The Metrics of the soul
Reclaiming Attention in an Age of Measurement
There is a collective shift happening.
We can feel it.
It is asking us to reevaluate where we place our attention and how we determine our value.
If attention is our currency, then what receives our attention becomes valuable.
And in this era, we have given our attention to metrics.
Likes.
Follows.
Texts with or without emojis that we translate into warmth or rejection.
Notifications that light up our nervous system and quietly tell us whether we matter.
We have become a culture that reduces worth to immediacy.
The immediacy of response.
The immediacy of feedback.
The immediacy of being witnessed.
These metrics feed a subtle addiction — the need to be seen, validated, confirmed in real time.
I am not outside of this.
I am guilty of the metric game.
The searching game.
The peace-distracting game.
The outsourcing love game.
We have built structures that we are now co-dependent with.
Like a relationship we know drains us, yet we keep returning to it.
Because being measured feels safer than being unknown.
What Cannot Be Measured
And yet something deeper is stirring.
Silence calls me in the morning.
When my eyes open
and I see sunlight sifting through the clouds,
I hear the sky whisper,
“Wake into me.
Slow and silent.
Be with you first.
Be with God first.”
Before the metrics.
Before the measurement.
Before the performance.
Here is what becomes clear in that quiet:
What is genuinely priceless cannot be fully measured.
The breath entering your body.
The fact that you woke up.
The quiet miracle of consciousness returning.
The love that exists before anyone confirms it.
We are not meant to be measured by performance.
We are meant to be received by presence.
And presence never shouts metrics.
It whispers welcome.
The Sacred Technology Within
The Buddhist monks who have been walking across the United States these past months have been teaching me something.
They walk slowly.
Intentionally.
Prayerfully.
Their pace gently confronts the velocity of our culture.
And I began noticing my own reflex in the morning.
Reaching for technology.
To check the time.
To check the place.
To check my purpose.
To check for connection.
Before I had even checked in with myself.
There was a point in time when I used to say the only technology I should check in with first is the sacred technology of the heart.
And I am returning to that.
Because this body — this masterful instrument — is a form of intelligence.
Breath is technology.
Awareness is technology.
The beating heart is technology.
The intelligence of us is the first system to consult.
Before the screen.
Before the scroll.
Before the measurement.
So now I practice something different.
I check in with the sacred technology within me.
And then I have a quiet conversation with God.
When I say God, I do not mean a confined religious idea.
There was a time when my relationship with God felt limited by inherited structures.
That is no longer the case.
I have come full circle.
God is life.
God is love.
God is breath.
God is the consciousness that says, you are still here.
So when I check in with myself, I am also checking in with God.
And I say thank you.
A Gentle Practice
Tomorrow morning, before reaching for your phone, pause.
Place one hand on your chest.
Take three slow breaths.
Notice what is already here without being measured.
Let the sacred technology of your own heart be the first system you log into.
Let that be your first metric.
All is well.
It is well because you are still here.
Heart Breath is the practice of remembering the sacred technology within you.
