We are so bombarded with ‘stuff’ in our modern world – information, to-do lists, etc, going from one thing to another, from device to device. It can be so over-stimulating and overwhelming sometimes. It can be like eating one rich meal after another, with hardly enough chance to digest. We humans have the need to integrate and assimilate our experiences, to ‘digest’ the rich meal that our lives can be. If we don’t take the time to do that in our days, we start to feel it. Our bodies will start to give us messages of overwhelm with anxious or agitated feelings, or we may feel spaced out and unable to focus, or dull and numb, or worse, unwell and sick. When I notice I’m losing the plot in those ways, I know I’m overdue for a pause.
I have come to think of ‘cultivating space’ it take to integrate life and all its stuff as an art. It’s more than just the workout or the day off, or even the body/mind practices or the other things that are certainly nourishing, but not quite a pause. Weaving in pauses, for even just a few minutes, in transitions between tasks and things, can make such a huge difference. Yes, a break from your phone, but also a break from the constant narration and focus of the mind and activity of the body. A few minutes outside with feet on the grass, noticing beauty somewhere around you, or with your pet, or in a hug with a beloved can do it, but we do well to just sit and be still a few times a day. It doesn’t take long – for a few moments or as much time as you can take, simply sit, drop into and feel your body, and soften, soften, soften, around your eyes, in your shoulders, all the way into your belly. Simply breathing and softening, not changing anything or doing anything, just being for a few moments. Yum.
I invite you to try The Pause, it can be a sweet little reset, and when you intend in this way to cultivate space for yourself, it can begin to create more of a feeling of space and ease…even in your busy, full life.