Hijacked by a Single Thought
Two months ago, I faced a moment of crisis (described in my post Will you chose Love?”).
On the surface, life was perfect: a beautiful house, strong health, time to write and sing, friends close by, even money in the bank. But one thing was missing — income.
Not a crisis, just a thought. A possibility that something could go wrong in the future. And that single thought was enough to hijack my system. My chest tightened. My mind spiraled. Fatigue took the place of drive. The joy and clarity I’d been living with collapsed into a dull, gray weight.
I tried to whisper, I am safe. But my body didn’t believe it yet.
So I went to my meditation cushion. Sat with the contraction. Felt my breath deepen, my jaw release. The shift didn’t happen in a single sitting — it unfolded over many days. I kept showing up, each day a little softer, a little more open. Then on the morning of the 29th day, something broke open. My body flooded with serotonin and endorphins. I could suddenly see the perfection of it all — not only was I safe, I was being guided through a process that was carrying me into a new chapter. I wept of joy.
Fear contracts. Love expands.
And in that moment, I remembered: presence is what brings me back.
Today, I want to offer more practical tools to anyone who might find themselves in the same place.
The Near Impossibility of Presence
Modern life makes feeling safe almost impossible. This post explores the physiological loop that traps us in disconnection—and how to begin reversing it
(the next post will explore the cultural cycles and systems that compound the problem, making safety even harder to find).
The pace of our life, emails, notifications, deadlines, traffic, noise — all of it creates micro-jolts to our nervous system. Everyday choices set off a chain reaction:
Stress → dys-regulation → inability to feel → fear → seeking → more stress.
These jolts are rarely dramatic enough to notice, but together they keep us in a low-grade, chronic state of vigilance—a loop that reinforces itself because our physiology is simply doing what it was designed to do in real danger, only now the stimulation is constant.
The result?
My body rarely get the signal: You’re safe now.
And without that signal, deep relaxation and “presence” is impossible.
What Is Presence?
Presence is the state of being fully here — awake in body, mind, and spirit. It’s not just paying attention; it’s being in relationship with this moment “as it is”.
When I am present, there is clarity. The mind is not lost in the future or the past. The body is not bracing against imagined threats. There is space for love to arise naturally. Decisions become cleaner. Actions align with what matters.
Presence feels like coming home.
For me, it’s a sacred intimacy with life — a taste of the divine in the ordinary.
In presence, I feel no separation between the one who sees and what is seen.
Only with deep presence can I experience the beauty of the universe beyond the paradoxes of being human — and finally relax in its perfection. But an activated nervous system does not allow that relaxation. Without presence, I don’t see the perfection that is already here; instead, I rush forward to fix what isn’t broken, fueling the very vicious cycle that keeps me disconnected.
This is why presence matters to me: it’s the doorway to connection, meaning, and the quiet joy of enough-ness. It is the place where I remember who I am.
Presence isn’t a mental trick—it’s a full-body state. The physiology of presence is the map of how I get here, and the loop that follows explains how I lose my way.
Rhythm — Rest-and-Repair vs. Fight-or-Flight
Our nervous system’s rhythm is the root state. It’s the drummer in the background of our lives, setting the tempo for every thought, feeling, and action downstream.
When the drummer picks up the rhythm toward fight-or-flight (sympathetic), the heart rate stays elevated, muscles hold tension, and the senses scan for threats. It’s a brilliant short-term survival strategy — but exhausting if it becomes the default.
In rest-and-repair (parasympathetic) states, the body finally has permission to digest, heal, restore, and connect. Social bonds deepen. The mind widens its field of vision. The present moment becomes safe enough to enter.
This is where presence begins — or ends.
Without balance, life is a constant upstream swim.
Breath — CO₂ / O₂ Balance
Breath is the fastest lever we have to influence rhythm.
Nervous system state drives breathing pattern;
Breathing pattern can reset nervous system.
Most humans are chronic over-breathers without realizing it. Every time we sigh, gasp, or breathe rapidly from the chest, we blow off CO₂. CO2 has got a bad reputation but the body actually needs CO₂ to release oxygen into the tissues. Without enough, cells are oxygen-starved even if the blood is full of O₂.
That’s why slowing the breath and tolerating a little more CO₂ feels grounding. It’s not just “relaxing” — it’s restoring a chemical balance that allows your physiology to shift out of high alert.
Free-divers know this better than anyone: tolerance to CO₂ is what allows the body to stay calm under stress and the mind to stay present when the urge to panic arises.
Chemistry — Serotonin / Dopamine
Breathing patterns shift blood gases, and this influences neurotransmitters.
CO₂-rich, slow breathing supports serotonin and oxytocin:
the chemistry of connection, contentment, and trust.Rapid, shallow breathing feeds adrenaline and dopamine spikes:
the chemistry that drives urgency, seeking, and distraction.
