Losing Presence in a Café
We sat across from each other in a small café—the kind with warm lighting and too many conversations happening at once. It had been months since I’d last seen him, and on the surface, it felt good to reconnect. But somewhere between his second story and my third sip of coffee, I started noticing myself slip. A text pinged, and my brain darted toward it like a moth to a flame. Someone walked in behind him, and my attention followed as if it had a life of its own.
I kept nodding and smiling, but inside I was juggling a half-finished task list, retreat logistics, and the endless inner chatter that never seems to rest. Outwardly, I looked engaged. Inwardly, I was wandering. And it wasn’t until last week—reading Brené Brown’s Strong Ground—that I realized this tiny fracture in presence might be costing me far more than I’ve been aware.
Finding Language for What Was Happening
As I sat there attempting to follow the thread of our conversation, I didn’t have language for what was happening to me. I just knew I felt scattered.
But Strong Ground gave me a framework to expand my understanding. In her book, Brené writes about something she calls locking-in—that moment when we give something or someone the fullness of our cognitive, emotional, and behavioral attention. Not the leftovers. Not the fragments. The whole thing. Locking-in is what allows us to think deeply, learn well, create meaningfully, lead wisely, and love generously.
But she also makes a sobering point: our lives rarely give us the conditions we need to lock-in. Not because we’re careless or undisciplined, but because we’re constantly switching domains—mentally scrambling from one part of our life to the next before our mind, heart, or nervous system has a chance to arrive in the moment we’re actually in.
The Hidden Saboteur: Domain Switching
This is the part most of us don’t see: the hidden saboteur—domain switching.
The truth is, domain switching is more than just shifting from “work” to “home.” It’s the invisible gearshifts we perform all day long without often noticing:
from deep research → to an emotionally charged conversation
from leading a team meeting → to fixing a tiny technical issue
from big-picture strategy → to detailed logistics
from urgent crisis-mode → to an empathetic conversation
from laser work focus → to suddenly being a spouse, friend, or parent
from managing tasks → to managing feelings (ours or someone else’s)
That morning at the café, I had already switched through six distinct domains—burpees, home repairs, a team Zoom call, travel planning, website updates, and AV logistics for an upcoming event—while fending off a steady drip of texts, emails, and WhatsApp messages.
Individually, these shifts may seem small… but neurologically, they’re enormous. And they explain why I sat across from my friend that morning, physically present but mentally fatigued.
The Science of Attention Residue
What I didn’t realize in the moment—but could feel—was that even though I was sitting across from my friend, my mind was still carrying the weight of everything I had rushed through that morning. I had moved on physically, but mentally, I was still in six different places at once.
Brené Brown, drawing on the research of psychologist Sophie Leroy, names this phenomenon attention residue—the cognitive leftovers from whatever we were just doing that remain active in the background long after we’ve shifted tasks.
Leroy’s research shows that our brain doesn’t instantly turn one thing “off” and another thing “on.” When we jump quickly from one domain to another, we drag fragments of the previous task, emotion, or responsibility into the next moment. It’s why we can be in a conversation but still feel the pull of unfinished work, unresolved decisions, or the tension of what came before.
A Better Way to Understand Domain Shifting: The Lock-Through
One of the best metaphors I’ve ever encountered for domain shifting comes from Brené Brown’s work at the Teddington Lock in London. A lock is basically a chamber that helps a boat move safely between two different water levels. The gates don’t open until the water inside the chamber matches the level on the other side. If the levels aren’t equal—even by half an inch across the length of a river—the gates stay closed. Force them open too soon and the turbulence can capsize the boat.
Our inner world works the same way.
When we move from one domain to another—work to home, meeting to conversation, problem-solving to parenting—our internal “water levels” rarely match the environment we’re stepping into.
Attention residue, stress, rumination, unmet needs, or emotional momentum can leave us operating at a different depth than the space we’re entering. When we rush through without allowing those levels to equalize, we create turbulence: irritability, emotional disconnect, short answers, fogginess, or a sense of being “behind” ourselves.
It’s not failure. It’s physics.
And there’s relief in simply naming it.
Why This Matters
Understanding this matters because it finally explains why being fully present is so hard in a world where our roles, responsibilities, and emotional demands come at us in rapid succession. And it offers something far more hopeful: a way to shift domains without overwhelming ourselves.
And that’s where we go next.
If we want to lock-in—at work, at home, with our partners, our kids, our friends—we need to learn how to “lock-through” with intention. How to let things settle. How to clear residue. How to arrive whole.
The good news?
There are simple, grounded, research-backed practices that can help us do exactly that.
Three Simple Ways to Lock-Through (So You Can Lock-In)
Give Yourself a Minute to “Level Out”
In a lock, the gates only open when the water levels match. Likewise, before moving from one role to the next, we need a brief pause to let our internal “levels” settle. This reduces tension, pressure, and chronic stress that comes from instant domain switching.
How to do it:Take 1-2 minutes to breathe, stand up, stretch, or step outside.
