About

Hello. I’m Shâo. Sacred Pause is the space I’m playing with at the moment to live from the inside out.

What I’ve found in my grief, recovering from a recent sexual assault and relationship breakdown, is that I’ve felt overwhelmed. I took a month off of work so I had acres of time which is what I craved. And at the same time I felt overwhelmed by it. Everything was too much. Even having time to grieve.

Healing felt overwhelming. Not healing felt overwhelming.

I was overwhelmed by self criticism, “why aren’t I using this time better?”

This wasn’t all day every day. But it hit most days, often multiple times a day. And when it didn’t it usually meant that my whole system had shut down in protest leaving me exhausted and not knowing why.

I heard myself taking a really hard line, “you’ve got what you wanted, now do the work.” It was this dominator attitude living inside me that I really needed space from.

Sacred Pause is about creating a space around me so that I can take in what’s useful in useful amounts. The medicine but also the dose. To soak my dehydrated soul in compassion. To practise what I’m calling radical selfishness (more on that later). To take back my power.

Sexual assault is devastating. Relationship breakdown is crushing. All loss is a kind of unraveling. And I’ve found that it’s sometimes in the times that I’m hurting most that I’m hardest on myself.

Sacred Pause is an invitation I’m extending to myself to unlearn the control and harshness that I learnt to live with for such a long time. And it’s an invitation to anyone who wants more self love, self compassion, self- fullness in their lives.

My mission is to be full of my Self again. If you want to be full of your Self too, you are welcome here.

The Yoga of Divine Protection invocation is the intention I offer to explore becoming full of ourselves within a space that’s divinely protected, whatever that means to you.

The rest of the Sacred Pause space is mementos from my pilgrimage towards the self and the uniting of the animal and spiritual heart that I believe beats in this one body.

I’m happy we are on this journey.

Much love

Shao xx