113 ~ Power of Pausing: How Coasting Creates Space for New Desires

Ever feel like your desire tank is running on empty? After a season of deep conversations, Brenda and Catherine shift gears to explore the often-overlooked wisdom of coasting.

Growth is not meant to be nonstop. Just as nature moves through seasons, desire ebbs and flows. Sometimes the healthiest choice is to step back, pause the practices, and let yourself float for a while.

In this conversation, they share real-life moments of exhaustion and burnout, reminding us that these pauses are not failures. They are part of our natural rhythm. Trees rest in winter. Farmers leave fields fallow. We too need downtime.

The paradox is that when we give ourselves permission to coast, new desires often emerge with more clarity and energy. Coasting is not laziness. It is wisdom.

Episode Highlights
• Growth is not meant to be a 24/7 job
• Permission to coast through seasons of dormancy
• Naming your season: wintering, integration, or simply being human
• Desire sometimes "calls in sick" and that is okay
• Natural rhythms include pauses, like trees in winter or fallow fields
• Breaks create space for new desires to emerge
• Not everything needs to be about growth
• Coasting is not failure, it is wisdom
• Fun and lightness balance the deep work
• Permission slips: nap instead of journal, TV instead of self-help

What's your favorite way to coast? Maybe it's lazy rivers, hammocks, hula hoops, or naps. May your permission slips lead you to many blooms. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to Desire is Medicine.
We are two very different womenliving a life led by desire,
inviting you into our world.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm Brenda.
I'm a devoted practitioner tobeing my fully expressed true
self in my daily life.
Motherhood relationships and mybusiness Desire has taken me on
quite a ride and every day Ipractice listening to and
following the voice within.
I'm a middle school teacherturned coach and guide of the
feminine.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
And I'm Catherine, devoted to living my life as the
truest and hopefully thehighest version of me.
I don't have children, I'venever been married.
I've spent equal parts of mylife in corporate as in some
down and low shady spaces.
I was the epitome of tired andwired and my path led me to
explore desire.
I'm a coach, guide, energyworker and a forever student.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Even after decades of inner work, we are humble
beginners on the mat, stillexploring, always curious.
We believe that listening toand following the nudge of
desire is a deep spiritualpractice that helps us grow.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
On the Desires Medicine podcast.
We talk to each other, weinterview people we know and
love about the practice ofdesire, bringing in a very
important piece that is oftenoverlooked being responsible for
our desire, piece that is oftenoverlooked being responsible
for our desire.
Welcome back, family friends,listeners to the Desire as
Medicine podcast.
We are in season three.

(01:40):
I'm here with the lovely Brenda.
She's my ride or die on thispodcast.
So happy to have her, so happyto have you.
Without listeners, familyfriends, this we would not have
a podcast.
So thank you for listening.
So, so psyched for that.
And if you've been listening,you know that season three has
been a little bit different thanseason two.
Season two was like celebrationtime, come on.
We were like celebrating soexcited.

(02:02):
Season two.
What have we learned?
What were the top tips?
Like what did we get?
We were all excited.
We were like, oh my goodness,this happened in the self-love
series.
We were like what?
Just balloons, confetti.
Come season three, it hasn'treally been balloons and
confetti people.
It's been like we've beengetting in the weeds really been

(02:25):
balloons and confetti people.
It's been like we've beengetting in the weeds like
dropping episodes about is itknowledge or is it embodiment,
because if it's not embodied, isit really knowledge?
It's been super deep.
My co-host is like Catherine,check it out.
I want something a little bitmore fun and light and I'm like,

(02:50):
okay, okay, maybe the listenersfeel the same.
And if you feel the same, thenyou can write to Brenda and say
thank you, brenda, for bringingin a lighter episode, because
that's what we have today.
Today we have a little bit of afun topic.
It's like you could look at itlike what happens when you can't

(03:11):
feel your desire.
We have talked about that.
But I want to talk about itfrom the perspective of when you
just don't feel like it, likewhen you want it to be light,
you want it to be fun, and whenI say it I mean life.
You just want to chill for abit, like not everything has to
be an educated moment oreducation moment, not everything
has to be a personal growthmoment.

