The Power of a Pause

loss, grief, and the winter wisdom of feminine cycles

Life has a way of making us stop. Pause. Transform. The mystery doesn’t ask permission; life arrives unbidden, offering no preparation when it drops you to your knees and changes you forever. A phone call, a diagnosis, a moment you can’t take back. It’s like, all your life you're yellow, and then one day you bump into something blue, and BAM! For the rest of your life you’re green.

Most of us are estranged from the change that happens in natural rhythms—ebbs and flows, growth and rest, fertile then fallow. In today’s world, there’s no space for being "off"; this is the malaise of modernity. Which is why, when life’s pauses come, they feel even more jarring. Even more painful.

I don’t know if any amount of expectation can prepare you for the loss of a parent—or anyone you deeply love. Watching someone you cherish decline, piece by piece, into someone you hardly recognize is its own kind of slow grief. My mother’s Parkinson’s has taken so much from her—and from me— leaving an aching absence that feels impossible to fully name.

Art by Giulia Rosa

And then, there are the losses that come suddenly, without warning—a hidden addiction that pulls a loved one into an abyss. A layoff that dries up your sense of purpose. An injury that derails not only your plans but your sense of identity. Infidelity that destroys the trust you thought was unshakable. A miscarriage that arrives like a thief, stealing a future you were just beginning to imagine.

Moments like these don’t just pause your life—they fracture it.

They shatter the rhythm of your days and leave you suspended in the resonance of what remains. Stunned. The wind knocked clean out of you. And after the impact, it’s not just a gasp for air—it’s the suffocating weight of a deafening silence.

But in music, a pause isn’t always silence—it’s a deliberate moment where time stretches, allowing a note to linger. Marked by the fermata symbol, this pause signals the performer to hold a note beyond its written duration, letting the sound expand and take on greater significance.

Grief, in all its forms, is its own kind of fermata. It stretches time, allowing the sound to ring out, drawing attention to its depth and significance, suspending life’s momentum, forcing you to linger in the raw resonance of what has been lost. This lingering, though painful, creates the space necessary for reflection and transformation—the next movement of life cannot begin until the echoes of this one have fully played out.

Loss and grief come with a pause, because without it, there is no space to find purpose. It’s in the pain of the pause—the cancellation of life’s demands—that meaning can be made. A permission is granted with grief to hang up the roles you’ve been playing and see the naked truth of who you are. Divine surrendering.

The need for pause is universal. It’s something even our modern technology seems to understand. Take my TV Roku, for instance. The device will randomly crash—completely unresponsive, frozen in its own confusion. After trying every button, setting, and hack, I’ve found the only solution is to unplug it, let it rest for a moment, and then plug it back in. Inexplicably, it comes back to life, perfectly functional again, as if the pause itself restored its purpose.

Life works the same way. Whether it’s a sudden loss or a shift in rhythm, these pauses are not interruptions; they are resets. They force us to stop, reflect, and recalibrate, giving us the clarity we need to move forward.

Not every pause is marked by pain or loss. Some are quieter, less dramatic—yet just as significant. These are the pauses found in the rhythms of our own bodies and the cycles of the earth.

In the feminine body, the menstrual cycle offers its own pause. The period—a shedding like a serpent of what is no longer needed—is a physiological pause, a cleansing that interrupts the build-up and invites stillness. This cyclical pause is a reminder that rest is essential for renewal and that the end of one phase is necessary to begin another.

And then there is menopause, a profound pause in a woman’s life—even etched into the word itself. Often framed as an ending, it is, in truth, a gateway. It is the culmination of decades of wisdom gleaned from living through the pauses of the cycle. The cessation of menstruation isn’t just the stopping of a biological rhythm; it is a transformation. It offers the feminine soul a chance to step into a new rhythm, one that is less about physical creation and more about spiritual and emotional fulfillment. As Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, a wise elder and keeper of feminine mysteries, describes, menopause is a time to let the wisdom of life “ring out,” like the sustained resonance of a musical note held under a fermata, expanding into a new phase of meaning and purpose.

Nature models the necessity of a pause. Winter, the season of stillness, offers a time for rest and reflection. Trees stand bare, conserving energy for the blooms of spring. The earth is quiet, yet beneath the surface, it is replenishing itself, preparing for the cycle to begin anew. Winter is a fermata in nature’s composition, where time slows and we are invited to listen to the echoes of the year that has passed. It is a reminder that rest and stillness are not wasted time but essential ingredients for renewal and growth.

Pauses in life, no matter how they arrive, are sacred invitations. They force us to confront the depths of ourselves, peeling back layers hardened by routine and expectation. Though they may initially feel unbearable—interruptions to our carefully charted plans—they hold the potential for our transformation.

Stillness draws you back to yourself. It reintroduces you to the sensory details you’ve overlooked—the texture of sand beneath your feet, the slow drift of clouds, the way sunlight shifts across your bedroom. It urges you to listen deeply, to honor the quiet wisdom of your heart.

Loss and grief are universal teachers that remind you to trust the timing of your life, even when they diverge from your plans. The pauses they bring are not empty; they are brimming with meaning, if you are willing to linger.

So, dear one, I ask you: What are the pauses in your life softly urging you to notice? Are there truths you’ve been too busy to see, emotions you’ve tucked away, or dreams you’ve quietly let slip into the background? What might reveal itself if you allowed yourself to stop, to sit with the silence, and truly listen? Could the stillness you resist be the very place where the clarity and answers you’ve been seeking patiently wait to emerge?

Because pauses are not endings; they are beginnings in disguise. Trust the quiet. Listen to its echoes. In the stillness, life always begins anew.

A Gift to You: Join Our Winter Solstice Women’s Circle

As the winter solstice approaches, nature invites us to embrace its sacred pause—a moment to honor the stillness, reflect on the cycles that have brought us here, and create space for what’s to come. This longest night is not an ending, but a gateway, offering us the gift of slowing down, listening deeply, and reconnecting with the quiet wisdom within.

Join us this winter solstice, December 21st, as we gather in our women’s circle to embrace the sacred pause. Together, we’ll honor the stillness, reflect, and prepare for the light to return. Sign up here.

With love,

Christina