#452 - The Art of Being Here: How Presence Transforms Everything

If you've been feeling a little stretched, distracted, overwhelmed or even like life is moving so fast that you're barely in it, this episode is for you.

Today I am talking about presence, not as some perfect, polished idea, but as a real practice we can all return to, especially when life feels full, messy, uncertain or hard.

I share why being present is not about pretending everything is okay, and why true mindfulness is actually about being honest with what you are feeling and learning how to come back to yourself again and again.

In this episode, I also walk you through some of the simple practices that have helped me the most over the years.

They're not complicated, and they don't require you to change your whole life overnight.

They are gentle, powerful tools that can help you feel calmer, clearer and more grounded in your everyday life.

So if you've been craving more calm, more clarity and more space to breathe, I really think this conversation will support you. 

As always, I’d LOVE to hear what resonated most with you - so please share and let’s keep the conversation going in the Dream Life Podcast Facebook Group here.    

Have a wonderful weekend …and remember, it all starts with a dream 💛

Dream Life & kikki.K Founder

P.S. If you’re ready for guided support, it's a brilliant month to start with me as your mentor in Dream Life Coaching.

SHOW NOTES:

• Buy Kristina's book, Your Dream Life Starts Here
• Buy a Daily Wins Journal.
• Follow Kristina on Insta and TikTok
• If you feel it's time to take a leap and invest in you, join:
  • My Platinum Coaching Program where in April our focus will be on Owning Your Mornings and Transforming Your Life - with a Morning Ritual. Learn more here.
  • My Dream Business Book Club here. In April, we'll be reading and learning from:

    The 1 Page Marketing Plan, by Allan Dib. Whether just starting out - or an experienced entrepreneur - this is the easiest & fastest way to create a marketing plan to propel your business growth.

  • My online personal Growth Book Club GROW, April, where we'll be reading and squeezing the learnings out of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, by Cal Newport 

    Learn more here.

• Dream Life Community Facebook Group: Connect with like-minded dreamers.

RESOURCES:

• Sign up to our email list here to hear about upcoming workshops.
• Take your first step to getting clarity on what you want from life with this free bonus dreaming exercise here 101 Dreams Audio Guide 
• Buy Kristina's book, Your Dream Life Starts Here
• Discover how close you are to living your Dream Life. Take our 5min Quiz here and get personalised insights emailed to you...

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi there, and welcome back to the Your Dream Life Starts Here podcast. I am so glad you are here, genuinely, whether you are walking, driving, folding laundry, or sitting in your favourite spot with a coffee or tea.

I want you to take one breath right now. Just one. In through the nose and out. Because this episode is about that breath, that moment, that quiet, extraordinary practice of actually being here in your life, in your body, in your experience, whether you are standing on top of the world or crawling through the hardest chapter you have ever known.

I have a lot to say about this one, so let us dive right in.

Life is not a straight line, and that is not the problem. I want to start by saying something I think we all know, but we need to hear again and again. Life is not linear. It is not a smooth upward curve from where you are to where you want to be. It has never been like that, and it never will be.

The sooner we stop expecting it to be, the sooner we stop bracing ourselves every time something goes sideways, the sooner we actually start living in the fullness of what this journey has to offer.

There will be seasons that feel like magic, where everything is clicking, you are in flow, you are excited to wake up, the vision feels clear and close and real, and life feels really good.

And then there will be seasons that knock you flat. Seasons where you are grieving something. Maybe it is a relationship, a version of yourself, or a dream that did not work out the way you imagined. Seasons where the world outside feels heavy and you cannot quite separate that heaviness from your own.

Both of those things are real. Both of those things are valid. Both of those things are part of the dream.

And here is what I have come to understand deeply in my own life. The goal was never to feel good all the time. The goal is to be present through all of it, to ride the highs with intention and to move through the lows with grace. That is the practice. That is actually what building your dream life looks like from the inside.

So let us talk about what presence actually means, because maybe it is not what you think.

