What Becomes Possible When We Pause?
Someone asks something of you.
Before you have had a moment to feel what is true, you hear yourself say yes.
Or perhaps an email arrives and your body tightens. A decision needs to be made, and you feel pressure to find the answer immediately.
These responses can happen so quickly that we barely notice them. Beneath them may be the fear of disappointing someone, losing connection, or no longer being seen as good, loving, or helpful.
What would happen if, before responding, you gave yourself permission to pause?
Creating Space to Hear Yourself
In a recent conversation on the Embodied podcast, I spoke with physician and author Dr. Lissa Rankin about her book RelationSick. We explored how our closest relationships affect our physical and emotional health, especially when we have learned to overgive, overfunction, or abandon ourselves in order to belong.
One of the things Lissa shared has stayed with me:
The first step in changing these patterns is simply to pause.
To hear what is being asked of us and take a moment to turn toward ourselves:
Am I a yes? Am I a no? Am I a maybe? What am I resourced to give?
That pause may seem simple. Yet for a nervous system shaped by fear, criticism, or the need to be useful, it can be profoundly healing.
It creates enough space for us to hear ourselves again.
Many of us were taught, directly or indirectly, to look outside ourselves before making a decision. We learned to sense what others needed, anticipate their reactions, and adjust ourselves accordingly.
Over time, this can make it difficult to know what we truly feel. The body may be communicating clearly, but we have become accustomed to overriding its messages before they fully reach us.
The pause interrupts this pattern.
It allows the body to enter the conversation.
Healing as a Homecoming
My conversation with Lissa moved through fawning, spiritual bypassing, relational trauma, boundaries, and the body’s natural capacity to heal.
We also spoke about healing as a homecoming—a reunion with the parts of ourselves we had to leave behind in order to feel safe and loved.
For some of us, saying yes became a way to maintain connection. Being helpful, accommodating, or emotionally available became part of how we secured our place in a family, a friendship, or a community.
These patterns often developed for very good reasons. They helped us navigate the environments we were in. But there may come a time when the body begins to ask for something different.
It may ask for rest.
For space.
For a more honest answer.
Learning to pause gives us the opportunity to discover what that answer might be.
LISTEN TO MY CONVERSATION WITH LISSA RANKIN
When the Answer Hasn’t Arrived Yet
The willingness to pause also asks us to become more comfortable with uncertainty.
Sometimes we turn inward and the answer is clear. At other times, what we find is:
I don’t know yet.
This can be uncomfortable because the mind wants certainty. It wants to understand what is happening, predict what comes next, and move quickly toward resolution.
We may interpret uncertainty as a sign that something has gone wrong, or that we are failing to listen deeply enough. But perhaps the answer simply hasn’t arrived yet.
The unknown is not empty.
It holds possibilities that our present identity may not yet be able to perceive. It is often where an old way of being begins to loosen before something new has taken shape.
When we allow ourselves to stay near the question without demanding an immediate answer, the body begins to soften. We create room for a deeper intelligence to meet us.
Resting in the Unknown
Perhaps there is something in your life right now that does not need to be solved today.
A decision you are trying to make.
A relationship that is changing.
A chapter that has ended before the next one has revealed itself.
What if you gave yourself permission to stay here for a little while?
You might place a hand on your body, take a breath, and remind yourself:
I don’t know yet.
I don’t need to know yet.
I am here.
I can trust what I don’t yet know.
These words are not meant to force the uncertainty away. They are an invitation to remain present with yourself while you are inside it.
This is the heart of my teaching video, Resting in the Unknown. It is a practice for the moments when clarity has not yet come, but something within you knows that rushing toward an answer would take you farther away from yourself.
The pause does not always give us an immediate answer.
Sometimes its gift is simply the experience of staying close to ourselves long enough for what is true to emerge.
And perhaps that is where trust begins.
