The Power of the Pause: A Simple Practice for Complex Decisions

There's a space between what happens to you and how you respond. In that space lives your power, your wisdom, and your freedom.

Most of us blow right past it.

Something happens: an email arrives, your child talks back, a colleague criticizes your work, you hit a deer on the way home — and we react.

Instantly.

Automatically.

Before we've even processed what happened, we're already responding from habit, emotion, or survival instinct.

This is normal. It's human. And it's costing you more than you realize.

The Space Between Stimulus and Response

Viktor Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, wrote: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

This might be one of the most important sentences you'll ever read.

Because that space—that pause—is where integration happens. It's where you shift from reactive to responsive. From automatic to intentional. From narrow to wise.

The problem? In our hyper-connected, always-on, scroll-while-you-wait world, we've trained ourselves to eliminate the pause. We've become allergic to gaps. Uncomfortable with stillness. Addicted to immediate response.

We check email while walking to the bathroom. We scroll social media while waiting in line. We answer texts while having conversations. We've filled every micro-moment with input and output, stimulus and reaction.

And in doing so, we've surrendered the very thing that that is so core to our humanity: the ability to choose our response.

What Happens When You Skip the Pause

Without the pause, you're at the mercy of your conditioning. You default to your fastest, most practiced response, which is often not your wisest response.

In conflict: You defend, attack, or withdraw based on past patterns, not present reality.

In decision-making: You choose based on immediate emotion (anxiety, excitement, frustration) rather than values and wisdom.

With your kids: You react from your own childhood wounds or fears rather than responding to who your child actually is and what they actually need.

In leadership: You manage crises in reactive mode, putting out fires instead of addressing root causes.

In relationships: You respond to your interpretation of what someone meant rather than finding out what they actually meant.

The absence of pause keeps you stuck in your narrowest thinking. You see only threat or only opportunity. Only the good or only the bad. Only your perspective or only theirs.

You can't integrate—can't see the full picture—when you're reacting at the speed of instinct.

What the Pause Actually Does

The pause doesn't solve the problem or answer the question. It does something more fundamental: it brings you back online.

When something triggering happens, your nervous system reacts. Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Blood flow shifts away from your prefrontal cortex (the part of your brain that does nuanced thinking) toward your amygdala (the part that handles threat response).

This is useful if you're being chased by a bear. It's less useful if you're navigating a difficult conversation with your spouse or making a strategic business decision.

The pause literally changes your physiology. It allows:

• Your nervous system to regulate

• Your prefrontal cortex to come back online

• Your thinking to shift from binary to nuanced

• Your perspective to widen from narrow to whole

• Your wisdom to access information your reactivity can't see

Even three conscious breaths can shift your brain state from reactive to responsive.

How to Build Your Pause Practice

The pause isn't just for crisis moments. It's a muscle you train in low-stakes situations, so it's available in high-stakes ones.

Start With Transition Points

The easiest place to build pause practice is in the transitions you already have. These are natural gaps in your day that you're probably currently filling with distraction.

Try these:

Morning: Before you check your phone, before you get out of bed, take 10 conscious breaths. Notice your body. Notice the room. Set an intention for the day.

Before meals: Pause for 30 seconds before eating. Notice the food. Feel gratitude. Let your body shift from doing to receiving.

Between meetings: Instead of immediately checking email or jumping to the next thing, take 60 seconds. Stand up. Look out a window. Breathe.

Arriving home: Before you walk in the door, sit in your car for 2 minutes. Let work energy drain away. Prepare to be present to whoever's inside.

Before bed: Instead of scrolling until you pass out, spend 5 minutes sitting quietly. Review your day without judgment. Let it go.

These small pauses—10 breaths here, 60 seconds there—train your nervous system that gaps are safe. That stillness is okay. That you don't have to fill every moment.

Build Pauses Into High-Stakes Moments

Once you've practiced pausing in low-stakes transitions, you can start using it when it really matters.

Before responding to difficult emails: Read it. Feel your reaction. Close the email. Wait at least 10 minutes (ideally a few hours) before responding. Your response will be better.

When your child misbehaves: Notice the urge to react immediately. Take three breaths. Then respond to the behavior instead of your emotion about the behavior.

In tense conversations: When you feel yourself getting triggered, say: "Give me a moment to think about that." Take a breath. Let your nervous system settle. Then respond.

Before major decisions: Build in a mandatory waiting period. Sleep on it. Talk to trusted people. Journal about it. Don't decide in the heat of the moment.

Use Physical Anchors

Your body is your best tool for creating pauses. When you shift your physical state, your mental state follows.

Try these physical pause techniques:

The 5.5 second breath cycle: In his powerful book "Breathe," James Nestor advises inhaling for 5.5 seconds and exhaling for 5.5 seconds. This creates about 5.5 cycles per minute, which helps your mind and body achieve the most efficient state of coherence (Your timing doesn't have to be exact, just estimate 5-6 seconds for each inhale and exhale).

The hand on heart: Place your hand on your heart. Feel it beating. This simple act brings your awareness to your heart and helps you breathe through it, supporting coherence.

The body scan: Starting at your head, notice each part of your body moving downward. Where are you holding tension? Just notice—don't fix.

Movement: Walk around the block. Do ten jumping jacks. Stretch. Physical movement processes emotional energy and brings you back to the present.

