26. The Pause is Often Enough (Claim Your Freedom #8)

When I used to play sports, I learned quickly that we somehow “revered” and honored the injured. A few times a year, at wrestling tournaments, for instance, someone would “get the wind” knocked out of them.

Either they fell to the mat too hard, or got pinned in a whimsical way…

When this happened, everything in the entire gym- even on multiple mats- stopped.

* People took a knee.

* They were silent.

* They created sacred time + space for the man to catch his breath.

And this happened throughout the entire gym. People who were chattering would get a friendly tap to invite them into the sacredness of that moment.

* Even if they were rivals.

* Even if they didn’t know the man that was injured.

* Even if they were in the middle of a conversation or busy doing something else important.

Everything stopped.

The fact is that we’ve all gotten the wind knocked out of us in some way. But, because we can still physically breathe, we continue pushing forward. We go "back to the mats," even though we're wounded.

Or we encourage others to do so, even unintentionally...

During this talk, I’ll explore what it means to create space to deal with emotional hurts in the same way that we deal with physical wounds…

You see, emotional hurts and pains… well, we tend to avoid stopping for them. In fact, we’re encouraged to “man up” and push forward. We’re told not to talk about them, not to appear to be weak, not to slow things down.

Sometimes, the most sacred thing we can do is to just his the pause button.

More in the talk here >>>