We Did Not Know What Was Coming Series: The Sacred Pause and Naming

PREFACE: To say the last seven years have been a journey of growth for me and this country is an understatement. To help me process and cope with the roller-coaster of emotions I have felt these years, I started writing on Medium right after the 2016 election. My last series ended December 31, 2020, after Biden won the presidential election.

Recently I realized I missed writing “in my journal” and decided to go back to the very beginning and re-read my essays. I wanted to see where I started out on November 9, 2016, and where I am now. I decided to repost my favorite blogs with a short present-day commentary and continue onto current times.

I hope a few of you will join me on this journey of recollection, reflection, and learning. Little did we know what we were headed into.

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The Sacred Pause and Naming: November 30, 2016

In 1983 I worked for a consulting firm light-years ahead of its time. The company believed that to increase worker productivity one needed to focus on intra-personal, interpersonal and technical/work skill competencies to get improved performance. We used a bicycle analogy to explain our approach.

At its simplest, the back wheel of the bicycle makes the bike go — it is the power and drive of the bicycle. The front wheel steers, directs and takes all that back wheel power to where you want it to go. In the world of business and life, the back wheel is symbolic of product knowledge, technical skills, and task competencies. The front wheel is the creativity, commitment, energy, passion, dreams and interpersonal skills that steers that problem solving in the right direction.

Unfortunately in life and business, the emphasis is usually on developing the back wheel/hard skills almost to the exclusion of the front wheel people knowledge so critical to solve relationship issues whether in business or personal lives. Unfortunately neither bikes, businesses nor life works unless both wheels are balanced.

People come to see me to work on front wheel issues. That does not mean we don’t look at specific problem solving strategies but unless an individual understands where they want to go and what emotions are holding them back, they are stuck. So why am I writing about this? In looking at the essays I have written thus far some are front wheel essays dealing with emotions; others are back wheel essays dealing with specific task action steps. I think I want to step back and focus the next few compositions on emotions — specifically the “c” qualities of light that, when understood and made manifest through action steps in the world, actually changes the world. Those qualities are front wheel qualities of curiosity, compassion, courage, confidence, clarity, connection to self and others, calmness and creativity.

Tomorrow I will start with curiosity. Right now I would like to position two concepts that set the foundation for exploring the “c” emotions: the sacred pause and naming. A pause is a suspension of activity, a time of temporary disengagement when we are no longer moving toward any goal. The pause can occur in the midst of almost any activity and can last for an instant, for hours, or for seasons of our life. In a pause we simply discontinue whatever we are doing be it thinking, talking, walking, planning, worrying, eating, whatever and become present, attentive and often physically still.

Try it now. Stop reading and sit there, doing nothing and simply notice what you are experiencing — actually try to drop down inside yourself and name your emotions. The point of the sacred pause is to develop the capacity to stop hiding, to stop running away from what we are feeling. We develop the capacity to discern and name whatever is going on inside of us in the moment. When we do that we are awake.

Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach, Ph.D. is one of the most beautiful books on mindfulness and compassion I have ever read. I would urge everyone to read it. There is a story in the book starting on page 73 that makes me weep each time I read it. I am going to include it here to demonstrate the power of the sacred pause and naming. Here goes:

“Jacob, almost seventy, was in the mid-stages of Alzheimer’s disease. A clinical psychologist by profession and a meditator for more than twenty years, he understood his faculties were deteriorating. On occasion his mind would go totally blank; he would have no access to words for several minutes and become completely disoriented. He often forgot what he was doing and usually needed assistance with basic tasks — cutting his food, putting on clothes, bathing, getting from place to place.

With his wife’s help, Jacob attended a ten-day meditation retreat I was leading. A couple of days into the course Jacob had his first interview with me. These meetings, which students have regularly with a teacher, are an opportunity to check in and receive personal guidance in the practice…..During the interview he told me about an experience he’d had in an earlier stage of the disease.

Jacob had occasionally given talks about Buddhism to local groups and had accepted an invitation to address a gathering of over a hundred meditation students. He arrived at the event feeling alert and eager to share the teaching he loved. Taking his seat in front of the hall, Jacob looked out at the expectant faces before him…and suddenly he did not know what he was supposed to say or do. He did not know where he was or why he was there. All he knew was that his heart was pounding furiously and his mind was spinning in confusion.

Putting his palms together at his heart, Jacob started naming out loud what was happening: “Afraid, embarrassed, confused, feeling like I’m failing, powerless, shaking, sense of dying, sinking, lost.” For several more minutes he sat, head slightly bowed, continuing to name his experience. As his body began to relax and his mind grew calmer, he also noted that aloud. At last Jacob lifted his head, looked slowly around at those gathered and apologized.