(03:33):
We want to give you today fullpermission for just ease.
We want to give you somepermission slips today
Permission to coast, becausesometimes we just want to chill,
sometimes we just want to havefun, not necessarily being our

(03:53):
whimsical damsel, like the partof us that doesn't want to take
responsibility, but the part ofus that knows what
responsibility looks like and wedecided to put the bag down.
We just put the bag down andwe're just taking a beat and
we're just going to be like.
I want to just put on mysweatpants and maybe binge watch

(04:14):
some Netflix, and we don't haveto be in constant growth.
So we could just name theseason that we're in.
Maybe we're in the season ofdormancy, like winter, where
things are happening likeunderneath the surface, like
under the snow just burrowing.
Or maybe we've just paused,like we're in the season of

(04:38):
pause.
We're paused for integration,we're letting all of that growth
that we've been working towardssort of sink in.
Or maybe we're just human andlike, if there's a problem, like
it can be a problem and nobodydies, like it's fine.
What would you say is yourfavorite season when you don't

(04:58):
want to be fully active, adult,adulting, fully active?
I want to create this desire inmy life, whether it's with
these actions or with thissensation.
What is yours, brenda, yourgo-to Like?
Is it wintering?
Is it chilling?
Is it integration?
Is it like you just pause andbe human?

(05:19):
What would you say?

Speaker 2 (05:21):
I love this.
It's kind of like oh, my desirecalled in sick today, Like
we're just not going to schooltoday.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Desire called in sick .

Speaker 2 (05:30):
I love that, sorry.
Or like when you're watchingNetflix and it says are you
still watching this show, andyou have to click yes, it's like
no.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
No, not today, we're no longer participating.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
No one right Like life, has a volume knob right.
We can lower it and raise it.
And so desire is the same.
And, goodness gracious, wecould treat desire or personal
growth as any other goal, whereit's becomes perfectionistic and
it takes over our life.

(06:06):
That's not healthy either.
Yeah, we want to grow and learn.
We talk about that all the timehere, but you're not going to
always be growing and learning.
I mean, give me a break.
I mean give me a break.

(06:33):
Sometimes we just need to enjoylife or play or have a good
time or play basketball in thestreet or cook pancakes, just
have fun with our girlfriendsand laugh.
And what can I do better inthis moment?
Or how can I communicate myneeds?
You know, sometimes it's justyou don't want to do it and
sometimes it's just messy.
And also we say that we do allof this growth so that we can

(06:56):
enjoy our lives Like it's notsupposed to be, like we're in
school, 24, seven, learning andgrowing, reading our books all
the time.
God, that could be reallyboring.
It's really important to takebreaks.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah, I feel you.
We got to normalize that.
Growth isn't meant to be a 24seven job, mm, hmm.
But I really love how you putit, like we're doing this growth
, we're doing this introspectionso that we can enjoy those life
moments so much more.

(07:33):
And so I'm going to give ourlisteners a little bit of an
image.
It's like we're floating in aninner tube on a lazy river, an
image it's like we're floatingin an inner tube on a lazy river
versus climbing the mountain ona snowy day.
Can we just chill, coast andnormalize the?

(07:53):
I'm done for now.
And so do you have a specificthought or story of when you
like sometimes hit a wall, as Ido?
Just the other day I hit a wall.
I was like whew, I'm working onthis and I'm working on that,
I'm tracking this.
I'm tracking that.
Very similar to when I used tosay to my therapist like what,

(08:19):
why am I doing this again?
I said to myself like why am Idoing this again?
Like what?
And it felt so heavy and I justsaid you know what?
I think I'm just going to goout for a walk and I felt so
much better off that walk.
It wasn't necessarily mefloating in a tube on a lazy
river.
But that walk really did a lotfor me to just get some fresh

(08:41):
air, get some movement and justbe with myself without listening
to anything, talking to anyone,just taking a beat.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
How about you Really feel that one?
You know, august turned out tobe quite a busy month for me.
I had several weekend plans ina row.
I went to a retreat, that itwas my birthday weekend.
I went away from my birthdayweekend, Then I worked at a
retreat.
These were all three weekendsin a row and, wow, I got really
tired, even though they were allreally fun.

(09:17):
Things that I wanted to do thatwere all super aligned with my
life and my desires and all ofthat.
I just came back from that andI was tired.
I had been traveling a lot andmy energy went down just because

(09:47):
I was like oh, I just want tostay home, I'm sick of packing
things, I don't want to goanywhere, I don't want to get in
my car and drive four hours.
I what are our current desires?
And one of mine is to buildstrength, and I've been really
working on that, going toPilates and pole dancing and
planking and all of the things.
Well, I didn't do that for threeweeks and boy did I feel it and
boy did I suffer when I wentback to my dance class last

