Our Busy World
I am sure I don’t need to tell you how overwhelming life can be as a human in the 21st century. Work, family, personal ambitions – constant stimuli and requests for attention coming from our electronic devices – plus the media letting us know everything that is happening in the world at all times! The demands posed on our mind-body-soul system can easily exceed its natural capacities. No wonder it is very easy to reach burnout in such an environment.
What can we do to push back the waves of incoming stressors and regain some breathing space, focus, and calm in our lives?
The Power of Pacing
One skill that can change the game completely is pacing. Pacing means consciously redefining the rhythm of your life, taking a look at where you are pushing too hard or stretching too long, breaking down tasks and activities with rest and pauses.
Have you ever heard of boom and bust cycles?
That is when we exhaust ourselves with one or more tasks and experience a significant energy crash afterward. Here is where pacing comes in useful. It disrupts the cycle, helps you distribute your available energy more evenly, and most importantly, it will prevent the crash or burnout phase.
How do we Implement Pacing?
There are many ways to implement pacing, and you can be creative with it, finding what most suits you each day.
Can I break that big task into smaller pieces and find time to make tea in between?
Can I stop on my way to work to admire and smell a beautiful flower?
Can I put my phone down and hug my partner instead?
Or take a moment to move my body, stretch, dance, or walk?
The possibilities are endless! Perfection is not important here; what matters is repetition. Experiment with it and make it enjoyable. An imperfect break is better than no break! Slowly but surely, pacing will become a healthy habit you can rely on for a better quality of life.
As an embodied meditation teacher and coach, I have personally witnessed the positive effects of embodied check-ins, both on myself and others.
What is an embodied check-in?
It simply means taking a moment to turn our awareness towards our body and listen. It can be as short or as long as you want. Try this:
- Close your eyes.
- With an attitude of relaxed curiosity, observe how you are breathing. What is the rhythm of your breath? Are you holding your tummy in or is it relaxed? Take one deeper breath. Yawning is welcome if it happens.
- Take a moment to just feel whatever sensations arise. Is any part of your body calling your attention? Is there any place of tension, pain, or discomfort? Is there any place where you feel good or neutral? Try to map the sensations that are present in your body in this moment.
- Now choose a part of the body that needs your loving attention. Bring your breath there, imagining you are breathing air into that part and breathing air out from that part. Release the outbreath with an open mouth. Again, if yawning happens, let it happen fully.
- You can repeat the breathing in one part of the body as many times as you like or move to other parts. Remember, you can also breathe in the parts that feel good or neutral and imagine expanding the good sensation to the rest of your body.
- Once you are done, take a moment to feel if any sensations shifted in your body.
- When you are ready, gently open your eyes. You can smile to yourself and thank yourself for making space for a moment of loving embodied attention.
How Can we Remember to Check-in With our Bodies?
It can be difficult at first to implement breaks in our day-to-day routine. Try associating embodied check-ins with something that is already part of your routine, like having breakfast, taking a shower, or sitting in public transport. You don’t need to carve out special time for this practice; in fact, its effectiveness comes from weaving it into your daily habits.
Next time you drink that coffee or tea, why not take a moment to close your eyes and breathe?
Or when you are waiting at the bus stop or having lunch. Try it in the middle of writing a difficult email, when you feel your stress rising, to break it before it builds up, or the next time you have an argument or feel tense.
Experiment with it and find what works for you. Keep in mind that you can make the practice as long or short as you like or have time for, and if you forget any steps, don’t worry.
Just closing your eyes and taking one deeper breath is enough.
Spread the pacing power!
If you enjoyed this article and found it useful, maybe you can consider sharing the practice with a friend or a family member, or colleague. We can all benefit from being calmer and healthier around each other, and pacing together can be even more enjoyable than pacing alone. Plus, we can remind each other to take breaks, and share our favourite ways of alleviating daily stressors.
Happy pacing!
May the calm be with you!
Main – Photo by Good Faces on Unsplash
