Pausing In The Hallelujah
When you find yourself stuck in the fear and stress response cycle and need a quick relief…this has worked for me.
I’m talking about when the stress and fear response is present even when your immediate environment, your life, and the life of others are not in harms way. Some examples of your stress response visiting you would be when you find your breath becomes shallow before your big presentation, a hyper-alertness in a social gathering when it’s supposed to be fun, your heart beating faster when your running late to yoga and you can’t find you keys, the irritability that creeps in when your spouse isn’t reading your mind that they should be doing the dishes or the anxiousness that you might feel when a loved one isn’t home when they said they would be. You know…things like that.
When you’re in those stress states your body and mind are in survival mode. In that mode it’s not a time to thrive. Thriving would look like; cultivating creative solutions, asking for help, being artsy, being a caring listener to a friend, speaking from the heart, tending to your long-term wellbeing goals, trusting in life, laughing so hard your abs get sore or connecting to your intuition.
When you are in the fear response, even when you are not in real danger, your brain and body don’t know the difference and they become flooded with stress hormones which triggers your survival instincts which are just not necessary, given the fact that you truly are safe.
To move from surviving to thriving is a practice. Here is one way that it’s worked for me.
First, you can give thanks to the fear and stress response. It has protected you in the past when you were in danger. And you can have faith and gratitude that it will continue to visit and protect you when it’s necessary. But for right now, you realize the stress and fear response is not what you need in this very moment. Because, in this very moment, you are safe.
Then choose to take a minimum of 4 slow deep breaths in and out of your beautiful heart.
Then when you’re ready begin to sense and feel a hallelujah moment in your heart. Allow for the experience of liberation, freedom, and divine peace to take over your awareness. As though in this very moment all your prayers are answered, all your loved ones in this physical life and spirit side of life are held in profound love and so are you. Hallelujah.
Stay for a while, discover what’s this experience is teaching you.
Then inquire: what shift(s) did you experience from this practice?
In what circumstances might you draw upon this practice in your daily life?
Trust your heart. Honor your truth. Let love lead the way.