743 thoughts on “The Absent Landlord”

1. Gabriele what you have bought to our attention is the state of the world, doing one thing and being some where else. The norm! But, to be present in every moment requires us to be committed and consistent and things can change. And when we are in the conscious presence, life is so much different, instead of thinking the body doing its own thing.

   Can we imagine life if every walking human was present to every moment? Life on planet earth will be so much different. I wonder what the state of mental health, exhaustion, health etc be at if we all lived from this point?…

2. When the mind is checked out from the movements of the body there is a disconnection from who we are.

   1. And from this disconnection, we become exhausted, disgruntled and probably hating life, living in this eternal unsettlement..

3. Thank you Gabriele for an amazing blog that really does highlight how we can abuse the mind and body by multi-tasking. I too used to pride myself with the ability to have several thoughts or conversations going on in my mind at the same time, where as now I can understand and feel how unsettling and damaging it is to the nervous system and the whole body in general as it confuses us and sets us up to not be in the present moment. Though of course, when we have been so used to doing this all the time, it can take a while to make a change and ‘train’ our thoughts and mind differently.

   1. Isn’t it amazing how everything is upside down and back to front? We might pride ourselves on multi-tasking to the nth degree while it is the very thing that leaves the body we move in and with abandoned and absent of any kind of presence. How would we respond if not react if we were totally, uninterruptedly and abusively ignored?

4. The mind is designed to think and think it will – in fact if we do not give it something specific to think about, then it will be given something random to think about. This is just a fact, so my approch is that I would rather give it a task to think about that involves the body and being present with the body as this is what actually super supportive to us in looking after ourselves and also in soothing and settling the Nervous System.

   1. As opposed to this, which is far from supportive or settling, ‘To be even more precise, I was in two time zones (the present moment and the future) and in two places (on my walk and in my office) at once.’

5. Our mind and our thoughts can certainly be this wandering ‘thing’ that just keeps jumping from one thing to the next whilst not really wanting to be in the present moment. And yet this is crazy really as why should we not be thinking about and feeling everything of what we are actually doing? I sometimes feel that my mind has this ADD or Attention Deficit Disorder especially when it comes to being in the present moment. Sure I can function well in life but when it comes to being with me and conscious presence it is not as easy as that and it does require quite an effort or focus, which then feels amazing and so steadying in so many ways.

6. A relationship with conscious presence and the ensuing appreciation of that deepening connection is a simple part of our evolution.

   1. A wise choice, being consciously present, instead of abandoning ourselves, ‘My body had been left to its physicality, bereft of my presence. I had checked out from the physical body and what it was doing and an obvious disconnection from my ears down had occurred.’

7. We give so much credence to the mind that it is hard to see that actually it (the mind) is not it and that the body is it. And thus, that we can live a life feeling whole, warm and complete when we bring the mind to what the body is doing.

8. “… conscious presence – the ability to have the mind think what the body does and have the body do what the mind thinks, keeping both in the same place and in the same time zone.” When we are not with the body and running our mind into the future or past, or in imagined scenarios stimulating emotion, there surely must be an effect on the body. I know when I am not present with myself it’s like a disturbance, plus I am unaware of the effects of this on my body so the emotion or rushing, etc, can escalate and the disturbance can become greater, putting more pressure on the body.

   1. Lack of presence comes with a price to pay, to the detriment of the physical body and our mental health, in the short and the long term.

      1. Lack of presence does have consequences, ‘with the rates of dementia and mental health problems ever soaring, can we really afford to shrug our shoulders and keep thinking that this kind of body / mind split and absenteeism from our-selves is normal or even healthy?’

      2. It suits us to make light of the role of our body in our health, physical and mental, and blame a gene or other external circumstances. To our own detriment, may I add.

9. Ultimately – if you leave something empty, whether it be a house or we check out of our bodies in our minds we leave it open to being used for something other than it’s original purpose. Nobody would want squatters in their house – so why do we allow constant wayward thoughts in our heads?

   1. Great point and comparison – thoughts that are not in line with who we are in truth are indeed squatters that have taken advantage of the opening that our absence has created.

      1. Absolutely – our thoughts can completely lead us astray onto a path we would never truly want to be on – so our presence and our full occupation is everything.

      2. Once our thoughts have been let loose, they keep circulating – as we probably have all noticed when trying to go to sleep but unable to stop the agitated and evermore agitating merry-go-round that revs up the mind and keeps the body unsettled.

   2. “Nobody would want squatters in their house – so why do we allow constant wayward thoughts in our heads?” When you put it this way the intrusive nature of negative thoughts is really felt!

      1. It’s only because we have become used to these squatters that we think the mind chatter is normal and something we have to live with. That makes me wonder who is actually conversing when two people meet and start talking to each other? Will the real person please stand up?

      2. “Will the real person please stand up?” I had to laugh, yet it’s quite a serious consideration. Yesterday I was feeling the quality of thoughts that have come through my body that degrade, put down, demean or are generally negative. I started to ask the question of how they could possibly be a true part of me or human life when surely if such thoughts were, we would have destroyed our bodies long ago. No animal naturally has self harming behaviours unless it’s been abused or interfered with in some way. It’s just not a natural part in the order of things. The more I examine such negativity the more I feel how out of place it is with the love that naturally is within me, and that such thoughts come from a source outside of myself.

      3. Great point and I love the conclusion, in that such a force has to come from outside of us. There is no other explanation. No green tree frog would be sitting there, doing what a frog does, and think to itself that its colour is not green enough, its eyes too small, its bottom too big, its leaps not long enough, etc. It is as ludicrous as it sounds but we keep engaging in this behaviour without ever questioning it.

10. I used to think I was going for a walk to ‘clear my head’ but actually I was just walking my physical body while still trying to unravel the prevailing problem. Walking with conscious presence and walking in awareness of how my body is moving offers a clarity and simplicity of just being with myself.

    1. It is very easy to trudge around while circulating the same mental energy that got us stuck and distressed in the first place. Only connection to the physical body and moving with conscious presence can change this muck from keeping going around and around and around.

11. “It might be worth looking a little deeper into this conundrum – this split between the body and the mind.” I often found my head ruling my body, and have found that when I allow my body to make the first move I have a natural flow that supports me far better than my mind.

    1. Sally this is a powerful realisation – and really the head/mind is like a king here to serve the body (the people) and always be there to look after it (them). Of course there is the corrupted version of royalty that can rule the show.

    2. And what are the long term consequences of living in such a way, not present with our body, ‘Is it really okay to live checked out from what we do? And what else does it lead to?’

12. It is an easy thing to allow your mind to runaway with different thoughts or scenarios as we go about our daily tasks, the problem is we are never concentrating on the job at hand, I have found the easiest way to quiet the mind is to simply feel my body as I work, if I am writing I feel the pen in my hand the touch of the paper and my breath, all of which allows me to just be.

    1. The mind finds settlement when we connect to the body and let it lead the way.

13. The great divide between mind and body is beautifully exposed here Gabriele. From many years past, I remember there being an exercise taught by a meditation teacher – whenever you found the mind going off at a tangent, you had to go to where the mind had gone too! What an impossibility that turned out to be – one moment a thought about somewhere abroad, the special grocery shop in another county, the supermarket….on and on it went, that simply exposed how scattered the mind was.

    1. That is very graphic and true insanity in anyone’s book.

14. Meeting Serge Benhayon and his attending presentations brought a great realisation to me – I genuinely ‘thought’ I was connected with my body prior to this and it soon became very clear, it was only ‘thinking’ about conscious presence, not actually living with true presence with my body. Much to appreciate here – thank you Serge Benhayon for lighting the way to return to inner stillness from being in conscious presence with the body – and there is always more to deepen into.
    “With deep appreciation of Serge Benhayon and the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom, without whom and which I would not have discovered the joy and fulfillment of conscious presence”.

15. Simply understanding that checking out of life is literally that… And that the ramifications are extraordinarily powerful and are wreaking havoc upon humanity.

16. ‘Is this escapism into our heads one of the cornerstones of ill health?’ For me there is no doubt it is and I notice with myself that when I am not present and am in several places at the same time, one with my head and one with my body I forget what I have done or I put something in the fridge what does not belong in the fridge, sounds weird but I do know this being checked out is not healthy at all and can be the start of dementia when I don’t change this habit (or is it an addiction?) of being somewhere else with my mind.

    1. I put that to the test in the gym yesterday and noticed that my heart rate goes up when I am elsewhere in my thoughts to where my body is. My body hates being deserted like this, it seems to go into a state of disarray, if not mild panic. Makes me wonder what else happens along the line?

       1. What a great test to do, and then see the immediate consequences.

17. That is a disorder to have our presence split and even to think that that is perfectly normal.

18. There are different ways to activate the body.. for different purposes. When we split ourselves, we activate the body based on what is already in the body locked in our hips. This is what moves us and moves with us. When we are present (that is in the present), our movements are looser. We choose what moves us.

    1. Great point; the lived past being locked in our hips means it accounts for our patterns and behaviours of old, i.e. the tilted sacrum, the uneven leg length, the pelvis being rotated this way or that – we absently walk our talk of yesteryear. And we remain oblivious to the sadness that precipitates via the sacrum, the belief systems that we drag around and are being dragged around by, the deficit of present and on the front foot movement, etc.

    2. Are our movements contributing to our state of well-being, ‘Is it possible that the way we move and go about our everyday life is making us sick?’

19. How often have I checked out whilst doing something and wandered off into my mind? Having stop moments throughout my day can support me to check in and stay more connected to my body, if I can live this more consistently throughout my day it would steadily build and have a flow on affect that is supportive for many more.

20. Great to read this again Gabriele, I must say conscious presence is not my strong point and the analogy of the absent landlord is quite true of my experience when checking out from what I am doing. Conscious presence feels like it will be a new foundation for me to put into place.

    1. I too struggle with conscious presence Melinda, and yet when we set our mind to it literally and surrender the body to it then we can feel how simple and powerful and natural it is… and then we again allow the other thoughts to barge in and disrupt the space …to start all over again!

    2. I think it is a learning for many of us, to stay consciously present throughout our day, ‘the ability to have the mind think what the body does and have the body do what the mind thinks, keeping both in the same place and in the same time zone.’

21. To liken our lack of presence in our body to an empty house with an absent landlord is a fantastic analogy Gabriele. It also makes me wonder when we check out and get lost in our mind in our absence what is going on in the rest of our body.

22. Before I had the understanding of conscious presence I used to think that multi-tasking was essential to getting everything ‘done’ but now I realise how exhausting it is to try and be in several places and several time zones at the same time.

23. I have been so absent from my body for a large part of my life, and I feel had I not come to Universal Medicine and learnt from Serge Benhayon how to connect back to life and learn to be consciously present as much as I am able, I would be on my way in the future to having dementia.

24. I have been finding that in slowly building a more steady foundation through being more present with my body and the lovely flow that is established moving with a certain quality and awareness, when I become distracted and go into my mind I notice the lack of flow far more quickly, to then stop and bring myself back.

    1. And there is great joy in that, in the realisation that we have abandoned the body because it is something we would not even have noticed before, before The Way of The Livingness; and even if we had noticed, we would have lauded ourselves for multitasking, being speedy albeit rather careless and altogether assumed this was a totally normal way of living life. And ‘normal’ it might be called by the majority but normal is not natural and neither is it wholesome, fulfilling and joyous.

25. It’s odd to consider that we think multi-tasking is a good thing I know I did, and now looking back and it can still occur I can feel how in doing so I am losing out and not being fully there in anything I do, either right now or that future I might be considering. To now understand that I can live connected to and with the body has been life changing and in doing so, I am so much more aware of my body and the quality of how I feel, think and move has changed utterly.

26. There have been many walks that I have taken, many meals that I have cooked and many floors that I have vacuumed where “my mind was not only in another place, it was actually in a different time zone.” In fact, I am sure that I was in the other time zone even more than I was in the present. No wonder life was a struggle and there were many disasters and injuries as a result of my lack of being present with me in the moment. I was definitely an “absent landlord”; what an empty, and often painful, way to live.

    1. And being absent hurts the body and is in contrast to our delicateness; moving divorced from our body configures us in a way that is perpetually straining and assaulting of our innate divinity.

27. An absent landlord is a great analogy for what happens when we let our thoughts wonder and we are effectively living in two places at once. The danger of this is that we are not effectively fully aware of what we are doing, so it’s a bit like going out and leaving the door wide open – anything could come in.

    1. Yes, there is basically no one at home, and anything can then come in.

28. A great reminder Gabriele to be on the ball with where my mind is more often!

29. Super interesting when you put it like that Gabriele – that the mind and body are split into two different places and time zones. No wonder there is a feeling of disconnection when we do that, or equally how totally wonderful it feels when the two come together in the same moment.

30. A very pertinent blog to read today, as I sit here with a pounding headache which has followed on from exactly what you are describing Gabriele – my mind constantly being somewhere else while my body is here. It is an exhausting way to operate and when we start to clock it, as confronting as it may be, we start to bring more and more conscious presence into our day – and then when the mind takes over, boy does it hurt!

    1. Yes, it does hurt when we allow the mind to run the body and the more that we are consciously present, the more it stands out and the more it hurts.

31. When we allow ourselves to be absorbed by life, we check out from ourselves and we are all over the place at once. Suddenly, our movements dance to what is to be done. There is no connection with oneself. In those circumstances, though, checking in changes instantly the quality we are moving in and with. We are no longer lost and moving in alienated mood.

    1. Very true Eduardo… no matter how lost we think we are all it takes is an awareness as to where we are at and feel the impulse to change our movements. We may even feel the pull to go back to our old way but the commitment to the connection to ourselves is too strong… we are back.

       1. We open our eyes to what cannot be denied, we become honest and take responsibility for our choices, for our life. That is the biggest turn around possible on a personal level.

32. Reading this article tonight I can feel how important it is to bring back a quality to how we live. To not only choose to keep our mind with our body, but to want to, because we enjoy the beauty of our own presence palpably feeling it in our body, there to be shared joyfully with all others.

33. Indeed there is a huge fulfillment in being consciously present, as it leaves you to be with you in the moment feeling enough. Whilst normally we possibly would crave something more outside of ourselves to fullfill us because we werent consciously present !
    How simply one connection can be made and see its effects, helps us observe our way in life and how we can change.. By moving our attention to our body that means working together with our mind, spirit and Soul. None is left out.

34. As I was driving home last night it was snowing and the conditions were challenging so I was fully focussed on my driving which made me realise how often I am on auto pilot when driving the same route to and from work. A great reflection of how often I leave myself during every day and yet it is something I know innately and is only ever a choice away.

35. The weather has suddenly got cold in England and as I was walking yesterday I was already projecting forward to getting out of the cold so my body had the double whammy of me not having wrapped up warmly enough and being on its own with no loving attention or presence – a situation rife for causing accidents.

36. Our mind can come in and take over, and then all of a sudden we are not with ourselves, ‘My body had been left to its physicality, bereft of my presence. I had checked out from the physical body and what it was doing and an obvious disconnection from my ears down had occurred.’ We would not disappear if we were looking after a baby or toddler, so is it really ok to abandon ourselves, and what are the implications when we consistently do this?

37. Something about how we are living is certainly making us sick with rates of illness and disease escalating at alarming rates, ‘Is it possible that the way we move and go about our everyday life is making us sick?”

38. Great article Gabriele, at times when my mind is all over the place with thoughts past and future my body feels stressed and worn out, it takes time for me to stop and choose to reconnect back to my body again, but when I do what a difference this makes.

39. “To be even more precise, I was in two time zones (the present moment and the future) and in two places (on my walk and in my office) at once.” A great way to look at the discrepancy between mind and body. Love the ‘absent landlord’ analogy too.

    1. No evolution is possible from a foundation of self-critique; it is like trying to build a skyscraper on top of quicksand.

40. A simple yet powerful analogy Gabriele. It’s amazing how often I notice I am absent from my body. These days I notice when I’ve checked out more often. The good thing is, it means by noticing, I’m already back.

    1. Yes, noticing being absent from the body is at least half the work of reconnecting to the body already done.

       1. So supportive, rather than beating myself up because ‘I’ve gone again’, recognising and appreciating I’m on my way back to me.

41. What you share here could well hold the key to early stage dementia. What if paying attention to this pattern is the way to turn this around – re-engaging with both our bodies and our lives.

42. What a beautiful reflection this empty house and the words that came to you ‘the absent landlord’. When we are open and willing to see everything is been given to us to evolve and to let go of patterns that not support us.

43. Conscious presence is when I am present in the present with all what I am. This is something very empowering and unifying, as there are no energetic leaks or distractions, but full awareness and the ability to respond to what comes to me with so much clarity and steadiness. This is something that is worth to be practised and fully integrated in my life.

44. I once presented a workshop to doctors on communication, self-care, and listening. Some of the doctors were literally shocked when I gave them the synopsis of what was probably going on in their heads as they were listening so to speak, the patients as they talked. Information overload has led to aural multitasking in which as you say, nobody is served.

45. The ‘conscious presence’ practice as Serge Benhayon has taught to hundreds of people for many years will one day be recognised by Medicine for the true power and healing it can offer everyone.

46. In a world that champions multi-tasking we can see just how the rise of such illnesses like dementia and Alzheimer continues to climb. I was very good at multi-tasking too once upon a time and sometimes still do as I am not perfect but I find it is a lot easier to reconnect to my movements when I make it simple. For instance if I find myself chopping vegetables in the kitchen and I start to think about tomorrow, I simply stop and connect to my hands and how they hold the knife and instantly my connection to my body returns. It’s great to note that we always have a choice to reconnect to our bodies and the divine expression we hold within.

47. If we are not present with our bodies what then is the quality moving us? This is wise for us to consider for if we are not with ourselves who is? For what you speak of here Gabriele is the practice of yoga in its true sense, something we all have the opportunity to practice every day with our every move, in order to live its true meaning that is the union of God, Soul, body and mind moving as one. This is where our true power lies as we then are able magnify the quality of this Divine union through our bodies and into the lives we live.

48. Keeping my mind and body in the same place at the same time – sounds like a dream come true! Well, I know it’s possible because when I am reminded of conscious presence, I give it a go, and look, it sometimes only lasts the 10 paces I’m walking until another thought about the future pops in my head, but with practice, like anything, you get better at it. It is very liberating when you allow yourself to realise that in that very moment, you are only required to do one thing whether that be walking, cooking, eating, reading etc.

    1. I find that the sheer fact of being aware that the mind has gone elsewhere is in itself already a blessing; years ago and before Universal Medicine, I would not have felt that there was anything wrong with walking around in a head that is separated from the body it is a part of.

49. Yeah, when the house is empty, the squatters move in.

50. Interesting, I’m pretty sure that it’s called “being in the zone”. And to know that we don’t have to engage in anything extreme to be in the zone, it only requires being consciously present. How good is that?

51. Being on another time zone and place while being here and now – sounds fascinating, and we chase after this very ‘here and now’ when it becomes ‘there and then’ – it’s just insane. We are piling up emptiness on top of each other – for me, that used to be a very familiar way of being as well. Constant anxiousness and nervousness was part of life so much so I wouldn’t have called it as such. And I totally agree that this way of being has a lot to do with the increasing cases of dementia across the globe.

52. “Is it possible that the way we move and go about our everyday life is making us sick?” The simple answer is Yes.

53. Dampness and decay have set in in areas around my home, I definitely need to get back and attend to it. There’s a room where a really warm hearth is, this is the centre and the furnace of it all. I reckon the attic and the basement need some loving attention and a few places in between.

54. Thank you Gabriele. This blog absolutely stuns me because I am seeing the choice to check out in a whole new way. If I am not present within my own body then what on earth is really running me? I have used ‘checking out’ as an escape but you are reminding me that it is not worth the price that I am paying (and it’s not a true escape either – I’m always left with the consequences).

    1. So true – checking out only ever works for so long, even if it is lifetimes. Sooner or later we are all left with the consequences, no matter what. There’s no escaping the Universe that we are a part of.

    2. A great question to ask, ‘If I am not present within my own body then what on earth is really running me?’

55. It is almost crazy that the things that we can champion in life can be those that cause us great harm…. You can’t but wonder at what point however will people really stop and consider that the way they are moving though life may be contributing to their physical and mental health? It feels like one of our greatest flaws is that we are not motivated to take responsibility for, or even question our choices, until our health is adversely affected… but sadly rarely before.

    1. And even this can be the painted rosy picture version in many cases as – I find even when our health is affected by the choices we make daily, there is still a tendency to shirk responsibility and seek a quick fix or handy solution instead, something that buys time.

56. It’s interesting I read this blog now because this morning while I was collecting the eggs and giving water to the hens my mind was in the future and couldn’t wait to get into the house. It’s interesting because my awareness in that moment was so clear and strong. I felt the disconnection to my body, I stopped the thoughts and let go and brought myself back to what I was doing but it was done mentally and not in connection to my body… it is great to reflect on this.

    1. That sounds like you were virtually standing to attention and trying to change from being in your mind to being WITH your body; it is great to then feel the difference between that and coming FROM the body.

57. Gabrielle’s comment on what will be seen as a mental disorder is indeed prophetic, as what we accept as normal now in so many aspects of life will be revealed as the deeply dysfunctional paradigms that they are.

58. ‘Is this escapism into our heads one of the cornerstones of ill health?’ This is a concept that is definitely worth formally studying Gabriele. Great blog.

59. My mind has been on getting ready for work while I have been reading your blog. Not a coincidence! A gentle reminder to stay present with what I am doing. Thanks Gabriele.

60. Great article Gabriele. And when there is an absentee landlord or tenant then squatters are attracted to move in.

61. Yes Gabriele, and if the absentee landlord stays absent for too long the tenant Dementia will be the one who steps in to rent his rooms.

    1. Brilliant analysis, and this tenant Dementia will be hard if not impossible to evict.

62. Another big one for me is getting in the shower and going into auto pilot. I’ll think about my day, what I’m going to wear, what I’ve got on that day. And before you know it I’m shaving…uh, what just happened. Amazing how we let this happen – not focusing on the task/action at hand – rather than just being with ourselves.

    1. It’s like we skip big chunks of time by our lack of presence and then we complain that there isn’t enough of it, time that is.

63. What you write is so relatable, Gabriele. We’ve all been there, and I often still am! But the fact that there is an awareness and an understanding of what conscious presence is helps to move from the head/thoughts to the body…and ultimately to work and move as one.

    1. As you say, the awareness needs to come first and I have to say that a few years ago I thought it was totally normal to be in two or more places at once – I actually thought I was doing this rather really well!

64. YES – Gabriele Conrad , you share exactly in a practical way what is truly causing illness and disease.

65. This is the thing I struggle with way too often! You know what though, the more I am aware the less I fall into the distraction trap, I just have to choose to be aware and that takes attention to details I haven’t noticed before.

    1. It surely must be one of the biggest traps ever – thinking that we’ll get ahead and get more done by living in the future scenarios as conjured up by the busy mind.

       1. ha ha yes – big sigh!

66. The more I practice conscious presence, the more I appreciate its benefits. To see my thoughts as just thoughts passing through me, and not judge them as good or bad, has reduced the extent to which I allow them to dictate how I feel.

    1. It’s enormously liberating to know that thoughts come through and not from us.

67. To link this form of dissociation of what we are doing and where our minds can be with dementia might be a new concept or way of thinking but it makes perfect sense. Especially in the way you present your experiences. Why wouldn’t we get effected when we think of something that is not what we are currently doing? It has to create some form of imbalance in our body. And our body does deserve to be present with considering everything it does for us without asking for much in return.

68. Thank you dearly Gabriele for this stunning piece.

69. Great blog Gabriele bringing our attention and awareness to this, I always used to praise myself for being able to multitask, working something out in my head while I was doing something completely different, and I now understand the importance of maintaining our presence and the dangers ahead if we continually allow ourselves to wander off in our minds.

    1. As Serge Benhayon has presented, checking out is the beginning of dementia and it happens long before the actual diagnosis.

70. I used to compliment myself on being able to be doing something and having my thoughts elsewhere – I used to call it ‘multi-tasking. However, as this article so clearly shares I have come to realise that this is ‘checking out’, not being fully present in the moment and with what I am doing. Staying ‘with myself’ as I do things I realise that previously I was not taking full responsibility for what I was doing and in the process was missing all sorts of choices and opportunities in the moment. With the change I now not only feel more engaged and enjoy what I am doing but I feel far more empowered within myself.

    1. Thank you, great insights. Multi-tasking is seen as a virtue in society but it is one of the reasons why we have an exhaustion epidemic of the greatest order and why hardly anybody is enjoying what they are doing anymore – other than the artificial and very brief high from having done several things at a time, that is. The fact is that our to do lists never come to an end and by multi-tasking we miss the opportunity to establish a true rhythm that supports us into the future.

71. “Is it possible that the way we move and go about our everyday life is making us sick?” The beauty of movement is that we can change them anytime as it is a choice of responsibility we have to ourselves and all others. The quality of our movements and our connection to our bodies is the key to the divine.

72. This is a brilliant question I want to highlight, ‘Is it possible that the way we move and go about our everyday life is making us sick?’ I would strongly say yes to this, because it brings the responsibility back to us, asking ourselves, how we are moving, living, and how this has a direct impact on how we feel and how we treat our body. In the past, I have fallen for agreeing with blaming our illness and disease on outside influences, this I can remember makes me feel fearful, helpless and overwhelmed. I was never really sick or ill with any server illness or disease but this belief system I accepted was conjuring up much fear and a feeling of powerlessness. So when I read your question Gabriele, I feel totally empowered and I feel more willing to take responsibility for my health, to be much more aware of how I move and go about my everyday. Very inspirational, Thank You.

