Yesterday, I recognized that a pause was necessary. A pause from being on my phone, a pause from being on my laptop. So I purposely allocated the morning to do just that.

That might seem like a really easy thing to do, but what it brought up for me was this noticing about how easy it is to want to reach for something to distract me — to take me outside of whatever my experience was, be it meditation, be it walking, be it sitting, reading.

And it's not just this little device, this phone. We become attached to different habits and different patterns. Some of them are really supportive, but some of them actually take us out of receiving the experience we're having in that moment.

Receiving the moment that's presented to us. That's the practice.

And noticing when we do become distracted — because we inevitably will — and letting that be the invitation that says, okay, okay, Rhonda, you're feeling, you're noticing, you want to see what that noise is, or you want to look elsewhere, see what somebody else is doing. And instead, maybe I can soften my gaze, and maybe I can come inward.

This is what we're doing on the mat and in life: inviting pauses throughout to notice what's happening somatically, what's happening in our being, that we might otherwise let a diversion rob us of that experience.

Honoring the moment. The pause before or after something concludes and whatever is next shows up. Inviting those, for me, oh so necessary, pauses. Be they for a single breath, or for a more extended period of time.