Just Push Pause

The alarm clocks buzzes you awake. You groan after seeing it's 6 am on the digital display. You stumble into the bathroom, and proceed to wash, brush, primp and prime yourself for the day ahead. You scurry to the closet, whip out the clothes for the day, throw them on and run down the stairs to get a cup of coffee. After almost slipping down the stairs you realize you forgot to put on your socks.

You continue to rush and get your papers and documents. You throw those into your brief case and nervously scramble to find your cell and keys before heading for the door. You jump into your car, and try to zoom on your way only to find traffic stalling for blocks and blocks.

Your thinking about the million things you need to do the minute you get through the doors of your office. Then your mind cycles through the events of the previous day. The darn argument with your wife, the complaint your boss had on your recent sales efforts and your daughter flunking her big exam. Then it shifts back to the deadlines you have coming up in 3 days and wonder how any of it will get done in time to shut the boss up.

Then you realize your in the wrong parking spot and curse the day your boss gave you the job in first place. Then you wonder if you shut the coffee pot off as you get on the elevator to get to your floor. You dash through the doors and within 3 seconds, 5 people are tagging along your heels begging for 5 minutes of your time.

After numerous phone calls, meetings, and 5 appointments you look at the clock and its 3pm.


Have you even taken a full breath yet?

Probably not.

Time to push pause!!

How often do you push the pause button during your day?

It's time to learn how to STOP and bring some mindfulness into your daily regime. Trust me it's possible. Doing so will INCREASE your productivity and recharge your batteries. Stopping begins to INTERCEPT the automatic or auto pilot patterns we have made for ourselves.

We get into these robotic states, where we don't even notice what we have been doing for the past hour. We go through the motions, yet we don't FEEL and experience the moment.

SLOWING down is one of the hardest things I see my clients struggle to implement in their lives. But it really does not have to be so complicated!

How to include moments of pause into your daily life:

• STOP! Just stop yourself right in your tracks. For just a mere 10 seconds, stop whatever it is your doing or thinking. Observe the moment as if you were timeless and there was nothing to do, see or be. Nothing is so urgent that you can't just stop for 10 seconds.

• Take conscious PAUSE breaks before doing regular habitual activites like eating, brushing your teeth, going to the grocery store, going to the bank, picking up the kids, or heading to the gym.

• So just before you go to brush your teeth, pause for 5 seconds and feel the stillness. Before you run to the car to hit the gym, pause for 5 seconds before slipping the key into the ignition. Be in the moment, close your eyes, and feel your breath. Then proceed. You will find yourself proceeding from a different place or state of mind.

• Keep a small digital alarm clock on your desk at work and at home. Program it so that it beeps every 2 hours, or more frequently is even better. It is a way to REMIND yourself you need to just take a breather. Literally! So sit with just the present moment. Listen to the breath, feel an entire cycle of breathing- the inhalation or the expansion, the pause and then the exhalation or contraction of the breath.

• One of my main focuses in practice is to teach the skill of breathing or "Pranayama" as it is called in yoga terminology (Sanskrit). Prana means life force, the the pure energy that gives us life and the whole universe its existence. Yama means the control or regulation of the breath.

Through breath work we learn how to breath to increase ENERGY, vitality, relieve STRESS and PAIN.

Every time you return to the breath you return to your life source.

Keep breathing, and remember travel LIGHTly on your path :)

Namaste

Piera