May 6, 2025 • 14 mins
In this episode of Empathetic Presence, I explore something that's helped my anxiety - how to find the present moment and return to it when we inevitably get lost in thought again.
It's particularly challenging to be present right now. With the constant news cycle and daily overwhelm many of us experience, it's natural to slip into hyper-vigilance. Focusing on presence rather than perfection has been transformative for my confidence and reducing anxiety.
I share my personal journey from being trapped in an endless cycle of anxiety to finding liberation through presence. For years, I experienced debilitating panic attacks that would send me to the emergency room convinced I was having heart attacks. Over a decade ago, I made a commitment to address my anxiety holistically, which became the foundation for the work I do today.
In this episode, I discuss:
- How I define presence as "getting out of my head and into my body"
- The scientific connection between the vagus nerve and our "gut brain"
- Practical techniques I use daily to return to the present moment
- A guided practice for anchoring to sound that we can experience together
- The importance of self-compassion when practicing presence
I would love to hear what helps you find presence and what presence means in your life. Please share your thoughts at Lee@presentvoices.com.
If you'd like to practice presence with me directly, I host a complimentary live workshop via Zoom where we work on these techniques together. You can register at presentvoices.com/collective.
Wishing you presence, not perfection.
00:00 Introduction to Empathetic Presence
00:53 The Struggle with Anxiety and the Journey to Presence
03:04 Understanding and Practicing Presence
04:04 The Role of the Vagus Nerve and Gut Brain
06:02 Practical Tools for Finding the Present Moment
08:17 The Importance of Being Over Doing
08:41 Guided Practice: Anchoring to Sound
10:01 Managing Expectations and Using Tools to Stay Present
13:38 Conclusion and Invitation to Connect
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lee (00:05):
Welcome back to Empathetic Presence, a podcast to liberate
our voices.
I'm your host, Lee Bonvissuto,and today I want to talk about
presence, how to actually findthe present moment and to get
back there when we inevitablyget lost in thought again.
It is really hard to be presentright now.
(00:28):
I know with so much in the newsand so much daily overwhelm and
onslaught, it is natural to goto hyper vigilance, to planning
ahead and to getting lost inthought.
And the key for me has been tofocus on presence and not
perfection.
The answer to my anxiety isalways in the present moment and
(00:50):
the next present moment, and thenext present moment.
I say this because years agobefore I started doing this
work, I was in a constant loopof anxiety, an endless loop of
thinking and thinking andthinking, and I found that I was
trying to think my way out ofthe anxiety.
If I could just breathe deeperor think more deeply or get a
(01:14):
better tool, maybe I would beable to get out of the cycle.
But the problem is that thatcycle continually kept me in the
before and after in the, oh no,what's about to happen?
And the, what did I just say?
So the idea of returning to thepresent moment as a practice
(01:34):
became my salvation.
Before I started doing thiswork, I struggled quite a bit.
I had endless panic attacks.
I would continually check myselfinto the emergency room certain
I was having a heart attack.
Over a decade ago, I made achoice that I wanted to deal
with my anxiety once and forall.
(01:56):
It was before I became a parent,and I didn't want to be in this
endless cycle anymore.
It was debilitating,destabilizing, and destroying my
life.
And so I read all the books andI listened to all the podcasts,
and I started therapy.
I even read a book called TheUntethered Soul by Michael
Singer.
(02:17):
This book was all about thatvoice in your head and how you
could choose to not listen toit, how it was often inaccurate,
and the idea that I could evenuntether from my racing thoughts
was scary.
I didn't know what wasunderneath my racing thoughts
because it had been my onlyexperience.
I didn't think that I could bepresent.
(02:38):
I grew up with a father who wasa meditator.
My dad would meditate for 30minutes every day.
I would watch him from afar.
And when I tried meditating incollege, I just couldn't do it.
I couldn't get my thoughts tostop, and I thought that that's
what meditation was.
I know more now, I know thatmeditation is around returning
(03:00):
to the present moment and doingso with really tangible tools.
To make this even more tangibleand specific, I define presence
as getting out of my head andinto my body.
And what I mean by that isactually being embodied in my
thinking.
So many of us are strugglingwith splintered attention right
(03:22):
now.
We want to be present and fullyconnected, but we are
subconsciously lost in thought,overthinking, wondering how
we're being perceived if we'rebeing clear.
What am I going to say next?
Thinking ahead.
And this disrupts our naturalability to think on our feet.
When we are up in our head, weare more likely to feel anxious.
(03:46):
We are more likely to get lostin fight or flight, but that's
not how we communicate when wefeel most comfortable and
confident.
