The Power of Pause: Rituals That Rebuild Trust With Your Body

Part Five of The Body as Oracle

Rebuilding trust with your body doesn’t require a breakthrough.

It doesn’t demand 90 minutes of meditation, a silent retreat, or a perfect morning routine.
It doesn’t require you to be “healed” first.

It begins here:
In the pause.

In the in-between moment — between reaction and response, between impulse and integration — your body begins to remember: it’s safe to be with me.

The Pause Is a Practice of Reconnection

One of my clients described her nervous system like a car always idling in high gear. “I don’t know how to downshift without crashing,” she said. We worked with that — not by forcing stillness, but by introducing pauses that didn’t feel threatening.

A breath before she spoke.
A hand to her chest before she replied.
A walk without her phone.
A full glass of water, sipped slowly.

These weren’t grand rituals. They were micro-moments — sacred in their simplicity.

And slowly, she began to feel herself again. Not as a task to manage, but as someone she could trust.

What Ritual Really Means

Ritual is often misunderstood as something ornate or spiritual.
But at its core, ritual is just intentional repetition. It’s the way we mark meaning. The way we return.

And in somatic work, ritual is how we tell the body: I’m listening. I’m not going anywhere.

Try this:

❍ Place your hands on your belly and say, “You don’t have to rush.”
❍ Pause for one full breath between tasks, even if only once a day.
❍ Light a candle before journaling, not to be aesthetic — but to mark transition.
❍ Stretch your arms wide in the morning and say your own name out loud.

None of these need to be long.
They only need to be honest.

Why the Body Needs Consistency, Not Perfection

Many of us abandoned our bodies because they weren’t safe places to live.
We learned to perform. To endure. To dissociate.

So when we return, we must do so gently — not demanding immediate trust, but offering steady presence.

One of the most profound things a client said after three months of this work was:
“I didn’t realize how much my body wanted me back.”

That is the power of pause.
It’s not just about slowing down — it’s about coming home.

From Here

In the next and final post of this series, we’ll begin to cross the bridge from listening to expression — with “The Quiet Revolution of Feeling It All” from Sacred Rebellion.

But for now, I offer this:

Pause.
Just for a moment.
Not to be better.
But to belong to yourself.

Your body is waiting.
And it’s so glad you’re finally listening.