Practice the Pause - Print

Practice the Pause: Jesus’ Contemplative Practice, New Brain Science, and What It Means to Be Fully Human.

Caroline Oakes.

Pbk 338pp.
ISBN 9781506483078.
Broadleaf Books.(2023).
[Allow 4 weeks].

These days, many of us live in a state of overreactive fight-or-flight response and chronic stress. The demands of modern life pull us in all directions and can often put the meaningful connections in our lives at risk – connections to our deepest selves, to others, and even to God.

But there is good news. New developments in brain science have recently proven that an intentional practice of pausing for a few minutes of meditation, prayer, or other contemplative practice actually rewires our brain in ways that make us calmer, less reactive, and better able to see the bigger picture.

With a refreshing focus on the Eastern Christian understanding of Jesus as a master of wisdom, Oakes shines a spotlight on Jesus’s own centering pause practice as a transformative path for personal and social change. We learn that even a seven-second pause practice can move us beyond the fight-or-flight responses of our ego in our daily lives and actually equip us to cultivate the common good in the world.