For the last few weeks, I have been giving myself a pause. I felt a calling, a knowing, a need from deep within, saying, ‘you have done so much, you have worked so hard, it’s time for you to stop now’. I can’t even really put it into words. I just felt it as a kind of turning point. I either listen to this and, in doing so, move forwards with my life, or I ignore it and continue to stay stuck where I am. Which feels completely counterintuitive when I’m stopping to move forwards, the kind of movement that would usually come from action, rather than inaction.
A pause, then. Not hard to do when you’re living on an island, surrounded by the inauspicious beauty of rubber and palm trees, the jungle sweltering and pulsating in the heat, the deep blue shimmering in its array of blue, teal and green hues. Or so you’d think. However, even as I landed here and looked out towards this view before me, a view synonymous with resting and relaxing, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t allow myself to pause. I was fighting against myself, listening hard to all of the conditioning that tells me I must be productive to be worthy, to achieve to be lovable, to always be pushing and trying and doing to be enough. But it was exactly this that was crying out to be proved wrong. I thought to myself, if I cannot pause, if I cannot just stop and give myself what my entire being is asking for, then I am believing the belief that I am not enough. I am telling my nervous system that I am not safe. I am staying stuck in the shame that this is all born out of.
So I made a decision. I listened and chose to pause. It took me a week of fighting and feeling shame and questioning it all, pushing hard against the belief (I say a week, yet, this is the result of years of deep work), but I finally arrived here and finally gave myself permission to pause. And it is such a huge exhale of relief. Not physically, not creatively but a sigh of everything from my soul. A deep, eyes-closed song of ‘thank you’. I have finally said, ‘enough now’.
Believing you’re not enough is so tiring. It takes from your bones and pours into your limbs to keep you running on a forever treadmill of urgency. Any distant horizon you’re running towards to find your wholeness eternally moves out of your reach, an oasis in the desert of your own lack. I’m tired of it feeling so tiring. I’m tired of that weight, that pressure, that pushing, that constant seeking. It’s enough. I am enough.
I realise how truly lucky I am to take this pause and I acknowledge the gratitude and privilege in that. After 18 years of a chronic illness, of constantly pulling myself back from the deepest depths, time and time again, I think I can say I deserve it. And do we need to deserve something, to have earned something, when it is simply listening to and answering our needs?
We are made to feel so guilty for needing to retreat from the busyness of life, as though it goes against the very meaning of why we are here. Something that entirely plays on the feeling of lack and not enoughness that so many of us carry in our wounded hearts. Something that the system benefits off, something that keeps us small and tired and quiet. When we’re stuck in this place, we don’t hear the calling of our needs, or it certainly makes it very difficult to listen.
Yet, it is a non-negotiable need to listen to our needs, and not just the basic ones either; keep hydrated, get enough sleep, eat nutritiously for your body and soul, move your body, connect with loved ones. We must also listen to and honour the ones that are the pull of our truest selves, of our hearts. The ones that bring with them so much fear and doubt. The ones that call for the bigger life decisions, the riskier risks. The needs only answered in the trip you’ve always wanted to take, the different part of the country or world you would love to live in, the job change you’re quietly craving, the end or creation of a relationship you would love. These things aren’t frivolous, they aren’t a luxury. They are the life that we have the power to create. They are the very inspiration for our life force.
I know this pause I have given myself is part of the creation of my future life. It feels strange to have begun the year in this way when my word of 2023 is Open, but it is why my intuition knew there was a reason to also choose the word, Unfold. There was something in me that knew I am on the precipice of opening, yet it calls to do so gently, patiently, slowly. It wants to unfold, not rip itself open. I feel this is a ‘doing’ year, but, right now, I am sitting in ‘being’ and, actually, in that ‘being’, there is so much ‘doing’. There is so much action in this inaction. There is so much moving in this stillness. For me, it brings new meaning to the concept that rest is productive (although I don’t entirely agree with that sentence because it implies, even in your resting, you must be productive and that is exactly what I am wanting to get away from.) I know this pausing is the beginning of my opening, my beginning to trust life again.
In my last post about the cycle of healing, Luisa Skinner who writes
commented about the cycles of endings and beginnings, and the concept that we go through seven-year cycles in life. It’s a lens I haven’t really looked at my life through before but, on reflection, I can count seven-year cycles and I seem to be at the end of one, in fact at the end of three of them. Maybe it makes sense, then, to take a pause before going into a new cycle. Maybe it’s just been a really long-time coming. I don’t know if this neat package of seven we can wrap periods of our lives in is just something that appeals to our label-giving, meaning-making brains. There are arguments from astrology, biology, philosophy for it. I don’t know if it really matters. All I know is that to give what feels like an ending of a chapter, several chapters, of my life a proper moment, a proper reflection, a proper pause before embarking on the next cycle, chapter or opening seems like what I need to do.If I were to make some promises to myself to take with me into the new cycle when I’m ready to move again towards ‘doing’, it would be these:
May you honour your needs when you hear them.
May you trust when something feels true for you.
May you allow yourself what you need, despite all of the reasons not to.
May you be brave enough to take the riskier risks.
May you pause, rest and be when you need it.
May you lean deeper and deeper into your intuition.
May you answer your needs without the need to earn them.
Much love,
Suzi xx
As well as a writer, I am also a Healing and Resilience Coach. If you’re interested to know more about me, take a nosy at my journaling guides or read my blog, head over to my website. I’d love to welcome you.