I want to be really honest with you here, because I think there is a misconception around mindfulness and presence that I want to dismantle, at least the way I see it. Being present does not mean being positive. It does not mean putting a gratitude journal entry on top of your pain. It does not mean bypassing the hard stuff, pretending everything is fine, or performing okayness when you are not okay.

True presence, real mindfulness, means feeling it all. It means when something hurts, you sit with the hurt instead of immediately distracting yourself from it. It means when you are scared, you acknowledge the fear instead of pushing it down and powering through. It means when the world feels uncertain, and right now for many of us it does, you do not disconnect from yourself. You get closer to yourself.

That is the practice.

I will not pretend it is easy, but I will tell you this. It is the most beautiful, most liberating place I have ever lived from.

When you stop running from your own inner experience, when you turn towards it, something shifts. You become less afraid of your emotions, and you start to trust yourself more. You stop white-knuckling your way through the hard times and start moving through them with a quiet steadiness that nothing can shake.

And that steadiness is not something handed to you. You build it, slowly and deliberately, through practice.

So I want to talk about the practices that have changed my life, and I want to share something personal here, because I think it matters. This is one area of my life where I genuinely feel like I have done the work. I say that not to brag, because honestly it has taken years and it is still ongoing. I actually think it is work I will be doing for the rest of my life. But I love doing it now, because I want you to know that what I am about to share is not just theory. This is what I have lived, and this is real.

These are the practices that have brought me to a place of deep presence, even through the most challenging seasons.

Number one, journaling. Not just writing down my to do list, but actually going in, asking myself the hard questions, and giving voice to the emotions I have not yet said out loud. Processing on paper before I process with anyone else. There is something about writing that makes the invisible visible, and the visible easier to move through.

Number two, meditation. Sitting quietly with myself, even when my mind is loud, especially when my mind is loud. Learning that I am not my thoughts, that I can watch them pass without being swept away by them. This has been one of the most grounding discoveries of my life, and a practice that does not have to be complicated. But it definitely helps to get more knowledge and understanding around it.

In May, inside the Dream Life Coaching program, we are welcoming Tom Cronin, who is a meditation teacher. He is going to come in and do a session with us around mindfulness in everyday life, and go deeper on meditation in a way that feels doable in real life. I have also created a meditation that is free, and I will link to it in the show notes for you. It is just five minutes, and it is something that can help you reset and begin stepping into this kind of presence.

Number three, walking in nature. This one is simple, and it is profound. When I walk outside, when I feel the air, hear the birds, and notice the light changing, especially in the morning and at sunset, I am pulled completely out of my head and into my body, into the moment, into what is actually real and present right now.

I cannot overstate how much this has helped me through the hard times. I talk about this all the time. If you get up in the morning, no phone, no AirPods, no podcast. There is definitely a time for those things. I love listening to inspiring podcasts and audiobooks. But we also need time when it is just quiet, especially when we are walking in nature.

Number four, solitude. Having time on my own, unscheduled and unperformed, just being, has become one of the most important ingredients in my life. I have been doing this for a long time. In a world that rewards busyness and productivity, choosing quiet can feel radical. And it is from that quiet that I hear myself most clearly.

In fact, I go away on my own quite frequently. And if this sounds scary to you, I am bringing ten people with me on a day retreat in Victoria, outside Melbourne, in May. It is almost full, but there are a couple of spots left. It is a beautiful day where I share how I do this myself. If you want to join, just head over to Your Dream Life Starts Here. I know not everyone can come, or is in this part of the world, but if you can, it is a really beautiful day. I highly recommend we all spend more time in solitude.

Number five, planning and setting intentions. This one might surprise people, because planning sounds like it is about the future, not the present. But for me, intentional planning is actually an act of presence. It is me saying, I see where I am, I am clear on where I want to go, and I am going to move towards it with purpose.

Number six, dreaming big, especially when I have no idea how something is going to happen. Dreams are not plans. They are not timelines. They are a declaration of what you believe is possible. Holding that dream, even when the path is foggy, keeps you connected to something larger than the current moment.

There will be no surprises if you are a frequent listener that I am a big believer in dreaming, because it has completely changed my life. I am not just saying it. I have lived it, and I am still living it. It never stops amazing me what dreaming big can do for us.

