Virtual Pause

Virtual Pause

By Angie WinnHealth & FitnessMental Health
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Virtual Pause episodes

  • Episode 144: Eyes Open and Heart Open – Tonglen Practice

    April 14, 2025

    It is tough right now to see all that is happening in our world.Many emotions come up for me that can be paralyzing – keeping me from positivelycontributing my gifts. Yet I can’t have my eyes closed and live simply byungrounded hope, because that is denial. I need to live with my eyes open tothe reality of what is happening and my heart open towards community, compassionand comfort.

    Today we will be practicing Tonglen, which is “giving and receiving”.In this Buddhist practice we identify a feeling/emotion that we areexperiencing and imagine others experiencing the same feeling, even people wedon’t know or don’t necessarily agree with. Then we send out comfort, love, andlight.

    For our listening portion today:

    I amdetermined to cultivate only thoughts that increase trust and love

    To use myhands to perform only deeds that build community

    To speakonly words of harmony and aid.

    Thich NhatHanh

    I reference theauthor/scientist Margaret Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science; RestoringSanity: Practices to Awaken Generosity, Creativity, and Kindness in Ourselvesand Our Organizations; and Who Do We Choose to Be

    23 min
  • Episode 143: Stop, be still... even for a moment

    April 7, 2025

    I am findingit very difficult to quiet my mind these days. There is too much noise –locally, nationally, and globally. Yet I know that if I don’t find a way toquiet my mind, even for a moment, I will push myself into the world with fearand control, or hide away from it, and not be a place of refuge and safety forothers.

    Today we willdo a simple pause focusing on being still, allowing ourselves to touch, evenfor a moment, that place of beauty, stillness and hope in us, so we can bringit out to the world.

    I referenceRichard Rohr’s meditation about apatheia, or dispassion or indifference, andyou can find it here.  https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-change-in-consciousness/

    26 min
  • Episode 142: Catching our Breath

    March 24, 2025

    There aretimes I behave in ways I am not proud of and feel very incongruent to my soul. Thechaos of the world and the chaos into my head leaks into my thoughts andbehaviors. Coming back to stability may happen as an interior shift in us, oras an external shift in circumstances. The common theme is surrender, so we canopen up our lungs and our hearts for the breath of God, the breath of thespirit.
    YHWH 

    There was a moment when Moses had the nerve toask God what his name is. God was gracious enough to answer, and the name hegave is recorded in the original Hebrew as YHWH.
    Over time we’vearbitrarily added an “a” andan “e” inthere to get YaHWeH, presumably because we have a preference for vowels. 
    But scholars and Rabbi’s have noted that theletters YHWH represent breathing sounds, or aspirated consonants. Whenpronounced without intervening vowels, it actually sounds like breathing. 
    YH (inhale): WH (exhale). 
    So a baby’s first cry, his firstbreath, speaks the name of God. 
    A deep sigh calls His name – or a groan or gasp that is too heavy for merewords. 
    Even an atheist would speak His name, unaware that their very breath is givingconstant acknowledgment to God. 
    Likewise, a person leaves this earth with their last breath, when God’sname is no longer filing their lungs. 
    So when I can’t utter anything else, is mycry calling out His name?
    Being alive means I speak His name constantly.  
    So, is it heard the loudest when I’m the quietest?
    In sadness, we breathe heavy sighs. 
    In joy, our lungs feel almost like they will burst. 
    In fear we hold our breath and have to be told to breathe slowly to help uscalm down. 
    When we’re about to do something hard, we take a deepbreath to find our courage.  
    When I think about it, breathing is giving him praise. Even in the hardestmoments! 
    This is so beautiful and fills me with emotion every time I grasp the thought.God chose to give himself a name that we can’thelp but speak every moment we’re alive. 
    All of us, always, everywhere. 
    Waking, sleeping, breathing, with the name of God on our lips.
    - Unknown Author 

    28 min
  • Episode 141: Deeper Healing from Trauma

    March 3, 2025

    I am findingmyself stuck and experiencing physical stress responses to triggers, with no evidencethat warrants such a reaction. Trauma that I experienced decades ago issneaking up now in surprising ways. I feel I am being invited into deeper healingthat helps release and reprogram the trauma I experienced. Today I willintroduce a new modality that helps calm the nervous system down through soundsand frequencies.

    The poems and narratives I am reading arefrom Ranier Maria Rilke, Jan Richardson, Alexandra Vasiliu, and Mary Oliver. Thanks toDr. Carol Lewis and the UF Mindfulness Center for leading us through thismodality through the UF Mindfulness 360 Series.

     https://www.ufmindfulness.org/workshop-programs

    Photo by Touann Gatouillat Vergos on Unsplash

    23 min
  • Episode 140: Nonessentials

    Letting of of non-essentials in life seems like a no-brainer if we see them simply as things that are unhealthy for us or are distractions. But our nonessentials can be anything, even good things, that we are entangled in and that keep us from our center.

    In today's episode, we will identify those nonessentials and let them go so that we can experience "supreme life" and "deepest peace."

