Finding the Pause

One of the ways I want to care of myself in this new year is to find more spaces to pause. Sometimes I need to pause to be still and go inside of myself. Sometimes I need to pause before I respond to a family member or friend.

I know there have been a few times recently that I have responded to loved ones without finding a pause before I spoke, and the results were not what I wanted. I offer myself grace for this, because we are all hard-wired to react through freezing, fleeing, fighting or appeasing. But when you do this in your friendships, marriage or with family this means your unconscious mind is running the show.

Mindfulness is the art of learning to be intentional to make space for a pause in both our day and in our response to one another. The following quote is attributed to Viktor E. Frankl, but there is some dispute about the authorship. Regardless of who wrote it, these words pierce my heart everytime I hear them.

Between stimulus and response there is space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

I am truly worried about the polarization in this world right now. Social media reinforces this by sending us links to articles of people who think just like we do. I have heard several Enneagram teachers speak about how Germany was an Enneagram 6 country before and during the Holocaust. If you are not familiar with the Enneagram, it is a wonderful personality typing system and when the Enneagram 6 is in an unhealthy place they can become caught in fear or tribalistic thinking and blindly follow authority figures. You don’t have to be an Enneagram 6 to get caught in the trap of fear.

My yoga practice helps lower my cortisol levels and fear, and calms my nervous system through breath and movement. Yoga helps me practice self-compassion, breathing, mindfulness, stillness, paying attention to my body, heart and thoughts and this practice of stillness and movement, informs how I show up off the mat. Do I continue to have moments of reactivity? YES! But I know the pathway to a full life is through consciously finding moments to pause internally or in how I respond to others, so I might live more abundantly.

To learn more about the Enneagram & Yoga, please check out my website:

www.enneagramplusyoga.com

Let’s find the pause,

Christy