Number seven, working on daily habits, the small, quiet choices that nobody sees but that compound into a life. Simple things like drinking water, moving our body, and choosing rest when rest is needed. These are not glamorous, but they are the architecture of a life that feels good from the inside.

And the last one, number eight, gratitude. Not performative gratitude. Not toxic positivity. But genuine, eyes-open noticing of what is actually right in front of you that is good. Even in hard seasons, there is always something. And when we train our attention towards it, it does not erase the pain, but it gives us something to stand on.

Again, gratitude has been so helpful for me. The more grateful we are, the more grateful we become.

So how can we be present when the world is so hard?

I want to speak directly to something right now, because I know so many of you are navigating not just personal challenges, but also the weight of what is happening in the world. And it is heavy. I know it is, because I feel it too. There are moments when the news feels crushing, when uncertainty feels like it is pressing in from all sides, when you look at the state of things and feel helpless, grieved or afraid.

And here is what I want to say to you. It is completely allowed. You do not have to be okay with things that are not okay. You do not have to perform peace when you do not feel it. That would not be mindfulness. That would be suppression.

What mindfulness does offer you in those moments is this: a way to feel the weight of reality without being buried by it. A way to stay connected to yourself, your values, your purpose, your inner knowing, even when everything outside feels chaotic.

And this is where presence becomes not just a spiritual practice, but a survival skill. When you know how to come back to yourself through breath, journaling, a walk, or a moment of stillness, you do not get lost in the storm. You become the eye of it, calm, clear and grounded.

That is what we are building. Not immunity to difficulty, but resilience within it.

Now I want to share something I am genuinely excited about. Inside the Dream Life Coaching Program this May, we are going to go deep on exactly this: presence, mindfulness, what it actually means to feel your emotions fully without being consumed by them, and how to stay grounded in your vision even when life is throwing everything at you.

We are going to do the work together, the journaling, the reflection, the inner practices that make the outer life possible. Because building your dream life is not just about strategy and goal setting. It is about who you are becoming in the process. And that becoming happens from the inside out.

If you have been waiting for a sign that this is your moment, this might be it. Come and join us if it feels right for you. I would absolutely love to have you. You can find more here: https://www.yourdreamlifestartshere.com/course

Before I wrap up, I want to mention something that I think will speak directly to a lot of you. So many of the women I talk to tell me some version of the same thing. I feel like I am always behind. Like no matter what I do, I can never quite catch up. There is always more on the list than there is time in the day.

And that feeling, that low-level hum of being rushed, behind, never enough, is actually one of the biggest blocks to presence there is. Because when you are living in that energy, you are never here. You are always somewhere in the future, stressed about what has not happened yet.

So I am putting together a workshop called How to Stop Feeling Rushed and Finally Feel Ahead of Your Life. If that title alone made you exhale a little, then you already know this one is for you.

I will share more details very soon. Just head over to Your Dream Life Starts Here and I will have it there. I will also send an email, so if you are on our mailing list, you will get a notification when it goes live. It is a one-off workshop, but I have put a lot of work into it and I think it is really, really good.

If you feel like you are behind, if you feel rushed, and if you feel like there is not enough space and time to make it all happen, let me leave you with this.

Presence is not a destination. It is not something you achieve once and then tick off the list. It is a practice you return to again and again and again. Some days it is easy. Some days it is the hardest thing you do. But every single time you choose to come back to yourself, to be here in this moment, in this body, in this life, you are doing something extraordinary.

You are choosing reality over escape. You are choosing growth over numbing. And you are choosing to show up for the one life you actually have.

That is the dream life. Not the picture-perfect version we sometimes chase, but the deeply felt, fully inhabited, eyes-wide-open version. And you are so capable of it.

So maybe ask yourself, what would it feel like to be fully present in my life right now?

And also ask yourself, what am I avoiding feeling?

I cannot wait to be back on Monday with another episode. And maybe I will see you at the workshop, or maybe I will see you inside the Dream Life Coaching program in May.

But until then, be here. It is a beautiful place.