Virtual Pause

Virtual Pause

By Angie WinnHealth & FitnessMental Health
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Virtual Pause episodes

  • Episode 134: When your “What” is in Your Way

    December 4, 2024

    With so much going on around this season, and my

    own personal transition period moving quickly into empty nesting, I am finding
    myself overwhelmed and anxious. I realized it is because I am focusing on my
    plans and goals and to dos, and those are ever-changing and often out of my
    control. Yet when I focus on the why – the bigger picture and purpose for my
    life, and the how – the way I go about living and moving in that why, the less
    anxious and more free I feel.

    Today we will bring attention to what we are

    paying attention to and when our “what” is in our way and blinds us, and move
    past the “what” of to-dos and expectations and plans, and surrender into the
    “why” and “how” of our lives.

    Reading today by Thomas Merton

    A Prayer

    My Lord God,

    I have no idea where I am going.

    I do not see the road ahead of me.

    I can not know for certain where it will end.

    Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I

    think that

    I am following your will does not mean that I am

    actually doing so.

    But I believe that the desire to please you does

    in fact please you.

    And I hope I have that desire in all that I am

    doing.

    I hope that I will never do anything apart from

    that desire.

    And I know that if I do this you will lead me by

    the right road, though I may know nothing about it.

    Therefore will I trust you always, though I may

    seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

    I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and

    you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

    Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude.

    26 min
  • Episode 133: Where are you to go?

    November 18, 2024

    When we have to make an important decision, it is

    sometimes difficult to discern the direction to go. It may be a decision to
    take a job or what college to go to, or it may be how to deal with a
    challenging person or situation in your life.

    Often, we have our own agenda and may look for affirmation

    from God for the decision we want. But that is not seeking God’s path for our
    lives, it’s only fortifying our own. In today’s pause we will look at a
    decision you are needing to make in your life and recognize which one God may
    be pulling you toward.

    The listening portion today is from Proverbs 3:6 –

    and different translations of it.

    “In all of your ways, be mindful of God, and God will

    make straight your paths.” Magnificat

    “Submit to God…” New International Version

    “Listen for God’s voice in everything you do,

    everywhere you go, God is the one who will keep you on track.” The Message

    “Seek God’s will in all you do.” New Living Translation

    “Give God the credit for everything you

    accomplish, God will smooth and straighten the road that lies ahead.” The Voice

    “In all of your ways know and acknowledge and

    recognize God.” Amplified Version

    “Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

        and do not lean on your own understanding.
    In all your ways acknowledge him,
        and he will make straight your paths.
    Be not wise in your own eyes;
        fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
    It will be healing to your flesh
        and refreshment to your bones.” ESV

    28 min
  • Episode 132: Camino Part 3: Lemons

    November 11, 2024

    My Camino de Santiago journey continues with a story about me

    and a lemon and an old Spanish man….and how, without realizing it, I stole from
    him.

    We steal, everyday, without knowing. We steal time, attention,

    etc. from ourselves and others.  What
    underlies this sometimes subtle behavior of ours? Scarcity? Fear? Need for
    attention? Today we will dig a bit and try and let go of that inner need so we
    can stay in our lane and not experience the negative effects that stealing can
    have on us and others.

    For our listening portion today, we will here from St.

    Augustine…

    “Once for all, then, a short precept is given you:

    love, and do what you will:

    Whether you hold your peace,

    Through love hold your peace

    Whether you cry out, through love cry out;

    Whether you correct, through love correct;

    Whether you spare, through love do you spare:

    Let the root of love be within,

    Of this root can nothing spring but what is good.

