The Moments Between
Recently, I witnessed a dear friend going through quite a major traumatic and life-altering moment. There are other significant moments, such as marriage, studying away from home, or your first international competition or stakeholder pitch. However, we don't talk enough about what comes after the big moment.
The breakup.
The baby.
The burnout.
The loss.
The promotion you thought would fix everything but didn't.
We celebrate the highs or scramble through the lows, but we rarely honour the space in between—the aftershock—where your body, mind, and spirit are quietly asking, "Now what?"
This is where the power of pause lives, not in doing nothing but in allowing your system to catch up with your story. These are the moments of integration.
Integration is what happens when we give ourselves room and time to digest. It's the moment your nervous system slowly exhales, and you just sit in this moment to process. When you stop performing and start listening, it's where meaning is created, clarity emerges and alignment begins.
Real-life pause is very rarely a Bali retreat - let's nip that social media lie right in the bud, shall we? Sometimes, it looks like:
Saying no to one more commitment.
Taking 10 minutes to journal before checking your phone.
Walking without earphones or driving in silence and letting your thoughts breathe.
Creating space between what happened and what you do next.
Women are conditioned to move on quickly, to prove we're fine. I have a question for you: what if "the pause" was the most radical, productive thing you could do?
If you've just gone through a shift (emotional, professional, or spiritual), the wisdom is to slow down. Believe it or not, integration isn't a passive process. It's a choice to realign so that when you do move again, you're responding from truth rather than reacting. The power of pause is to break the cycle of constant thought and motion, and this is where reflection occurs - it's in the stillness.
So ask yourself:
Where do I need to pause?
What still needs to land?
How can I be more honest with myself in this in-between?
Use the power of pause!