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Pause, Rest, Be: Stillness Practices for Courage in Times of Change
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.
159 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 1, 2022
114 people are currently reading
3049 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
February 3, 2022
I first learned of Octavia through a college classmate years ago and met her first the first time a yoga retreat for women of color in 2018. It was also my first introduction to restorative yoga and my life has been changed ever since. This book reminds me of that retreat in that Octavia is inviting us to pause, rest and be, a necessary and timely reminder we can all use nowadays. Using insightful and practical tips, Octavia invites us all to slow down and learn to love ourselves more.
February 3, 2022
I don't have adequate words to describe how impactful this book is. It is as if she wrote it just for me, at a time when I was experiencing so many big and small life transitions, she gave me this guide...showing me how to navigate each transition and trust myself to come through them more aligned to who I know myself to be. Pause, Rest, Be is the book we all need. The book that should absolutely be by your side as you make your way through...through to know that there is always space and time to stop. Pause. Change is the thing that happens to us all and yet we are so uncomfortable with change that we often times muscle our way through it. This book offers and shows a different way, a soul-filled way to navigate change. This book helps us understand how to greet the changes how to sit quietly with them, how to make the space to honor the very transition, in all of its subtleties and complexities, we experience every day. I feel like this book should be required reading, so that we can all learn how to truly live in a space of authentic truth. How to allow ourselves to be seen and held as we are. I am beyond grateful for each word written, for each practice that was shared. If you, like me, hear the call to purposefully and intentionally shift deeper into a inner knowing of yourself, this is your book, Octavia is your teacher...the practice begins right here.
January 25, 2022
Pause, Rest, Be three simple words that we have all forgotten how to use and that is why I am so grateful for this book by Octavia Raheem. If you have forgotten how to pause, or how to rest or how to just be use this book to help you remember. I love Octavia's writing style like she is sitting next to you telling you a story or a balm that your soul needs to hear. Her prose, poetry and wisdom shine bright in this how to book on how to re-find and embrace your ability to Pause, Rest and Be
January 27, 2023
Love this book so much. I think I'll have to buy myself a copy so that i can refer to it frequently.
May 19, 2024
Went in completely blind and I’m glad I did. Not typically my favorite genre but this was really beautifully sad and uplifting. Would love to read this again in front of a river.
Page 125!
Page 125!
February 8, 2022
A book to be “read” with a journal. An experience truly. A reminder that all we need to know is within us. Just PAUSE REST BE 💜🙏🏾
February 14, 2022
Pause, Rest, Be is a book I will return to again and again. You can turn to any page in this book to find a sense of much-needed respite. Octavia's wisdom is heartfelt, courageous, and accessible. These words serve a wonderful invitation to let go of the striving and the hustle that we so often glorify and invite in the person you always were, the person that is waiting in the stillness.
February 16, 2022
Go read. Write. Rest. Take care. Paint. Dance. Love. Sit in the rain. Reconnect to the sources of your strength. Be transformed.
Please stop spinning. Honor the lessons of yesterday and let everything else about that recent, yet distant past fade away.
Be still and know. Be still. Pause. Rest. Be. Savor. Don't wait. Savor now.
If you've ever watched and waited for someone you love to die, you now the whole world changes like the air in the room. You know that the spaces outside the waiting room feel like betrayal. The way everyone else's time seems to move on while you watch for it to stop in a forever kind of way.
It is the fear of falling asleep because you don't want to miss the last 500 breaths they take.
You are here to reorient your way to the path that is truly yours to take.
You are allowed to change as many times as you need to become your authentic self.
Surrender does not mean giving up. It means giving over.
You thought you had a map, compass, or guide. It turns out that you only have your senses. If that is all you have, trust. It is enough.
You are not alone. There are forces seen and unseen that are walking with you.
Please stop spinning. Honor the lessons of yesterday and let everything else about that recent, yet distant past fade away.
Be still and know. Be still. Pause. Rest. Be. Savor. Don't wait. Savor now.
If you've ever watched and waited for someone you love to die, you now the whole world changes like the air in the room. You know that the spaces outside the waiting room feel like betrayal. The way everyone else's time seems to move on while you watch for it to stop in a forever kind of way.
It is the fear of falling asleep because you don't want to miss the last 500 breaths they take.
You are here to reorient your way to the path that is truly yours to take.
You are allowed to change as many times as you need to become your authentic self.
Surrender does not mean giving up. It means giving over.
You thought you had a map, compass, or guide. It turns out that you only have your senses. If that is all you have, trust. It is enough.