Dopamine fuels pursuit, is wonderful for motivation and reward. Our culture knows that only too well. Without enough serotonin’s grounding influence, we get stuck in the pursuit without the satisfaction — like chasing the smell of success but never tasting it. Sounds familiar?
Tone — Numbness / Bliss
Neurochemistry shapes the felt texture of our inner world.
When chemistry is balanced, subtlety returns — the way sunlight feels on skin, or the quiet pleasure of a slow conversation.
Joy and aliveness feel accessible without reason.
When it’s not balanced, tone collapses. Life feels flat, tense, or noisy inside. Even when nothing is “wrong,” there’s a sense of disconnection, emptiness. It’s the familiar story: “You’ve achieved so much, yet you feel empty inside.” That’s the entry point into the rabbit hole of depression. That too may sound familiar.
Signal — Fear / Love
Tone becomes the lens (beliefs systems) through which we interpret reality.
From a contracted tone (fear), the world feels unpredictable, suspicious, and unsafe.
From an open tone (love), the world feels welcoming, meaningful, and alive.
Love does not erases fear, it changes the signal priority:
what my nervous system flags as most important to respond to.
When I start my creative day, whether I operate from fear or from love will drastically change the output. The output may not be in my control, but the initial choice is.
Posture — Control / Surrender
Emotional signals shape our physical stance toward life.
Fear pulls the body into contraction — shoulders hunched, jaw tight, breath shallow.
Love opens the chest, softens the jaw, and releases the need to micromanage every outcome.
Posture here is an embodied philosophy.
The way I hold my body is the way I hold my life.
Drive — Seeking / Contentment
Posture influences motivation.
When contracted, drive is fueled by restlessness: the constant search for stimulation, consumption, validation, or drama. When open, drive feels more like a current — purposeful without being frantic.
There’s room to rest in enough-ness without losing momentum.
Habitat — City / Nature
Our drives shape where we spend our time.
Environments mirror and reinforce our state.
Cities tend to amplify stimulation and vigilance — bright lights, fast pace, constant noise. Nature invites slower rhythms, sensory richness, and nervous system downshifting. Time spent near trees or water shifts blood pressure, heart rate variability, and breathing patterns toward rest-and-repair.
The Loop of Disconnection
When rhythm, breath, chemistry, tone, signal, posture, drive, and habitat skew toward vigilance, the loop sustains itself, intensifies even, to a point where we have forgotten what relax truly means. Our relaxed baseline is so far from potential that we never get to feel the presence that allows us to see beauty, perfection, and the profound bliss that comes from it. We end up living in a body that is chemically and structurally primed for disconnection.
No number of yoga classes can offset 24/7 overstimulation. Physiology is built by what we’re exposed to and repeated—not by occasional breaks from it.
Clearing the Story
The good news is that we understand enough of physiology to shift. Not by adapting our practices to a fast paced life, by constantly hacking the system to get more results, to incessantly increased production as if it was our only metric of well being and development. But by making other life choices.
The simplest, most immediate openings:
Breathe differently — restore CO₂ balance to calm the nervous system.
Change your habitat — even brief time in nature reorients the loop toward presence.
Choose your signal — in each moment, notice: am I responding from fear or from love? Choose again.
Every small shift at any point in the loop changes the whole system.
The Door to Safety Is in the Body
When we breathe differently, slow down, and feel deeply, we return home to presence.
Presence is not a lofty ideal. It is a chemical possibility — one we can learn to inhabit again.
The world is always here. So is bliss. So is safety.
This post is part one of a three-part arc. In the next piece, The Culture of Presence part II, we’ll explore ways to monitor each step of the loop. In The Culture of Presence part III (due Friday 8-29) we’ll explore the external side of the loop — how the systems we live in either nurture or undermine our physiology, and how we can design environments, relationships, and rhythms that make presence our default.
For now, the gift is knowing the path home lives inside the body — and the offering is to take the first step.
Post scriptum
Presence can also be reached through adrenaline and intensity — any frontline medic, war reporter, or extreme sports athlete knows the heightened clarity it brings.
Presence born of adrenaline is short-lived, unstable, and addictive. Presence born of relaxation is deeper, sustainable, and quietly transformative.
When I made that shift, my entire world changed.
PS: “Change Your Story, Change The World” is a storytelling endeavor that looks deeply into the psyche that creates the stories we live by—with the intention to help us shape better stories, both personally and collectively.
Because the stories we tell are the reality we live.
This post is potent. These concepts are foundational and easy to follow, and represent a map that can be truly utilized as a path to not just regulation and skill to navigate the human experience, but can be applied through what perceptual shifts and circumstantial sequela that arise. Beautiful. Gives me motivation and hope. Thank you.