The Principle of Pause

Pausing invites moments of stillness and reflection that open the door to deeper awareness, connection, and transformation. A pause is not an absence but a presence—a space rich with sensation and possibility. Pauses allow us to step back, gather our perspectives, and let go of old patterns, creating space to begin again. Pauses remind us of the natural cadences of life, like the rests in a musical phrase or the quiet moments between breaths. They bring value to non-doing, offering time for renewal, recalibration, and an opportunity to bask in the quiet effervescence of being, what Milton Trager called “Hook-up.”

Neurologists tell us that pauses allow the brain to prune, grow, and reorganize its map of the body and its functional memory. Shorter pauses act as commas, allowing us to sense what has shifted; longer pauses become periods or even new paragraphs, inviting us to begin afresh. They allow the body and mind to embed new patterns of ease and freedom. Pauses provide baselines to assess incremental changes in posture, movement, and perspective. For both practitioner and client, pauses evoke a sense of safety and spaciousness.

Movement Explorations on Pause

Movement Explorations

Timed Pauses

Explore the effect of timing, pacing and dosing

Invite your body into a practice session about finding a better balance between weight and lightness, using movement and sensory inquiry interspersed with timed pauses.

Connecting the Breath and the Arm

The rules of the game are...

sitting in a comfortable position, easily upright, lower back supported

before doing anything.

Articles and Essays on Pause

Essays and Articles

Profound Stillness

At the end of her session, Frances described the feeling she had, not as deep peace or quiet tingliness, although those are great descriptors, but she said she was feeling a profound stillness.

Pausing

I begin with a pause.

Pausing is full of opportunity, full of rich sensation, full of possibilities to pay attention in a new way. Pausing gives me a chance to sit back and reflect.

Personal Story: The Movement in Stillness

When I sit for my meditation time, one of the first things I want to do is get comfortable—reduce distractions in my outer world and in my body. I arrange myself in an easy, upright, supported sitting position.

Milton lifts his right forearm and hand and lets them drift gently down to his side. The practitioners imitate him. Again he lifts and lets them fall, and again. "It'll fall by gravity, you don't have to make it fall.

Pause, ask 'How did it feel?'
Feel the weight and it will get lighter. Heaviness and softness are not opposites.

Oh my, I'm in hook-up. What is freer? What is freer than that? Coming into it, coming into it. Yes. Thank you so much."

– from Jack Liskin’s Moving Medicine: The Life and Work of Milton Trager, M.D.

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