The Art of the Pause
I had a client, once, who began recounting something to me, and as they were talking began to have a panic attack, and kept talking. I interrupted them and asked them if we could “pause” and take a moment to work on the panic attack before continuing.
I am sure that many of you, if not all, have dealt with some anxiety, panic, or depression lately. In all honesty, I have too. I ask the questions too. What is happening? What is God’s purpose in this? Where is the hope? I remember driving to my doctor’s appointment when we were expecting a baby. I was alone, contemplating my own mental health, thinking about how we are going to be adding a child any day, and how I was at least thankful that life will “pause” in the hospital, I won’t be able to take anyone to school, or manage all of the administrative pieces that go along with having school age children, I won’t be going to doctor appointments or trying to tackle one of the mountains of laundry. Life will pause while we welcome this new little one into our crazy world and my body recovers. Which made me think about other events that can happen in our lives that forces a pause, the pandemic for example forced many of us into a “pause”. We all need “pauses”, and if we don’t pause, things go haywire. When we don’t pause, that’s when we start having those panic attacks, and a whole bunch of other things can happen that are our bodies way of forcing a pause. It’s like forcing the shut down on your computer, you hit some button way too many times, overwhelmed your computer and you have to force a shut down. We have all seen the woman in labor doing those breathing exercises on TV “hee hee hoo hee hee hoo” right? Same thing. When you are in labor, you have to pause, because pushing pushing pushing can actually do damage, things are more productive if you can calm down a bit.
This is not a new concept! The Bible gives us plenty of guidelines for “rest” or as I have been calling them “pauses”. On the 7th day, God rested (Gen 2:2) God didn’t need the rest, He is God, after all, but He was setting an example for us. When Mary and Martha hosted Jesus in their house, Martha was busy busy busy serving her Lord, and was frustrated that Mary wasn’t helping, she was listening to Jesus. Mary saw a moment that needed a “pause”, she sat and soaked in the presence of her Savior.
We could probably write a whole book about “rest” in the Bible, and I am sure some have been written. Let’s move on to some practical help though, some of us are really good at “resting” and some are not. So, wrapping up, what can you do?
Pay attention to yourself. Are you finding that most of your thoughts are anxious or hopeless? Maybe they are leading into a panic attack? How is your breathing? Is your body tense? When IS the last time you took a break?
If you notice some of those symptoms, or you realize that you are not taking regular pauses, think about some relaxing activities that you enjoy. Take 5 minutes, sit down and do some breathing exercises, read a book, listen to music that refreshes you, take a bath, spend some good one-on one-time with God (done that lately?) Often when we notice that our body is amped up, we need to re-center on Christ.