presence of the heart

Presence is a rare quality in a world of 20-second sound bites, nonstop stimulation, and gnawing anxiety. What underlies presence? Clearly, it is not intellectual prowess or Mensa would rule the world. More than once we all have been bored to tears by the intellectual aloofness of someone disconnected from everyday reality, adrift in a conceptual universe of his or her own creation …

Could presence be heart-generated coherence in the world of personal magnetics? People with presence have an ineffable quality about them; they are ‘present,’ surprisingly attentive, and undistracted. A fullness, a centeredness, a wholeness radiates from them. We enjoy being ‘in their presence.’ You can build presence. It is the natural radiance of heart security.

- Doc Childre and Bruce Cryer, From Chaos to Coherence