Episode 92 - The Power of the Pause
Episode 92 - The Power of the Pause
Hello, my friends!
Welcome to the podcast and to 2024.
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season.
Before I get started I wanted to make one more plug for my upcoming Season of Connection Group that will be starting next week on Tuesday, January 9th.
It is a 6-week group on creating greater connections in our relationships.
Do you wish you felt more connection in your relationship with your husband now that you are empty-nesters?
Do you wish you felt more connection in your relationship with your adult children even though they have stepped away from the faith you love?
Do you wish you felt more connection in your relationship with yourself now that you are in the midseason of life?
If this sounds like you, please join us for 6-weeks of learning and coaching on any relationship you are struggling with.
Click the link in the show notes to learn more. The doors will close this Friday, January 12th at midnight. It is only $30 which is a steal for what you are going to get. I won’t be offering it for this price again. So don’t wait. Come and join me as we work to create greater connection in our relationships.
Now on to this week’s episode.
Recently I was pondering on the idea of reacting vs responding and I believe the difference between the two is the pause.
Viktor Frankl said, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
When you use that space after a stimulus to pause, we give ourselves room to respond instead of react.
I don’t know about you but in the past, I have found myself writing down the same goals from year to year. Many of them were things I believed I needed to have as goals. And each year in January, I would beat myself up because I hadn’t reached my “goals.”
I want to invite you to consider the beginning of this new year as a space to pause. Instead of moving into 2024 with the same reactions or the same repurposed resolutions we had in 2023, let’s pause and give ourselves some room to consider how we would like to respond this year on purpose.
I am going to be revisiting what I call The Pause Principle. This has 3 components–pause to process, ponder, and protect. If you go back to episodes 2, 3, and 4 I go into detail on The Pause Principle.
First, I want to invite you to pause to process the negative emotions that you haven’t allowed yourself to feel or had time to feel from the last year–The sadness, the grief, the frustration, or the disappointment you felt because things didn’t go like you thought they would in 2023.
Don’t just beat yourself because you feel those emotions. You have good reasons for feeling the way you do. But for this discussion, I invite you to let yourself feel what you feel as you reflect on the last year. Your emotions won’t hurt. They are actually trying to tell you something. They can be your greatest teachers.
However, when we don’t process our emotions that is exactly when we are more likely to react in a way that we probably won’t be proud of later.
Here is an example. Let’s say, as you look back at 2023, you feel sad because your adult child has chosen to leave the faith you raised them in and that you love. Of course you feel sad about this. It makes sense that you do. However, you haven’t really processed the sadness. You may be stuck in it and may possibly even be wallowing in the sadness. Or, you may have moved into anger because you don’t want to be sad anymore.
As you reflect on the interactions from the last year, you can see how the unprocessed feelings of sadness or anger affected the relationship you have with this child.
Let’s just feel sad right now. Let it be there. Open up to this feeling and observe yourself feeling it. Where is it in your body? What does it feel like in your body? What color is it? Is it hot or cold? Is it heavy or light? Soft or sharp? Is it moving or holding still? It may not be sadness or anger you are feeling today. Whatever emotion you are feeling, feel it.
Again, at the end of the day, this emotion will not hurt you. It is a vibration in your body. It doesn’t feel great but it is the very thing that will help you move through this experience and on to something that will serve you better.
Next, we want to pause to ponder.
Many people run on autopilot. I know for a long time I did. We just keep doing what we have always done without questioning why. Or we may believe that our environment, culture, family, and/or our boss are causing us to not have the life we want. In either case, we are not pausing to ponder on what we really want or don’t want in our life. We are reacting to our life.
Whether we are doing it on purpose or not, we all create what we do or don’t have in our lives.
This isn’t about blaming ourselves but taking responsibility. This is so empowering. If we are the ones creating what we have right now in our lives, we have the power to create something different when we are ready to.
To me pausing to ponder is about getting curious and asking questions about what I want to create in my life. Asking questions that will help me start living my life instead of just surviving my life.
Here are some questions to consider as you move into 2024:
In the coming year, what values and priorities are important to me?
In the coming year, what kind of person do I want to be?
In the coming year, how can I be an example of what is possible?
In the coming year, what beliefs do I need to let go of that no longer serve me?
In the coming year, what beliefs can I choose to practice that will help me move toward the person I want to become?
In the coming year, how can I be an influence for good in the world?
Here are a couple of things I have been pondering.
I want to be the kind of person who takes care of their body because I honor it for all it has done for me all these years of living. When I practice believing this, I feel grateful. This helps me take action to take care of my body because I honor it not because I believe I have to or that I would be better in some way.
I also want to be an example of what is possible. My word for the year is possibilities. It is possible to continue to grow a new business at the age of 55. It is possible to have beautiful relationships with my adult children even though they have stepped away from the faith I love. It is possible that loving myself more helps me love others better. It is possible to have boundaries that are loving and kind. It is possible that it is never too late to learn new things.
