Take Time Tuesday with Purposeful Pauses

Pausing with intention...why?

A very short answer is that it slow's us down to focus on, engage with, observe, think and feel on what in a normal day would go unnoticed or be automatic.

How does one take time for purposeful pauses? Intentionally pausing to focus can look many ways such as taking time for the small things; smelling a flower, candle or cup of coffee, or maybe it's running your hand over a fluffy blanket feeling the texture, the smoothness and noticing the calming affect it has on you. It could be taking time looking at the breeze ruffling the leaves in the tree or blades of grass or observing how a kind smile brightens up your day. Or another example is of listening to the laughter of children, the stillness of the house or your breath as you slowly inhale and exhale. These are a few ways that even in the small overlooked daily things of life that one can take purposeful pauses ..... purposeful with intention..... to connect with their internal thoughts/emotions/feelings/sensations and external happenings. These pauses of connection to ones internal and external worlds can bring calmness when one feels anxiety or panic or some other intense emotion such as fear, anger, depression or more.

Practicing the Pause can help with these intense emotions which at times can feel out of one's control such as anxiety that expresses itself in a response in your body such as heart palpitations or upset stomach, etc. Imagine you are driving your car and a bull dozer from a construction site pulls out into your lane causing you to swerve into oncoming traffic. You immediately by habit react in fear and anger. Your internal thought is, "Wow I'm really angry at that bulldozer driver!" You then become angry screaming or banging your hand on the steering wheel or even yelling at the driver of the bulldozer. There is no pause in between the incident that made you angry and your reaction. In this situation, taking time to pause could be when you feel your heart beating fast and your face turning red for you to notice these things and realize you are angry or scared or anxious or whatever the intense emotion is. By taking time to pause in that moment to connect to your internal sensations, thoughts and feeling you begin to realize how to respond in healthy ways such as deep breathing, relaxation techniques, talking to a trusted person, anger management, etc to things like this that happen to you instead of automatically reacting blindly to them in unhealthy patterns such as yelling, screaming, hitting, substance abuse, sleeping all day, etc.

There are combined elements of meditation, mindfulness and grounding techniques involved in this blog. In my opinion, they are all beneficial and somewhat similar practices. I will take time in a future blog/s to talk more in depth about and define these.

Take time today for purposeful pauses. "Practice the pause!"

Shahna Duerksen, M.A. AMFT#101647

Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist

Supervised by Rose T. Gamino, LMFT #48756

1616 W. Shaw Ave., Ste. D1, Fresno, Ca. 93711

Phone: 559/512-0736, Email: Shahna.Duerksen@yahoo.com

Website: Http://shahnaduerksen.wixsite.com/therapy

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