Sometimes we forget and need to be reminded.... of our shared humanity, of what is important in life and of how to see an experience in a new light. In 2012, Janet Archer retired from a 28 year career as an elementary school teacher. It was then that she began to explore and document her immediate world through the eyes of her training as a life coach and a yoga and mindfulness teacher. She began sending out these "musings" to a large group of clients, friends and family and got many letters in return thanking her, because her insights were helping them to see something in a clearer way, one that was bringing them a sense of peace and calm. Along the way, her mother got dementia and came to live close by to Janet and many of her musings became centered around living with a parent with dementia. Each of these musings brings the reader to a place of compassion and love for both the adult child and the parent who are both involved in this new world of living with dementia. Being inspired to continue, Janet wrote over 100 musings and then decided to put 28 of those musings into this collection: An Invitation to Pause: musings from a mindfulness teacher. Through her story telling and poetic prose, Janet Archer helps you shift from the rush of life to quietly contemplating its ups and downs. A book where you can open up and read at any spot, her compassionate reflections remind us that every obstacle we run into is worth a second look and most importantly a laugh. If you are looking for a read that is uplifting, comforting and inspirational, then accept the invitation to pause from this wise and witty mindfulness teacher. You won't regret it.

Cut through the noise and find your way back home... There is so much noise, so many voices. It's easy to lose yourself in the midst of it all. Out of habit, you fill the rare moments of silence with something--anything--without even realizing. And yet, God, your inner wisdom and your body are always speaking to you, giving you guidance. The question is: are you listening? As a mental health counselor and coach, Ally Rose was familiar with helping her clients navigate their way out of overwhelm and feeling stuck. When she realized that she had lost her own way in the sea of noise and other people's expectations--living a life that appeared perfectly fine from the outside, but was slowly killing her inside--Ally knew her only option was to take herself through the healing process she had been guiding others through for years. And so The Divine Pause was born. If you feel that you've gone astray from your authentic self and want to find your way back to her, to Divine Love, and to yourself, this book is for you. The Divine Pause is an invitation to take a moment, reflect, recenter and reconnect with your Inner Wisdom in the midst of our noisy world, one affirmation at a time.

We live in a day of fast information, fast fingers, fast food, fast shipping, fast words, fast anger, and fast judgment. Our fight-or-flight impulses keep us on high alert, aided by mobile devices that vibrate each time another crisis strikes. All this fastness can easily interfere with a slow, intentional life grounded in God’s love. Christian faith has deep treasures and practices to offer us. How will we live, and who will we be in this highly charged era where politics, economics, environment, and social norms are under significant duress? Come explore quieter, more intentional ways of being, and how these might attune us to the slow work of God in order that we might love one another and the world as God does. Our chapters pair a lure to move fast with an invitation to slow. Becoming slow to anger is an invitation to empathy, slow to judge is an invitation to humility, and slow to grasp is an invitation to contentment. Ultimately, each of these invitations is a movement toward God.

A Joyful Pause is about coming home to yourself. Have you noticed that everything is changing? Work has shifting demands, home life is busy, and the world around us is changing at an unparalleled speed. Now is the time to find the place in each of us that is steady in the midst of change. Learning how to pause is a helpful practice. We can build the habit of taking a few moments out of each day to turn our awareness inward. The practices that restore body, mind, and connection to spirit take time, and they ask us to create a bit of quiet and some internalization. A Joyful Pause is structured to make this easy for you to do. The connection we seek is in the pause, and through that connection, we come to know that we are home. A Joyful Pause helps you fill your life with more connection. These practices are here to help you bring more of your whole self into your life every day and to feel the love that is always there, just under the surface of our experiences.

New York Times bestselling author John Eldredge guides readers through a simple daily practice that will help them find the connection to God and small moments of peace during busy days that they crave. We live in world filled with endless distractions, a news cycle that never takes a break, and the constant demands of daily life such as work, family, friends, and community. Most people find themselves feeling like there's no margin, no time to sit and reflect on what matters most or connect with God, and even though they desperately crave a few minutes of peace, they don't know how to slow down or change course. John Eldredge has seen and felt the toll that constant busyness has, and he created the wildly successful One Minute Pause app that 180,000 users have a described as a "rescue" during difficult times. Now, in The One Minute Pause Journal, he goes a step further and helps readers begin a daily habit of intentional stopping and reflecting that has the potential to change the course of their lives and their relationship with their heavenly Father. This ninety-day guided journal includes an extended introduction that will help explain the practice, both theologically and practically, so that readers can get the most out of the experience and truly understand how it works. Each entry features a regular set of morning and evening prompts, scripture, prayers, and journaling space that will encourage readers to release everything to God and restore their union with him; give guidance on how to invite God more fully into our lives; and provide space to reflect on daily life and prioritize what matters most. The One Minute Pause Journal offers a simple daily practice that will help readers connect with God and find those small moments to reflect and relax.

