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3 Reasons to Find Permission to Pause

Permission to Pause

Yoga, as well as a really cool physical practice that gives us a great outer bod, also encourages us to take a look under the hood (so to speak) and tinker around for some deeper solutions to life’s daily challenges.

Today’s yoga solution is:  Find Permission to Pause.

Why? I’ll give you three reasons.

Are you stuck in a rut. Got habits you hate?

Knock it off. Stop it. Be done with it. Change it.

Let’s be real, only when you draw that line in the sand, pin your flag to the mast, dig in your size sixes and scream ‘enough now’. Then and only then, can things start to shift in your life, evolve – move along baby.

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, whatever you want that result to be is, as Einstein famously put, insane.

I’m not calling anyone crazy, here, but maybe, urmm aren’t we a little? Think about it.

Even when we know we’re not happy with a situation – our job is sucking our souls, our weight is creeping up, a relationship has become toxic, we’re not getting enough sleep, we accept it, tolerate it even. We’re not at a pain point to be motivated to change – so we don’t, at least not enough. And sometimes that can go on for years and years.

But over time the cumulative effect of putting up with that daily dissatisfaction, going along with it, suppressing it, (be warned) is distress and disease. Edging along a path of blah might be bearable today, but it is your direct highway to a health crisis. At some point your general dissatisfaction becomes intolerable and you could be forced to take big action.

I know it. I have been there and bought the proverbial T-shirt. I stayed in a job that wasn’t serving me and jacked it in only when I was so stressed, depressed and crippled with back pain that staying put was, quite simply, not an option.

This doesn’t have to the rut you carve out for yourself. If you want to get out of any crazy groove before a health crisis strikes, I’m here to show you yoga has your back.

Find Permission to Pause

  1. Pausing breaks habits

Day-in-day-out our routines, habits, conditioning, old memories all add up, stack up and become the dictators of how we show up in our lives in every moment.

What we eat, who we talk to, the roles we assume, the work we do, the way we nourish ourselves physically, talk to ourselves emotionally, react in our relationships, respond to our financial situations, assess ourselves spiritually – in no small part, are patterns we have learned and repeat over and over. We fall back on what we know, previous experience, what works, whether it’s choosing what groceries to buy, how to discipline our kids, or how we react when our ego is bruised. Why? Because it saves time, right? We’re so busy moving into the next moment, we’ve become oblivious of the now, and our ability to pause and say ‘hang on – is this still working for me?’. ‘Is this how I want to be, show up, respond, react, choose?’.

  1. Pausing brings us back to what we want – really really.

In meditation one of the four soul questions we ask ourselves is: What do I really want? Really, really, really want?

When you’re clear on what you want and what you desire, you can be clear on whether the way you’re going about your life is getting you to where you want to go. You can be clear on who you want to be, and what you want to achieve.

Slow down for a second and ask yourself now, what is it you really want? Are your actions aligned with that?

When you pause, you get time and space to get out of your own way. For example.

  • If you want to lose weight…pause and get better at questioning if you need that biscuit with your brew.
  • If you want to improve your sprint times…pause and get better at questioning if you want to go to the pub after training or make time for some yoga recovery.
  •  If you’re feeling taken for granted at work… pause and get better at not questioning your worth and start believing you deserve to be in a job where you are recognised for your skills and talents.
  1. Pausing allows us to witness our choices – and make better ones.

Both mediation and yoga are practices that help us to cultivate silence and stillness and find space to make new choices. We get to insert what is called a ‘pattern interrupt’ and find the space to ask the question ‘why am I making that choice?’.

Sure, you can choose to allow your habits to run the show and continue to do what you’ve always done. You can go on putting up with the mild misery and dissatisfaction of not fulfilling your goals or living a life you don’t want. That’s your choice too. You, are as always, in charge.

But I invite you to consider you have one amazing body, mind, soul and one incredible life to live. Give yourself permission to pause and carve out the life you crave and deserve – really, really really deserve.

If you liked this content I’d love it if you could like it, share it and/or post a comment.

I’m also really interested to your answers to any of these questions:

  1. Why do you need to give yourself permission to pause?
  2. What habits are holding you back from achieving your life goals?
  3. What new choices could you be making that will get you to where you want to be?

Namaste all. Hope it serves.

Josie (Yogi-In-Training)

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Are you fed up of feeling less than your best? Do you want to find out more about how yoga can help bring balance, happiness or success back into your life? Send in your questions, frustrations or comments to josie@yogalocal.co.uk

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