You know how in cop shows they never stop and take a moment?
We’re having a giant fight about how I’m too close to this case and also (subtext!) how we shouldn’t have slept together and now I’m flipping my hair and marching into the interrogation room where I instantaneously switch modes and now I’m grilling this guy to find out what he knows about who killed my family.
I love this stuff. Spies, detectives, action scenes, slow-motion kicks! All of it.
And I am completely fascinated by how they pretty much never stop and take a moment.*
* Except in the season finale, of course, which is generally nothing but people — completely out of character — taking moments right and left.
Not even that they don’t take the moment but that they don’t think about taking the moment.
What would be the point of that?
We’re about to storm into this apartment where all the bad guys are. With their guns! And also my partner’s kid’s life is in danger. But we’re not going to stop for a quarter of a second to breathe and maybe silently acknowledge that this is kind of an intense moment and we might die and maybe we should have a plan beyond kicking in the door because we’re ALREADY DOING IT. Yeah!
What’s a moment?
I don’t mean taking a moment like going to the bathroom to cry.
Or pausing to do some Shiva Nata spirals. Or hiding in a hammock in the Refueling Station (like we do at the Playground).
All I mean is that moment of touching in.
Touching in. Landing. Taking a breath.
Inhaling and exhaling, reconfiguring your force field, adjusting your crown, invoking your superpowers and saying to yourself: This. Now. I am beginning.
To say: I am here now.
I want to be here now.
Of course they can’t take a moment. And they shouldn’t, probably.
It would ruin the dramatic effect. Or worse, make things sappy and annoying.
And no one is expecting these characters to be anything other than what they are: exceptional in every way and astonishingly unaware of their feelings at the same time. That’s how it works.
But somehow I find it extremely entertaining to watch people not take a moment. Over and over again.
I’d make it into a drinking game but I can’t drink that much.
I can watch them not take a moment but I can’t not take a moment myself.
Not because I’m crazy-mindful but because experience has shown that I’m so much more highly functioning when I ready myself for a thing.
I don’t even get the mail without my force field. And I definitely don’t make a phone call without being a secret agent and setting things up first.
The process of self-readying. That moment where you decide: “Okay, here we are and here is what I need.”
Establishing my space before entering an experience.
Starting the day with Hello, Day. Though really: starting everything with mini-versions of Hello, Thing I am Doing.
Because that’s what helps me be silly, light-hearted, playful, curious and inquisitive. It’s the form and structure that allow for freedom so that I can approach being alive like that awesome kid in New Mexico. Hi, Joseph!
The moment and then the next moment.
At Rally (Rally!), I am even more conscious of these moments of pause. Pause? Paws!
Before passing through each door. Moving from room to room or transitioning from one type of doing or not-doing into another.
It’s all entry and exits. The moment before and the moment after.
Even and maybe especially at times of no-drama.
That’s the practice. It probably makes for terrible television, but that’s the practice.
And it’s hard work. Hard, beautiful, messy work. And sometimes I pretend that I’m taking extra moments for the heart-broken detective too. Who knows. It might help.
And comment zen for today….
Playing with me is welcome.
Taking moments or thinking about taking moments or working on establishing a practice of maybe eventually taking moments. Or acknowledging how hard and challenging it is to mark transitions. It all counts.
Also if you feel like inventing ridiculous action scenes with me, I would LOVE that.
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We make room for other people to have their stuff. And we don’t give each other advice, unless people say it’s okay.
That is all!
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I tend to take a moment right before I email my mastermind group with my updates for the week. Right before I start to explain with The Thing didn’t get done, I pause, do The Thing and then email “Thing Done!” I pause. Then I do.
I take a moment before expressing a particularly difficult yoga pose, too. A breath to acknowledge – “arms, we are about do to a funky thing and I need to rely on you upside down and backwards. Stay with me.” Then I take a moment when we come down. A “please” moment, and a “thank you” moment.
I take a moment when meeting with a sad or flustered client. I just say, “let’s all take a deep breath.” Then we breath, then we start.
I love the moment. The pause. The paws.
Also, they never go to the bathroom. What the heck? Do these people not have bladders? Coincidentally, I consider bathroom breaks an excellent time to check in. To take a break. To be here, now. Even if here is a tiled stall.
I love the idea of doing this consciously and with confidence, of saying, “Yes, this is a thing that I do, and it’s a good and helpful thing.” Sometimes, when I’m feeling anxious, I do this in a rather furtive and uncertain way: “Oh, wait, wait, I’m not ready yet! I just need a moment. Okay. Wait. No. Yes. I guess so. Okay.” It feels much better to me when I can really allow the moment — take a breath, find my center, and think, “Yes. Here I am. Here I go.”
@seagirl — Thanks for the reminder that this is also important to do (and to model!) when in a leadership role. Even when my inner worrywarts (that’s got to be some species of monster, right?) try to tell me that I need to fill up all the empty spaces (do something! say something! don’t just sit there!) there are times, many times, when the thoughtful, mindful pause is good for everyone.
