#90 The Power of the Pause

Read the full episode transcript

Hey, this is Melissa Parsons, and you are listening to the Your Favorite You Podcast. I'm a certified life coach with an advanced certification in deep dive coaching. The purpose of this podcast is to help brilliant women like you with beautiful brains create the life you've been dreaming of with intentions. My goal is to help you find your favorite version of you by teaching you how to treat yourself as your own best friend.

If this sounds incredible to you and you want practical tips on changing up how you treat yourself, then you're in the right place. Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of using all of the words available to me in the English language, so please proceed with caution if young ears are around.

Well, hello there, my favorites! Welcome back to Your Favorite You.

I am currently sitting outside, enjoying the sun on my body and some cooler temperatures here in Ohio - it is Memorial Day in the US and I am feeling grateful for my freedom.

It turns out that I have spent much of the long weekend procrastinating writing this podcast episode for you all, so it seems fitting that I am going to talk to you about the power behind a pause. Procrastination has it’s benefits and it’s risks… at least as far as I am concerned. This podcast is not about that, exactly, but still I find the fact that I have been procrastinating apropos…

Today, I want to chat about something that has been so instrumental in the changes I have been able to make in my life through the power of coaching so of course it is something that I teach my clients, as well… We are going to learn about the power of the pause.

So much of life in the 21st century is dictated by moving fast, making snap decisions, reacting in the moment to things that are going on. From the moment our alarm goes off in the morning, until the moment we fall asleep at night, and sometimes even in the middle of the night, we are conditioned to move at a fast pace… to be moving at all times, to be available to our friends, family, work colleagues at every moment and at a moments notice. I don’t know about you but I think this is making us all absolutely bonkers. And it is completely unnecessary in most cases. It turns out that, unless you are performing life-saving surgery on someone, or responding to the scene of an accident, or observing in slow-motion your child going to touch something that will burn them… there really is no rush. And, the fact that you are continuously available at all times to everyone in your life is really not serving many of us.

Now, of course, I know you all live in the real world, where your boss and your colleagues expect you to be available at all times, and respond within moments of getting a text or an email… where if, god-forbid, your phone were to ring or vibrate at you with some sociopath calling (it’s always me calling - honestly I love to talk on the phone most of the time! But I digress) so, your phone starts vibrating and you look down at it and you recognize the caller, and you think - I need to pick up… or where, you might only have one chance to get in the perfect retort to someone’s comments that upset you. Believe me, I get it. We have all been socialized that we need to immediately come up with the right or perfect and timely response.

I know all of this, and yet - and yet! - I am asking you to consider how your life might change if you introduced yourself to the idea of the pause.

The pause can look so many different ways and be so many different things… I am going to give you tons of examples right now…

Your friend calls you and asks you to plan a vacation with her and her family… You will be tempted to answer immediately… you don’t have to… You can say - let me look into that. And, then you can take your time and make a decision that you love. 

Your child asks you if they can do something that you are not sure if you are comfortable with them doing yet. You will want to answer immediately to help yourself to feel better. Many of us have bought into the idea that we don’t want our kids to experience any disappointment… and that is not a good thing, if you ask me. When they are asking you if they can do something that you don’t immediately think, Yes, of course you can…  You can pause and say - let’s think about this for at least a moment.

Your phone rings when you are on a zoom call - it is your adult child calling - your old conditioned response is to answer every time she calls AND you are on a zoom call… you want to answer to make yourself feel better, she could be in significant distress after all…  and you can pause and know that it is not likely an emergency that cannot wait another 30 minutes until you get off the call. If it is something urgent, believe me, she will call you back immediately… and then when the phone rings the second time, you can pause for a moment again before answering.

Your spouse says something snarky to you to get your attention. Prior versions of yourself would immediately respond to defend yourself. But you have just heard this podcast episode about the power of pausing and breathing and thinking before you react. So, you pause, and instead of you reacting like you always do, you recognize that this just might be your spouse’s misguided attempt to get some love and attention from you. You pause, take a breath, and decide you don’t have to react to keep yourself comfortable.

Your friends are planning a rather last minute trip to Boston to see an author/coach that you all love. They invite you to come along. Prior you, who wants to fit in with everyone, and has a serious case of FOMO and wants so badly to immediately respond yes, and figure it out. Pausing you remembers that you already have plans with your family that weekend that you really still want to honor. So you say, let me see if I can figure it out… You take the time to figure it out, and determine that you really do prefer to spend time with your family at home like you planned, and you tell your friends to have a great time. They do, by the way, and instead of feeling jealous, you feel so much love for them and love for yourself for making the powerful decision to stay home.

