If you are anything like me, you pack a lot into your life.
We are just so bloody busy.
Constantly driven towards productivity. To do our jobs well, raise our families, contribute to the community, invest in our wellbeing, and to even pursue our ikigai (life purpose), it can sometimes feel as if we are on our own treadmill with no off switch.
And when we do finally stop and smell the flowers, it can happen a little too late.
It happens sometimes by accident, in the form of absolute exhaustion, sudden sickness, or even burnout.
When we have no other option but to rest. It is not a conscious choice, but rather an act of necessity. The body finally wins and takes over the mind’s willpower, and we find ourselves flat on our backs, unable to function.
This used to be my regular pattern. Go hard out 110% for as long as I could and then literally not move for a few days. It was so regular that I thought it was normal.
Growing up in the 90’s in my middle-class West-Auckland household, we were all very busy all the time. Church, school, homework, music lessons, youth group, exchange students, you name it, we did it. Weekends were not for lying around watching TV, but for community, socialising, study and being active.
Apparently, I’m not alone. Anne Helen Peterson, author of Can’t Even: how millennials became the burnout generation, confirmed that my (middle-class Pākehā) generation are pretty much programmed for constant business, chronic stress and ensuing burnout due to political, historical and economic forces. Great read by the way, and it made me feel less responsible for my own burnout.
So pausing to do nothing was not part of my family culture. In fact, we are mostly what I would call ‘active relaxers’.
Gardening, folding clothes, cleaning and cooking might not sound relaxing to you, but these activities are how I mentally wind down from a crazy-busy teaching day.
Recently while on my 5 day psychosomatics yoga teacher training I came across a deceptively simple but powerful practice to interrupt the ‘crazy busy’ treadmill.
Tara Brach in her book Radical Acceptance talks about the sacred pause as being the very first step in the journey towards radical acceptance of absolutely everything about ourselves and our lives.
She describes this state of constant busyness as originating in the deeply rooted belief that we are not enough. Not worthy as we are. Completely inadequate.
Because we believe that we are not good enough as we are, we have to keep relentlessly striving towards our goals. Which makes it very difficult to relax. Sound familiar?
Pausing is a radical practice because it requires us to temporarily suspend all activities that move us towards a goal.
It may seem counter intuitive, or jarring to suddenly stop the forward momentum of our rushing towards our goals. But by consciously stopping all activity for a set period of time, we allow ourselves the space to be in our inner experience. To become aware of how we feel.
And as Eckhart Tolle says “Awareness is the greatest agent for change.”
It doesn’t need to be anything formal, but it could be. After all, meditation is a practice and a discipline. It takes effort to learn and practice, and gets easier with time.
But what I’m talking about here is intentionally pausing all activity to just be. To just be with yourself. Stop all movement and busyness. For as little as 30 seconds at a time.
For the past 3 weeks my pausing has looked like;
Eating my breakfast without my phone present, so I’m not trying to read the news at the same time.
Going for a walk with my headphones at home, so I’m not trying to listen to a podcast at the same time.
Arriving somewhere in my car and just pausing before getting out.
Lying on the floor and feeling myself breathe.
Sitting in the sun. Just sitting in the sun.
The practice of pausing has radically altered my default ways of being and acting.
When I pause for even just a short time, I get to inquire into my physical, emotional and mental states, and then make a choice based on my fresh insight.
Sometimes I choose to change my path, based on what I feel I need. Sometimes my choices are more self-compassionate, if I recognise that I’m actually really tired and just need to have a rest, rather than powering on with what I had in mind before.
Pausing can of course be for longer periods of time. We could step out of our daily activities by sitting down to meditate. We could take a pause from our ongoing responsibilities by spending time in nature or going on a retreat.
Or we could pause in the middle of a conversation with someone to simply listen to what they have to say, letting go of whatever it was we thought we had to say.
The practise of pausing is an invitation to become a little more conscious, a little more peaceful, and a little more accepting of ourselves, just as we are.
If you would like some free resources to support you with developing a meditation practice, iRest has some lovely recordings.
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