    Our listening portion today:

    "Everything that is non-essential in s must fall away like ashes in a furnace, in order that the pure gold of our being, thus refined, may shine in the light of grace....For peace begins only in death, with inexpressible bliss of supreme life, which is supreme wakefulness, supreme activity, and supreme intensity, and at the same time deepest calm, deepest peace, and deepest security."

    Hanns Georg von Heintschell-Heinegg, From Dying we Live: The final Messages and Records of the Resistance.

    An Austrian poet and theology student who was put to death for his outspoken resistance to the Nazi regime.


    26 min
  • ⁠Episode 139: Embracing Our Limitations⁠

    February 3rd, 2025

    When we

    hide, grasp, push, shove, dominate, escape, or demonstrate other un-grounded
    behaviors, we are more than likely acting out of a place of self-protection, pushing
    down a weakness or limitation we have that we can’t bear for the world, or ourselves,
    to see.

    This limitation

    can create a shadow side in us, and the work we do to cover it up and protect an
    image of ourselves can be exhausting and destructive. In today’s Pause, we will
    identify a limitation in ourselves, see how we have acted to protect it,
    embrace it with compassion, and let it get untangled from our grip. From that place
    we will be able to be vulnerable, open, and at rest, live transformed, and be
    guided on how to move into the world.

    “Our

    creations come not when we’re out in the world, gathering impressions, but when
    we’re sitting still, turning those impressions into sentences. Our job, you could
    say, is to turn, through stillness, a life of movement into art.” The Art of
    Stillness, Pico Iyer

    Photo by Andrey Grinkevich on Unsplash

    27 min
  • Episode 138: Stop Feeding the Beast

    January 27, 2025

    Most of us, if not all of us, are currently experiencing

    something in our lives that we want to change. Whether in us, our families, our
    communities, our nation, or our world.  We
    have learned that the way for things to change is to fight – to fortify
    whatever is weak in our lives; or we hide – shrinking back in fear and feeling overcome
    by despair.

    This is our ego at play – and positive change can’t come from

    ego. We can’t be guided simply by our own needs towards a better outcome. In
    this episode we will learn what “letting go” and “releasing” means, and
    spending time in quiet Centering Prayer to release these old habits and ways of
    ego-doing, so we can just be. From this place of being, we will notice what is
    stirring in us – our way forward – to bring the hope and healing we desire.

    25 min
  • Episode 137: Light in the Dark Crack

    January 13, 2025

    I noticed the other day the intense feeling that

    I suddenly got throughout my body when I was having a conversation with
    someone. That sense of flight or fight was real. My reaction to it was to
    protect – and that looked like judgment, anger, hiding, superiority, etc. But
    the situation didn’t warrant my reaction. What was really going on?

    When we are confronted with a situation that triggers

    us, our immediate reaction is often fight or flight or freeze. It can feel like
    a crack has opened in our lives that is dark. Yet if we stay in that darkness,
    we are unable to see what is really going on in us. We have to let the dark
    crack be filled by light as we stabilize our bodies and get our minds quiet,
    giving some breathing room for what is really going on in us. Then we will be
    able to see what we are gripping onto, what we are trying to control or hide
    from, and let properly put those things where they belong – out of our hands.

    Our listening portion today is from the bible, 2

    Timothy 1:7

    “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity

    (cowardice, fear), but a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.”


    photo credit: Joe Gardner on unsplash

    25 min
  • Episode 136: 2025 - Moving With One Foot Down

    January 6, 2025

    As I have reflected on last year, I realized that

    my intense external chaos bled into my internal state of being. I ended up
    being in my head, not in my body or heart. Like a whirling dervish, instead of
    both feet flying around through the chaos of life, we need to keep one foot
    solidly stable and grounded as we navigate through life.

    As we embark on the new year, today’s pause will

    be about reflecting on what has consumed our minds (worry and problem-solving)
    and be present. We will let go of needing approval from the world and
    remember how God has shown up in our lives and loved us, even through the most
    difficult of circumstances. And we will trust the process of our lives
    and experience peace.

    Listening portion by Eckhart Tolle: “You find

    peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who
    you are at the deepest level.”


    Photo by Hulki Okan Tabak on Unsplash

    26 min
  • Episode 135:When We Can't Calm the Storm

    December 16, 2024

    How often do we find ourselves in a storm of life

    and we think we can actually calm the chaos of the situation? We want to
    control the person, circumstances, or outcome, yet instead of having the power
    to do so, we find ourselves agitated, depleted, and critical because we simply can’t
    change it.

    In today’s episode, we will look at those

    situations in our lives where we are trying to control the storm (or perpetuate
    it) and imagine going inside of our tents – where our souls can find stillness
    and peace - and allow that peace to flow out to the world.

    Our listening portion today:

    “…Our soul is so centered in God that it is free

    to leave itself behind and become absorbed in the presence of the promised
    Prince of Peace. From this inward stillness flows the outward peace for which
    the world long.” Magnificat Meditation, December 14, 2024

    24 min

About Virtual Pause

From the publisher's feed

Virtual Pause Podcast - A brief guided meditation intended to integrate your body, mind, heart, and spirit so that you can live with resilience and stability in everyday chaos. Different topic each…