Practicing the Pause
Will you take a moment and pause?
Next, will you take a deep breath. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Isn’t it great to be able to take a pause and a deep breath?
To truly be exactly where you are right now instead of caught up in your head and moving around on autopilot?
Here are a few more pictures from the two weeks I spent in Ireland last summer in June 2022.
It was every bit as beautiful as I had dreamed it would be.
I went to Ireland to share my research and learn from the researchers at Trinity College’s Trinity Centre for Ageing and Intellectual Disability.
But this trip became about more than research. It gave me the opportunity to truly pause, get out of my head, typically rhythms, and have extra time to reflect.
I reflected on what has been and considered what I wanted to do next.
These incredible views certainly helped.
The sounds of beautiful Irish voices singing songs bubbling out of pubs as I wanted by and as I savored a meal with new friends inside. I grew up playing mandolin with my family in a bluegrass band. Bluegrass was certainly the background music of much of my childhood.
As I walked down a historic street in Dublin with a new colleague, there was one Irish singer playing a guitar and he was singing a familiar song. As this Irishman sang a line about “West Virginia”, I was flooded with memories of my dad and his saying “Can you hear your people?”He taught me how to play mandolin and I can remember him playing music as an example of what he was trying to teach me. With songs with Irish influence he would ask these questions to acknowledge our Irish ancestry and make the point that music was “in our DNA”. Dad passed in 2020, but he would have loved walking that street with me. He would have certainly “paused” for a long time to soak in more of the music that gave him so much joy.
What we see and what we hear can make us pause. But sometimes we just need to make it an intentional action.
I was recently working with a youth that has autism and ADHD. His family member was sharing how he was having a hard time finishing one task like bringing in the groceries before he jumped to the next. They shared their frustration and other examples of how he was just rushing through things. For example, bringing in the groceries he would haphazardly put them on different counters and then not finish this task before getting distracted and doing something else. This is particularly challenging for people navigating life with ADHD or autism; but, it is common for all of us.
Does this sound familiar?
I sat back in my chair and said “sounds like it would help if you could ‘practice the pause’”. I hadn’t phrased it in this way with patients before; but, as I said it out loud and shared how I have to work to do this too, it all seemed to resonate. I told them I want to get better at doing this too.
We talked about strategies to help him pausing so he could stop and think about what he is doing and what he needs to do next. He can then do the one thing. Then pause again before moving to the next. We discussed how he could put reminders around him to do this.
So what is a “pause”? Pause, a noun, is defined as “a temporary stop in action or speech”.
In the way I am referring to a pause, this can come in many shapes and sizes including:
a literal moment in time
a day a week set side to rest, play, reflect, and receive the energy it gives to dream for the future - I like to think of this as a “sabbath pause”
a trip that changes your rhythms and helps you take a pause outside of your familiar environment. This can sometimes be the ultimate way to show us how we have been functioning on autopilot. My trip to 2022 Ireland trip helped do this for me.
I don’t think I need to convince you that pausing is important. But, I will leave you with two final reasons to consider.
You need it. You are not a machine. But like a machine, you cannot keep going without routine maintenance. For us, this means pausing and eliminating the temptation to feel rushed, behind, or like we are what we produce. Journaling is one tool that helps me practice the pause.
You deserve it. Pausing helps us “be here now” mindfully. It can help us savor what is. And even when we are suffering it can make suffering more tolerable.
By “practicing the pause” we can see what we have accomplished and be thoughtful of what we are choose to do next. We can delight in that precious moment regardless of what is happening and we can see details we may have missed
the beautiful blue sky
the amazing terrain around us
beautiful music and accents that become the soundtracks of our lives.
I’m excited to be heading back to Ireland again this summer. But I assure you I will be continuing to practice the pause every day, multiple times a day, until then.
What are strategies that help you pause? I look forward to hearing from you.
