Photo: What Pause Gives…
I set an intention each year to spend some time in solitude – it’s where I replenish myself, where I can hear the stillness that nourishes and soothes my sometimes frazzled mind, body and soul. It’s my time to pause… However, clinic can be busy and the chance of a few days away alone can seem impossible to achieve.
Photo: Me before Pause; a little frazzled!
It’s then I remind myself of a beautiful quote I saw many years ago about the importance of Pause:
“The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes – ah, that is where the art resides” Artur Schnabel
And so, I took some time to run away to stillness…I can highly recommend it! For as humans, it is when we sleep that we are rejuvenated; when we pause that we are renewed and made strong for the next step on our journey. It’s certainly where I remember my pace, my purpose and my passions. Pause gives each of us a chance to check that we want to be going in the direction we’re headed!
Photo: Me after Pause
But our world favours Fast rather than Slow and it can be easy for weeks or months or even years to pass without pausing to check that we’re still happy with the life we’re living and the person we’re becoming. You’ve heard it before and it still holds true: Most people spend more time choosing their holiday destination than they do the direction of their life or the legacy they are living. Because each one of us leaves a legacy; what it looks like depends on the habits we develop and the behaviours we engage in each day, every day.
Some of those habits can be good for us: brushing our teeth, regular exercise, cutting back on caffeine. Others can be tough on our bodies: drinking to excess, not getting enough sleep, eating junk food. Some habits, the ones we often don’t even know we have, are detrimental to our wellbeing: saying Yes when we mean No, always putting other people’s needs ahead of our own, not doing the things that make your heart sing, not finding time to discover what makes your heart sing or perhaps giving up the dream you once had for yourself, a long time ago.
Take a moment today to remember your dream for You. What’s the legacy you’re living and leaving? If it’s not how you want it to be, that’s okay. There’s time to change and that time is NOW! Get in touch if I can help in any way.
Enjoy this amazing poem by Dawna Marcova that I love:
“I will not die an unlived life,
I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid, more accessible,
to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance, to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom, and that which came to me as blossom goes on as fruit.”