034 – Mini Musing: Embracing the Pause

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Hello, welcome. I’m Sarah Tacy. And this is Threshold Moments, the podcast where guests and I share stories about the process of updating into truer versions of ourselves. The path is unknown. And the poll feels real. Together we share our grief, laughter, love and life saving tools. Join us.

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Hello, and welcome to threshold moments podcast. I am your host, Sarah Tacy Tangredi.

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It’s been a minute, I had to take a pause. I chose to take a pause. Life had many transitions coming. Some were known, many were unknown. Some challenges were known and many were unknown. And I feel like I want to talk about this pause that I took for the podcast, I really feel like it’s worth it in the conversation about health. And I want to talk about the idea of a pause as one of the bases for nervous system health. Let me give you a few examples. Around September 8, 9, 10, we find out that our child care support is going to be leaving and this woman is just so near and dear to all of our hearts, that there is deep grief. There’s also unknown of logistics.

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At the very same similar time, I’m laying in bed at night, and Facebook opens up on my phone. And I have no idea how this happens. Because I don’t know where the app is on my phone. I don’t generally use it. And then I send messages and I open it up. And I have two invitations that came out a while ago that I would have totally missed because the events were just a few days away from when I open it. This is all going to kind of give you a feel of what was stalking and then where the pauses came in. So one was saying, hey, Marianne Williamson is coming to Maine. And it was an invite to interview her in person for this podcast. Now if you don’t new know who Marianne Williamson is, that’s okay. For me, I’ve had her book return to love in with like my most sacred books for about 20 years. In 2020. She ran for presidency. And she is running again in 2024. And I was so excited to have her on. I was so excited that I literally was like, sprinting in place. And at the same time, I received an invitation from my teacher in Costa Rica, who I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see them again. The institute closed down in 2016. One of my two teachers is end stage Alzheimer’s and his wife invited all like the past faculty to Costa Rica. all expenses paid to come celebrate his birthday. And it was like three days from when I opened the message. And I was like, oh my god, we’re going to Costa Rica next week. Steve is also leaving. We have no childcare. I’m going to be interviewing Marianne Williamson the day before. Everything was moving fast. I woke up one morning, physically dizzy.

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And so I reached out for help. And I reached out to Bridgette vixens. And she is so kindly made space for me. And during that session, she said how is your meditation practice? Because I was like, and then when I get back from Costa Rica, I’ll have one day, someone new might be starting up with her family. And then I’ll be assisting alchemical alignment and going to New York. And there’s just a lot of speed.

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And the invitation for meditation could have also been her saying,

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and could you have the discipline to build in a pause?

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I laughed when she asked the question. I felt no shame. I felt like she gave me the medicine I needed. The session itself, of course had more layers. But that one question felt like the answer that I needed. Could I add a purposeful pause when things start stacking

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and life opportunities are moving fast opportunities I want to say yes to

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and some things that I wasn’t expecting. Another thing I wasn’t expecting was that my passport was expired. And so I had to call the representative the state and see if I could get an expedited passport and it was a whole day’s worth of work.

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And so I began to build in pauses

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into the meditations. And then instead of doing the interview on the 12th, with Marianne, and then flying out on the 13th, I let go of the, it’s okay, I’ll just get Leslie by just I don’t want to miss anything and just, I’m gonna go, I’m going to be a day late to this retreat, I’m going to show up in my right timing and give my system time to come down from the interview to pack with ease. And then when I was in Costa Rica, and there were still a lot of unknowns.

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And I got to celebrate Don, and I got to look him in the eyes and feel those radiant love. Then there was a point where I knew that all my needs were met with this trip. And I got to connect with so many people, and to think Amba, and to think done and to meet with old friends and new friends. And remember the rawness of the yoga that was so deeply inspired me.