You hear your teenagers arguing in the other room - it’s getting kinda loud - prior you needs to go in and immediately referee the matchup… pausing you knows that the way any two humans get and stay close is not by never having a disagreement but by actually having a rupture in the relationship and then attempting to repair it… pausing you also recognizes that many of the times you have tried to referee them in the past, you have gotten the ‘call’ wrong… pausing you remembers your coach saying it is not your job to referee your kids. Miraculously, they work it out!

You are sitting down to dinner at a nice restaurant with your friends. You have already looked at the menu ahead of time, knowing that some food just does not agree with your body… knowing ahead of time what you are going to order. Your friends ask if you want to split some appetizers that definitely will have you rumbling like Mt. Vesuvius if you don’t listen to your body and avoid them… prior you thinks that you want, again, to fit in and just be easy-going with your friends… not to be seen as difficult or needy… Pausing you has you reminding yourself why you look at the menu ahead of time and make your decisions about what to eat when you are not hungry, and not being asked to split the belly-aching apps that you know are not for you… You say no thanks, and order what you planned ahead of time.

You are driving in traffic on your way to work, and out of nowhere, someone comes and cuts you off, with little to no regard for you and your safety - prior you really wants to lay on the horn and throw at least 2 birds in the air… pausing you remembers the time you accidentally cut someone off and they laid on the horn and road-raged at you… No one felt better or was any safer in that situation… so you take the pause, take a deep breath, and continue driving on your way to work.

You’ve had a rough day at work… prior you can’t wait to get home and have a couple glasses of wine to take the edge off the day… pausing you remembers that the wine didn’t actually solve the problem last time, plus it made you sleepy, gave you poor sleep that night, and you had the added gift of waking up with a slight headache and body aches the next morning… plus all the things at work were still there the next morning… pausing you asks if it’s not wine that I actually need, what else might feel good? So instead of the wine, you take a bath before going to bed early instead of staying up for just one more episode of your true crime series… 

The power of the pause allows you to take a break, recognize that there really is no rush - the only reason we rush to react is so that we can feel better - and I have found that the momentary feeling better is not as satisfying as pausing and asking yourself, ‘how would my favorite version of myself handle this current situation?” And then you can try that… if the results that you get turn out to be less than what you want or different from what you think you will get, you have the power to pause again, and ask yourself, ok, so now how does my favorite me want to handle this? And so on and so on… the long-term effect of doing this time after time and figuring out how your favorite you acts and living according to that is that you get to stop having these short term moments of feeling relief in favor of a much-longer term feeling of relief that comes with eventually living authentically as A favorite version of yourself. 

I hope this helps you. I hope you come up with so many more examples this week and have the chance to experience the power of pausing and questioning how a favorite version of yourself might choose to do life. And if you get stuck, no problem, contact me for a consult and we can figure it out together!

OK, folks, come back next week for the next episode… I am off to procrastinate on writing that one after I get done recording this one! 

Have a great week!

Hey. It's still me. If you're listening to this podcast you might have followed all the rules and ticked off all the boxes, but you still feel like something is missing. 

If you're ready to learn the skills and gain the tools you need to put yourself first –without guilt or apology–and treat yourself as your own best friend, I’m here to support you. 

As a certified life coach, I provide a safe space, compassionate guidance, and practical tools to help you navigate life's challenges and embrace your authentic self. 

In our coaching sessions, weather one-on-one or in a group setting, we’ll work together to develop a deeper understanding of your thoughts, emotions and behaviors. You’ll learn effective communication strategies, boundary setting techniques, and self-care practices that will help you cultivate a more loving and supportive relationship with yourself and others.

While, of course, I can’t guarantee specific outcomes as everyone's journey is unique, what I can promise is my unwavering commitment to providing you with the skills, tools, support and guidance you need to create lasting changes in your life. 

With more than a sprinkle of humor, and a lot of compassion, I’ll be available to mentor you as you do the work to become a favorite version of yourself.

If you're ready to invest in yourself and embark on this journey, head over to melissaparsonscoaching.com. Go to the Work with Me page and book a consultation call. We can chat about your challenges and how I can support you.

I am welcoming one-on-one coaching clients at this time, and I am also going to be offering the next round of group coaching starting in late August. 

Thanks for tuning in, and remember: You’re fucking amazing just as you are.