12/24/25

Greetings, Wildhearted Tribe!

Before anything else, let me say this:
​From my heart to yours, wishing you a very Merry Christmas and Holiday Season!

However this season finds you...surrounded by blood family, chosen family, personal solitude, or a complicated mix of all three...I hope you are surrounded by moments of ease, warmth, and unexpected gentleness and joy.

And… let’s be honest here, the holiday season can also stir up a lot!​
​
Old roles. Old expectations. Old nervous-system reflexes that come roaring back online the moment we step into the same room with familiar energies.

Which brings me to this incredible photo taken in Girard, Kansas in 1987 by a photographer named Raymond L Brecheisen at the Crawford County Fairgrounds.

​

When I first saw this photo, I smiled so hard—and then something in me went very still.

This black-and-white image of a little girl riding a sheep at a county fair rodeo, portrays so much!
​
Mutton busting, they call it. Eight seconds of white-knuckled determination as a little kid clings to a woolly sheep doing everything it can to buck her off.

Look at her face!

That laser-focused grit. That I will hold on no matter what energy.

When I saw it, I thought:
​This feels a little bit like life right now.​
And it also feels a little bit like me.
For the better part of at least four decades.
Maybe this feeling is familiar to you too?

This, my friends, is a poignant illustration of what I now know to be called performance presence.

Performance presence is what happens when we believe—often unconsciously—that connection must be earned. That belonging depends on how well we show up, manage ourselves, read the room, carry the emotional tone, or meet invisible expectations.

We ride the sheep.
We grip harder.
We brace ourselves for impact.

Especially during the holidays. Especially now!

Around family, performance presence tends to flare fast. We default back to our programming without even realizing it. We become the helpful one. The strong one. The peacemaker. The interesting one. The regulated one. The comical one. We monitor ourselves constantly:
​Am I doing this right? Am I too much? Not enough? Am I holding it all together well enough?

No wonder we end the season exhausted.

And then there’s the flip side to all of this...which stopped me dead in my tracks when I read these words: Non-performing presence.

I didn’t know what to do with those words at first. I just sat and stared at them. What do those words even mean? They felt foreign. Almost suspicious. And if you know anything about my background (see my Tedx Talk), you’ll understand why.

But the more I sat with them, the louder something called out inside of me—like a gigantic gong echoing through my heart.

Turns out, non-performing presence is being with another—or with yourself—without needing to manage the relationship through effort, output, explanation, or usefulness. I had never had words for this before...but I knew it innately because of what I know being outside in nature feels like.
Most definitely, non-performing presence lives there!

No audition.
No demonstration.
No holding everything together.

Just… being allowed.

From a nervous-system perspective, this matters more than we realize. When our bodies believe that connection is conditional, vigilance stays switched on. We stay slightly braced, slightly scanning, slightly “on.” Performance presence lives within this place.

Non-performing presence, on the other hand, arises when the body no longer anticipates threat or abandonment. When there is no urgency to prove you’re enough. When the system finally rests into the quiet knowing:
​My presence alone is sufficient.

For many of us, this rewires something ancient.

We learned early—especially those of us who carried responsibility, awareness, or leadership young—that we belong because we show up well. Because we perform. Because we hold it together.

Non-performing presence whispers a different truth:
​You belong simply because you are here.

And...then this explains why nature feels like such relief.

A tree doesn’t ask anything of you.
It doesn’t mirror you back evaluatively.
It doesn’t care if you’re articulate, productive, healed, or likable.
And it certainly doesn’t care how long or short your haircut is or what style clothes you’re wearing.

You can be quiet. Or grieving. Or blank.
And nothing changes.

Nature offers non-performing presence freely. It says, without words:
​You don’t have to do anything to belong here.

Your body knows this before your mind does. Breath drops lower. Muscles soften. Time stretches. The inner critic quiets.

No audience.
​No audience means no performance.

When we begin to touch non-performing presence with other humans, it can feel… uncomfortable at first. Even unsettling. Because performance has been a container. A role. A way of staying safe.

When it drops away, what surfaces can feel unstructured: emotion without words, sensation without storyline, the unnerving question of Who am I without my function? (Which, by the way, is a false narrative we created for survival.)

