Intentional pauses
Once I became more familiar with the fact that I am not my thoughts, I started pausing more before I responded to situations. I wanted to respond from a place of wholeness, not a place of reactivity in my everyday life. For example, if a patient is coming in complaining that their glasses are not working for them, and are giving them headaches, I might first feel guilt, shame, disappointment, but if I can look from a wider perspective, I see a patient who is struggling and just wants help. I can then approach the patient from an inquisitive perspective, ask helpful questions to pinpoint where the problem is. I don’t need to carry those negative feelings with me, I can stop them in their tracks, address the problem at hand, and accept that these things do happen and that is okay. This way of thinking did not happen overnight, and there maybe more stressful situations that will be harder to pause and create the big picture perspective but when I made this change, it gave me more calm and peace. I carried less things home with me after work, and I rarely regret anything that I say because I have said them with a calm and open heart.
Another way that I have created more intentional pauses in my everyday life is meditation. There is so much I want to (and will) say about meditation because it has changed my life. I used to wake up in the morning at 8:15 am and be out the door by 8:45 am doing only the essential things needed to get ready for the day. I can say this makes it much harder to be present. We are energetic being and the transition between being asleep and supine for 8 hours and being awake and operating “on all cylinders” can be quite a jolt to the nervous system. We also spend a lot of time sitting in an exam chair and using our minds, problem solving all day long, no wonder we get stuck in our heads! My morning meditation is a hodgepodge of things that I have learned in my yoga and breath work practice. If I had to make a recommendation for someone who does not have one, I would recommend the following : start with taking a deep breath in through your nose and audibly exhale all of your air, and repeat this two more times. This helps release anything that needs to come out. Then I would do a few sun salutations, these are yoga poses that are great for “waking up the body” (you can YouTube videos on how to do sun salutations). Then I would sit on a rug or yoga mat and feel my sit bones make good contact with the ground. I would then close my eyes, and do some box breaths, (Inhale for 4 seconds, pause 4 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds, pause 4 seconds and repeat) for about 3 minutes. After that I would return to normal breathing and try to be still. Again there is a lot more that I would like to share but this is brief example.
I am able to feel connected to my inner goodness, wholeness and then recall this feeling throughout the day to remind myself to take the intentional pauses during my busy work day.
I hope this was helpful, I look forward to diving into all of the individual mediation practices that I have done to give more examples of how to practice. With love and gratitude, Amy
