Pause and Turn Aside 1

Pause, when the going gets tough.

Pause, when you’ve gone far enough.

Pause, when there’s nowhere to hide.

Pause,

Turn aside.

Valerie Heaton

Life is so precious, full of wonder and beauty, a totally awesome place and yet the journey of life is never going to be easy for any one. It often seems to me to be like a personal and collective obstacle race that challenges us right to the end; good times, bad times and in-between times all have to be navigated. So this means no jumping over, running round, stopping, bumping into, running away from or denying the obstacles. It sounds pretty basic, yet we all find ourselves doing most of them, if not all of them along the way! The sad thing is we sometimes hurt others at the same time and I bitterly regret the times this has happened in my own life.

Running away; first mentally, then physically were my avoidance tactics. I would go around the obstacle, run too fast and in the end it seemed too far to go back. I did not see what I was doing at the time. In hindsight, obviously, there is so much more clarity. I should have PAUSED AND TURNED ASIDE before it was too late.

The reason I say pause AND turn aside is because I feel a pause is fine if the problem is small, but problems grow huge as days, months, and even years go by with no resolve. Then a pause is not enough, we need something definite to do that will engage the brain long enough to prevent a hasty exit to somewhere worse, (either in our mind or physically). Just the thought of turning away from the problem deliberately will keep the mind busy long enough to start thinking rationally, or grab a friend who is, and turn aside together.

Some familiar, enjoyable activity acts as an initial band-aid but recovery from a run-in with a complex obstacle can be long and painful and needs a much more definite plan. Thanks to our multicultural society there is a rich array of therapies and disciplines that support mindful living to calm the mind and give new life – try one.

Something new seems vital at such times, as newness gives us the energy to go on, in fact it seems that nature itself will force something new anyway and it may not be what we need!

There is so much more to this subject, but my encouragement is to PAUSE TURN ASIDE and add your own life story to it, use it, and before long we will all be somewhere in our wonderful world teaching someone a practical skill or life-skill to help heal them.

Val Heaton