The Art and Authenticity of Giving Attention in Online Spaces

And a practice for cultivating attention in the comments section

The first time I sat on a meditation cushion, my butt cheek dropped off one side.

How spiritual, I thought.

In reality, what I sat on was less of a cushion and more a pile of lopsided pillows I arranged on the floor of my bedroom. I wiggled side to side, trying to re-center and mirror the teacher who was sharing the instructions on a streaming video on my laptop. 

In 2013, I was single, living in a cold, drafty basement in Colorado Springs and my grandmother had just died, leaving me in an emotional tailspin. I’d been preparing for her passing for 10 years probably, but it still landed like a thud.

Grandma would’ve been open to meditation, I thought to myself one day, wiping away tears in the car before going back into the office after my lunch break.

I was a nervous student of meditation, cautious and fearful that all the elaborate tales I’d heard growing up about demons and devils involved with “mind trickery” could be caught like the flu. But I was also desperate for something to help me feel even a tiny bit better. And somehow, I had an inner confidence that my grandmother was guiding me from somewhere beyond.

Meditation surprised me in a hundred different ways. Practically speaking, it helped me realize that the brain, just like any other muscle, deserves attention and exercising. The brain is a muscle to relate to, not to control or be controlled by. In expansive, heart-shifting ways, meditation taught me the single most important thing about life:

Attention is love.

Putting my body into a meditative, relaxed posture is love. Letting my thoughts rise and fall, come and go, just as they are without fixing or judging or tricking them, that’s also love. Seeing myself for the person I am deep inside—although incredibly frightening and vulnerable—is love. And today I want to talk about the attention we give other people, in our lives and online, and how that, too, is the most powerful form of love we can give.

Just think about all the things that are clawing at your mind in a given day: there’s work, the people you work with and their problems; there’s your health and making sure you are giving your body the fuel it needs and deserves; there’s emotions and relationships; and there’s a hundred different opportunities on social media to “connect” with others.

But how often do you give someone quality attention? 

How often does someone turn their phone and TV and work email off, and sit beside you to just listen?

Attention matters to me because I grew up believing that I needed to perform or, interchangeably, not make a fuss, in order to have my yearning for attention met. Attention was a sneaky currency in a home where my parents were driven by a lot of other things that mattered more than sitting down and just playing with me and my brother. There was church, church leaders, the pastors, the programs, the performing, the praising and repenting. There was always another opportunity to sell vitamins through a multi-level-marketing company. There was always work to be done, but never attention to give, nor memories to make. And this was in a world without computers, social media or cell phones.

How do you give your attention online?

As an autistic person, I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 36 years old. So the years of longing for my parents to just slow down, to listen, to stop arguing or fighting or icing each other out, I spent internalizing as a reflection on my value as a little girl. They could say things in passing that seemed loving, but their actions told me otherwise. Their actions said, “There is always someone more important than you.”

In this vortex, there is also the attention we give ourselves. How we slow down to listen, to honor and digest our lived experiences trickles down into how we care for those around us. And I think it affects how we invite people into the holy work of writing in an attention economy.

How do you give attention in online spaces? 

Is it frenzied, hurried, grabbing-a-donut-on-the-way-to-work kind of attention?

Do you look for people who only have checkmarks next to their name or power to exchange for fawning?

If attention is a currency, what if you began to spend it with people who give something intrinsically valuable to you? 

Regardless of checkmarks and power negotiations, find the people who bring a sense of lightness and energy when you interact with them. When we let our attention rest on the tangibles of presence, I’m convinced that we also give our bodies and minds permission to create remarkable things.

Join me in an experiment of attention

I have been wanting to offer an experiment of sorts for a long time around attention. And it involves the “recommendations” feature on Substack. When you recommend someone, you’re given the opportunity to write a “blurb.” It’s a way to expand your endorsement of this person’s writing, to give it some flavor.

Ten percent of my readers have come from a reader recommending my writing. That still takes my breath away. Someone loved my writing and placed their attention long enough to intentionally recommend it to others. That loving attention has been one of the seeds that is changing this autistic, dissociating editor’s life.

So let’s cultivate attention today in the comments section. Let’s practice writing recommendations for two kinds of writers on Substack. I’ll share a list of writers who you and I most likely have in common. Not surprisingly, all of these writers have checkmarks next to their names:

Culture Study

by Anne Helen Petersen

Letters from an American by

Heather Cox Richardson

Both Are True by

Alex Dobrenko`

The Audacity by

Roxane Gay

Oldster Magazine by

Sari Botton

Austin Kleon

’s creative musings

Write one of these writers a blurb. Even “successful” writers often comment on how much specific, heartfelt or illustrative feedback is part of the fuel that keeps them going.

But don’t stop there. Then go find the writer whose writing you know folks need more of, but perhaps isn’t on as many people’s radars. I immediately think of

Claire Tak

and her memoir-in-progress about her brother who’s in prison and her reflections on their experiences as Asian Americans. Claire has no checkmark next to her name, and I lift her writing up as often as I feel inspired (which is often because she’s doing great writing). I think of

Priscilla Stuckey

, whose observations help me weave a thread between spirit, nature and my own writer instincts. I think of

Armchair Rebel

(Michelle Spencer) and

Ramona Grigg

. None of them “checkmarked” and all of them pouring into their work and, by proxy, into me.

Look at your reading list and go find one reader without a checkmark who inspires, intrigues or even perplexes you, and let’s practice in the comments giving our attention to these writers, too. 

Here are a few ideas to get this attention love train started:

1. “I first discovered their writing during a time when I was ______, and it always helps me feel _____.”

2. “This writing is worth the paid subscription because …” and fill in the blank about something specific going on in your life. Because my wife also has cancer. Because my dog means so much to me, too. Because I want to be part of making a difference with…

Does giving this focused attention bring a sense of nervousness? That’s OK. Let that nervousness be part of what you write. Share the first draft of your recommendation in the comments below and if I think it can be sharpened, I’ll offer my own attention as an editor with suggestions.