When we feel comfortable, we arefully embodied.
Our thinking is not in ourheads, it's in our gut.
It's in our gut brain actually.
The gut brain is controlled bythe vagus nerve, the largest
(04:08):
nerve in our body that connectsthe brain through the heart, all
the way to the gut The vagusnerve, also known as rest and
digest, the parasympatheticnervous system is responsible
for really important functionslike breathing, circulation,
cognition, thinking on our feet,being able to feel relaxed.
Those things go away when we getcaught up in fight or flight,
(04:31):
and our vagus nerve shuts down.
And so being present is beingembodied, being able to activate
the gut brain.
So that's what I mean when Italk about presence.
I'm not talking about executivepresence.
We all know that doesn't workanyway.
I'm talking about actuallyfeeling more present, being able
to be relaxed in the presentmoment, to get out of our brains
(04:54):
and into our bodies.
Now that I can find the presentmoment, it is a joy and a
relief.
It's not that I don't go back toanxiety.
It's there for all of us.
How could it not be, especiallyin this moment.
One of my clients used ananalogy of an attic.
He said that before he starteddoing this work, it was like he
(05:17):
was always in a dark attic withthe lights off, and once he
started doing this work, it'slike he could go into the rest
of the house with the lights on.
And I really resonate with this,and I too end up back in the
attic sometimes.
We all do.
How could we not in this moment,but knowing that I have the
(05:37):
tools to get the lights back onhas been life changing.
But in this moment, ouroverthinking is oppressive.
For the past few years we havebeen in this constant
multitasking, and it can feelnearly impossible to find the
present moment, let alone stayin it.
(05:59):
And for me, I make this verysimple.
I find the present moment byrefocusing on any sense outside
of the thinking mind.
I might bring my attention totouch and feel my back against
the chair or my feet on thefloor, or my foot in my slipper.
(06:19):
It's really tangible and withina few moments, I'm going to
return to racing thoughts.
That's natural.
I'm a human being, and when Irealize it, I refocus on the
sensory sensation of touch.
Or I work a lot with the anchorof sound, and so I might anchor
to the sounds around me andanchoring to sounds is a passive
(06:45):
practice.
I can't be actively overthinkingwhile I'm listening.
It doesn't work.
So when I'm anchoring to sound,there's a release, there's a
letting go, and that muscle ofpracticing being is what I am
returning to when I inevitablyget lost back in thought.
So that is how I find thepresent moment by refocusing on
(07:08):
any sensation outside of thethinking mind.
I often will have a candle litat my desk and I might refocus
on the smell.
Or I keep a picture of my kiddoright here on my desk so that I
can use focal focus to refocusand get me outside of deep
thinking when I need it.
(07:30):
And if you've meditated in thepast, this is probably familiar.
For me, I believe thatmeditation and communication are
the same thing, but one happenson our own and one happens with
others.
But just like in meditation,when I realize I'm lost in
thought, I'm going to refocus myattention on a sense, on a
(07:51):
sensation, on touch or sight orsound or smell, something that
will get me outside of thinking,and within just a few moments, I
will be lost back in thought.
We are human beings.
We have to expect that.
And when I realize it, I bringmyself back to the present
(08:11):
moment by refocusing on one ofthese sensations.
For me, this is about thepractice of being versus doing.
I am a doer.
It's what comes naturally to me,and becomes the default in our
capitalistic society.
And so for me, the muscle tostrengthen is being, allowing,
(08:36):
letting go.
These things do not come naturalto me.
I want us to practice righthere, finding the present
moment, We can anchor to sound.
Let's do it.
I'm going to first of all, letthe chair really hold my body.
I'm going to release anyphysical effort.
(08:57):
I'm going to unclench my belly,unclench my jaw, and I'm going
to simply let the sounds in.
That means that I'm going tolisten to the sounds around me.
I might hear the birds chirping.
I might hear my refrigeratorbuzz or a truck drive by, and I
(09:18):
am not going to think aboutthose things.
I'm simply going to let themcome and go.
And if I get lost in thought,I'm going to bring my attention
back to the sounds around me,letting the sounds in.
So let's practice this togetherand I'll practice it with you.
(09:52):
What was it like?
Could you find the presentmoment even for a moment?
And I wanna talk aboutexpectations here.
Human beings on average haveanywhere from 10,000 to 80,000
thoughts a day.
Scientists have found that 80%of those thoughts on average are
negative, and 90% of thosethoughts on average are
(10:13):
identical to thoughts we hadyesterday.
So if that's the case.
