This website features a podcast as well as articles offering a creative approach to everyday mindfulness: exploring the mindful pause and the shared pause.
Finding support and connection in a time of social distancing
We need physical distance to protect ourselves, and society, from the virus. But social distancing need not mean losing social connection. We all need to feel more connected these days. See how to deepen interaction with Active Listening.
For therapists: If you are interested in helping people support each other in this crisis, read about what you can do as a volunteer.
Why is this project called Active Pause?
Mindfulness is not some sort of otherworldly state that is a break from ordinary reality. Life is interaction, and mindfulness is our natural ability to manage the interactions of life.
What happens as we take a mindful pause
A mindful pause is not just a temporary interruption of the flow of life. Unlike what happens when we pause a video, the flow of life does not resume as if nothing had happened:
– Mindfully interrupting the flow of life gives us an opportunity to get a different sense of where we are and where we are going. An analogy is how a GPS recalculates the route when there is a disruption. See From mindless to mindful.
– Much of the pausing that we do is micro pausing that is integrated with action. This is the way that we manage interaction, modulating our responses moment by moment. As we do so, we experience a sense of self, a sense of meaning and purpose. See The mindful pause & the regulation of interaction.
What happens in a shared pause
Something happens when we bring this mindful attitude into an interaction with another person or with a group. Such a shared pause provides an opportunity for organic co-regulation. That is, our nervous systems shift to a mode of mindful engagement which helps lower our reactivity and allows us to function optimally. See Shared pause: Interactive mindfulness & organic co-regulation.
Editor: Serge Prengel
