Stephie Noticed What Many of Us Miss

Stephie had a way of listening that most people only experience a handful of times in their life. Not the polite kind of listening where you’re already forming your reply. The kind where you could feel, in your body, that you had her whole attention.

People would later say they couldn’t always remember exactly what she said in those moments. What they remembered was how it felt to be truly heard.

Why That’s Rarer Than It Should Be

In our last post, we talked about what distraction costs us: missed ideas, multiplied misunderstandings, achievement that feels hollow even when the task is done. But there’s a cost that’s harder to measure and easier to feel — the cost to the person standing in front of you.

Think about the difference between being heard and being half‑heard. Half‑heard is when someone nods at the right moments but you can tell part of them is somewhere else: the next task, the notification, the thing they’re waiting to say. Being heard is different. It’s rare enough that when it happens, you notice.

What is Openhearted Observation?

Vee Haslam, creator and steward of the MOJO Practice™, calls this kind of attention Openhearted Observation — one of the core capacities her presence practice trains. It’s the skill of meeting what’s in front of you with compassionate curiosity rather than judgement, fully open rather than already defended or distracted.

Stephie didn’t need a name for it. She simply did it.

What It Asks of Us

Here’s the uncomfortable part… being that present with someone else means temporarily setting aside our own agenda. The reply we’re forming. The judgement we’re already halfway to making. The urge to fix, or relate it back to ourselves, or move the conversation along.

That’s not easy. It takes a nervous system that isn’t already overloaded, and the capacity to stay open even when staying open is uncomfortable.

But it is something that can be built. One conversation at a time, one pause at a time, until it becomes less of an effort and more of who you are.

A Small Presence Practice to Try

Next time you’re in conversation with someone, try this: before you respond, pause for one breath longer than feels natural. Notice what you were about to say. Notice whether it was really about them, or about you.

That single breath is a small thing. But it’s the same kind of micro‑moment Stephie seemed to live in without trying, and the kind we’ll keep coming back to as we explore how this capacity can be trained.

Explore more on the Mind and Body, or become a Founding Supporter and carry Stephie’s practice forward in your own life.

In our next post, we’ll introduce the practice Stephie’s spirit helped inspire: Your Pocket MOJO™, built by Vee Haslam to help train these capacities in just one to five minutes at a time.