Virtual Pause

Virtual Pause

By Angie WinnHealth & FitnessMental Health
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Virtual Pause episodes

  • Episode 124: Observe the Chaos, Choose Silence

    July 1, 2024

    Even when we find ourselves grounded and feeling stable, it

    doesn’t take long for our thoughts to be distracted and we are back into the chaos.
     Richard Rohr says that “silence
    precedes, undergirds, and grounds everything. We cannot just think of it as an
    accident, or as something unnecessary. Unless we learn how to live there, go
    there, abide in this different phenomenon, the rest of things—words, events,
    relationships, identities—become rather superficial, without depth or context.
    They lose meaning, so we end up searching for more events and situations which
    must increasingly contain ever-higher stimulation, more excitement, and more
    color to add vital signs to our inherently bored and boring existence.”

    In this episode, we will experience some silence and try to

    observe the chaos in our lives from a still, silent center. Then we will see
    where it is that we want to jump back into the chaos and try and let go and
    stay in our stability, choosing silence.

    Listening portion is from 1 Kings 11, The Message Version.

    Then he was told, “Go, stand on the mountain at attention

    before God. God will pass by.” A hurricane wind ripped through
    the mountains and shattered the rocks before God, but God wasn’t
    to be found in the wind; after the wind an earthquake, but God wasn’t
    in the earthquake; and after the earthquake fire, but God wasn’t in
    the fire; and after the fire a gentle and quiet whisper.

    https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-gift-of-silence/

    26 min
  • Episode 123: Grasping at Inner Tubes

    June 10, 2024

    “All men seek peace first of all with themselves. That is necessary

    because we do not naturally find rest even in our being. We have to learn to commune
    with ourselves before we can communicate with other men and with God. A man who
    is not at peace with himself necessarily projects his interior fighting into the
    society of those he lives with, and spreads a contagion of conflict all around
    him. Even when he tries to do good to others his efforts are hopeless, since he
    does not know how to do good to himself. In moments of wildest idealism he may
    take int into his head to make other people happy: and in doing so he will overwhelm
    them with his own unhappiness. He seeks to find himself somehow in the work of
    making others happy. Therefore, he throws himself into the work As a result he
    gets out of the work all that he puts into it: his own confusion, his own disintegration,
    his own unhappiness.” Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island

    Sometimes we feel like we are floating comfortably on a raft

    down a calm river, at peace and at home with ourselves. Other times we feel
    like we are in class IV rapids, grasping at little inner tubes as they float
    by, trying to survive, pulling in lifelines where we can.

    Today we will get ourselves back on the raft through our

    pause, and then discern the stake of the tent that we need to strengthen to be
    able to come back to peace and rest.

    Photo by Vicko Mozara on Unsplash

    28 min
  • Episode 122: The Light Right Where You Are

    June 10, 2024

    There are times in our lives where we feel that we may not

    where we are going. We may be in a space of waiting, or not fully immersed into
    one thing. We may feel lost or purposelessness in the ordinary. Letting go of
    needing to know where we are going, being seen a certain way, and feeling a
    sense of security, allows us to be content in the place where God has us.

    When I am among the trees,

    Especially the willows and the honey locust,

    Equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

    They give off such hints of gladness.

    I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

    I am so distant from the hope of myself,

    In which I have goodness, and discernment,

    And never hurry through the world

    But walk slowly, and bow often.

    Around me the trees stir in their leaves

    And call out, “Stay awhile.”

    The light flows from their branches.

    And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,

    “and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy,

    to be filled

    With light, and to shine.”

    Mary Oliver, When I am Among the Trees

    Photo credit: Alex Winn, Australian hike

    28 min
  • Episode 121: Expanded Pause

    June 3, 2024

    Today we are going to do a longer pause – taking more time to

    settle our bodies, quiet our minds, open our hearts, and connect to our source.
    So if you can spread out we will be on our feet doing some movements.

    “Awaken us to the Oneness of all things, to the beauty and

    truth of Unity. May we become aware of the interdependence of all living
    things, and come to know You in everything, and all things in You. For as we attune
    to your Presence within us, we know not separation, and joy becomes our dwelling
    place.” Excerpted from Psalm 106, Nan Merrill, Psalms for Praying

    26 min
  • Episode 120: The Flux Factor

    May 20, 2024

    Sometimes when we are in flux – uncertainty – in one or more aspects

    of our lives, we begin to try and control something to alleviate the discomfort
    that flux brings. And that control brings chaos in our lives and the lives of
    others. That is the flux factor – the unintended consequences of our behaviors
    when we are feeling out of control. In today’s episode, we will identify where
    we are “fluxing” and how we are responding to it, and then, through a Pause,
    try to settle ourselves and let go of the need to feel “ok”.

    In our spirit section I read from Rainer Maria Rilke,

    “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try

    to love the questions themselves…Live the questions ow. Perhaps you will then
    gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

    26 min
  • Episode 119: Shaking off the Suffocating Moss

    April 28, 2024

    Looking at an oak covered with moss this weekend, I realized that

    my current situation is like the clump of moss in the tree. And I am trying to
    solve the problem by staying inside the moss. As Albert Einstein said, “We
    cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.”
    Today we are going to shake off the moss and let ourselves be free from it,
    reaching up to the sun-lit, silent sky for insight and solutions.

