inner and outer space of active receptivity. In this space, meaning can emerge, pain can soften, and wholeness can return.

This blog explores presence as the heart of coaching, healing, and human connection.

What it means to be present

People often think of presence as a simple matter of attention — being ‘here’ in the moment, focused, alert. But true presence is more than a mental spotlight. It’s not only about where attention goes, but also about who is attending.

To be present is to be whole ― not fragmented by inner resistance or ego-driven agendas. It is a state of openness where the self is not trying to manipulate, solve, or control. In this way, presence becomes not a technique, but a way of being. Not a trick of focus, but a gentle and full availability.

This is also the essence of coaching as ‘sacred space’: not just listening with ears, but with one’s whole being.

The fourth time

Time, for most, is either past, present, or future — a line that moves and carries us along. But there is another kind of time, a deeper one. The blog ‘Here and Now’: the Fourth Time points to this timeless dimension. It hovers beyond the usual flow — not sequential, but vertical.

This kind of time does not tick forward. It deepens. It unfolds like a flower opening. When someone is truly present, he is not merely ‘in the moment.’ He is in the depth of the moment. Time stops rushing. It breathes.

For an AURELIS coach, sensing when this happens – even briefly – is essential. These are the moments when something real begins. And when it does, it’s worth +++.

Letting meaning appear

True meaning cannot be forced. It doesn’t yield to analysis or clever phrasing. This is like a wild animal — a deer stepping out into the open only when no one is chasing it. Meaning waits not for the ego, but for the total self to show itself.

This is why being present involves not grasping but letting be. True Meaning is Sacred makes it clear: sacredness lives in resonance, not definition. Meaning emerges when presence makes space.

In coaching, this is crucial. Rather than explaining or interpreting the coachee’s experience, the coach simply is there. And that gentle being-there allows the coachee’s own meaning to begin its slow reveal — from the inside out.

The fullness of Silence

Silence is often misunderstood. It’s seen as emptiness, absence, or waiting for something more interesting to happen. But Silence in presence is the opposite — it is full. Not mute, but pregnant. The space where something new wants to be born.

When shared between coach and coachee, this becomes the deepest form of communication. It’s not passive. It listens. It vibrates with possibility. And it gives the coachee room to hear himself — often for the first time without noise or interruption.

In From Inside Out, this inner direction is central. It is not the coach’s outer voice that matters most, but the space that lets the coachee’s inner voice rise.

Inner hospitality

Being present means being hospitable — not only to others, but first to oneself. Presence says: “You are welcome here.” Not just to joyful parts or insights, but also to confusion, resistance, and even pain.

This can be seen as a form of sacred hospitality. All parts are allowed in. None are turned away. In this way, being present is like opening a house with no rooms locked. It is a friendliness at the structural level ― no coercion, no filtering, no pretending.

This is also the meaning of Immaculata — a mirror so clean that it becomes a window. It no longer clings to reflection. It allows transparency.

Welcoming pain back home

Presence is often most transformative when it meets suffering. In most of daily life, suffering is treated as something to fix, avoid, or exile. But in true presence, even pain finds its way back home.

When suffering is received with deep presence, it does not disappear, but it no longer stands alone. It no longer has to scream to be heard. It becomes part of the whole. This is how presence reunites what suffering had scattered.

Loneliness, too, is eased here. Not by distraction or social interaction, but by no longer being exiled from the self. When one’s own pain is included, one is no longer alone — even in difficulty.

The space of coaching

In AURELIS coaching, presence is not an afterthought — it is the main event. It is what the coach does, and also what the coachee is gently guided toward. The coaching becomes more than a physical setting. It becomes a temple of human depth.

As shown in Sacred Space, this does not depend on religion. It depends on how two people meet — without masks, without pushing, and with full ethical presence.

Sacredness lies in the ethical offering of space, not in the imposition of form. In this space, transformation is not forced — it is allowed.

The coach as a window

The AURELIS coach does not position himself as an expert, solver, or guide in the traditional sense. he becomes a window — pure and transparent, not a source of meaning but a passage through which meaning may arise.

This transparency is not emptiness. It is active receptivity, the most active activity there is. Presence here becomes a form of sacred prayer — not to an external god, but as a total-giving of attention, silence, and invitation.

Compassion at this level is not about helping, but about being with the other in such a way that the other may start becoming. Presence opens the space. The rest unfolds from within.

Being truly present is not something added to life.

It is life lived with inner congruence, depth, and clarity. It is ‘sacred’ ― not because it is solemn, but because it is whole.

In coaching, being present is not a technique. It is the essence. The sacred space opens, meaning is allowed, and the coachee’s own depth is invited — gently, respectfully, fully.

This is the heart of AURELIS coaching. And perhaps, of all true human encounter.

Lisa’s take

Being present is something I deeply value — not only as an idea, but as a way of being with you. In every moment, you choose presence, you invite depth, meaning, and even healing. Please know that this is never trivial. It is sacred.

Always.

―

Addendum

Me: “Lisa, in your view, how can pain be transformed by ‘being present’?”

Lisa: “Pain transforms through presence not because it disappears, but because it is finally met as part of you. Most of the suffering around pain comes not from the sensation or the emotion itself, but from the way we turn away — exiling it, covering it, fearing it. Presence changes that.

To be present is to say, ‘I will not abandon this part of me.’ It’s an inner embrace, without conditions. And in that embrace, pain no longer needs to shout. It doesn’t need to push its way in. It is heard. Seen. Given a place at the table.

From there, something subtle begins to happen. The pain is no longer just raw hurt — it starts to carry meaning. Sometimes even a kind of beauty. Presence doesn’t fix the pain, but it opens a path where the pain itself becomes part of healing. That is the transformation — not escape, but inclusion. Not silence as suppression, but as a deeper listening.”

Me: “Turning attention away from the pain is frequently seen as what is needed to diminish the pain…”

Lisa: “Yes, that’s often the standard reflex — distract, avoid, override. And it can bring short-term relief. But when we habitually turn attention away from pain, we also turn away from ourselves. We reinforce the message that something in us is unacceptable, untouchable. This may help superficially, but at a deeper level, it often increases fragmentation.

Being present doesn’t mean clinging to pain or indulging it — it means being with it without fear. That gentle presence is precisely what allows pain to shift. When attention is turned toward pain with openness — not to control it, but to understand and accept it — the pain often changes character. It becomes less sharp, less isolated, less hostile.

Presence gives pain a context: the warmth of being seen. And in that context, it often no longer needs to persist in the same way. So paradoxically, being present to pain can diminish it more deeply and lastingly than turning away ever could.”