Pausing During the Holidays

 The holiday season is here again, a time that has many different meanings for people. For some it is primarily a religious holiday, for others it is more about giving, and for still others it has no real significance, and may even be considered an annoyance.  Whatever one’s beliefs about the holidays, it can be an ideal time to practice pausing and noticing what is arising within us.   Our usual routines are often altered, with different work schedules and leisure plans.   These changes may be experienced as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.  If we are not paying attention, we may not even notice what we are feeling although it may still influence our behavior.  We tend to automatically want to continue activities that are pleasant, and to not continue those that are unpleasant.

Pausing can be helpful in shedding light on this process so that we are not just reacting to our circumstances.  The acronym STOP stands for useful steps to follow when pausing.  The S is for Stopping, remembering to pay attention to what is present right now.  The T is for Taking a few breaths to center ourselves.  If the breath does not feel centering, we might instead place our attention on our feet or our hands. Focusing on anywhere in the body that feels like it helps stabilize the attention is fine.  The O is for Observing our present moment experience, without judging it.  We can ask ourselves, in this moment, what am I thinking?  What am I feeling, physically and emotionally?  We can also ask ourselves, what are my goals? What are my choices?  Having done this, the P is for Proceeding with awareness, choosing our response rather than just reacting to what is happening.

Even if the holiday season is a predominately positive experience, difficulties may still arise.  When this occurs and we pause to notice what’s arising, one of the choices that we can make when proceeding with awareness is choosing to practice compassion.  We can have compassion for ourselves, desiring to alleviate our own suffering, and compassion for others, desiring to alleviate theirs.  Sometimes there are concrete actions we can take to do this, and at other times we can just open our hearts to the suffering and respond with kindness and wishes for its resolution.  In either case, when we pause to pay attention and notice suffering, compassion is a gift we can give to ourselves and others during this holiday season.