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So I left a day early, I again, like the don’t miss a thing. And I left a day early, and I had a day to come home and land

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before starting the next cycle of assisting

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traveling to New York. And so my pauses that I have very much learned through this practice of nervous system support was to build in spaces for coming down. And to build in the pauses that are often called in this situation meditation, to build in stillness when life was moving so fast.

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So when I first took a course, on starting a podcast last year, around this time, where I was like, not on my radar, and my friend hosted this woman who was helping people started their podcasts, and I was like, Oh, my God, this is a dream I never knew I had.

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I mean, to do this, I feel called, I can’t believe I’m gonna do this. I’m consistent at not being consistent. So how am I going to put out weekly podcasts, but I felt so strong, the poll was so strong,

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that I just went forward.

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Because that’s how I do know, that’s how I do life. I listen, and I wait for the poll. And then I move forward. And in June, I had like 10, or 12 podcasts in the queue, ready to go so that when the editor went on vacation, no big deal, I had them done ahead of time. And when she got back, I was able to do a few more. And then I hit my own wall. Again, I told you life transitions that are predictable and unpredictable. And I work with softer sounds. And they are very much in alignment with the idea of

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like soft and gentle and gentle with yourself and sustainability. And

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I was a nervous system care. The so my editor said, Well, do you want to take a pause? Do you want to take a break? And in my mind from the course I had taken was like, No, you can’t take a break. If I take a break, then I won’t continue. Or I won’t be consistent. If I know I can break, then I’m going to break more often. And then I’m going to lose my consistency and then I’m going to lose my momentum. And there was this all or nothing story. But I had to Yeah, I had to make that choice. Am I gonna go with the all or nothing? Or am I gonna listen to my body and say actually, if

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if I put out a podcast for next week, I’m kind of going against everything I’m preaching, which is to listen to my body to go at a pace that is true.

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To not subscribe to the hustle culture.

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On a nervous system map, there are all these realms above and below health.

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And one of them is called Global high intensity activation. And this is the Go Coco

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hustle, boss babe culture. And I think you heard Amina all tie, the podcast she did with me here, speak about where she built her own business and had her own staff and it was her own vision. And she just kept going and going so hard. And

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to me it sounded like was everything to everybody and got blood tests back and the doctors were like wherever you’re at, turn around, come to the hospital. You’re about to have multiple organ failure.

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And so that hustle culture is like you go until

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until you get back

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that huge threshold moment where life once you know more.

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And so the idea of having a pause the idea of tuning in, is that you begin to live life at a more digestible pace.

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So the other element I want to add, I think there are two elements I want to touch on today. One is the idea of a pause. And the other is the idea that as we’re doing nervous system regulation, it doesn’t have to be

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all about trauma

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doesn’t have to be all about the heart.

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And as Bridget Fixman said, when she was on the podcast, we start with health. And when things seem really hard, we move to stability.

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So that I’m going to put in some of my own words here, this will all tie together.

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And that if you can imagine, in your body, you have memories of times that were really hard memories of times in which you may have felt powerless, and you did not feel like you overcame the challenge in a way that felt empowering.

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You can imagine that little one inside of you.

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And then when you ask the question, Who would I want to meet that little one?

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Most likely, it’s not the adult self that is like looping out of control, super stressed, global high intensity activation, let me try to quickly fix you fix you so that I can be comfortable.

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Most likely, you would want a present time adult with present time eyes with present time heart with present time thinking with awareness of body

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to come and be stable as you meet that young part of yourself,

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then this is not a shame game. This is actually just inviting in that when we are feeling something hard. We’re not going to bypass it. But is there any possibility that we could find something that could even be parallel to it that is pleasurable, that is neutral that is resourcing.

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So it might be that I like notice a tree or I go out for a walk, while I talk about the hard thing with a friend

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is like I get to like accompany the hard thing with a resource.

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And so one of the resources that I want to talk about today is the pause not just because I took a pause on the podcast. But also because I think it’s I think it’s our way into all resources. So if I were to define and highlight pause, I would say a pause is where all other resources become available.

