The Power of Pause

I have spent most of life in the corporate world and I am still very much a part of it. Some people may think that embracing one's spirituality cannot go hand in hand with holding a job in the corporate world. While there is indeed not much in common between both the communities, I enjoy straddling both because I love the intellectual stimulation from being part of dealing with practical and business challenges and also love the wisdom and expansion I get from my spiritual quests.

Spending most waking hours in a regular corporate job means productivity, efficiency and extracting the maximum out of available time and budget get baked into the DNA of an employee even when working for the most ethical of organizations. We have been taught about the power of taking action, being our very best and showing up as the very best in everything we do. Granted this requires a lot of  'doing' and taking on more and more stress upon ourselves in the quest to do more, be better in every way. Over time stress builds up and we create a pattern of creating stress and it becomes our way of life as more stress is attracted into our life. As we get accustomed to this way of life it becomes even more difficult to shift it because however toxic it may be, it feels familiar and we feel safe because it is a known beast and we apply our favoured coping mechanism such as avoiding facing it, drowning it with something more pleasant potentially leading to an addiction,  projecting our negativity on to something or someone else etc...

In this world of doing and more doing, the power of taking a pause is not only cathartic but also essential to maintain our sanity and to limit our energy from getting depleted due to prolonged stress that many of us have carried for years. Taking a pause helps the head to drop into heart and the excess mental energy to dissipate and for the voice of the heart to be heard - which always steers one in the right direction. By consciously pausing several times in a busy day we create new patterns of taking care of ourselves and by doing so reaffirm to ourselves our desire and choice to prioritize ourselves over the humdrum of daily chores or work life. This further helps us feel in charge of the situation and helps create a pattern of choosing our free will to care for ourselves.