Our Story
Meet Pause Cofounders Ryan & Rena
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2013
Rena and Ryan serendipitously met in Nicaragua and they were swept up in joy, disbelief, and the most vibrant love they'd ever felt. One of the biggest sparks was their shared passion for meditation.
2014
As they grew roots together in Portland, we found ourselves in the shoes of filling a need....there were incredible Buddhist and other communities in Portland (one of which we were a part), but the leap to join a Buddhist sangha was too much for many people, so we found were began to recognized the growing need for a place where meditation and mindfulness instruction was offered in a secular way
2014
A meditation studio called Hush opened in Portland's Pearl District, where Ryan taught alongside other instructors. Though short-lived, it brought together a community of practitioners interested in secular meditation before unexpectedly closing its doors.
2015
With nowhere for the community to land after Hush closed, Rena and Ryan began hosting meditation sessions in Fields Park. They hauled cushions around Portland in duffel bags, creating pop-up meditation spaces. Over dinner one evening, they landed on the name "Pause," celebrating by creating a logo with french fries.
2016-2017
The growing community found its first indoor home at Jennifer Pepin Art Gallery, where they offered regular sessions and launched their first MBSR cohort. After outgrowing the gallery, they moved to the "Yellow House" basement, then to O2:20 studio where they shared space with a yoga collective.
2019
Pause@Work was born when a graduate of their MBSR program invited them to bring meditation into Nike. In November, they took a leap of faith and signed a 7-year lease on their current studio space, transforming it from office cubicles into a meditation sanctuary through community effort.
2020
Just months after their grand opening celebration, COVID-19 forced them to pivot overnight to online offerings. Their first virtual session drew over 40 participants, keeping the community connected during uncertain times.
2022
Responding to community feedback, they launched the Joy-based membership model with sliding scale pricing. This change made meditation more accessible, leading to a quadrupling of membership and expanding their scholarship offerings.
Today
At its heart, Pause is about each of us discovering our own unique path to being more present, loving, and connected. It takes courage to choose this path of awakening rather than staying on autopilot. Together in community, we support each other in giving the world the best of ourselves, each unfolding in our own way and our own time.
When we serendipitously met in Nicaragua in 2013, our lives were swept up in joy, disbelief, and the most vibrant love we'd ever felt. Sure, the warm beaches, brilliant blue water, and endless sunshine played a role....but beneath all of the laughter and waves was our shared passion for meditation. We'd both been practicing for years, and our compasses were set for a lifelong exploration of living with presence and intention. Little did we know this path would guide us to each other and align us in this vocation of teaching meditation within our own community and with communities across the world.
As we grew roots together in Portland, we recognized the growing need for a place where meditation and mindfulness instruction was accessible for everyone, regardless of their spiritual leanings or experience. In 2014, Portland's first secular meditation studio – HUSH – opened in the Pearl and we joined its emerging community. When its doors closed suddenly a year later, we felt compelled to keep the community alive, so we launched Pause. We didn't have a studio at the time, so we hosted pop-up sessions in neighborhood parks throughout the summer of 2015. When the weather turned soggy, we began hosting classes at J. Pepin Art Gallery and Roots of Resilience studio, and spent the first two years schlepping giant duffel bags full of cushions to and from locations – worth it!
From the summer of 2017 to the fall of 2019, our home base was the beautiful 220 Studio where we were able to significantly grow the Pause community and expand our offerings. We would not be where we are today without the kind hearts and huge support from the gallery and studio owners (thank you Jennifer Pepin, Stacey Royce, Adnan Kadir, Jodie Steagall, and Emily Taylor).
In November of 2019, we landed in the new Pause Studio space and are BEYOND grateful for this exceptionally beautiful space to practice. We offer science-based meditation and mindfulness practices through weekly drop-in classes and courses, as well as workplace mindfulness trainings, retreats, and mindful leadership consulting for both the corporate and nonprofit sectors.
We are profoundly inspired to make space each day to pause, and we feel equally inspired to support our community in this endeavor. A community of people with shared purpose is potent, and there's a reason these traditions have survived for thousands of years in community settings. Individual practice is essential, but the glue that holds it all together is community. We need each other to learn and grow, and to keep ourselves motivated when the going (and growing) gets tough.
As business and life partners, we are continually humbled by the impact meditation has on our own lives, and the lives of everyone it touches. We're so grateful for all those involved in bringing mindfulness into our modern world – teachers, practitioners, neuroscientists, spiritual leaders, community organizers, and all of the individuals willing to try it out for themselves. This is an extremely challenging time, and also a hopeful one. We find great promise in this new wave of mindful exploration, and we are deeply honored to be a part of it.
We look forward to sharing this journey with you.
In love and gratitude,
