PAUSE & APPLAUSE! | Joy-Based Living Shirt

PAUSE & APPLAUSE began in our Joy-Based Living Honor Circle. Someone would share something amazing they had done, experienced, or found the courage to face... and then keep right on talking. Before we knew it, they might minimize the accomplishment, downgrade the story, or simply move past it before the rest of us had a chance to reflect back what we had just witnessed. So we created a group norm: you are allowed to interrupt a good story in order to honor it. We just needed a phrase. One day while I was with my friends Heather and Lyle Nicely, Heather and I were tossing ideas around. We were close, but nothing quite had that YES, THAT’S IT feeling. Then Lyle walked in. We explained what we needed, and almost immediately he said: “Pause and Applause.” YES. More than a year later, we still use it regularly, with great joy and occasionally some very friendly awkwardness. When someone says something worth celebrating, we raise two index fingers and hold them together like the pause symbol. One by one, the group joins in until the storyteller finally stops. Then together we say: PAUSE... and we applaud. APPLAUSE! Because sometimes the people who love us need to help us notice when we’ve just done something courageous, beautiful, difficult, or downright wonderful. Pause long enough to let the good thing count.