Increasingly these days I notice the focus on being present, being grounded, being centered. I’m pleased. Sometimes with clients I’ll call it a process of ‘re-gathering’ or ‘re-collecting oneself’
It was a skill, a way of being never taught to me when I lived in corporate land. I got taught how to shift my inner landscape to be more present when I stepped into coaching; offered as a foundational practice, that once experienced, I came to realise just how I was not fully present before.
Not just confined to leaders, relevant to everyone, there’s a moment most will know.
The difficult conversation you didn’t see coming. The challenge that lands differently to what was intended. The energy in the room that shifts in a way that can’t quite be explained. And suddenly, without deciding to, you're somewhere else - your maybe contracted, reactive, performing rather than present.
Centering, or however it helps you to name it, is the practice of not going to those places. Or more precisely of being able to return from there quickly, with choice, rather than being carried by it.
But centering isn't what most people imagine. It isn't a breathing exercise or a moment of calm before the storm. It's a physical orientation device from the inside. A way of inhabiting your body that changes what's available to you, what you can perceive, how you respond, what kind of presence you bring into a room.
We can start with three dimensions
Length is the vertical axis — the lift through the crown of the head, the dignity of the spine, the quality of being neither collapsed downward nor rigidly held upward. When you're in length, you're upright in a way that's alive rather than effortful. You take up your full height, not more, not less.
Width is the horizontal axis — the sense of breadth across the chest and shoulders, hips, legs and feet, an openness that doesn't reach or grasp but simply makes room. Width is generosity and connection to what matters, what you and others care about. It’s the body's version of being able to hold more than one thing at once, more than one person's experience, more than one possible response.
Depth is the dimension most people forget. Front to back or back to front. The awareness that you have a back body, and a middle body as well as a front one. Depth is a reminder that you extend backward into space. Depth is the sense of your history, all that got you here, all that you can bring and offer as you face towards the future. Depth is the place where the present moment of now is, the now that can give you pause for a moment. Depth is what keeps you from being pulled entirely by what's in front of you. Depth is what brings you gravitas, stops you rushing.
When all three are present — when you are long, wide, and deep, something changes.
The fourth Dimension is in the belly, the pelvis, sometimes known as the Hara or the Tantien. We place our attention below the navel, dropping the breath into the belly, letting it become soft, letting it move and expand with the in-breath. We let go of gripping and we relax. Attention in this place brings a quiet stillness, one in which we can gather, and center whilst in the action we must take, the conversation we need to have. It’s not a flip out, disconnect move, it’s a be here, now present movement.
When you can pull all of this together, it’s noticeable. You can feel it. A settledness, not rigidity, an alertness, not vigilance. A relaxation that isn’t collapse. The world doesn't change, but your relationship to it does.
At first this might feel like a clumsy technique. Then it might feel like a skill, a switch you need to flick. But in time, it’ll become more natural, more habituated. It’s rare that it will become permanent, there will always be something that throws you, but with enough practice it will be permanently accessible.
Practise in the ordinary moments; before a meeting, at your desk, standing in line for a coffee, in the lift on the way to a difficult conversation. The body learns what it practises. And over time, centering becomes less something you do and more something you are.
Where do you lose your centre? And what would it mean to be able to find it again — quickly, reliably, even in the moments that most want to take it from you?
