Episode 12 Permission to Pause

Permission to Pause: Rest Is a Radical Act of Self-Love

✨ Free Resource: Download your free Permission to Pause mini booklet https://app.typeset.com/play/9RQ1JV

This isn’t just another self-care episode — this is your sacred pause. In a world that rewards burnout, rest becomes an act of resistance… and self-love.

In this deeply soulful episode of Soulfully Aligned, Maxine Bingham invites you to let go of guilt, stop proving, and reconnect with the peace your spirit has been aching for. Whether you believe in God or are just beginning to explore your sense of purpose, this space honors your journey.

Transcript

Maxine Bingham: 0:05

Welcome to Soulfully Aligned, where we remember what the world often asks us to forget that our worth is not tied to how much we produce, fix, or hold together. Today's episode is tender. It's honest. It's a sacred invitation to pause because if you're anything like me, you have mastered the art of doing it all. Even when your eyes are closing, your body is begging and your soul is whispering, please just rest. This isn't just about taking a nap. This is about reclaiming the parts of us that we've abandoned in our need to stay strong. It is about unlearning the belief that our exhaustion is proof of our devotion, and instead choosing to believe that rest is love, that rest is trust that rest is holy. Even if you don't know what you believe right now, I want you to know this. The one who created you, the same one who breathes life into your very being. He sees you. He holds you when you can't hold yourself, and he will wait for you as long as it takes for you to remember that you were never meant to carry it all alone. So take a breath, take a moment. You don't need permission from anyone else. You are the permission. Let's begin Part one. You are tired but no one sees you. There is a kind of tired that your sleep just doesn't touch. You can feel it in your bones, behind your eyes, deep in the places that no one ever asks about. And here is the thing. You've been living like this for so long that you have started to call it normal. You move through your day on autopilot, crossing things off, showing up, checking boxes. You carry the weight of everyone else's world sometimes without even realizing you're doing so you keep smiling, keep fixing, keep pouring out, and when the day is over and your body is begging you to rest. You still don't. You sit on the couch with your eyelids heavy phone in hand, staring at the to-do list. In your mind, you'll say Just one more thing and you'll fight sleep, not because you're not tired, but because there's still more for you to do. And deep down, you wonder if you have somehow failed because you never really get to the bottom of that list. You go to bed late feeling guilty for what didn't get done. You wake up early, already behind, and yet through it all you keep showing up because that's what strong women do, right? But what if strength isn't what you've been taught? What if the strongest thing you could do right now is to stop? What if Jesus isn't impressed by your endless striving? What if he's not waiting for you to clean up your inbox, organize the pantry, or finally feel like you've earned a break? What if all he's waiting on is you to come to him honest? Come to me all who are wary and burdened, and I will give you rest. That is not just a verse. That's a lifeline. You don't need to pray a perfect prayer. You don't need to have it all figured out. You just need to admit the truth. I can't keep carrying this alone. Jesus doesn't bless burnout. He blesses your surrender. He honors the moment when you finally say, this isn't working for me anymore, and right there in the quiet. In the undone, in the barely holding it together, that's where he meets you. Not with Shane, not with a lecture, but with arms open wide and a whisper that says, daughter rest, I've got you. You don't have to do it all. You never did. So if you're fighting sleep again tonight, telling yourself there's still more to do. I. Let's this be your sacred interruption. Put the phone down, turn the lamp off. Let yourself fall into the kind of rest that isn't earned but received. Because beloved, you are not a machine. You are not a project. You are not defined by how much you accomplish in a day. You are his even here. Especially here, part two, why you can't stop and what it's costing you. Let's name something you've probably never said out loud. You don't know how to rest. Am I right? You try. You say you will. You tell yourself the weekend is coming and I promise this weekend I am going to slow down. You light the candle you put on the playlist. You even block time on your calendar, but your body doesn't know what to do when things go quiet. I know mine doesn't. Your mind races, your chest tightens and instead of peace, you feel guilt because somewhere deep down you've started to believe that rest is only allowed. When everything else is done, but let's be honest, everything is never done. So you just keep going. Even when your legs are shaky, even when your heart is tired, even when your eyes are closing and you know you should go to bed, you push through because there is still more for you to do. You stay up late folding clothes that no one ever asked you to fold. Answering emails that no one is expecting you to reply to that night scrolling mindlessly because