What is the Sacred Pause? We hear this term more often now, but what is it?
Every year, at this time, I experience the sensation of being out of synch with the rest of the world. While it seems that everyone around me is feeling called to New Year's resolutions, diets, and setting out bravely onto a new path, I find myself drawn to quiet, reflection, and planning. The compulsion to charge ahead at this moment feels unnatural to me. I always wait for February, and Imbolc.
After 12 years as a doula, I find I relate many life lessons back to birth - the powerful time of transformation, surrender, and strength. When preparing for labor we often discuss transition. This is the time, said to be right before pushing, when contractions come so close it often feels like you cannot catch your breath. It is the hardest leg of the journey before the active birthing begins. It is not, however, truly the final phase before pushing. Once fully dilated contractions will often space out, and relent, for a short while. This allows the person giving birth a period of rest before the difficult work of moving new life into the world. I often find that I need to remind my clients that it is not only okay to rest here, it is vitally important. This is the time when I ask them to check in with their bodies to see if they need to eat, drink, use the restroom, change the temperature in the room, or move to a different position. Then their work is to rest. It is not to get contractions back, or try to wiggle their baby closer to the exit; it is simply to rebuild their strength.
This is what I have always viewed as the nature of the Sacred Pause. It manifests as the times in our lives when we need to check in, reassess, lick our wounds or recharge our depleted stores before moving forward. Like the clients who say "I think I need to push soon," it is the time to wait for thinking to pass and KNOWING to begin.
After the beautiful but brutal rhythm of the holiday seasons - where one celebration and task piles on top of another for 3 months or more, I find myself craving this pause before I begin birthing anything new. In this time that is no longer holidays but not yet spring I do not feel called - just yet - to planting new seeds. To push this early would be fruitless, and possibly dangerous, to the life I am willing into being.
I call on all of you who may be feeling the pressure to push when you don't feel ready to recognize your own innate wisdom and knowing. If it all feels like too much, or like the timing is off, that is okay. If you move effortlessly (or even excitedly) from transition to birthing, that is amazing! None of us birth, or flow, the same way. For some this season is a Sacred Pause, and for others it is a fiery catalyst. All are perfect. Embrace what your energy is needing right now, because once it is time there will be no stopping you.