10/10/2025
THE COURAGE TO PAUSE
For many people, “just keep going” is the mantra of life.
Keep busy. Keep moving. Stay productive.
Never stop long enough… to feel.
Because if you keep running, the grief can’t catch you. The rage can’t surface. The loneliness doesn’t have time to break through.
“Busyness” becomes a shield for unhealed trauma - a way of convincing yourself you’re fine, productive, even successful.
But beneath the surface, the nervous system is on overdrive. There’s no room for intimacy, no time for deep reflection, no space for vulnerability. No space for life.
It looks like strength, but it’s avoidance.
It looks like productivity, but it’s really fear in disguise.
And eventually, the truth breaks through the mask: through burnout, mental or physical breakdown, conflict, chronic illness, loss, or some crisis that forces you to STOP.
Sometimes, the real courage isn’t to keep going.
Sometimes, the real courage is to stop.
To breathe. To feel.
To face what you’ve been running from.
To risk the holy mess… of intimacy and deep reflection.
To tell the truth of your life.
- Jeff Foster