1: What happens to your brain when you connect with someone or something bigger than yourself?
In moments like this, you experience “presence,” Daniel Coyle writes in his book Flourish: The Art of Building Meaning, Joy, and Fulfillment.
Lisa Miller, a psychologist at Columbia University, has spent years studying what happens in the brain during these deeper connections.
In one study, she tracked brain changes in twenty-seven people as they described three different experiences:
- A time when they felt relaxed
- A time when they felt stressed
- A time when they felt a sense of presence, connected to something greater than themselves
“The relaxed experience,” Daniel writes, “caused no significant physiological or neurological changes.
“The stressful experience triggered a cascade of responses: Racing hearts and thoughts, clenched muscles, gritted teeth, a feeling of being empty or hollow.
“The experience of presence produced a different pattern altogether,” he notes.
“Heart rates increased slightly, but without agitation; intrusive thoughts faded. The usual boundaries between self and other, inside and outside, softened. Many reported spontaneous surges of insight, as if something long buried had clicked into place.”
When Lisa looked at the data, she noticed three patterns associated with the experience of presence:
- Turning attention outward
- Feeling emotionally safe, similar to being close to someone you trust
- Feeling like yourself, but also part of something bigger
She says this kind of experience is not “a mystical superpower,” but “a fundamental human capacity.”
“Everyone can do this,” she observes. “It’s our birthright. We see it in every child and in every adult, and it can be renewed and reinvigorated to help us navigate life. It’s half an inch beneath the surface, waiting to come out.”
2: To illustrate her point, Lisa then asks Daniel if he wants to participate in a short exercise.
She invites him to close his eyes and picture himself sitting at a table.
“Now invite to the table everyone who truly has your best interest in mind,” she says. “People living or deceased, who are truly in your corner.”
Daniel writes: “In the mistiness of my mind’s eye, the table fills: My wife, my mom and dad, my best friend from high school, my third-grade teacher, along with a surprise: my Little League coach, whom I haven’t thought of in a long time but who fits the description.
“I can’t see them, not exactly, but I can feel them, and it’s almost overwhelming to sense them gathered up, looking back at me.”
“Now,” Lisa says, “ask them if they love you.”
He does, and they do. “I can imagine their voices, and it feels good—a warm feeling in my stomach.”
“Now invite your higher self, your best self to sit at the table,” Lisa says. “Now ask your higher self if you love you.”
Daniel writes: “I resist this instinctively—my higher self?—but Lisa’s voice is soft and persistent, and at some point I give myself into it. I picture myself taking a seat.
“Now invite to the table your higher power,” she says. Use the word you use for that—God, Jesus, the universe, or Buddha. “Invite them to the table.”
“I settle on a glowing entity, casting light,” Daniel shares. I hear Lisa’s voice, slow and precise.”
“Now with everyone right there, all together, ask them what right now is important for you to know. What do they need to tell you right now about you and your path?”
He notes: “It’s hard to describe what happens, because it doesn’t take the form of language or thought. It’s an oceanic shift.
“I feel their gentleness, their understanding, their encouragement and good humor; I can intuit the way they’d handle the stresses of my life, even how they might spot opportunities I was missing.
“I know it’s not real, just flickers of neurons.
“But when I open my eyes, I feel different,” Daniel observes. “More open, and more connected, filled with calm energy.
“That’s your council,” Lisa says. “They’re always there for you, whenever you need.”
3: Daniel observes: “I’ve had other experiences of presence, in meditation and mindfulness practices, in church. But this exercise was like being plugged into a power grid.
“In the days afterward, I found myself returning to it and replaying the sensation of sitting around that table. I found that when I was struggling with the daily hassles of parenting and life, I’d close my eyes and reconnect with that feeling. And when my eyes opened, something had shifted. I moved through the moment with more patience, more attention, more openness.”
The setting may change. The underlying experience does not.
“It’s the same experience whether you’re in a cathedral or in nature or anywhere,” Lisa explains.
“You surrender your tight grip on what you want and you come to understand that you’re part of a larger unity that you can interact with,” she notes.
“Open is the best word to describe it. You are asking yourself, ‘What is the world showing me now?’ and you are responding to that.”
And perhaps most importantly, presence isn’t something we simply have to wait for. We can create conditions that invite it.
“Experiences like this are not rare or random; nor are they accidents,” Daniel writes. “Across every society, in every age, humans have developed practices to step out of the everyday and into something deeper, to cross the threshold from ordinary life into a more expansive, meaningful connection.”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: Who are the people, living or deceased, who have truly had your best interests at heart?
Action: Close your eyes and picture those people sitting around a table with you. Ask them one question: “What is important for me to know right now?”