Hi friend,
I hope you get a few good laughs from the video above as I have many times. It’s a hilarious reminder of our connection to the miracle of life around us. A good motivation jolt as we approach the starting line of our Year of Presence beginning on January 4th, 2026.
What a trip (animal) life is :)
Before we step fully into our weekly training Presence Shifts, I want to zoom out and show you why this work matters so much—not just psychologically, but at the level of our ~30 trillion buzzing cells.
Take one long, slow breath with me.
In…
…and out…
Whether you’re reading this on a quiet morning or in the middle of a stressed-out night, one thing is true:
There is a 24/7 inner conversation happening inside you right now.
Words. Images. Memories. Predictions.
Body tension. Flashes of hope. Streaks of dread.
A constant hum of “what this all means.”
That ongoing inner story doesn’t just describe your life.
It creates your moment-to-moment experience of being alive.
Your 24/7 inner conversation is dictating your daily emotional cycle.
Your inner conversation as living tissue
Over the last hundred years, psychology and neuroscience have converged on something simple and profound:
Your brain and body are not static “hardware.”
They are a living story engine—cells firing, wiring, and rewiring in response to:
What you repeatedly pay attention to
How you respond when you’re in pain, fear, or possibility
Every time you:
Replay an old criticism
Fantasize worst-case scenarios
Or come back to a simple grounded breath
…your cells are listening.
They change their firing patterns.
They change what they expect next.
They change what feels normal to you.
Your inner conversation is not “just in your head.”
It is a physiological event—a living pattern in your nervous system.
That’s the scientific backbone of what I call The Presence Revolution.
Old psychology: fighting thoughts while you’re flooded
A lot of “old psychology” approaches to emotion regulation, especially early cognitive therapy, sounded like this:
Identify your automatic thoughts.
Evaluate whether they’re true.
Replace them with more balanced thoughts.
That can be helpful—when you’re relatively calm.
But when you’re already even a little flooded (annoyed, anxious, enraged, devastated, numb), trying to argue with your thoughts can actually make things worse.
You’re asking yourself to:
Climb onto a rickety mental ladder
In the middle of an emotional storm
And install new thoughts while persistent old ones scream at you
Meanwhile your body is still braced:
Breath shallow
Heart racing
Muscles tight
Survival circuitry online
You’re trying to negotiate with thoughts that arose inside that agitated state, while staying in that state.
No wonder it often doesn’t work—and often keeps you stuck ruminating longer.
New psychology: shift into presence first
The newer psychology—supported by mindfulness research, somatic therapies, attentional training, contemplative traditions, and my 20+ years of psychology practice with real humans—suggests a different order:
Shift into presence first.
Then engage with your thoughts and stories.
In practice, that’s exactly what the 5 Inner Steps in The Presence Shift do:
Answer – Honestly name what kind of day (or moment) this is.
Intend – Breathe into a clear intention to become fully present over the next few minutes.
Focus – Bring 100% of your attention into this moment—breath, body, sensation, sound.
Flow – Let that presence move toward one small, real next step in your day.
Begin – Actually start that next step from this more present state.
When you do this, your nervous system:
De-escalates
Relaxes muscle tension
Shifts your breathing pattern
Opens up access to more flexible thinking and creative options
From there, you can look at your thoughts without being swallowed by them.
That’s the heart of presence shifting: walking yourself through a Presence Shift in a real moment so your body, brain, and story all get a chance to reset.
30 trillion buzzing cells & a shared field
You are made of roughly 30 trillion buzzing cells.
Somehow, for reasons we don’t fully understand, those cells:
Hold memories
Generate emotions
Fall in love
Make art
Pray, meditate, doubt, long, and laugh
And they are not isolated.
They’re bathed in:
Air, food, and water
Other people and their nervous systems
Animals, plants, streets, cities, oceans
Gravity, light, sound
From this view, presence isn’t just a mental state.
Presence is what happens when your whole system remembers:
“I am a connected piece of life in this moment.”
Your inner conversation is not separate from the rest of life.
It’s one small weather pattern inside a much larger sky.
Presence across traditions (and where Presence Shifts fit)
Different wisdom and spiritual traditions have noticed this in their own language.
In Christianity, presence can look like abiding in love—returning again and again to the felt Presence of God even when you feel undeserving.
In contemplative Buddhist practice, presence is the repeated act of sitting, breathing, noticing, and returning.
In Dzogchen and other “sudden” traditions, presence is recognizing already-present awareness in an instant.
In many indigenous and earth-based traditions, presence is listening to the land, ancestors, and more-than-human life.
They don’t share the same doctrines.
But they share at least one deep intuition:
We are living inside a shared miracle, and being awake to that miracle matters.
Presence shifting doesn’t try to replace any of these paths.
It offers a nervous-system-level ritual that can support them:
Answer → Intend → Focus → Flow → Begin
When you repeat the same 5 Inner Steps…
When you repeat the same 5 Inner Steps in many real situations, your nervous system begins to:
Recognize the pattern as safe
Relax more quickly
Regain access to perspective and creativity sooner
Treat presence as “home base” instead of a rare visitor
This is what I mean when I say the 5 Inner Steps “become second nature.”
You’re not just memorizing a formula.
You’re retraining your 30 trillion buzzing cells to recognize presence as home.
This is what The Presence Shift Masterclass is designed to do:
Science-based training to live with more presence through five inner steps that become second nature.
How this fits into your Year of Presence
Here’s how December / early January fits together:
Dec 7 – Trailer: a first glimpse of The Presence Shift Masterclass Movie.
Dec 14 – A 10-minute introduction video post: an orientation to how to master presence shifting during your Year of Presence.
Dec 21 (this post) – The science and inner-conversation backbone of The Presence Revolution.
Dec 28 – How to treat 2026 as your Year of Presence.
Jan 4 – Your Start Here guide with Presence Shift 1 – Foundation as your first full guided ritual.
You don’t have to remember every detail.
And you don’t have to do everything perfectly or every week.
Just know that any time you walk yourself through the 5 Inner Steps:
Answer • Intend • Focus • Flow • Begin
…you’re joining The Presence Shift at the level that actually matters: your nervous system.
That quiet change is where revolution actually happens.
All that matters is:
You notice when you’ve drifted.
You walk yourself through the 5 Inner Steps when you notice.
You let the next step of your day flow from presence instead of autopilot.
Stay present,
Sean
Sean Sullivan, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist and creator of The Presence Shift®, a science-based, 5-step ritual for presence shifting in real life moments.
Emotional Safety Notice & Warning
The statements on The Presence Shift® have not been reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration. This project is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The Presence Shift® is not intended as medical advice or as a replacement for professional health or mental health services.
Some content may be emotionally provocative, including references to abuse, trauma, grief, and other difficult experiences. If you are not feeling comfortable, please stop until you feel safe again. You can explore getting emotional support anytime at wannatalkaboutit.com—or by calling 988 in the United States or your local crisis line.