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. - Viktor E. Frankl Would you like more peace and perspective in your day? Pause is a book for leaders who want to be more mindful, positive, and powerful. The 52 simple practices and thought-provoking quotes help you slow down reaction just long enough to find a new attitude and new action. Each practice creates a space-an opportunity for mindfulness-uncovering a new perspective and making possible a new outcome. Inside each practice you will find an inspiring quote, a short description, an invitation, and an inquiry to open your thinking. Pick a practice and bring it to mind as you go through your day, or in a moment of need, choose a practice and create a space for new insight. Included is a series of articles that give examples and expand on the practices. Use this book to transform any situation and produce positive outcomes for you, your organization and everyone around you. Matching Pause cards are available at Inspired Mastery's website (www.inspiredmastery.com)

Gold Nautilus Book Award Winner Restoring your body, mind, and spirit amid change is an act of courage, empowerment, and hope. This warm, powerful guide will help you honor the changes and spaces in your life with purposeful rest and reflection. If you're trying to push your way through endings, beginnings, and places of uncertainty, only to find yourself more confused, disconnected, tired, and uncertain, this book will hold and fortify you. Yoga teacher and activist Octavia Raheem offers us the motivation and guidance we need to restore ourselves in the midst of all sorts of change. Change in our lives—whether it be welcome, joyful, challenging, or more subtle—presents us with the opportunity to pause and gather our energy to work with whatever lies ahead. Drawing wisdom from yoga philosophy and her many years of teaching experience, Raheem offers us the motivation and guidance we need to restore ourselves in the midst of all types of change. She gives us three simple restorative yoga poses (savasana, side lying pose, and child’s pose), and offers short teachings, reflections, and practices to see us through times of ending, beginning, and liminal/transitional space. She shows us how slowing down, stillness, and deeper connection to our own transitions empower us to move through collective shifts with more grace—and what it means to navigate shifts and change with presence and courage.

Our lives are full of words. We rarely pause to attend to them, much less take time for personal retreat. This book encourages you to stop and revel in the sights, sounds, and meanings of what we say about God. Rachel Hackenberg offers the word-weary, the word-lover, and the spiritually hungry to explore the words of faith anew and thereby meet The Word afresh. Through twelve deceptively light-hearted chapters on letters and definitions, grammar and poetry, this book spa rks spiritual inspiration even as it provides practical exercises for an enlivening personal retreat experience! Rachel G. Hackenberg is an ordained United Church of Christ minister and author of Writing to God and Writing to God: Kids’ Edition. She facilitates workshops on prayer & worship, clergy renewal, and congregational vitality. She blogs at faithandwater.com. "Rachel Hackenberg invites us to reconsider and re-engage with the words we typically use to describe, rather than to fully express, our faith. Sacred Pause is a book to savor. It's as much a devotional as it is a guide for a creative retreat that will change the way you'll encounter Scripture and live the Gospel." —Meredith Gould, PHD, author of Service as a Spiritual Practice "This book will awaken you to a sensational faith, encompassing all your senses and enabling you to experience the holiness of God in the quotidian adventures of life. An antidote to spiritual stagnation, this text will get you out of your chair and onto your feet, dancing with God, singing with the Spirit, and jumping for joy with Jesus." —Bruce Epperly, author of Holy Adventure

This book offers a new and rigorous approach to observational sociology that is grounded in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. Throughout the authors encourage the reader to explore the social world at first hand, beginning with the immediate family context and then moving out into the public realm and organizational life. Examples of observational analysis are given with reference to topic areas such as family life, education, medicine, crime and deviance, and the reader is shown how to conduct their own inquiries, using methods and materials that are readily and ordinarily available. Drawing on both original material and published studies, Francis and Hester demonstrate how observational sociology can be carried out with an attention to detail typically overlooked by more traditional ethonographic approaches.

Justin O. Huffman invites us to ponder the glorious,life-changing truths given to us in God's Word. We are starving for want of wonder. In what we perceive to be the desert wasteland of daily life and regular responsibilities,our souls hunger for more. We instinctively feel there must be more to life than merely waiting for the next big movie to be released, or the next sport season to come back around, or the next holiday to arrive on the calendar. We long to be truly in awe. All the while, true wonders abound. They abound in the natural world, and they super-abound in the supernatural realm. What our souls are starving for is not merely to be awed, but to discover something or someone that is truly, permanently, and altogether awesome. God tells us, over and over again, to focus our starving souls on the superb reality of who He is, what He is doing, and what He promises to do for all who trust in Him. God invites us to pause within the pages of Scripture, to consider what we are reading, and thereby to feed on His majesty. And God's invitation to glory in Him is nowhere more explicit than in the repeated command to 'Behold.' Justin O.Huffman invites us to meditate on ten of the occasions the command 'Behold' is used in the New Testament, and to feast on the wonderful truth we find there. Chapter Headings Immanuel, God with Us (Matthew 1:23) God's Beloved Son (Matthew 3:17) The Fields are Ripe (John 4:35) Jesus' True Family (Matthew 12:50) Jesus, Crucified and Risen (Matthew 20:18-19) Living to Tell the Good News (Acts 20:22-27) A Foundation or a Stumbling Stone (Romans 9:33) Now is the Day of Salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2) The Blessed Who Remain Steadfast (James 5:11) He is Coming (Revelation 1:7)