The power of the sacred pause

Happy Monday! The transition to summer is here and whenever my schedule shifts I find myself feeling a bit more reactive in my responses. It was that awareness that inspired me to share this quote with students last week.

“Between the stimulus and the response there is a space. And in that space is our power and our freedom.”– Victor Frankl

That space can also be thought of as the “sacred pause”. It is that moment when we stop and take a breath and let the reactionary impulses move through us so we can mindfully respond. It only takes a few seconds for our frontal lobe (the most sophisticated part of our brain) to take control from the amygdala (the most primitive and reactionary part of our brain) but when we don’t make space or utilize the sacred pause, we end up reacting BEFORE that happens. 

The way we practiced this on the mat was with the breath as our guide. We paused between the inhale and the exhale to connect to that space where our power and freedom live. That sacred pause allowed us to notice the thought or stimulus and instead of instantly reacting the breath helped us  let the initial impulse move through first. 

This is how the power of the practice works with our thoughts. Often (both on the mat and off) we will have a thought that can send us down a reactionary road of unhelpful responses. Perhaps it is judgment about something we feel we can’t do or pain that we fear will never dissipate. The initial thought can cause a cascade of other painful thoughts when we don’t pause. However, with practice we can learn to pause between the thoughts and mindfully respond instead of reacting. That is when we touch the space “where our power and freedom live”.