It was a hundred degrees. We'd been in line for three hours. And when my eight-year-old looked at the ride, panicked, and ran — I said something I cannot take back.
In this episode, I'm getting honest about the moment my word got ahead of me, and why it still haunts me even after the apology. Because here's the hard truth: the apology matters. It is necessary. And it is not the same as not having said it.
I've spent years thinking carefully about my word. I decided young that if I said something, I would mean it. And then I stood at the front of a line in a hundred degrees and broke that promise to myself in about four seconds. Because I forgot to pause.
Today we're talking about what it actually takes to build a real pause — not the kind you nod along to, but the kind that holds up in the heat. You'll hear:
- Why your word is either your greatest tool or your greatest enemy
- The two things a real pause actually requires: intention and practice
- Why my best advice for learning to pause is to go take a walk — yes, even in the middle of a conversation
- How changing your physiology changes your psychology (and why you can't think your way out of a flooded nervous system)
- The quieter pauses that protect you too — the decision pause, the conversational pause, the stillness pause
- And why, for some of us, learning to pause is really grief work
I want to be clear: I am good at this work. I've done real, sustained work on my word. And I still got it wrong. Because the pause is not a destination you arrive at — it's a practice. And practices require practicing.
You are not broken. You are not too much. You may just be moving so fast your word is getting ahead of you.
Your word is a choice. Every time. The pause is how you actually make it.
If this episode landed for you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Sometimes the most useful thing we can do for someone we love is hand them something that names what they haven't been able to say out loud.
New episodes every week. I'm Katie Edmonds — keep going inward.