Pause, Catch Your Breath
A contentious, volatile election happened this week. Whether you were on the winning side, the losing side, or somewhere in the middle it is important to pause, take a breath, and remember that it is not about winning or losing. We will use this week to ground and settle ourselves, lift our eyes to the bigger picture of what we are all part of, and prepare for the work ahead of us; an essential step to discovering Better Than Compromise. Thanks for breathing together.
Why settle? Greg said that when he hasn’t been able to calm and quiet his own soul first he finds that his interactions with others are often unhelpful, frustrating and even hurtful. Does that match your experience? Why do you think it is? Can you recall particular experiences?
How? Pausing to breathe, center, settle yourself is not ignoring work that must be done, it is preparing for it. The rhythm of Breathe and Push. This podcast practiced and described some ways of practicing this self-love, self-care. What other ways have you found? What might you try?
- Breathing
- Naming and knowing the weights you bear and setting them to the side for later
- Self-care through diet, physical activity, rest
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Gratitude (check our Fabric Gratitude Project for one way to do this together!)
- Wonder
- Nature
The Peace of Wild Things. In the podcast we heard this poem from Wendell Berry read by Jeanette Mayo. Look at her photo and read the poem together here. What wild things and places have helped you in those low moments on the rollercoaster ride of being alive? What do they remind you that you needed?
Something to practice: You have the ability and responsibility to soothe and center yourself. But reaching out with a wish of that peace for others can strangely help us. Do you have examples of this? Think about times you've reached out to someone else with appreciation and encouragement and no expectations or requests. How did that affect you?
Closing: Take some time to hold up places in your life and in our world that need to be held in a space of quiet, calm and contentment. Share them with each other. Start and end with these words of centering (have a couple different voices read them...listen and be).
Yahweh – I Am Who I Am - my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a child at its mother’s breast;
my soul is like a child at its mother’s breast.
O Israel, hope in I Am Who I Am,
from this time on… and forevermore.
Psalm 131.1-3
