Permission to Pause

I came out of the womb type A. Go, go, go has always been my default setting. Rest feels like falling behind. I will relax when I'm dead.

So when I talk about the power of the pause, know that I'm not preaching from a place of mastery. I'm right there with you. But I am a gardener in my spare time, and recently the following idea really stuck with me:

Plants don't bloom all year long. They have a season of abundance, of color and growth and beauty, and then they go quiet. They pull inward. They rest and restore. And because of that rest, they come back the next season even stronger, even more alive.

We accept that in nature. So why do we refuse it for ourselves?

The world right now feels relentless. More content, more output, more emails, more apps to download, more pressure to keep up. More, more, more! I know I am exhausted and most people I talk to are as well, I can see it in their faces. We watch our kids head off to camp, faces lit up, completely present, and we feel a flicker of envy. Somewhere along the way, summer stopped being a season and started being just another quarter.

In the work I do with clients, I teach something that sounds simple but takes real practice: the pause is not a gap. It's a tool. I say - Make friends with the pause. A moment of silence after a key message lands harder than three more sentences ever could. It signals confidence. It creates space for genuine connection.

The same is true for how we live.

This summer, I'm going to try to give myself permission to pause. To not feel compelled to output more at every turn. And I'm inviting you to do the same.

You don't have to bloom all year long.