Do You Really Bother If Others Hate You For Taking Care Of Yourself?

Brené Brown worried – yet, she took a long break, stumbled, and returned

Photo by Myles Tan on Unsplash

INSIGHT : Do You Really Bother If Others Hate You For Taking Care Of Yourself?

I see people running around from one thing to the next without taking a brief moment in between, realizing, perceiving, and digesting what they were just involved in.  

Imagine eating a six-course menu in a nice restaurant where they serve you each delicious course right after the other without any break in between. You don’t get time to enjoy, digest, or become aware of what on earth you just ate, because you get immediately pushed to the next serving. How would you look back on that experience?

Are you creating space in your day to pause, to be still for a moment? It can be just the time to take a few breaths before giving an answer or the time it takes to drink a cup of tea to calm down your inner restlessness. Or, give yourself five to ten minutes before the next meeting starts so you can actually quickly digest and reflect on the previous one.

There are spontaneous pauses and prepared pauses. There are brief moments of stillness and long moments of quietness. Any space you give yourself to pause, to be still, and to reflect rewards you with inner calmness, insights, understanding, and balance.

Here is the voice of a person you probably know. She is dedicated to research, writing, speaking, and interacting with her community, offering us her perspective on space, stillness, slowing down, and pausing.

The Space In Between That Brené Brown Holds Sacred

Author, speaker, and research professor Brené Brown has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, and empathy and she has published several New York Time bestseller books.

She describes when growing up she had no understanding or awareness of these moments between your doings and actions, where you collect yourself, pause, or think. Somebody says something or a situation happens, and she just reacted immediately. Like a reflex, and not with reflection. Which usually led, like a spiral, to more aggravation, reactions, and interactions.

We know that behavior, we all go through that. In this busy world rushing us through our daily lives it has become normal to not even pause and think in between.

The very first time Brené became aware of the potential that lies in those little moments of slowing down, taking a breath, creating some space, and building a transition had been about 27 years ago when she got sober.

Brown realized how valuable those moments of stillness, pausing, and slowing down are and tries to keep them in her life through different methods, as she describes it, “with my sobriety, sleep, prayer, working out, practicing curiosity, therapy, and intentional breathing—to name a few.” When she is doing her podcasts or interviews, she stops and takes a breath before she asks or answers a question. “It’s awkward, but it’s life-giving.”

This reminds me of Leonard Cohen’s lyrics: “There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.”

You can allow yourself to slow down during your day, in between duties, demands, and doings. Giving yourself a break to think, reflect, digest, and breathe, before you take on the next thing. These are a couple of minutes , very much possible to implement.

But how do we slow down and pause for a longer period of time?

The Long Pause

Here is what Brené Brown did last year (2022). She was tired from ongoing avalanches of family issues and workloads and she was desperate for time to rest and re-energize.

She realized that due to all the stuff happening in her life and work, she started neglecting her routine of integrating slow time in her daily life. Knowing that this is a source of energy, clear thinking, and motivation she needed to do something about it. Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t help herself, the people around her, and her work if she loses this space for breathing, and her recharging times. “We need breath and space”, she told the people in her organization.

Brené decided to take a sabbatical over the summer. “I’ve never done it before, and just the thought of taking off 14 weeks is anxiety-producing for someone who can struggle to take a week off.”

She allowed herself the unthinkable, the one thing she knew she needed desperately while everyone else was telling her that she is irresponsible and unrealistic. She runs an organization with staff (they got additional paid vacation) and she inspires a global community with millions of true fans and followers she interacts with. Some of them insulted her for leaving the community alone for a while, while others supported her decision.

Give Yourself Permission To Pause

“What you’re doing seems smart and thoughtful, but you are on the receiving end of an enormous amount of hate and cruelty.” Brené was told when announcing her decision to step away for a while.

It is one thing of course if we decide for ourselves to push the pause button. But this can have consequences for the world around us with which we are entangled.  

Brené Brown struggled and stumbled the first half of the hiatus. The usual feeling of relaxation and reenergizing which she knew from few days pausing in the past did not want to occur. Instead, she felt as having fallen off a cliff. But in the second half of her break she climbed up and cleared out a bunch of issues that are going to be sorted out moving forward and she came back with a feeling of renewal and excitement.

You have the choice and freedom to create the space you need and to set the pace at which you want to proceed. This is not selfish, because it doesn’t help the world you are entangled with if you are empty, exhausted, demotivated, and not well.

To help, support, lead, and share with your people, your community, and your work you need to function properly, decide wisely, and think clearly.

Give yourself permission to pause in between and once in a while take a longer breath and sort out what’s not needed anymore.

"Taking a moment to commit to how we feel in ordinary moments can be very powerful." - Brené Brown

Give yourself the chance to discover, appreciate, and use moments of slowing down to react with more awareness, respond with more thought, and digest what just happened.

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IMPULSE :  The Power of Vulnerability

In Brené Brown’s desire to understand human connection, our ability to empathize, to belong, and to love, she researched these themes over decades. In this inspirational, funny talk, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity.

Brené Brown’s 2010 TED Talk “The Power of Vulnerability” is one of the most viewed talks in the world. >>>

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INDEPTH : Bringing Balance Into Daily Life

Leaning back, looking up into the sky, taking deep breaths, a hug, a smile, an expresso at the counter of the Italian place, these are all little breaks, small moments - like cracks in-between your daily activities that let some light shine through. And that let you feel life.

Little things in daily life can bring you balance.

Inject some moments of feeling yourself which is in and of itself a balance to your straightforward workday filled with the hustle and bustle.

Read more about some suggestions and input here in my article on medium com »»»

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