73. ‘My body had been left to its physicality, bereft of my presence. I had checked out from the physical body and what it was doing and an obvious disconnection from my ears down had occurred.’ Well said Gabriele, a great reminder and something to bring awareness to all of the time. Am I With my body?

74. It’s perhaps draining because we’re at the mercy of how we judge our thoughts to be: if we’re depressed by them or find them exciting, there’s a reaction in the body and it’s this that drains us. When we can see our thoughts as just energy flowing through, and detach from them, there’s a lot more freedom. It’s easier to make the choice to come back to the body rather than get caught up in more stress and anxiety about the quality of our thoughts.

75. Thank you Gabriele. It’s only very recently that I’ve discovered the extent to which my mind is in a different time zone as well as another place to my body. When I’m locked away in my head, I’m in total disconnect to myself, my body and everything going on around me. It’s like life is going on around me, and I’m not in it: I’ve checked out into HeadLand, where I can easily while away a few hours. But with this is a foggy numbness that makes me feel totally separated from life, that’s beginning to feel quite uncomfortable, and also leaves me at the mercy of what’s going on around me. When I’m with my body, there’s a constant access to an inner steadiness and stillness, and a connection to everything around me.

    1. Thank you for this great summary and further clarification of what actually happens to us when we are in ‘headland’.

76. That our mind can catapult us to point B when our body is still at point A says alot about the disconnected way we live our everyday and explains why we are all so exhausted as we are focusing on at least 2 if not more things at once.

77. Why are we not taught this at school? This alone could support us so much. It makes such a difference to how calm we feel when we do exactly this, to be with whatever our body is doing with our mind.

78. Once again I find myself re-reading this blog and considering how often in my day I have been thinking/over thinking and not actually in my body, present with what I was doing. The absent landlord is a good expression to keep aware of.

79. We can’t help but do one thing at a time. And this is actually enough.

80. Yes life does become a lot steadier or should I say we become a lot more steady in life when we just attend to one thing at a time. We create a space that allows us to enjoy whatever we are doing so much more too.

    1. Multitasking gets good press because it increases functionality at the expense of our health and equilibrium, but it has been found that doing two or more things at once does not suit the brain as it cannot keep up with the simultaneous storage demands and then assigns some of it to an area that does not support longer-term memory.

       1. Thank you Gabriele I had not realised that science was looking into and uncovering the effects of multi tasking. This confirms what we already ‘know’ from experience and even more because I had not realised that it might have a detrimental affect on long term memory.

81. This is such an import observation that you make Gabrielle. We are applauded for the more we are capable of so-called multi-tasking yet, in fact, as you illustrate we are actually poisoning ourselves. The remedy is conscious presence.

82. This is a great analogy Gabriele, that the house is a reflection of the body, and who lives in the house are they there or are they out? It reminds me of the saying…’lights on but no-one home’ as this too has a similar message about not being present with-in our body, a distant blank gaze and not paying attention – certainly symptoms often associated with dementia.

83. It is scary how normal it has become to not be present, to multi-task, to rush, to forget things, to loose track of a conversation….we really do not appreciate how normal this is, and yet how far from normal this is – how by checking out, we are literally setting ourselves up to get sick.

84. The most enjoyable thing I know now is to be consciously present- nothing feels more amazing than this- being held in the tenderness of ones own body is exquisite to say the least. Its calming and deeply fulfilling at the same time, when the saying “there is nothing greater than me’, becomes blindingly obvious.

85. This is a gem of a blog Gabriele as it explains just how we spread ourselves thinly in every moment by allowing our self to wander off in our mind taking us away from focusing on where we are. It explains exhaustion.

86. And it sounds so simple… Just to join up our mind now bodies so that we are congruent… Travelling together and yet this disconnection is what allows the awful flood of what is happening in the world now.

87. I agree, Doug – being checked out, spaced out and absent from our body is a sure fire way to dementia and one day it will be proven by science.

88. As I commit more to being consciously present I am feeling how much of my life I’ve lived floating on the surface in a kind of limbo land where the years tick by. I’m allowing myself greater awareness of what it is to commit to being in this world and living and how often I float off into thoughts like a balloon filled with helium and before I know it I’m above the trees! It’s a loving discipline to keep coming back.

89. Great article Gabriele, I love the simplicity with which you share about conscious presence, I have been noticing recently how checked out i can be, that i can so often be in my head thinking about stuff that I need to do or stuff that has happened and so not being present in my body, i feel that in these moments i miss out on the joy of being with me, being with my movements, being present with my son and being present at work, it is at these times that I can make mistakes, hurt myself and rush what I am doing.

90. I used to be at the mercy of my mind, and that sounds strange but my thoughts were all over the place, taking me up and plunging me down, I was disconnected from my body and I was unhappy. Now because of the teachings of Serge Benhayon and my awareness of conscious presence, all that has changed. My thoughts no longer range around tormenting me, they are calm and positive and connected to what I am doing. There is no perfection in this, but I am aware, which is a huge leap from the other disconnection and disrespect of the body which led me to illness in so many ways.

91. I still find challenging not to be elsewhere and I am working on it daily but still catch myself. To be in conscious presence with my body feels great, and I can see how much it affects me when I am not.

    1. I agree, it is an ongoing development and it takes practice, patience and commitment to keep it up – but as you say, the effort is well worth it.

92. Without Serge Benhayon I probably would be well on my way to dementia, I was totally checked out a lot of the time and I didn’t even play computer games or anything like that. Checked out people glued to phones and other gizmos are rife everywhere you go and people do need to be made aware that this isn’t normal or cool and is a slow but sure track to dementia or mental health problems.

93. I have long understood the dangers of handing over our thoughts away from the body into another time, place or even another person, having observed both my grandmothers develop dementia before they passed over. One was very proud of her mental acuity and the other left the thinking up to my grandfather and both lost connection to their own bodies and the power of their presence. To see such beautiful women become so much less as they aged, seemed to be accepted as ‘normal’ and to be expected. But I always felt it as a loss and so when you highlighted dementia and its links to checking out from our bodies, I felt this as completely true. I realise too, how many times I have squandered the time I have with me when on my walks….being distracted by situations either in the past or future. Being present in and with my body, I always return lighter after i walk anywhere and am much more focussed in whatever I then choose to do. Conscious presence is more than a state of mind or beingness, it is a truly responsible, loving choice for all.

94. “…Is this escapism into our heads one of the cornerstones of ill health?…” This is a great question to pose. And another one would be asking why would we choose to escape or what are we escaping from? Simply having awareness of these questions brings a want to remain with being aware of ourselves, our movements and feelings.

    1. Great question / what are we escaping from when we check out, what is it we don’t want to feel when we leave our body on automatic pilot?

95. I notice this split between my mind and body particularly at the end of the day. My body is moving towards home but my mind is elsewhere thinking about what I have to do tomorrow what I need to do when I get home and all the other things that make up life. I have noticed that when I am consciously aware of my body I don’t have to worry about future events and possibilities. I can just be me.

    1. I have a similar experience with the end of the day. It seem the challenges and onslaught of the day become too much, and its easier to not be in my body feeling with I’m feeling. Its very easy though to choose to reconnect and the tension begins to ease.

96. With conscious presence I have found a much deeper understanding of life that no thoughts, justifications or debates can bring. The body understands and responds to life in a completely different way to how the mind would deal with life. When alone can only work with whats happened and at best manage a situation because it’s similar to a previous one. The body on the otherhand works in the moment and when connected the mind and body can respond to the current life situation and better understand what is before us.

97. You analogy is something I consider daily and coming back to read this blog again what stood out was the fact that many of the houses you walked past are in great condition. It’s like life, so many of us are “not there” in our bodies, thinking about the future or worrying about the past, yet in this we miss out on the present on enjoying our home, our self. Our desire for two time zones at once means we are never truly anywhere, it will be quite amazing when the healthcare system wakes up to how this affects our health.

98. When we have lost conscious presence we have invested in some thing outside of ourselves we think is greater for in truth there is nothing greater than lovingly being with our body in every movement in every moment.

99. To come back to our body is a commitment and dedication to oneself when we find ourselves drifting in another time zone. It is self loving and supportive to our well being as when I am present with myself I feel so alive and energised within my body.

    1. Exhaustion is not an issue when we are present, I agree. There can be a natural and quite physical tiredness which is rather delicious, but not the weariness and despondency that set in when we are really run down and exhausted.

100. Hello Gabriele and a few years ago I must admit I thought it was ‘normal’ to think about something and go over it when physically I wasn’t doing it. In fact I thought this is what you went for a walk for, to think things over, work them out in your head. This lead to me never feeling like I had a handle on life, I was anxious, nervous, fearful and the list goes on. Since dedicating to simple ‘being’ with what I am doing none of this follows me around like before. It makes perfect sense and to be honest I’ve known this for a long time, we all have. Remember the saying, “You can’t be in 2 places at once” I relate this to what is being said about ‘conscious presence’ and the fact that your head and your body should be as one and not one thinking something while the other is physically doing something else. I’ve experienced the loss of time as well, when you drive home and you don’t remember any of the trip. I have huge chunks of my life like this where I have no physical memory of them. Since I’ve chosen to just be in one place at a time my life has changed. If I find my mind wandering I just bring everything back to what I am doing in the moment and this has and is supporting me enormously.

     1. Great summary of all the facets of life that change and become infinitely more rewarding when we are not in “two places at once” any longer and stop wasting time and ourselves in the process.

101. ‘Is this escapism into our heads one of the cornerstones of ill health?’ – I’d love to see this question researched by medical professionals, as I completely agree that being checked-out throughout the day in comparison to being present can make such a difference to our emotional health and wellbeing. If we are ‘absent’ when working, connecting with others, eating and so forth then the quality of these activities and our relationships is super reduced, and this has many consequences that could well lead to certain illnesses or general ill-health.

102. “This practice has been immensely liberating and totally put a stop to the wild ups and downs of being dependent on whether I find my thoughts exhilarating or depressing. (Sounds like a mental disorder? I am sure that over time it will be seen as such.)” What you say here Gabrielle helps us understand mental illness and depression; by changing how we think, we can change how we feel. It does not happen over night as it is all too easy to fall back into our old ways especially when something comes up to throw us out, but for me knowing that excitement and exhilaration are no different to depression just different ends of the same spectrum has helped me see that it is not about healing the depression so much as allowing different thoughts. I know when I allow appreciation to be at the foremost of my thoughts this changes my whole perspective on life.

103. I guess that we have no true realization about how powerful our presence is. Or do we?

104. Yes, in the absentee landlord, the opportunity that time offers us is wasted, as we are not even there to receive its gift of learning and understanding, thus we cannot learn, we cannot grow and we cannot evolve, continuing to remain in the spin of time and the ‘prison’ of a life we have created.

105. Checking out not the best thing to do if we want to live a full life :).

106. As a self-confessed multi-tasker the practice of conscious presence as presented by Serge Benhayon has meant I needed to throw away the belief that multi-tasking is a good thing, and slowly be present with myself as I attend to whatever I am doing in that moment.

     1. I have been identified by being a multi-tasker for a great deal of my life, it has been an interesting process to begin to let this pattern go and to be more consciously present, it has stopped the exhaustion and I no longer go into a ‘racy’ energy trying to complete things.

107. It’s a real eye-opener to read about our choice to squander time when we go off in our heads elsewhere, perhaps to another time zone or era, following the mind’s meanderings and leaving the body bereft of our presence. The body becomes an automaton for the duration, in full autopilot whilst the mind is in pure disconnection on a frolic of its own. The jump to dementia-related disease is not a difficult one to make when considered in this way.

108. I have been bringing a focus recently to how I sit down and get up – I realised that I am present when I am sitting and standing, but the movement from one to another is where I find myself checking out because I’m not aware I have done it – it’s amazing how we can just totally not be there for something, even if our bodies out moving and so it asks the question, what is in the drivers seat when we are not?

109. Your words so beautifully bring home the way we put our life on hold as we leave ourselves vacant and depleted. Life feels so much more empowering and complete when we spend time with ourselves being present rather than continually rushing around in the ‘doing’ and ending up exhausted and contracted. It is certainly astounding that the ‘mind was not only in another place, it was actually in a different time zone’ and that we are still trying to jump to the future before we have fully lived the present.

110. Since I read this blog for the first time, I have been noticing how often I actually check out and it is rather shocking. I have just tried the conscious presence meditation on the Unimed Living website and my mind kept slipping away and I just fell asleep in the end. Of course I would be exhausted if I am constantly operating on the dual time zones and places. Just so glad that this teaching and meditation is available so now I can start making different choices to support myself.

111. I find It actually quite scary and disconcerting when I zone out and am thinking about something that is not related to what I am doing. It leaves me with a numb kind of vague feeling where my confidence wanes and I loose trust in my judgements/choices. So much more enjoyable to stay with my body and enjoy the experience of moving with me.

112. We take for granted the fact we can do one thing and think about another, we consider this normal and how life is but what if that was not our normal or natural way of being? As you’ve shared if we are in the present and future (head) at the same time then we are actually in neither fully. And since we have to be in the present with our body then it makes sense we don’t vacate our homes but enjoy the one time zone. I know that when I do I feel revived and alive, when I don’t I feel exhausted.

113. I go for walks a lot. Thank you Gabriele for reminding me to stay present when I am walking.

114. The tension my body automatically goes into when I disconnect from it is a very familiar old feeling for me having spent most of my life checked out it has taken some years of focusing on conscious presents to catch myself checking out. As I deepen my love for myself I become more and more aware of my body I recognise earlier all the time when I have checked out and gently and lovingly bring myself back to my body.

115. It is disturbing to realise the precious few moments that we may be fully present, perhaps in a meditation or moment of connection, then as soon as we enter into the tasks of the day, the ‘doing’ kicks in leaving our connection, and our being behind, so then who are we bringing and what quality do we bring into all that we then do?.

116. The absolute beauty that lies in being present is not touched by anything in this world.

117. I like your analogy of being in two time zones, it’s a great representation of the separation that we can live in, sometimes constantly and completely unchecked.

118. I was not even aware for most of my life that I was disconnected from my body….I lived in my head most of the time, I had no idea I was checking out and that I had not been truly present in my own life…. only through Universal Medicine did I become aware of conscious presence….and what a totally different experience of life when the body and mind are working together…..there is a joy and an absolute flow in the doing and being.

119. I have tried both the busy mind that can think about several things and moments at the same time as doing something else, and the practice of trying to empty the mind completely of all thoughts and both approaches did not provide any contentment or settlement in my body. Having practiced conscious presence more recently it has felt very different with a much more vitality and joy that it has given my life. I highly recommend it.

120. It is a great way to put it that when our minds are elsewhere we are not inhabiting our bodies. Our being is an absentee in the moment. And if we are absent from the moment then you have to wonder what energy is moving and expressing through our bodies if it is not us?

121. Well pointed out Gabriele. If we are vacant form what we are doing, could this be not good and making us sick? Dementia is exactly that.

122. ‘Gabriele, this is a much needed discussion because in society we have accepted it as normal and everyday that we can be thinking one thing while our body is doing something else, this is incredibly harming and exhausting and yet not discussed, ‘what are we taking for granted, putting up with and actually condoning and accepting?’ great question.

123. An imagined future event – I am beginning to see the pit fall that opens up when we do this, because they we have an idea or image about what that event will be like, totally detracting away from the possibility of it being amazing because there is an expectation.

124. As an absent landlord days gallop away from me. When I am ‘in the house’ there is a sense of spaciousness that is extraordinary. This is a phenomenon that I am going to continue to be a willing explorer of.

125. What you say about the rise of dementia is so true – it is no surprise that it is rising at such a significant rate. I am constantly reminding myself to be on the case in staying focused and present in what I do and the quality of energy that I am choosing in each moment. To realise that this will never change and that we are forever going to be in this situation where we have to choose our energy source then if that is the case by no means do I want to be checked out and allowing another energy to enter that is not in connection with my Soul.

126. It’s disturbing actually how much of our days can be in complete disconnection to ourselves and each other. As children we are very connected and our thoughts and body are at one. At what point do they become separate?

127. Great questions Gabriele, and an every day reminder to be conscious in every moment. –
     ‘Is it possible that the way we move and go about our everyday life is making us sick? Is this escapism into our heads one of the cornerstones of ill health? Is it really okay to live checked out from what we do? And what else does it lead to?’

128. This is hugely insightful and very revealing Gabriele. It brings me to reflect on all the times I have been in two places at once and what I have missed out on by being disconnected from my body. Thank you for this revelation.

129. Gabrielle I love the analogy of ‘the perfectly good house’ as our body and what it unhorses is just as it should be. Only when we leave it and separate from the connection with it do we start to feel things are not right, ugly etc and the relationship with our body changes. IN conscious presence all this drops away as we start to feel from within just how beautiful we are.

130. Hands down this is one of the best descriptions I have ever read of the body doing one thing while our minds are engaged and preoccupied with something else entirely. Especially telling is the pride we often have that we can do one thing and be thinking about another, it is an arrogant pride really, as in these moments we are preferring to be ignorant to the impact this has on our immediate well-being and long-term health. This blog is worth reading and pondering over.

131. “Is it really okay to live checked out from what we do? And what else does it lead to?” Is this perhaps the beginnings of dementia – where the mind and the body are so used to being disconnected from each other that it becomes the norm?

132. I can so relate to what you share here Gabriele – I have been a master of being ahead of myself and not present with my body. Something I had not considered until reading your blog is that “I had actually squandered that time, I had no recollection of it and it was gone.” I hadnt considered how that time was completely wasted – I would justify this by thinking I got to where I was going, the task was completed, the box ticked (it didnt matter how it happened) then move on to the next thing… but there was no consideration for the quality of how I got there or completed something, nor for how I was affecting anyone around me. We can achieve so much more when we are present with our bodies in what we are doing – not one minute is wasted, there is a natural flow that supports us from one task to the next.

133. It is so normal to check out and escape from life these days that almost everything in our human world today is about escapism. Diving into the latest book, getting hooked on the latest news feed, blanking out in front of the TV, even the case of thinking about the future and not living in the moment are all but mere examples of our choice not to be with our body and feel (and also live) all of what is going on in life to the fullest

134. Thanks, Gabriele for this gem of a blog. There are thousands of those moments of absenteeism. Reading the blog for example: It can be a whole body experience where I observe all of what is written in multidimensional layers and its effect on my body – or I can do the physical act of reading and my mind is elsewhere – or I can use reading as a mere mental activity, just seeking 3rd dimensional knowledge, being disconnected to my body whilst reading and not being aware of the impact, the written words have on my body.

135. Conscious presence is that ‘thing’ that has been touted for hundreds of years as being the goal of meditation and the sign of enlightenment. To be right here, right now, present in all we do, awake to all that is in each moment without perfection but with steady dedication, has been the goal of many many people over the years. But here it is presented in a way that is accessible for all by Serge Benhayon.

136. ’Up until about ten or so years ago, I would not have thought that there was anything wrong with my behaviour.’ – Ditto Gabriele, this is the norm in society, most people find this a natural thing to do – the frist time I ever heard of the importance of being present and not checking out or getting lost in my mind, was when I heard Serge Benhayon present on this subject 11 years ago. This has been a true game changer in my life.

     1. I agree, a game changer it has been for many; up until Universal Medicine I actually thought it was good to be spread across as many things at the same time as possible and was trying to do ever more.

137. I run a few properties, and quite apart from the blog above, the difference between a landlord that is engaged, looking after their tenants, ensuring there is a foundation of love that supports them and their lives, and one that just wants the rent and no hassle. Well its profound – and every gesture or assistance is always warmly reciprocated with a deepening of the tenant landlord relationship.

     1. And the same is true for the body and the mind; together it works and works well it does but when they are in two places the rot sets in.

138. I know for me I miss out on so much of the magic and beauty of life that is there for me to appreciate, if I am somewhere else in my mind.

139. I agree that generally thinking about something while we are doing something else is generally considered normal and even championed as a good thing to do – the whole multi-tasking myth. But is it really a good thing for our health?

140. Moving with conscious presence changes our thoughts, outlook on life and ability to respond to all that life brings.

141. I find that the more I become aware of what I am doing, the more I am able to take a moment to stop and remind myself that by doing things with my body and mind in connection, the more I am able to do and the less I get anxious about not getting things done and it becomes a dedicated way of living with everything I do.

     1. That is so true – doing things with and from the body gets rid of anxiousness and a whole load of stress and worry; one day it will be found that it changes the biochemistry in the body.

142. Thank you Gabriele, for making it so simple and clear how to keep our mind and body as one.

143. Planning ahead of time, and imagining we know how something we be at an allotted time is an extraordinarily strange thing to do, even though so many do it. I like to consider animals, who live with a great deal more immediacy and presence. They do not seem to suffer from this. Humans on the other hand suffer from the emotional ups and downs that come from this virtual existence.

144. I just went for a walk and I was really aware if I was present or not. This is a daily practice of mine, constantly coming back to the body and being present. It is not something you get from a book or a course, but it is about living it and committing to being present and in contact with your body in every single moment.

145. “Is this escapism into our heads one of the cornerstones of ill health?” Absolutely Gabirele, it is the ultimate in separation.

146. Truly a potent question being asked here …”Is this escapism into our heads one of the cornerstones of ill health?…” and well worth taking note of the relationship between ‘presence’ and ‘health / dis-ease’.

147. I had just noticed how much I am doing less than what I am capable of: When I go for a walk I may put on the coat too quickly or too harshly or become emotional because something takes a second too long, so when I am on the walk I am not quite on my fullness and therefore am more susceptible to getting lost in thoughts and so it goes.

     1. I love this observation – it’s like one moment of absence begets the next and the next and the next, until we literally come to our senses.

148. To highlight that you were in two time zones at once, really points out the absurdity of not being present and ’leaving your body behind’ – no wonder we get agitated, stressed and anxious, it’s our body screaming loud and clear.

     1. I agree, our body screams loud and clear, it doesn’t cope with our absence from it very well and starts to get agitated; I have noticed this often, one thought out of context and I am gone and my body reflects it.

149. Thank you Gabriele, having the mind and body as one, or as you say, “the ability to have the mind think what the body does and have the body do what the mind thinks, keeping both in the same place and in the same time zone,” turns your whole world upside down. Being in “conscious presence” as just described, is a game changer, which brings me back to feel what is going on in my body. When I feel what is going on in my body it becomes simple to complete any task, and when things become complicated this then gives me a marker that my body is showing that I have lost “conscious presence”.
     Much appreciation to Serge Benhayon for sharing ‘The Way of The Livingness’, which has delivered much, and is why my life now feels full-filled!
     For more on Serge Benhayon, conscious presence or for just another perspective go to;
     http://www.unimedliving.com/search?keyword=SERGE+BENHAYON

150. An ‘absent landlord’ is such a great way to describe it when we are taken away by our thoughts and not present in our bodies. It only takes a milli-second for our mind to wander off – but what happens to our body when we leave it behind?

151. I was in conversation with someone yesterday, and we were talking about something as simple as drinking water in the office. Are we sat there typing away on the computer, engaged in some task or puzzle, and using our peripheral vision somehow we collect the water, drink it, and return it, without breaking away from the task? I have a suspicion I do this all the time, entirely disconnected from such a simple act. The same happens in the car, on a walk, cooking. Any opportunity really when I can go into autopilot.

     1. Great point simonwilliams8 there are lots of what seem small examples we can find every day that highlight just how often we check out. These small examples really are quiet huge when we consider the awareness they offer of the consequences of not being present with ourselves.

152. “conscious presence” has become such a vital part of my daily rhythm it offers me the opportunity to reconnect to the tenderness in my body whatever the situation I am,and to move in a way that reflect the essence of who I am.

153. Thank you Gabrielle for this poignant and timely reminder of mind/body connection through conscious presence; what you have expressed is very powerful.
     “This has all changed since I heard Serge Benhayon present on conscious presence – the ability to have the mind think what the body does and have the body do what the mind thinks, keeping both in the same place and in the same time zone”
     Like you I have a deep appreciation for the Ageless Wisdom Teachings given to us through Serge Benhayon.

154. “with the rates of dementia and mental health problems ever soaring, can we really afford to shrug our shoulders and keep thinking that this kind of body / mind split and absenteeism from our-selves is normal or even healthy?” I find your suggestion here really important, Gabriele, you have introduced something I had not previously realised. Yes, could our constant living unconnected with ourselves actually be one of the reasons that we develop dementia later and for some, not so much later, in our lives. Our constant checking out of being in connection with ourselves could very well also contribute to dementia. We know that checking out and not truly being committed to our lives is a large contribution to suffering dementia over our later years. I had regarded my previous living habit of constantly losing myself in reading books of all descriptions, to avoid living my true life and not facing up to things for so much of my life, would have possibly pre-disposed me to dementia eventually. It is now a long time since I lost my interest in checking out like that and became so much more committed to living my life with purpose, but yes, I feel the need now to really work on my constant conscious presence, which of course will increase my commitment to my life, and will increase the purpose in my life. Thank you for a great contribution here.

