How A Pause Can Change Your Life
Downtime. Is that part of your routine? If you are like most people, you struggle to find it – let alone to keep it. Busy? More often than not. Many of us are busy most of the time, if not with work then with family, domestic tasks, or our social networks – real and virtual.
Are you busier that you should be?
When I ask people how they are, they almost always answer “busy” or some variation of it. Busyness is high status. We feel we are being “sensible, logical, responsible, practical”. Ticking things off the “to do” list becomes a means of defining or perhaps escaping ourselves. Faced with that daily tension, we try to keep calm by carrying on; but what are we really missing?
Depending on where you are in the world, the timing in 2020 will be a little different, but the effect in time will be the same. Think back over the previous months, to the point where the bottom dropped out for you. Travel ceased. Schools closed. Work for many became remote. Businesses closed. Virtual home school started. And dinner out – meant eating outside of your kitchen.
It was a shock to the system, a reboot, a blackout, a blank screen.
For many, time stood still. An unanticipated pause in life was created. A forced heavy sigh. Followed by a common question: Is this real?
Then, as days stretched from weeks to months, the certainty of the preceding events began to settle. A paradigm shift from the activities and expectations of the year prior to a life completely disrupted. No longer sitting in car pool lines, commuting for hours only to go a few dozen miles, playing the sport/activity chauffer, traveling for meetings all week, going to the gym, conversing at the local coffee shop, working 2 jobs to make ends meet or having an evening out in a restaurant. Whatever your mix. Gone. Instantly.
So, in that moment – what filled your void?
For as long as I can recall, I thought of time as a commodity. A scare and desired resource. Although recently, it has become clear that time, as we experience it, varies greatly. I think of past experiences sitting mesmerized by picturesque vistas within our National Parks – 5 minutes spent awestruck is not the same as 5 minutes on the daily treadmill of busy-ness. It is different. This isn’t about bending the space-time continuum but perhaps considering time as elastic and variable rather than so linear and objective.
What momentary life memories can you recall?
Sometimes these are often overlooked, or simply displaced. But what was it that came to mind? What images? What emotions? And what did it take for that event to occur?
Yes, a pause will cost you. But which is greater, taking one or not?
Unfortunately for me, the void of 2020 was immediately replaced by coronavirus chaos. The frequency of meetings around pandemic planning, contingencies, and preparation seemed endless. Finding unique ways to encourage and empower those in the frontline fight – knowing their daily sacrificial steps. And while much of this started prior to our regional shut-down, it was markedly amplified afterwards.
But in all the busyness of trying to best prepare to care for the inevitable tsunami of patients – I became aware of my past voids. In my past, those voids created by major life changes were swiftly filled. Not by appropriate periods of grief or reflective learning – but by anything that would hide the visible tarnish of life. Of course, for some, the onslaught of the pandemic would lead to endless hours of preparation, care iteration, and clinical practice in a hot zone. Whatever your situation, it was not normal… nor will it ever be the same. But for some, the impact from the pandemic was markedly different.
So, what filled your void?
When life is disrupted and the craziness of daily activities abate, how do you embrace that vacuum? The void? More importantly,
Do you recognize the void as an opportunity – not a curse?
Although difficulty to see, it is in this void, this pause that we can interrupt the insidious slide into a meaningless routine of busyness – and reconnect with what drives us toward that impassioned, vibrant, person we once knew. Being able to lean into the finest version of yourself.
Perhaps we should look at it from a completely different perspective. What if we stopped trying to fill the void in our lives? What if instead of filling it, we sat in it for a while. Reflecting, pondering, and simply embracing it. Recognizing not only what we were perhaps missing, but embracing the pause and seeking unique insight? Instead of pitting work and life against each other, taking pause to raise or leaven your experience.
A pause, like yeast, is a vital ingredient - you don’t need much, but it is essential to grow.
Maybe the void isn’t a perpetual haunting but actually an opportunity to pause and embrace a life of significance - to become the best you that you can - something more, to rise up to my true, unique, and interesting self.
A void isn’t there to just be filled, but to be understood. It creates an opportunity to reflect and redirect.
Unfortunately for me, I didn’t embrace the pause. I immediately filled time and space with the urgency of the moment. Yes, it was for a greater good – that of my team, our patients and community. And while appropriate, in time it comes at a cost. I felt it. These overwhelming waves, a feast of cortisol in my system, creating a real adrenal drain. I felt tired and yet restless. I needed a break. I was experiencing stormy nights, of the insomnia kind, and my own weapons of self-preservation were standing to attention.
Even in these intense periods, points of reflection matter. We often forget about the healing benefits of pausing or having some down time in our lives. How often do we advise our friends and colleagues to take breaks, go on holiday or just to take a day off, yet fail to follow this good counsel ourselves? Instead, we rest on the grindstone of the urgent.
Before you fill the void with ‘what’s next’, take a minute to enjoy the space. Welcome it. Breath it in. And realign what matters most before you backfill with what’s not. Are you in the right lane of life? Life isn’t meant to be on autopilot.
Take 5 minutes today to pause and consider the following:
Accept that there is more to life than just getting things done.
Aligning what matters to you is often far greater that what is accomplished.
Am I willing to give up something to gain something far greater?