1. Begin NOW: The Practice of Presence

Summary:Something brought you here today — maybe a quiet ache for more meaning, more ease, more of yourself. In this episode, we explore Yoga Sutra 1.1 and the transformative power of presence, and I introduce the NOW practice — a simple three-step awareness tool you can use anywhere to return to yourself. Because awareness is where your power lives, and it always begins right here, right now.Transcript:Hey, it's Kelly G, your Radiance Coach. Welcome to the Embodied Radiance podcast, episode number one.Something brought you here today. Whatever it was, maybe it was curiosity, maybe it was the desire to learn or the ache for something more, or just wanting to learn more about how to live into your yoga.Whatever the reason was, I want you to know that you are in the right place. The transformative power of yoga and life coaching has changed my life, and it is my intention here to bring those two things together so that you can close the gap between what you practice on the mat and how you actually live your life.Along the way, we're going to explore what can get in the way, the programming, the patterns, the stories of perfecting and proving, the things that you've been carrying that maybe weren't yours to carry. But we're also gonna explore what becomes possible when you begin to shift all of that. So this is really about learning to live from a place of authenticity, feeling good in being yourself, and from that place, knowing that you can let go of unhelpful conditioning and create more meaning and joy and purpose and connection in your life.We have lots to look at, lots to explore. We'll be spending time with things like what your mind is doing, what embodiment means and how to practice it, what happens in your nervous system and how you can support it, feeling your emotions. And along the way, we're going to be building this foundation of self-trust.Hi, I'm Kelly Gardner or KellyG, and I am your radiance coach. I'm a trauma therapist turned life and leadership coach and a yoga therapist. And I've spent many years working with women who are very wise and deeply committed to their own growth, but also feel like there is still something missing. This podcast is my hope to support you if that is your experience, and I'm so glad you're here.Before we really dive in, I want you to do something with me right now, just a quick now practice.So first, notice where your body is in space. Notice any signals or sensations that your body is telling you. Next, I invite you to open your posture. That may mean lengthening up through your spine or widening out by dropping the shoulders down.And then open your body and your mind with a nice, full, big breath in and out. And finally, I invite you to take a moment to wow yourself by noticing something good in this moment. Anything, big or small, something that is working Okay. So this was a practice in bringing you to the now, into this moment. So now, let's continue on. We'll come back to that.In the Yoga Sutras, which are the traditional foundational texts of yoga philosophy, the first phrase that opens up the Sutras is pretty simple. That phrase is, "And now, the exposition of yoga." Now the information of what yoga is. And there's something really powerful about the fact that the Sutras open with the word now.Because yoga works in relationship with this moment. Not yesterday, not when you're finally ready, not once you have perfected it or fixed yourself, but right now. The time for yoga is now. The practice of being in the now invites us into awareness, into presence, being fully here, right here, right now in this moment, mind and body in the same place.When we lean into this type of mindful awareness, it then opens us up to the choices that we have. Without awareness, change is completely up to chance. If we're not aware, we're not gonna do anything to change it. Now, most of us in our lives have been trained into lots of ways to not live in the now, to in fact kind of be anywhere but now.We've learned lots of ways to distract and to numb out, and to be too busy to recognize what we're feeling or thinking, what we're experiencing in the now. In our conditioning, we can live for approval that we haven't received yet, or we can really put things on hold, waiting until we're calmer or more prepared or thinner or whatever that ideal is.We've been taught in many ways that who we are right now in this moment isn't quite enough. So awareness of the present moment isn't just a mindfulness practice. It's really an act of reclamation, coming back to ourselves so that we can choose how to move forward. Now, everything that you've experienced up to this very moment has led you to now.And whether your path has felt beautiful or really painful and messy, or joyful and exciting, or a mix of all of the above, you are here. And when you are present and aware, you have the power to choose how to move forward. You have the power to choose who you're going to become next. You have the power to create whatever it is that you want for yourself, for your life, for your future self.So the time is now. When we're disconnected from the present moment, we can tend to live inside automatic reactions. We can live on autopilot. We can live according to someone else's rules and expectations and old conditioning that doesn't actually serve us. Or we can find ourselves living in a nervous system that is bracing based on survival and protection. But awareness interrupts the autopilot.Awareness reorients us to ourselves in this moment, and it gives us the power to intentionally choose what's next. Awareness is one of the most foundational practices of yoga and life coaching. It's a tool of discovery, and what you are discovering is yourself. When we come into awareness, when we come into the present moment, our mind gets clearer.We're fully here with what is happening in the moment. And from that place, we are more resourceful and more creative and more powerful in how we respond to life. So practicing awareness doesn't necessarily mean we're immediately trying to fix or change ourselves. We're really just gathering information.But because of our conditioning, many of us have learned to turn anything we notice, any awareness, into criticism and self-criticism. Awareness is not meant to become another weapon for you to use against yourself. It means noticing, learning, without judging, without holding what we find against ourselves.It's about being willing to turn inward, see what is there, and be with it long enough to gain clarity. It's noticing, witnessing, and becoming curious instead of automatically becoming critical. When we notice, we can tune into our intuition, our inner wisdom, and what our body is telling us. The purpose of awareness is not to judge ourselves, but to become informed so that we can choose.If we aren't aware, that choice isn't there. If we always start with awareness, we can intentionally plan what we do next. We can intentionally plan our lives and who we are and how we experience our days. Every moment gives us another opportunity to begin again.And now, let's practice again. So I want to formally introduce you to an acronym that I have been using to help with the practice of being present right now, and the acronym uses the word now: notice, open, and wow.So let's practice. The N stands for notice. This means noticing when you aren't present in the moment, when you're spiraling out, when your mind is a million miles away. So it may be you notice that you are trying to win an argument in your head, or you are replaying a situation over and over and over. Or maybe you notice that you are what-ifing and worst case scenario-ing what could happen in the future.When you notice, bring yourself into your body. Notice where your body is in space, the environment around you, and what your body is doing. The O stands for open. Once you've noticed and brought yourself into your body, we want to open our posture. So open your posture by maybe lengthening up through the spine or rolling the shoulders back and down.And then open your mind and your body with a full breath in and out. Breathing in, taking up more space as your ribs widen out, breathing out completely. This brings us into a space of possibility. And the W stands for wow. Find one thing that is working or going well in this moment, no matter how big or small.This may be something that you really enjoy, something you're grateful for, something you're appreciating. This is a way to let your nervous system know that right now in this moment, something is okay, and that's enough. This recognition, wowing yourself with good that is available, changes your energy, and from there you can move forward in a really intentional way.So I invite you to take a big breath here. Notice where your body is in space. Open your posture. Take up more space physically. Take a big breath in and out, and wow yourself with the good that is available. Find one thing that is going right.Now take a moment to notice what shifted, even slightly, as you did that. This practice brings us into presence, into awareness right now. And from that mindful awareness, we have more power than we do when we are on autopilot.So I invite you, as you move through your day, get curious about what changes when you return to now.Bring yourself back to the moment. What would change if presence became your practice? If your mind starts replaying the past or spiraling to the future, if you notice that your mind is somewhere other than where your body is, come back to the now practice. Notice, open, wow. And then you can move forward from there.Radiance isn't about shining for everyone else. It's what happens when you come back to yourself, and that's what we're building here. So until next time, come back to now and let your life shine.Music by Rory Gardnerwww.yourradiantsoul.com