The Power Of The Pause

For many of us, really pausing feels almost impossible because it runs against deeply ingrained strategies for how we move through the world. The Enneagram helps us see why taking a vacation - or even just a solid break - can feel so counterintuitive. For example:

* The Assertive Types (3, 7, 8) push forward. Motion equals power, identity, and security. Stopping can feel like stagnation or even giving up.

* The Compliant Types (1, 2, 6) orient around obligation, service, and loyalty. Taking a break can feel like letting someone down or avoiding responsibility.

* The Competency Types (1, 3, 5) lean on doing things “right,” efficiency and mastery. Pausing interrupts momentum and can feel like laziness or ineptitude.

Each of these strategies resists the pause because stopping threatens something essential: control, approval, or security.

And yet the pause is essential. Without it, there is no digestion of experience, no emotional self-regulation, no integration. We keep running, but we lose the connection to ourselves.

Every type has its own resistance: for some as described above, it’s pausing the addiction to action that is challenging. For others, it’s pausing the obsessive thinking or the repetitive pulling into intense feelings that is most difficult. Which is exactly why pausing is such powerful medicine for everyone.

A pause - whether a deep breath before moving to the next task, a weekend of rest, or a real vacation - is not wasted time. It fertilizes the ground where clarity, creativity, and connection can grow.

I’ll be practicing the pause myself as I take a vacation. What about you? What gets in the way of pausing, and what might become possible if you gave yourself permission to take a break for a little while?