Your Presence Is More Valuable Than You Often Know

​I took Ian to a college lacrosse prospects day at Hampden-Sydney College this past weekend. I love watching this kid play lacrosse. I also learn a lot about life and myself in the watching.

One thing that always impresses me about Ian is he doesn't operate like he has something to prove. Not at a prospects day. Not in a game. Not in conversations with his dad. He seems to have a wisdom well beyond his years that understands there is value in showing up that will eventually be a proof that doesn't need proved.

There are days I'm not sure I have that same wisdom.

I know I have lived in relationships where I always felt like I had to show up and prove myself.

Sometimes when I write I feel like I have to write in a way that proves I'm a writer.

There are times I'm standing in front of an audience believing I need to say things that will prove I'm worthy of their time showing up to listen to me.

I had coffee with a friend yesterday morning. The only pressure I put on myself was to show up and listen to some of the battles they are facing. Battles I knew I had no answers for. Battles I knew I would not be able to step to the plate and solve.

But they were battles I was going to show up for.

Sometimes showing up to battles as our real selves is more powerful than showing up as someone who feels like they have to perform well in the battles, more powerful than showing up as someone worried they will be judged more by what they say than appreciated for someone simply being there.

I think sometimes in our culture - in our relationships - we can begin to place more value on performance than presence, more value on worthy than authentic.

I have found in my writing that the more real I get about things, the more real I get about who I am, the struggles I've faced and continue to face, the more I show up writing about me and not someone I wish I could be, the more that writing connects with readers, and the more I feel sure my power is in the showing up and not in my performance.

On the way home from the prospects day, Ian talked to me about some things he learned at the experience. He talked about how he can go about improving those areas. Areas he identified NOT because he didn't perform as well as some of the other players. Areas he identified NOT because he didn't prove what he showed up to prove. But instead, areas the experience revealed to him while he was feeling no pressure to reveal things to the experience.

It's a great question to ask ourselves as we go into the world today.

Am I feeling pressure to reveal things to the world, or am I showing up to the world today excited for what the world might reveal to me? Am I living in relationships today that make me feel pressured to be someone instead of feeling free to show up curious about who this shared experience will allow us to become together?

It's easy to wake up on the side of the world that demands us to perform. If we wake up there long enough, we run the risk of waking up one day believing our presence will never be enough.

I am here to remind you that your presence is enough. Maybe you need to remind yourself of that. Maybe you need to remove yourself from environments that don't remind you of that enough and challenge yourself to go into more environments more sure of that than you are.

Show up as enough.

Then keep showing up as enough.

Chances are, you'll learn how to perform some things in life you would never have learned showing up with something to prove.

Performance never improves presence, but presence can always be a gift to our performance.