The Power of the Pause

I hope all is well. Last Sunday morning I left my house to head to the studio to take a yoga class. As I was leaving my neighborhood I realized that I had forgotten my cell phone. I had the time to go home and grab it but instead I decided to practice being with the discomfort of not having it.

I observed my thought process and what I noticed was a series of anxiety provoking questions running through my mind on the 15 minute drive to the studio. “Would my husband notice I had forgotten it if he tried to call?” “What if something bad happened and no one can reach me in the 15 minutes to the studio and the 15 minutes home afterward?”  “What if I get into a car accident?” 

I noticed my mind kept trying to “up the ante”, to push me further into the discomfort and my practice was to keep a little bit of space between the thoughts and my reaction to them. I found I was almost laughing at myself as I paused and answered each one of those “questions” with a mindful response. I was determined not to let my own mind get the better of me. 

I shared this story in my classes this past week and I asked my students some different questions;  “What happens when we experience discomfort?” “Where does the mind take us?” “Can we step back and notice and perhaps soften a bit into the discomfort instead of quickly reacting?”  Sometimes with physical discomfort we can find ourselves spiraling into anxiety; “What’s wrong with me?”, “Will this ever get easier?” “What if I have this pain or restriction forever?”