This sitting practice helps you focus your attention on observing versus getting carried away by your thoughts. As you sit you'll notice how thoughts come and go, like leaves in a stream. You have a choice to jump in and get pulled by the current of thoughts or you can step back and observe how thoughts flow in and out of your awareness. When we pause, we re-focus our attention on present moment experience. Here, we're free of fixing, planning, worrying, etc. Nice! Be patient. For everyone, it's a back and forth dance, with lots of dips in the stream. Evenually we get better and faster at noticing we got carried away. Then we can choose to step back again. With practice you'll stay out of the stream longer and notice sooner if you've jumped in. Bonus: As we slow down, giving ourselves this time, we often gain valuable insights into our patterns of thought and behavior -- ones that help and ones that hinder us from being who we truly are. Happy discovering!