You are not alone. There are forces seen and unseen that are walking with you.
February 1, 2022
This is a beautiful collection of shorter writings that are organized in a way you can read it all together, read it by section or just open the book to read a simple passage. The message of resting, and the way the writing embodies rest is perfectly paired with simple actions and a few ways to deeply physically rest. This is a book I will be sharing and gifting and reading from in my yoga classes and leaving out so I can fill up on its words when I am feeling depleted. Ten out of ten DO recommend.
February 2, 2022
This book is illuminating, timely & transformative.
The wisdoms & practices herein will open portals into wellbeing & healing.
Dare we be brave enough to read, reflect & rest?
The wisdoms & practices herein will open portals into wellbeing & healing.
Dare we be brave enough to read, reflect & rest?
April 30, 2022
This is a beautiful book, one I have returned to again and again.
January 24, 2023
Like balm for my burned out empathic healing soul. Thank you for these words. This message. There is no rush. Only now.
January 1, 2025
To be read, reread, and practiced as per the title
February 8, 2022
This book is a prayer, offering and meditation. It is truly balm for the spirit as we all ride the waves of change and uncertainty personally and collectively. This book reads like poetry and it speaks to the soul. The practices in the book are so potent and powerful and offer profound portals of reflection. I am heart deep in uncertainty in my own life and so grateful for this layer of support. Also, the book clubs that have been coordinated to support folks in holding this tender offering are just amazing. Highly recommend for any and all folks who desire a more honest, healing and tender relationship with change and uncertainty.
February 12, 2022
Grounding. Healing. Peaceful. A place to process my grief and a place to be free. “I look to River to teach me a way to live and be. River speaks to me in whispers in slow rhymes. I’m soft and fluid and I change everything I touch. I am changed by everything that touches me. I offer my, and our collective endings to the river.”
January 10, 2025
A great choice at any time but especially for those in transition or needing to find their way in the face of change or challenge. This is a book to savour and return to many times.
February 19, 2022
Employing earthy, sacred language, Octavia Raheem reminds us that the practice of yoga is designed to restore us to the Self. By revealing glimpses into her own practice and journey, we are encouraged to embark or stay the course on our own. This is not a large book about how to place a limb, position one's tongue or even count the breath; but, this is a slim volume of pregnant guidance which affirms the ouroboros of all life. Octavia's is a fresh, welcome voice.
October 27, 2023
A restful, reassuring book about change. Integrates restorative yoga, journal prompts and beautiful quotes. Almost all were things I had heard or thought before but I found a lot of relaxation and beauty in the way the ideas were shared. A good book to give people in transition in their lives.
August 14, 2022
Deeply love this book. I will return to it again and again, especially the middle poetry-like passages as tools for divination and guidance.
August 26, 2024
Beautifully written! Poignant, honest and poetic. I really appreciated the rawness of it and the authors voice.
March 1, 2022
When you think of books that help guide us through the mystery and power of embodiment, this book by Octavia Raheem is a great example. It’s called “Pause, Rest, Be - Stillness Practice for Courage in Times of Change.” The book is part memoir, part restorative yoga practice, and part just pure poetry.
The way that she designed the book is really interesting. She starts with endings and then she moves into the concept of liminal space, and ends with new beginnings.
In the video version of this review, you will experience one of the three restorative yoga practices she teaches. This one is for liminal space. It is called Side-Lying Pose or Parsva.
Octavia speaks about her time after college when she decided to go all the way across the country. She talks a lot about how difficult and scary that was. I think a lot of people could probably relate to different transitions like that and the writings in the book support how we can stay aware during life changes and listen to what's possible and what information we might be getting from our bodies in those transitions.
I recommend the book as one to explore over and over again.
Video Review:
https://youtu.be/MSwCjqd9PxM
The way that she designed the book is really interesting. She starts with endings and then she moves into the concept of liminal space, and ends with new beginnings.
In the video version of this review, you will experience one of the three restorative yoga practices she teaches. This one is for liminal space. It is called Side-Lying Pose or Parsva.
Octavia speaks about her time after college when she decided to go all the way across the country. She talks a lot about how difficult and scary that was. I think a lot of people could probably relate to different transitions like that and the writings in the book support how we can stay aware during life changes and listen to what's possible and what information we might be getting from our bodies in those transitions.
I recommend the book as one to explore over and over again.