Many of the students were in tears. As one put it, “No one has ever taught us like this. Your presence has been the deepest teaching.” Rather than pushing away his experience and deepening his agitation, Jacob had the courage and training simply to name what he was aware of, and, most significantly, to bow to his experience. In some fundamental way he did not create an adversary out of feelings of fear and confusion. He didn’t make anything wrong.”

Jacob deeply moved the hundred people sitting there watching and listening to him. He was able to be present to deep confusion, humiliation and fear and turn the experience into one of connection and love. There is so much to learn from this story. I want for all of us when overwhelmed by news, life, an interaction with another person to stop and breathe and then drop into your heart and name what you are feeling. I can assure you as a human being and therapist, if you allow yourself to do that the dark emotions we so often hide in us will soften. They simply want to be named and accepted.

So here goes my sacred pause and naming with respect to what I feel in this moment about the election of Trump and the division I see happening in this country: stun, disbelief, horror, shock, staggered, incredulous, flabbergasted, dumbfounded, dazed, anger, rage, fury, resentful, disgust, sickened, disbelief, fear, fear, fear, humiliation, sorrow, sadness, powerless, depressed, panic, cruelty, fear, anxiety, worry, fretful, dread, grief, loss, terror, confused, cruelty, distressed, helpless, ashamed, hopeless, despairing, victimized, sad, cruelty, disrespect, sad, sad, sorrow, heartache, lost, unsafe, cruelty, defenseless, sad, sad, sad, cruelty, sorrow, cruelty, sorrow, sorrow, cruelty, sorrow, sad, sad, sad, sad.

To each of those emotions, that calm God spark I have in my heart said, “Of course. I understand.” Over and over I heard, “Of course. I understand.” In this moment with the naming and acceptance of each emotion, I feel softened though I remain filled with deep sadness. I also realize the sadness comes from a perception of cruelty on the part of the president-elect and his choices for the incoming — next.

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Commentary — November 2, 2023

I love the essay above. I love every word I wrote in 2016. The sacred pause and naming are two foundational practices I do every single day all through the day as both a human being and a psycho-therapist. As I re-read the essay with an eye as to it relevance in 2023, what hit like a ton of bricks was the line that stated “…the intent of the sacred pause and naming is to be awake.

Yes, maga politicians, maga news pundits, maga supporters, we want to be awake/woke; it is a statement of emotional and intellectual health to be awake/woke. Being awake/woke is good. Abraham Maslow would say it is the state of being that allows individuals to reach the highest level of human development: self-actualization. My goodness — truly, truly, truly, my goodness — these folks think it is bad to be awake. They are so sleepy, they are actually in a coma.

I am going to do stream of consciousness naming in this moment as Jacob did with respect to all the politicians, conservative news pundits and trump supporters screaming about the dangers of “woke” because I have a lot of feelings going on — a lot of feelings. Here goes: rage, rage, rage, fury, fury, fury, stun, disbelief, horror, shock, staggered, incredulous, flabbergasted, dumbfounded, dazed, anger, rage, fury, fury, fury, fury, resentful, disgust, sickened, disbelief, fear, sorrow, depressed, panic, cruelty, anxiety, worry, fretful, dread, terror, confused, cruelty, distressed, fury, fury, fury, fury, fury, helpless, hopeless, victimized, cruelty, disrespect, sorrow, heartache, unsafe, cruelty, rage, rage, rage, judgement, rage, rage, rage, rage, idiots, idiots, idiots, rage, rage, rage, judgement, judgement, judgement, rage, rage, rage, idiots, idiots, idiots, rage, fury, rage, fury, idiots.

I offer a kind “of course” to all my emotions. I accept them all. In this moment though, no one inside of me is listening to that. What I have noticed after seven years of verbal, emotional, social and physical abuse by trump and his supporters, is that anger and rage are often the predominant emotions I carry, and they do not settle easily.

They are loyal protectors of my inner emotional world saying, “Enough is enough. These folks are idiots and we have to stand up to them in every way possible — not in violence but in countless ways of demonstrating NO, NOT ACCEPTABLE, STOP.”

My response to these raging protectors is, “Of course.” My action step this morning? I will sit and listen to them name their emotions as long as they need to speak. I know if I do not pause and name, the day will be chaotic inside of me which will lead to a very out of sorts day outside of me. I know sitting with and naming is really hard and challenging with these high energy dark emotions. I also know if I have the courage and patience to sit with these feelings as brave Jacob did and name them, my emotions will not only settle but an action step for this day — no matter how tiny — will emerge. Honestly, it may be as simple and powerful as BEING AWAKE.