The Power Pause

Stillness That Transforms

I’m a FOMO girl, an extrovert fueled by motion: one-on-one walks, big gatherings, always doing. Pause doesn’t come naturally.

When summer ended and we moved into our new house, life got quiet. Anxiety crept in: a touch of loneliness, a hint of guilt over feeling it at all.

My first instinct was to make plans, to create busyness. But I stopped.

Instead, I sat with it. I breathed through the anxiety, acknowledged it—Yes, there you are—and released it. A full week of this. No agenda. No fix. Just me and the discomfort.

It was uncomfortable.

By the weekend, something shifted. Anxiety settled into clarity. Loneliness softened into calm. Beneath it all, a clear focus emerged: how I wanted to focus my time, intentionally.

That week of stillness sparked everything that followed: the newsletter, the 30-day action workshop, the networking events, the call to write.

The pause wasn’t about escaping life. It was about claiming it.

The Script We’re Running

We move through much of life following a set script. Graduate college. Get a job. Climb the ladder. Hit the metrics. Optimize everything.

When uncertainty appears—open space, a quiet moment, a question mark—we have two choices: freeze or fill it.

Culture teaches us what to do. Dig deep, push through, hustle harder. Brené Brown calls this the “dig-deep button,” the secret level of effort we reach when exhausted and overwhelmed, when there is too much to do and too little time for self-care.

We treat this like virtue. It is not. It is burnout.

We have become goal addicts in a productivity culture. Google “best morning routine” and you’ll find 22,000 answers. The truth is there is no cookie-cutter routine for success. We are all in motion: busyness, productivity, power routines. And in that motion, we stop asking the real question:

Life is not a race. It is an experience. We only get one.

Why The Pause Matters

Viktor Frankl captured it beautifully: “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

The pause is that space.

Research confirms what we sense intuitively. When you pause, you:

• Interrupt the stress cycle. Your nervous system shifts from fight-or-flight to calm. Clarity becomes possible.

• Move from reaction to response. You stop acting on habit and emotion. In the space that follows, creativity and insight return.

• Increase self-awareness. You notice what is working and what is not. What fills you and what drains you.

• Reclaim presence. You disconnect from constant go-go-go and actually live the life happening right now.

The pause is not indulgent. It is essential. It is where you move from autopilot to intention to aliveness.

The Three Paths

Here’s what I’ve learned: the pause doesn’t have one outcome. It reveals what you need.

For some people, it is refinement. For others, reignition. For some, complete reinvention. The pause shows you which path is yours.

Path 1: Refine

You’re mostly aligned, but you need to prune. Remove commitments that no longer serve your core values. Say no to projects that drain you. Step back from obligations driven by guilt instead of choice.

Allie had been leading her book club for years. She loved it once, but over time she realized she was doing it out of habit, not joy. She stepped back with no guilt, just clarity. Thursday nights were hers again, and her energy focused for what truly mattered.

Refinement is about intentionally creating space for what brings you joy.

The shift: from guilt to intention. Small, deliberate changes free up your energy for what matters most.

Path 2: Reignite

You are burned out, but your path is still right. You just need to return to it differently. With renewed purpose, deeper clarity, and authentic engagement.

Seth spent months on this path. Late 20s, successful in sales, making serious money. But everything felt misaligned—work, relationships, spending. Nothing felt good.

He took a six-month leave and moved home from the city. He took stock of what mattered and realized he loved sales, just not his company.

When he returned from the pause, he made intentional moves. He found a new sales role at a company whose mission he believed in. He built hobbies back into his life. The work was similar, but the alignment was different. He returned awake, aware, and engaged.

Reignition is about stepping back, gaining clarity, and then re-engaging with purpose.

The shift: from burnout to alignment. You return to similar work, but you are different. You are awake.

Path 3: Reinvent

The pause reveals when you are called to something fundamentally different. Not a tweak, but a reimagining.

Jeff and Sue are in their 60s. Jeff cofounded an advertising agency, and Sue raised their boys while working part-time. Two years ago, they felt a pull toward something different: house renovations. Now they are flipping homes. Jeff stepped away from the agency to focus on this new path with Sue. Same people, completely new chapter.

Reinvention is not escape. It is exploration that leads to a new chapter.

The shift: from “this is what I do” to “this is what I am meant to do.” Then you act on it.

The Pause Leads to Action

Here’s what matters: the pause isn’t the destination. It’s the launch pad.

Stillness brings clarity. Clarity brings knowing. Knowing brings action.

My pause led to intentional creative actions. The Reignite path led to a new job lifestyle. The Reinvent path required months of planning, then the leap. The pause is not the end. It is the beginning.

Stillness is not stagnation. It is strategy. Pause. Clarify. Act.

This Is For Everyone

This is not just for extroverts with FOMO or ambitious type-A achievers. It is for anyone on autopilot. Anyone with Sunday scaries. Anyone feeling inauthenticity creeping in. Anyone sensing a call to something more.

Whether you are wired for motion or solitude, you need a pause to know what is true. To know what success actually means to you right now.

Your Move

You do not have to have it all figured out. The pause is not about finding all the answers. It is about creating awareness.

Take a pause: an hour, a day, a week, whatever you need. Turn off notifications. Step away from the script. Sit with the questions.

The pause will show you: do you need to Refine, Reignite, or Reinvent? Then take action from that clarity.

Your next chapter is not waiting for permission. It is waiting for you to pause long enough to claim it.

P.S.

What would your pause look like? What question have you been avoiding? Hit reply and tell me. I read every response.

If you are feeling tension or anxiety but cannot pinpoint the source, take the Aliveness Audit. It is a simple tool that shows which areas of your life need attention. Sometimes clarity starts with seeing the full picture.