silence feels heavier than noise. You don't stop. Not because you don't want to, but because you don't feel safe when you are still. Stillness feels like failure to you, like letting someone down, like falling behind. But here is the difficult truth. This constant movement is costing you something. It's costing you clarity, joy, presence with your own life, your own body, your own soul. You've been living in reaction, not connection. And it's not because you are weak, it's because you never were taught how to rest in love. Some of us never saw that modeled. We watched women in our lives who never stopped, who worked while they were sick, smiled while they were grieving, held everyone together while they themselves were falling apart quietly in the bathroom and without realizing it. We inherited that same script. Be strong. Don't stop, keep going no matter what it costs you. But you know what? Jesus never, ever lived like that. He was never in a hurry. He didn't rush to meet people's expectations. He didn't apologize when he withdrew from the crowd to be alone and pray. He moved at a divine pace, unintentional, surrendered. And yet here we are, you and I trying to outrun our emptiness in his name, trying to fix, serve, solve, and prove our way into being enough. But what if your yes is costing you intimacy with yourself? What if your performance is the very thing preventing you from hearing what God is actually saying? We can't receive truth when we're drowning in noise. We can't feel peace when we're addicted to proven and no, I am not saying that you need to drop every responsibility. You have people that's dependent on you and you have things that you know you cannot ignore. But what I am seeing is this, there is a difference between you being responsible and you being enslaved. One honors your capacity while the other ignores it, and you, my friend, have been ignoring it for way too long. So if you don't know how to stop, let's start right here. I want you to pause. Just for a moment and ask yourself, what is this pace costing me? Ask God, even if you're not sure how to talk to him. Ask him, what do you want me to lay down? And then I want you to sit long enough to hear the whisper underneath all the noise because God is not shouting. He is not scold. And he has not rolled in his eyes while you are running yourself into the ground. What he's doing is he's waiting gently, patiently, and lovingly, and I hear him saying, daughter, come back. You don't have to do all of this alone. You never did. Here is a reflection for you. Where am I afraid to stop? What do I believe will happen if I do? Isaiah 30 15 tells us in repentance and rest is your salvation in quietness, and trust is your strength. I wanna do a sacred pause with you between the doing and becoming. Take a pause. Not to fix, not to plan, not to think of what's going to come next. I want you to pause just to be. If your hands are busy, then let them be still for a moment. If your shoulders are tight, go ahead, drop them and soften them. If your thoughts are racing, I want you to know that you do not have to wrestle with them. Just let them float by like the clouds. Because this moment is yours. It does not belong to the world. It does not belong to your family or your job. It is yours. And in this pause, I want you to know something. You are not weak. Just because you're tired. You are not behind, because you ask for space. You are not broken because you have forgotten how to rest. You are human, you are healing, and you are here and hearing the stillness, something sacred happens. The noise fades, the striving stops, and you begin to hear the whisper that you've been too busy to notice. And that is, you don't have to hold this all by yourself, whether you believe in him. Or you're still figuring that part out. Jesus is still here for you, holding what you can't, covering what you have dropped, loving you with a steady hand that won't pull away when you collapse into it. So go ahead, take this breath as a yes. A yes to pause, a yes to softness. A yes to remembering who you are. Before the pause, before the exhaustion, before the pretending, because my beautiful sister, you are loved, you are held, and you most certainly are not alone. Part three, what about you? You have been everything for everyone. The one who remembers the birthdays, I know that I do. The one who makes sure dinner's on the table, the one who sends the check-in text, the one who holds space, keeps secret shows up, stays late, steps in, and holds it down. And if someone asks them to describe you, you know what? They'll probably say, oh yeah. Her. She's always there, and that would actually be true. But I want to ask you something, and it's probably something that no one has ever asked you, at least not in this way. What about you? Who checks on you? Who notices when your voice goes flat or your joy starts to flicker? Who sees the moment you disappear behind your own life? Because I know, I really know what it's like to be the one who's always strong, the one who's always reliable, the one who doesn't fall apart, doesn't ask for much, and does not ever make waves. Okay? You have been loving everyone else and slowly forgetting yourself. You say yes because it's easier than explaining your No. You offer help when no one asks how you are doing. You stay late, you give extra, and you carry so much more. And