The Power of Pause
Pausing is essential to your well-being.
In taking a pause, you activate the parasympathetic nervous system - that space inside of us responsible for our body at rest. When in action, it starts up our metabolism, stimulates digestion, and triggers relaxation.
Have you ever noticed your tummy tightened, jaw clenched, shoulders up to your ears and breath caught in your chest? Your parasympathetic nervous system kicks in and combats all that to allow for a significant reduction in stress and anxiety.
When we continuously ignore the messages from our body and mind, it can result in burnout and discontent.
Before Abigail and I officially launched Boundless, we spoke intentionally about everything we could possibly think of that may impact how we run a business together. We created exploratory questions that each of us answered and discussed at length. They’ve been invaluable to us while creating the foundation for Boundless.
The first question asked us to list our strengths and weaknesses. Both Abigail and I identified common struggles with overwhelm:
“Fall too heavy into passions and am left burnt out. Hard to pace myself.” - Abigail
“Prone to burnout, perfectionism.” - Niki
Fortunately, contending with such things for most of our lives leaves us well-equipped to pass along some guidance to you! You can find a previous post with a collection of tips on How to Reach Your Dream Goal While Avoiding Burnout, but today I want to focus solely on the power of pause.
Working with Abigail is a gift. Our attitudes, dreams, and inspirations tend to ebb and flow in synchronicity. We often respond to each other with the phrase “different, but the same” in recognition of our frequent alignment, but also our valuable distinctions.
Most recently, the pace of our marketing tactics started taking a toll on our well-being. We found ourselves grappling with time and barely making ends meet. We missed deadlines. Our content lacked value. Everything started feeling less buoyant. I don’t remember who broached the subject of our discontent with the process first, but it was instantly met by the other with resounding agreement and gratitude for speaking the struggle out loud.
At the start of our venture, we researched best practices for social media presence and found a resounding call for consistently posting on Instagram at least once a day. We immediately bristled at the advice (Hello, intuition! We heard you, but squashed you down.), but moved forward following that plan anyway. We wanted to give Boundless every chance of discovery possible and because we were already deeply in love with our business baby, we would do anything to help her thrive. Now we know the truth is if we’re not fostering our own growth on a daily basis, then how could we possibly offer to our business what she deserves?
You must show up for your business and passions in ways that resonate with your values and foster your well-being.
That’s the main point here, but I want to take a minute to show the long division in achieving a powerful pause.
How To Plan For A Powerful Pause
Putting a little effort and planning in upfront sets you up for success and ease in the future. Here are a few ways to build moments of stillness into your life:
Prioritize yourself as much, if not more than work. In Abigail’s weekly planner, she has a list of the week’s to-do’s divided into 2 columns: one is work, and the other is for herself. For each day, she has 2 checklists as well split the same way. This method works great for list-makers!
Cull your to-do list. Since I enlightened Abigail that she is an overachiever, she writes down her list of things she would like to do in a day, then she goes back and thinks, “Okay, what is truly necessary for me to do today, and what is realistic?” She usually erases 5-10 items from her list. Many of us struggle with this, myself included. It’s called the planning fallacy. We tend to focus on the most optimistic of scenarios. We overestimate our productivity & motivation, while underestimating the time, effort and resources it will take. Awareness is key! Now that you know it may be an issue for you, you can craft tools to help you combat it.
Schedule breaks. You’ve likely heard us sing the praises of time-blocking or batch work. As you plan your day, make sure you allow for at least 5 minutes between each task as a transitional moment of stillness. Adding this time for reflection in your day momentarily pulls you out of whatever it is you dive so deeply into and helps maintain a balance of work and self-care.
Clock your hours every day. Time can so easily get away from us - especially during pandemic-life where time often feels meaningless. This practice is especially useful if you work from home, where boundaries between work and life tend to get fuzzy.
Take a beat before you speak. Naturally, when someone speaks to us we want them to feel heard by responding quickly. It’s possible this is a disservice to us both. When we allow space in a conversation, it might get filled with more valuable insights from the person speaking. It also offers a moment of reflection for all parties involved in the exchange - a moment of awareness.
Practice mindfulness & self-reflection. This cannot fit in its own bullet, so please see below.
Mindfulness & Self-Reflection
Foreignspell block-printed greeting cards inspired by music.
