[00:00:02] What you want, when you want it, where you want it. This is The MESH. Hey everybody, I'm Amy Chang, a nurse, a mom, and a health coach. And this is Healthy AF, where honesty and humor and heart meet real talk about feeling good again, inside and out. We're cutting through the noise, dropping the guilt, and reminding you, getting healthy isn't about perfection.
[00:00:30] It's about choosing yourself. One loving decision at a time. Let's get into it. Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of Healthy AF. My name is Amy Chang, and I'm a health coach here with Healthy Life Health and Wellness Coaching. So this is week two of Power of the Pause. Last week, we talked about the spaciousness, choice, and power that lies inside a pause.
[00:00:58] And how if you are feeling backed into a corner, if you're feeling obligated, if you're feeling dread, resentment, anger, fear, all the things, and you're in that corner, the way out of there is the pause. Sounds great conceptually. How do we do that? So, I was actually driving up this morning to come podcast in this lovely studio in Newton, North Carolina. And I popped in my car at six.
[00:01:28] I had a coaching call at seven. I had gotten a text from a client last night. She was really in it. She was in the corner, man. And I said, hey, how about we have a chat tomorrow? I'll be driving. But if that would work for you, that would probably work for me. And so we did.
[00:01:48] We had a lovely conversation and were able to walk her out of the corner that she felt she was in, where she had really no options and felt pretty powerless.
[00:02:10] And bring her out here into the living room where she could take some power and also some responsibility. It's a beautiful thing to have a pause button to give us power. But we don't get the power without the responsibility. And we rarely get the responsibility when we're in the corner, backed in, all trapped and stuff.
[00:02:41] So let's look at how that really sounds. After I got off the phone with my client about eight, I, of course, popped in a little Brene Brown. And doggone it if they weren't talking about the same thing. And that's how I knew. Yep, we're going to be talking about the pause button. When you use your pause button, some things have to happen. Okay. One scenario. Let me go this way.
[00:03:11] This is a pattern that has happened in my life. I can't tell you how many times. I mean, I've been alive 53 years. And probably these patterns ran my life until I was at least 45. Okay. So see if this sounds familiar to you. You have a conversation with a friend. It doesn't go well. There might be a slam down phone. There might be a polite leaving. There might there's some kind of rift.
[00:03:41] You don't know what to do about it. You don't know what to say to them. You're kind of mad. You are kind of hurt. You might run into them in a couple of days and the hair is teeter. You haven't talked to them since the rift happened. You've been laying low. It's an awkward exchange. Hey, good to see you. Yeah. Okay. Bye. And then the second time you see them, maybe at the gym, it feels a little bit easier. And then you just move on.
[00:04:12] But actually, the rift isn't healed up. We've just kind of smoothed over because the emotion has had time to settle. That's not a pause button. That's that's not using our pause button. That's ignoring something, both our power and our responsibility in that situation to clean up what needs to be cleaned up so that we can be aligned with who we really want to be. That is the way I lived.
[00:04:39] I would just avoid the conflict, wait until the dust settled down a little bit. And then maybe when I saw them, it would be okay. Let me tell you what it looks like for me and for I know some of you because I hear this in my coaching practice. I know it's not just me. What it feels like in those first initial moments after that rift. Now, this could be with anything, right? I'm using the example with a rift with a friend.
[00:05:09] But anything that really gets you rubbed up and riled up, lots of emotions happening. What that really looks like is when we don't know what to do, we're not addressing it. We're not pausing it, but we are sort of avoiding it is we spend time feeling anxious, maybe feeling like, what do I have to do to make this go away? What do I need to say?
[00:05:40] Who do I need to complain to? Who can tell me what to do? We spend hours, maybe even days, really wondering, obsessing, justifying, playing the tapes, rewinding the conversation, writing the future conversation, what you should have said. I should have told her I should have said, right? That's a lot of energy. It's a lot of pain. It's a lot of emotion.
[00:06:12] That's not a pause. That's just the spin. And when we get in the spin of this feels really bad and I feel anxious, I probably should do something. That really is scratching your way out of the corner.
[00:06:34] When you have that feeling and you can feel it in your body, I don't know what yours feels like, but for me, it does feel physically anxious. I might pace. I probably am going to have to have music on. I can't tolerate it being quiet. I might do some organizing or some cleaning. Right. Right. I can't can't sit still.
[00:07:03] That's what it kind of feels like in my body. Might get a little sweaty palm. Might hear all those conversations in my head. Right. That's how I know I'm in a corner. That's how I know I am avoiding something that I don't want to deal with. And I am emotionally uncomfortable. Great time for a pause button. So what happens in the pause?
[00:07:29] Now, I've been in situations before where what happens in the pause is I go talk to my one friend about my other friend. Never works out well. You might want to do some clarifying. On what you did. Taking responsibility for that. And cleaning up who you want to be and what you want in that relationship.
