Heart Pause

 If you enter these pauses in between thoughts, the pause between the inhale and exhale, there is a peace that lives within us, that is available to us all the time.   In these moments of deep listening you can feel the humming of aliveness, the primal life force as if it is singing in joy to finally being acknowledged in between our constant habitual patterns of over thinking.

 Sometimes we will notice if we pause that for a moment there is a story line which is repeating itself, often carrying a feeling state. So what happens if we interrupt the story line and go straight to the sensation and feeling of what is arising in this body pause.

 For example I have a habitual pattern of anxious striving which often the story line is very subtle but if I take a moment to pause I can touch the tightness in my jaw, the sensations of anxiety in my chest and the knot in my stomach Now if I stop even if it's just for 30 seconds I give myself the opportunity to feel what is really happening. I enter the feeling fully without the story then often I feel a release from the addictive pattern of anxiety and deep resting back into myself once more.  This in itself creates space and my doing then arises from a much calmer place and often is much more productive!

We spend our lives loyal to what our next plan is, or the future, comparing this moment to what we feel that it should look like, rather then what is here.  This is where we suffer, rejecting pushing away what right now is asking us to meet.  Pain itself is a doorway into the present moment.

You could try it right now

Bring your hands to your face gently running your hands down your body, offer compassion to yourself whatever is happening. Let the breath soften you a little.

One hand gradually resting in your heart and one hand on your belly.  Breathe into your heart, softening the tensions that you notice. Enter the vibration of life itself through the body. The heart that is beating you, the breath that is breathing you. You might notice an impulse to move,  a sound that wants to be expressed or a sensation in the body. These are all portals into the heart.

You might say to yourself, It's ok I am here, just acknowledge to yourself how you are feeling, and if you are in pain or suffering in some way, you can just soften into this experience, sometimes it is useful to feel the breath as kindness and on the out breath a gentle letting go. 

These types of practices are not about changing the moment, it is simply a form of opening to what is already here, to say yes rather than resisting and fighting against difficult experiences and slowly things begin to shift in our perception and new awareness come into aligment.

Photo Credit - http://caramiapetersen.co.uk/