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Now, when you think about the pause I took for the podcast, it’s not that suddenly, all the hard things went away and the challenges one way like they kind of kept coming

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might have it’s a little less stalking because I wasn’t also trying to do this other thing on top of it.

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But when I say a pause is where all other resources become available.

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I’m speaking a little bit more to in the moment, when something challenging comes up or something from the past is activated.

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If we can take a pause,

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we may be able to find that we have other resources available to us.

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For some people that may be that they have their spirit team, they may have ancestors or God that they happen to they may have again nature, they may have a body scanning technique, they may listen to music, but that might be you know, you might need like a bigger pause to do that. But someone says something you feel activated. You pause you take a breath,

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you become a more well resourced adult, to handle the challenge to be with a challenge even to be in the tension field that we talked about last week,

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Viktor Frankl who was a Holocaust survivor, and I believe he was a psychologist,

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before he was in one of the camps, and clearly after he said something like between stimulus and response, there is the space

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in that space is our power to choose our response.

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In our response, lies our growth and our freedom.

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In that space is our power to choose our response.

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In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

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So to me this talks about the element of

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Pause and choose.

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And I’m smiling because I’m thinking about a presentation I did at Emerald Lilia strums ignite your business retreat.

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And I turned on music and generally at a retreat, or at a summit, like someone will turn on music, and I purposely want you to jump up and down to change your state. And when your state changes to happy and excited, you’re more likely to think about bigger possibilities, you’re more likely to dream bigger, you’re more likely to feel more highly resourced. So it’s very much the right purpose so that you can feel better in the moment, and dream bigger.

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I decided to turn on music

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and asked him to pause.

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I said, Please don’t dance because everyone else was dancing.

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Wait until you have an impulse. And if you have an impulse, if you feel an impulse to move, then move.

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If you feel an impulse

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to relax deeper into your chair, or the next deeper into your chair, if you want to leave the room while everyone dances leave the room until you feel pulled in. And if you don’t feel pulled in, you stay out there until you want to come in.

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And I was calling it pause, feel choose.

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I’m going to do a separate podcast on choice. It’s a really big one, it’s in 21 days of support, pause. It’s also in 21 days of support.

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And so the acronym that I used was PF Chang. And you know, that’s a very famous popular restaurant in the United States. And although this has nothing to do with pF, Changs it’s the P paws, F for feel, and the edge for chains, which for choose. So for me, the way my mind works, memorization is not my favorite thing. It has to have a story to go along with it or an image or feel or an acronym. So pause field choose.

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So you pause and you notice what resources do I have? What impulses are there? What is true for me. And for me, it’s also in the pause, where you begin to notice if something is familiar or optimal.

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If I were to do a right distance exercise with somebody and I am shoulder to shoulder with them.

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Then they asked if they can come in closer. I mean a pause.

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And I can notice like yeah, do I want them closer? Do I want to further away?

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And I did this exercise the other day. And I was like, Well, you know what I actually like where you’re at. But I’m curious, like if I kind of play with the edge? Could you lean in more

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and see what happens in my body. And I saw it and I saw it’s an edge and I saw I’m capable of it. But it was also like nope, optimal is actually if you move a little bit further away.

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So I paused, I felt and then I chose and Viktor Frankl is saying in our response in our choice lies our growth and our freedom. But before our response is that space in between the stimulus and our response, the stimulus in our choice, the activation and our choice, the habitual pattern, and optimum.

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Hey, friends, if you are feeling depleted today, or even if you’re feeling well, I want to offer you my free program called 21 days of untapped support. What this means is that you’re tapping into resources that are all around you, possibly within you. That could help shift the equation of stability means more resources than demand. So some resources we look for depend on our financial state, if I have more money, I could afford a babysitter. If I have more money, I could afford better health insurance, I could afford to go to the retreat, I could afford to take that program. And it becomes very dependent.

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21 days of untapped support begins to look at what resources are already there already in front of me or around me inside of me that I can tap into. I’ve put this program together as small doable pieces of nervous system support.