    26 min
  • Episode 131: Transferring vs. Transcending

    November 4, 2024

    I have realized lately that for good reason I have built a

    wall of self-protection around my heart in a certain situation in my life. Yet my
    ah-ha happened last week when I realized that the feelings I have behind those
    walls and the reason I built them – fear, insecurity, doubt, pain – have transferred
    into other areas of my life. They have infested and infected relationships,
    opportunities, and dreams. This doesn’t serve me or anyone around me well. So
    we are going to pause it out – letting go of the stuff that rises up in our mode
    of self-protection and allowing the love, peace, joy, creativity, hope, etc. to
    transcend other areas of our lives, breaking down the self-protective walls.

    “To love a person is to learn the song of their heart and

    sing it to them when they’ve forgotten.”

    Anne Garborg

    29 min
  • Episode 130: The Camino Part 2: Dreaming

    October 21, 2024

    Are you allowing yourself to dream? Or are you, as Paulo Coelho

    says in the book The Pilgrimage, killing your dreams by not having
    enough time, by not asking enough of life, by wanting things to be comfortable?

    Dreaming for me has been a way for me to escape the mundane

    and ordinariness of life. My dreams have suffered and not been met at times as
    well. But without dreaming, we lose hope. And we lose our connection to love.

    Today we will identify what keeps us from dreaming, and pull

    in the grounding that is required for our dreams to be ones that are coming
    from our true self, not our ego.

    23 min
  • Episode 129: The Camino Part 1: Joy

    October 14, 2024

    In this week’s episode I begin to talk about my experience on

    the Camino de Santiago in Spain and some of the aha’s I discovered along the
    way! The biggest and most surprising was joy! We will walk through what joy is
    and reflect on what keeps us from experiencing joy in our lives.

    Our listening portion:

    Dear Child of God, you are loved with a love that nothing can

    shake, a love that loved you long before you were created, a love that will be
    there long after everything has disappeared. You are precious, with a
    preciousness that is totally quite immeasurable. And God wants you to be like
    God. Filled with life and goodness and laughter—and joy. 

    God, who is forever pouring out God’s whole being from all

    eternity, wants you to flourish. God wants you to be filled with joy and
    excitement and ever longing to be able to find what is so beautiful in God’s
    creation: the compassion of so many, the caring, the sharing. And God says,
    Please, my child, help me. Help me to spread love and laughter and joy and
    compassion. And you know what, my child? As you do this—hey, presto—you
    discover joy. Joy, which you had not sought, comes as the gift, as almost the
    reward for this non-self-regarding caring for others. 

    Archbishop Desmund Tutu, The Book of Joy

    26 min
  • Episode 128: Not “so that”, but “because”

    September 30th, 2024

    Off I go tomorrow to start my pilgrimage on the Camino de

    Santiago. I reflected this week how much I am leaning on “so that” in order to
    trust that I am supposed to take this journey. “I am going, so that I can get a
    glimpse of what is next in my life, so that I can be prepared for a season of
    empty nesting, so that I can get clarity on my work, so that…..”

    What if we switched it from “so that”, to “because”. “I am

    going because there is a gift just for me. I am going because I want to commune
    with God. I am going because….”

    In this episode we will address our “so that’s” and let them

    go, and trust that being and communing is enough. Because…”

    Our listening portion today:

    I deserve to be sustained, not because of what I’ve done

    But because God is who God is

    I deserve to sink into your love

    I deserve to commune with you

    Because you are…

    Creator, friend, teacher, Yahweh, alpha, omega, everything

    Because you are…

    Wind, rain fire, passion, movement, stillness, healer, north

    star, guide, comforter, almighty, hope

    Because you are…

    Love,

    I am….

    Rooted, passionate, free, vast, shining, peaceful, joyful,

    gentle, patient…

    Because You Are, I am.


    Photo credit: Les routes sans fin(s) on Unsplash

    29 min
  • Episode 127: Carrying on the Camino

    September 23rd, 2024

    In a week, I am embarking on a pilgrimage called the Camino

    de Santiago in Spain. I am learning that the journey doesn’t start when I get
    there - I am being prepared for it now. In a desire to be open to what the
    pilgrimage has in store for me, I am finding that I am holding things in which
    I need to let go.

