pause
I was staring at my computer screen on Tuesday night, working on an article. I’d read through some feedback I got from a respected writer friend. He told me I had several places to move into the active voice.
(I’ve never been very good at keeping the voices consistent when I write.)
This week, I realized why.
As I read back through the parts I needed to change and considered what the active voice phrasing should be, it all rushed back to me. The moment I was describing, the moment of pressing, vulnerability, and the pain the followed.
Writing is pausing.
Good writing should be, I think. Tears were streaming down my cheeks as I relived that moment. I couldn’t keep writing and rewriting. I had to pause and remember. The rush of feelings forced me. To pause.
(I’m also not very good at pausing.)
In a world full of distractions, pausing is so much harder than it should be. Because pausing means pulling out and putting away all those distractions and sitting in the moment, sitting in the pain, sitting in whatever we are trying to avoid with all those distractions.
Pausing makes us feel.
I’m in the heart triad of the Enneagram. But my wing crosses over into the head triad. Much of the research done on this type talks about how fascinating that cross over is for the person. For me, it’s a simple as what my counselor always says to me, “You try and think your way out of your feelings.”
I do. So I must learn to pause, for there is where my feelings lie.
Stephanie Nelson 
I agree, it can be so easy to distract ourselves with busyness, instead of pausing and actually acknowledging our feelings about certain things and working through the pain. It’s so beneficial though when we do take time to do that. Visiting from FMF.
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Thought i have never given it thought before, you are absolutely on to something. I feel as though every time I sit down to write, this post will rise to the surface and remind me… and I hope that it does.
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