155. I love your title, Gabriele, ‘The Absent Landlord’, how apt it is with your description “There I was walking along, the body was doing its thing, my legs were faithfully taking me from A to B and my mind was not only in another place, it was actually in a different time zone. My feet as part of my body were on my walk, putting one step in front of another and my mind had catapulted me onto my seat in front of the computer and right into an imagined future event”. This is how I lived my whole life until the past 9 to 10 years. And I am still working on not being the Absent Landlord. When Serge Benhayon first mentioned living in Conscious Presence, being totally with ourselves, at a presentation I attended years ago, I was not sure if I could ever hold that way of living for any period of time. It has certainly been a struggle for me, I am so very inclined to go into the head, playing out scenarios of how I will DO things, so easily triggered back into this way of being during the day. But when I look back to how it was, I can appreciate that it has been much easier to bring myself back into an awareness of being really with me. Yesterday I did a fairly long walk, over 3 km, beside a local lake, including a good deal of boardwalk. It is a lovely mainly flat walk, and a cool wind blowing to start the day. I felt really relaxed and walked the whole distance at a lovely pace from one end to the other, and I can actually say, I was really with me. It felt beautiful and actually very energising, I really surprised myself. It was a beautiful proof to me that yes, I can do it, not yet all the time, but it was a beautiful feeling of appreciation for myself to accept that. I can say that yesterday, it set me up for a really beautiful day, it flowed so much better than usual. I feel that yesterday’s experience was a marker for me, to know that I can do it, not to beat myself up when I don’t manage it, but to keep feeling back to that lovely feeling I had, and persevere until this way of being becomes my normal.

156. I suspect that most of us see the mind and body disconnect as normal and in fact shows us how good we are at multi-tasking! This is certainly a major contributing factor for dementia as with such busy lives this disconnect has become greater as has the rise in dementia. We need to be talking about this much more so the world can have a different understanding of dementia and not just blame everything on genetics and old age.

157. Having no recollection of what we have done with the time that has passed is a great indicator that our minds and our bodies are doing different things at once. It starts by showing up in forgetfulness and even accidents occur like this. Everyone knows this, and even comments on the fact that their mind just wasn’t on the job. So it seems pretty simple to not be forgetful, not waste time making mistakes, not feel like there isn’t enough time and not encourage accidents choose to feel our bodies while we are working on anything, keep our minds with our movements first and then let the thoughts support that movement.

158. This constant need to escape from the world is telling us that there is something very wrong about the way we choose to live life.

159. When the landlord has gone M.I.A the house starts to look a little dishevelled, the gardens need loving care and the plumbing may be a little blocked, leaving the home feeling pretty unloved. When the landlord and the tenant are communicating and on the same page everything is aligned and the natural rhythm is restored. True harmony for life is the loving presence of the mind and body working together, this is true quality of our connection and is vital for our health.

160. When we live this way, it is like rolling up to the cinema to watch a film, with our headphones and music on. You wouldn’t go to dinner with a friend whilst trying to walk your dog. So what makes us think that doing one thing and thinking about another is any more healthy or sensible? It is beautiful Gabriele how you show that we all have the power to live and know harmony with our body and our thoughts.

161. I know that there was a time in the recent past where I would be constantly wandering off into a day dream – thinking about past present future and even imaginary scenarios. Doing so might be like having your own private screening to a movie for you to enjoy, but where is our body and what is running it when our mind has gone out for the day to think about something else. We all know what it’s like when you are thinking of a million and one things and rushing, and end up banging into a table or not remembering where you put your keys, or the drive from home to work. It just shows us that our autopilot setting is very strong, to be able to not remember the drive to somewhere even though we just did it. As you say, surely over years this absence from our body takes its toll, perhaps leading to the end result of not being able to remember huge chunks of your life, rather than just where your keys are.

     1. I would take it further even – does this constant checking out from what is happening possibly lead to dementia or Alzheimer’s and are the physiological changes in the brain tissues the end result of our behaviour?

162. “My body had been left to its physicality, bereft of my presence. I had checked out from the physical body and what it was doing and an obvious disconnection from my ears down had occurred.” This is such a common occurrence. Coming to Universal Medicine presentations has enabled me to become aware of something I thought was just ‘normal’. Love your title – the Absent Landlord- it says it all.

163. Is it possible that the way we move and go about our everyday life is making us sick? Is this escapism into our heads one of the cornerstones of ill health? I believe it is a huge possibility Gabriele…..living a life disconnected from your body, caught up in scenarios in your head, you are neither taking responsibility for the present moment and neither are you listening to/connected to your body’s communications, thus ignoring your own health and wellbeing.

164. Gabriele I do wonder why as kids we are not encouraged to make life about feeling everything from our bodies, and as this is something we naturally do, we would all be top of the class. It would bring such a confirmation to us and mean that instead of countries full of absent landlords there would be vital, rich and full households all over the world.

165. Following my mind’s meanderings is a daily project of mine, something that I do everyday. I follow it in to the past with memories of things I wish had never occurred, and I follow it in to the future for things i hope will occur one day. But then, the simple and divine moments do come when I am fully present in my body, not absent and wandering, but fully here. And this feels amazing, not only by the way that my body moves but also in the words that come from me, words that i never could have said had I been far away in the future or the past.

166. When I am with me, in connection, I feel space, but when i’m not with all of me, time plays a huge part which is when I can say “there’s not enough time for this or that’. Really, I’m just saying the landlord is not home.

167. This blog has stayed with me over these passed few days and I will often remind myself to come back and stay with my body, go at its pace, not the pace my head is telling me to go. It seems my head can dart off at a moments notice but my body is always steady, fulfilling the requests I make of it. The more I am in the same place at the same time the less stressed I feel because I know I can do what needs to be done. The moment I am in two or three places at any one time, then I have a level of anxiety constantly running in the background which feeds the exhaustion, distraction and lack of connection with the people standing in front of me at any given moment. This blog has very profound effects when it is taken off the page and applied to our daily lives as an experiment for ourselves.

     1. I agree, it is the immensely practical nature of the Ageless Wisdom that is so inspiring and life changing.

168. I love this sentence ‘my mind was not only in another place, it was actually in a different time zone’ – it is easy for me to realise and see that by thinking about one thing while I do another I am not with me – but in actual fact I can even be split across time zones by thinking about the past or the future. I have recently been working on closing the door before I turn to do the next thing, or closing the draw or finishing the email, learning to complete one thing before I move to another otherwise I am never fully present.

169. People talk about living in the moment, but to what degree do we live in the past, future or even living in the moment but locked in the mind thinking about another issue or person…

170. I clocked this morning during a momentary thought in my head, which took me away from feeling present in my body, a drain on my kidneys – they had hardened and also how my legs felt very heavy. It was a stark reminder of the physical damage we can do when we are not connected to our bodies and not present in the moment!

171. Reading this blog it becomes obvious that connection, presence and quality of being are essential in the maintenance of good health. Being present, aware and in my body brings joy to life.

172. This is a great blog to really feel and get a sense of how much is at stake when we choose to have the split moments. Being Consciously Present is one that requires a commitment, not out of fear but one out of appreciation. I have started to feel this appreciation when being fully connected with myself and feeling me in what I am doing. I never knew that it could be so much fun and joyful. Before attending the workshops presented by Serge Benhayon and how conscious presences is something that is of importance I never would have said that I wasn’t – boy was I wrong… The more I brought my attention to it the more I got to see how much I was lacking in it. This relationship with myself is one that will continue to deepen and every time I go off all I need to do is call myself back.

173. If we see it this way, Gabriele, how much our thoughts are up and down and influencing us on an emotional level, the dependancy feels scary. It shows how crucial it is to choose concsious presence in order to feel harmonious in the body and not torn apart by our thoughts.

174. As a self care opportunity this presents a brilliant opportunity. Simply checking in with ourselves to see whether we are ‘in’ or ‘out’ of the house brings us back to the front door. Then we have the choice and can build our responsibility here.

     1. Great point, just coming back home to our body when we have been out – no drama, no guilt, no remorse, just very practical advice.

175. The important thing about conscious presence is how the quality of thought changes. It by no means dictates that we stop thinking but brings a presence of body and feeling with each thought, where the thought matches feeling and has no feeling of “what if” or “could be” or “what could have been” to it – in other words, no investment in the thought happening and a consequence of taking away from feeling complete in the moment. In such quality of thought and feeling I notice quite quickly an ‘energy’ build in my body and thus an expansion of awareness of all I am. Then something in me decides that there is too much awareness and I choose to ‘check out’ again. As Gabriele states, this ‘normal’ state is not living the potential of who I am and this understanding offers a great work for myself and for all mankind.

176. “My body had been left to its physicality, bereft of my presence.” This line is so telling Gabriele, that when we are not present in our bodies there is a loss, our bodies are less without our presence, hence we are bereft. Feeling the full depth of what this lack of presence means helps me to stay more present and bring the fullness of me to all that I do.

177. It pays to have our mind in line with our body’s every movement.

178. What you present Gabriele is relevant to each and every one of us.
     How often can we lose presence and disappear from the moment we are living, ahead of time or behind.
     What a trick this is to have the body performing a task while the mind is elsewhere.
     It is always these moments when we trip, cut ourselves, make a mistake and any number of ways that our body signals us to return our mind to be in line with our body and present with our every movement.

179. Thank you Gabriele for your blog. So simply expressed as the vacant house clearly shows how we check out ever so easily without even realizing the impact it is having on our bodies. I would give myself full credit for this insight that has produced such a insightful blog for us all to read and reflect on, as to how we are going along with our “absent landlord”.

180. Conscious presence is the key to living from the body and not out of the body. To be guided by my body and not by my mind is a daily choice I have to make in anything I do, a choice I make in every movement to always move in order with the universe as the vessel I am. This is what life is about, to choose divinity all the time, there is no beginning or end, there is only a consistent choice.

181. The ‘Absent landlord’ is a great analogy describing how we can be disconnected to our body… going through the motions, but not really being there. Thanks Gabriele for a great blog

182. We do indeed rob ourselves of that precious moment that life has presented to us when we check out into an imaginary future or in regret of the past – an opportunity to learn, become more aware, and to evolve has just been lost as we were not there to be with it. Not something to go into regret about but to remember to reconnect now and fully embrace the next moment as it arrives.

183. You are questioning one of the biggest activities in the world – doing one thing and having your mind on another. Your question – “Is it really okay to live checked out from what we do? And what else does it lead to?” is a great one because we are living in a very checked out society and it is causing us great harm. People are checking out at work, home, shopping centres, with each other, in activities and it feels like to me it creates a overwhelming feeling of ‘given up nes’ because we are not present. And because it is so common I don’t think we don’t really know another way to live and because the world feels so cold and distant (checked out/given up ness playing a big part in that), there appears no real incentive to go back in and be fully present. That is what is so remarkable about Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, is that they are cutting through the fog of ‘given up ness’ and ‘checked-out-ness’ and showing us that there is another way to live that is fully engaged in life and fully present and that way can bring much joy and vitality.

184. Training myself out of escaping into my thoughts has been a slow and deliberate practice for me over the last 15 years. The thoughts are ever-present, the question is whether I will engage with them, go into them, stay with them; or whether I will return straight away to being in unison with the action the body is currently engaged with. My awareness on this matter and the importance of doing so has increased exponentially since meeting Serge Benhayon. I now understand the harm I am doing, both to myself and to others, when I allow this mind-body split. Esoteric Yoga is very supportive to practice this, as is walking, cooking, doing the dishes and the washing, making the bed … any manual task really. And equally, in engagement with others, really listening to what they are saying and staying present and not getting caught in trying to be polite, but rather saying what is needed and moving on.

185. The ‘absent landlord’ analogy is amazing to see just how much this goes on during our day or night. Sure there are the ‘big’ things that are relatively easy to see with the awareness we now have but it’s the details I find interesting. Is it possible all the little moments ‘in thought’ leads to the bigger moments of wondering? I have just found it is an ongoing dedication to being present in what you are actually doing in front of you. There are no headings or a rating scale that tells you to make sure in this one and that one is not important. Every moment is important because it leads to the next.

186. To get more awareness of the way we choose to be not present is very revealing, and can be liberating. Being present with our body brings a simplicity to life, that is otherwise impossible when we are constantly somewhere else than our body is. I do feel it could eventually be seen as a mental disorder, when we come to this understanding as humanity as a whole, I feel I find it difficult to really realise that this will be the case, as it is exposing of the fact of the way I think is far from truly present and thus healthy for my body.

187. I remember the analogy of the absent landlord, when I am drifting away into my thoughts and this supports me to feel how destructive this behaviour is.

188. Trying to think my way out of negative thoughts has never worked – just stays in the spin – Through Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine presentations I have discovered that we hold absolute power to choose a way of being and moving that can put an end to those thoughts and no longer allow them to have an effect. It takes a little practice but is a powerful tool to take back control.

189. I love the concept of the ‘absent landlord’ in regards to when we are off somewhere in our heads with no regard whatsoever for the body beneath it. I used to do this a lot and would inevitably hurt myself in some way, trip or bang into something and bruise badly. Finally able to put two and two together and spend more time ‘at home’ has put a stop to those injuries unless I step out without noticing.

190. ‘The absent Landlord’ is such a fantastic analogy and when applied to the society that we live in, it seems that we are living in a shanty town.

191. Super blog Gabriele – I too used to pride myself on being able to do a million things at once both in my body and head together…. Since taking better care of myself and allowing my body to feel through numbing it less with smoking, drinking and eating certain foods, I can feel how stressed this actualy makes me! Which has been disappointing as I realised how identified I was with being super woman, spinning all the plates! So it’s definitely a journey to be taken one step at a time for me to slow down and do one thing at a time and in fact a large part of me reacts heavily to this thinking it’s such a waste of time when I could be doing so much more! But the fact is doing so much more just leaves me drained and stressed and prone to comfort eating and vegetating rather than feeling awesome in my delicate body and supporting myself to be the real vital full of energy me!

192. Moving in distraction leaves my body behind, and I lead with my ‘mind on a mission’. It is a horrible feeling that I am still curtailing, even after years of understanding how conscious presence shows me deeper awareness and wisdom that unfolds naturally when I am present and with myself.

     1. I agree, it is such a strong pattern, to charge ahead and throw oneself into the next thing to be done, leaving behind the body that has to execute it all, in one way or another.

193. I would have once used my walk to plan my day, sort out issues or daydream imaginary things and this felt normal. What an eye-opener to realise and feel that this has been a great big checkout from my body and that it is does not feel okay at all. It is so healing to be present to everything around me on my walk and although i am certainly not always present my awareness allows me to return to me quite quickly.

194. We are coming to a point where we acknowledge that being in our heads a lot of the time is not doing our bodies much good. We are slowly realising the wisdom our body presents to us and how incredibly solid it feels when we are in our body instead of only our head.

195. It seems to be a simple concept, being present, but as you made clear in your blog Gabriele, it is fundamental for our true wellbeing and health. What Serge Benhayon presents and teaches will one day be a commonly known and lived truth.

196. Just as a whole lot of damage and mess can be created if a landlord is absent and there are some wild tennants, when we vacate our body, the mess, complications and harm that is created is happening all the same.

197. You ask ‘Is it possible that the way we move and go about our everyday life is making us sick?’ – It is a fact that there is more illness and disease than ever before even though we spend trillions on research and ‘band aid’ world wide every year. The only way the pattern of illness and disease will ever change is if we start to ask questions like this. To be willing to acknowledge that each and every choice we make in our day to day living affects our health and wellbeing. We are all responsible for our own choices and the outcome they bring.

198. Keeping my mind with what my body is doing has always been a struggle for me. I was an “absent landlord” for the majority of my life. Over the last few years I have developed a deeper connection with myself and my body and spend the majority of my time present in my body and really appreciating the depth of the love I have for myself as a woman and expressing that to the world. The more I put myself out there and emanate the love that I am the more I feel the powerful effects we have on one another supporting and lifting one another up with our reflections.

     1. Great inspiration Margaret for how life can be if you drop the spinning plates

199. This blog really presents a truth that we have been taking the body for granted. We are seeing this in the skyrocketing rates of illness and disease What we have been doing so far is not working so we have to be open to seeing our bodies in a new light. Could it be possible that what you have presented here is a pioneering new way for our health and well-being?

200. This makes so much sense Gabriele. If our mind and body are separate in action, this must cause imbalance. Both are important, both must be made aware of the importance of the other in our daily life.

201. Interesting to follow this relation of being in two time zones (the present moment and the future or past) and in two places at once, what we do so often in our everyday living by thinking of something else while doing another thing, with dementia and alzheimer’s. But in fact I realize it is exactly the same just a bit more extreme and with the trouble of losing oneself in time-zone, being not present anymore where the body is right now. Confusion is preprogrammed. With the result of not ‘being able’ to take responsibility any more….if we transform this back to our everyday ‘checking out’ (thinking of something else) the question arises in me, what is it that I do not want to take responsibility about every day, and in this moment? What carries my everyday living, feeling, experiences that I am shying away from? To ponder on.

202. Since reading this blog for the first time I have been monitoring myself more closely when doing mundane tasks at work and realise to my dismay, I am an absent landlord most of the time, but at least now I am more aware of it and time and again without being hard on myself bring myself back to the task in hand before my mind races off after some tricky manoeuvre or distraction to loose the connection to my body and then the process of coming back again starts all over again. If I really honest I find it really hard and need lots of practice at it.

     1. I’m with you there Kev!!! I too have identified things at work where I can proactively connect with my body – introducing these little connecting moments into our working days will really support us to build the habit of connection and let go of the very old habit of disconnection!

203. ‘Is this escapism into our heads one of the cornerstones of ill health?’ ….. yes, Gabriele, I feel it is and it also provides an excuse not to face the reality of the situation we are creating for ourselves.

     1. …the situation we are creating for ourselves…. OUCH Alison! Ain’t that the truth…. No wonder we don’t want to be where we’re at if we’ve not taken responsibility and made choices for it to be awesome…. Excellent point well made!!

204. I am sure that the wandering off, if not brought back into check, would contribute to an ease with checking out altogether. Dementia is an interesting comparison.

205. I found when I first got started I had to give myself a focus of walking from one tree to another staying present with how it felt in my body and not letting my mind wander off on a tangent to the past or the future. To this day this is what I come back to, it is not easy when you have indulged the wandering over years, but it is worth the persistence.

206. “to the wild ups and downs of being dependent on whether I find my thoughts exhilarating or depressing” this is very real and present for poor mental health today. The connection with the body and bringing the mind to be in the same space as the body has been immensely helpful to me as well. Conscious presence is a critical tool that is available to every one of us should we choose it.

207. I have noticed, particularly when I have a lot of things going on (which is pretty often) if I am not present, I can become very easily distracted and become like a butterfly flitting from one thing to another, spending a lot of time in flight without actually getting much done. Things become muddled and complicated – unnecessarily so.

208. When we are absent from our bodies, just as an uninhabited house starts to deteriorate, so will we …. we are preventing our bodies from enjoying the expansion that’s available in each moment when we’re present with ourselves – this expansion is nourishment for our bodies, true nourishment.

     1. Nourishment for the body… Yes please!! You can really feel the expansion though especially when you walk and you feel your legs and hips and back and arms moving with your feet massaging the pavement – I have regular back ache and walking in presence is such a healing as my back fizzes with warm energy rather than cold contracted pain….

209. Yes the idea we are ‘absent’ when not present with our bodies highlights the fact that ‘we’ (as in who we really are) are not in our ‘heads’ as that’s where it appears we ‘disappear’ to. So if we’re preoccupied in thoughts, then we are indeed ‘absent from the body’

210. “Is this escapism into our heads one of the cornerstones of ill health?” That is an interesting question Gabriele and I am wondering why this question is not discussed in the public as e.g. the illness rates for alzheimer is increasing. So why is this increasing and what could be the root cause of this disease? Your revealing question can be a good starting point to ponder on it in a different way.

211. The unconscious engagement and obsession with our minds doings and meanderings, keeps us locked into a very superficial experience of life. When the depths of the universe, and beyond awaits, should we choose to come home to ourselves. Thank you for exposing the all that I’m missing out on, Gabriele.

212. It is so easy for us to get distracted by something that will pull us out of our connection to ourselves. By learning to stay consciously present with everything that we are doing brings a deeper connection to our minds and bodies, and the more this is practiced the more it becomes our second nature. Eventually this becomes just how we live.

213. The term ‘the lights are on but no-one is home’, came to me as I was reading this blog. All that we need is already within us. We just need to walk through the door, and accept this.

214. We miss out on so much when we are not present with our body. The gift of true intelligence awaits us when we bring consciousness to our movements. Rather than being driven by the raciness of the mind, our body instead is pulsed by the wisdom of the universe. It simply doesn’t make sense that I would resist this… And there we have it; the mind’s game revealed.

215. It makes sense that if we are consistently engaged wth our mind and absent from our body, that illness can take hold. The mind simply has no regard for the body; what it feels, what it truly needs etc.. How can it when it’s off solving the problems of the world (or ruminating on them) in the future or in the past.

216. These questions have and must be asked .. why is there a mind and body split?.. I was the same totally unaware that this was the case. You cannot really stop and present this to someone, unless they have an accident or a body stop moment and open to this explanation. Even then they might agree but will go straight back into this age-old familiar comfortable behaviour. This is such a huge topic and the only way I was to really clock this was to know the Truth, and be ready for it!. We have a spirit and a soul. The human spirit is in drive that disconnects from the body. It does not care for the body which does not make sense because it has all the answers …
     It explains why we do not live as a One humanity.

217. It is like we think we have super powers to achieve a million things, to check email, drive and talk and process everything at once. We champion this ability as what stands us apart from other species on this earth. And yet as you say Gabriele, we are simply not well living this way. What if we do have those super powers after all, but they live in us being still, connected and present first of all, and very much living in the moment? Imagine a world where all 7 Billion of us practiced that!

218. I used to practice meditation techniques where I would try to “empty my mind of all thoughts” but it’s true Gabriele, that it just achieved “a state of vacuousness” where I was cut off from my feelings and shutting down my heart. It was a cold emptiness – just the opposite of the full aliveness when one is fully present and engaged in life.

     1. I remember the cold emptiness as well from those meditation techniques that advocate emptying the mind. It is not only scary but most importantly and most damagingly, it is totally devoid of love.

219. Gabriele, you pose some great questions well worth pondering. An “absent landlord” does not register what is going on in his house and when we are not present in our body we miss the signals that it is giving us and so we abuse our bodies without being consciously aware of it. So not being present is in fact a precursor of abuse and as we are now starting to understand, dementia starts with us getting into the habit of checking out.

220. It would seem only a split second with a thought and something to do and yet our body responds instantly. We might think we can multitask, our body doesn’t agree and wants us to be present, with all attention to what we do.

221. Great questions: “Is it possible that the way we move and go about our everyday life is making us sick?
     Is this escapism into our heads one of the cornerstones of ill health?”
     What if this is the case and the consequences are as big as suggested above, would we change our behavior and choose to be present with every move we make?

222. Great title Gabriele – and so true – I notice too sometimes especially when walking or driving that my ‘mind’ is somewhere else, and then I talk to me and bring me back to my home within again, reconnecting and starting over. Conscious presence is definitely very important and we can keep practising and gently reminding when our ‘landlord’ was not home…

223. ‘The absent landlord’… brings a whole new level of meaning to the fun of phrase we often use when referring to someone who is not paying attention… ‘knock, knock, is anybody home’…

224. I like the fact that you had enough conscious presence to make the connection between the vacant house and the state you were walking in. Thanks for the article Gabriele

225. The first time I heard Serge Benhayon present ‘conscious presence – the ability to have the mind think what the body does and have the body do what the mind thinks, keeping both in the same place and in the same time zone’ made me feel that accidents could almost be prevented when we were able to do this, because focussing the mind on what was happening in the body would raise the awareness before an incident took place. Changing old patterns is great Gabriel, and keeping body and mind together as much as we can means we are always at home.

226. We are the king or queen of our power, the Landlord on our fields – Or we are puppets of ‘our’ thoughts… Life is full of simple choices.

227. When we were talking last night my partner asked me ‘where are you right now?’ He had caught me at one of those ‘absent landlord’ moments when I had allowed a thought to come in and disturb our moment of connection. He could feel the change and the sudden drop in intimacy. It all happened in a flash but gave me a clear insight into the harm we allow when we lose our conscious presence. It makes no sense to choose disconnection over a divine, intimate moment of connection with ourselves and another.

228. The number of ways we have developed to check out and not be present is endless and I personally have found that I do this a lot – thinking about many situations, of my own creation, rather than having my mind present with my body in the moment I am actually in.

229. As you describe the empty house is a ‘good’ one, so too is every single person who is ‘vacant’ in their body is not the derelict body we see but in their essence a glorious Soul.

230. When we check out and are disconnected from the body, we are missing out on the eternal joy of feeling held in God’s love. It is through the body that we are reminded of who we are and what we are here for.

231. Great point Gabriele, ‘Is it possible that the way we move and go about our everyday life is making us sick?’ I feel and have experienced that yes this is the case. We cannot blame our woes or illness on anybody other than ourselves and the way we move and interact plays a pivotal role in this.

232. Wow Gabriele I love the precise way how you describe the lack of conscious presence. It gave me the possibility to feel exactly what happened if I am not with my body and also the feeling how powerful and liberating it is to be present. The choice is now very easy. It would be very helpful if more people would talk about the lack of conscious presence like you describe it.

233. “when the cat’s away the mice will play” – your article and the title brilliantly show how we stress our bodies by allowing the mind to take our body into another time zone, imaginary scenario, another person’s house, or conversation. It makes perfect sense that this is a pattern that will lead to dementia, where the person is living in their imaginary construct, and has lost touch and connection to where they are and who they are with. Before I read your blog this morning, I did notice on my morning walk that my mind wandered off into the next part of the day, it felt like some anxiety. Walking is so regenerative when it is just walking.
     A great wake-up call Gabriele, thank you.

234. Gabriele, thankyou for the very simple, clear, and down to earth way you have expressed your experience with being consciously present. It really shows multitasking in a different light. Once upon a time I would have felt quite clever being able to juggle many things at once, but now I feel the harmful effects of not being with my body. Now, I prefer to stay connected to my body and focus on one thing at a time, and it’s been very beneficial for my physical and mental wellbeing.

