The Discipline of Presence

We live in a time of unprecedented connection and astonishing absence.
We can reach almost anyone instantly, yet many of us move through our days feeling unseen, unheard, and quietly alone.

This is not a failure of care.
It is a failure of attention.

Our attention is saturated by urgency, information, and the pressure to stay in motion. It is spread too thin to land anywhere fully. We offer fragments of ourselves and call it engagement, reassuring ourselves that it counts.

Often, it doesn’t.

Relational presence asks us to slow down enough to be affected.

To stay present is to step out of motion and into immediacy—and immediacy carries risk. When we stop moving, we feel what has been waiting underneath.

That’s often wonderful, but sometimes not. We may experience uncertainty, grief, helplessness, the discomfort of not knowing what to do next. Presence removes our usual exits. There is no distraction to soften the moment, no efficiency to hide behind.

Once we are truly present, we are no longer neutral. Another person’s experience reaches us, and something is quietly asked in return: not solutions, nor performance, simply the willingness to stay.

Busyness can become both armor and alibi. It protects us from feeling too much, and it excuses us from the responsibility that presence creates.

What Staying Made Possible

Not long ago, I had a strategy meeting with a client I knew to be capable and reliable. We sat across from each other, notes on the conference table between us. He spoke about timelines and the pressure of meeting the targets we were discussing. Nothing he said raised alarms.

Still, something felt off.

He spoke carefully, as if editing himself mid-sentence. When he paused, I felt the familiar urge to move us along. It would have been easy to keep the agenda on track.  To ask about the next item and end on time.

Instead, I stayed quiet.

After a moment, he said, “There’s something else I should probably tell you.”

He looked down.
“My wife and I are separating,” he said. “And my dad was just diagnosed with early-stage dementia. I haven’t told anyone here. I didn’t want it to change how I’m seen.”

The energy in the room shifted. I could now see how much effort it was taking for him to hold everything together, and how close I had been to misreading his strain as disengagement.

We talked about what could shift and what needed to remain steady. Nothing dramatic. Just decisions made with fuller understanding, and in time.

As he stood to leave, he said quietly, “I almost didn’t say anything.”

Without presence, what mattered most would have stayed hidden.

Relational presence is the disciplined choice to offer someone our full attention—chosen, honest, and undivided—especially when it would be easier to stay distracted or untouched.

It is not fixing. The urge to fix often comes from caring, but it can move us past the moment that actually needs our attention.
It is also not rescuing. Trying to rescue someone relieves our own discomfort more than it serves the other person.
And it’s not self-erasure. Presence depends on boundaries, on knowing when we can stay and when we need to step back to maintain integrity.

Presence does ask us to put things down: our phones, our rehearsed replies, our impulse to rush toward resolution. People can feel the difference between being managed and being met. And they will reveal what matters most only when they feel truly met.

As Simone Weil wrote:

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

Connection does not deepen through intensity or disclosure alone. It deepens when attention is offered without hurry—when someone feels safe enough to come closer. From that steadiness, trust takes shape, honesty follows, and relationship shifts from exchange to genuine encounter.

Why This Is Relational Courage

Relational presence is a form of courage because it asks us to stay when it would be easier to move on.

In a culture trained toward speed and distraction, presence runs against the grain. It rarely looks impressive. More often, it looks like a pause that lasts longer than planned, or a conversation that doesn’t resolve on schedule.

But those pauses are not empty. They create a container.

They give another person room to arrive fully, without being rushed toward clarity or performance. They make space for what cannot be said quickly, or safely, at all.

In that space, people don’t just speak.
They meet.

Relational courage is the willingness to remain open and steady long enough for that meeting to occur.

A Practice Invitation

Notice one moment this week when you feel the urge to rush, fix, or disengage. See if you can stay just a little longer, without advice or distraction. Often, presence itself is what allows the truer thing to be said.

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And that’s The Gist of It™: insights on relational courage — the courage to know and be known by others.
These practices help relationships breathe rather than tighten, deepen rather than fracture.

Thank you for reading. If this resonated with you, I’d be honored if you’d forward it to someone who might appreciate it. They can subscribe below:​

Marilyn Gist, PhD