The Importance of Pausing in Today's World

Pause and Live Better.

When things annoy you, most humans will say something they wish they had not said. They will respond, often, with anger and frustration. People have their feelings hurt and a negative aura permeates the room. This can often be prevented with a second or so of pausing before saying anything or taking action.

People are far too impatient. When things go wrong, pause. Ask God to handle it. Move forward. Playing the "blame game" or shifting responsibility solves nothing. Here's a hard fact.

When you jump to negativity, you embed negativity into your brain's neural pathways. As you hear and generate more and more negative words and thoughts, you embed the negativity further. It is much like downloading bad software into the hard drive of your computer. The more negativity, the more apt the RAM of your brain, the short-term response mechanism driven by your Amygdala, will pull up the negative response. Fight that.

An airline flight attendant once taught me to relax about life with a cup of hot coffee. I was trying to hold tightly to it in turbulence, and it was spilling on my hand. She gently took my wrist and set it down on the table, telling me it will ride with the plan. She then laughed and said, "unless we do a barrel roll".

She was right. In life, the more we try to control, the more we are on guard for negativity, the worse our life becomes and we end up burning ourselves. When bad things happen, such as stubbing your toe, do not say "it's going to be one of those days". If you say that, your brain will automatically and robotically generate happenings to confirm that. If you, instead of becoming angry say, "that's over, it'll be a good day, now", odds are much better your mind will direct you to new opportunities and positive happenings around you.

Pause before reacting, to words, to events, to mishaps, to annoying actions. Pause. Is it really a big deal? If it is, what can you do about it? Take action; after giving yourself a few seconds to think it over and the best action is giving it to God.

Holy Hill Basilica near Hartford, Wisconsin, a place of reflection and faith.