New President 🤔 — how do you feel?
[We updated this post on Nov. 2, 2021 to reflect the fact that we’ve found that 7 is the ideal number of members for Pace Groups, leading to the most connection, insights, and personal change.]
On a day like today — the inauguration of our 46th US president — we are all experiencing some real emotions.
Emotions are an important and basic human experience, but they can also be really confusing and hard to process. Sometimes the words escape us; other times they come as easily as breathing. Most days, we can get too busy to even check in on those emotions. And yet, regardless of how aware we are of our own emotions, they often drive what we say and do.
At Pace, our mission is to unlock emotional connection together. Never has that been more important in our nation’s history than today.
Today, to create space for your feelings and to give you the language to name them, we are sharing Pace Pause — and we’re opening it up to everyone.
Pace Pause (Download)
How it works
Visit Pace Pause at https://pace.group/pause. You’ll be prompted to pause, take a deep breath, and check in by selecting up to three feelings. The feelings are organized by intensity (on the y-axis), and positivity (on the x-axis). We based Pace Pause on the Mood Meter (by Marc Brackett) and the Feelings Wheel (created by Dr. Gloria Willcox), and adapted them to capture the complexity of your emotional experience.
And with that complexity, you may notice times that none of the feelings here reflect your current state or that too many (and conflicting) feelings resonate with you. Embrace it all! The beauty of this tool is to help bring these situations to your awareness, which is often the first step to strengthening your mental health and wellness.
We encourage you to practice using Pace Pause daily or as often as you like. Practicing recognizing your own emotions is a good way to develop emotional intelligence, resilience, and connection with others.
Want to pause with others? Join a Pace Group where you can practice with 7 other people working on their emotional and mental health, guided by world-class mental health facilitators. Groups meet virtually 90 minutes a week.
No matter how you’re feeling about this past election, we hope you’re all excited to watch the historic inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris (our first woman vice president and the first Black or Asian-American to hold that position). Their success will be our success as a nation. Happy inauguration everyone!
