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Being busy is a common attitude for our urban living.  Western culture prides itself on doing, doing, doing. We sometimes use activity to keep us at arms length from the very things that we love. I’m as busy as the rest of us but I’m grateful for this simple and potent practice that keeps me sane. It helps decipher between getting lost in the activity and being constructive with it. It’s a way to practice efficiency and self responsibility within the busyness.  It’s useful and important to allow ourselves the opportunity to consider and contemplate what is stirring. When we slow down and check in with ourselves, we discover what else might be needed.

How do we do that?

It’s fairly simple. It only takes a few breaths. It’s remembering to pause. Pause gives us a moment to catch our breath when life is filled with meetings, appointments, errands and responsibilities. When you allow a purposeful pause a couple of times through the day it is very restorative. There are many moments when this happens naturally. The trick is to acknowledge them and invite their impact. Here are a few possibilities where you can give yourself the time to settle with your breath:

1.Before eating a delicious meal

2.When you’re falling asleep at night

3.When you’re driving and you come to a red light, take your hands off the wheel

4.When walking open your attention to your senses

5.Feeling the weight of your body when seated or standing.

Sensing into these moments helps ground us and allows us to reset our nervous system. What other opportunities might present themselves to rest between activities?

Give yourself this simple and handy practice to help you stay attuned to what is happening for you in each moment. Welcome these moments of beauty and recognition. The results may be surprising. They keep us attuned and connected to ourselves, each other and the world around us.

The great thing is that it only takes a few moments. Being active and participating in life while allowing an opportunity to pause can have long term benefits on your whole being. It’s refreshing and insightful, too. It might be hard at first, but keep at it and always remember to give your attention to your breath for support. It happens naturally. The opportunity to quiet the mind, even when it’s been racing from activity to activity or thought to thought, is a way to recalibrate the whole body.

Let this practice be a homecoming. Remember to pause.

These little moments support the bigger movements offering further potency in our lives.