Stephie Noticed What Many of Us Miss
June 24, 2026
Stephie had a way of listening that most people only
There’s a kind of attention most of us have lost without noticing.
A shirt button missing. The odd shoelaces. Stephie noticed both while watching a movie. Not because she was looking for something to notice, but because she was there, completely, in a way most of us aren’t anymore.
It wasn’t a party trick. It wasn’t mindfulness she’d read about in a book. It was simply how she moved through the world. Fully present, with whoever and whatever was in front of her.
That noticing, the button, the shoelace — became the quiet inspiration behind the Stephie’s Choice Foundation pin. A small object carrying a big story.
Because once you know what it represents, you start to wonder: when was the last time I noticed something like that?
It would be easy to read this and think, well, that’s just who Stephie was. Some people are like that.
But that’s not quite right.
What looked effortless in Stephie was something closer to a trained capacity, the kind that comes from a nervous system that isn’t constantly bracing, rushing, or somewhere else. She wasn’t managing twelve tabs open in her mind while pretending to watch the movie. She was watching the movie. Which meant she had room left over to notice the shoelace.
Most of us don’t have that room. Not because we don’t care, but because our attention is being pulled in more directions than it was ever built to handle.
Think about the last conversation you had where your mind was somewhere else: the next meeting, the unread message, the thing you forgot to do. You were there. But you weren’t there.
Vee Haslam, creator and steward of the MOJO Practice™, has a name for that gap. In her MOJO Practice™ teaching, she calls it the embodiment gap. The distance between the mind that understands presence and the nervous system that hasn’t yet learned how to access it in the moment. It isn’t weakness. It’s neuroscience. And it’s something almost everyone carries, whether or not they’ve ever had a word for it.
That gap is incredibly common, and incredibly costly. Not in some abstract, philosophical way, but in the very real, very daily way it changes what we notice, what we remember, and how connected the people around us feel to us.
The good news, if Stephie’s life tells us anything, is that closing that gap isn’t reserved for a lucky few. It can be trained.
Not all at once. Not perfectly. But in small, consistent moments of returning. Moments where you pause. Where you notice. Where you come back to what’s actually in front of you.
To help our community build this capacity, Stephie’s Choice Australia has partnered with the MOJO Practice to bring presence training directly to you. Tools like Your Pocket MOJO™ are built specifically to guide your nervous system through these micro-moments of regulation, taking just 1 to 5 minutes a day.
If you are ready to start closing the gap and live more fully in the moment, we invite you to join us. Become a Founding Supporter and Access Your Pocket MOJO™
When was the last time you noticed something small, and stayed with it?
That’s the practice her memory has inspired, and it’s one we’ll be sharing more about in the coming weeks.
Did Stephie ever notice something you didn’t expect? We’d love to hear it. Reply or get in touch, and her stories might find their way into future posts.
Stephie had a way of listening that most people only
There’s a kind of attention most of us have lost
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