Video Review:
https://youtu.be/MSwCjqd9PxM
August 11, 2023
This book was given to me as a gift—after a close friend knew how overwhelmed I was feeling in my life. It surprised me about the spaciousness of pause and reflection, and the journey someone can take while resting. I thought I’d take the book in one chapter at a time with time for the poses, but I wound up blazing through it (my bad, but it took me more than a year to pick it up again! ).
I loved the depiction of life and self transformation as a brave endeavor. We’re all warriors out there. The framing of the ending, the liminal, and the beginning, and what it means to sink in each of those feelings was helpful. Probably took me around 6 hr total to read, but this is a book that merits putting it down to reflect.
I loved the depiction of life and self transformation as a brave endeavor. We’re all warriors out there. The framing of the ending, the liminal, and the beginning, and what it means to sink in each of those feelings was helpful. Probably took me around 6 hr total to read, but this is a book that merits putting it down to reflect.
June 22, 2023
Had I read this book years ago, when I was actually going through a rough "end", I don't think I would have appreciated her words as much. I absolutely loved Part 1: Endings, and maybe that's because I have more experience there, but Octavia Raheem wrote a beautiful book about moving forward and letting a new beginning dawn. Allowing yourself the space to rest, acknowledging your feelings and seeing them as a way to honor your heart, and finding peace in the end becoming an opportunity for you to begin anew - this life we live is a beautiful journey and as we encounter each moment, we give ourselves grace that we are going through the thick of it the best way we can.
May 3, 2022
I’ve been teaching yoga for almost 20 years now, and every once in awhile I think about teaching an unconventional in some ways teacher training - unconventional in part because the text books for various reasons may not be what one expects. This is one of those books I would like to use. It is perhaps less detailed in the nuts and bolts of restorative yoga compared to some of the other books I have. However, I feel it gets to the heart of things better. Also, to clarify, in its technical moments it is very good as well. It is just that is not this particular books focus.
June 9, 2022
A beautiful, wise book brimming with tender care and fierce compassion. In it, Raheem urges readers to claim their right to rest instead of the constant grind, grind, grind, and offers restorative yoga practices to truly nourish the body with the gift of repose.
I read a passage aloud to my yoga students during savasana and many shared with me later how deeply moved they were by the words. More than one student cried (yoga tears are often good and a sign of feeling safe enough to release).
Recommended for personal practices and for yoga teachers alike.
I read a passage aloud to my yoga students during savasana and many shared with me later how deeply moved they were by the words. More than one student cried (yoga tears are often good and a sign of feeling safe enough to release).
Recommended for personal practices and for yoga teachers alike.
March 18, 2024
I started this book then put it down for months. I just wasn’t feeling it, feeling anything at all really. When I picked it back up it was exactly what I needed.
After I experienced the greatest loss of my life this book was a great comfort to me. It offer small insights of wisdom that I know were not written especially for me but the wisdom was universal enough to make me feel that way. Some of it is simple, some of it is deep, but it met me somewhere in the middle. For that I am thankful for the read.
After I experienced the greatest loss of my life this book was a great comfort to me. It offer small insights of wisdom that I know were not written especially for me but the wisdom was universal enough to make me feel that way. Some of it is simple, some of it is deep, but it met me somewhere in the middle. For that I am thankful for the read.
Read
February 22, 2022As Octavia illuminates, this book captured my unanswered questions and turned them into more purposeful questions. Octavia asked me to sit in the stillness and recognize what I needed most. Thank you for writing a book so tender and fierce that it inspired me to wait. Yes, wait. Not to look backward and not to jump so quickly into what is next. Finding peace in the in-between was a gift I didn't expect.
March 7, 2022
Counter to everything our culture teaches us, Octavia's book is an essential reminder to take time with change and transitions to deepen our connection to ourselves and others.
Organized in three sections, Endings, Liminal Space and Beginnings, each associated with a restorative yoga pose, the book is deceptively simple yet incredibly deep and relevant for our time.
A book to keep on your nightstand and refer to over and over again.
Organized in three sections, Endings, Liminal Space and Beginnings, each associated with a restorative yoga pose, the book is deceptively simple yet incredibly deep and relevant for our time.
A book to keep on your nightstand and refer to over and over again.
March 13, 2022
This is a lovely book that invites you to reflect on your life through Raheem’s generous accounts of her own life. I already want to read it again, more slowly, so I can relish her invitation to notice the endings, liminal spaces, and beginnings in my own life… and how noticing these spaces might guide my path a bit differently.
As a doula and long time yoga student, I highly recommend this book to pregnant people and anyone with a dedicated yoga practice.
As a doula and long time yoga student, I highly recommend this book to pregnant people and anyone with a dedicated yoga practice.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews