Serenity Wellness Podcast E24: The Power Of Pause

Sometimes life can be filled with busyness, chaos, and commotion, creating discombobulation within. Today, we're going to talk about the power of pause, what it can do for you, and some different ways to incorporate in your life, environment, and communication.

Transcript

Hello,

Welcome to Serenity Wellness Podcast.

My name is Nicole White and I'll be your host.

This podcast is dedicated to helping you tap into your full potential of how you can heal and balance your mental,

Emotional,

And physical well-being.

Together,

Let's explore inner self,

Connect to our strength,

And manifest your true nature,

One full of love,

Purpose,

And passion.

Welcome to Episode 24,

The Power of Pause.

Sometimes life can be full of busyness and chaos and commotion,

Creating a discombobulation within.

Today we're going to talk about the power of pause,

What it can bring to you,

And how to incorporate it into your life,

Your environment,

And sometimes your communication with others.

When we're thinking of the power of pause,

It is simply that,

Pausing.

Pausing and just being with non-judgment,

Non-attachment,

And no expectation.

Just allowing ourselves opportunities to just be.

And science is showing us so many tremendous benefits this has for us,

Not only in terms of relaxation and stress reduction,

But what it's doing to our internal body system,

Our emotions,

And mental stability.

This power of pause and some things it can bring into your life are not only,

As I mentioned,

Reduce stress,

So it will actually reduce that intake or uptake of stress hormones in the body.

It allows us to let go of some tension that we're holding and storing.

And then also it increases our energy and motivation,

Allows us to have better focus and creativity.

It will also give us more space in our mind,

Quieting that monkey mind,

Decreasing the storytelling and script writing we do.

This can also elevate our connection to our intuition,

As well as our consciousness,

When we create a pause and a space.

It will improve our mental and emotional stability,

As well as the body system.

So by incorporating the power of pause,

It will decrease the inflammation cycle in your body,

Which as we've talked about is so integral in our physical,

Emotional,

And mental well-being.

This will also help to stabilize our serotonin and dopamine in our body.

It will decrease the adrenals that are getting pumped and pumped,

Creating that adrenal fatigue.

It will balance our cortisol levels and our circadian rhythm.

In addition,

When all of these things are in harmonious rhythms,

It helps with the vitamin and mineral absorption in our body.

Often if we're using food as medicine,

Which we all should really,

Really be mindfully trying to do,

But we're in this busy,

Busy chaotic cycle where our body is not really in a balanced harmonious state to even absorb the things we're trying to incorporate it,

Incorporate into our health.

So this power of pause and what it can do with increased energy and focus,

Improved motivation and creativity,

Allowing space,

Decreasing that monkey mind,

Improving our intuition connection,

As well as our consciousness,

And then all of these things it does to our internal body system.

And those things all how they correlate with our mental,

Emotional,

And physical well-being.

So thinking about this power of pause and what it can bring to your life,

And then how we actually might begin to implement it in this busy chaotic nature that we can often be stuck in.

So one area to look at is that life pause.

We can keep our minds and our lives so busy,

Have mile long lists of to-dos and things we should have done or could have done,

Or why did we do,

And the regrets and the sorrows.

And I mean,

The list can go on and on that we carry around with us to keep us busy,

Keep that mind engaged and jumping around.

We can create those encyclopedias of worry,

Fear,

Judgments,

And catastrophic thinking,

Again,

Keeping us busy,

Bouncing around in life,

Often overstimulated and overabsorbed.

Sometimes even the things we're passionate about,

We can find that we get overabsorbed in,

Feeling like we need to learn everything about it in that moment.

I have a tendency,

I've gotten much better at this,

And I might have mentioned this before,

I can't remember to be honest,

But I enjoy reading and love to learn,

But at times I can overdo it.

I can be reading something and then another book will pop up as I'm reading,

And then I'll be like,

Oh,

I want to get that one too.

And then another one comes up and before I know it,

Here's three more books I'm ready to order and I haven't even finished the one that I'm reading.

So this overindulgence even in the things that we're trying to bring balance to can create even again,

This life busyness,

The chaotic nature of our every day,

And how we often will not really give us ourselves any time or space for a pause in our life.

Sometimes we can even intentionally and even maybe on a subconscious level,

Keep ourselves super busy as an alternative to giving time for space in feeling and processing and healing.

We have to sometimes pause and reflect an awareness for deep healing to happen,

And sometimes we'll keep ourselves so busy so that we can avoid having the opportunity to really do some of that deep inner work,

Which sometimes requires working through some difficult emotions and feelings.

So in this life pause,

Allowing yourself permission for some self care and pausing in life's busyness,

Even if it's five minutes,

You know,

Giving yourself five minutes to just be.

I will often talk with people about their morning routine and how they,

You know,

Start their morning off and people will often drink coffee or tea or juice of some sort and we'll talk about that idea of mindfulness and drinking that mindfully or taking that shower mindfully.

And I often will get feedback that,

Well,

I don't have time for that.

I don't have that extra five minutes to sit down and drink that and just be in that moment.

There's too much going on.

You know,

Maybe they have,

You know,

A busy day ahead.

