In this busy sometimes hectic time season it is easy to feel overwhelmed, stressed out or frantic. My mind is pulled back to a workshop I attended this summer where the teacher talked about needing a pause. Let’s explore a bit deeper this concept of pausing. It means slowing down, suspension or taking a break, a hiatus but it also means silence or gap. This sounds like the perfect antidote for any anxiety, or stress related to the holiday season! A shift of focus can take place when we take time to pause. We learn to breathe again and move forward from a different place.
We have lost the art of pausing. Most of us live very high task, always striving types of existence. Pausing is a way to reintroduce equilibrium. It can be as simple as taking a deep breath when we feel stressed out. I would challenge you to think beyond just little moments of breath. Are there other ways that you can create times to pause in your life? For me being in nature always moves me into times of pause. I am able to center and take in the beauty that surrounds me. I become calm and feel free to receive life rather than constrict away from things. Sometimes my husband & I put on music at home and dance. We end up laughing. It breaks up energy in the body and emotions. We feel amazing after dancing!
Today my pause will be to take my china teapot, teacup and saucer down from the special occasion shelf and use it for me alone. There really is no need to save these special things for people other than ourselves. I am quite looking forward to this planned pause…I may incorporate more of them in the future. Find ways to pause that speak to you. Be creative! I’d love to hear what you did to pause!!! Feel free to leave me a comment.
Shelly, I love this post! It really is a great thing to be able to just pause everything that you do in your normal life and just live. Taking hikes is probably one of my favorite things to do, and it is really like I press pause to everything else going on in my life. I’ve nerve thought of it that way before though.