The Power of Stopping

To stop is to be brave. Stopping means relinquishing your control, influence, effect on the world around you. It’s trusting that everything and everyone around will get on ‘just fine’ without your intervention. It means trusting that you are ‘an ok person’ despite your lack of activity.

When the pandemic first hit last year, it caused one of the greatest ‘stops’ our generation has ever known, at a time when the pace of our world was faster than it has ever been. It forced many of us to stop working, stop holidaying, stop meeting up with friends and family, stop shopping for all but essentials. For some, these things remain true even now.

Many of us avoid stopping. We’re more comfortable ‘doing’ than ‘being’. But not stopping can mean we avoid, deny and hide the challenges we may be facing.

Our innate survival instincts mean that our brains are wired to avoid ‘difficult stuff’ and seek comfort in things that help us to avoid that’s stuff; food, alcohol, shopping, general busyness, exercise. None of these are bad in and of themselves, but can be if used in excess.

Stopping doesn’t have to be scary or threatening though. We can help our brains to become more comfortable with stopping by training them to not always associate stopping with threat. Here are a few of suggestions of how to do that:

• Stop with others – create time and space where you sit in quiet with other people. This can be hugely powerful as you ‘hold’ the space for one another.

• Stop and notice – just look around and notice how many different shades of a particular colour you can see, tune into the sounds both near and far away and take a deep inhale of breath and appreciate the smells around you. This time of year lends itself to been done in a garden, on a balcony or out in the countryside

• Stop and self affirm – many of us are flooded with negative self talk or nagging to do lists as soon as we stop. Overwrite the script in your head by choosing to say positive things to yourself like ‘I’m doing ok’, ‘I am enough as I am’, ‘I’m trying my best today’, ‘I’m loved and lovable’.

• Stop and be grateful – take a moment to look back through your day so far and consider all the things that have been good. Relive the moments in your head and let them bring a smile to your face for a second time.

I wonder which of these suggestions you like the most?

I wonder which of these suggestions you’ve done before?

I wonder which of these suggestions you could give a go in the next few days?

We challenge you to stop this week; for five minutes, an hour or even a few hours. Let us know your experiences; good and bad. Let us know if there’s any impact on the time that follows stopping.