Taking the time to ask questions helps us invite intention and purpose into our lives.
Now, this awareness that comes from asking these questions is an important first step but what happens after we have figured out what we intentionally want to create in our lives?
How do we live on purpose?
This is all part of the final piece of The Pause Principle, Pause to Protect.
Once we get clear on our values, priorities, and desires, we need to pause to consider how to live in a way that protects our intentions.
I am now going to share with you 3 ways to Pause to Protect.
Look to the future.
Looking to the future to create more of what you want is powerful. So often, we try to create from the past. But the past beliefs haven’t been able to get us where we want to go. If they did, we would be there by now. We need to start creating from the future. Accomplishing something we have never been able to achieve before needs to come from a place of possibilities which lies in the future.
For example, when I was struggling in a relationship a few years ago, I told myself that I didn’t know how to move forward. I didn’t know where to start. It felt overwhelming and so I just wallowed in sadness and frustration. But when I thought about why I wanted a different relationship with this person, I decided I wanted to protect my purpose. Protect the values that encouraged me to share love and kindness. Protect the person I wanted to be in the relationship. Protect the goodness I wanted to share. So I took the next step and then the next and then the next towards a stronger relationship.
Start saying “no”.
What do you need to start saying “no” to in your life? This can definitely include eliminating activities that are not helping you reach your goal. Doing this is great and can allow you to create more space in your life for what you want to create more intentionally. But, I am also suggesting that it includes more than that. It means saying “no” to being the victim of your story. It means saying “no” to putting other people in charge of your emotions. It means saying “no” to showing up in your life reactionary and not in line with who you want to be. It means saying “no” to believing you are not enough. Saying “no” to playing small in your life. It means saying “no” to blaming others or shaming yourself.
When I realized that feeling the never ending loop of self-pity and frustration wasn’t helping me create more joy in my life, I decided that I needed to start staying no. I had to say “no” to the belief that people “should” believe, think, feel or do what I thought they should. I had to start saying “no” to the idea that the reason I was feeling those negative feelings was someone else's fault. I needed to start saying “no” to the idea that there was something wrong with me. I had to say “no” to resisting, reacting, and avoiding my emotions. I had to say “no” to the adversary who was trying to convince me that I wasn’t good enough. I had to say “no” to not showing up as the person I wanted to be.
By saying no to things like these, we can start saying “yes” to what we really want.
This leads me to #3.
Start saying “yes”.
What do you need to start saying “yes” to in your life? Are you ready to say “yes” to processing your emotions? Are you ready to say “yes” to being uncomfortable? Saying “yes” to putting yourself out there and trying new things. Saying “yes” to failure. Saying “yes” to opportunities that feel scary (like this podcast). Saying “yes” to embracing all of you, the good and the bad. Saying “yes” to believing that it is ok not to be perfect and “yes” to being human. Saying “yes” to feeling love for everyone in your story. Saying “yes” to aligning yourself with who you really want to be and with who God created you to be. Then deliberately and intentionally choosing that.
I have said “yes” more in the last 5 years than ever before. I have learned so many things because I have been willing to say “yes” even when I was afraid to. Saying “yes” has included feeling uncomfortable and maybe even a little embarrassed. It has included embracing failure knowing that it really isn’t failure but learning if I keep trying. Saying “yes” to progressing, improving, and becoming AND saying “yes” to loving and accepting myself through the process.
I truly believe that when we can access the wisdom and beliefs from our future self while also learning what to say “no” to and what to say “yes” to is the key to real growth and joy.
I am not saying that I am perfect in this process of protecting and being intentional, but it is something I have found is worth practicing.
So I ask you, have you paused to consider what your priorities, values, and desires are for 2024? What could your life look like by the end of the year if you could begin to honor and protect these now?
We are all creators. It is in our DNA as children of God. We are always either intentionally or unintentionally creating.
We are always creating.
What do you want to create on purpose in 2024?
I invite you to consider the following:
What is one thing that your future self believes that she could share with you to help you in 2024?
Is there something in your life that you could begin saying “no” to this year?
Is there something you could begin saying “yes” to in 2024?
What opportunities are you willing to lean into, even if it means feeling uncomfortable in 2024?
What do you want to create in 2024?
Applying these 3 parts of the pause principle has changed my life. Pausing to process, pausing to ponder and pausing to protect has allowed me to embrace that I am not in a mid-life crisis but a season of awakening. This has become my mantra. This has become my belief and I am fully embracing it. I have discovered that It is never too late to awaken and remember who you are. It is never too late to learn new things. It’s never too late to live a life you love. It is never too late to create a season of awakening and it can be so beautiful.
I invite you to take some time to pause as we enter this new year to process, to ponder, and to protect as you create an amazing 2024.
That is all I have for you.
Thank you for being here.
Mentioned in the podcast:
Seasons of Joy Podcast Episode #2 - Pause to Process
Seasons of Joy Podcast Episode #3 - Pause to Ponder
Seasons of Joy Podcast Episode #4 - Pause to Protect
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