The Threshold Practice:
Choosing Presence Over Performance
Halfway through an email, the old reflex arrives —
jaw tightening, breath thinning, mind reaching for speed.
One part of me sharpens, wanting to impress, to finish, to earn the invisible gold star of approval.
The other part — quieter, older than ego — waits without demand.
That whisper is the doorway.
Ignore it and I slip into performance.
Enter it and time softens. Something deeper begins to guide.
Presence isn’t passive. It is participation with what is.
I hold the path as a simple arc: Being → Becoming → Practicing.
Being is the ground beneath me — the felt truth I stand on without performing for it.
Becoming reminds me that I am not fixed; I am in motion, evolving through every choice.
Practicing is the discipline of staying with myself when the old reflex wakes up.
As I write in Awakened Wisdom, an awakened life is authored moment by moment — choosing from Divine Essence, aware of interrelatedness, shaping intention through even the smallest action.
Not theory. Craft. Breath by breath.
Nothing is too small to serve the good of all.
Bending Time (seven minutes in a pool of infinity)
You can bend time.
In seven honest minutes, presence rearranges you.
The point is not to produce more — it is to arrive.
These seven minutes are a rite. A threshold.
Intention gives the time its shape; ritual makes the ordinary sacred.
Imagine dropping beneath the surface, into a pool of infinity.
Where measurement stops. Where presence becomes the only reality.
The 7-Minute Return
Intend
I’m shifting from performance into presence — for the sake of what matters beyond me.
Breathe
Inhale slowly through the nose; exhale twice as long.
Feel space arrive around you and within you.
Feel
Name three sensations: hands, feet, air.
Let sensation widen your awareness.
Orient
Offer one true sentence into the field:
I choose clarity over pleasing.
I keep one small agreement with myself.
Choose
Name the smallest action that honors the sentence.
Do
One step only. Send the line. Pour the water.
Action arising from Essence carries a different signature.
Appreciate
Close the loop with kindness.
Acknowledge the part of you that chose presence.
A practice is not repetition — it is relationship.
Naming the split (how I know I’m leaving myself)
Performance asks, “How do I look?”
Presence asks, “What’s real now?”
My body answers first:
Jaw softens
Exhale lengthens
Belly un-grips
Feet remember the ground
Language shifts from I should to I choose.
The moment doesn’t need my performance;
It wants my participation with what is.
Returning to Divine Essence is simply letting the wiser current steer the next choice.
Agreements that rebuild trust
Every practice is an agreement.
When I say I’ll do something — and don’t — I weave fine threads that tangle me.
Not failure. Fragmentation.
Clean agreements liberate energy.
Frayed agreements leak it.
If something no longer serves, end it cleanly and re-choose.
Only make agreements you will actually keep.
Improve the moment by 2%.
Steady devotion over spectacle.
Listening through the Wisdom Field
Presence tunes the dial.
When the noise quiets, everything speaks —
people, timing, the subtle yes/no beneath a day.
I call this the Wisdom Field —
a larger knowing we interface with, and belong to.
Here, guidance doesn’t shout; it reveals.
We stop forcing.
We start participating.
For the sake of something beyond you
Purpose rarely arrives with trumpets.
It arrives as a small nudge to serve.
Do one thing each day for the sake of your purpose —
not to prove yourself,
but to express yourself.
Purpose is not performance.
Purpose is participation with meaning.
When you fall out of presence
You will.
I do.
When you notice you’ve crossed into performance:
Rather than self-criticize, return with compassion.
Being is the point.
Becoming is the process.
Doing is the expression.
Presence is not a destination;
it’s a way of walking.
Try it for three days
Morning: Do the 7-Minute Return.
During the day: Pause when the instinct to perform appears.
Evening: Write one line — What shifted by 2% today?
Small shifts compound into coherence.
Reflection prompts
Where do I still perform for approval?
What small agreement could rebuild trust today?
What is the smallest brave step that serves my purpose and the greater good?
Presence isn’t a technique.
It’s a homecoming.