235. What I have found is that our mind is like a minefield of misadventures and if we check out to what we are doing all sorts of crazy, un-relatable thoughts can be received. Is it likely that checking out in this way will ultimately take us on the path towards dementia?
     Thanks to the presentations by Serge Benhayon the simplicity of being in ‘conscious-presence’ reveals a way of living, which brings a discovery of “the joy and fulfillment of conscious presence.”
     For more on conscious presence or Serge Benhayon or also for another perspective go to;
     http://www.unimedliving.com/search?keyword=SERGE+BENHAYON

236. Gabrielle ‘Absent Landlord’ is a great analogy for the habit of my mind ducking off to do it’s own thing while the body faithfully sticks to the here and now. I am learning to keep my attention on my posture and fingertips whilst in the office too, otherwise I can find myself slouching, face to the screen, and ignoring bodily signals to drink, take a toilet break and stretch my body for a minute. This ‘absence,’ if not addressed, can lead to bodily aches and feeling exhausted at the end of the day.

     1. Ahh the fingertips. Yes they are a great marker of how surrendered and tender we are being. I too use and love this.

237. “I would not have registered the disconnect between the body and the mind, quite to the contrary – I would have prided myself on my ability to be elsewhere from my body and be following several trains of thought in my head concurrently.” I can completely relate to this Gabriele and, in general, women are renowned and admired for their extraordinary abilities in multi-tasking. How have we allowed this to happen without realizing what is actually going on!

238. Three very powerful questions worth pondering deeply:-
     “Is it possible that the way we move and go about our everyday life is making us sick?
     Is this escapism into our heads one of the cornerstones of ill health?
     Is it really okay to live checked out from what we do? And what else does it lead to?”

239. “Can we really afford to shrug our shoulders and keep thinking that this kind of body / mind split and absenteeism from our-selves is normal or even healthy?” NO is the obvious answer which then should lead us to the next question – Why do we consistently engage in this behavior?

     1. Why do we consistently check out from our everyday reality? Is it because we would otherwise begin to feel that things are not as we like to think they are and then realise that it is time to grow up and take responsibility?

240. I also felt whilst reading this that there are some parts of my body I am more aware of than others, and just like the empty house in your blog we can have a house that has some rooms occupied and some still vacant. Being fully present, occupying our entire house and being full of ourselves is the way to go. When we look after only one part of the house we are leaving the other part to stagnate, a bit like what happens to our bodies when we are not present fully with all of it.

     1. So very true Samantha. I over the last year through Esoteric Yoga have been allowing myself to feel the relationship I have with each part of my body, including allowing myself to feel the parts I have ignored and what is there to feel. I have discovered that just by connecting, feeling and bring honesty with that tension I am holding or heaviness shifts easier. It is the power of presence that does this.

241. Thank you Gabriele for a very powerful blog. The first thing that jumped out at me was “I had actually squandered that time, I had no recollection of it and it was gone.” Your words gave me quite the much needed ‘wake-up’ call. I had not put 2 and 2 together by giving serious consideration to the fact that when I check out I am actually squandering time.

     1. This is such a wake up call. That even in the simplest movements when we are not present, we have lost that moment and do not have the memory of what our body of a part of our body felt like in that moment. And what are we losing it to – a thought, a list, a story that is not yet happening and will probably not happen in the way it is playing out in our head.

     2. So true Tamara, I find that it’s exactly that that wastes time — my mind being elsewhere. When I’m with my body everything flows and there isn’t an issue with time. I rush when my mind wanders off.

242. Thank you Gabriele for presenting us with such great questions! it really exposes the way we disconnect from our bodies to create stressful situations in life which give us an excuse to live less from the true potential that we are.

243. I love the term ‘absent landlord’. I makes so much sense being absent from our own body, having our mind elsewhere. Interestingly that elsewhere never eventuates, no matter how real we think it is. Our mind if let loose has a whole different agenda. Keeping our mind with our body and the activities we are actually doing is much better for our health than we realise.

244. ‘This practice has been immensely liberating and totally put a stop to the wild ups and downs of being dependent on whether I find my thoughts exhilarating or depressing.’ I too have been practicing this, and whilst there are times where it is easier than others, simply having the awareness of bringing both the body and mind together is enough to remind us of when we are not doing this. Everything is a choice and therefore we have a responsibility to choose what we do with that choice.

245. ‘the absent landlord’ is a great analogy…the house (body) is there, lying dromant almost, but noone is home.

246. It does in fact seem completely normal that we would even purposely use our walks or certain activities to do our list writing in our minds. I find myself even taking notes on my phone when I’m going for a walk, as if that was my office where that type of activity should be performed. But you’ve highlighted Gabriele, that actually, when I’m walking, I’m not in my office, I’m outdoors and I miss out on the opportunity to be present with my body and enjoy the movement rather than be trapped up in my mind.

247. Even reading this post I wasn’t able to remain present – thinking about all the things I needed to do next. Catching myself doing it is becoming easier, which gives me the opportunity to return to the present timezone as you so aptly described.

248. “Is it possible that the way we move and go about our everyday life is making us sick?” A very important point you make here, Gabriele, I feel that there is much truth in that statement. We have a very serious epidemic of dementia nowadays in the world, and it would seem that our constant habit of ‘checking out’ and being disconnected from what our body is doing could very well have something to do with it. When we are not present with our bodies, but thinking of something completely different to what it is doing, it is as if our head is not attached to the rest of our being. We need to be completely connected to ourselves, be present in everything that we do, it makes such a difference to the whole feeling of our body. Unfortunately, in our present way of living, we have made our thoughts and manoeuvring of our minds to be the more important of the two, our mind and our body. How different our lives can be when we bring the two into alignment, being present with our body in everything we do. We become the whole person that we are truly meant to be, and how different and beautiful it feels when we truly connect.

249. When we truly want to connect and feel the joy of God and the pulse of the universe we cannot but choose being presence with our body – there is simply no other way.

250. The “Riding the Breath Meditation” by Serge Benhayon was the first really helpful tool that was given to me to practice conscious presence and synchronize the thoughts in my mind with the activity of my body. After that it became a daily practice in the attempt to be present with every movement I make, something that to this day takes focus, deliberateness and a choice in every moment.

251. It certainly makes senses that the first steps towards dementia start with the choice to escape the body and the present using our minds to retract into the past or entertain the future, until the point comes where this choice is not in our control anymore and we get mixed up about past, present and future.

252. This is a great observation Gabriele and I only know too well what you are talking about. My mind has been my refugee, my hiding place, my entertainment unit, my comfort zone, where I retract too when things get a bit too intense in life… but to what cost? That is a question that nobody ever raised before I came across Universal Medicine and I love that you raise it here again as it really needs to be considered and discussed.

253. Recently I had the privilege of serving an 87 year old who was completely present and and physically well. I was so fascinated by this person and we had a long conversation with no stone left unturned in our philosophical ponderings. A few of my colleagues commented on how long the person stayed and I was able to say how often do we have the privilege or the opportunity to have a discussion with someone who was in that condition at that point in their life and I was delighted to have that chance. What is so concerning is how rare that is in our society.

254. It is like we are trained to be a multitasking, multi functioning machine, but at what expense to ourselves and humanity? To have a whole generation plagued with being checked out means we have lost our elders who do not have the capacity to share or guide or offer wise counsel. This is going to come at a great cost, on many levels to humanity.

255. Since last reading your blog Gabriele, I have observed more closely how I have been on my daily walk. I have discovered how I have been trying to keep thoughts out, and it has been causing a lot of extra tension in my body. I am realising that being present with myself actually means to notice the thoughts, let them be and pass through and then reconnect with myself. I have become so much more relaxed without all that struggle!

256. Conscious presence consistently applied is transformational, when I see people who live this way they literally glow and ooze care.

257. This makes so much sense Gabriele. If our mind and body are separate in action this must cause imbalance, however it seems to be seen as so normal in life and for some people it is even applauded.
     Your blog suggests that there is another way and this feels like a way to enhance the actual quality of our lives for the better. It feels like this way can bring much more attention and presence into all we do and how we are in life. This actually feels like revolutionary thinking when it comes to listening more deeply to our bodies.

258. The tendency for us to ‘check out’ is very revealing that there is another part of us that wants to do what it wants, when it wants in total disregard to what is true.

259. What you speak of here is what I assume a ‘normal’ way of being for the majority of us. Living in a checked out state can not really be clocked or seen by others, especially if they are checked out themselves! To stay fully present seems like a very difficult practice but maybe the truth is it is actually more difficult and stressful to live in state that lacks presence?

260. “The absent landlord’ is such a great title for this blog and a saying that certainly stopped me in my tracks. I can relate very well to your blog Gabriele and how often I have lived with my body and mind being in 2 places at once – and yes I was also proud that I could multi-task in this way. I now am more aware as well of how harming this behaviour is to us long term, thanks to Serge Benhayon presenting on conscious presence and the importance of this in our everyday lives, it is now easier to catch myself when I am checking out and make the choice to re-connect and stay with my body.

261. What a wonderful beginning to the day Gabriele – reading your blog really puts life into perspective. It allows us to feel the depth of neglect that we engage in when we allow our mind to wander off and escape into the future rather than staying with the present. We lose so much of our lives when we are not present with ourselves as we escape from the discomforts that life brings when we are not present. When this make believe becomes our reality we now have dementia – or that is how it makes sense to me. When we lose the capacity to stay in the present from lack of connection we spend our lives being ‘absent landlords.

262. “Or I would have thought, every so often and ever more infrequently, that I needed to empty my mind of all thoughts and achieve a state of vacuousness that would make me immune to the ups and downs as dictated by the quality of my thoughts.” Mindfulness, Meditation, the world is abundant with tools and solutions for emptying the mind, yet in my experience this became another box ticking exercises another compartment in my drawer of experience, void of a consistent unified link, which was my connection to my body.

263. Thank you, Gabriele. Checking in and out of our bodies seems to be becoming more prevalent as we struggle to cope with the pressures of daily life. What is needed is an honest self enquiry to find out what it is that we do not want to feel in the present moment, that takes us so far away from ourselves?

264. “I would not have registered the disconnect between the body and the mind, quite to the contrary – I would have prided myself on my ability to be elsewhere from my body and be following several trains of thought in my head concurrently.” When multitasking, one tries to “keep all the balls in the air at once” if i think about this expression and freeze-frame a juggler in the moment that all the balls are suspended in the air, i can see the tension in their body, the reflexes on high alert, the flighty eyes, the holding of the breath – its no wonder that on a daily basis this modus operandi becomes exhausting, depleting.

265. Thank you Gabriele for bringing to our attention a subject which needs to be discussed with every single person on the planet. Checking out it seems to me has become the past time of many but without the realisation of the consequences of ill mental health.
     I for one was big into checking out and it does take some doing to train yourself to want to be present with your body instead of drifting off into situations which may never happen, but well worth it.

266. “This practice has been immensely liberating and totally put a stop to the wild ups and downs of being dependent on whether I find my thoughts exhilarating or depressing.” and yes it does sound like a mental disorder. I noticed too that when I depend on my thoughts I am like a puppet being made to think nice things and then later totally worrying things. The only way to not be at the mercy of my thoughts and what they allow me to think has been conscious presence, aligning my thoughts with what I am doing. It is really time for us as a society to put more attention to the fact that we are often walking brains, totally disconnected from our bodies. This cannot be healthy as is shown in the great numbers of illness and disease.

267. This has become my daily practice: body and mind alligned to the activity my body is in. The checking out by going in a thought is so instant. It amazes me all the time. Recently I had a clear reflection how it looked like. I started going to a fitnessclub this week and although it is about the body, I see everything is there to support you to check out. So whilst working out on one of the machines you can watch tv, listen to the loud music around you or -most do- listen to your own music, you can read second-to-second from the machine how fast you go and how many calories you loose etc. All totall distractions from the body. Being aware of this from the start I have made it now my primarily work-out to…..practice the body-mind-as-one whilst walking or stepping on one of the machines.

268. This is such a great analogy. While the landlord is away the house stands there as a sitting duck for squatters and all other kinds of unwelcome intruders to take over and start behaving as though they have always owned the place and lived there from the very beginning.

269. Gabriele, I also observe the wandering of my mind and how normal and common it seems to be. But what a different feeling is it when I allow myself to truly feel my body. It is like my body starts to breathe more deeply and gently and expands instead of feeling squeezed.

270. This is a great reminder Gabriele, not only to be present with the body but to also the quality I choose to move in. It’s all the ability to be in conscious presence and feel what the moment offers. Today I am clearing out a store room of boxes from the past, and this clarity will support me in my day to stay present and not go into images of the past, and become sentimental, none of which is in the present. A beautiful support thank you!

271. With no awareness of the connection to our body and no responsibility in the way we treat and run our bodies, is it surprising that we also have no idea of the impact such blind arrogance can have and be the cause of much of our inability to see the link to the root cause of much of our illness and disease. Since making many changes in being present, responsible and listening to my bodies feed back, I have a greater clarity, vitality with no signs of any illness and disease. The link you have presented Gabriele would be a great place to start to address the ever increasing statistics.

272. I have read this blog before and have noticed the amount of times I have needed to bring myself back when I go into work mode rather than living mode.

273. On conscious presence what you share – “This practice has been immensely liberating and totally put a stop to the wild ups and downs of being dependent on whether I find my thoughts exhilarating or depressing” – yes, totally, it is exhausting to be plagued by such quality thoughts that either elate or deflate. And is not about being “vacuous” either as you say Gabriele, but more that thoughts having a quality to them governed by the way we are being with ourselves – as the ever-present landlord. Such thoughts become truer and clearer to support us in life.

274. Great post Gabriele, and I like how you write: “….body / mind split and absenteeism from our-selves” – we are indeed absent, and absent of the fact we are absent considering autopilot behaviour that’s so rife today. When I find myself and my thoughts taking me away, the symbol you present of “the absent landlord” makes a lot of sense and is a great pull-back to occupy the house once again. I also got the saying “sitting tenants” as being similar to those ‘thoughts’ that just like to sit there ‘in the house’ infiltrating the quality of the house.

275. Great point Katie, not living with presence can be a lot more harming than most of us realise. If we are not living in our fullness then what quality are we living in?

276. I can relate to this Doug as I spent a lot of spare time ‘checked out’ and thought it was a normal, harmless behaviour. Now I realise how much damage this can cause to ourselves and others around us if we choose to live our lives disengaged.

277. Thanks for the reminder Gabrielle, as before reading your blog I was allowing my mind to drift of into other places, and when I came back to my body I realised by doing this how much tension was in my body. We have the capacity to live consciously in the present very well, but when we try to live in a different time away from the present it puts a stress on our bodies.

278. For a big part of my life I ‘thought’ that if I had the right thoughts, all will be well – not thoughts of being idealistic or good but that the key to life was in what kind of thoughts I had. Then I encountered new age techniques that said that thought was the enemy – you should concentrate on the energy. That led to an endless hall of mirrors with lots of action but neither truth nor love as the teaching about energy was incomplete. This form of learning about energy was like learning about a city only from what is underground – this is a very small part of what constitutes a city.

279. Driving on a long journey today I noted that there was a few times my mind wondered off mainly in the search of an imagined dinner. When this happened I noticed my body tightened and felt stress in the body. When I brought myself back I could feel how good it felt to be with myself and realised that some times I feel really good and use a distractive thought to take me away from this good feeling – this was a great lesson in how subtle self sabotage can be.

     1. Aah, yes Samantha – I can relate to the self sabotage that goes on. For a long time it has puzzled me why I would be in the midst of an amazing connection with myself – and then zoom, it appeared as if these thoughts came in from nowhere. I realise now that this is not the case but that I am uncomfortable with my amazingness. As I become more open and honest with myself I am realising that my connection is a constant choice of choosing to be with me in every moment of the day.

280. No wonder there is such an epidemic of exhaustion when we are living in a body, going about our physical day on auto-pilot, while our minds are elsewhere replaying/living out scenarios, plotting and contriving or trying to control our lives by setting the scene ahead of time in our minds…….so debilitating and so much present time squandered.

     1. Thank heavens for Serge Benhayon – the one person who has made me aware of being an ‘absent landlord’. I agree with what you say Rosemary, it is indeed a crime when we waste our precious lives on ‘auto pilot’ rather than being present with ourselves, where we can take the time and space to feel what is really going on in our life rather than worrying about the past or the future. As you say spending our time ‘plotting and contriving’ when we could be spending this time adoring and appreciating our amazingness.

281. Hi Gabriele in relation to your question . . . ‘Is it really okay to live checked out from what we do? And what else does it lead to?’. . .I feel this is a very real worry as dementia has become a huge risk and has to be something to do with being so accustomed to ‘checking out’ that ‘checking back in’ becomes a problem!

282. Absolutely awesome blog Gabriele, I particularly love what came to you on your walk, the absent landlord. It is a huge issue, the body and mind not being in the same timezone. I personally have experienced this, still experience it, being distracted, thinking about many things instead of being consciously present. I am a lot more aware about such things than I have been in the past, but the mind wants to definitely rule the show. So it does take awareness, feeling ones feet when walking is a great one. This is an ongoing unfolding.

283. I love the analogy you paint here of us being vacant landlords when our minds are not aligned to our bodies. This is exactly what we are at those times- vacant! When I am connected to my body and can feel the loveliness of it I wonder how I could ever possibly not want to feel it! Getting myself out of the pattern of ‘being vacant’ is a work in progress (I used to check out all the time) and know that it is a constant choice to be connected each moment and to keep making the choice to keep coming back each time I clock that I need to.

284. I feel there is a very simple sense of joy in being fully in and with what we are doing. There is a simple sense of joy in just being who we are.

285. So true, and I know I have done this so many times “There I was walking along, the body was doing its thing, my legs were faithfully taking me from A to B and my mind was not only in another place, it was actually in a different time zone.” I also now have experience of choosing to stay connected with my body. It actually feels strange to have all these thoughts, imaginings and dreams, floating through my head unmanaged. if it happens now, I can observe it more and let them go, knowing they are not me. Simple, do they feel loving or not, this is how I am learning to observe them, and there is a lot less traffic of fantasies, ‘what ifs’ and ‘not fairs’ flying around in there now. Being in our bodies, connected and present feels awesome, observing how we feel is key.

286. What is deeply profound to me today as I read your blog Gabriele is the fact that even the way we move has a direct possible impact on our health. It’s something that is not often discussed but makes complete sense, if we are like the empty house then we move vacant. If we move around present with what we are doing then we are naturally more caring and in-tune with our body and therefore living more healthy.

287. Our house was empty when we came to look at it and decided to buy it, the image of this perfectly good house in a great location not being used, reminded me of our first visits to our now home. Over the years the way the house looks has changed yes, new paint, fence, boiler, carpet etc but it is the feeling and the warmth that is there now that was absent when we moved in. We have lived more love in it and then space around has responded. Our home expresses how we live and feel, and it now supports us. This can be reflected in how we treat our bodies, we care for them, fill them with more love and they respond and so will support us.

288. Living as an absent being inside a physical body, concerned only with the thoughts in my head, is a familiar place for me. Not because I do not care or that I would wish anyone any harm, it’s just because I got used to this way of being irresponsible which meant that I could indulge in many behaviours that seemed satisfying at the time, unwilling as i was to see the bigger picture of what I was in fact creating – a long history of absenteeism from my own body and the life I had based on this lovelessness. However, with the inspiration and the guidance of Serge Benhayon, all of this is being turned around and life is much more sweet and whole and filled with an inner-connection that I never dared to imagine possible.

289. It makes alarming sense that our tendency to live a split between our mind and body leads to mental and physical illness. Our parts are not designed to work in isolation or disregard of one another. There is also the extraordinary ease with which life flows, when we do move with all our parts connected, to be appreciated.

290. We are not only abandoning our bodies when we allow our thoughts to monopolise our awareness, we are missing everything that is going on around us. Have you ever been in your car and arrived somewhere only to realise you have no recollection of what you passed along the way? This is extremely scary as it shows how well we can seemingly function with very little awareness of our surroundings. Feeling into this further, we could also say that we are also not able to see or feel what is going on for the people around us when we are ‘lost in our thoughts’, which just creates more separation.

291. Living in two different time zones and spaces in your head is definitely detrimental to our bodies and relationships. It is the same as not listening to someone speaking because you’re anxiously thinking of what you are going to say back when it’s your turn. This way of living I know well and everyone would at some stage. And the awful after affects of feeling drained and depleted because the activity, job, conversation etc. that you needed to do has energetically been done hundreds, if not thousands of times in our heads!! The level of exhaustion, anxiety and nervousness on our bodies is massive.
     Learning through Universal Medicine that everything that is there to be said or done will be there when its needed or time, has been a huge support and rest for my body, and so much more space to be present with who I am with.

292. The absent Landlord, what a brilliant analogy, Gabriele, just love it ……. “My body had been left to its physicality, bereft of my presence. I had checked out from the physical body and what it was doing and an obvious disconnection from my ears down had occurred.” Our bodies are in fact our true ‘intelligence’ they feel everything and our continuously talking to us, when we check out from our bodies like this we are missing out big time.

293. I love the way you described it the “body / mind split and absenteeism” Gabriele as it is exactly what it is. When we are not with our mind with our body, we leave our body in stress as it cannot be at two places at once but only in the current moment. I can agree with you that exercising conscious presence as presented by Serge Benhayon, does makes my body at ease but boy oh boy it is not that easy as for me, it is not the way I have lived for many years of my life and returning to this peaceful state with my body is still quite a challenge for me.

294. When we start to experience what it is like to live in connection and feel this in our body, we realise that it is much more than just being present and that there is so much more that this way of living brings.

295. It felt important to nominate the current pride we have in multi-tasking. I often hear women compare themselves to men,that they can do many things at once. With so many people pushed for time, we are looking for shortcuts. It seems logical to use a walk to exercise the body and think about whatever needs doing next. But we need to consider the quality in which all those jobs get done. I find when I am with my body and what I am doing, the quality and ease with which I attend to the task is vastly different.

296. I really appreciated your comment about dementia. Whilst medicine looks for a physical cause for the huge increase in dementia (which has been predicted to be a big health issue within the next few decades) we are not looking closer to home. Using the analogy of the home, it feels like where we have left the building for good. It will be vital for the future health of generations that we understand what we are choosing when we check out and leave our bodies. As getting lost in thoughts that take us away from our body has become the norm, so too will conscious presence be the norm in the future. This way we can support each other stay in our homes.

297. I loved your analogy of the absent landlord and the empty home. It seems like such a waste! Why not be living in and enjoying all that home has to offer? Our bodies are there for us to fully embody, to live in and occupy all the time. By being absent, like a home, this is when the harm can occur without us even knowing.

298. Just how often do we find ourselves in this position? “ There I was walking along, the body was doing its thing, my legs were faithfully taking me from A to B and my mind was not only in another place, it was actually in a different time zone. My feet as part of my body were on my walk, putting one step in front of another and my mind had catapulted me onto my seat in front of the computer and right into an imagined future event.” I know for me I often find myself in auto pilot and have to stop and bring myself back into my body and be with myself. The more I deepen my connection with myself I become aware of these times much earlier than in the past and therefore spend a lot less time checked out. I check in with myself regularly and like to feel every movement I make in my body as a way of deepening my stillness.

299. I would also like to appreciate the immense gift of conscious presence that Serge Benhayon has reminded me of. This has completely changed my life and turned upside down what I consider to be normal. I now know the huge difference between how I am and feel when I choose conscious presence. I am solid, confident in my body and able to deal with life and bring a quality to all that I do.

300. It feels sad to have left myself, my connection to me by being absent from my body. I know that there is nothing greater in this world than the joy of my connection. I give up this joy when I let other things be greater than what is within me, but nothing can truly be greater.

301. One person living this way, being with themselves as they go about their day would have a powerful and healing impact on everyone around them. We are all connected.

302. “To be even more precise, I was in two time zones (the present moment and the future) and in two places (on my walk and in my office) at once.” This is such a simple and graphic understanding how most of us spend most of our time not 100% fully engaged in what we are doing. However, learning to do so through the Gentle Breath Meditation and the building of ‘conscious presence’ (one’s body and mind being in union) is transformational with life being fulfilling and joyful.

303. There is a joy and lovely quality experienced in being present with everything we do.

304. I was reading this and agreeing in full and then my mind wandered off, coming back, agreeing in full, wandering off…..it is a constant discipline to bring your mind back in line with what your body is doing and to bring all of you whilst doing it. But I have done the wandering for so long and I was very up and down and very tired as I realise it is stressful for the body to be in 2 timezones and 2 places at once. It very much rejoices (and I suspect does a little dance) when we bring ourselves together in the one place and bring our full focus to that.

305. It’s so easy to be in our heads thinking of other things when our bodies are doing something completely different. I used to escape into my head when I felt emotional to not feel what was going on, but staying with my body and bringing awareness to it enables me to deal with problems far more quickly than burring them. There is nothing lovelier than bringing awareness of any action together with the mind; it keeps us firmly in the present.

306. Gabriele, what you speak of here is so powerful when we do look at the increasing rates of mental illness in our world. I loved how you spoke about your mind and body being in two different time zones, it sounds ridiculous when you say it like that! and yet you are so correct that this is seen as ‘the norm’ in everyday life, but is it actually normal or even supportive for us to live this way? I know that when I sense my mind and body are together in the one moment it is the most beautiful feeling I can have as I am washed over with a further sense of clarity, wisdom and stillness – with zero haste, pressure, doubt or uncertainty – and this to me is absolutely priceless to experience. Making this our each and every movement is the key as we deliver our quality with us then, wherever it is that we go and from my experience, we actually ‘enjoy’ being with ourselves.

