Pause!

I don’t know about you, but life sometimes feels like it’s running away from me at around a million miles an hour!! I think as a parent, and the current stage I find myself in, it feels even more the case and as the day draws to a close I often feel exhausted, yet at the same time as if I’ve not accomplished anything!

As kids, we seem to navigate this fast-paced life with ease … I’m not sure where that shift changes, although am sure the additional responsibilities of adulthood have something to do with it! Yet I have to ask myself if part of the problem is that we, as adults, forget to press pause and notice the simple things. Think about it; kids have this innate ability to observe everything around them, the chaos and the calm, and appreciate all that brings to their day. From the tiny bug they notice on the ground, to the enchantment in their eyes that accompanies their vast imaginations, their ability to embrace it all became a lost art as an adult.

And so I ask myself, how can I make a shift? What is one action that I can actively strive to do each day so that even on the toughest days, I can pause and take a breath? And I think that‘s wherein the challenge initially comes from! You see, the perception is that this ‘pause’ has to be a big, obvious moment of time and that if it doesn’t include some kind of ‘self-care’ activity, it doesn’t count. In reality, however, the complete opposite is true! You see, when the genius created the pause button on the remote control, he demonstrated that you don’t have to miss out on that movie just because you need to go to the bathroom or answer a phone call. In fact, you can even press pause and come back to it on a different day and don’t have to miss knowing the ending at all!

And that’s it right there! Just as we have learned to hit pause on our favorite tv show, perhaps we need to embrace that same approach with life - recognizing that life will be ok if we pause long enough to catch our breath!

So in the coming days, I challenge you to find a moment in your day, hit ‘pause’, and take a deep inhale and exhale. That’s it!! No big celebration or party, just one, deep breath! In time, you may decide to give yourself permission to pause and enjoy that cup of coffee for 5 minutes, no guilt attached! Or, maybe before you go to bed each night, you pause to write down one thing you are grateful for from the day you just completed so you can recognize you did accomplish something! Whatever it is, PAUSE and take space for you!!!

We were never promised that life would be easy, yet we can promise ourselves that we deserve a moment in our day where our sole focus is on ourselves. So whether you have to set an alarm on your phone, or a scheduled appointment each day, take time for to pause and notice how even a single breath really does help to slow down time!