The ‘Pause’: A Great Virtue - Part II

In the previous article, the Part I of this series we have outlined a 3 step process to handle emotional storms effectively, and these steps are: 1. Preparation 2. Endurance and 3. Recouping. We have also discussed in that article in detail about the first step with respective developmental steps. I strongly recommend you to read it first and practice the exercises covered over there before proceeding to the rest of this article.

Once you detect the emotional storm that is brewing inside as explained in the Preparation step in the previous article, the next step is to endure it with minimum destruction. The most valuable assets to protect in this phase are your relationships, friendships, the reputation, and the goodwill capital that you have earned over a period of time. You do not want them to get tarnished by taking any impulsive action that is carried over by the emotion that lacks clear and objective thinking. Once you ‘endure’ this step successfully, you progress to the final step which is about assessing the impact and taking appropriate actions for 'revival'.

In this article we will go over details on these last two steps (Endurance and Recouping) along with a few pragmatic steps to learn and practice them. Let’s delve into it.

Enduring with ‘The Pause’?

You enter this phase knowing that you are experiencing some physiological changes that are caused by an emotion. If the emotion is positive, indulge in the joy that brings in fully; while doing so, be mindful of any promises you make, especially those beyond your normal scope to fulfill. On the other hand, if the emotion is negative, you have some work to do and it starts by staying calm. This is the most difficult part of the practice, but fortunately there is a solution to help with this, which I call ‘The Pause’.

When you pause, you essentially ‘withdraw’ from the situation and turn attention inward of yourself. While doing so, you would still gather the unfiltered information as covered in the article Deep Listening which is processed later in the third step. Turning attention inward is easier said than done unless some required skills are developed. One such practice that can help with this is to bring awareness back to the breathing. Then slowly turn it into Deep and Slow breathing as discussed in the Part 1 of this series and stay with it. If you are successful at it, after a while, you can notice the 'calmness' is developing inside you. Let’s wait a moment here to understand clearly what we just said. You initially started off with a certain negative emotion which caused some physiological changes, including how you would normally breathe. By practicing ‘The Pause’, you are able to develop inner calmness. In other words, you are able to change the original emotion into something else just by changing how you breathe. Essentially, you simply have turned around the table by owning breathing, which I think is a very powerful virtue. Below are developmental practices to develop this practice and they are divided into mini and micro levels.

X-Y-Z Breathing, the micro practice

This practice is about paying attention to every breathing cycle. Our breathing cycle is divided into 3 parts; inhaling, holding and exhaling. In normal breathing, we skip the holding phase, which makes the breath cycle shorter. You would have to bring it back into the breathing cycle by following the X-Y-Z formula in which X represents the count during inhaling, Y represents the count while holding the breath and Z represents the count during exhaling. To give an example, you can start with 4-3-6 (count from 1 to 4 while inhaling deeply into the belly, count 1 to 3 while holding breath, and count 1 to 6 while exhaling) and repeat it with every cycle. By doing so, you automatically make your breath cycle longer.

Walking Meditation, the macro practice

Some storms leave a bigger and lasting impact especially the negative ones, in such cases a micro level pause alone might not be enough. You would need to keep a calmer state of mind for a longer duration. This is possible with the meditation practices; one of my favorites is the ‘walking meditation’. For this, you can simply stay in the moment while walking and practice X-Y-Z breathing as described above.

With the help of micro and macro practices of the Pause, you can endure the negative storms successfully just like taking a shelter for weather storms. Turtles are well known for using their own shells as a protective shelter when they sense any adversity and they stay there as long as needed. They also have a very slow breathing cycle for longer durations making them to live longer. A lot can be observed from them in this context, hence I picked turtle as a cover picture for this article.

Recouping with Self-Regulation

You enter this last phase of ‘Recouping' by successfully observing Step 1 (Preparation) and Step 2 (Endurance). This step is about handling the post-storm impact effectively.

During this Regulation process; for positive emotions, recall any promises that have been made during ‘The Pause’ and make a plan to follow through. For negative emotions, process all the information that has been gathered with a cool head and come up with a set of actions that you would have to take. Here, it is very important to ensure that your actions are unbiased and fact based. This phase provides a great opportunity for self development as you reflect on why the emotional conflict is happening in the first phase. If the same conflict is repeating, it may be likely that there may be some traits you are not fully developed yet or you may have fixated on certain thought processes. Nevertheless, make sure that actions you come up with and execute are unbiased and consistent with your values and long term objectives that define who you are as a person.?

Conclusion

Different types of emotions can trigger different types of emotions at different levels of impact, but emotions can be handled carefully with a three step process. Practicing ‘Awareness’ based breathing can help in sensing the storm early and identifying the emotion. Once the emotion is identified, it can be endured successfully by using ‘The Pause’ practice. Once endured, a final follow through step is required for impactful revival. The third step offers a great opportunity for self-introspection which is a powerful tool for further self-development. You will have to put in your best and ethical thought process together in the final step to address the conflict at a fundamental level.

Self-awareness and self-regulation are the most talked about topics in the context of Emotional Intelligence while ‘The Pause’ is not talked as much so in such context. I think it is a very important practice that connects Self-awareness with Self-regulation smoothly. It also helps in enduring the storm effectively and enabling to collect unaltered information to make the overall process more successful.?

Lastly, Emotionally Intelligent people are genuinely interested in other people’s interests and are highly empathic. They create nurturing, open and collectively supportive environments which I think is very important and this skill can be developed. I sincerely hope this article gives readers the right level of information most importantly necessary developmental practices. I hope you have enjoyed reading this article and would benefit from it. Wish you all the best!