Originally published on Substack here.
As a general rule, what is rare is typically valuable. What seems to be rare in my life is emotional presence — the ability for someone to sit with what I’m feeling, without trying to fix it or offering advice or trying to change the situation. I think this will get increasingly more rare as the pace of the world gets faster. The more hyperconnected and hyper-entertained we get, the less connected we are emotionally. I think that’s due to how our digital environment demands and fractures our attention.
Providing emotional presence reminds me of how people typically provide love in the same way they would prefer to receive it — via quality time, physical touch, etc. Sitting in that space with someone else feels so rewarding to me and it’s often what I need in my friendships and in my marriage. I need someone to sit with me, hear what I’m saying, and not try to fix it. I need them to have confidence that I can figure it out on my own or with their help, if I ask. When my closest friends meet me in that space it feels magical. Intoxicating, even.
Emotional presence is something that I try to provide for my kids and I think emotional safety is one of the most important things I can provide as a parent. I want my kids to feel safe. I want them to live in a world where people have the attention span and the patience to sit with feelings, their own and others’. To have the willingness and courage to sit in the pocket of the moment. I have to model that for my kids if I want them to be able to build that skill. I also have to create more opportunities for those moments by carefully considering how I use my devices.
In Deep Work, Cal Newport writes about “attention residue.” He writes that it takes time and mental effort to switch from one task to another and it’s why multitasking isn’t effective. It’s impossible to be fully engaged in a conversation immediately after looking up from your phone. I worry about the potential buildup of attentional gunk in my brain and how my devices may stunt moments of connection. In order to create the space for this type of presence, there are things I need to remember to do to protect my attention and my time:
- Not checking texts, email, or fantasy football results when I wake up.
- Putting my phone in the glove box when I get in a vehicle. It’s important to be fully present for car conversations (and ya know, driving in general).
- Plugging my phone in when I get home and not checking it until my kids are in bed.
- Using text messages to schedule time to call and meetup with friends and family, not as the main way to connect.
- Giving my brain time to rest – not every chore or drive needs to be paired with music or a podcast.
- Giving my brain time to deeply focus. Sometimes I get stuck trying to focus on a cognitively demanding task when my kids are around. There are few things more stressful than getting pulled in different directions while trying to be productive.
- Working out without music to make space for conversation with my gym friends.
Despite the ways I try to set and maintain digital boundaries, I struggle to provide emotional presence sometimes. I forget that people build tacit knowledge through experience and that people have to create their own wisdom. There’s very little that I can say that can influence that process in a positive way. I get stuck in a “quick-fix” mentality, a byproduct of the instant gratification our devices provide us. Advice can make people feel inferior. An attempt to validate their experience by explaining it can make them feel misunderstood (my past attempts to validate have been received as “man-splaining”). Most of the time, the most valuable thing I can offer in those moments is presence. To just be. To sit with them in that space. To say, “I trust that you can figure this out,” and, “you’re not alone” without words. And in order to show up fully, I need to protect my attention, as our digital environment demands more and more of it. My hope is that more people realize the importance of this type of connection and the impact of our devices on it, and set digital boundaries to create more space for it.