It might feel dangerous at first to sit in a space of non-performance presence...because it’s so unfamiliar. And then over time (for example: the more you go out into nature and experience this feeling) nature itself becomes a space in which you can detox. And it can become positively addicting in the best way...because it’s actually medicine for your body and soul!

The nervous system is learning a new orientation—connection without effort. Stillness without collapse. Belonging without task.

And here’s the gentle invitation I want to offer you this Christmas:

What if, just once, you loosen your grip on the sheep?
What if you pause before answering the surface-level question and take a slow breath to the count of ten before you respond?
What if you remember that everyone in the room is also navigating something—just in different lanes?
What if you let moments of awkwardness move through without judging them or fixing them?

Awareness is key here in these moments!

Moments like these will pass.
But what your body learns about resting in connection stays.

Love is the answer. Always.
See one another. Check in on your people.
And maybe—just maybe—be gentle with yourself, and loosen your grip on the agreement to perform.

This practice of untangling our programming around performance presence is not about fixing.
It’s about remembering. And awareness in the moments that unfold as we interact with others will mirror where we’re at within this whole thing.

And while I’m certainly no expert, this idea of non-performing presence has landed in my awareness and now I can’t unsee it. So this season, I’m leaning into nature’s quiet masterclass on being rather than doing. I’m paying closer attention to moments when my nervous system tightens, when I feel the old urge to adjust, explain, or manage myself in order to belong. And instead of fixing that reflex, I’m getting curious about it.

Nature has always been my greatest teacher and my greatest guide. It doesn’t attempt to change anything upon my arrival there. It rests, right where it is. In human spaces, borrowing that station can be as simple as letting your body take up space without adjustment, allowing your expression to be what it is, softening your gaze instead of searching the room. Little by little, the body learns something new: I don’t need to calibrate myself to exist.​
​
Performance can return to its rightful place...as a tool. Something we can choose when needed, and release when it’s not. Because, like nature, we can act, respond, and engage—without confusing effort with worth.

This is the way.
Namaste.

​

Wild-Heart Practice of the Week:

Micro-Moments of Non-Performance
​Take a few minutes this week to practice being fully present without trying to do, fix, or earn anything. Here’s how:

1. Scan the Room – When you enter a space, allow your eyes and awareness to take it in. Don’t block what you notice; just observe, just witness.
2. Anchor Yourself – Place one hand somewhere on your body. Let your hand remind you that you are here, and that your presence is enough.
3. Say It Silently – Whisper in your mind: I don’t need to earn this moment.
4. Breathe – Stay here for three slow breaths. Let the idea settle. Notice the subtle relief of just being.
5. Close with Permission – Remind yourself: this is not a fix. It’s a quiet permission. A gift to your nervous system.

Believe it or not...I do this practice when someone is tailgating me when I’m driving down the road. Sometimes I even metaphorically toss love out the window like tossing snow onto the car behind me. As a way to remind myself...that I have every right to this location on the road. Essentially I was here first. And it totally shifts my mindset.
​
Another way of saying, “I’m allowed at the table.”

Field Notes is a weekly pause.​
A clearing in the noise.
A place to notice what stirs your heart — one story, one breath, one truth at a time.

If this note resonated, share it with someone who might need a little reminder of connection, joy, or the power of sending love out into the world.

Merry Christmas to all!
Namaste,
Rachel

P.S. I know that some of you are down with a crazy coughing flu that seems to be going around here in WNC. Many hugs to you as you rest this holiday and recuperate from this awful affliction! Sending out positive vibes to you for a quick recovery. 💛

P.S.S. And thank you for being here! May you carry a little love on the wind this week — and feel it returning to you in unexpected ways.

​

​
🙏 If you feel called to support this work, you can leave a small tip or contribution here → [Support the Work]​

🌿 Explore more meditations, writings, and wild-heart practices at RachelDickson.com​

🎬 If you haven’t yet, please take a few minutes and watch Rachel’s Tedx Talk → [view the full 18-min talk here]

💌 In case you missed any past Field Notes, you can find the full collection here: → [View them all]

​

​
​