The Pause - Moving into Feeling
What does this mean? One of the life lessons that I have been more fully aware of in recent months is one where we can personally access an internal place where we choose a pause or a breath or give ourselves a moment.
In past years, I was more in a reaction phase and did not understand how to get beyond it. Partially as I didn’t understand what took me there initially and kept me in that stress response loop. The stress or “fear” reactions are:
Fight where often anger surfaces first
Flight where the first thought is to escape the situation
Freeze where one can immediately feel stuck, not knowing what action to take or even a level of procrastination unfolds or
Fawn which is responding for the sake of people-pleasing the other as not to create further conflict or escalation of the situation
A key piece of each of these is the lack of a 90-second pause before the response. For me understanding the pause was a challenge as I didn’t know how to get there, however as someone who has spent much of her life in a state of observation – this too can be a synonym for the pause. Observation mode allows me to step back from the situation or encounter to see the bigger picture and delve into:
what I am feeling overall,
what am I feeling in my body,
where are my thoughts leading me,
what emotions am I aware of,
are there other things I need to observe, and
what action or response needs to be made
Recently, there have been multiple experiences to help me see the lessons and take them from theoretical to practical in a hands-on or applied style learning.
An example:
On a dog walk in a newer neighborhood, the dogs and I encountered a man walking up a perpendicular street to where we were walking who was collecting stuff off the road.
When we came to our end to determine which direction to go next, the man began verbally reacting and expounding with obscenities thrown our way and telling us to get off his block and a whole bunch of other things.
I first became aware that I was surveying myself, my thoughts, and what I was feeling while keeping an eye on the guy, and where he was.
Then I surveyed the dogs - taking in that neither had moved, not toward, away, or spoken (barked) – they were just watchful and in their own observation mode.
There were also two cyclists at different points that moved through the conversation or in between us.
For the first time, I spoke, saying Keep Moving which was the big picture message of the cyclists and they were showing me which way to move. Slowly we all moved away from one another.
The female dog started limping which she had not been, so we went back to the house – and I noticed she no longer was limping…it was her way of saying the person was hurting, barely getting by or limping along and was lashing out at whoever he would have come across in that moment.
By pausing or stepping into observation mode, I (and yes the dogs) did not add fuel to the situation instead it just ran its course while both parties (us and the guy) moved on.
And I was able to step into a calm space within myself and allow my awareness to take the lead in lieu of an immediate response or action. Given I was in that centered space - and so too were the dogs, neither their energy nor my energy created a heightened stress response in each other. As a team we remained at peace within.
After returning to the house, I had another layer to work through that the dogs did not for they had shaken off the entire experience - but knew I had not. I was dealing with some aftereffects.
The dogs asked that I release the words and the energy of the words (quit going after it like a dog with a bone) so that a higher source could take out the garbage and recycle or transform the energy.
Finding a way to drop into the pause or observation to further embody and feel through the emotions, thoughts, and awareness’s of a situation was guidance that had come through via a dream message seven months prior. Understanding the importance of the pause, to see how it played a role in the experience I had, know and believe in the gift it can offer seems a necessary component to where we are heading.