the saddest part of all of this is that no one even knows that you are exhausted because you make it look so easy to them because your smile. Always looks convincing because you never let anyone see what it costs you to keep showing up over and over again. But you know what? I see you. And most importantly, Jesus, he sees you even if you haven't said his name in years. Even if you have never fully believed in him, even if you feel like he's far away. Never really belong to you. You know, he sees it all. He sees the moment you open your eyes in the morning and already you feel as though you are behind. He sees you making decisions from an empty place. He sees the silence you sit in after pouring into everyone else. And you know what? He's not disappointed in you and he never will be. He's also not keeping score. He is not waiting for you to get it together. You know what he's waiting for. He is waiting for you to come home to you, to the woman he created with intention to the heart. He designed to feel and not function to the soul he breathed into long before you became someone else's support system. He is still here holding the version of you who cannot find the words, loving the version of you who forgot that she even mattered. Waiting in patiently for the moment you finally turned around and say, I have been caring for everyone else but me. God, what about me? And he will answer. He is not going to lecture you. He's not going to shame you, but with the quiet, steady love of someone who has never stopped calling you worthy, he will answer. I want to ask the question again. What about me? Let it break the surface. Let it shake the silence and let it begin to heal you. You don't have to abandon everyone to come back to yourself. You just have to stop abandoning you because if you keep showing up for everyone else, but lose yourself in the process, that is not love. That is you slowly erasing yourself, and that's not what you were created for. You were created for wholeness, for peace, for a life that holds you also. So the next time your instinct. Is to ask, what do you need from me? I want you to pause, breathe, and instead I want you to ask God, what do I need from me today? What do you want to pour back into me? Because maybe, maybe that's the question that's going to lead you back home. Here is your journal prompt. When was the last time that you truly showed up for yourself? Jeremiah 31 in three states. I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have drawn you with unfailing kindness, part four, choosing you without the guilt. There comes a point, maybe you felt it. When your body knows you can't keep giving the way that you have been given, you feel it in the tired, behind your eyes in the ache, that just won't go away in the guilt that continues to rise. When you even think about saying the word no, you look hard. You show up when it matters. You carry more than most people ever know, and sometimes. More than you actually should. And if you're honest, you're tired of disappearing. Not all at once, but slowly saying yes when you mean no. Carrying someone else's expectations as though they're your own making space for everybody except yourself. You were not created to live like this. And I am not here to give you a pep talk. Or to tell you that choosing yourself is easy. I know that it's not. It's layered, it's messy, and yes, sometimes choosing yourself comes with guilt because for so many of us, guilt got tied to love. Early on, we learned that being helpful was being worthy, that being quiet made us safe. That being selfless to the point of erasing ourselves was the highest form of good. But I want you to hear this in the quietest, most sacred way, there is a love that always sees you before the yes, before the performance, before the pretending. A love that sees you exactly as you are and does not flinch. I believe that love comes from the one who created you, the one who formed every detail off your soul with intention and tenderness. The one who knows what you've carried, even the parts you've never spoken aloud. And even if you're not sure what you believe, even if you have never called him anything before, or if the word God feels distant or complicated. This love it is holding you. You don't need to explain yourself to it. You don't need to earn your place inside it. You just need to know that it is already yours, that choosing yourself is not selfish. It's a quiet return to the one who never left you in the first place. And if you're still unsure, if belief feels far away, then just start here. If rest was safe, what would I give myself right now? What kind of love have I been waiting for, and what could I start offering it to myself? You don't need to have it all figured out. You don't need a perfect prayer or a clear label for faith. Just a willingness to come home to your own heart. That's where it begins. You are not created to disappear. You were not designed to prove your value. You were made lovingly, divinely to exist in your own life, to breathe, to rest, to receive, and the next guilt whispers that choosing yourself is too much. Remember the one who created you. Has already chosen you, and now it's your turn to do the same, to choose yourself, and that is what he is waiting for you to do. Part five. Who told you that you had to earn peace? Who planted the idea that peace was a prize? Something