My kid turned two this week
My daughter turned two last weekend.
Yep. Just like that, she went from baby to toddler.
Her new thing is to do something and then look at me — really look — to make sure I saw it happen. If for some reason I didn’t, her next words will predictably be “Mama look!” And she’ll do it again for me to see.
And you know what happens every time? In that half-second of eye contact, I feel the whole architecture of a tiny nervous system settle. It isn’t really about the thing she’s doing and asking for me to watch. It’s about being witnessed.
My teacher, Dan Siegel, calls this “feeling felt.” It’s the foundation of interpersonal neurobiology — the experience of having another person see you, sense you, and reflect you back. When it happens, the brain gets a signal that the world is safe. When it doesn’t, the brain stays in defense.
And it isn’t limited to childhood. We as adults seek to “feel felt” every day, all day. Don’t deny it. Maybe you aren’t aware of it, but it’s happening. It’s human.
Quantum physics has a strange but fascinating rule: a particle exists only in possibility, until something observes it. Only then does it collapse into form, into something real. Humans seem to be similar.
I know this for sure:
There is no growth factor more impactful than your presence.
We know exactly what happens when presence disappears. Ed Tronick’s Still Face Experiment shows it in under two minutes. A mother goes blank — same room, same proximity, just unresponsive — and within seconds her baby is straining, gesturing, trying to win her back. Then the baby absolutely falls apart. Heart rate up. Cortisol up. Regulation gone. Train wreck. Simply from not being responded to. (That’s the human response before we have filters for what’s “appropriate”.)
Now think about your last meeting. The colleague who watched you check your phone while they were mid-sentence. The direct report who clocked the exact moment your eyes glazed over when you were thinking about the board meeting. The client who could feel you formulating a response instead of listening to the actual context of their question.
Maybe even think about your last conversation with your partner. Were you all there? Did you make an effort to be? Do you ever take being present for granted? Maybe more importantly, do they feel felt? Are you sure?
A Harvard study by Killingsworth and Gilbert found people spend nearly half their waking hours thinking about something other than what they’re doing — and they are measurably less happy in those moments. Less happy. Less regulated. Less available to the people in front of them… My dear friend Brian from college once said he strives to “be where his feet are”, and I just loved that visceral reminder
So here’s what I want to offer you, you can take it or leave it. But I’m going to try it on for size, because I can get better at this, too.
—> Do less. Better.
Stop fixing.
Stop optimizing.
Stop multi-tasking through the conversations that actually matter.
Put the phone down. Not metaphorically. Actually.
Put the to do list on the back burner and actually listen to understand, not to respond.
Look at the person in front of you and let them feel felt. Maybe even reaffirm them out loud.
That’s it.
That’s the whole newsletter.
Because feeling felt is the thing that tells the brain it’s safe to expand. To try. To risk. To learn. To grow. To succeed and thrive. The nervous system will not unlock under surveillance, distraction, or half-attention. It only unlocks under presence.
Want a performance hack?
Want a relationship builder?
You’re welcome
Your kid knows this. Mine certainly does
Your team knows this.
Your partner knows this.
You knew this once, too.
Now give it a try.
And tell me what happens.
Everything you want for your business (and life) is on the other side of a BRAVE Conversation.
Love,
Elisabeth
