Today we hear from best-selling author and internationally recognised leader in human potential, Margie Warrel, about the ‘Global Pause’ we are currently facing…
Right now we’re in the midst of a “global pause.” No-one would have chosen its cause, yet in forcing us to slow down, it holds a silent invitation for each of us to rethink how we’re ‘doing life’ and to reconnect to what matters most.
Sure, your plans have unravelled and events have been cancelled (my whole book tour has been cancelled!), but the most important things in life have not been cancelled.
Your friendships have not been cancelled.
Your family has not been cancelled.
Internet access to educate yourself has not been cancelled.
Acts of kindness, reading books, recording grandma’s life-story, writing your own, learning guitar, baking sticky date pudding, making that ‘dream board’ you’ve never had time for… not cancelled!
Of course it’s only natural right now to focus on all that is not as we want it to be. However keep in mind that what you focus on expands.
If all you are doing is scrolling your social media feed, soaking yourself in apocalyptic doomsday prophecies, you’re going to find yourself feeling increasingly anxious and decreasingly grounded.
If all you are doing is talking to everyone about how terrifying this is, you’re going to create for yourself your own living nightmare.
If all you are doing is stocking up on loo paper or hiding under the covers waiting for it all to be over, you’re going to miss out on the hidden gifts this time holds.
Maria Rainer Rilke once wrote ‘do not squander the hour of your pain.’
We’re all feeling pain right now. We’re all feeling unsettled right now. The future is filled with uncertainty. Every-day life takes on a new sense of surrealness
So if you’re not feeling fully grounded at the moment, you’re not alone.
But let’s not waste this time focusing on what we don’t know, can’t control or makes us feel afraid.
Rather let’s use this time to focus on what we do know, can control and leaves us feeling stronger, braver and more grounded in ourselves.
Embrace your uncertainty. Lean into the collective vulnerability. Connect to our common humanity.
Then commit to reclaiming the power you have surrendered to fear and to role modelling the courage you’d like to see more of in those around you.
Then double-down on doing more of whatever helps you feel grounded in your innate adequacy to handle whatever unfolds in the days ahead. To spending your precious hours in ways that expand your bandwidth for life – so you can meet each moment with more self-trust, and less self-doubt; with more kindness, and less judgement; more faith, and less fear.
We may not welcome this disruption to the normal hurly burly of our lives, but let’s not squander it. Rather let’s use it in ways that set us up – individually and collectively as a society – to one day look back on this period for the gifts we found in it.
There are many.
You’ve got this. I’ve got this. We’ve got this.
Let’s do this!
More from Margie…
Check out her fifth book You’ve Got This! The Life-Changing Power of Trusting Yourself here at margiewarrell.com/YGT. #YouveGotThisBook #YouveGotThis
