Pause, Release, Return

Greetings, friends. This month's reflection on beholding and befriending life begins with practicing what I teach.

Photo Credit: Thomas Jay Oord

Beholding and Befriending the Need to Pause, Release, and Return

Last weekend, I enjoyed teaching a session on “Speaking Open and Relational Theology through Prayer” at the Speaking to a Modern World Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. In the photo above, I was teaching a way of practicing the Centering Prayer “pause, release, return” pattern as an approach to beholding and befriending life by beholding and befriending the aims of love. When I got home on Monday and started to write this September reflection and prompt for Beholding and Befriending Life, I realized I needed to practice what I have been teaching.

My original intention for this month was to address the spiritual value of “oneness” that connects us to all life throughout the cosmos. However, as I began to write, I was not happy with anything I wrote. My energy was still on the process of beholding and befriending that I had introduced at the conference.

So, after “spinning my wheels” for several days, it finally dawned on me that this was one of those “moments” that called for me to use the same pause, release, and return pattern that I had been teaching. So, I did. And the result was that I decided to postpone the topic of “oneness” to next month and instead share with you the process of pause, release, and return.

The following “prompt” describes the way in which I actively used the “pause, release, return” pattern of Centering Prayer to guide me through beholding and befriending the aims of love in my week-long “moment” of spinning my wheels about what to write.

A Prompt for Beholding and Befriending the Moments of Life

Pause: A pause can be as short as a couple of intentional breaths in and out or as long as stepping away from the moment and going someplace else to release strong emotions and return to a place of calm. The challenge is to notice when we need to take a pause. Typically, this means learning to “read the room” for what seems to be happening or not happening in our interaction with other people, with ourselves, and with the conditions and circumstances at hand.

For example, in working on my post about “oneness,” I was stuck in a writer’s block to the point that every time I drafted a few paragraphs, I decided I didn’t like what I had written and deleted it. The more I tried, the more frustrated and grumpier I became. Eventually, I paused by moving away from my computer. I went outside. I walked around my yard. Then, I sat down in the rocking chair on my deck for a while.

Release: While I was walking and then rocking, I intentionally focused on releasing my thoughts and feelings about what was happening in that moment and in the weeklong moment of trying to write this post. I used a technique that I learned in Centering Prayer. In Centering Prayer, when random thoughts and feelings pull us away from an intentional focus on our breath, we simply notice the thought or feeling that has led us off track and then gently release it and return to our focus.

In living prayer as way to behold and befriend life, moment-by-moment, the focus is on beholding and befriending the aims of love. We behold and befriend the aims of love whenever we intentionally act in ways that are most likely to increase the overall well-being and flourishing of all involved in that moment.

Because I was convinced that I had to write about “oneness” this month, and because I was frustrated by not being able to do so, I lost my focus. So, during my pause, I realized that to return to my focus, I needed to release my frustration. And I realized that the only way to do so was to release my conviction that I had to write about “oneness” this month.

Eventually, I admitted that this weeklong moment of trying to write about “oneness” with only frustration to show was leading me away from the aims of love. My thoughts and feelings were leading me away from overall well-being and flourishing in my own life, as well as in the lives of others who were living this week with me. So, I abandoned the plan to write about oneness and released the thoughts and feelings that led me to believe that I was bound to complete that plan. Whew! What a relief!

Return: This release opened a pathway for me to return to a place of inner calm and receptivity—a place from which I began to discover a way forward.

It is always from a place of calm and receptivity that we have the best opportunity to find a way forward.

It is within a space of calm and receptivity that we are most likely to become aware of our own love energy flowing in tandem with the divine love energy that permeates the universe.

It is within this space that we are also most able to recognize the creaturely love energy that surrounds us on every side.

It is within this space of calm and receptivity, that we are most likely to perceive the inner and outer “nudges” that attract us to the aims of love.

And whenever we align our actions with the aims of love, we do our part to increase the overall well-being and flourishing available to the world.

So, in the moments of your life this month, may you behold and befriend the times when you need to pause, release, and return. And in the pausing, releasing, and returning, may you behold and befriend the aims of love.

And so it goes.

Blessings,

Gayle