Cold water: Splash your face with cold water. This can reset your vagus nerve and help you move from stress response to a state of rest.

The Pause in Real Life: Three Scenarios

Let me show you what the pause looks like in practical situations.

Scenario 1: The Critical Email

You open your inbox and see an email from a colleague criticizing your work on a project. Your immediate reaction: anger, defensiveness, the urge to fire back a response defending yourself.

Without the pause: You write a defensive email pointing out their mistakes, copying your boss. The conflict escalates. Trust erodes. The original issue gets lost in hurt feelings and power dynamics.

With the pause: You feel the anger. You notice the defensiveness. You close the email. You take a walk around the building. When you come back, you can see more clearly: some of their critique is valid, some isn't, and they're probably stressed too. You do 5.5 second breathing for 2 minutes and put your body in heart-mind coherence. You write a response that acknowledges the valid points, asks clarifying questions about the rest, and proposes a conversation. The issue gets resolved.

The pause gave you access to options your reactivity couldn't see.

Scenario 2: The Parenting Trigger

Your teenager rolls their eyes at you when you ask them to do their homework. You feel disrespected. Your immediate reaction: "Don't you roll your eyes at me! Go to your room!"

Without the pause: You react from your own childhood wounds about respect. Your teen feels attacked and shuts down. Nothing gets resolved about the homework. The evening becomes a power struggle and your relationship goes further into a cycle of battling.

With the pause: You notice the eye roll. You feel the anger. You take three breaths. You remember your teen is stressed about school and probably not actually trying to disrespect you. You practice perspective-taking and you see what's underneath. You say: "I see you're frustrated. I need you to do your homework, and I also want to understand what's going on. Can we talk about it?" Your teen feels seen instead of attacked. You learn they're overwhelmed by the workload. You problem-solve together.

The pause gave you access to curiosity instead of control.

Scenario 3: The Business Decision

Your team presents an exciting new opportunity that could significantly grow your business. They're enthusiastic. The energy is high. They want an answer today so they can move forward.

Without the pause: You get caught up in the excitement. You say yes. Two weeks later you realize this opportunity conflicts with your strategic priorities, will overextend your team, and doesn't actually align with your values. But now you're committed.

With the pause: You feel the excitement. You notice the pressure to decide quickly. You say: "This is interesting and I want to consider it fully. Give me 48 hours to think it through and consult with a few people." You review your strategic plan. You talk to your mentor. You run the numbers. You realize this is a distraction from more important work. You realize success is often more about what you say "no" to than what you say "yes" to. You decline with clarity and confidence.

The pause gave you access to your values instead of just your emotions.

The Pause Isn't Avoidance

Some people hear "pause" and think "delay" or "avoid." That's not what this is.

Avoidance is refusing to deal with reality. The pause is about making sure you're dealing with actual reality, not your triggered interpretation of reality.

Avoidance is "I'll think about that later" (and then never thinking about it). The pause is "Let me take a moment so I can respond wisely."

The pause doesn't mean you never act quickly. Sometimes immediate action is appropriate. But even in urgent situations, a three-breath pause can shift you from panic to clear-headed response.

What Gets in the Way of Pausing

If the pause is so powerful, why don't we do it more?

1. We're addicted to speed. Our culture worships rapid response. We've been trained that fast = competent, and slow = incompetent. But wisdom often requires time.

2. We're uncomfortable with discomfort. The pause means sitting with difficult emotions instead of immediately discharging them. That's hard.

3. We're afraid of missing out. If we pause, we might lose the opportunity, miss the moment, get left behind. But usually, the opposite is true—the pause helps us catch what we would have missed.

4. We don't trust ourselves. If we slow down, we might discover something we don't want to know. We might have to acknowledge complexity we'd rather avoid. The reactive response feels safer.

5. We haven't practiced. The pause is a skill. If you've never practiced it in low-stakes moments, you won't have access to it in high-stakes ones.

Your Pause Practice This Week

Here's your assignment: Create three intentional pauses in your day, every day, for the next seven days.

Choose from these options:

Morning Pause: 10 breath cycles before checking your phone

Transition Pause: 2 minutes between meetings or tasks

Response Pause: Count to 5 before responding to texts/emails

Arrival Pause: 2 minutes in your car before going inside

Evening Pause: 5-10 minutes of silence before bed

Pick three that fit your life. Set reminders if you need to. Track them on a calendar. Notice what changes.

You're not trying to become perfect at pausing. You're just building the muscle so it's available when you need it most.

The Integration Connection

Remember how this series started?

With integration, the capacity to hold reality as it is, good and bad together, without collapsing into simplicity.

The pause is what makes integration possible.

You can't see the whole picture when you're reacting at the speed of instinct. You can only see your default lens: the negative or the positive, the threat or the opportunity, your perspective alone.

The pause creates the space for your vision to widen. For nuance to emerge. For wisdom to speak.

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space, you find your power to see clearly, respond wisely, and live freely.

That space is always there, waiting for you.

You just have to pause long enough to find it.

The pause is just one practice that builds integration. Want to develop the full set of tools for seeing clearly and responding wisely? Join our coaching programs, Townsend Leadership Program, or parent groups where we help leaders, parents, and individuals build these life-changing skills.