Allow your nervous system to downshift so you don’t “capsize” in the next domain.
Close the Last Task Before You Move On
Sophie Leroy’s work shows that leaving one task “open” causes cognitive drag. A small closure cue frees up working memory and helps your brain let go so you don’t drag leftover thoughts into the next moment.
How to do it:Write down the last thought, next step, or concern from the previous task.
Say (internally), “This is where I’ll pick it up later.”
Let People Know What You Need to Arrive Well
Brené’s Brown reminds us that locking-in only works if you’re also willing to lock-through—and that requires naming what you need. Letting someone know you need a moment to shift domains protects the relationship from the turbulence of rushed transitions.
How to do it:Tell your partner, colleague, or child: “I need a short reset so I can show up well.”
Agree on shared transition rituals or buffer times.
The Invitation
Life will always be full of competing domains, shifting roles, and constant demands. But presence is not about perfection—it’s about intention. When we slow the shift, let the attention residue settle, and lock-through so we can lock-in, we offer something rare in our distracted world: our whole selves.
And when we give someone our full presence—even for a few minutes—we create the kind of connection that strengthens relationships, deepens trust, and reminds us what it feels like to live love well.
Until next week,
Jonathan Penner | Co-Founder & Executive Director of LifeApp
Resources To Dig Deeper
Podcast
Lock-In and Lock-Through Power
In this special Dare to Lead episode, Brené Brown reads her “Lock-In and Lock-Through Power” chapter from Strong Ground, using the metaphor of a river lock to explain why shifting from one role to another—especially from work to home—often feels turbulent. She explores the four ways we “lock-in” (mental toughness, flow, deliberate practice, and deep focus) and how constant domain-switching creates attention residue and cognitive overload. Brené’s central message: without intentional transition time, we can’t show up fully for the people and moments that matter.
-Brené Brown (1:00:00)
Book
Strong Ground
In Strong Ground, Brené Brown offers an urgent roadmap for courageous leadership in a world defined by uncertainty and overload. Drawing on her work with more than 150,000 leaders globally, she highlights the essential skills we need now—especially the ability to “lock-in” with deep focus and “lock-through” as we move between the demanding domains of our lives. Brown challenges the false divide between high performance and wholeheartedness, showing that real leadership requires clarity, connection, accountability, and the humility to unlearn and relearn.
-Brené Brown
Music
Momentarily
Several years ago, Levi (our son) wrote and recorded this piece as a reflection on the inner terrain we navigate when we’re trying to lock-through, lock-in, and show up with real presence. It captures the quiet struggle of attention residue—the shadows that trail us even as life keeps moving—and the lifelong challenge of shifting between the many domains of our days and seasons. The song moves with a raw honesty through shadow, overwhelm, and those rare flashes of clarity that break through when we finally stop long enough to feel them. It’s reflective, grounding, and worth a few minutes with headphones on. Let it slow you down. Let it meet you where you are.
-Leviticus Penner (4:01)
Inside the Lyrics of “Momentarily”
These lyrics sketch an emotional landscape familiar to anyone navigating modern life: movement, growth, pressure, and the constant shadows of unfinished thoughts or unresolved feelings trailing behind.
“Growing up, the shadows follow suit”
The opening lines suggest that as we move forward in life—taking on more responsibilities, relationships, roles—the “shadows” come with us. These shadows are the mental fragments, the worries, the cognitive residue left over from all the prior moments we haven’t fully processed. They don’t stay behind when we shift domains; they travel with us.
“But momentarily a coruscating light, bursts through the clouds, with warmth embracingly”
Here the song introduces a moment of piercing clarity. A brief breakthrough. A flash in which everything aligns—presence, clarity, attention, emotional openness. It’s not permanent. It’s not steady. But it’s real. The way a sudden beam of sunlight feels warm and embracing, even if the clouds close again. These moments mirror the rare flashes of presence we experience when our attention finally settles and we actually arrive in the moment. They’re brief, but they remind us of what’s possible.
“Dark corridors, with no end in sight at all. In the dark, with nothing else to hold”
This imagery shifts back into the lived experience of disorientation. These dark corridors echo the internal state we enter when we rush from task to task, role to role, without transition. It’s the mind still stuck in old conversations, old emails, old worries. An emotional hallway with no clear exit.
The line “With nothing else to hold” reveals the emptiness created by being mentally stretched across too many domains at once — present nowhere, anchored to nothing.
“But momentarily, a coruscating light, bursts through the clouds, with warmth embracingly”
The cycle repeats. The light returns. Presence breaks through again, even if briefly.
This repetition captures the oscillation many of us feel: back and forth between fragmentation and clarity, between overwhelm and groundedness.
“With hope it's not just momentarily”
The final plea is the emotional heart of the lyrics. It’s the longing for that clarity — that warmth, that connection, that grounded presence — to last. Not to be a rare flash, but a state we know how to return to. A hope that presence can become more than a momentary accident, but a practiced way of being.