We are going to have disruptionsof thought quite often.
If you meditate or not, it islikely that you'll be disrupted
by thinking every few moments.
Let's expect that we are humanbeings.
We think a lot, especially inmoments of trauma and terror
(10:36):
that we're witnessing right now.
It is natural for us to go backto thinking quite often.
So instead of beating ourselvesup, can you return to the
present moment and can you useone of these tools to do so?
This is similar to how this workworks, just like when we're
meditating on our own and we areable to isolate our attention
(10:59):
and refocus on senses to get usout of the thinking mind.
When I'm communicating, I wantto be using these senses to keep
me present, and I have toolsthat help us find embodied
presence.
These tools are backed byscience and proven to regulate
your nervous system and promotepresence, not perfection.
(11:21):
And these tools are necessarybecause most of us have
splintered attention right now.
We have splinteredself-expression.
We want to be present andconnected, but a part of our
brain is thinking andoverthinking.
How am I being perceived?
Do I sound clear?
Am I making sense?
And all of this is splinteringour ability to find focus in the
(11:43):
present moment.
And so these tools all work inthe same way.
I want the tool to replace thepart of your brain that wants to
race and run ahead.
We wanna give that part of yourbrain a job.
We want to fully engage as muchof the attention as we possibly
can so that there's less roomfor overthinking and extraneous
(12:04):
thinking.
And these tools can be anything.
They can be physical.
They can be leaning back againstyour chair and refocusing on
that tactile sensation.
They can be using focal focus inorder to focus your eyesight,
which helps focus your thinking.
They can even be formulas orframeworks, content tools that
(12:26):
help you have more clarityaround what you want to say.
Any tool works, any focus works.
It's just that the ones that Irecommend happen to improve your
hormonal confidence.
And what I mean by that isimproving your ability to
actually feel more confident.
(12:47):
When we are connected, when wecan get out of our heads and
into our bodies, we have moreaccess to hormonal confidence,
dopamine, serotonin,testosterone, feel good hormones
that help us think on our feetand be more present under
pressure.
All of these tools are designedto help you make the unconscious
(13:08):
conscious to get us out of thehabitual behavior and give us
the ability to make choices inthe moment, something that
anxiety takes away, but you willreturn to the habits, you will
return to unconscious thinking.
I want you to expect that andwhen you realize it, the key is
to refocus, reset, and restartwithout beating yourself up.
(13:34):
So stop beating yourself up ifyou have normal habitual
behaviors.
If you say, um, if you look up alot, if you find that you're
overthinking or overprioritizing how you're being
perceived, the only thing thatmatters is presence because the
answer to my anxiety is alwaysin the present moment.
(13:55):
So I wanna know what helps youget present and what prevents
you from being present?
What does presence even mean toyou?
Email me to let me knowLee@presentvoices.com.
And please if you like thepodcast, subscribe, leave a
review and share with a friend,and I'd love for you to practice
(14:17):
empathetic presence with me.
I host a live free workshop onZoom where we can practice
presence, not perfection, andlearn tools to express yourself
everywhere.
Sign up atpresentvoices.com/collective.
Looking forward to seeing younext time and wishing you
presence until then.
Welcome back to Empathetic Presence, a podcast to liberate
our voices.
I'm your host, Lee Bonvissuto,and today I want to talk about
presence, how to actually findthe present moment and to get
back there when we inevitablyget lost in thought again.
It is really hard to be presentright now.
(00:28):
I know with so much in the newsand so much daily overwhelm and
onslaught, it is natural to goto hyper vigilance, to planning
ahead and to getting lost inthought.
And the key for me has been tofocus on presence and not
perfection.
The answer to my anxiety isalways in the present moment and
(00:50):
the next present moment, and thenext present moment.
I say this because years agobefore I started doing this
work, I was in a constant loopof anxiety, an endless loop of
thinking and thinking andthinking, and I found that I was
trying to think my way out ofthe anxiety.
If I could just breathe deeperor think more deeply or get a
(01:14):
better tool, maybe I would beable to get out of the cycle.
But the problem is that thatcycle continually kept me in the
before and after in the, oh no,what's about to happen?
And the, what did I just say?
So the idea of returning to thepresent moment as a practice
(01:34):
became my salvation.
Before I started doing thiswork, I struggled quite a bit.
I had endless panic attacks.
I would continually check myselfinto the emergency room certain
I was having a heart attack.
Over a decade ago, I made achoice that I wanted to deal
with my anxiety once and forall.
(01:56):
It was before I became a parent,and I didn't want to be in this
endless cycle anymore.