307. Thank you Gabriele, it was great reading your blog, I like the words getting ahead of oneself they are so accurate with what really happens on an energetic level. when I am with myself, my thoughts with what I am doing, life becomes joyful with a steady flow to it , when i am distracted by thoughts past or future my body feels a tension and anxiety, being cut off from my presence.

308. Its such a huge issue, disconnecting from the body and giving power to only the mind, one example that springs to mind is in extreme sports and challenges where it is encouraged to have mind over matter and push the body through, yet this from my experience is a disconnect, and the body ultimately pays the price. What we are seeing with dementia is that the whole of our being suffers when we lose our minds. But would we lose our minds if we chose to stay in our bodies?

309. “Squandering time” – this expression is great and I really appreciate how you have used it Gabrielle. I can feel the multi faceted conundrum we all seem to put our selves in boots and all. We spend a lot of time and energy ‘thinking’ what is before us and missing the moment we are in. So not only do we need to re-address the moment, either because we have missed something or made a mistake, but we waste time as well pre-empting a future scenario that may never happen. So when the future comes we then have to re-think and sometimes let go of an image we have created. All this takes time and energy and ‘squandering’ describes this very well.

310. A very thought provoking blog Gabriele. My question is, where do we go when we check out? As you rightly say, we leave our bodies behind and project ourselves into the future or dwell on the past or just lose time altogether, when all our body wants is for us to acknowledge it, stay with it and treat it with the respect it deserves. Being consciously present is a choice, one that we can make moment to moment, after all if you add up all those moments in our life that we have checked out it would add up to rather a lot of wasted time, and even more worrying is that one day we may check out completely and end up suffering from dementia or some other form of mental disorder.

311. “My body had been left to its physicality, bereft of my presence”. This is such a “kick up the pants” statement for me, Gabriele, as it really makes me aware of the big disconnect when I am not present to me at all times. This is a very practical awareness for me to take into my day.

312. I remember a time where I pried myself on being able to do multiple things at once never realising that in that I was to doing anything fully. To have a phone conversation whilst typing an email leaves me disconnected from both, therefore never offering anyone the fullness of my being that I would otherwise be able to in conscious presence.

313. Gabrielle, your blog is one of the clearest I have ever read on conscious presence and you rightfully say that we have accepted a way of being as normal that is in fact not normal. Just because we do not know or can fathom it to be any different does not make it the natural way of being. Being consciously present however is and as you have said in time it will be shown scientifically that illness and disease start at the disconnection from the body and the checking out with the mind.

314. I have been the quintessential multi-tasker, getting lots done but much of it devoid of my presence in the moment. The feeling of completion when I work with body and mind on the one thing is very different to the feeling of fatigue or a nervous ‘what’s next’ I get when I live in two three of four different time zones and locations.

315. Life is full of distractions to take us away from our bodies. Books, tv, movies, radio, music, youtube, the internet, magazines, Facebook, iPads. . . Everywhere you turn there is another distraction beckoning you to accept the relief it offers from your own life.

     When these checkouts are not available we will often check out in our own heads, drifting off, imaging scenarios that haven’t happened yet, replaying scenes from movies we watched the night before or even planning what we need to do at a future time.

     So what is it about the lives people are living that has given rise to a epidemic of checking out and distraction? If we took these things away and people were offered the opportunity of being present with their bodies, what would they discover? Are people leading truly happy, fulfilling, vital lives, with amazing relationships and a sense of fulfilment and completion to go to bed with each night or underneath the distraction induced fog are we actually protecting a discontentment, even misery, that we carry day after day?

316. Wow Gabrielle, your article is super exposing!! On my walk this morning your article came to mind after I caught myself thinking about a conversation I needed to have with my flatmate this evening – it was early in the morning but my mind was already planning the conversation to be had at the dinner table that night!! This traversing of multiple timezones has to be exhausting – not to mention somewhat futile and time-consuming as in this case, trying to plan a conversation impedes the natural flow of expression. I had to laugh when a couple of minutes later, I then caught myself thinking about writing this comment!! I really appreciate the awareness your article has brought to this and I will enjoy bringing more attention to it throughout my day.

317. When I first began observing my own ability to remain consciously present and committing to building my ability to be present in my body, I couldn’t read an entire A4 page and know what I had read at the end – this is shocking! I had prided myself on having built an ability to apportion 20% of my attention to what I was physically doing and the other 80% to rerunning episodes of tv, scenes from movies or made up conversations that had never (and probably would never) happen.

     Doing this kept me completely disengaged from life. I was going through the motions but as though from behind a veil. And then, when in rare moment when I did want to be fully present, it was very difficult to come back.

     But why? Mine is not an uncommon experience. What is it about contemporary life that people are feeling they need to escape from?

318. Your blog allows me to see that disconnecting from my body is just like going out and leaving the doors to my house unlocked. If I do this who knows what will get inside and what harm will be done. The short term payoff for this choice is a false sense of ‘relief’ that is no match for feeling truly present and confident in my body.

319. ‘Not only that, but I had also lost all those moments when I was elsewhere and in another time zone following my mind’s meanderings – I had actually squandered that time, I had no recollection of it and it was gone.’ – How many moments in our lives do we have no recollection of and have totally checked out of? When you say ‘the moment was gone’ it makes me realise these are moments we can never make up for, they are forever lost. Do we truly understand how this affects us long term, mentally and physically.

320. I often have this experience also Gabriele. We get a-head of ourselves and leave the body behind. Learning to move as one expressing unit with the body’s movements in line with our thoughts is at first challenging when we are more used to move in such a fragmented way.

321. For most we live much more checked out than we even realise as the education systems and most employers champion overriding ones natural rhythm to get the job done. The practice of conscious presence teaches me there is a way to work within my natural rhythm.

322. ‘I was on my walk this morning and there was this moment where I caught myself thinking about an email I needed to send first thing when I got home. Sound familiar? It might sound familiar and seem even normal, but is it really?’ – Gabriele, your question begs a reality check – how obvious it becomes that we are seeing it as normal to not be present in our bodies, but instead allowing or even encouraging the mind to entertain all sorts of distractions.

323. Until I attended Universal Medicine Presentations I had no idea how checked out I was, because everybody I associated with was as checked out as I was and we all considered our state as being normal. No one noticed the others’ behaviour because they were too checked out to notice. It was horrifying and a relief at the same time when I realised how severe it was, horrifying because it was severe check out and relieving because at least now I was aware of my extreme state of being and I could address the issue. I know I was heading towards dementia had I not woken up to the truth. I am continually focusing on conscious presence and every day my connection with my being deepens.

324. Wonderful article Gabriele, and a great reminder of the harm we are doing to our body when we check out in this way, even though the ability to ‘multi-task’ is often thought of as a good thing. Nothing can compare to the joy and lightness of the body when one is connected through conscious presence with what the body is doing.

325. This blog reminds me of what Simone Benhayon teaches in the pool. How do we swim (move through life) and stay connected to our breath, move our arms and legs and deal with the other people in the pool (the world around us) without losing that connection? Conscious presence is the key that helps us to do this. Something I am still learning.

326. “… with the rates of dementia and mental health problems ever soaring, can we really afford to shrug our shoulders and keep thinking that this kind of body / mind split and absenteeism from our-selves is normal or even healthy?” I know there was a time when I spent so much time day dreaming about this and that, what I was going to create, paint, do or had done and so on that coming home to me and body was not a great experience, so to me this is a great question. It is truly healthy to abandon our body in favour of future events or past happenings? Do we fully realise what happens to our bodies in this instance? Today I am appreciating more and more just how delicious it is to stay with me and the warmth within me and not flit off into other realms, but it has done and continues to take great focus to stay with myself, a growing discipline that I know without doubt contributes to my health and energy levels more and more every day.

327. Gabrielle what you are pointing out is something that we all do and so I really appreciate the significance of what you are sharing. Whenever I check out of my body and realise it I clock that I have missed out on enjoying the loveliness of being with myself and do not like that feeling either. I have learned too that being present with my body is a very simple key to feeling constantly vital which supports my emotional and mental well being. However it is an active choice that is needed all the time and one that I am constantly working on!

     1. Great point Michelle that it’s a choice that we make to connect and that choice requires constant attention.

328. This is a brilliant article about the reality of where we are with understanding mental health and where so many illnesses come from. From dementia to depression, obsessive thinking and schizophrenia, it all comes back to our willingness to be present with our bodies. So many people are on anti depressants – from people who want to take the edge of life to cope, to those who can’t get out of bed in the morning and have suicidal thoughts. The medical answer at present is medication and tackling those thoughts with more thoughts. They are fast developing drugs to ‘delay’ dementia too. But none of these ways of dealing with these illnesses heals the root cause and so the depression and the dementia and the obsessive/ intrusive thoughts will always be there, suppressed but never healed. The power and effectiveness of conscious presence as a way to prevent or undo patterns which lead to these illnesses is huge. The modalities and practices of Universal Medicine actually heal and prevent. There is no plaster, no making things look more manageable, more easy to cope with. Without any judgement Universal Medicine looks at disharmony such as dementia and says that is not natural and our bodies need not be in that state, there is another way to live. Do I want to keep living in a way that keep dementia and mental illnesses a guarantee or do I want to live a life in which I have love, harmony and joy at my fingertips, to be able to live with vitality and reflect that to everyone?

329. I certainly considered the “split between body and mind” to be normal.This was the way you did things, how you went through life. Yet the more I bring the body and mind to be doing one and the same thing at the same time then I feel more vibrant in my body, have more energy and don’t feel as hungry. Since first reading your blog Gabrielle, i’ve been noticing how many run down buildings there are on walks I take. It’s a real reminder of the importance of being in the moment rather than in many places at once.

330. ‘My body had been left to its physicality, bereft of my presence.’ This makes me think of a machine or robbot that has been abandoned and left to wander aimlessly. But if that robbot or machine is still walking and still going about its business, and if its not us that are present, then who or what is in the driving seat?

     1. Great question – what happens in our absence from the body we inhabit? Where does that time go and where do we go? And is that really healthy?

        1. It’s so not healthy and it leaves you exhausted. When I’m with my body I feel space and a knowing of what’s needed not regardless of the situation. When I’m in my head, disconnected from my body, everything is tense, stressful and complicated…so many of mankind’s health issues have their root cause in this fundamental disconnect we choose from our own bodies. In the absence of presence and love, disease comes in.

     2. Very true Simone, I can relate to the feeling of being on auto-pilot and when I do allow it, it feels disempowering. In contrast, when I am living in my fullness my body feels alive and is ready to respond to any situation.

331. “this split between the body and the mind. Age-old it may be, the common experience it may be, the norm it may be called – but what are we taking for granted, putting up with and actually condoning and accepting?” We are surrounded by such norms in our day, Serge Benhayon has opened our eyes to the ongoing impact these everyday choices – this is a brilliant example for which everyone can relate.

     1. These so called ‘norms’ are not normal and are not natural. They are ‘common’ in society.

332. Thank you Gabriele this is such a common and important reality of what we do that it is great to talk about it and recognise the missing moments and time as our bodies are vacant and we are simply not there. This is scary and very much part of illness and disease and brings light to the true commitment and dedication needed to being present in our bodies and working on this all the time. A real marker in bringing a fullness and purpose to our lives.

333. This is an inspiring reminder of the power and healing that conscious presence offers everyone. It reminds me that we have been so used to wandering to all places in our thoughts when we do things. i can completey relate to priding myself on how many places I could be in my head- how many future calculations I could make or future problems I could solve . It also makes me think of multi-tasking which is another thing I prided myself on. Practising conscious presence has also supported me to come back to appreciating and enjoy being with me (rather than leaving me to wander away in my mind) which in turn has supported me to appreciate and enjoy people again and life again.

334. Being able to do 2 or 3 things at once is now almost expected of us in the fast moving society we live in now, never stopping and in constant motion, This is why I love your blog and the title ‘Absent Landlord’ Gabrielle it really shows us that we might think we can jump from one thing to another in our thoughts, but what happens to our body when we are doing this. “My feet as part of my body were on my walk, putting one step in front of another and my mind had catapulted me onto my seat in front of the computer and right into an imagined future event.” this captures so well what happens when our thoughts take us into another time zone and another place and how quickly we are absent from what is happening at the moment.

335. Gabriele, its beautiful to read your article, this is a great question and one that makes me realise that I can be lazy when it comes to being present, that I can get lost in my thoughts rather than consistently choosing to stay with my body, ‘with the rates of dementia and mental health problems ever soaring, can we really afford to shrug our shoulders and keep thinking that this kind of body / mind split and absenteeism from our-selves is normal or even healthy?’ having read this article a few days ago for the first time, it has been a real wake up call for me, it makes me more aware of when I am loosing presence, and so with this awareness I am making the choice to come back to my body more, rather than indulging in my thoughts.

     1. This is definitely a consistent dedication to allow ourselves to be with our body and present in every moment. The thoughts are there to enter and take us on a path further away if we do not choose this consistency always. Just this morning while applying eye make up I caught a thought slip in and then brought it back to the tenderness of m fingertips and the gentleness of applying my eye shadow. It can happen so quickly and easily. Just as when we choose to be present it is there also.

336. Spot on Gabriele! This analogy is very on point – an empty/abandoned house, which starts being in a good condition, will go to rack in time as our bodies bring up some illnesses when not used/inhabited in presence and honor…

337. What if we feel into our bodies and begin the practice of yoga in action, true yoga, where the mind and body are in union? What if we value the quality of our movements above all else? What if we are with ourselves and appreciating the connection this brings? I love how your blog highlights the way we have been so willing to abandon ourselves and feel comfortable in that abandonment and even make it a good thing to be outside ourselves doing many different things at once, with a split between our bodies and our heads and sometimes a seeming split in our heads also, akin to the symptoms of bi polar or other mental health conditions such as dementia.

338. Gabriele, I love the questions you pose here – so relevant to us all and well worth pondering on.

339. Some years back I would have said there was nothing wrong with having a vivid imagination, going to the mind and conjuring up all these different scenarios as to what might or might not happen within a situation I had to face, dwelling on the negative often made up stories – the list was endless. But now I can really see how this can lead to mental instability and ill health, and that checking out in this way could in fact lead to dementia.

340. Love this Gabriel. Checking out is often associated with doing something external, TV, film, video games, any activity that takes us out of ourselves. And yet we do this constantly when we occupy ‘two time zones’ and places; we’re not present in the moment and we lost so much of the here and now. Mastering conscious presence is ongoing. Rather than checking out, we are called to constantly check in with ourselves, and if we’ve travelled elsewhere, to re-connect with the here and now.

341. If you leave a house empty one of two things happens – the house either falls into disrepair, or squatters move in and you are faced with having an alien presence that you have let in. When you consider the subject of the blog, these are scary ‘thoughts’.

342. What I love about this blog is that when we are prepared to be open and willing to look at the way we are living that there is always support from God. The magic at that particular time seeing the house and clocking the vacant landlord is priceless. How this really got you to see and feel the importance of being consciously present. Through out our days and where ever we are the support is endless we just need to be open and willing to see it.

343. As a woman I have been told that women are great multi-taskers and this is something that women are naturally good at. To be holding this way – of doing too many things at once and thinking about other things while you do it, completely disconnected from my body – as a talent has taken us so far away from the truth and a true way of living, it’s horrible. True talent in living is to be consciously present with my body and my body with my mind as you have so beautifully described Gabriele. The more aware we are of this the richer our lives will be.

344. This revelation alone turns our concept of ill health and disease on it’s head.

345. This is great Gabrielle, Conscious presence is not something I have had for most of my life. I can relate to what you shared about riding yourself on the fact that you could be thinking about many things at once. I have definitely done lots of that. As I read your blog it really stood out to me that the times when for example I am feeling nervous about a new job tomorrow that I am not connected to my body right now. Thank you for your inspiration here.

346. I find it difficult when I walk to discern, just from my thoughts, what the quality of my thoughts is. I usually get more clarity from my body – the thoughts are clearly out of control if I get racy or have difficulty to continue walking and when I feel myself expanding thoughts tend not to be the issue. Actually, how I move is the key.

347. This blog asks a really great question and that is whether the dementia epidemic we are currently facing is connected to how we are living and specifically how we allow our minds to be thinking of something whilst our body is doing something else. There ought to be research done into this.

348. “I was in two time zones (the present moment and the future) and in two places (on my walk and in my office) at once.” It is only when we choose to live in one time zone that we come to know oneness, otherwise there will always feel separation.

349. Linking the vacant house to walking and not being present (a vacant body) is a great analogy Gabriele. When this happens, the living quality and aliveness is not seen or felt by anyone. Everyone misses out.

350. I wonder what happens to all those moments which are not fully lived and completed when our bodies are not in union with our minds? Do we build another reality or way of living that is checked out and leads us to a state of being where we are forgetting more and more?

351. Imagine if we were to bring back the mind to the present with what the body is doing, we could then have the opportunity to feel what is there to be done next rather than what the mind is thinking about some point in the future.

352. We can walk around completely divided on the inside, with our legs moving in one direction whilst our head is off in another direction. This must be a real assault to our physiology.

353. Fabulous article Gabriele. ‘Is it possible that the way we move and go about our everyday life is making us sick?’ When I observe us going about the day deep in thought about another event, whilst walking, I notice our posture. We seem to be ‘absent landlords’ a huge amount of the time and this vacated home is not a place of warmth and love or even wisdom for that matter. It is cold, run down and disconnected body that we live in.

     Observing someone deeply in their body and present is truly a sight & feeling to behold. They feel vital, loving and move with grace and fluidity. Their posture is aligned and beautiful.

354. I was just reading some statistics on dementia and there are more than 353,800 Australians living with this disease. By the year 2050 that figure is expected to reach 900,000.
     It is not only those living with dementia that is affected but the many involved with the care of a person. Dementia is not only an old age disease.
     How we live today affects the quality of our life going forward.

355. One other thing that amused me from your blog was how you were stopped by the symbology of the empty house. Yesterday I was on a walk and having a conversation with someone who was being rather emotional and I was letting their reactions affect and drain me. Then suddenly I saw a tree where the branches looked exactly like a huge tap. In fact, it looked so much like a tap to me in that moment that I had to stop and point it out to the other person. Then I felt I was leaking like a tap in letting that energy in and what the other person was doing was channelling a consciousness which is a symbol of water. There is always so much joy in observing what is directly before us – why do we choose to be elsewhere!

356. Your blog is a feast of excellent points Gabriele and you clearly highlight how we accept these disassociated, disconnected and disease inducing absences of presence as normal. I also regularly notice how my thoughts are not in harmony with my body. For example, recently I have been bringing awareness to being present when I walk through doors and it is very exposing to notice how often I am through the door and into the room before I realise that I was not present in that moment! It is actually fun to play these games with myself (not with any judgement) and to bring myself back to presence for when I am present with myself it is indeed a great and joyous present I give to myself and others – which then makes me wonder why on earth (or any other planet) would I want to be anywhere else and how can I really?

357. I like the title Gabriele, ” the Absent Landlord”. The empty house reflects well what happens to our bodies when we vacate them. They feel empty, become dusty and lose the warmth and aliveness that is naturally there when we inhabit them. When we are home within ourselves the fire is burning.

358. When the mind leaves the body behind we can do any manner of things in disregard of the body. This can also be exhausting, the inner connection is lost and we don’t feel what is needed in respect of our body. In moments of conscious presence we feel true union or yoga and there is a spaciousness and clarity to be and enjoy what is before us.

359. I find the link you make between not being present with your mind and body in the same place at the same time and dementia to ring true. Maybe this really is how dementia starts and it is actually the end result of too much disconnection over a long period of time.

360. A profound sharing Gabriele bringing to light the harm that comes from choosing to not be present in any moment as we attempt to spread ourselves across more. Dementia and mental issues appear to be accelerating and conversations like these are powerful and very much needed in getting us to contemplate that we may have a significant part to play in our own mental health. Thank you.

361. For many years I was in the search for an “empty mind”, thinking it would resolve the daily dilemma of stress and frustration. Now thanks to Serge Benhayon, the concept of an empty mind has been well and truly put to bed, and the opportunity to be more with myself through being present as I do whatever I do has transformed my daily experience of life.

362. Gabriele I love how you really laid it out – what we are choosing when we let our mind run somewhere else from our body! It’s great to take a moment to stop and consider this and it’s implications on our health and everyone around us…

363. As women we champion the fact that we can do more than one thing at a time with our “multi-tasking”. This blog exposes not only that, but asks the question, if you are not with yourself in whatever you are doing, what timezone are you in?

364. This is such a great explanation, Gabriele.
     When I am not in conscious presence, I get exhausted – no wonder when I allow my body & mind to be working in 2 different places at once – having to relive the thoughts.

365. I can really relate to your blog Gabrielle. There are so many occaissions when I am doing something, but my mind is not focusing on what my body is doing but rather on what is going on around me instead, or the list of other things that I have to get done in my day. But when I bring myself back and focus on what my body is doing and what I am doing in that moment, I am able to remain steady and realise I can get far more done in a day than when I let my mind go racing off into the blue yonder!

366. Gabrielle, your article got me thinking of that old saying “going for a walk to clear my head” – walking is so often about being in our head, not being with our body and we miss out on so much in this disconnection.

367. “To be even more precise, I was in two time zones …” One of the things human beings dream about being able to do is time travel, without realising that we actually do it all the time. Every time our minds wander off in to the future or into the past, we are travelling through time, leaving our bodies to fend for themselves. Has anyone up until now ever asked the question, “if we are not fully present and with our bodies, who’s in charge?” I can really feel how a life time of day dreaming and indulging our imagination can result in disease, after all our bodies respond to everything we think, so when we split our attention in this way, it confuses our hormones and our nerves, not a good thing for such finely tuned systems that will if we persist begin to break down.

     1. I’ve never looked at this like this before, but it’s true. We’re constantly time travelling. Rarely, if at all, being present in the moment!

368. I have whiled away so many hours of my life doing own thing with my body while my mind was thinking furiously about something that had happened in the past, or gearing myself up for what I thought was going to happen next. Living like this is not only stressful, and not only futile, but it is incredibly exhausting! We may think that we are being efficient, but we end up missing out on so much of our life as a result of this habit.

369. ‘There I was walking along, the body was doing its thing, my legs were faithfully taking me from A to B and my mind was not only in another place, it was actually in a different time zone’ – a simple sentence but profound what it offers Gabriele. The presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have presented on conscious presence and made this something I am constantly checking in on and registering as a regular occurrence. Your simple statement above has nailed for me the understanding of living in two time zones and how absolute the disconnection can be. It has also exposed how the need to follow on an action we are not yet physically in, takes over the current moment and what is real. Something has deepened within me as a result of the simplicity of your wording. Thank you Gabriele – this landlord chooses presence and livingness in this current body.

370. Gabrielle, I loved this. It’s such a cracker of a blog and came with a realisation of how destructive it can be to step away from the control panel and get lost in our own set of thoughts. If we arnt with ourselves, who’s driving ? Just like a car, if the passenger in the front seat isn’t there, who’s driving? There’s no real autopilot.

371. “Is it possible that the way we move and go about our everyday life is making us sick?” Absolutely it is possible. every movement we can impact another and then another. It is through our choices of true movement we can restore True health.

372. The absent landlord is a great way for me to get a picture of what you are describing and it just reflects back to me that I too am often an absent landlord. It starts with having awareness though, and honesty to be able to come back home and just be there and not to be elsewhere in my mind.

373. I must add that your blog is very powerful in bringing awareness to self instantly – it asks of us to feel how much we are being present and with the body – how am I sitting now and how am I typing now – is the body comfortable, do I need to adjust anything? Am I allowing myself to be distracted by anything else other than the words that I am typing and the way my body is feeling as I sit here and type…I am aware of fleeting thoughts coming in about my day to come, about how to handle a certain situation etc etc, – it is very disconcerting to realise the extent to which these thoughts come in despite thinking that I am focused on a certain task! And to tune into the body and feel an ache or a discomfort that has been there but has not been honoured by a simple adjustment in posture. By allowing ourselves these moments to really feel and be in the body, we get to feel a level of neglect (however minute this may appear to some) that can be then addressed by the simple choice to be present and make the needed adjustments and focus. Thank you Gabriele!

374. Just like you Gabrielle, in the past I would of thought myself smart that I could be walking or doing one thing and have a million other things going on in my mind. As I have become more and more aware of this, I can feel the disrespect and abuse that it is to my body, to not be with it. I am learning, bit by bit to be with it in all of its movements and it feels so great when I am.

375. Once upon a time, I too would have prided myself on being able to solve problems and be somewhere else whilst on my walk, never realising what I was missing out on. For the mind and the body to be as one at the same time is a truly lovely experience and one I endeavour to take into my day. A simple and very powerful reminder, thanks you Gabrielle.

376. To draw the analogy between an empty home and an empty body is very striking Gabriele. We know how an empty house feels – it is discomforting. It gardens soon run wild and an air of neglect surrounds it. We are no different when we become the absent landlord of our lives.

377. “my legs were faithfully taking me from A to B and my mind was not only in another place, it was actually in a different time zone.” this is such a good wake up call and point out. So often this is the case, but how do we know what is truly going on if we are not fully present?

378. Gabriele, I love what you have presented here. It is a classic situation to go for a walk (or any other activity for that matter) and not really be there. Especially in our current world and our new levels of ‘business’. And it gets worse than this too – all we need to do is watch the levels of entertainment and more often than not we see people both on their phones and on their computers simultaneously! or watching TV and making dinner etc – a constant multitasking that really distracts us completely from the task to be done. You also make a valid point in saying that our current society sort of celebrates being able to multitask and get so much done, but never in the process questions the quality of the work nor the quality of the being that does the task.

