What is more effective than action?
Have you had the experience of talking to someone that never pauses during the conversation? Have you noticed that this can becomes exhausting and at some point, it feels like you can’t hear anything. It all rolls' merges together as “noise”.
Our lives can start to feel like this when we don’t have the space to take in and digest what is happening.
Most of us have experienced addiction to action in different degrees. Have you tried to salve the discomfort of stillnes with tasking, busyness, and or planning? I know I certainly have.
The impressive part of it all is that I truly thought that it helped keep me moving forward, achieve my goals faster or that it would ameliorate the end of my discomfort. Turns out it really did none of those things.
My actions driven by the impulse for escaping discomfort only resulted in half-baked ideas, steps that didn’t really make much impact, and guess what? my discomfort was only prolonged. Ha! Interesting...
As a culture, we struggle with this addiction because we have been taught that effort and action equals results. You can’t achieve anything by doing nothing, right?
The problem with this theory is that when we act from a place of fear or to avoid the unknown, insecurities or an avoidance of space, we are energizing a movement from something rather than an inspired movement to something. Can you feel the huge energetic difference this has?
In the first scenario, we will most likely create more of the same, which in essence results in the very situation causing discomfort. Fear & resistance are subpar allies for creating your life at a genius level.
Even if you don’t feel like you are running from fear or discomfort, perpetual busyness allows little space for new insights, for reflection, a route adjustment or for help.
So this is your invitation to take a very powerful step, one I take on a regular basis: The step of pausing.
The choice to meet our discomfort, the unknown, our insecurities, the space, our current choices and let it open us to expand, to listen more deeply and to see from new vantage points.
In the pause we can rest. We can release. We can reset.
We can begin again, in a more whole and integrated beingness, rather than fractured one that is running in a million different directions.
In the pause we are able to simplify what we were perceiving as complex.
We can remember that the other side of action and pursuit is equally vital in any creative endeavor...
The other side is pausing and allowing.
You can only do so much in growing a garden, and then you have to pause and let the roots take, let the sunshine and the rain works it part.
Part of the gift of a garden is also witnessing its beauty as it evolves in each stage of its becoming.
In the pause we honor our worthiness to receive what we seek. Otherwise, we get trapped in a repetitive loop of filling the void inside with whatever we think will make us whole. (I also tested this theory unsuccessfully.)
During this eclipse season, the power of the pause will be even more pronounced, so I want to share some of my favorite ways to absorb its effects:
Tech breaks throughout the day.
Closing your eyes and rehoming your energy.
Sitting outside and looking around at the plants and trees.
Laying in stillness on your yoga mat or any place you enjoy.
Activating your senses, I love smelling an essential oil and receiving the scent and the experience that comes with it.
Taking deep, slow, cleansing breaths.
Taking breaks from any “work” throughout the day.
Napping
Can you think of anything else energetically aligned with these? Go do it!
My best insights, moments of clarity and peace have followed pauses, whether long or short.
May you too experience the power of these practices.
Behold the new paradigm: both action and rest are integral parts of the creative process and, actually, entering this process from a state of balance and ease will be far more effective in the long run.
So, off to the pause, my friend!
With Love, Jill