Maybe they're also getting kids ready in the morning.

Maybe they have some pets they have to get ready.

Maybe it's raining out and the pets don't want to come back in or go out or the kids are having a hard time or their alarm didn't go off or they don't want to,

You know,

Set the alarm for five minutes earlier to give that five minute opportunity for just some time in now and just being.

But life busyness and getting people to live in life,

Busyness and getting caught up in the chaos of life on a constant is going to drain you and also take you away from opportunities to break patterns,

To use the awareness that's coming to surface as a way to also reflect and heal.

If you don't give space to have that happen,

It's not going to have the space to have that happen.

So again,

Keeping in mind this busyness this opportunity for pause,

Even if it's five minutes initially,

30 minute chunks of time are wonderful.

I know it might not feel like that's possible every day,

But start somewhere maybe once a week with 30 minutes and then you're going to start really enjoying it and noticing the balance it has and the positive effect it has in all these other elements of life.

And then you might see that 30 minutes isn't so hard to find in your day for some time for you.

This power of pause in life,

Giving some space in life to calm the system down,

To relax and unwind and rejuvenate.

And then there's a pause with noise.

We can fill our space and our mind with clutter and noise being just one big noise mess.

We'll often just have a TV running in the background just because we don't want silence there or music playing because the idea of silence is feels uneasy or uncomfortable.

And so we're constantly filling our mind and our mind is already jumping around from here to there.

And we still have noise and chaos and commotion in our everyday environment.

People who live in cities,

I know it can be hard to find space for silence,

To find space from noise.

You have the everyday traffic noise,

The noise of all the people,

The noise of all the energy and commotion and chaos,

The light noise,

The noise pollution that comes with that.

There's just so much around and I know it can even feel challenging at times to find an opportunity to pause within the noise.

But having that opportunity and that space for just some moments of silence,

Again,

Science is showing us the outstanding health benefits it has to have some silence.

Not only those things I've already mentioned,

But it's also showing it allows space for cell rejuvenation,

Looking at neuroplasticity and how our cells can rejuvenate and heal.

And this idea of the power of pause and silence being a vital tool in allowing that to also happen.

Recognizing that silence can maybe be a little uncomfortable initially,

But through practice,

It will get more comfortable.

Often people have,

You know,

A bit of discomfort or maybe even fear of sitting within and being within themselves.

And silence is going to lead to that sometimes,

You know,

When we're in a silence and allowing no noise and clutter and chaos and busyness,

We have to kind of sit with us.

And sometimes we fear doing that we don't want to just be with ourselves.

But that's when the deepest and most beautiful healing can happen if we just give ourselves some time and space to allow that to happen.

And comfort will come over time.

But,

You know,

Again,

Think about when you're with a person in your life that you're the most comfortable.

Silence tends to be okay.

You don't get uncomfortable with the silence.

So try to practice that with yourself.

Let yourself also be one of those most comfortable people that you can just be with and not have to avoid with chaos,

Busyness,

And commotion in your mind and around you.

And then the third area to consider here is the pause in communication.

This can be used if you tend to be a yes person,

For example,

And have some difficulty with people pleasing behavior.

You can use this power of pause instead of just going to your go to yes,

Use the power of pause,

Pause before saying yes.

Take a few breaths,

Give yourself permission and the knowledge to know that it is okay to say no when you cannot do something and it does not mean you're selfish.

You practicing self-care and self-balance is not selfish.

If just a brief pause is not working and you still have a strong desire to say yes,

Even though you'd like to say no,

Ask for more of an extended pause with your words.

Let me think this through and I'll get back to you tomorrow.

And then in the in-between,

Really practice that cognitive reframe,

The restructuring and recognition that it's okay to say no.

Maybe even practice how you're going to say no.

And then practice how you're going to say no.

Maybe even using that dear man technique that we went over in pushy people,

I believe.

So allowing this power of pause to help you from saying yes to things that you don't want to say yes to,

Those things that then end up causing exhaustion and sometimes resentment that make us lose sight of what we want and we need for our own life balance.

Another area in the pause in terms of communication is when we can find ourselves in reactive cycles.

Sometimes we can get caught up and react in communication in ways that we would not like to or want to.

And this power of pause lets us kind of stop for a moment,

Reflect for a second where we're at,

And then allow for a different choice and how we're engaging.

So this reactive cycle,

We might be mindfully aware of not wanting to react in a way,

But we're not maybe mindfully aware of where our body systems at in the moment and how it can really elevate our emotion.

So this power of pause is that recognition first and all this mindfulness awareness we've been doing in body recognition.

Thinking about in terms of that tension release cycle we went over in the release relaxed restore episode,

I think it was,

How we can hold body tension and that body tension helps to keep us elevated and primed up and ready to go.

So sometimes in this reactive cycle in communication,

We're not quite tapping in and noticing that we are maybe not breathing or we're chest breathing or our shoulders are up by our ears or clinching our jaw or tongues of the roof of our mouth and we're all kind of wound up and have all this tension going on and it's going to make us have more of a reactive cycle.