Had Abigail and I neglected consistent self-reflection or lacked a mindfulness practice, our well-being and our business could’ve taken a more significant hit. I know this because it happened to me in my creative endeavors. I own & operate an art studio called Foreignspell in addition to Boundless. I started Foreignspell as a youngin’. I learned nearly each and every lesson the “hard” way - through failure of some sort. Even when someone further along in the same career warned me of pitfalls, I went ahead and fell in myself. Because I hadn’t yet cultivated a growth mindset or adopted any practices for self-awareness, I ran myself completely ragged. I was stressed, exhausted, consistently devastated by perceived lack. I couldn’t even truly feel my “wins” when they happened. It’s a miracle I made stuff happen at all. My self-worth was too wrapped up in sales. My perfectionism forced unsustainable content creation practices. Instead of witnessing the success of my peers and feeling inspiration, I took them as an affront and used them as evidence for my own shortcomings.
Now I could not feel more grateful for every step on that journey. It woke me up. It brought me here. One lesson (of many) I learned from all that was to create consistent and deliberate check-ins with myself. Before taking on a new project or saying yes to something, I intentionally pause and reflect as a passive observer. What does my intuition tell me? This connection to your intuition and natural ease in self-reflection is strengthened through mindfulness…
If you’re a fan of ours, you’ve likely noticed mindfulness come up in nearly all of our posts. The benefits of mindfulness in every facet of life cannot be exaggerated, so being a broken record on this topic is super intentional. It helps with stress reduction, productivity, trauma, happiness, well-being, relationships, confidence, anxiety - you name it. Clinical Psychology Review looked at 209 studies on the efficacy of mindfulness and confirmed its significant positive impact. This isn’t woo woo stuff here. If you take away one single thing from spending any time with us, I hope it’s that you will pursue presence and awareness in your daily life. Like most things, if you adopt a daily practice its potency increases, but even giving ten minutes of your time on occasion makes a difference. No excuses!
Here’s a quick mindfulness meditation practice you can try right now:
Sit with energized posture and your feet grounded on the floor or on the ground with your legs crossed / folded.
Get comfortable.
Soften your gaze or close your eyes.
Clear your mind.
Tune in to your breath, don’t change it - just observe.
Scan through your body moving up from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.
Notice your thoughts. If they aren’t in the present moment: with a deep breath, gently guide your thoughts back to your breath or body.
Optional: if you have a specific goal in this practice (ex: healing, productivity, stress reduction, etc.), conjure a thought, question or emotion relating to it. For example, here’s the question I asked in this space during our recent burnout phrase: “How can I create a sustainable and purpose-filled social media process for Boundless?”
Bring attention to your gut, move to your heart space, then your mind. These spaces contain the most connection to your intuition.
Become a passive observer. Do not judge, instead notice: What sensations are you feeling in those areas of your body? What thoughts immediately enter your mind? Has the quality of your breath changed?
Sit with all the reactions, alternating focus from your gut to your heart space to your mind, until you feel ready to move on or until your thoughts naturally begin drifting to other topics.
Take 5 deep, controlled breaths.
Open / focus your eyes.
Bring your attention back to the room.
Wiggle around.
Take a final deep breath.
Give yourself a moment of gratitude for investing in this time for self-care.
Did your mind wander? Did intrusive thoughts make an appearance? Did they dart to the future or mosey to the past? Congratulations for noticing! You’re not doing this wrong! Distraction is a totally normal and necessary part of this exercise. It’s called an exercise because the training of our minds can be hard work. Don’t get discouraged. Like most things in life, the value is as much in the pursuit as reaching your goal.
Here’s a little astrological / spiritual / metaphysical break with Abigail.
This process of setting intentions reflects the lunar cycle.
New Moon = new beginning
Waxing crescent = set intentions
First quarter = take action
Waxing gibbous = refine and hone
Full Moon = manifest desires
Waning gibbous = reflect
Third quarter = release
Waning crescent = rest
This is also the process of the traditional tarot in the meaning of each card, just more drawn out and extensive.
It’s all about :
Assessing your space.
Reflecting on what is working and what isn’t.
Determining what we can relinquish control of.
Identifying what is important and aligned with our purpose.
Having flexible goals.
When things start to veer from the direction we thought we were going, we can still stay true to our end goal.
Take It Slow
Slowing down is not always easy. If you’re experiencing some trouble making this essential space for yourself, consider the myriad options available to you:
Find an accountability buddy to commit to bringing more stillness together.
There are tons of books on this topic! Shop your local bookstore for guidance. + podcasts! +YouTube videos! + other blogs! + memes, lol.
If you feel the inability to take time for yourself is significantly impacting you, seek mental health therapy.
Do you have any tips for pause we may have missed? Did you try any of our suggestions? How did they work for you?
Please share with us any tales of your journey you feel comfortable with - we love to hear it! This is such an incredible community and we are as happy to learn from you as you are to learn from us.
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Thank you,
🌞 Niki
The interrogation of our feelings unlocks a deeper understanding of our values, purpose and fears. Instead of fleeing from uncomfortable emotions, let us practice exploration.