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I’ve also taken it myself when I first launched it, I took it myself and each day I thought man, this is an awesome reminder and so useful today. And I would even say as you take it if it’s serving you, you could do it on repeat because again, it’s free, and it’s digestible, and it’s highly useful. So check out the show notes at the bottom

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and go ahead and sign up if it feels like

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gets calling to you in any way.

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And 21 days of support on day 12, I’d say a pause, breaks the momentum of what is familiar and choosing what is optimal.

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And then I say in the pause, we can feel the notes, taste the food, and reflect.

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And I remember why I wrote that.

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I watched a documentary with Wynton Marsalis, and he was working with some of the up and coming jazz musicians. And he spoke about the importance of a pause. He said, It’s like it’s in the pause. And I watched this like 15 years ago. So not word for word. But

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the feeling of it was that in the pause, is actually when you feel the note to the music.

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So if you just go with the momentum, and you play, play, play, play, play, but the and the music rolling, and you’re like dancing it out, you’re shaking it out, it’s so great, but like, and then when the musician pauses or changes the moment

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you’re in the you’re at a concert, and then they just stop.

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And it sinks in

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power of silence.

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And then on the Michael Jackson documentary, he had

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a guitar soloist

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who was just like ripping it on the guitar. And it was so amazing. And then he stopped.

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He said, and then you just have to

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pause, it’s the same exact message, you have to pause.

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So that everyone can feel the music.

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I think about that, when I taught yoga more often was like, there can be a momentum and a feeling. But if one never paused,

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then people might not actually notice the field or feel the feeling that they’re having in their body, or the thoughts that are going through their mind.

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If you were to eat a meal so fast, so one might say, did you even taste your food.

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And then in a really simple day to day way, you may notice the conversation is moving fast, and you feel overwhelmed with what the person is sharing. And you may feel like you’re without choice. And you could say wow,

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that’s a lot Can I have a second to sit with that.

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You may also be sharing a big story.

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And you have tons of momentum. And you can’t feel any of the emotions while you’re telling the story.

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Or perhaps your body is tightening as you share something vulnerable.

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But the emotions are behind the tightness.

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Power to say like I’m just going to take a breath here.

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I’m going to feel into this

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tightness may begin to relax, and more truth and feelings may arise in your share and may be possible you don’t want more truth and feelings to arise. So that’s the choice to keep going with your momentum.

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You may think you have no preferences on what you want.

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And a path may shift.

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I wonder what it would feel like to break momentum.

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I wonder what else in life I might feel

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and knowing that there is

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no selective feeling as Brene Brown would say

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am I willing to open myself up to feel more tender

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so that I might also feel more joy I may also feel the notes of a song coming through the taste of the food in my mouth. The scent of the flowers around me

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the depth of connection between myself and somebody else.

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The feeling of the ground beneath me

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a sensation of fall in the crispness and the color

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the smells.

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thing the Create musicians new

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has the momentum

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to actually receive the gifts of life

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and alcohol

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lineman route of excellence tell Darden I’ve heard them both describe a pause as living life at a digestible pace.

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Time saying we’re all resources, or instead of all maybe I could say, where our resources become more available

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to keep it away from all or nothing, pause where our resources become more available. Viktor Frankl says, the pause

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is where our growth and our freedom become more available.

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alchemical alignment would say this is where life becomes more digestible.

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So instead of going with momentum, if we pause when somebody asks us, Hey, do you want to go to dinner Friday night?

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For some people, something familiar is like No, I never go out Friday night, that’s a hard boundary. I know somebody who has that boundary. And that’s so great, you know, to have something that’s known choice where you don’t have to, like be overwhelmed by the zillion choices you have in life, but then to actually just feel into like what is real now if you have the capacity for it. So also just naming that sometimes pausing is totally a capacity thing, capacities low, you might just want to go with what’s familiar and no judgment here. No judgment here.

