Pause - The Room Where it Happens

Friends!

Just getting back from a much needed and wonderful trip to Sweden. Spending time with my loved ones there during a stunning week of incredible weather felt like a trip back to normalcy. I really do hope (and as I have said here before also believe) that Sweden’s approach to Corona is more sensible. I recognize they are possibly taking a bit more risk in the short run but their “narrative” on how to overcome this virus, in the long run, seems more balanced and free from the politicized overtones which are making our own battle here in the US so chaotic and lacking decency and trust. Their latest data is encouraging. We shall see. I am keeping my fingers crossed. We need good news on the COVID Front.

This week I was reminded of perhaps the most important few seconds we have. That instant between stimuli and response. It is at that moment we have a chance to decide who we want to be. What we stand for. What matters to us. In this instaworld of ours, where everything seems to be going faster and faster, I feel like that moment of reflection has shrunk. We don’t have time to think. We don’t give ourselves time to reflect. We consume and produce ideas, thoughts, reactions, and opinions in an ever dizzying speed. In a Peter Senge kind of way we seem to be racing to a place where no one wants to go.

I was reminded of how important the pause is by a wonderful interview with Susan David by my good friend Dr. Mark Hyman. It is posted below. It is well worth your listen. As is all of Mark Hyman’s podcast on how to live better. With a big focus on food which is why the podcast is called Doctor’s Farmacy (with an F!). Susan's work and personal experience around Emotional Agility is important. Perhaps more so today than ever. And she referred to another hero and strong influencer of mine, who also is no stranger to readers of this blog, Victor Frankl. His theories, developed while in concentration camps during the Holocaust, were very much centered on the pause. His main insight was that the only thing he could control, in the midst of horrific atrocities committed to him and so many others, was how he chose to react to them. He basically “decided” that they can take away everything he has but that. Only he can give that away. And while his example is difficult if not impossible for most of us to relate to, it is so extreme that it inspires. He said:

“Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” 

Many of us have experienced how our emotions settle down with time. We could be extremely upset and only moments later not feel that same way at all. How many times have you written something, let it sit for a bit, and when you return to the letter or email you find it emotionally and contextually no longer as relevant, and you don’t send it? Many people practice a 24 hour rule when writing a letter. Particularly when we are animated. Write it. Sit on it. Read it tomorrow. And then only send it if it still represents how you feel. I think it is a very healthy rule I try to practice. And I would say that most of the time I don’t send what I wrote in affect.

What if Twitter had a pause button? You wrote your tweet and you had to approve it tomorrow before it was sent. Or Facebook. Or most news outlets. Would we be better off? I think so.

The point is that we have MUCH more power and responsibility in our hands than we think. It is our REACTIONS to what happens to us that determine whether we can find ways to cope or even better, convert challenges to opportunities. Last week I wrote about response-ability. Our ability to respond to anything means everything.

There is also confusion around when “bad things happen to good people”. We feel a sense of unfairness. Injustice. And in many cases that is understandable and obviously a good thing since it is a manifestation of our empathy and compassion. But the fact is that no human can walk through life without encountering many difficult challenges ranging from accidents, unexpected deaths, suffering, fear, emotional and physical stress and of course, worst of all, our own demise. Suffering is unfortunately part of living. I was introduced to this concept when reading the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche. It’s a very powerful book with an even more powerful idea. That we really cannot learn how to live until we learn how to die. When we accept all things that are happening to us WITHOUT judgment, without too many emotions and biases, we are “free” to enjoy and meet every day anew. It’s a thought worth practicing on.

So how do we pause? In my inspiration section on the blog (click here if you are NOT on the blog) you can find more inspiration including the interview with Susan David and Mark Hyman. You can also find an interview with my early teacher and guide and the person who introduced me to Rinpoche and much other life wisdom, William Spear.

My dear friend Dov Seidman has written extensively and been out in the world inspiring organizations and people to pause. You can even take this test at The HOW Insitute for Society he founded. I did and learned I have more work to do. You can also read an article he wrote on pausing which was partly inspired by my own 50th birthday celebration which was a way for me, in a very personal way, to pause my life together with my closest friends and family and celebrate what we have learned so far and what dreams we wanted to pursue next. Dov has said many times that: When you press the pause button on a machine, it stops. But when you press the pause button on a human, they start. They start to reflect, to rethink their assumptions, to reconnect with their most deeply held beliefs, and to reimagine a better path.

I think that is a beautiful way of framing the importance of the pause. And in a Huffington Post article in 2015 he expands on the societal context of pause.

Take a step back for a moment and consider this big picture: the majority of Americans feel seriously busy. Being over-worked, overwhelmed and double-booked is the new normal. Our schedules not only tend to get ahead of us, they can often overtake us - leaving the majority of people feeling as if life is something happening to them, not something they are consciously and purposefully directing. The ‘busy’ feeling is now a collective human experience and an intrinsic part of who we are and how we live.

It was not always like this. Up until the Industrial Revolution, mankind moved in time with nature’s pace. For millennia, the cycle of life on earth was directed by the passing of the seasons. All living things - plant, animal and human - waxed and waned with the movements of the moon and other celestial bodies. In spring, we flourished. In winter, we waited. We paused. Whether by way of hibernation, dormancy or the like, we slowed down, became still and rejuvenated ourselves. In doing so, we and other species were able to emerge stronger than before.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “in each pause, I hear the call.” In the spirit of his birthday, this was precisely what Mats was asking us to do - to pull back from the frenzy of everyday existence, pause and hear the call.

Dov Seidman The Gift of Pause in Huffington Post in 2015

Lastly, to show you that I am trying to be committed to pausing I named my boat BE. My brand platform is named BE CAUSE inspired by my own passion for the power of purpose. I believe that the real rocket fuel behind human energy is having a “why”. Being part of a mission bigger than yourself. However, when I named my boat I dropped the cause and simply called it BE since the only cause I want when being on a boat is the pause itself. And to me, few things help me pause, reflect and contemplate as much as when I am on the water.

So again. Let’s help each other. Breathing is a good start. If you find me answering “emotionally” help me take a breath. If we find friends that are stuck in a particular “lane’ of thought, can we help them switch lanes, see the exit, and perhaps drive towards a more fruitful, peaceful place? I think we can.

Here’s to finding the space in between and allow ourselves and our fellow humans to spend more time in the room where it happens. That beautiful contemplative space right where things that happen to you end and life begins. Or as a friend of mine once said: The bad news is that the room where it all happens is locked. The good news is that only you have the key!

Have a reflective week!

Great interview with Susan David and Dr. Mark Hyman. You can also watch Susan’s TED Talk here and see more from Doctors Farmacy with Dr Mark Hyman here.

Click on button below to read Dov Seidman’s article in Huffington Post from 2015 on Pause. Click here if you want to take the Pause test from How Institute.

I remember vividly that winter day in Stockholm some 20+ years ago when I first met Bill and he asked me: Is this a good day to die? It was the starting point of an incredible conversation we are having still to this day. Thank you Bill!