The Gift of Sacred Pauses
Clearing
by Martha Postlethwaite
Do not try to serve
the whole world
or do anything grandiose. Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is yours alone to sing
falls into your open cupped hands and you recognize and greet it. Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to the world
so worthy of rescue.
It’s been a while since my last blog to you. During that time, my life has been in full change and transition – as it always inevitably does since life’s impermanence is guaranteed. I have found solace in embodying the lessons my teachers, ancestors, and nature have taught me about resilience, renewal, and resetting “me” time with sacred pauses.
Actively cultivating sacred pauses can help us find the space we need in our everyday life to move beyond identifying with its momentary changes.
As we fully enter this holiday season when everything moves quickly, demands of our time grow, and we reflect on the year, it’s easy to fixate on situations we can’t control or circumstances where none of our strategies work. It seems simple to get emotionally triggered by them, too. Like when someone we love says something harmful to us and we strike back quickly, or retreat into steely silence. Or we enter emotionally charged situations strategizing and rehearsing for how to defend ourselves.
The more we fear failure, non-acceptance, or feel guilty, the more frenetically our bodies and minds work. Our primitive brain tells us that we need to be doing constantly to have a sense of control that can help us manage threats. Then we fill our days with habitual movement: mental planning and worrying, habitual talking, fixing, scratching, adjusting, phoning, snacking, discarding, and buying.
And it’s normal. According to the research of two Harvard psychologists, the human mind is actually wired for this state of continuous distraction. In a study conducted with 2,250 adults, they concluded that we spend around 47 percent of every waking hour "mind wandering." Also called "stimulus-independent thought," mind wandering is an experience that so ordinary, so natural to us, we don't even notice it.
What would it be like if, during this time of busyness and distraction, we were to consciously take our hands off the controls to just be instead of doing? What if we were to intentionally stop our rushing around and, for a minute or two, simply pause and notice our inner experience?
Sacred pauses are an opportunity to enjoy the present moment, particularly during times of stress, impulsivity, and reactivity. It is in the moments of pausing that we really touch into a kind of a natural presence. It creates a space for the light to comes through, but at first it can be anxiety provoking.
Partially because our culture is deeply wired to celebrate overworking and doing. But this is the heart of it. The challenge in pausing is that, when we pause —or stop goal-oriented activity, to just stop — while that creates a space for the light to move through, first it creates a space for us to feel the vulnerability that’s there. Experiment and notice, when you just stop in the middle of things, the incredible push to regroup and get back into action. This can be very useful with addictive behaviors since if we don’t pause, the urge or craving moves into grasping for more, whether it’s food, gambling, sex, drugs, alcohol, whatever.
Our practice is to notice, even as we sit still, that the mind leaves the pause and goes back into doing. That’s where the work is, to practice, notice, re-relax, settle back in, not controlling anything. A non-doing practice can make us more connected to the life that’s happening right now.
Try this practice:
Everything starts with your ability to notice when you get caught in this state. And that's often very difficult to do. In fact, it's so hard that it can be helpful to set up cues in your life to help you remember to notice: each time you stop at a stop sign, each time you walk into work, right after you wake up, or each time you pull out your phone.
Once you notice, the next step is to shift your attention to something that's happening right now. It could be engaging fully in the email you're typing, listening fully to the person you're talking with, or really tasting that last bite of food you just put in your mouth. In more idle moments, it might be paying attention to sights, sensations in your body, or the sound of birds, the wind, or blaring car horns.
The final step is to strengthen this new habit of mind. To do this, all you have to do is take 15 to 30 seconds to stay in the state and really savor the experience of being here now.