[00:07:59] That's work that you can do with a coach. You can do it with a therapist. You might do it with a friend who is outside the friend group that you are challenged by. A safe spot. Not a person who will yes ma'am you. But a person who will hold space for you. So that you can take responsibility. Gain power. See choices.
[00:08:26] Using that pause button to get clear on what you want for yourself and what your behaviors could look like when you're out here in the living room and out of the corner. Is a great use of a pause button. So here's what it looks like in real life. We have emotional upsets. You might be at a level 2 out of 10. You might be level 10 out of 10.
[00:08:56] The size of your pause and the work that is done inside your pause needs to reflect what emotional level you're at. And really this can go either way. It can go I'm at a 10 on joy and elation or I'm at a 10 on I'm pissed and about to rip somebody's head off. When we have these big emotions and we feel itchy like we need to do something, probably we need to pause.
[00:09:25] Probably nothing needs to happen for the next at least 15 minutes. Possibly 24 hours. Possibly 48 hours or longer. I just said to a client recently, dude, if your emotions are out of 10, you're probably going to need about four days worth of work. Four days to rest, to take care of yourself and your emotional needs. What do you need to do? Do you need to eat good food? Do you need to exercise? Do you need to call a friend? Do you need to get a massage?
[00:09:54] Do you need to go be in nature? I don't know what you need to do. What do you need to do to take care of yourself? Right? And then what do you need to do to get clear? Do you need to write it down? Do you need to call a friend? Do you need to schedule a therapy appointment? Do you need to do some praying, a little meditating, go to a yoga class? Listen to that favorite meditational or motivational speaker you have? You need to call your mama? I don't know. What do you need to do to get clear?
[00:10:22] Because you need to become clear on what you want and who you want to be for yourself and for others. Then we look at what do I need to do to get there? And that may be something else. That may be a little bit more self-care. That may be I need to take responsibility for this other thing that I didn't do. There's your power.
[00:10:52] And there's your responsibility and your growth. Right there. It's working inside your pause. Your pause is not I'm going to ignore it, kick it down the road, and then when I see her later, it's going to be okay. If I'm having an emotional response that's a one and a half or a two, usually it's because I've seen something on Facebook that I want to order. My pause is like a two-minute pause. I take myself off the great book of faces.
[00:11:21] I go on to the Google. I Google that thing because in that two minutes, I'm going to see if something comes up like this is a scam or this is horrible or like, no, you should really order this now. It gives me just a little bit of time, just a smidge of a pause. What do I want to do? What am I really committed to? Am I really going to spend this much money? Is this a good expenditure? Has this thing been bothering me for a while and now it's time for me to do that? Have I been curious about this?
[00:11:49] Are 15 of my friends actually getting results with this? What do I want to do? It just gives me a little bit of a pause. It's just a little emotional bump, a little bit of a pause. When I went through more traumatic times in my life that had bigger emotions, it was I never answered anything without 24 hours. Never. I never answered anything without 24 hours. Hey, can you volunteer at church?
[00:12:19] We would love to see you. We think you're just great. I would like to say yes. And also, I'm going to need to get back to you in 24 hours. That's what that really looks like because it feels so good. And my emotions probably get to about a seven or an eight when someone says, you're really great and I love it. Can you do this? And maybe I don't want to do that. I don't know. I hadn't even thought about it. I'm just so heart swollen up that you asked me to do something.
[00:12:48] Or maybe I feel so bad because the last time you asked me to do it, I didn't do it. And the time before that, you asked me to do it. I didn't do that either. So now I feel like obligated and like I have to do it. I had a friend recently say she went to dinner with another friend. And so my friend who got invited to dinner was like, yeah, it was after work and I was really hungry and I was really tired and blah, blah.
[00:13:14] And I said, wait, if you are really tired and really hungry and already feeling crabby, why in God's name did you go to dinner? And her answer, I was invited. Pause button. Pause button right there. Just to check in. How do I feel about it? What am I feeling in my body? What do I need to do? What am I committed to doing? Who do I want to be for myself?
[00:13:42] Who do I want to be for other people? Pause buttons are powerful. They're spacious. They give you responsibility. They invite you to be close to your commitments. And they keep you from scratching your way out of a corner. I hope that's helpful for you this August as we prepare to go back into school and we're wrapping up all our vacations.
[00:14:11] Lots of things going to be hitting that calendar come the end of the month. Push that pause button. And I'll see you next time on Healthy AF. Thanks for hanging out with me today on Healthy AF. I hope something you heard helps you take one small, kind step toward your healthiest self. If you love this episode, hit subscribe so you never miss a conversation.
[00:14:37] And if you want more support, head over to myhealthylife.coach to connect with me. Remember, you don't have to do it perfectly. You just have to start choosing you. See you next time.
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