379. What you say Gabriele about when we are living our lives in disconnection with our bodies and having our minds go of on thoughts absolutely has to be a causing factor of illness such as dementia. I too would have not even given it a thought of day until attending one of Serge Benhayon’s presentations on the Ageless Wisdom principle being consciously present in all that we do. Over time I have come to realise it is a constant focus and choice that I need to make and that it is the quality of my presence in what I am doing and feeling me in the process, not what I am doing and keep my head thinking about what I am doing. This in itself is two different types of conscious presents. Much learning to work with in this and being willing to go deeper with ourselves in this quality.

380. When you start to observe just how much we are conditioned to escaping in our mind, its really very interesting. I love the challenge of remaining with a task and find that when I do that space is created.

381. Such an important topic, Gabriel, ‘this split between the body and the mind’; it’s an epidemic. And who knows what illness and disease it will be linked to in the future, dementia being one of the obvious ones. Even in the process of reading this blog, I caught my mind wanting to wander off on to other things, effectively abandoning my body and leaving it as an empty shell. So the question needs to be asked, what is it exactly that propels the body in these absent moments and keeps it going? Which is pretty scary to consider, as it is anything but us.

382. Gabriele what you’ve written about is gold. Our mind and body being separate certainly leads to ill health, mentally and physically. I can feel it instantly.

     Recently I went on a walk at lunch time. I’d a lot of work to do but felt a walk would be a lovely way to just be. However, I was anxious about all that I had to do and not having the time to do it in so it felt like I was bombarded by thoughts of what to do when I got back. It was like I wasn’t outside at all. So I put in effort to keep coming back to my movements which felt gorgeous. Every time the thoughts came in and stacked up I could feel the stress mounting. Past experience and I know this is when I become unable to work in any kind of effectiveness at all. I knew that if I didn’t come back to my body I’d feel more stressed on my return because I’d have a mountain of to dos to remember and repeat in practice. I’m learning to practice only focusing on what one is doing at the time – racing ahead stresses my body. How did I ever believe that thinking ahead and planning to an inch of my life was helpful or necessary? That it was actually taking away my life and my enjoyment of being me.

383. I first heard Serge Benhayon mention conscious presence over eight years ago, and to this very day I have to and still do need to be very committed to actually choose this in every moment. In fact it has been a real eye opener to see how much I on purpose choose to not be present and with my body and what it is doing. I’ve checked out of my body as a way to 1. not feel everything that is going on in life around me and 2. not feel the power of me in my presence and all that this brings. Deep to my very core I know this checking out of our body is the first stages of dementia.

384. Hello Gabriele and I can relate to all you say. Even now knowing and having the awareness of what you are saying there are still moments when I am in two places at once, well my mind and body are in two places at once anyway. I use to think this was how you did things, go for a walk to ‘think’ things over etc but now after living in the present more often I can see this type of thinking didn’t support me in anyway. Living in each moment or as you say with ‘conscious presence’ has supported me in so so many ways and continues to do so. It’s not a learned thing but more a living thing, in other words it is the constant dedication to be consciously present with everything I do that supports. Even when what is there is small this is the detail that supports when things get bigger. It is like there is no more you need do but be present and the rest takes care of itself.

385. Gabriele it is awesome what you have shared because it is something everyone can relate to and it is also great to bring awareness and discussion to this. I definitely feel what you have shared here is true ‘Is it possible that the way we move and go about our everyday life is making us sick? Concious presence (body and mind together on the task being done) is something Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have been teaching for years now. It makes sense and when put into practice I can feel how this not only aids our well-being but is a way of living harmoniously with ourselves and others.

     1. Is it possible that the way we move and do things is making us sick, you ask. From personal experience I would say that yes, it does. And if that is too far a stretch, it certainly is exhausting and somewhat demoralising in its repetitiveness and rote behaviour.

386. Great questions raised Gabriele that would be well worth exploring considering the state of rising cases of dementia, mental illness and general ill-health in our population. From my experience I know it is true, that when I am not present with my body and it’s movements I treat my body with less care and respect. With this in the past I was able to easily abuse my body as I was not aware of how I was feeling and it was easy to just follow what everyone else was doing as this appeared to be the ‘normal’ way to be. When I began to connect with my body and staying present with my movements, developing conscious presence, I discovered that I had not been honoring the true health and well-being of my body with my movements, with food and my thoughts as a whole new sense of who I am and how I felt came to light. From here I discovered a whole new way of being, being who I am in connection with my body, a true way of being and my health and well-being has never been better.

387. Love your analogy, and title Gabriele – The Absent Landlord – and that is exactly how it feels as we vacate ourselves and become purely become functional beings. The beauty of conscious presence being left behind in the rush.

388. It is amazing how much more space is available to do what is needed when we are present with our movements, and time is no longer the director of my movements. I am discovering more and more when in connection to ourselves and our body, we are in connection to the guidance from within to move us in a way that supports our purpose with what is needed to bring our love to all we do.

389. Thank you Gabriele for bringing awareness to the quality in which we move through our day. I love the mind/body split you have described as too I can relate. I have noticed when this happens that I can bump in to things, drop things, move in an abrupt way and allow tension to develop in my body, all a sure sign that I am not with myself. When our minds are elsewhere our movements are absent of the quality of who we are and the space in which we move lacks the presence of our love.

390. Beautiful exposé Gabriele. I love the line “My body had been left to its physicality, bereft of my presence.” This is more common than the opposite and this line really hits home about moving in life vacantly. We are missing out on the richness of life when we do this. If we are constantly in the future or the past it is not a reality.

391. It is not possible to be present with ourselves or others if our body is doing one thing and our mind the other.
     This is a great revelation that need be taught in schools, in nursing homes, in workplaces…imagine society with conscious presence as it’s foundation rather than the reality we have now of checked-out-ness from very young, dementia with age and a reliance on drugs to escape the pain of our choices.

392. This reminds me of the expressions ‘is anyone at home?” – we used to say this when others were checking out and not connecting with us. In truth – we are anywhere but home in those moments when we choose to not be present.

393. You raise a very topical issue as our understanding of what lies behind the soaring rates of dementia continues to develop but not at a pace fast enough to arrest the exponentiality of the disease. It doesn’t seem logical to have our minds in different activity to our bodies. For a start, it induces a state of separation that can lead to accidents, injuries and all manner of mishaps that stem from an equivalent of our right arm not knowing what the left arm is doing. I like the term ‘conscious presence’ as it does what it says on the tin – using the mind to be consciously aware of what the body is doing and to be present with the body in the immediate moment, not planning how we’ll live out the next chapter of our autobiography.

394. Thank you Gabriele, indeed we will one day understand as a society that checking out when me move is the cause of the alarming increase of dementia and connection with our bodies through conscious presence is the key back to our stillness and wellbeing .

395. The title is very fitting and absolutely captures the blog that follows. For years I have lived checked out from my body, always in my thoughts, always in the doing, without actually ‘being’ present in my body. I join you in the appreciation of Serge Benahyon and the way of the Livingness that deeply supports me to me to be in my body.

396. Thinking of one thing and doing something else is often seen as a cognitive achievement, but what we often don’t realise is the cost involved. Because the effects may not be immediate it appears that this way of being is fine and as such most people don’t even question it. It was not until I was introduced to conscious presence did I realise how absent I had been and the thoughts that were dominating me. The more I explore this, the more I am realising that conscious presence actually affects every single part of my life.

397. Would we not be at a different point in evolution, if we were taught conscious presence in schools? Well, we are taught conscious presence in life-school, in the big school of the Universe and wouldn’t it be wise to adapt this into our education system?

398. I used to think I was pretty smart because I could do heaps of things at once and whilst doing them always be thinking of what is next, planning planning, planning. I got to realise I was never fully with whatever I was doing and so had no real appreciation of those things or myself in the process. They were void of true care and love.

399. I love the concept of the “Absent Landlord” as it describes so precisely what happens when our mind wanders off to another place and is totally disconnected from our body. This is huge for me and is something I am so aware of when I am doing my daily living. I can feel the drain in my body when my body and mind are not aligned and I am not in conscious presence. Thank you for sharing this Gabriele.

400. I still have many moments in the day that my body and mind are not in the same place but as I am more and more aware of it, I can make the choice to be with my body and the activity it is doing in that particular moment. I have to say, this is a constant practice and not something you learn overnight. To me it is part of my commitment to myself and to life.

401. I absolutely love the title of this blog. The three words say it all THE ABSENT LANDLORD. The emptiness, vacancy and lack of livingness that is felt when a home is left abandoned is a great reminder to us of our bodies and how they can reflect the same.

402. When we are thinking many things at once it is exhausting, especially when we are not present with whatever moment we are in.

403. Thank you Gabriele, for putting this common behaviour into perspective, and exposing the damaging effects it is having on mental and physical health. It used to be considered a positive talent to multi task, but not so, for how can we be with ourselves if we are not aware of how we are moving? We need to develop a greater responsibility to live life from the awareness of our bodies, and how that effects everything and everyone else. This absent landlord syndrome is a disease in itself.

404. So many great questions to ponder on here Gabriele. The experience you describe is very familiar to me. This quote sums it up – ‘my body had been left to its physicality, bereft of my presence. I had checked out from the physical body and what it was doing..’ We do need to question the impact this behaviour is having on our health and well-being. I am realising how important it is to stay present with what I am doing, if only so that I get to enjoy each moment of my life. I don’t like the feeling of not remembering what I’ve done because my body was doing one thing while my mind did something else.

405. Conscious presence = the joy and freedom of having both body and mind “in the same timezone”! Love it Gabrielle 🙂

406. Gabriele what you have raised here (separation from ourselves) is the starting point of all of the hardship that we, as a society endure. We step away from ourselves and then the gap that gets created is filled with every-thing that we are not and we get so used to being who we are not, that we forget who we are.

407. I love this Gabriele. Thank you.

408. Checking out is such a normal and in many academic arenas, it is considered a sport. i.e. trivia contests, math quizzes and other puzzles to champion the mind. However in my experience, there is nothing as lovely as just being in the moment and giving 120% to the task at hand. To much of my surprise when I started doing this I found I have an abundance of time. I then discovered that I decided to stop throwing it away.

409. You have written with such clarity, I very much appreciate your reminder of the mind and body, walking together. The absent landlord, the perfect title.

410. This is a great article Gabriele, since reading it the first time I have been aware how much I can be doing one thing and thinking about something else, it feels gorgeous when my mind and body are working together, focused on the task, I feel energised and enjoy the task, whatever it may be, when I’m off thinking and not present this feels so empty and pointless.

411. I totally agree Gabriele, re-learning how to be with myself has been liberating. When we are connected we know exactly where we are at, and I’ve found that with this awareness and the different choices I then make, has put a stop to the emotional and physiological ups and downs I would experience.

412. I get that, our nervous system must get confused too because we are in two or three places at the same time with our thinking. Maybe we are out walking, thinking about our Dr’s appointment the next day and anxiously awaiting an important letters arrival in the post, the body itself with its physiology prepares itself for each event. Its no wonder we get so exhausted.

413. “To be even more precise, I was in two time zones (the present moment and the future) and in two places (on my walk and in my office) at once.” I love this Gabriele it expresses so succinctly the split between body and mind….almost like parallel lives but never being fully present in either.

414. This is such a great point Katie. Walking offers such a great opportunity for conscious presence, not just exercise or a means to travel from A to B.

415. I love how you related what was happening in your body/mind to the absent landlord. I often ask myself ‘where was I there?’ when I realise I was checking out. At these moments it seems I am living a short distance from my body and not within it. These are indeed wasted moments of disconnection and thankfully ones I catch much more quickly than I used to.

     1. Along with asking my self questions like these I also find that today I am now catching myself in the moments when I am not present and then am able to bring my mind back to what my body is actually doing. A great progress.

416. Gabriele health and presence. I realised I have been addicted to thinking, day dreaming and escaping the present. Their is the push to do more, fit extra things in and the thought that if I think about something it is somehow helping. I love your example of the absent landlord as it clearly shows just how important it is to be in, appreciate and stay with the present.

417. Rates of dementia are skyrocketing and predicted to all but bankrupt our health care systems. Through the presentation of Serge Benhayon I can see the link between check out behaviour, our shortened attention span and this epidemic. Now is the time to change our ways and see that being the absent landlord of our mind is causing us a great many problems. The teaching that Universal medicine offered me changed my ability to stay present as I was sure I was heading down the road to dementia myself. A very pertinent blog Gabrielle.

418. Thank you Gabriele for this powerfully evocative analogy to the empty house and our being checked out from being present with ourselves.
     “I walked past an empty house: it had been empty for months, a perfectly good house in a great and very quiet location, just standing empty. And the words ‘the absent landlord’ came to me. It felt a lot like what I had just experienced: my mind had been absent to the present moment, unavailable and otherwise engaged”.

419. “The Absent Landlord”. This is such a great title to me. It says so much. I immediately relate to my body and how I pick and choose when to turn up and check in. A great expose.

     1. I can say the same Jenny – Gabriele’s blog really struck a chord in me too and I really felt myself bringing more awareness to my own presence in my own body (I have a body! hooray! and how important is it to feel it and stay with it!)…

420. Just this morning I realised I was day-dreaming in bed – my mind wandering at will, but my body lying still in bed – so no-one at home. Great that I clocked it and brought myself back together…..

421. Gabrielle, you have brought me right back to the responsibility I have to stay present with my body. The consequences of not doing so are just too great.

422. Gabriele, I read your blog this morning and throughout my day I felt your blog have supported me hugely with being in more conscious presence. I felt the joy in my movements as I connect to the delicateness of my body. My thoughts were not running wild and I am checking in with my body to be aware of how it feels. Thank you for this beautiful reminder of how simply it is to feel more joyful from being connected with my movements in conscious presence throughout my day.

     1. Chan you make a very valid point here – you talk about keeping yourself present with your body but you take it one step further and you talk about the JOY and the DELICATENESS that you also allow out from this presence in your body. This is GOLD. We can walk around ‘being present’ and still be like an automat thinking to ourselves ‘I am walking I am walking I am walking…etc’ where this does nothing to lift us out of a zombie like entrapment. But when we allow the joy out and move the body with a quality of delicateness, it changes the experience instantly. To me this quality of energy that we move in is as important as being present in the body and not allowing ourselves to be distracted by other thoughts and activities.

423. ‘Not only that, but I had also lost all those moments when I was elsewhere and in another time zone following my mind’s meanderings’ Yes Katie this stood out for me too. I’m always aware, when fully present how much more I feel and see, and how much more alive I feel Good question to ask: are we walking to truly be with us or carrying out a routine task.

424. Wow love this apt description of what happens when we allow our minds to drift off when we are walking or doing any other task that requires our full presence. Having wasted many years of my life being absent from whatever I was doing I can vouch for the anxiousness that arises from all the worrying I did about how things would work out in the imagined scenarios in my head and the level of anxiety about forgetting things because i spent so little time fully present and able to feel what I needed to do next. The joy of being present whilst I am walking is that I get to experience the beauty of nature that then supports me in whatever task I next undertake and anxiety is banished.

425. Wonderful blog thanks Gabriele, what you’ve shared is profound and your analogy very apt… the absent landlord indeed! We have become very efficient at multi-tasking in the sense you have shown… thinking one thing whilst we do another, not realising the body is attempting to respond to both scenarios. No wonder we are suffering an exhaustion epidemic and coffee and sugar sales are at an all time high!

426. When Serge Benhayon presents on conscious presence it is a real game-changer. Not because it is anything necessarily new or exciting but because it is so very familiar – it is a known, lived and dearly loved way to be. With conscious presence you are present, and with you here amongst us, life starts to make sense.

427. What I found so prevalent about this tittle ‘ The Absent Landlord’ is giving the feeling of not being present, not being with our body.. drifting somewhere else.. It feels empty. And this is exactly what this blog shows us : that there is a difference between being present in our body and being with our mindset where our body is – or leave our body and be everywhere else – except in the moment. How cool, to finally understand this empty feeling, and that it is nothing more or less then not being with yourself in that moment.

428. I saw a thing on the Tv the other day about a new type of person called a Smombie, which is the joining of the two words, smartphone and zombie, now there is an increasing number of these Smombies walking along in broad daylight heads down transfixed on there phones, totally unaware that their legs are moving them across roads without looking. I’ve nearly mowed down several of them in recent times whilst out driving. Smombies would do very well to learn a thing or two about conscious presence.
     .

     1. Wow… How far we are going as a collective human race in procuring method after method to disconnect from who we are. Such is the deep pain humanity carries from having walked away from its true way, its one unified truth and love, in the first place.

429. This really shows the absurdity of what we often do with there being no connection between what our body is doing and where our thoughts are. If we are doing things absentmindedly with little to no recollection of how we got to where we are then we need to question the quality of what it is that we are doing. I know that when I am present with what I am doing, the quality of work produced is amazing, when I am not connected and am time traveling then there is no quality.

     1. Standing where I stand now, and knowing and feeling what I know now – yes it is absurd. Many years ago I would not have questioned it though. Thank God for the reflection of others who choose to be with the presence of their bodies. This has allowed me to know what is possible. The conscious presence gentle breath mediation as presented by Serge Benhayon has been a support and a blessing.

430. The absent landlord is a great description Gabriele, as when you are in your head, you only feel like half a person and ill equipped to deal with life and what it presents. Only bringing half of us to a situation means the other half gets filled up with other/nervous energy. No wonder we are so exhausted and don’t feel the joy of life.

     1. Well put Julie. Ill equipped to deal with life – this then makes sense to why people in that ill equipped space go for the relief, numbing and distractions of substances, entertainment etc etc

431. Wild ups and downs and anxiety – yes, our thoughts readily create such inconsistencies. All the more reason to steer away from them and focus on a place which, once re-connected too, is warm, welcoming and steady – our inner heart; housed in our gorgeously ever-accommodating body.

     1. It really is so powerful that through presence with our movements, we can change these ups and downs to balance.

432. I can absolutely see and feel the link to not choosing to be present with our body and mind and such illnesses as dementia. We as a society can no longer stay blind to this link and simply blame genetics or such. We need to be honest and say it’s patterns of living that have been passed on and caused the illnesses to continue and for today, escalate.

433. I too have massively felt the benefits from Serge Benhayon’s presentation of keeping the mind with the activity of the body, conscious presence. I feel more vital, able to observe more, less reactions, make better self care choices because I am more aware, don’t feel exhausted or stressed. Truly it has been a Godsend.

     1. Yep, and I’ll add myself here as well — what I have learnt from Serge Benhayon has absolutely been heavenly sent. The vitality and steadiness that I now live is incredible when I consider the anxiousness that used to run my life just a handful of years ago.

434. Thank you Gabeiele. This is such a common and very relateable sharing. I love your title, it is so fitting.

435. Gabriele, thank you for sharing on this important topic. Yes – we do consider this ‘split’ normal when it is anything but and very, very damaging. For people who have sought refuge in the mind, and I include myself here, it is challenging to reconnect consistently with the body. For me it has taken a lot of bodywork and dedication to bring myself back, and even then it is a discipline I need to return to every day. This article is a great reminder and a great prompt.

     1. Yes Victoria I can very much relate. Just this morning I was observing in myself how much it can still be to go the mind as the default — and how when I do it complicates things! It’s an ongoing loving discipline to ‘retrain’ myself to stay with my body and the more I do this, the more I see why I’d let the mind take reign in the first place. When we stay with our body we clock how much we have always known, there is surrender to ourselves and to life, whereas when we split ourselves and disconnect from our bodies we invite dramas and issues that keep us occupied in a rather perverse way which truth be known, we enjoy…

     2. Yes me too Victoria. I have brought attention to this also, investing time in bodywork that is healing of the old patterns as well as supporting me to keep my mind with the actions of my body. Now I feel a gentleness and suppleness with my movements that I never would have imagined possible 9 years ago before meeting Serge Benhayon.

     3. This ‘split’ is the duality experienced when we forsake the Oneness we truly are. Two halves make a whole and so if we are to arrest such a fragmented way of being, we must once again re-learn to walk as One.

436. I love this title – “The Absent Landlord”, it is such a telling way of describing exactly how many of us live – with the lights on but with no body home. Choosing to live in conscious presence has been an absolute game changer for me, not only for my physical and mental wellbeing but it has built a level of self-love and connection for myself that I had never imagined possible.

437. Gabriele, the power in simplicity of your sharing is striking, and I could attest to its truth. Recently I did an experiment. During a time of what could be called “distress”, I decided to first feel into the situation and observe, then walk with all of myself every step of the way. Tears came during this experiment as I could feel the many times in the past I have allowed panic to take me over. And yet it was absolutely powerful to surrender into walking with myself deeper with this experience, the more I was present while walking the more I felt supported and there was nothing to worry about. Up until I walked to the situation that needed to be dealt with, I could have chosen to walk there in surrender and be surrrendered in facing the situation, or I could have chosen to walk in panic and end up there in panic, and how different the two movements would impact how the situation would be handled.

438. A great blog, Gabriele, and one that many of us can relate to – I used to go for a walk to ‘clear my head’ but that often meant I did a lot of thinking whilst walking. I can feel the difference in my body now between walking thinking and walking feeling my body. Your words so clearly describe how we can be in different locations and time zones and ignoring our present time and space. No wonder we are so exhausted!

439. You don’t see birds, elephants or giraffes, walking about thinking about a holiday they could take, or an argument they had last week. Yet this is what we are constantly up to and yet we consider ourselves the most ‘intelligent’ species. If our body is our house, then as you say Gabriele we are effectively renting it out, or worse leaving the door open for any random squatters. It is time we reclaimed and moved right back in and made a cosy warm hearth.

440. Thankyou Gabriele for your simple and clear blog, very powerful. I can really relate to this line about conscious presence – “This practice has been immensely liberating and totally put a stop to the wild ups and downs of being dependent on whether I find my thoughts exhilarating or depressing.” This reflects how disconnected to life we are because we are locked into our minds generating ups and downs based on our thoughts, instead of being engaged with the world via a solid connection to our body. Whole days can pass where we are unaware of the beautiful world around us, so strong is the grip of our mind and what we are thinking.

441. “This split between the body and the mind . Age-old it may be, common experience it may be, the norm it may be called………..Is it really okay to live checked out from what we do? And what else does it lead to?” These questions you have put are really worth pondering on Gabriele, for they are what we do, never even taking into consideration the consequences. Is it any wonder there are so many accidents and incidents that occur? Plus even more, the detrimental effects to our own health and well being, as well as the effects on other people, by allowing our thoughts to wander and not stay consciously present with what we are doing.

442. Society’s current way of living is all about the ‘doing’ and little to none is about ‘being.’ I also lived in this way of doing – a head with feet, planning and racing a million miles ahead of where I actually was, and took pride in how good I was at planning and organising – in total disregard of my body. It created an enormous impact of constant anxiousness in my body (that I refused to feel by staying racy and or disconnected) and that is now taking time to clear through living in a way that is consciously present in whatever I do, and in this way i get to feel what is truthfully happening in my body. No matter how good we are at ignoring our bodies, there comes a time when our body will say enough – this illness/dis-ease in our body is here to show us the consequences of all of our choices.

443. This is gorgeous Gabriele. This is such a normal behaviour and so accepted! It is worrying to think of the rates of Dementia and how bad the disease itself actually is! This checked out behaviour is worrying when we consider how it leads to Dementia. Truth is only really known when the body and the mind are present with what is in front of it, it requires a body that is surrendered, free of anxiousness and tension to grasp the energetic truth. Living in our heads has created a pattern of living which is accepted as normal – our bodies are abandoned and the quality of life is not really known or checked, it is all a fantasy in the mind and each individual thinks they have the right to chose what is the right thoughts and definitions, but there is a lack of connection with the body.

     1. This lack of connection affects our relationship with others also as it feels shallow when we engage in conversations whilst our mind is focusing on something else.

     2. Great point harryjwhite – it is very strange that many people think it is normal to be disconnected from themselves.

444. I used to pride myself in being able to do one thing while thinking about something else. I used to love (not in a true sense I know) doing monotonous tasks which most people would find boring – because it was a perfect opportunity for me to escape into my thoughts/fantasy while my body was engaged in a repetitive activity. Because my mind was always active, I would have never considered this state as ‘checked out’, but it absolutely is, and it is quite scary when I realise how often this absenteeism actually happens.

     1. Yes Fumiyo, we champion the idea of multitasking and I was great at it, also taking pride in my ability to seemingly do more than one thing at a time. Now I can see the value in focusing on the one thing I am doing and staying with that until I have finished. It has helped me become steadier, less anxious and less exhausted.

445. Great point Katie… our intention for our walk is key in how we will walk and the outcome of our walk on our body and ourselves. There is so much benefit to our health and wellbeing when we are present in our walk with each and every step. When we walk in this way, the connection to our-selves is restored, even enhanced, our vitality is regenerated – and our body has had physical exercise.

446. Thank you Gabriele, what you’ve shared here is so important. We do need to be very real and honest about the effects of having a mind/ body split.

447. Gabriele I really love what you offer here, it opens up the possibility that perhaps the way we have been choosing to live is actually what is exhausting us, leading us into depression and ultimately impacting on the rate of dementia as so many are now choosing to ‘check out’ of life. I’d say there would be few people who would not have lived this way – being physically in one space but mentally somewhere else. When we stop and actually consider this it makes sense of why we feel so exhausted! Conscious presence offers us the possibility of bringing the mind and body together in one place and to feel and live this way is absolutely freeing as you can bring your all to every moment.