    Here I am, trapped again

    fixing the quandary by piling on more dirt in the trenches I’ve

    carved out for myself.

    Suffocating under the dirt I cling to, I fling

    blinding myself with my own chaos.

    It’s not in there,

    the answer, the validation, the path you look for

    It’s not in there,

    the healing and insight you seek.

    Shake it off,

    Shake off the dirt

    the moss that clints to you

    and reach for the silent sun-lit sky

    Be

      then Free

       then See

    For my designs for your life are immeasurable, unspeakable.

    Be

    Free

    See.

    -Angie Winn

     

    25 min
  • Episode 118: Loving-Kindness Meditation

    April 15, 2024

    Sometimes we need a little help loving others and loving ourselves!

    Today I will guide us through an adaptation of a Loving-Kindness Meditation from
    John Kabat-Zinn to help us experience a sense of love for ourselves and our
    community. I will then follow it up with this encouragement from Ephesians 3:17-19

    “And I pray that you, being rooted and

    established in love,  may have power, together with
    all God’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and
    deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that
    surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the
    fullness of God.”

    https://www.mindful.org/this-loving-kindness-meditation-is-a-radical-act-of-love/


    photo credit: elena-mozhvilo on unsplash

    27 min
  • Episode 117: Holding Onto the Thread

    April 8, 2024

    From James Finley, writer of April 8th, 2024 Daily

    Meditation CAC.org.

    “The

    essential, that which is given to us in the metaphorical fire of this quiet
    oneness, never imposes itself on us, while the unessential is constantly
    imposing itself on us. We begin to wonder, “How can I learn not to get so
    caught up in the complexities of the day-to-day that I keep losing my sense of
    connectedness with this depth, this fire, which alone is ultimately real?”

    It

    doesn’t lie in our power to make these insights happen, but here’s the key. We
    can freely choose to assume the stance that offers the least resistance to
    being overtaken by the fire that we cannot make happen. This is our daily
    rendezvous, and the key is that it’s personal. We have to find those acts,
    those persons, those modes of service, those moments of creative unfolding,
    those moments where we feel something is being asked of us….  

    Therefore,

    we want to set aside a quiet time of availability to this. We have to stay with
    it. We have to be patient and be calm. We have to be receptively open to this
    way of being. And at the end of each rendezvous with the deeper place, we ask
    for the grace not to break the thread of that sensitivity as we go through the
    rest of our day. Although the thread breaks many times from our end, it never
    breaks from God’s end….  “

     

    Listening to our Souls through these lines of Pinegrove’s Iodine:

     

    I’m spiraled up inside

    My iridescent mind is reaching up for something pure and or actual.


    Photo by amirali mirhashemian on Unsplash

    27 min
  • Episode 116: Stop Trying

    April 1, 2024

    When we exert our “will”, pull up our boot straps, and keep

    going and pushing, we often become depleted and depressed. Perhaps we are
    trying to make a path for ourselves that is not intended for us. Often when we
    let go of what we think we should be and do, then an authentic gift shows up in
    us that we never knew we had. In this episode, we will identify those places in
    our lives where we are trying really hard, and discern if this is where we are
    supposed to be, let go, and see what gift is actually trying to be birthed.

    “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything with thanksgiving let

    your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all
    comprehension, shall guard you hearts and your minds.” Philippians 4: 6-7

     

    Poem:

     

    A god can do it. But tell me how

    a person can flow like that through the slender lyre.
    Our mind is split. At the crossroads in our heart
    stands no temple for Apollo.


    Song, as you teach us, is not a grasping
    not a seeking for some final consummation.


    To sing is to be. Easy for a god.
    But when do we simply be? When do we
    become one with earth and stars?


    It is not achieved, young friend, by being in love,
    however vibrant that makes your voice.


    Learn to forget you sang like that. It passes.
    Truly to sing takes another kind of breath.
    A breath in the void. A shudder in God. A wind.


    Rainer Maria Rilke

    29 min
  • Episode 115: Saying Yes

    March 25, 2024

    I am realizing how much I hold on to my self-concept, which

    makes it so that I am resistant to saying yes to something new. In this
    episode, we will identify how we are fortifying our self-concept and resisting,
    and then let go so we can say yes to the adventure that awaits for us.

    The Healing Time

    Finally on my way to yes

    I bump into

    All the places where I said no

    To my life

    All the untended wounds

    The red and purple scars

    Those hieroglyphs of pain

    Carved into my skin, my bones,

    Those coded messages

    That send me down

    The wrong street

    Again and again

    Where I find them

    The old wounds

    The old misdirections

    And I left them one by one

    close to my heart

    and I say holy,

    holy.

    Pesha Gertler


    photo credit:

     Drahomír Hugo Posteby-Mach

    29 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…