Being Present

I draw a lot of presonal and professional inspiration from art, of different forms and types and different times. Being a Gestalt therapist, I often see a lot of similarities in the ways of 'being present' and 'being with' with the perfomance contemporary artist Marina Abramović, particularly her work The Artist Is Present.

Abramović remained seated for hours each day. She did not get up to eat. She did not step away for breaks. People wondered how this was physically possible. There was speculation, curiosity, even disbelief. But what felt more important was what her stillness created.

Time changed.

Visitors could sit in front of her before the museum opened, during the day, even as it closed. There was no script. No fixed duration. Some people sat for only a few minutes. Others remained for hours. There were no rules about how long it should last.

Even waiting in line became part of the experience. A kind of preparation. A gradual stepping out of ordinary time and into something more focused, more intentional.

What interests me is not the extremity of it, but the simplicity: two people, facing each other, with nothing mediating the encounter.

Her body was the work. The viewer’s body was part of it too. An Encounter. The piece only existed in that shared field of attention.

In therapy, of course, the frame is different. There are boundaries. There is movement. There are breaks. It is not performance. But I do think about that quality of staying.

The willingness not to rush away from intensity. Not to distract. Not to perform expertise.

When someone sits with me, the invitation is not dramatic. It is simply to enter a space where time slows slightly. Where there is no need to entertain or convince. Where there are no rules about how long a feeling should last.

Some moments are brief. Others stretch. Sometimes silence says more than explanation. Sometimes the preparation — the hesitation before speaking — is already part of the work.

Presence, in that sense, is not something imposed. It emerges when two people are willing to stay in th emoment, and the space between them can become something alive.