448. A great blog to open up the conversation on conscious presence, and how our minds like the tricky-ness of being in two or more places at one time. Yet we suffer from not holding the quality of being in our bodies or in conscious presence when we choose this. I do believe this type of behaviour is a precursor to dementia as we fragment ourselves in multiple places checking out from the importance of what we are primarily doing.
     I find walking with me and practising feeling my body during the process helps to stop this fragmentation of the mind – my wanting to think or work solutions to things whilst trying to enjoy a morning walk with nature, god and me of course.

449. An inspirational blog Gabriele on many levels. I loved the rhythm and flow of your expression – so gorgeous to feel as we read. This lack of conscious presence is checking out in life, and could easily be the beginnings of dementia at play. ‘The Absent landlord’ is a great analogy… when you work with people with dementia it feels exactly like that – there is a body functioning before you but nobody is home.

450. Priceless, Gabriele! I can relate easily to having the mind/body split thing happening as I go through my day. The fact that I am finding it a difficult pattern to change shows me how deeply entrenched it has been in my life. But, when all is in sync there is a rhythm and flow that allows things to happen with ease. It makes sense to me to draw a line between living in a disconnected way and the development of mental illness. The more frequently this information comes to the fore in discussion, the greater the opportunity for us all to stop and consider how we are really living moment to moment.

451. I would answer these questions in the same way too Marika. To be responsible for our every movement, choices and thoughts and to understand that they not only affect us but others too I feel is a hugely supportive realisation. This to me makes so much sense and hence why conscious presence is so important to master and apply as much as possible because when we are deeply connected to ourselves we are then able to lovingly connect to others too. With this level of connection we simply emanate love naturally.

452. This is a very timely read for me. I am currently participating in a 6 week Esoteric Yoga programme, and what I have been noticing in my body was the underlining anxiousness that was putting myself in situations in the past or future and how that was making me feel exhausted. And I just love how you have made it so obvious that it makes no sense for us to have our body and mind being at different places and time concurrently and think that is normal. The question “Is it possible that the way we move and go about our everyday life is making us sick?” is a totally valid one and takes me deeper into looking at my default set-up of operation.

453. We have so many opportunities every day to build upon our connection with ourselves, in every motion alone we have the space for this, in fact it is as much for this as it is for just moving from one place to the next. Yet when we skip it, instead we are developing an absence of us in our moves that further lessens the quality with which we can otherwise bring to every moment.

454. Brilliant blog Gabriele, the part about our minds and body being in a different time zone is so true. I have never considered it like that. By practicing conscious presence it has allowed me to let go of many wild thoughts that randomly flash in and out of my mind. It has also allowed to me connect to my body to appreciate and feel my every movement. I am still learning to be in conscious presence more and more as I know and feel this is deeply supportive for me and others in every way. Connecting to our body is a powerful tool to allow us to connect to Universal wisdom.

     1. I too have managed to almost banish the wild thoughts and stories I would play out in my head. Looking back, they would take up so much of my time and head space; it was like living two lives. The issue I found with allowing my thoughts to run wild was that I would create problems that were not there and actually feel physical stress in my body as a result. No wonder I was so exhausted. I have learned some simple techniques that keep me with my body and the benefits are huge.

455. I love what you have added here Katie, I have definitely used my walk as to tick the box that exercise for me and the dog is done……I will be walking shortly and am inspired from this blog and comments to be fully present – mind and body – to nourish and connect.

456. The link between checking out from the present moment and the onset of dementia in later life feels very clear to me. Someone with dementia has almost completely left their body, which becomes a mere shell enhousing the spirit choosing this separation of mind from body. Thanks to Serge Benahyon we now have true clarity on the underlying energetic causes of illness and disease.

     1. It is great to observe Lucy, how we can be checking out in everyday life and that becomes our normal pattern. I know I used to do it all the time, forever in the future in my head, (when was my next holiday?) but rarely focussing on the present moment. It makes such sense that when someone who doesn’t want to see what is happening in their lives, they will leave the present moment and revert to past times in their minds. Staying with the body is a great habit to return to throughout the day whatever we’re doing.

     2. Yes Lucy, the more I connect to the simplicity of being connected and not being connected, it seems so obvious that all our illnesses and diseases have their origins in not being connected. If our choice is to check out, of course it will cause illness and disease somewhere along the line. It requires space to see the effects of life long choices and illness and disease. Responsibility to choose connection seems not only necessary, but also ‘logical’. Which is beneficial for both ourselves as well as the people around us as they get a reflection of a True life with True choices. How lovely is that! Which gives our Life an all encompassing Purpose as well. Wow.

457. What a great reminder Gabriele, I am about to go for a walk right now – it always feels so much more joyful when I remain present with myself, really there is no comparison, it makes one wonder why we wander off in the first place doesn’t it, when being present feels so much better.

458. Gabriele, it seems crazy really when you think it, that we would condone a way of living where our bodies are one place and our minds another. As I read your piece I had this image of dis-embodiment with half of you walking and half of you elsewhere, like being out of phase with the body and this is something I am very familiar with, indeed in times past I have prided myself on how much I can do at once and my multi-tasking prowess. But of course the one question I never asked then was what quality exactly was I bringing to what I did, for that’s the thing I feel very strongly with reading your piece that when the mind and body are at one doing something, there is a simplicity there, and the task at hand is handled with the quality of having us fully there with it.

     1. Yes, I totally agree with you Monica. The irony is that multi-tasking is a skill that is not only condoned but is celebrated and admired when in fact it is so harming as clearly outlined by this article and by the many comments endorsing and expanding that understanding.

     2. It is crazy isn’t it.
        Especially considering that we are actually encouraged from every angle to ‘think’. Yet this form of thinking is not a full body awareness or full body thought, but fleeting thoughts, problem solving, ideas, plans etc. that ‘pop into’ the mind whilst our body is elsewhere.
        We are yet to see the full effects of an entire lifetime spent living like this. The current dementia rates are only a pre-warning of what could become a global epidemic if we do not bring more awareness and presence to our bodies.

459. I absolutely agree with you Gabriele in that the dramatic highs and lows of thoughts that influence our behaviour, our movements and moods will be considered mental illness. Even though this is seen as quite normal now and that the tag of ‘mental illness’ is reserved for severe cases of manic mental distress, the normal now will one day be very abnormal.

460. I really appreciate what you have shared here Gabriele, what we miss when we are allowing our mind to wander is actually huge and as I ponder over my life there are many quite vacant moments. What I am noticing is that whenever I am completely present with my body this memory is held, forever. Not that I stay with it, but if for what ever reason I return to it, it is very clear what I did and said. A marked difference from the absent times.

     1. I wonder Leigh if we could calculate the amount of time we have spent checked out, how much time we have wasted?…..how many days, weeks or years have been lost……squandered as Gabrielle so aptly expressed it.

461. Thank you Gabriele, you have exposed a commonly practiced pastime as the leading cause to illness and disease – one that we celebrate, actively seek and glorify. It is the body that is living honestly, it is the body that is with us always and it is the body that offers us the wisdom and insight needed to live an amazing life – so why do we chose to wander off 99% of the time into another time zone that is not real or even run by us? Crazy.

462. Gabriele this blog is an absolute gem – thank you. So much on offer here to reflect on and choose a deeper awareness with staying in the present moment whether walking, driving, what ever it is. I love the ‘two time zones’. It’s true it’s not possible to be all of us now if we are projecting into the future making stuff up in our heads. So familiar, but lets call it for what it is: distraction and disturbance. At least then we will be honest with ourselves and become a little more aware to support us to come back into our bodies and be fully present.

     1. Sandra I agree. Lets be honest and call it for what it is. With our body engaged in one thing and our mind in another, there is no harmony and there is indeed distraction and disturbance. And there is nowhere near the quality and wisdom that we can bring to the moment when we are fully present.

463. Great blog Gabriele, what you described is exactly how we exhaust ourselves as it is as if we are living a double life! One life I can handle but two at once without being fully there for either is extremely draining. I know this from experience.

     1. Yes, I can relate to this Kathleen. It is exhausting to live with our minds 100 miles ahead of our body. No wonder when I am choosing this I lose quality in what I do and I am not fully present when people are trying to connect with me. I tend to make more mistake, not enjoy what I am doing and feel awful. It makes so much sense to not separate our mind and our body but move as one in complete conscious presence. This makes life a joy even when we’re doing the most mundane tasks.

464. Wow, what a deeply inspiring blog, thank you for bringing this truth. The fact that we have so many people with mental disorders and the rise in dementia just shows how we always live in the past or the future and never in this present moment. The moment which is the biggest present we get. Every single moment…

     1. True Mariette. In 2015, 46.8 million people were living with dementia worldwide. That figure alone should be enough to snap us back into the present moment!

465. Great blog I actually see it as abuse now, I got that the other night in bed and I started thinking and I just thought you are abusing yourself. We are so used to this way of living that we allow it almost every minute of the day.

     1. I know that one Vanessa, except I used to have a lie in, in the morning when I woke up but inevitably I would find myself daydreaming about something and then start to feel tired, and at times it felt like a drug as I could feel how addictive it was. Seeing it as abuse is very helpful, thank you.

466. As I was reading about the “absent landlord” being a metaphor for each of us when we engage with activities without a connection with the body which we are inhabiting, I paused a moment and noticed that I was not fully aware of my body and was mainly focusing on the screen. Reading about the importance of conscious presence prompted me to stop feel my body and whilst holding that connection return to reading. A completely different experience.

     1. I agree Golnaz, to develop a consistent connection and awareness is something that we need to practice – the patterns of being ahead of (or even behind) ourselves are so deeply ingrained.

     2. Great observation Golnaz. We can continue to refine and deepen our level of presence. What feels like presence today will change next week if we are allowing ourselves to evolve.

467. It is so draining and tiring for us to live like this! I was living in the exact way you describe here Gabriele for many years of my life until I came to realise that true conscious presence is far more enjoyable, offering a far greater level of presence and vitality to live life in full

468. Such simplicity in what you have expressed here, Gabriele, but so exposing of what is common for many of us every day. I could feel the emptiness in my body as you described what it is to check out. Very powerful, thank you.

469. Yes Katie , I have had so many moments of not being in the present, that I have to treasure Every moment that I am present to be my main goal, and so confirming to myself that being present is what I want to commit my life to and not putting attention to everything before me and or in different time zones. When one is commited to that, it is hard work, but truly benefitial. Better active alive in the present then no where truly in full.

470. It is so common to think about something else while having our body do the walking, it is great how you expose this, and I know that it is not working. But this blog brought it back to my awareness to take this with me in my day, and see that whatever presents itself in every next moment is what is needed, not trying to control the sequence by thinking about it in advance while doing something else, but choosing to do it when the thought is there and have our mind in connection with what the body is doing.

471. The absent landlord feels so very fitting and so incredibly irresponsible.

     1. And of course, the longer the landlord is away, the less inviting the house, as it has been occupied by everything the landlord wouldn’t dare let in had they been home.

472. This is a superb writing, a topic that is so much needed to be understood, applied and adhered to. We so very much underestimate how much the way we live influences everything in our life, in and around us.

473. Thank you Gabriele, this is a great description of what it means to be not present/not in the moment. And as simple as it is, meaning we are not with us consciously in everything we do, we find it very hard to apply or do not even see it as necessary or even come to think of it as it has become such a ‘normal’ way of living.

474. The title of this blog is fitting as it represents exactly what happens when we ‘check out”. It also reminds me that I’m renting this body of mine for this life so it’s up to me to take great care of it and enjoy living in it as much as possible.

     1. Yes Matthew. Our body is there for our entire life – could that be one of the reasons we have this old pattern of not truly caring, because it’s always there no matter what and we learn to take it for granted?

     2. Thanks Matthew the idea that I am renting my body for this life (and looking to get my deposit back at the end?!) really encourages me to take responsible care of it throughout so that it is in good order when I vacate it. Certainly puts a different slant on it than the rather reckless way I have approached activities and substances I choose to ingest in the past.

     3. I would hate to get to my last breath and realise that I hadn’t been home in years.

475. What I appreciated is how much we are supported to come back to our body, whether it’s by dropping something, a bump, knock or a fall, a bird flying past or even bumping your car. Everything is supporting us to stop when we choose to check out. The next step is then taking responsibility for not checking out anymore.

476. I like how you’ve said that you ‘squandered your time’ – we try and be in two places at once to ‘save’ time but in fact it’s been ‘lost’ because we haven’t been there at all! A great to look at how we are with ourselves or not and the possible implications of how it can affect us over time.

     1. I agree Melissa and that is how I see it now. We don’t really save any time. Its an illusion that keeps us rushing around getting nowhere fast, thinking that the more we do, the better we are. I certainly don’t want to squander any more of my time living like that. I find staying present with my body and what its doing means I am more productive now than I’ve ever been and life is definitely more fun.

477. A great testimonial to why dementia & mental illness is on a rise, as we are never taught this practical movement of conscious presence. I love your title “the Absent landlord” as it really makes me question where am i at? Where is my mind at? Am I feeling my body with where I’m moving?
     And thanks for sharing Susan your insight as to why we are so tired & anxious as a society.

478. “I was in two time zones and in two places at once.” could be considered a superpower of a movie or tv character, actually quite popular these days. In reality, it is a very exhausting and disturbing thing and far from exposing the hero behind the John Doe; quite the opposite actually as it doesn´t allow us to be the true me.

479. “The Absent Landlord” indeed Gabriele, and I can attest to the fact that when one has engaged in such an incident it can be rather disturbing, disturbing and illuminating at the same time. I recall one such incident whereby I was close to 15 minutes away from my driveway on the coast coming from south, clocked that, and then eventually ‘came to’ so to speak and discovered it was now on dusk and I was about to enter the Gateway Motorway – and the return trip took almost an hour. One would ask where was ‘I’ – where did ‘I’ go and how did ‘I’ manage peak hour traffic – yes, checking out is not a healthy attribute as I have learned from the Universal Medicine presentations and I thank Serge Benhayon for sharing the Ageless Wisdom of ‘conscience presence’. If one were to be light-hearted about such an incident as this, one could quite readily see the possibility of having already taken up residence at ‘the funny farm’ as I used to hear in my youth. I thank God for Serge Benhayon showing me another way.

     1. Roberta I have had many similar experiences driving where I could not remember how I got from A to B. I am sure it’s the cause of many accidents. I now use my drives as a way to focus on being fully present. We have a big responsibility here, as the consequences of checking out when driving could be fatal not only to ourselves but also others.

480. What you are presenting here Gabriele warrants close examination and endless study.
     Our world epidemic of mental health conditions and normalisation of dementia as an expected component of the ageing process which is now prevalent much earlier in life is reason enough.

     1. That is true. Early-onset dementia is now occurring in people in their 30s. We are indeed a sick species.

481. What a great reminder Gabriele, I struggle with this but now your blog will remind me to stay present, thank you.

482. What energy are we allowing to take up residence in our heads if we’re leaving it empty or having our thoughts be somewhere other than with our bodies.

     1. Good question Deborah. If I am walking and not with myself in the activity of walking and observing all there is to observe and feel in that, then I’m open to, well, just about anything to come through. Thinking about a future email may seem legitimate enough – it’s not pure escapism as in fantasising about a tropical island– but in a sense it is because we’re thinking about something yet to happen. And as you say, what is the energy feeding us these thoughts?

483. “This practice has been immensely liberating and totally put a stop to the wild ups and downs of being dependent on whether I find my thoughts exhilarating or depressing. (Sounds like a mental disorder? I am sure that over time it will be seen as such.)” When stated as simply and obviously as this Gabriele it makes what we do – with our mind in one place and our body in another – totally ridiculous and yes, like a mental disorder.

484. This is a great blog, Gabriele. Got me thinking! hehe… What you have shared is so common a lot of us don’t even realise we are doing it or it is happening. It is fantastic to read your experience with the absent landlord as I can now be more aware of it in myself, as I am sure others who read this will be too.

485. ‘Absent Landlord’ – fantastic description Gabriele, it portrays perfectly the state we leave the body in when we get caught in our mind. It is an important discussion you are bringing to the table here – how is this ‘normal’ behaviour of checking out (of the body) really affecting our entire body?

     1. And the whole world. We are all in this together and just one checked out person through how they interact affects many others, but this is on the increase, so what are we seeing as a reflection – disengagement, dismissiveness, given up ness etc

486. I love what you have shared here Gabriele, and feel our fine art of ‘absenteeism in action’ is a if not, the – major problem we as a species are devolving ourselves with.

     1. Yes Giselle, in disengaging our body and our mind, we are also disengaging from the rest of the world.

487. We can pride ourselves these days for being multi-taskers, having the ability to get done a heap of things at once to save time. But in my experience (and i’ve been very good at this) It is not possible to do more than one thing at once without being checked out, not being in the moment let alone my own body. My head is elsewhere – the past or the future. Yet this is normal, accepted, praised even. But the reality is, more and more of us are left on the path of dementia and we don’t even consider that every time we let our mind take us out of the moment, we’re contributing to this possibility. This blog is brilliant and the wakeup call we all need to perhaps consider how we want our futures to play out – to me it makes sense to live in the moment.

488. Living checked out from what we do is as good as driving a motor vehicle blindfolded. Sounds ridiculous I know but is essentially as irresponsible.

489. This body mind split is seen as totally normal by most of Society – it’s great to read a blog that shares how this is far from normal and is also potentially very harming to us.

490. Wauw Gabrielle Conrad, it is so powerful and beautiful to hear the truth about conscious presence and checking out – and its relation with dementia. You said everything that needed to be said, for us to a feel for what it looks like and so we can trace it within our own lives. We are the creator of our own disease in this way.. And as you say lets use conscious presence , and be with our mind where our body is at – and lets see the rates of illness and disease then.

491. Serge’s presentations are ground breaking and life changing. Just the introduction of this one thing, conscious presence – “the ability to have the mind think what the body does and have the body do what the mind thinks, keeping both in the same place and in the same time zone” , has had such an already wide-reaching effect. Conscious presence is a simple yet fundamentally powerful healing way that will one day be recognised as such. And as you suggest Gabriele, more than likely it will highlight the illnesses caused by distracted thoughts.

492. The mind being with the body (conscious presence) is true yoga – union.

493. Practising conscious presence is the key to shifting the vast increase in illness and disease that are ever present in our society today.

494. we do not often consider that it is our lack of connection to ourselves and to our bodies that exhausts us far more than hard work ever will.

     1. true Adam, there is an ease and flow when working connected – even when long hours are involved – whereas working checked out or disconnected is incredibly draining and sets us up to choose further disconnection at the end of the day – be that tv, social media, internet shopping, poor food choices to name a few.

495. I remember once being at the airport queuing up to check in for an upcoming business trip. I saw another colleague of mine rushing with his head quite a few centimetres ahead of his body, body and head completely disconnected and eyes quite frankly like a lost rabbit, glazing. Thing is, we tend to do this so often, our head there while our body is here, and then we wonder why we get drained and exhausted.

496. Thank you Gabrielle for this sharing. Something we all know we do, and also that the body and mind need to be on the same task for us to be in conscious presence. I love your title of the ” Absent Landlord” and feel this will remind me to be in conscious presence when I think of it!

497. Busted! Haha, another “normal” exposed as not at all normal in a truly healthy sense. Absenteeism is an epidemic and we carry the responsibility to share our wisdom about conscious presence.

498. Moving in checking out mode ‘black boxes’ life. There is no way to register what our bodies went through while moving. Moving in conscious awareness allows us to register everything and gives us a different feeling of what we have lived.

499. One of the reasons why we see “body / mind split and absenteeism from our-selves” as normal or even healthy is because we are not content with our lives. Driven by a feeling of ‘not enough’ we learn the art of remaining with our bodies and appearing to be there but being really gone (to a place that brings us the satisfaction that otherwise we do not get); the art of pretending based on the unsettlement that runs through your body regarding life.

500. This blog reminds me of something that came to me yesterday. How many of us would say love chemistry? Not many. True? Yet, we are all chemists in action all the time. We are masters at altering our body chemically through our choices and thoughts.

501. We belong to a space without borders. This can only be felt with our body (and our mind with our body following and surrendered to it). When we let our mind to leave us, it goes to a very concrete address (so to speak). It is a parody, and an extremely reduced version of what we body can feel in matters of space. With the body we expand, with the mind we do not. When we expand, our mind stays with us; when we reduce our body is left behind.

502. The split mind/body can be read as a great thing (it allows us to multiply our presence, here and there, because you are at two places at once). Yet, in truth, that is an illusion, since if you try to be in two places at once you are nowhere. The Absent Landlord describes this feeling very aptly.

     1. It is indeed an apt title for such a disharmony of mind and body, and I agree Eduardo – multi-tasking and being in two places at once to get more done is a huge illusion that leaves the physical body vacant to be run by an energy that is not true to it. Therefore the body must correct the impact of this ill energy through illness and disease.

503. Gabriele, I love this blog. And boy, oh boy, does it relate to me at the moment, with much going on in my life. Yes, I am very much working on not being ‘the absent landlord’ and just love the term you have given this checking out from a conscious presence with our true selves. I will do a walk again, within the next hour, I feel the use of this title will help me in this regard, to have that term to keep reminding me to stay with my body far more consistently. It is certainly a great reminder at this moment, for the rest of my day. This blog is absolute GOLD, thank you for the wonderful sharing.

504. Great what you raise here Gabriele, and so many of us fall into this. I too am working with conscious presence in my walking and also extending this to other activities. I have noticed how gorgeous it feels when I truly walk with me and how odd I feel when I lose myself in my head and forget my body. As you Sue, a work in progress but your blog Gabrielle has further inspired, thank you.

505. Brilliant, Gabriele, thank you. Yes, it is way too common nowadays for us to be racing ahead with our minds or checking out to not feel the tension in our bodies, so it is no surprise that dementia is on the rise – a modern day condition that is screaming to us that we individually and collectively need to change the way that we are living.

     1. Here here Janet – Dementia presents exactly what Gabriele has expressed in this title ‘The Absent Landlord’ where no one is home, left the building and in dementia they are not coming back. This disease is a huge wake up call for anyone who cares to hear it, in that if we run our life through the mind it’s going to burn out as it’s not meant to be the navigator, the engine, the point of so called connection and the mechanics at once. Whereas the body has potential that is out of this world, universal in fact, so why are we not living life from this all knowing centre?

     2. So true Janet… the tension in our bodies is a dead give away that something is wrong in how we are living in our day, and yet this is something that is ignored, avoided and or seen as normal in everyday life. How did we get to this point when it is seen as ‘normal’?! The tension becomes so uncomfortable we have to find relief from it and or a way to ignore it by numbing and or checking out. Our bodies have such delicateness, beauty and grace, therefore tension is totally alien to our bodies natural state of being.

506. Have you ever known someone that is always organizing to ensure everything goes right and when after all this planning some small thing causes the house of cards to fall? As you have shown Gabriele, we can’t be in two different time zones. By being in the same place at the same time even our future aligns.

     1. Dear Steve “By being in the same place at the same time even our future aligns.” This is a very powerful sentence and also a sentence that holds immense truth. It is understandings such as this that can only come from allowing the experience for ourselves. To let go of the need to organise and begin instead to feel what to do when just in 1 day can make a massive difference.

     2. I love what you say here, Steve. ‘By being in the same place at the same time even our future aligns.’ I have found this to be so true in the moments when I can achieve being in the same place at the same time….! Wonderful reminder, as is Gabriele’s sharing.

507. Thank you for sharing Gabriele, this is a brilliant blog. Indeed our minds can meander all the time throughout our day, and from experience and observation this is how most of the population live their lives – thinking, stressing and worrying about anything but the present moment. As you’ve exposed, if dementia rates are going through the roof, then surely it’s time for us to look at what relationships we do have with our thoughts and with our brains, mind and head, to see how exactly we’re using that part of our body – to check out or to maintain presence and an amazing quality throughout the day?

508. I love how you put it into 2 timezones because indeed it is like that! I so know these moments, where I want to actually do and don´t want to do tasks but they are popping into my mind constantly. For me it is about trust, that I won´t forget again, what needs to be done& that I can come back checking in what I am doing now in the present moment. The mind always tells us, we should do it now, so we won´t forget and that it is urgent- but the only thing that happens that we can´t get in line with us and our body instead.

509. “The Absent Landlord” a powerful realisation that a house with no one living in it is not a home but just an empty shell that can be invaded by squatters, cobwebs, mice and/or rats. In the same way when our mind is not at one and at home with our body we open ourselves up to unwelcome energies.

     1. You raise great question Gabriele!

        “Is it possible that the way we move and go about our everyday life is making us sick?

        Is this escapism into our heads one of the cornerstones of ill health?

        Is it really okay to live checked out from what we do? And what else does it lead to?”

        What you offer here is that there is another way to choose to live with conscious presence and this is worth trying!

     2. Absolutely Mary, and you can add ‘bats in the belfries”!

     3. Very true. We are at the mercy of much when we choose absence from our body. Our world needs true reflections, connected people who inspire a true vitalality and deep care.

510. It’s so true Gabrielle that if we entertain our thoughts we are at the mercy of them, and we either feel elated or depressed. Yes, conscious presence can liberate us from the ups and downs stemming from our mental activity.

511. I feel it is very possible that many mental health issues are connected with a lack of awareness and observation of what is going on in the mind “Is this escapism into our heads one of the cornerstones of ill health?” If we do not monitor, question and manage what is popping up in our minds (incessantly in some cases) then who does, do we allow our thoughts to become mismanaged and out of control…I feel without being aware that we have a choice with this, we could very easily become ill mentally.