It was debilitating,destabilizing, and destroying my
life.
And so I read all the books andI listened to all the podcasts,
and I started therapy.
I even read a book called TheUntethered Soul by Michael
Singer.
(02:17):
This book was all about thatvoice in your head and how you
could choose to not listen toit, how it was often inaccurate,
and the idea that I could evenuntether from my racing thoughts
was scary.
I didn't know what wasunderneath my racing thoughts
because it had been my onlyexperience.
I didn't think that I could bepresent.
(02:38):
I grew up with a father who wasa meditator.
My dad would meditate for 30minutes every day.
I would watch him from afar.
And when I tried meditating incollege, I just couldn't do it.
I couldn't get my thoughts tostop, and I thought that that's
what meditation was.
I know more now, I know thatmeditation is around returning
(03:00):
to the present moment and doingso with really tangible tools.
To make this even more tangibleand specific, I define presence
as getting out of my head andinto my body.
And what I mean by that isactually being embodied in my
thinking.
So many of us are strugglingwith splintered attention right
(03:22):
now.
We want to be present and fullyconnected, but we are
subconsciously lost in thought,overthinking, wondering how
we're being perceived if we'rebeing clear.
What am I going to say next?
Thinking ahead.
And this disrupts our naturalability to think on our feet.
When we are up in our head, weare more likely to feel anxious.
(03:46):
We are more likely to get lostin fight or flight, but that's
not how we communicate when wefeel most comfortable and
confident.
When we feel comfortable, we arefully embodied.
Our thinking is not in ourheads, it's in our gut.
It's in our gut brain actually.
The gut brain is controlled bythe vagus nerve, the largest
(04:08):
nerve in our body that connectsthe brain through the heart, all
the way to the gut The vagusnerve, also known as rest and
digest, the parasympatheticnervous system is responsible
for really important functionslike breathing, circulation,
cognition, thinking on our feet,being able to feel relaxed.
Those things go away when we getcaught up in fight or flight,
(04:31):
and our vagus nerve shuts down.
And so being present is beingembodied, being able to activate
the gut brain.
So that's what I mean when Italk about presence.
I'm not talking about executivepresence.
We all know that doesn't workanyway.
I'm talking about actuallyfeeling more present, being able
to be relaxed in the presentmoment, to get out of our brains
(04:54):
and into our bodies.
Now that I can find the presentmoment, it is a joy and a
relief.
It's not that I don't go back toanxiety.
It's there for all of us.
How could it not be, especiallyin this moment.
One of my clients used ananalogy of an attic.
He said that before he starteddoing this work, it was like he
(05:17):
was always in a dark attic withthe lights off, and once he
started doing this work, it'slike he could go into the rest
of the house with the lights on.
And I really resonate with this,and I too end up back in the
attic sometimes.
We all do.
How could we not in this moment,but knowing that I have the
(05:37):
tools to get the lights back onhas been life changing.
But in this moment, ouroverthinking is oppressive.
For the past few years we havebeen in this constant
multitasking, and it can feelnearly impossible to find the
present moment, let alone stayin it.
(05:59):
And for me, I make this verysimple.
I find the present moment byrefocusing on any sense outside
of the thinking mind.
I might bring my attention totouch and feel my back against
the chair or my feet on thefloor, or my foot in my slipper.
(06:19):
It's really tangible and withina few moments, I'm going to
return to racing thoughts.
That's natural.
I'm a human being, and when Irealize it, I refocus on the
sensory sensation of touch.
Or I work a lot with the anchorof sound, and so I might anchor
to the sounds around me andanchoring to sounds is a passive
(06:45):
practice.
I can't be actively overthinkingwhile I'm listening.
It doesn't work.
So when I'm anchoring to sound,there's a release, there's a
letting go, and that muscle ofpracticing being is what I am
returning to when I inevitablyget lost back in thought.
So that is how I find thepresent moment by refocusing on
(07:08):
any sensation outside of thethinking mind.
I often will have a candle litat my desk and I might refocus
on the smell.
Or I keep a picture of my kiddoright here on my desk so that I
can use focal focus to refocusand get me outside of deep
thinking when I need it.
(07:30):
And if you've meditated in thepast, this is probably familiar.
For me, I believe thatmeditation and communication are
the same thing, but one happenson our own and one happens with
others.
But just like in meditation,when I realize I'm lost in
thought, I'm going to refocus myattention on a sense, on a
(07:51):
sensation, on touch or sight orsound or smell, something that
will get me outside of thinking,and within just a few moments, I
will be lost back in thought.
We are human beings.
