The Sacred Pause

I could use a sacred pause. You want one, too?

I’m wishing we could sit down for tea. Some face time would feel sooo grounding. And I need it: The world feels a bit unsteady right now. Are you holding up okay?

Me? Well, let’s just say it’s been a week.

You really don’t want to read anything I might write in my current brain-swirl so I fished around in the archives and hooked a good one… for both of us!

Let’s sip our tea and read together.

Sitting together in her car after our first lunch “date," my newest friend popped the dreaded question: How do you stay so grounded? Do you have any daily rituals?

I cringed. I’m a Gemini, after all—we don’t do daily anything except breathe, and even that is optional. But when you do the type of work I do in the world (back me up on this acupuncturists, massage therapists, and earth mammas) there are perceptions to live up to.

They go kind of like this:

You wake up at 5:30 AM to meditate.

You say 3 things that you're grateful for before going to bed at night... every night.

You never eat without a prayer.

You’re vegan (or vegetarian or paleo depending on what the pre-conceiver thinks is the “right” diet).

You smile beneficently when someone treats you horridly.

You focus on the positive and only see the good in everyone, especially the person who just rear-ended you and is proceeding to scream both at you and some poor soul on the other end of his cell phone. No, you don't maul him with your super wit. You smile beneficently, picture him in the light, and send out prayers for his highest good.

Aaaaarrgghh!

I know there are people out there (and you may be one of them) who are calmed and soothed by daily routine and beneficent smiling...

...This post is for those of you who aren’t.

My husband is a daily routine kinda guy (although he has yet to master the art of the beneficent smile). He'll happily eat the same thing for breakfast every morning.

I, on the other hand, wake up and think about what I want to eat, when I want to eat it, and if, perhaps, I really want brunch instead. So there’s no way I'm gonna recite those gratitudes or perform that meditation at the same time every day. Because, let's face it, I'd be setting myself up for an annihilating failure and all the guilt that comes with it... and that doesn't seem particularly beneficent.

For those of you who, like me, prefer less structure, I'm an advocate of what I think of as the sacred pause. Life is peppered with moments that align you with your heart, your breath, and the synchronicities of everyday life.

Pause and notice when life hands you magic: it's that simple.

Here are the "rules" for creating sacred pauses in your life:

1. Serendipity happens. All the time. Notice. Be grateful. Take a deep breath and smile (beneficently, if you like).

2. Notice your surroundings as you move through them. Pause to smell the roses, make small adjustments in the arrangement of stones on your coffee table, pay attention to the flow of the water as you wash the dishes in the sink. Notice how these pauses, and this attention to your surroundings, allow you to align your inner landscape with the outer landscape.

3. Keep candles and sage, sweetgrass and frankincense on hand. Have a bunch of essential oils or crystals or tarot cards nearby. Know where your journal is. And then (and this may be radical for some of you!) allow these things to be used. They don’t need to be saved or hoarded. Enjoy incorporating ritual into your daily life in whatever way feels natural in the moment.

It’s that simple.

The Sacred Pause is the moment when a tiny knock from the universe becomes more important than balancing your checkbook or checking in on Facebook. This doesn’t mean you drop everything and run off to the nearest retreat center to get your soul straight. It means that when you become aware of a need to realign with yourself, you pause and do it right then. It’s not something you schedule for the weekend or designate as an activity during your next trip to Kripalu. You let coming back into balance be as easy as breathing.

When you listen to your inner wisdom, you quickly find your life littered with little rituals. These small gems are set within the daily: a few stones you piled by the back door because it felt right, three deep breaths of rose essential oil, hugging the oak tree in your back yard (don’t worry, no one was looking!).

Back in the car, with my new friend, I guiltily admitted that, no, I don’t wake up at dawn every day to greet the sun and sometimes I even miss the exact apex of the summer solstice.

She smiled (beneficently) and said “But I bet your day is full of little moments of wonder.”

I heaved a huge sigh of relief: this one’s a keeper.

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Allow Letting Magic In to be your invitation to rediscover wonder, deepen your connection to the world around you, and awaken the magic that’s already within—grab your copy today and begin your own journey of becoming!