Last year, I thoroughly enjoyed reading and scribbling all over @robpoynton's book 'Do Pause' for the fabulous @DoBookCo

At lunchtime today, I took some time to listen to his recent lecture 'Why we all need to pause right now' - https://vimeo.com/404619590  It was GOOD. A thread 1/

I just wanted to recognise, at the start of this thread, that for a lot of the population - mainly keyworkers - this time isn't one of great pause.

The tiniest of pauses may still count. A small example from Robert: take a breath & count to one as you pass through a door. 2/

For many of us, this pause has granted us permission to engage in daily exercise... permission to spend time with family... Over the years, I've been interested in the idea of express permission to drive behaviours.

Get curious - What is this pause giving you permission for? 3/

This time contains uncertainty deep and wide. It's ok to not know what's going on - we can accept and own this without letting it paralyse us.

John Keats' theory of negative capability - 'Able to be in uncertainty without irritable reaching after fact and reason' 4/

The risk of this particular pause is that we get frantic in our bias to action & for those of us not on the frontline, we can reach for this unnecessarily. We might instead choose to hold our desire to 'get out of this' to one side and be willing to be in the uncertainty of it 5/

This pause holds the space open for a time of willingness, kindness and permission to try new things - the stakes are lower. Don't pander to the sensation that we know the answer. 6/

We can leave the illusions of urgency and productivity aside and instead sink into this background of stillness and quiet.

We can invite ourselves to stop, enjoy, notice, take in the beauty of the things around us but also the quality of those things inside us too. 7/

We can use this pause and stillness to get straight to the important questions:
What do you miss?
What do you not miss?
What has faded away that you are glad about?
What might you choose to let go of?

Notice what's naturally slipping away and what's rising to the surface. 8/

Instead of giving into the pressure of productivity, we could choose to experience some 'inhale' time to refresh, centre and nourish our energies.

How might you differentiate between inhale and exhale time in your days? Moving between productivity and replenishment. 9/

The promise of this pause is both enormous and unknown. Our challenge is to put it to constructive use. Note: this does not mean frantic productivity!

Let's wonder at what might happen when everyone's attention is in the same place. All of us visibly vulnerable together. 10/

Pay attention to your energy. Hold yourself gently and kindly. 11/11 End of thread.