Permission to Pause: What Happens When You Do?
I’m Feeling Disheveled Today—and Why That’s Ok
I’m feeling disheveled today
And I decided to let it be ok to not only FEEL this way,
but also to make a video for you while I look disheveled as well!
(The link to the video is at the bottom of this post!)
I’m never perfect. I often feel other people are. And I figure we need a good reminder that we are ALL human. Today, I figured I’d be the reminder for all of us!
Between Worlds: Jet Lagged, Ragged, and Learning to Pause
I find myself between worlds right now.
I just came back from guiding a really beautiful, transformative retreat in the South of France. I’m really happy (and proud) of how my curating of gentle adventures and combining our hours with the just-right mix of soft yoga and restorative and private time resulted in lots of laughter and sharing and beautiful moments in a beautiful place with these beautiful women. We all left changed.
But…I am jet lagged and emotionally ragged—in and out and up and down of next steps and knowing that I need to press pause to reflect, to absorb and let this all unfold before I step into life.
I’ve been fighting this inclination and this WISDOM to pause since I got back
I’ve exhausted myself by fighting all the feelings instead of letting them be, instead of sitting with them and being curious about them.
Fight fight fight…
for what? I’m not sure.
Or perhaps I am sure: Our Nervous System likes to take charge of protecting us from anything and everything that might rock the boat…even when it means undoing what we’ve worked to do, to change, to become. Pausing soothes this nervous system…kind of softens its fight, its bite.
Resting in the Liminal Space: Nothingness That Holds Everything
This morning—early because I’m still on France time—
my dreams and angels and true self granted me the permission and grace
to stop…
to let me be,
to breathe,
to rest in this liminal space of nothingness,
which contains everything-ness.
Rest because rest allows us the space we need to breathe and to receive what comes to us, what comes FROM us. Rest allows us to see IN this moment and to feel beyond this moment. Rest allows us to receive without feeling compelled to hide from, to censor, to edit. We rest instead of forcing ourself to the next and the next…
Forcing never works to our greatest advantage.
Forcing—an issue, ourself, someone else—makes us tyrants,
makes us shut down. Forcing shuts down our spark and shuts down what could grow into something beautiful and deeply satisfying.
How I’m Growing Trust in My Body (Even in the Messiness, Perhaps BECAUSE of the Messiness)
Pushing and shoving ourself in ANY direction
results in more fatigue, more disappointment, more fear, more self-blame, more self-shaming.
Can we let things unfold?
OMG just saying this out loud makes me want to hide my disheveled, uneyebrowed face!
But I resolved this morning that I’m here for the expansion, for the unfolding, for the whatever comes.
I’m here to grow trust in myself via trust in my body, using all tools and strategies that I have, learn, borrow…
Disheveled, Anxious, and Staying Right Here
I set my intention to sit and stay right here right now, in this place, with all the wiggles of discomfort, all the squirms of yuckiness, all the spiders of anxiety crawling in my gut and throat and along my arms.
I am staying right here.
And you know, I’ll always sit right here with you
should you want me to do that.
I’m Paula Strupeck Gardner and I’m staying right here right now in all the dishevelment!
blessings,
paula.
Here’s about me! Tell me about you!
And here’s about my work. Is there something I might help you with?
Let me know how this lands with you by commenting below!
Oh…and the link to the video…here it is
