Practicing The Pause

We have heard that phrase a lot lately, usually in regard to stopping before you react. Taking that moment to think before you say or do something you can’t take back. You probably hear this at work all the time, "Practice the pause before you shoot that email out". Or, "Write it out but don’t address it and sit on it for a day".  These are tricks you learn along the way to keep anger in check and to gather thoughts in a way that addresses the problem, without the added emotion.

A former senior leader at my company, who I considered a mentor, told me it takes the average person about 20 minutes to calm down after being angered by something. We then joked that every half hour something rubs us the wrong way, so essentially, we are in a circle of being angry and then calming down… all day long. Well, behind every joke lies the truth. I bet you are smiling now, recanting the events of the day and how this rings true.

So, after we spend a day dealing with the curveballs, frustrations, or simply the tasks needed to get to tomorrow, how do we decompress? When our bodies are tired, we sit, or we go to sleep. Our physical bodies are good at letting us know it’s time to quit for the day. But how do we give our minds a rest? How do we know it’s time to turn off the worry, the over-thinking, the planning?

I tend to schedule my entire day, between meetings at work to laundry to grocery shopping, everything seems to have a time slot. My tolerance for last minute additions is weakening, and my frustration shows. So, if it takes 20 minutes to decompress, how do you decompress from the day?

Theo is always part of my day. He is my joy, my responsibility and my peace. Lately I have been feeding him in his stall, and I wait until he finishes so I can turn him out. This is a different routine from what we had previously, and let’s just say he enjoys his hay slowly. Here comes that life lesson from Theo. In the chaotic world, the world where everything is scheduled, I learn to wait. There is no schedule when he eats, he’s done when he’s done. And so, I have learned when I am with Theo I let my brain rest. I will go from worrying about what I need to do next, what did I forget to do yesterday, to just enjoying him. When your brain rests, you feel your heart rate slow down. You seem to breathe deeper, which makes you feel more alert. My heart fills with love as I just admire him and nestle in the quiet. He is calm, enjoying his dinner, and it’s as though his heart beat touched mine and brought me with him. Maybe that is how it works in the herd? Living in the moment, not beating myself up about yesterday, or worrying about tomorrow. This is how I practice the long pause, at the end of the day, to rest my brain and ease my soul.

When I saw this picture, all this came to mind. Theo is teaching me to appreciate the gift of time and to experience it verses scheduling it.

Kimberlee & Theo

Kimberlee Delany

Life begins after 50, or when you decide to learn about horses! With a passion for animals and a quest for learning, it’s not surprising I began lessons after I turned 50.

With a BS in Psychology, I spent my career in technology, starting at the help desk and landing as a technical business advisor; doing all the techie steps that are needed in-between to cross that bridge.

Continuous improvement is the name of the game.

While growing in my career, I also started a fitness journey. Over the past twenty years, I have explored a variety of sports, from triathlons to Olympic weightlifting. I have competed in local events up and down the East Coast and, most recently, the Texas State Weightlifting Championship.

It all leads to this!

When you are around horses, you notice something, something within you is awakened. It doesn’t matter how old you are, there is something to uncover. In a quest for knowledge, and the sheer experience of discovering the mystery of ‘why I feel so at peace with horses’, I became certified in Equine Assisted Learning (EAL). Now, with a desire to share this amazing journey on how horses heal, I began journaling my experiences with horses and how they teach us about life.

This article is from the July issue of Equine Business Magazine