?Sometimes we don’t need to pursue happiness you just need to pause and let it catch up with you? ? Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

When you pause, you let happiness catch up to you, you let inspiration catch up to you, you let inner peace catch up to you, and you let intuition catch up to you.

When you pause, you let the present catch up to you.

Our past dominates our thinking. Past experiences, past fears, past beliefs ? they are all stuck in our mind. Many of our current habits are based on the past.

If we grew up in a family that taught up that food is love, we will crave food when we want to feel loved. If society taught up to sacrifice ourselves for others, we’ll feel guilty every time we do something for ourselves.

That’s in the past. In the present, we pause ? we recognize the feeling, we recognize the thought behind the feeling and we change the thought.

We say to ourselves: ?The thought that food is love has control over me now. It makes me anxious and out of control. I pause. I ask for a more support thought. I change the thought, and the feeling changes.? The new thought might be: ?I connect to people from my heart; I give and receive love freely. I eat to nurture myself.?

The old thought will no longer control us. We can take control.

The pause is the answer to so many of our problems. Such a small thing, and so powerful.

The Bottom Line: Pause ? and you might be able to change your thinking, your habits, your behaviors.

Ask: What might be a more supportive thought?

Affirm: I pause and I listen to my true inner voice.