I recently read an article about Pema Chodron. The 73 year old former school teacher is the first woman to be ordained in the Tibetan tradition. The main focus of her work is integrating Buddhist practice into daily life. We could all use a bit of spiritual wisdom from time to time – especially new business owners. One thing she advises is to pause.
That’s it. Just pause. Before responding to an unpleasant email. Before defining someone’s actions. Before clicking “buy”. Before giving up. Before hiring someone. Before firing someone. Before committing your time. Before pretty much anything, especially if it elicits an emotional response.
She explains that when we pause, we interrupt our usual chain reaction. We go from being self-absorbed to completely awake. Chodron refers to this moment of pause as “the gap”. When you stop to take a breath, and enter the gap, your head will clear. Your next move (if you decide to make one) will come from a place of calm. Interrupting our habits (and that’s what many of our responses are) can be tough, but the reward is that we'll create a sense of peace. Also, we’ll have the knowledge that our decision has been dutifully considered, if just for a few seconds.
I’m pretty sure none of us has to look too far into the past for an example where, if we had just paused, we would have done things differently. In the “hurry up, because I’ve got tons more to do” world of new business owners, we should all take a lesson from the former school teacher, and pause.
