I can’t quite believe The Quiet Pause has been going for eight months!
I started it back in February with a fairly simple idea … I really wanted to create something that encouraged people to actually spend a little time with a meditation practice, rather than constantly looking for the next one.
There are so many beautiful meditations available these days, and I love that we have such choice. But I also know from my own practice that there is something quite different that happens when we stay with one practice for a while. We become familiar with it, we live and breathe it, befriend (or at least form a relationship) with it. We notice how it feels on different days, what we find easy and what we resist, and sometimes a little insight arrives simply because we’ve given ourselves enough time to notice.
And so The Quiet Pause was born around the idea of one practice, one month, one focus.
Each month I choose one meditation practice and we stay with it for the month. Alongside the meditation, there is a weekly email with a little something to accompany the practice … perhaps a personal reflection, something I’ve been learning, a story, or an idea for taking the meditation into everyday life. I think some people appreciate the weekly reminder.
This is a free offering, and there is no course to complete or anything you need to keep up with. It’s really just an invitation to pause for a little while each month and give yourself some space to practise.
I’ve also loved allowing the seasons to guide the themes.
Here in the Southern Hemisphere, we began in late summer with The Sacred Pause, an invitation to stop and create some space in our busy lives. In March, as we moved towards autumn, we explored The Breath Journey, bringing our attention to something that is always with us and yet so often goes unnoticed.
April brought Letting Go, which felt particularly fitting as the leaves began to change and fall. In May we explored Holding Space, learning to stay with whatever was arising rather than immediately trying to change or fix it. Then came winter, and with it Deep Rest in June. We explored the qualities of slowing down, receiving support and allowing ourselves to rest. July’s Just Listening invited us to become more aware of sound and silence, and to discover that even the sounds we might normally find distracting can become part of our practice. And, in August, as we began to sense the first stirrings of Spring, we turned towards Loving Kindness, exploring how a heart-based practice can begin on the meditation cushion and gradually find its way into the way we meet other people and ourselves.
And now we have arrived at September and Spring, with Receiving & Releasing … a simple breath and mantra practice exploring that lovely rhythm of making space for what is new while gently letting go of what we no longer need.
You can JOIN NOW for the next three weeks of September and get a real feel for the practice.
Looking back over the eight months, I hope you can appreciate how natually our meditation can align with the seasons. It is a lovely way to allow the world outside to become part of our meditation practice … noticing the invitation to slow down in winter, to release in autumn, and now to open and awaken as Spring begins to arrive.
I like this gentler way to explore meditation; and it evolved from my own daily practice.
Plus, we aren’t trying to master a whole collection of different techniques, and there isn’t a feeling that we need to fit meditation into our lives in yet another way. Instead, we have a practice to return to for a month, with a little encouragement and inspiration along the way. And the interesting thing is that the practice can feel quite different from one day to the next. Some days we might settle easily. Other days our minds are busy, our bodies restless and we wonder if we’re getting anywhere at all. But that’s part of becoming familiar with meditation too. We begin to notice our experience rather than judging whether we’re doing it well or badly.
There is also something I was quite deliberate with inside The Quiet Pause – the monthly meditation is only available for THAT month. When the month finishes – the recording disappears. I originally liked this because it kept the offering simple. There isn’t a huge library sitting there waiting for you to catch up, and there is something about knowing that a practice is available now that encourages us to actually make the time for it.
But after eight months, I have quite a lovely collection of meditations that are no longer available, and I’m beginning to wonder whether perhaps I should create a little Quiet Pause library.
So I’m curious … would you like that?
Would it be useful to be able to revisit or catch up on some of the earlier practices you might have missed – perhaps The Sacred Pause, Letting Go, Deep Restor Loving Kindness – whenever you felt drawn to them? I’m not sure yet, but I would genuinely love to hear what you think.
For now, though, I’m very happy to be here in September, with Spring beginning to unfold around us and another month of The Quiet Pause ahead.
And if you’ve been with me for one month or all eight, thank you for being part of it.
xx Sarah
