People feel trapped by prior commitments. Parents worry about providing the right experiences for their children. Family schedules are so full that there’s little room for genuine connection. It’s common for children to have tightly structured days, leaving almost no free time. Parents, too, feel strained as they shuffle their kids from one activity to the next after a long day of work, leaving little time for rest. We trade our time, energy, resources, and connections for obligations:
- Work
- Activities
- Sports
This isn’t inherently good or bad; it simply is. Life will never slow down the way we want it to, and there will always be things to fill our time. Yet, as humans, we have this innate ability to pause. The world will always demand our energy for various activities, but we possess the unique ability to pause.
When I sit with parents and talk about their children who are struggling with anxiety and/or depression, we often enter into a time of pausing and taking note of the strengths, growth, resources, and values their family and child hold. There is something that happens when we pause. I believe it allows us to channel our curiosity towards our lived experience and look to what we want the future to hold. Being present to what we have, appreciating the gifts and blessings, is life-giving.
Practical Pause Exercises
In my meetings with parents, I find that it’s grounding to reflect and pause to take note of the rituals and things in place that are helping. Then, we begin to wonder about the exceptions to the problem and consider the possibility of what family life would be like without the problem. Often, parents and kids get stuck in definitive language such as “never” or “always.” If we can explore the exceptions and what it could be like without the problem, it creates hope and possibility. I believe that is what pausing can do for individuals and families; it can stir up hope, gratitude, and possibility in the midst of uncertainty and hardships.
A simple pause exercise you could do with your family or partner at the dinner table or during natural transition points (birthday, holiday, beginning and end of the school year, etc.) is to ask one or more of the following questions:
- What is one thing you are grateful for these last 12 months? One thing you are looking forward to in the year to come?
- What are the blessings you have in your life? What are the blessings you want to prioritize moving forward?
We may not be able to change our busy schedules or escape the distractions, but what we can change is choosing to take the time to pause, reflect on the past, and look toward how we want to prioritize our blessings in the future.
Take a moment today to pause and reflect. Ask yourself and your loved ones: What are we grateful for? What blessings do we want to prioritize?