Temporary Disengagement
Today I am grateful for my recovery friends and the wisdom they share. I am also grateful for a relaxing Sunday afternoon yesterday.
I wanted to spend one more blog post discussing the work and words of Dr. Tara Brach from her book Radical Acceptance. You can read more about her work on her website here.
Along with acceptance, Brach talks a lot about pausing. She calls it the "sacred pause." I like that. Sacred. To be honored. She calls it the first step in learning radical acceptance. It makes sense that we can't accept what we aren't aware of, what we aren't noticing.
She also uses the term "temporary disengagement." Always being engaged may, on the surface, sound like a good thing. But is it? How can we gain perspective, get refreshed and rejuvenated, learn from our current circumstances, if we don't temporarily pause, stop, slow down? Always being engaged is like always driving with the gas pedal to the floor. It's unsafe, blows the engine, and is not very good for fuel efficiency.
Temporary disengagement need only take a few seconds. A few breaths. But it can help bring me clarity and help me see my part in a situation or circumstance. It can be enough to guide me to the next right action. That pause is also a way of letting the messages from sources beyond my own thoughts and ideas get through.
I also appreciate that Brach emphasizes how pausing helps us be more aware of our bodies, and the sensory experience life really is. In this age of information overload, it is too easy to get caught up in thoughts, words, ideas. We miss the physical components of our experience-our breathing, facial expressions, level of tension. In doing so, we miss out on much of what we can learn about acceptance and ouselves.
I am grateful for teachers like Tara Brach. I am grateful I am learning to temporarily disengage on a more regular basis.
I wanted to spend one more blog post discussing the work and words of Dr. Tara Brach from her book Radical Acceptance. You can read more about her work on her website here.
Along with acceptance, Brach talks a lot about pausing. She calls it the "sacred pause." I like that. Sacred. To be honored. She calls it the first step in learning radical acceptance. It makes sense that we can't accept what we aren't aware of, what we aren't noticing.
She also uses the term "temporary disengagement." Always being engaged may, on the surface, sound like a good thing. But is it? How can we gain perspective, get refreshed and rejuvenated, learn from our current circumstances, if we don't temporarily pause, stop, slow down? Always being engaged is like always driving with the gas pedal to the floor. It's unsafe, blows the engine, and is not very good for fuel efficiency.
Temporary disengagement need only take a few seconds. A few breaths. But it can help bring me clarity and help me see my part in a situation or circumstance. It can be enough to guide me to the next right action. That pause is also a way of letting the messages from sources beyond my own thoughts and ideas get through.
I also appreciate that Brach emphasizes how pausing helps us be more aware of our bodies, and the sensory experience life really is. In this age of information overload, it is too easy to get caught up in thoughts, words, ideas. We miss the physical components of our experience-our breathing, facial expressions, level of tension. In doing so, we miss out on much of what we can learn about acceptance and ouselves.
I am grateful for teachers like Tara Brach. I am grateful I am learning to temporarily disengage on a more regular basis.
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