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But so say I go along with something that is familiar, but actually I didn’t want to do and say, I didn’t want to stay home. But I just did it, either because it’s familiar, or it’s like somebody at home expects me to be home to help with the kids. Or if you’re caretaking for your parents, or whatever the reason is, and then there’s a little resentment that’s there because you the choice wasn’t truly aligned with your desire and your truth and

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and then in the moment decision, and then something to come up again. And then you make the decision again, on behalf of somebody else and you make the decision again, on behalf of someone else. And you just go with the momentum of that and then stalking and frustration and then maybe like anxiety come up in

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AWS,

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AWS and things might feel less confusing.

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AWS and resources might become more obvious.

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AWS and you may find more growth and freedom.

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Pause and you move from all or nothing to nuance choice. Like in the right distance podcast episode.

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When we start to feel into nuanced choice, there first has to be a pause.

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Break has to Lena who is famous in the pre and Perinatal world about how to support the health of a baby and the family and the environment and I human, but from early stages where patterns start.

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He has his

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main principles. And I think pause is number four. There’s Welcome. Welcome as you are mutual support and cooperation, choice and pause. And I think that choice and pause it’s kind of like a chicken egg type thing that you have to choose to pause right. But then pause gives you more choice. So I like to put pause first PFG P S, CH pause field choose.

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Every time we choose to honor ourselves to honor what our body is asking for.

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Or saying yes to our health.

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We’re feeling and saying like yes to feeling better.

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In the world of manifestation,

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and in the world of quantum physics. And in the world of physiology, there’s this idea that if we can change our internal state first like our internal state to gratitude, like don’t wait until you heal, to feel gratitude, feel gratitude, and that gives you the pharmacy inside towards healing. Don’t wait for money to feel abundant. This kind of goes back to gratitude. You look around yourself and you can even imagine into the future you remember your future.

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As we feel better on the inside, we’re less likely to feel needy on the outside for the outside to change. And something that Joe Dispenza says is that we’re signaling the gene in front of the environment. And so each time we pause we give ourselves an opportunity to signal a positive gene to signal a beneficial gene to signal a gene of health of well being of stability.

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So

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supernormal for life to have us feeling destabilized, dysregulated dissonance, it’s totally part of the growth cycle, it’s part of episode to the cycle of awareness,

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confusion, that helps break up old patterns.

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But pausing is such like a fundamental tool

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to helping us get through things in a more digestible way to changing our genes and our signaling on the inside before the outside shifts,

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so that the quantum field can respond

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to who we are being and who are we are being as somebody who has the capacity to

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us

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notice

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and choose on our behalf.

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So if I end with some of the show me, as Bridget would say, or I might say, I wonder or I might say it in prayer form of like, may I

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getting that reticular formation reticular activating system moving?

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Me I remember in my hard times,

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all of the health

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that is with me and around me.

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May I invite in a stable steady present time adults

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who can take a pause

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when I have an inner child crying out for help,

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so that when I meet that inner child,

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I am meeting them with love and stability.

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And

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when I pause and I cannot find that stability on my own, may I reach out for help.

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That’s a big one for me.

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Yeah, reach out to a friend, marriage, out to a practitioner, out to a family member. Me, I reach out to a tree, I reach out to my dog, to my art supplies, but largely like to another human if possible, who is stable, steady, healthy.

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And as Bridget says, Show me. Shall we have another?

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Until next time, bye.

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Thank you for tuning in. It’s been such a pleasure. If you’re looking for added support, I’m offering a program that’s totally free called 21 days of untapped support. It’s pretty awesome. It’s very easy. It’s very helpful. You can find it at Sarah tacey.com. And if you love this episode, please subscribe and like apparently it’s wildly useful. So we can just explore what happens when you scroll down to the bottom. Subscribe rate, maybe say a thing or two. If you’re not feeling it, don’t do it. It’s totally fine. I look forward to gathering with you again. Thank you so much.