that comes after you have worked yourself into the ground. After you have apologized, after everyone else around you is okay. Who told you it's something you get to touch? Only when everything's folded, responded to, fixed, managed, and cleaned. Because I have seen so many women, women that were beautiful, capable, brilliant. Wear themselves out chasing the peace. They never feel allowed to fully keep. Peace is always after the inbox, after the dishes are done, after you have finished that meeting, after the crisis is over, after everyone else around you feels good. But what if peace wasn't on the other side of you being exhausted? What if peace already belonged to you? What if it was never something to earn in the first place? Let's talk about something real. There's a high chance that no one ever modeled a peace for you. Sure. They modeled productivity. They modeled strength. They modeled responsibility. They even modeled silent endurance, but peace. That soft, holy stillness that settles in the bones and says, you are safe, you can rest. Nothing else was required. At the moment, most of us, if we're being honest with ourselves, we never saw that growing up. We watched our mothers and grandmothers continue to push through. We saw them serve with aching backs and full plates. We watched them give. Even when they had nothing left and we thought that was what loved actually looked like. So now as grown women, we move through life and autopilot. And when we get five minutes of quiet instead of relaxing, you know what we do? We tend to flinch because silence feels very suspicious to us. Because rest feels as though something is lacking because peace, true peace. It feels like something reserved for people who have done more, fixed, more and proved more. But here's the sacred truth that I really want to tell you. Peace is not a reward. Peace is your inheritance. You were created by the God who is peace, the one who made rest holy, the one who sees you not just when you're performing, but when you're falling apart in silence. I believe that your creator designed you to live from peace and not toward it. You weren't made to perform your way into rest. You weren't meant to suffer your way into feeling safe. And even if you don't know what you believe at this very moment, even if that word God has felt distance or loaded, can I say something to your spirit? You are not behind. You are not broken. You are not too late to return to your peace. So I wanna ask you again, who told you that your piece had to be earned? And are you willing just for today to question that voice, to soften your pace, to unclench your jaw, to stop mid-sentence and whisper to yourself? Peace is mine right now. It belongs to me, not because everything is done. Not because you've been perfect, not because you are allowed in this exact breath to exhale. And if peace still feels far away, I want you to try this. If rest was safe, what would I give myself right now? What kind of love have I been waiting for and could I start offering it to myself? You see, peace begins. When you do, it begins when you start offering it to yourself. So what would change if you believed that you didn't have to earn your peace? What could live from it? Here is our second sacred pause. Let peace come and find you. You don't have to do anything right now. No one needs you. There's nothing for you to fix. Nothing for you to solve. This is just for you. So relax your shoulders, unc, clench your jaw, soften your hands. Let your belly rise as you breathe in, gently through your nose and slowly out your mouth. Because right now, you are safe. In this very moment, in this pause, you are not what you produce. You are not what you prove. You are not what you have carried throughout the day. You are simply you, and that is more than enough. I want you to let that settle in your spirit. Let it melt into the places where your muscles tend to stay tense, where your heart stays guarded, where your soul stays on edge right now. You don't have to earn your peace. You can let it find you. You can stop running. Stop pretending. Stop waiting. Permission to be human because the one who created you never asked you to hustle for rest. Even if you're still figuring out what you believe, even if you don't have the language for it, something in you already knows when truth arrives. And this is truth. You are loved, you are worthy, you are allowed to exhale. So I want you to let that peace rise in your chest, not because everything has been fixed, but because you finally stopped running from yourself. So take one more deep breath in. Hold it, hold it as if your life depends on it. Now I want you to gently exhale because peace lives here. It lives in this breath, in this body, in this moment, and you beautiful woman, you are allowed to return to it as often as you need. You don't have to earn it. You only have to receive it. And you know what? Thank God. That it is soul part six, finding your Way back to Peace. So peace is something that we talk about a lot, but so few of us actually feel it. We chase it. We long for it. We try to buy it, plan for it, pray for it. But when it gets quiet enough to hear ourselves, so many of us realize. We don't know how to live in it because somewhere along the way we learned how to earn rest, but not how to receive it. We learned how to show up, but not how to sit still. We learned