The shoreline is my life. The grains of sand are my memories and experiences. The sea is my emotions.
This shoreline shifts and changes shape depending on the actions of the wind and water. The shape of my dunes. The flotsam that washes up. It is the STORY of Who I Am that changes with every tide, every storm.
The little person playing on the shore, building sandcastles, digging for pippies, sunbaking (occasionally) is my small-s self.
But there is something else there too. Something underneath the shifting, changing, unreliable.
Something old, solid, fixed. The bedrock. The big-S Self. Hard, volcanic, iron-laden granitey bluestone rock.
I practice connecting to the big-S Self, PRACTICE being there, so that when the ‘riptide of emotion’ sucks me out I can remember that I am bedrock too. Covered in sand, covered in water, covered with an atmosphere and climate. But there. Bedrock. Solid. Eternal.
Then I practice being there WHILE THE WATERS WASH OVER ME. I am safe. It is just the water. I am still here, underneath it. The bedrock has not shifted. The bedrock will hold.
TAKE A MOMENT, and lean into the experience of being bedrock. Then enter the waters.
Yes.
****oooh, very poetic and deep… sorry, not the kind of action adventure scene you were hoping for… d’oh!****
I’ve been struggling with a lot of anxiety lately, and I’ve found that really taking that time to consciously transition has been really helpful. It’s been rough, but taking these little check-in moments, and setting up the assist beforehand, and talking to fuzzball monsters, and coloring have all made it a little easier. Thanks, Havi, for always reminding us of the importance of taking good care of ourselves.
And as for ridiculous action sequences, my favorites are from Serenity. It was supposed to be over-the-top, & Summer Glau is a ballet dancer, so the choreographer was basically handed the perfect actor and was getting paid to think of elaborate ways she could contort herself while fighting several people simultaneously. They all had a lot of fun with it. The action scenes can be seen in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m39ydsOPSww which is a trailer for the movie proposed in this comic http://xkcd.com/311/ Yay choreography!
In the Jan 3 2011 issue of the New Yorker (which I have only gotten around to reading just now) there was a short story called “Getting Closer” that was exactly about this whole moment thing. I usually feel the same way you do about New Yorker fiction, but this one was actually quite lovely and only slightly intense at the end. I think you’d like it, if you haven’t read it already.
In addition to never going to the bathroom, they never seem to have to get groceries, do laundry or call home to check on their endangered family members.
Note to self: you are not an action hero. It’s unlikely that every single thing will fall apart if you take a moment before acting.
@clairep- mostly I wanted to say that I hear you. Your words are beautiful 🙂
Claire, you found the perfect words. I will take a moment to write them down in my journal. Thank you.
Oh wow… thanks you guys. That makes me feel… much less silly. Good. lovely. xxx (phew!!!!)
One of my most favorite action movies (super-genre: goofy comedy) is Galaxy Quest. In one scene, Tony Shalhoub’s character takes a moment – this although they’re in a desperate situation and about to die – to reassure Sam Rockwell’s character that he’s catastrophizing and all will be well. Then he says “Besides…” and you see an idea blossom and a slightly wicked smile slowly spreads over his face as he says this “…I just got the best idea.”
Then he proceeds to defeat the enemy with unbelievably clever deftness, killing two birds with one stone.
That is how I wish to take moments! Reassure the even-more-freaked-out, and enter the space where brilliant ideas occur. Kick ass, then re-apply my lipstick.
xo, all!
@kylie. EXACTLY! Bathroom. Last refuge of introverted college students everywhere. I’m no longer in college, but I still have been known to use the bathroom that way. Difficult family moment in a restaurant? Toilet break.
Ooh! I’m trying to get more mindful-that-I’m-in-the process right now. I’ll see if I can incorporate that.
Also! You watch cop shows! It never occurred to me that you would do that! And now I’m really hoping that you watch NCIS and that you have some kind of opinion about Ziva. And that you’ve encountered the awesomeness that is @pauleyp (Abby) – she reminds me of you in so many ways.
And! You said ‘the force’! In a casual, ‘this is a totally normal way to think about things’ kind of way! (Actually, that was in the Friday Chicken but hey, I’m talking about it here.) That gives me so much joy.
And! I never said because I came very late to that party, but I totally got the 76 trombones reference too. 😉
This is huge and as you said, difficult. But I am trying to incorporate slowing down and remaining mindful during transitions into my life.
In classical riding, there is something called a half-halt, where you use the aides (the reins and your legs) to gently show your horse a transition is coming, perhaps a corner or a turn, a downward transition from trot to walk, or from trot to canter, there are many. The half-halt serves to rebalance and refocus your horse in preparation for the transition.
Taking a moment seems a lot like a half-halt. My goal is to do better at remembering to do both. To rebalance and center myself in my Force Field. To give myself a half-halt before transitions.
Great and very helpful post.