The Power of The Pause: How to make use of this sacred space

“Through the sacred art of pausing, we develop the capacity to stop hiding, to stop running away from our experience.”

Viktor Frankl

In my previous article, I wrote about the “Triggers”. In this article, I’d like to talk about… “The Power of The Pause” in order to expand on that “triggers” article.

As put it so insightfully by Dr. Viktor Frankl, a holocaust survivor that…

“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.”

To create “that space”, we do need a “pause”. We can do a 1 to 3 seconds pause before we respond to the stimulus or the so-called, “trigger”.

In “that pause”, we can regain our “self-awareness”. When we regain our self-awareness, we’ll automatically regain our “wisdom” and our “freedom” to choose our thinking, feeling and doing (our response).

This is the Power of the Pause! What else could be the power of the pause? When you pause, you regain your inner silence and inner peace. When you have inner peace, you’ll have a clear mind or clarity into your goals, problems, issues or challenges.

That’s why when I coach, I’ll always use my pauses in my coaching conversations with my clients in order to provide them with this sacred space for processing and reflecting on their thoughts, their emotions and their actions.

And due to this same power of the pause, my clients can come up with their clarity, insights, wisdom and solutions into their goals, problems or challenges in their personal and professional lives.

When you pause, you’ll also recharge and renew your energy. This is because you can re-center yourself and be grounded when you just pause. It’s just like you’re doing a short or mini meditation with your pause.

I also make use of the power of the pause in my public speaking. When I give the speech and I want to put more emphasis on the key messages that I’m going to deliver in my speech, I just pause for 5-6 seconds before continuing with the important or key messages that I want them to stick with the audience’s mind.

The pause effect in my speeches helps me engage and inspire my audience much more than the time when I don’t use the pause at all. 

You see, the pause is so powerful and we can make use of it in many occasions and situations including and especially when we are triggered.

The pause equips us with… our “presence” leading to “self-awareness” leading to “self-awakening” leading to “wisdom” and also our “freedom” to choose our response to stimulus or trigger.

Of course, this is a lot easier said than done! That’s why we do need a practice. A practice of the pause and of self-awareness. How?

To continue on with the how, let’s talk!