Pause

There’s a moment in time when you need to pause.

You’ve said “yes,” to that which has moved you (https://azphoenix.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/yes/) and said “no,” to the things that serve you no more.

You know where you are going, but there is something saying, “no need to rush, what is inevitable will happen.”

And some things are just that.

Inevitable. 

Like the light that comes after the night, and the warmth that comes after the cold.

Inevitable.

That word has been sitting with me for a month now.

In a way it is completely liberating but in another way, it scares the heck out of me because it means giving in to something I don’t know.  I find myself resisting.  Why? Well because nobody knows what the inevitable is until it happens.  It is that thing which either is or isn’t yours no matter how hard you try.  For someone who needs to always steer the direction of this ship called life, giving in to the inevitable is about as easy as brushing your hair with your toes. There is a slight tensing of the shoulders and a more than slight tightening of the hips.  If trusting the known is not easy, trusting the unknown is the test of ultimate surrender.

In the last two weeks, I have sat in yoga class after yoga class fighting the resistance in my hips.  I have been angry at my body for not doing what it usually should.  Instead of the relaxed effort I am used to, there has been this tense, unrelenting strife.  Every posture from standing, to balancing, to even melting has been a trial.  Sleep has been a nightly battle.

And in reply, my anger awakens, like the boiler of an old steamer ship, rumbling. Instead of the steady flame that sits inside me, there is a roaring fire in the depths, ready to speed ahead and crash into anything in its path.

As things kept getting busier and busier for me, I just kept going. Plowing through one thing, then the next and the next, and then I crashed.  In a heap of sweat and tears on my trusty yoga mat, and realized that although I thought I could not afford to stop, I needed to stop.

What’s coming could be exactly what I want, or it could not.

But what I needed was this moment between then and the future.

I needed the now. 

I needed a pause.

Just like the first time someone takes your hand where you tense up before letting your palms melt into each other, softening but strengthening the bond.  Just like that breath you take before you dive into the ocean, that tensing before your whole body melts into half pigeon, that holding of the breath in for just a second before releasing into shavasana.  It is just like that slight pause, pulling away and looking at each other between the first brush of lips and the second, deeper kiss.

The pause allows you to collect yourself, to know that no matter how things come out the other side, you are whole.

It is what brings all of you into this one place – Knowing that it was the past that brought you here to the doorway of the future.

One moment in time between what was and what will be.

One moment to melt the resistance.

One moment to know that however it turns out things will be as they should be.

One moment to embrace the unknown inevitable. 

Pause.