I’m excited to share with you the new publication being released in September, 2023. Pause: A Year of Soulful Meditation. This is a book that contains 52 Weekly meditations, pondering thoughts, and journal prompts.
What has the word, pause, meant to me? It has been life-changing. My instinctual responses to life, while they helped me survive and manage childhood and youth, ultimately crippled and caged me – causing loneliness and break-down. My instincts have been to control, manage, fix, and save. Ouch. These ways of relating to others didn’t foster mutuality, freedom, love, or service.
Learning contemplative practices began with learning to pause, to slow down, to breathe. This ultimately led to self-awareness and self-understanding – which led to facing shadows and ways of being that were habitual and unconscious. It hasn’t been a pretty or pleasant path at times. But it ultimately has led to life.
For what I met in the pause was … grace. I encountered Love. And this Love invited me beyond shame into a a path of freedom and kindness. It is what I have received through this journey that I so long to share with others.
And so this is a simple book; but deep if one really dives in. Covering topics such as grief, anger, leadership, love, and listening, this book is meant to invite a person into the inner life in gentle and tangible ways.
I’m also offering a 9 month program so that people can have a Soul Care Experience with this book. We’ll meet for an hour once a month – practicing pausing! and work through one of the chapters each month. If this is of interest to you, there is more information here:
SIGN UP FOR THE PAUSE PROGRAM HERE (Includes book in cost)
Book Review:
Cathy gently and lovingly invites us to join her in an adventure along the spiral path of our inner spiritual journey. Those twenty minutes each day to open and reflect can make all the difference in our world. Judith’s mandalas are a beautiful accompaniment and a further invitation to pause and ponder.
—Kathi Bentall, Spiritual Director and Retreat Facilitator
Book Excerpt:
Through this text, I hope to create a sense of pause for your beautiful
essence. I hope that you will become a friend to your soul so that
you may live in greater integrity with the truth of your being.
As we allow moments of pause in our lives, we become present in
the ordinary moments of each day, which makes life extraordinary. I
hope you will find moments of epiphany, awareness, thoughtfulness,
and grace throughout this book.
In the work of care for the soul, there seems to be a rhythm, a
flow, a way of being that opens our lives to transformation. I would
like to invite you into an inner adventure, an interior spiral path, ever
down and ever up into the continual journey of becoming.
What is our potential? I believe we are yet to know all that is
possible in becoming fully alive. I believe that what is deepest in you
shines like the sun, is good, and knows the way home.
Pause, A Year of Soulful Meditation – Cathy AJ Hardy