We have to expect that.
And when I realize it, I bringmyself back to the present
(08:11):
moment by refocusing on one ofthese sensations.
For me, this is about thepractice of being versus doing.
I am a doer.
It's what comes naturally to me,and becomes the default in our
capitalistic society.
And so for me, the muscle tostrengthen is being, allowing,
(08:36):
letting go.
These things do not come naturalto me.
I want us to practice righthere, finding the present
moment, We can anchor to sound.
Let's do it.
I'm going to first of all, letthe chair really hold my body.
I'm going to release anyphysical effort.
(08:57):
I'm going to unclench my belly,unclench my jaw, and I'm going
to simply let the sounds in.
That means that I'm going tolisten to the sounds around me.
I might hear the birds chirping.
I might hear my refrigeratorbuzz or a truck drive by, and I
(09:18):
am not going to think aboutthose things.
I'm simply going to let themcome and go.
And if I get lost in thought,I'm going to bring my attention
back to the sounds around me,letting the sounds in.
So let's practice this togetherand I'll practice it with you.
(09:52):
What was it like?
Could you find the presentmoment even for a moment?
And I wanna talk aboutexpectations here.
Human beings on average haveanywhere from 10,000 to 80,000
thoughts a day.
Scientists have found that 80%of those thoughts on average are
negative, and 90% of thosethoughts on average are
(10:13):
identical to thoughts we hadyesterday.
So if that's the case.
We are going to have disruptionsof thought quite often.
If you meditate or not, it islikely that you'll be disrupted
by thinking every few moments.
Let's expect that we are humanbeings.
We think a lot, especially inmoments of trauma and terror
(10:36):
that we're witnessing right now.
It is natural for us to go backto thinking quite often.
So instead of beating ourselvesup, can you return to the
present moment and can you useone of these tools to do so?
This is similar to how this workworks, just like when we're
meditating on our own and we areable to isolate our attention
(10:59):
and refocus on senses to get usout of the thinking mind.
When I'm communicating, I wantto be using these senses to keep
me present, and I have toolsthat help us find embodied
presence.
These tools are backed byscience and proven to regulate
your nervous system and promotepresence, not perfection.
(11:21):
And these tools are necessarybecause most of us have
splintered attention right now.
We have splinteredself-expression.
We want to be present andconnected, but a part of our
brain is thinking andoverthinking.
How am I being perceived?
Do I sound clear?
Am I making sense?
And all of this is splinteringour ability to find focus in the
(11:43):
present moment.
And so these tools all work inthe same way.
I want the tool to replace thepart of your brain that wants to
race and run ahead.
We wanna give that part of yourbrain a job.
We want to fully engage as muchof the attention as we possibly
can so that there's less roomfor overthinking and extraneous
(12:04):
thinking.
And these tools can be anything.
They can be physical.
They can be leaning back againstyour chair and refocusing on
that tactile sensation.
They can be using focal focus inorder to focus your eyesight,
which helps focus your thinking.
They can even be formulas orframeworks, content tools that
(12:26):
help you have more clarityaround what you want to say.
Any tool works, any focus works.
It's just that the ones that Irecommend happen to improve your
hormonal confidence.
And what I mean by that isimproving your ability to
actually feel more confident.
(12:47):
When we are connected, when wecan get out of our heads and
into our bodies, we have moreaccess to hormonal confidence,
dopamine, serotonin,testosterone, feel good hormones
that help us think on our feetand be more present under
pressure.
All of these tools are designedto help you make the unconscious
(13:08):
conscious to get us out of thehabitual behavior and give us
the ability to make choices inthe moment, something that
anxiety takes away, but you willreturn to the habits, you will
return to unconscious thinking.
I want you to expect that andwhen you realize it, the key is
to refocus, reset, and restartwithout beating yourself up.
(13:34):
So stop beating yourself up ifyou have normal habitual
behaviors.
If you say, um, if you look up alot, if you find that you're
overthinking or overprioritizing how you're being
perceived, the only thing thatmatters is presence because the
answer to my anxiety is alwaysin the present moment.
(13:55):
So I wanna know what helps youget present and what prevents
you from being present?
What does presence even mean toyou?
Email me to let me knowLee@presentvoices.com.
And please if you like thepodcast, subscribe, leave a
review and share with a friend,and I'd love for you to practice
(14:17):
empathetic presence with me.
I host a live free workshop onZoom where we can practice
presence, not perfection, andlearn tools to express yourself
everywhere.
Sign up atpresentvoices.com/collective.
Looking forward to seeing younext time and wishing you
presence until then.
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