how to keep everyone else okay, but forgot what it means to be okay within ourselves. And peace, real peace. It doesn't happen when everything around you is calm. It happens when something within you finally stops fighting. Peace isn't just a feeling, it's a return, a return to your breath, a return to your safety, a return to the truth that you are already love before you fixed, accomplished, or approved anything. Today you were already loved. And here is what's tender about that truth. Sometimes it takes a long time for us to believe it. It really does because we have lived a long time in our fears, in our survival modes and in our performances we have been the ones that has been strong, the one that everyone depends on the I am good no matter what comes. But all that strength, all of that came at a cost. And I don't know what your specific cost has been, I really don't, but I know what mine has been. Maybe it was your sleep, your health, your creativity, your softness, your voice, your laughter, your belief that joy was still for you. But what I do know. With everything in me is this. Peace is never gone. It's never lost. Peace is not something that you missed your chance at because you can return to it, maybe not all at once. Maybe not in one perfect moment, but in little ways, in pauses, in permissions, in one honest breath at a time. And yes, I believe that peace comes from the one who created you from the God who shaped your spirit, who sees your exhaustion, and doesn't ask for more performance, just your presence. But even if you're still figuring out what you believe, even if faith has felt complicated or out of reach, this moment is still for you because peace. Isn't just for the faithful, it is for the tired, the quiet ones, the bur holding it together ones the ones who whisper. Please into the silence and hope and pray that someone hears. Let me say this clearly and I wanna say it for your soul. You are heard, you are seen. You are not too far to come back home. So if you're ready, if you're willing, I want to invite you to ask yourself, what does peace feel like in my body? Where have I been? Too loud, too fast, too busy? And what would softening look like for me today if I stopped running? What might begin to rise to meet me? No one else has to understand your journey because this is between you and the stillness that's been waiting for you to return. So breathe not because it fixes everything, but because it reminds you that you are still here. Go ahead and take that breath. You are still allowed to big again. Again, because you're not too old. This is not the end of the road for you. This is your sacred middle. And you beautiful soul. Now you're finding your way back to your peace. So what does peace actually feel like for you and where have you been afraid to let it in? Here is a final blessing that I want to leave with you. The return to peace. May you walk slowly now, not because there's nothing left to do. Because you finally believe your worth isn't in the doing. May you trust the quiet more than just trust the noise. May you honor the pause as holy. Even when the world tells you to keep moving, may you feel the nearness of the one who created you, not because you've earned it, but because he never stopped being there. May you stop apologizing for your softness. And stop explaining your need for rest. May you remember that peace is not a privilege but a gift that's already written into your story. And when guilt tries to visit, may you begin to meet it with Grace. You don't have to strive for what you've already been given. You are seen. You are known, you are held. You are free to return to your peace again and again. So I want to leave you with a final affirmation. I am allowed to stop performing. I'm allowed to rest without guilt. I receive the peace I was created for, not later, but now. I am not behind. I am not broken. I am coming home to myself. And I am held by a love that will never, ever let me go. So my beautiful sisters, we have come to the end of our podcast. I want to leave you with just one more part, come home to yourself because you made it to the pause. You sat with your soul and maybe. You remembered something about yourself that the world had tried to make you forget that you are not lazy for resting. You are not weak for needing. You are not selfish for choosing yourself because rest isn't the absence of love. It's the evidence of it, and every time you choose to pause to be still to check in with the woman you are becoming, you are choosing to come home to yourself. So whether you believe in God or are still figuring out what you believe and want you to know, this peace is reaching for you, not to shame you, but to ground you. To anchor you back into your body, to remind you that you are worthy without doing a single thing. The one who created you, he never left. He is still holding out his hand, still whispering my beautiful daughter, come and rest. So let that rest be your rebellion. Let it be your return. Let it be the love that you have been waiting for. So sisters, until next time, I want you to pause, breathe, and keep choosing you because you are so very worth it. Thank you so much for sharing this space with me today, and if this podcast touched you in any way, please share it with a novice sister. That could benefit from it. Thanks again, a wonderful week, and I'll see you soon.