    In today’s episode we will talk about those things we hold

    onto, and using David Whyte’s poem, give them their fair honor in our lives,
    seeing how they have shaped us in our pasts. As we look towards the journey
    ahead, we will see how our way is the authentic way we want to live.

    The road seen, then not seen, the hillside

    hiding then revealing the way you should take,
    the road dropping away from you as if leaving you
    to walk on thin air, then catching you, holding you up,
    when you thought you would fall,
    and the way forward always in the end
    the way that you followed, the way that carried you
    into your future, that brought you to this place,
    no matter that it sometimes took your promise from you,
    no matter that it had to break your heart along the way:
    the sense of having walked from far inside yourself
    out into the revelation, to have risked yourself
    for something that seemed to stand both inside you
    and far beyond you, that called you back
    to the only road in the end you could follow, walking
    as you did, in your rags of love and speaking in the voice
    that by night became a prayer for safe arrival,
    so that one day you realized that what you wanted
    had already happened long ago and in the dwelling place
    you had lived in before you began,
    and that every step along the way, you had carried
    the heart and the mind and the promise
    that first set you off and drew you on and that you were
    more marvelous in your simple wish to find a way
    than the gilded roofs of any destination you could reach:
    as if, all along, you had thought the end point might be a city
    with golden towers, and cheering crowds,
    and turning the corner at what you thought was the end
    of the road, you found just a simple reflection,
    and a clear revelation beneath the face looking back
    and beneath it another invitation, all in one glimpse:
    like a person and a place you had sought forever,
    like a broad field of freedom that beckoned you beyond;
    like another life, and the road still stretching on.

    from David Whyte’s collection, Pilgrim

    ©2012 Many Rivers Press

    21 min
  • Episode 126: Awake My Soul

    September 9, 2024

    When our minds are in the forefront, which is how all usually

    live our lives, our bodies are running around fulfilling the mind’s agenda, our
    hearts are in self-protective mode, and our minds tell our soul that it doesn’t
    even exist. We may take a break from all of that periodically, like in a Pause,
    but it’s just a break – it doesn’t awaken our souls enough to transcend to the
    rest of our lives.

    Instead of focusing on what we are doing in the world (mind in

    charge), let’s look at the space surrounding our doing. In this episode,
    we will put our minds in the back seat, and awaken our souls, so that our heart
    can open, our minds can be the support for our soul and heart, and our body can
    be the presence needed in the world.

    In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die

    And where you invest your love, you invest your life

    In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die

    And where you invest your love, you invest your life

    Awake my soul

    Awake my soul

    Awake my soul

    For you were made to meet your maker

    Awake My Soul, Mumford and Sons

    28 min
  • Episode 125: Being a Pause for Someone Else

    July 29, 2024

    In this episode I reflect upon how I can see pausing, or

    being still, has had a long-term shift in me. I am in a place right now where I
    am trying to support someone in crisis. I am seeing how just being there for
    them, just showing up, is actually all they need from me.

    For our pause practice today, we will identify someone in our

    life who needs a pause, a breath, healing, some hope. And then we will go
    through our pause connecting ourselves to the earth, to God, and to them,
    through surrender, love, and trust. By being present.

    I mention these words from Ullie Kay Poetry today

    “The best medicine you can bring for sadness is not joy. It is

    not telling them that they need to move on or get over it or realize how much
    worse things could be. No. The medicine for a spirit in mourning is tenderness,
    and warmth, and compassion, and connection, and presence. Sit with someone in
    their grief and let them cry their ugly tears. Do not shine and scurry grief
    away. They must walk through it. This is love. To abandon all that we think we
    know and be so full of grace that we are invited in to partake in someone else’s
    darkest moments. What an honor it is to simply be a light. The antidote for
    sadness is love. It is always love.”

    26 min

About Virtual Pause

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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…