We have had Christmas and many of us have received physical gifts. As we start 2025, here is my suggestion for two gifts you can keep on giving every day this year: 1) your Presence and 2) your Happiness for Others. Let me explain a bit further:
Presence
Receiving someone’s presence is the best thing, isn’t it? When someone gives us their presence we feel valued, listened to, we feel good! So when you give your presence to someone it means you care. You could say you give love to the other person. There is no judgment, no secret agenda, you are there, radiating beingness. As the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh once said in an interview with Oprah: “How can you love someone if you are not there?”. Sometimes we can’t be there with our physical presence. But we can always choose to be there with presence anyway, for example when we talk to someone on the phone or FaceTime.
The way I see giving presence to someone is as follows: You are being with the other person fully. This means you are not doing anything else at the same time. You are giving your energy and attention on purpose to the other person, that’s it. Maybe that is the most radical form of presence? It is the one I prefer. I prefer it much more than half-way presence. Such as if someone is talking and emptying the dishwasher at the same time, or checking their phone, or seemingly wanting to do something else. Okay, I agree it is good to walk and talk. Or drive and talk. But you see what I mean? Being present is not about being super efficient or smart time-wise. It is about being with another person, with alertness and calmness within.
Happiness for Others
Last month I came across two short video clips that I still keep in mind. They are both about how easy it is to feel jealous, even when it comes to friends and family we love. I will admit I know about jealousy and I am quick to detect it in me. So no judgment! We all have the full range of human emotions within us, both the ones viewed as “good” and the ones viewed as “bad”. They are part of us and our experience of life.
Firstly, and back to Oprah: In one of the two videos clips Oprah states that a really good friend is a friend who will be happy for you no matter what. There will not be even an ounce of jealousy. I would love to be that kind of friend, always! However, I guess we have all experienced hearing about a friend’s fantastic news and feeling a sensation of resistance within us. Let’s decide to let that go! It is our ego talking, not the loving core that is in all of us.
Secondly, Simon Sinek, the American author and inspirational speaker, said something similar in the other video clip: We may have many friends we can call when things are not going well, but how many friends would we call when things are going really well? Probably not as many. Telling someone you are happy about your life situation is often seen as bragging. In the video clip, Sinek says that genuine friends won’t pick up on the bragging “side”. Instead, they will be sincerely happy for you and grateful you are sharing your joy with them.
Here is what I have learned
When my marriage fell apart I went through the darkest times of my life. Cultivating presence as well as being happy for others played a big part in getting out of the darkness. My own happiness was tiny at the time. I understood I could increase it by being happy for others. It was a conscious decision. Also, I have been into presence and about embodying it as best I can for more than ten years. Still, I always find it helpful to remind myself that being present and happy for others are gifts I can keep on sharing every single day. Maybe it is a decision you would like to make too?
I wish you a Happy New Year! Annette X