(10:08):
Saturday.
It was really hard.
Back to my dance class lastSaturday, it was really hard and
I just had to take the pressureoff of myself and just be with
the fact that I was out busyenjoying my life for a few weeks
and I didn't exactly focus onthese specific desires and this
practice.
I let it go a little bit, whichis totally fine.
God, the last thing I wouldever want to do is not follow

(10:32):
things that I'm a yes to becauseI have to X, y, z, I mean.
Sometimes, of course, you dohave to live that, but that's
not currently the way my life isfor the most part.
If I said in a previous episodethat I cry through all my pole

(11:10):
dancing classes, I was sodiscouraged last week.
It was so hard because I haddropped it and I just had to say
, okay, this is where we are.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
We've lost a little muscle strength over here and
this is just where we are today.
We're going to get through it,we're going to do what we can
and we're going to come backnext week.
Laughter, more space for rest,creativity, pleasure.
We get to let desire sneak backin, maybe sideways, when we're

(11:41):
not pressuring it like, oh, Ineed this to happen.
Maybe we even have new desirespop up to the surface because
we've allowed for some hopefully, boredom Like, yes, fun.
And boredom has such a big placetoo, because we get to hear
things when we're bored that wewouldn't hear if we were having
a great time.
And so let's talk permissionslips so we can have permission

(12:03):
to nap instead of journal,permission to watch TV maybe
even trash TV instead of readinga self-help book, permission to
not have to make everythingabout growth Right.
And we want to gently, gently,gently encourage you without any

(12:25):
pressure, just remind you thatwe don't need to chase something
.
We can trust that if we pause,that pausing is part of the
process and really leaning intothat pause and allowing that
pause to nourish us instead ofbeating ourselves up for the

(12:45):
pause, like giving ourselvespermission for that, trusting
that the pause is part of therhythm of life, giving ourselves
permission for that, trustingthat the pause is part of the
rhythm of life.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
It literally is part of the rhythm of life.
Like it's funny that we evenhave to remember that.
I don't want to shame us, butit's funny that we have to
remind ourselves of that and wedo that.
There is a season of winterwhere things just kind of sit
still and the trees aren'tgrowing but they're not doing
nothing.
Farmers have a fallow field, sothey rotate their fields.

(13:19):
There's a field that they don'tplant anything on it, it just
sits.
It just sits there and it restsand it regenerates the
nutrition.
And sometimes we need a fallowfield as well in our life.
Like, what do you want to do?
Even with your kids and yourfamily?

(13:40):
You could just put it all downand don't do the dishes and just
have some fun.
Just have some good oldfashioned fun, good old
fashioned fun.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
I love that yes.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
Yes, yes, and bringing it back to fun.
You know, at the beginning ofthis episode, catherine, when
you said, oh, we just want tohave more fun and we've been
really in the weeds in thisseason, I love it.
I love the weeds and this is adesire that we've co-created is
to have fun, and something we'vebeen talking about behind the
scenes maybe we'll do someepisodes on this in the future

(14:13):
is fun, like how to have morefun in our life, and we wanted
to also bring that here, becausewe're both fun and funny.
So how can we bring that to youand bring some lightness,
because it's not going to all beworking hard tilling the fields
?
I don't know what.
I'll have a lot of farmingreferences today.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
I want to give an image.
I want to use trees.
When we think of trees likethey take a break, they have
seasons.
If you're in a state that hasseasons, or in a country that
has seasons, they drop leaves,they look bare, and we all trust
that spring will come.
We don't go around yelling attrees like why aren't you

(15:00):
blooming right now?
So we shouldn't do it ourselvesto ourselves.
We get to laugh more, nap moreand just be in the quiet more.
We get to again give ourselvesa permission slip, a permission
to coast, permission to just behuman and be in whatever rhythm

(15:21):
we are in and allow ourselves tojust take a break.
The same way nature takes abreak.
It doesn't always have to be go, go, go, break.
The same way nature takes abreak.
It doesn't always have to be go, go, go.
Brenda, and I want to reassureyou that coasting isn't failure,

(15:42):
it's wisdom.
We want to invite you to smilemore unclench and enjoy your
lighter season, and we want youto tell us what is your favorite
way to coast.
Is it lazy rivers, hammocks, doyou like to use the hula hoop,
like brenda?
Or my favorite coast is takinga nap.
So may your permission slipslead you to many blooms.

(16:08):
Thank, thank you so much, and Ihope you've had as much fun on
this episode with us as we havehad with you Until next time.
Bye for now.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
Thank you for joining us on the Desire is Medicine
podcast.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
Desire invites us to be honest, loving and deeply
intimate with ourselves andothers.
You can find our handles in theshow notes.
We'd love to hear from you.