Practice a potent pause to ground your body and cultivate gratitude through heart-centered awareness.

English

Created for use during daily transitions, this 5-min pause guides you to reconnect with your breath, reconnect with your body, and finally to reconnect with your heart center. We close the practice by sending blessings/prayers to a loved one, and affirming the importance and potency of a brief pause.

Potent Pause (5 Minutes)

Welcome, dear one. Today we're coming here for five minutes to practice a potent pause. And as always, doing what feels right for you, my guidance is mere suggestion. Trust your wise body. Let's begin with an inhale through the nose and exhale through the nose. Another inhale, beginning to turn your attention inwards. And exhaling slowly, making it longer than the inhale if you can. One more breath like that. Inhaling. And exhaling slowly, making it longer. Entertaining for these few minutes the idea that nothing needs to change. This pause doesn't need to feel a certain way. We experience what we experience. Returning to the breath. On your next exhale, releasing anything that's ready to release. You might feel it leaving down your legs, out the bottom of your feet, that the Great Mother can compost it into new life. Let's do that one more time on your exhale. On your next exhale, a release. And returning to your natural breathing rhythm, gentle and supportive. Always here. I invite you to place attention on where your body is making contact with the surface. If you're seated, how do you know you're sitting? What sensations or pressure can you sense? And meeting this curiosity today as if it were the very first time you've ever made this inquiry. So without expectation of what you might find, without story, bringing full presence to where your body is making contact. Whether that's your heels, your seat, an arm. I'll leave you some space to be in this exploration and curiosity to see what you find in this moment, here and now. And if there are thoughts that arise, we notice them when we notice and we return to the breath, return to a sensation in the body. The noticing and returning is a practice and with each return, we're strengthening. I invite you now to place your attention on your heart center. If it feels right, you might place a hand or two across your chest or simply focus your awareness on this location. Imagining a bright light, the divine, warming and softening your heart. See it there as your heart space is filled with a bright golden light, clearing and renewing. Bringing to mind someone, a loved one, a dear friend, an animal, someone who makes you smile. Seeing them before you, perhaps a slight smile does come across your face. Breathe in gratitude for this presence, this being. And on our next three breaths, let's send blessings their way. So a breath for their wellness, a breath for their safety, and may they feel love. Beautiful. Knowing you can come here again anytime, that you can stay here as long as you'd like, and that you can bring anything from this pause into the rest of your day. Let's close our practice with a breath of gratitude to yourself for being here, for gifting this experience to yourself today. Weaving a potent pause into your daily transitions is profound. When you leave home, when you finish work, after a phone call, before a meal, choosing to connect with the unnameable, with your divine light, with creator, with source, is one of the biggest gifts you can give yourself and all of humanity. Thank you for being here. Go well and rooted into your day.