     1. I totally agree Samantha and think you have said it very well. If we do not discern and choose which thoughts we want to run with then many of them will run away with us…

        1. I agree Fiona, being present puts us in the drivers seat. If we are absent, we are no longer in charge and our thoughts can literally run away with us.

512. When expressed as simply as you have, Gabriele, it seems such common sense that the foundation of dementia and other mental health issues arises from the dis-connection between one’s mind and one’s body. Once this understanding is in the general public’s awareness it will radicalise the approach to mental health-care, and much more in general health and wellbeing.

513. Our body as our home… It’s not commonly seen as this. And so a) we’re missing out on the Beauty and Wisdom it beholds, both from our own bodies as well as all the other bodies that we meet and b) as a result of the disconnection we develop a relationship with life that is the opposite of healthy and as it so so hurts, we’re doing everything to deny and ignore the Truths that are reflected to us. Whether that being by judging, bullying, over-eating, not caring for ourselves, using veil language, etc. All those choices (!!) have a devastating effect on the body, so no wonder that there’s so much rise in illness and disease. What I found difficult when talking about this delicate Truths, that there’s an enormous shame in people as they feel the Truth, yet immediately go into defence and selfbashing. So we’re to learn to be honest and Truthful, yet also with a decent respect and understanding why we’ve made the choices we’ve made. As there is no one to blame, only choices to re-consider.

514. I also nine years ago would not have thought anything of daydreaming about winning the lottery and what I would do with the money, over and over thinking this would solve all of my problems, and that is just one example of what I would spend countless moments thinking about. Going into the mind to escape life can become just as addictive as watching the TV, computer games, drinking alcohol or anything else that takes us away from the body and what we are feeling.

     1. It can Julie. Escaping into the mind can be addictive and it comes in many different ways from daydreaming, excessively planning, worrying and one of the worst I feel, is using positive thinking or power of the mind – there is an expression ‘mind over matter’ that implies we can use our mind to change our lives and even our body (e.g. to overcome pain or an illness). But it’s just a temporary trick. Our body is the part of us that lives in the current, the here and now, and no matter what our thoughts tell us, we cannot escape living in the now, and with conscious presence (quality + presence) there is an honesty about where we are at.

        1. This notion that we think we can use our minds to change our lives is such an illusion. Thank you for addressing this Sandra. This is why Unviersal Medicine’s teaching are so revolutionary and life changing because they are stating the opposite, that true change can only be achieved through re-configuring the body and it works!

515. Very powerful article beautifully and gracefully written. I also used to think it was normal to be in dreamland with my head, checked out, to what life happen around me or what my body was sharing with me. I did use too feel exhausted, uneasy and weak because of it when I consider how I felt in retrospect. I know that now because my mind and body are now much more aligned, the steps I take now are much more in conscious presence and it feels empowering, vitality supporting and confirming. I feel more steady and purposeful, less worried, more focused, and less doubting of what is going on in life and with myself. Amazing!

516. It’s is as you’ve shared Gabriele, something we’ve come to accept and consider normal to the point where on asking these questions I bet a common replay would be ‘Yeah..and?’ – This relationship of my body and mind being separate has been unquestioned to the point where it’s just blindly accepted, but as you write:”..what if there was more going on here? what if this wasn’t healthy or normal?” From experience I have found that when I am not present it is the start of situations, thoughts and feelings getting out of control, the more that the body and mind are not together the worse the mental health and physical health become. Could it be that multitasking, daydreaming, mindfulness, internet use, social media, focusing on what we do, our roles in life, planning and holding pictures of the future in our minds (I could keep going with examples) all be contributing to mental health issues?

517. Thank Gabriel, you pose an immensely valid question. I have spent years actively “catapulting” myself out of my body and into many, many invented scenarios and future tasks to avoid feeling and taking responsibility for the life I had chosen, and all the while priding myself on my very ‘creative imagination’. But at what cost, if I am deliberately leaving my body, who am I leaving in charge of it? Thanks to Serge Benhayon, I have recognised that abandoning my body in favour of the future (or past) is not healthy and am now embarking on the enormous job of dismantling the catapult, an ongoing process that requires disciplined attention in every movement, a conscious choice and a continual work in progress.

518. I love the title of this blog and what you have shared makes absolute sense. It reads so simply yet in practise it is probably one thing we all struggle with. I know I feel heaps less exhausted when I stay present with my body as well as clearer and more aware. It is like I am already prepared for what life presents and there is more of a flow. However staying in this quality is key and so working on the consistency of this way is really important. Walking daily is a great way to support developing conscious presence. Thank you Gabriele for the reminder of its importance to our health.

519. “With the rates of dementia and mental health problems ever soaring, can we really afford to shrug our shoulders and keep thinking that this kind of body / mind split and absenteeism from our-selves is normal or even healthy?” What a great sharing Gabriele. Your experience must be one that the whole of the world’s population can relate to…I know I certainly can. I have felt the split you talk of when my mind is not with my body. I have felt the absence and a divorce between the two. There is a beauty in feeling completely present with both, even when my body feels in discomfort or in pain.

     1. It is amazing that we all accept this state of splitting body and mind as normal, I am sure it is now being increased with the technology and mobiles, I see it in the children I teach they seem to need to be ‘entertained’ constantly with the concentration wandering very easily.

520. Living in the moment present with where we are and what we are doing is the only true way to live and offers a simplicity joy and contentment to us like nothing else. Truly coming home is a very beautiful way to live and takes constant practice and loving discipline in a wonderful way.It allows a joy in every moment when we are fully with ourselves and the appreciation that comes to everything is also very lovely to feel.

521. I love this Gabriele. I can go for minutes on a walk without being present and then suddenly I will kick in and be like ‘Whoah, we’re have you been? Where are you? How do your feet feel? What do your fingertips express to you?’ And in an instant I am back in the present. What always shocks me is how much I have thought, how quickly I have processed so many scenarios, how my train of thought has gone hurtling a million miles an hour past all the platforms and stations on route without pause for breath. Not only that but in those few minutes I have missed the absolute beauty of the present, the nature and the stillness that is actually around me. Everyday this is a reminder for me to bring it back to my body and the present.

     1. Beautiful Jenny, love how you describe the unnecessary and harming journey we take so often during the day and the beauty to be felt when coming back to the presence and the body.

522. This is a brilliant blog highlighting the split that so often occurs between our mind and our body that is considered a normal way to live. With increasing mental problems and dementia and illness and disease levels out of control what You are showing here so clearly is that being absent from our bodies when in our minds is a major cause of so much stress illness and disease in our lives.Thank heaven for Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine bringing attention to this and the importance and understanding of practising conscious presence and true connection to our bodies and our innermost back to be our focus and the way to live allowing a true simplicity connection and love as our way of living .

523. ‘…but I had also lost all those moments when I was elsewhere and in another time zone following my mind’s meanderings – I had actually squandered that time, I had no recollection of it and it was gone.’ I did not know another way to live Gabrielle and I never considered what you are mentioning here, We are so used to use, misuse our body in this way and then we are surprised it has its consequences. Since I practise conscious presence I feel how exhausting it is to not be with my body and I didn’t even hear the birds sing or see the loveliness of my partner, let alone my own loveliness. There is so much for us when we are present.

524. Gabriele, i love this blog, 5 years ago I too would have thought it normal to be doing a task and thinking about something else, now when I catch myself doing this I bring myself back to my body. I notice that i can be thinking about other things when im eating which causes me to rush my food and not enjoy it as I have not been present whilst eating; if im walking and thinking about something else I tend to rush and not have any record of my walk and if Im working with people and check out i loose the connection with them and go onto auto-pilot, this feels very empty and functional – this is a great article on a subject that very much needs to be discussed.

     1. We have so many opportunities every day to build upon our connection with ourselves, in every motion alone we have the space for this, in fact it is as much for this as it is for just moving from one place to the next. Yet when we skip it, instead we are developing an absence of us in our moves that further lessens the quality with which we can otherwise bring to every moment.

     2. When we are somewhere else other than in the motion or activity of what we are doing in the moment, what is it that is actually moving us? We are most definitely kidding ourselves if we think it is still us.

525. Love the title Gabriele. Conscious presence on my walks is something I am still working with, but ‘the absent landlord’ will support me to return to uniting my mind with my body. It really is strange when one ponders, how we take it for granted and ‘normal’ to separate the two.

     1. I agree Sue and like you working at ‘ uniting my mind with my body’. It is a work in progress that is so rewarding.

        1. ‘Uniting my mind with my body.’ We speak often of oneness and unity,but whenever we separate mind from body, we’re not living it.

     2. Great considering that empty house sat there with no one home, so to speak! I was doing something yesterday and a leaf fell down beside me, it was a reminder to let go and surrender to the stillness around and within and be present. I had for a moment where I got caught up with what I had to ‘do’ next. It felt like a message, I also reflected that I notice now when my mind is busy with thoughts that come which prevent me from being in conscious presence. This is a very different scenario from how I would have been a few years ago. I could easily get lost in my thoughts and would sway and swing through emotions and ‘what if’s’ without catching my breath. Being consciously present more has been very healing for me. And I think a lot less, now many more of the thoughts have purpose, clarity and wisdom, it is an awesome practice to live with and embody.

        1. “And I think a lot less now many more of the thoughts have purpose, clarity and wisdom, it is an awesome practice to live with and embody.” How inspiring Samantha … simply from being more present and with yourself in whatever your activity is. This would certainly support with anxiousness, and perhaps in many mental health conditions – however it would require the practitioner/health professional to be living in a consciously present way to be able to inspire true change.

     3. I agree Sue, I remember it viewed as quite clever to multitask and think that we can do two things at once. But feeling what happens now when my mind goes elsewhere, separating from my body, I now can feel much more the disconnection of my head from my body. It’s a great analogy Gabriele of the ‘absent landlord’, the physical house but no-one’s at home.

     4. I agree… I love this title too!! It’s certainly not a pleasant feeling to know nobody’s home!!!

     5. Agree, great title – and one that makes me feel the responsibility of looking after my ‘house’ (body) with more presence

     6. I agree Sue, there is a gap between normal and true normal. Many things that we have come to accept as normal are not a normal way of living for our bodies, which is very much seen in the many illnesses and diseases we nowadays have to deal with and also accept as ‘normal’. When do we start to question our normals, when everything that we see as normal is obviously not working? Or maybe the question is rather how come we content ourselves with that what seems to be the norm(al)? We do deserve so much more and it is in our hands to make the changes that are needed.

526. Even being aware that to have mind and body in the same time zone and in unison is a great thing to know, as to be able to be totally present all the time, after lifetimes of not,takes some doing and to master it may take me many lifetimes but at least I know about it and can have fun trying.

     1. It is a journey for sure Kev and one that gets easier with time and dedication.

527. This certainly is a great reminder on the importance of staying present and in the moment.Once again thank God for Serge Benhayon making us aware of conscious presence,as before I knew about it, I used to think it was kind of cool being off in Ga ga land being totally checked out and disassociated with life. Now I am able to take in so much more of the beauty and man I was certainly heading down that road to dementia.

     1. Love it Kev how you make it so casual and clear that it is not cool at all to live in Gaga Land. I had the same belief and found it cool to be distracted, checked out and disassociated with life. It was the rebellion against the supposed boring “normality” and ….we were so ridiculously mainstream with it!! Hilarious

        1. Absolutely. The true “rebels”, the true visionaries, the true game-changers are those that are seeing that the connection with the body is the key to infinite wisdom.

     2. I had the same experience of meditation pre-Universal Medicine. I would use it as a way of going off on a little mental trip…very absent indeed from the body. I still can find it hard to bring that level of presence to my day to day. Habits (choices) run deep but new choices are always possible and I have at least been given these choices thanks to my choice to study with Universal Medicine.

528. Following several trains of thought – I used to think this was ‘multi-tasking’ and would of prided myself in being able to do one thing and think many others at the same time. Who was I kidding? Just another of those illusionary tales which lead me up the garden path – and who knows possibly the slow demise of clarity which is ever present in Conscious presence. A brilliant reminder Gabriele to keep walking with me all of the time.

529. Mental Health issues is not something to be over looked in anyway it is something that needs much understanding and discussion as the antidote to it is a way of living that needs to be developed and from there life can truly be enjoyed.

     1. It’s true Amina, there has been far too much of stigma associated with mental health issues, with people often being teased or ridiculed, this is no way to support someone who for that very reason has checked out in the first place, either to not feel their own lack of self love or the lack of true love and care around them everyday. It’s only by offering absolute solidness, understanding and no judgement, do we allow people to open up and trust in themselves and people again. It can often be one case of being hurt, maybe as a child that can trigger this want to escape. But really this harms us far more than saying we were hurt in the first place.

        1. This is where we become humbled to the fact that we are human after all and we do hurt as we do have feelings, and so we have a choice in each moment to embrace what we truly feel which is a loving and supportive way to handle life, Universal Medicine and the teachings of Serge Benhayon have very much supported many of us to deal with life in this way which I can say has been an enormous healing all round.

     2. Mental Health issues are already incredibly widespread and occurring at younger and younger ages. We cannot afford to overlook what is happening. Conscious presence brings us back from the distraction that is used to not feel the lack of connection all around. Conscious presence and connection are key to turning this malaise around – even before it needs to get to the extent of what we currently term a mental health issue.

        1. There is a huge rise in the incidence of mental illness around the world, so it would be worth bringing greater awareness and understanding of the issues and why it is occurring on such a massive scale… even the rise of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication amongst children and young adults – we need to understand the extent and scope of the problem, just as we need then to look deeper at what is underlying this ‘malaise’.

     3. Well said Amina – with true understanding a different way can indeed be developed.

     4. Agree Amina, a new WHO report ( World Health Organisation) “found that almost 10 per cent of the world’s population are affected by mental health issues.” There are 7.125 billion people in the world, so if 1% is 71 million people times that by ten. A very sobering image. They also reported that “Depression and anxiety is costing the global economy £651 billion each year in lost productivity”.

530. If we where to be very honest we could say that we spend more time in our heads then anywhere else.

     1. Great point, I feel doing so brings many unsupportive issues into humanity, including mental health issues. It also creates the illusion that what happens in our heads doesn’t impact on any one else, that we are separate, that we are about self..so many issues arise from allowing the thoughts that drop into our head to have dominance rather than practicing to observe them through conscious presence.

     2. I agree aminatumi. When I am in my head I can totally forget I have a body attached to it!

        1. Yes the mind can run away with anything including our bodies! What a turn around though when we begin to choose to be united within ourselves.

     3. I agree Amina. And whilst reading this blog I noticed how often my mind drifted to another subject. Pondering on how I could stop this I experimented with focussing on how I was holding my phone whilst reading, feeling my eyes go from line to line and the story of the blog of course. I am again blown away how lovely it feels to do this and I feel straight away an increase in energy as it is oh so exhausting to be constantly worrying, planning ahead and being not present whilst doing something!

     4. The mind – our inbuilt virtual reality gadget, when we use it in separation to and from the body.
        We may ask why we don´t like to be present with what life presents to us. I am quite sure we will find that we seek to avoid feeling and realizing what we already have clocked to be unpleasant in some way or another. Being present comes with facing whatever is there to be dealt with hence, it is a choice to take responsibility, i.e. to respond to life instead of reacting to and avoiding it.

        1. Wow in the past I have judged people who are hooked on VR games as a means of escape when all along I have been using my ‘inbuilt virtual reality gadget’ to avoid taking responsibility and engaging with life. Thanks Alex it is good to recognise this pattern.

     5. Which means we are all over the place but not with us/where we are supposed to be, right there where our body is.

     6. Well said Amina, thats a great perspective on it to show the extend to which we live in our head and therefore not present in our bodies. It is fascinating to feel how we literally remove ourselves from our body when we go into our head, we forget about it, stay in one position for a long time, lock our body in a certain position, ignore any physical need, like drinking or going to the toilet… we basically stop feeling our body, and that is a state we call normal?????

     7. True, we spend all this time engaged in the vagaries of the mind and our body sort of tags along, like a puppet on a string, manoeuvred about by habits and memorised impulses.

     8. This is so true aminatumi – even when we physically go somewhere we often stay in our heads and don’t fully experience it or appreciate it.

531. This is a huge subject Gabriele and you have shared your experience with such integrity and ease, this is a sky rocketing illness that is not going anywhere other than affecting more and more people of all ages. With this simple technique from Serge Benhayon we have the natural antidote to this otherwise life destroying illness.

     1. Absolutely linking the checking out, mind on anything other than what you are doing is causing dis ease and stress which causes the tension in our bodies that leads to disease, makes sense to me that not being present would result in dementia.

532. I appreciate your walk Gabriele. A gentle pulse to remind me that when I feel I am consciously walking there are actually moments during the walk when I am in two places at once. Great analogy: the absent landlord. Love it.

533. ‘Absent Landlord’ what a great reminder Gabriele of how often we are leaving our bodies to walk but our head is somewhere else. No wonder anxiousness is in epidemic proportions as how can we separate our mind and body to be in two places at once!!!

     1. I agree Susan and this way of living is exhausting and very detrimental to our health.

        1. I agree Susan and Amina, it makes sense why we feel unprepared when we arrive at where we are going because we haven’t brought all of ourselves there with us so how can we feel confident and ready for whatever is in front of us. It’s no wonder most of us are suffering from exhaustion from all of that anxiousness and lack of confidence, and this happens every day.

     2. When we really consider it, our minds running wild, while our bodies are not being engaged fully, is completely ‘not normal’. It used to be my normal, but practicing over the last 10 years or so to be more present has made all the difference to my physical and mental health. Feeling wonderful, and being present has changed my life.

     3. Yes exactly Susan – this gives us not just one life, situation and moment to be anxious about but two! If we are constantly thinking about the future; what we have to do, our to do lists, future meetings etc. or the past; what mistakes we’ve made, analysing conversations due to insecurity and so forth then we are bound to be overwhelmed and anxious.

        1. Yes Susie it is as if we are splitting ourselves into smaller parts and disassociating from the one part that holds us steady. Our connection to our body and being present with ourselves in every moment holds a quality that lovingly supports us and inevitably supports everyone else too.

        2. What a great comment. But why stop at two?! At the height of my distraction I can be running about a hundred lives!!

     4. ‘Absent Landlord”! What about the person behind the wheel that arrives at their destination and doesn’t remember the journey? Have you ever moved home and on the way home after work the autopilot takes you to your old house? Could this just be practice for dementia?

        1. You make a valid point – practice for dementia by being absent to what we are actually doing and functioning on auto pilot. But are we ready for this level of responsibility? Or is it easier to blame our genes?

        2. A very good point Steve. ‘Practice for dementia’ – ouch.

        3. Yes Steve, and then when dementia hits it comes as a shock, yet all along we have been absent in various aspects throughout our lives.

        4. Yes it was scary when I realised how often this happened when I was driving but since bringing presence to things like my hands on the wheel and other activities like checking the mirrors or focussing on a point in the road ahead it has really helped me to be more present and alert when driving and then I find I arrive at my destination much less tired.

        5. I like your question Steve, “Could this just be practice for dementia?” I would say yes, as everything we do brings a rhythm to our body or we stay in rhythm with our body and confirm that. So anything practiced be it consciously or unconsciously is either a behaviour we implement or the natural rhythm of our body. If we do something long enough, that is not our body’s natural way of movement, it becomes seemingly part of us as we get used to it until such time this behaviour is so ingrained we let it take over our body completely, we give up hand over our power and vacate our home almost entirely.

        6. True Lee, and when dementia hits are we actually aware of it? I know through Universal Medicine that we are totally aware of every choice we make. We know how to dull our awareness, dampen our connection, make ourselves racy to not know what is really going on in life, with ourselves and others, and situations, and to protect ourselves for being seen as the imperfect human being we are. We are clever to know how to checkout from life, so, we are also clever to know why we checkout and not be with our body.

     5. I was actually a master at “being in two places at once”, until I finally realised the harm it was doing to me, although the continual trips, falls, head bangs and severe anxiousness really should have given it away years ago. To come to the understanding that for my mind to separate from my body anything I do cannot be done in conscious presence, was an absolute life saver for me.

        1. Funny Ingrid, I have registered this too, when I am completely taken up in thoughts and distracted, a knock to the body, dropping something, even a crash I have found is an effective way to stop and come back.. why do we wait for the extreme messages, when we can make the choice in any moment to come back to the present moment and choose the quality we will bring to it.

        2. This is great Ingrid and super important to note and to really stop the momentums that we so naturally run with without any moment of reflection, having our bodies run this way means that we are out of sync and this is not normal. Amazing to have this understanding and then to really develop it back to where we need to be.

        3. Yes, its interesting to ponder on Annie and a comment worth commenting on .. to hold that quality always. What supports me is how I am feeling in each moment, if it gets to that, or, if I’m just generally out for a longer period of time, whether I need to confirm me if I am feeling vulnerable or sensitive or I need to move for me and commit more to what I am doing.

     6. I know for a fact that anxious comes in ten fold when I choose to leave my body and not be aware of what I actually feel and see around me, the effects of this feel awful in the body.

        1. It also has a knock on effect on other people, as I am not still enough to feel what is needed. The moment I stop and connect to my body, it’s gone.

        2. I agree Gyl, it does feel awful as we are robbing ourselves of the very support we need to be in that situation.

        3. And it’s true, we are not enough to feel what’s needed – and not only that but others can also feel you are not fully with them, which can be unsettling and misinterepreted in all kinds of ways, to create dynamics. Stopping and connecting and holding another in full presence means true communication is then possible.

        4. Yes the anxiousness and raciness that occurs when we are not with ourselves. I end up doing things and not even remembering that I have done them because my mind was elsewhere not with my body.

     7. When we are not connected to our body, we can feel the tiredness and exhaustion as our mind is one place and body in another. It’s crazy, but we have got caught in the disconnection. It is so important to connect to our body’s and walk with that.

     8. This is huge Katie. When put like that, it is clear that every minute/hour/day spent in separation is detrimentally, and eventually very acutely, impacting our health on so many levels.

     9. I agree Katie – it must be freaky for the body to spend so much time ‘on it’s own’. It makes me get the horrible images of chicken without heads, they still keep running – I have often wondered how is that possible… but really, what we are doing when we check in to our minds and out of our bodies is no different.

     10. Great point Susan. Not unlike driving a car while staring out the window – we may as well be if our mind is not present with what our body is doing at the time. It is only a matter of time before we crash in some way.

         1. I love this analogy Deborah as it brings a playful but serious element to it.

     11. ‘Absent Landlord’ is a great turn of phrase to describe what happens when we mentally escape to the past or future. I definitely relate to the anxiousness it engenders

         1. Me too Joel. When the landlord leaves we lack in presence and our attention is taken to various other locations, thus creating heavy anxiousness and stress.

     12. Very true Susan, as how do we know what is going on if we are not there to notice.

     13. Great observation Susan. Not only is it alarming to consider that we can put oursleves into 2 different palces at once, but it is also exhausting for the body to have the mind constantly thinking about where it has to be and what it has to do. It certainly is a recipe for anxiousness and furhter down the line, mental disorders and ultimately even dementia.

     14. The answer is many many hours are spent in anxiousness. I actually feel that most of us don’t even acknowledge how anxious we are because we have lost connection with our ease and have come to accept a level of buzz in the body as normal.

         1. I agree, Vanessa. What happens when we accept that anxiousness as normal – and then fast forward 30, 40 or 50 years and see what that low level of anxiousness does to the body. It simply doesn’t have to be that way.

     15. Anxiousness is a physical reaction we actually choose and impose on ourselves and then others. We can wind ourselves up with mental thoughts processing then like mad but not actually initiating, producing or completing anything except the anxiousness. Being in our bodies and fully utilising our minds ability to process information simultaneously offers simplicity and ease to any task.

     16. Great point Susan and Katie, as I am sitting here reading the comments I momentarily went to a later part of my morning and immediately felt a quickening of my body, a racey anxious feeling entered with the forward thought. I had not ever before connected with the immediate consequences of doing this. The simplicity of what Gabriele has offered here is very healing, as is your connection to feeling anxious when we choose to let our mind move away from our present moment.

     17. Spot on Susan. I feel it instantly now when I start thinking about something that I don’t need to in that moment and I’m doing something else – anxiety. Long term, this is exhausting.

     18. I agree Susan, it is crazy to think we ‘function’ this way, no wonder we have epidemic levels of exhaustion. Gabriele’s title so simply captures how we are living – absently and that the true key to turning this around lies with each of us choosing to bring conscious presence to the way we live.

     19. I agree, Katie and we can be so disconnected between mind and body that we are not even consciously aware of this separation. The head can bring much distraction, stimulation and entertainment, but at what cost to our body, and taking us away from being fully present in the moment – and as you say when we are in this separation, there is anxiousness. I am learning this is super important because when we are fully present and in our body, we have everything we need to deal with whatever situation is before us. When we are worrying about the future we are not present in the moment and therefore cannot bring our full awareness and understanding of what is needed, and giving energy to a future event that may not even happen is a drain on us in the present, bringing on exhaustion and overwhelm.

     20. So true Susan – anxiousness is very common and is escalating. If you suffer from anxiousness it is very debilitating, and exhausting on the body.
         Therefore practising conscious presence is very important. The Gentle Breath Meditation taught by Serge Benhayon and Esoteric yoga are very supportive in reconnecting back to your true essence.

     21. Precisely Doug and something for us all to consider.

     22. Absolutely Susan – it is absurd to think that we attempt to be in two places at once. I find that this robs me of my presence and being able to enjoy things as I am always looking at what is next or what I have to do next.

     23. I agree Susan, and when we are with our body in-full-flight, we are power-full, holding all the intelligence of the Universe.

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