So this power of pause and communication here is using that awareness and pausing for a moment,

Checking in with your breath for a moment,

Making sure you're breathing,

Releasing a little of that tension and thinking through what you would like to say before you just say it and react.

Often as you know,

When we just react,

Then we have all that secondary regret of things we didn't mean to say or it derails the communication and conversation in a totally different direction than what any of us are even really even trying to talk about.

So allowing some release of that tension,

Allowing some breath to come in and thinking before responding.

The individual you're communicating with would probably much rather attend 15 second pause and response that's going to come across more from a place of assertiveness or a place of understanding or communication out of curiosity versus an instant response that's coming from a reactive,

Maybe even aggressive place.

So using pause and if you need an extended pause again,

Using your words to ask for that,

Being honest with where you're at.

I'm having a difficult time right now.

I'm feeling a little reactive or I'm feeling kind of edgy.

I want to take some time to process this.

Can we talk about it again in about 30 minutes so I can calm down and think this through?

So giving that boundary and space,

Giving the pause so that again you're not just reacting,

You're able to respond and have more of a discussion out of curiosity.

As we practice more the life and the noise pause,

The pause in communication becomes much easier because again we're kind of calming our whole body system down.

We're not getting into this loop in our everyday busyness which then keeps us primed and charged and often makes communication even more difficult.

Some other ways to really embrace this pause are thinking in terms of all these ways that we've been talking about daily mindfulness.

When you're practicing daily mindfulness,

You're pausing,

You're being present in the now and what you're doing.

You're not getting wrapped up in the busyness around you and in your mind.

So remembering those mindfulness techniques and practicing daily mindfulness which is just connecting back to the now.

Using breath work,

Connecting to your breath and being aware are you chest breathing?

Are you holding your breath?

Would a 4-4-8 count be helpful for you to release some of that body tension that you're holding on to?

Allowing that breath to be the anchor and then also being mindful of that body tension and doing some release work,

Letting those shoulders drop,

Letting the tongue drop from the roof of your mouth,

Etc.

Connecting with movement.

Although movement might not sound like a pause,

When you're connecting to the movement itself,

It is using the power of pause because you're connecting and just being in that moment.

That's things like walking meditation,

Connecting to every part of your foot as it connects with the earth and leaves the earth,

Connecting to that vibration and flow,

Being mindfully present in the movement itself,

Being mindfully present in the movement is a power of pause as well.

When you're dancing,

I mentioned a couple times how I love to dance and connect with that vibration of the music and the movement of my body to the music.

That's a power of pause and pausing in that moment and connecting within and with the experience that I'm in in the moment.

So movement can also be used in this power of pause.

Remembering nature and connecting with nature is a power of pause.

Those electrodes and how our hands in the earth help us connect with that vibration and healing and pausing and connecting within.

The connection in nature through hiking,

Through earthing,

With grounding our feet,

Our bare feet to the earth,

That forest bathing and getting out in the forest with the trees and with nature and connecting there.

Those are all examples of how you can also use the power of pause.

In addition,

Pausing to just connect to gratitude and beauty of what is around you.

Noticing the gorgeous sunsets and sunrises,

The different shapes in the clouds,

The freshness of the air,

The things around you that just are and in them just being,

They are beautiful.

And allowing yourself also to just connect with the feelings that you can have in each experience.

Connecting with laughter,

The feeling and vibration of laughter and how your body feels when you engage in that deep belly laughter,

For example.

Allowing yourself to be and to pause in experiences and moments will allow you to pause from this everyday busyness of life.

And remembering that when we practice this power of pause,

It doesn't have to be for hours at a time.

Maybe you only have two minutes here and there some days.

Any little bit you give yourself is giving yourself something.

And it's so important to allow ourselves permission to do that so we can also heal.

So we can also create less of this chaotic and discombobulated cycle in our whole system.

And remembering that this power of pause will allow you to decrease tension and stress in your life,

Increase your focus and energy,

Your motivation and creativity,

Allow space you can connect deeper to your intuition that all knowing that we all have within us.

Allowing you to further elevate your consciousness and create space for more downloading of information to help you grow and help you heal.

So considering and thinking about this power of pause,

The many different ways you can use it in your life and how it can then benefit you and long term,

How that then benefits life as a whole.

Because as you're healing and as you're working through things and allowing space to do so,

It's allowing space for you to grow.

It's allowing you to not get overtaxed.

Because when we overtax ourselves with busyness,

It just creates broken and splintered emotions.

It creates this distance and furtherness from our own healing.

And again,

It can pile up and be more and more challenging to let ourselves just be.

I hope you can find this helpful for you and giving yourself permission to just pause some in life.

Use it in life and your environment and in communication as needed and giving yourself permission to do so so that your body can engage and feel all the many benefits it can bring to you.

Thank you so much for spending time and space with me today.

I hope you found this helpful and I look forward to talking with you again soon.

Have a good one.

Bye.

Reviews

Well worth pausing for. Neil 😀☯️

Just what I needed to hear. Great advice well delivered. I liked the pace too. Thank you.

This talk is a great reminder to take time to pause each day. Namaste 🙏

Ohhhhhh.....you are so amazing!!! Thank you for you!!!💞

thankss you!!!, :))