Press the Pause Button!

A wise woman...remembers to pause often ~ for the health of it.

I think a person would have to be living under a rock to have not been exposed to the abundance of messages and information out there encouraging us to slow down and take care of ourselves.

While it's easy for us get this on a conceptual level, we still seem to be struggling with it on an implementation level. Knowing and doing are two very different things.

Without taking regular time to pause, we're asking for trouble. All work and no play not only makes Jane dull, it makes Jane a stressed girl too, and stress causes disease...get it?

dis-ease

We'll continue to find creative ways of reminding women to pause more often. In the meantime, enjoy this reminder from Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love.

Ease by Elizabeth Gilbert

"We are the strivingest people who have ever lived. We are ambitious, time-starved, competitive, distracted. We move at full velocity, yet constantly fear we are not doing enough.Though we live longer than any humans before us, our lives feel shorter, restless, breathless...

Dear ones, EASE UP. Pump the brakes. Take a step back. Seriously. Take TWO steps back. Turn off all your electronics and surrender over all your aspirations and do absolutely nothing for a spell. I know, I know – we all need to save the world. But trust me: the world will still need saving tomorrow. In the meantime, you’re going to have a stroke soon (or cause a stroke in somebody else) if you don’t calm the hell down.

So go take a walk. Or don’t. Consider actually exhaling. Find a body of water and float. Hit a tennis ball against a wall. Tell your colleagues that you’re off meditating (people take meditation seriously, so you’ll be absolved from guilt) and then actually, secretly, nap.

My radical suggestion? Cease participation, if only for one day this year – if only to make sure that we don’t lose forever the rare and vanishing human talent of appreciating ease"

Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of Eat, Pray, Love. Excerpt from Seth Godin's free ebook "What Matters Now". To download your own copy follow this link.  http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/12/what-matters-now-get-the-free-ebook.html