Interesting, welcome experience
Now that covid is well behind me and the lingering cough it left is completely gone or almost so (perhaps due in part to channel visualizations I've been doing to address the possibility that the virus blocked the energy flow through certain channels), I'm pretty sure my brain/body is returning to a state that will allow me more easily to turn off pause.
One indication is how I felt a few mornings ago. During the first half of my regular morning session I was focused a bit more than usual on the first two auxiliary exercises. At some point, while focusing on the energy running through the head/midbrain portion of the Du channel, I noticed something unusual. A high level of energy at Yin Tang, and more generally in my forehead, was persisting regardless of where I was focused. Similarly, a feeling of heart expansion was strong, though I had not consciously activated it. I felt, as well, a sense of increased lung capacity. But the biggest surprise came when i said something out loud. My voice was suddenly back to full strength rather than its usual pause-softened character.
All those things are elements I've come to associate with pause turning off. So I was of course eagerly wondering if that was happening! Alas, other elements I've come to see as central, for me, to the process were missing. Most notably I did not feel any real surge of joy beyond a modest, improvement in mood in anticipation of the possibility of going off pause. Nor did I feel the same degree of relief I've come to associate with pause turning off. Finally, I did not feel the pronounced ease of movement and sense of looseness I've usually felt when pause has turned off. (Within an hour or so I was back to my state from before the unusual feelings.)
So if pause didn't turn off, what the heck was that? My best guess is that pause was beginning to turn off, or at least that my brain brought me to about the lightest level of pause possible, before the flip of the off-pause switch, if you will, simply failed to follow all the way through.
I was quite pleased though. This told me I must be very close to being able once again to turn off pause. Also pleasing was that it happened in the morning. I've never turned off pause in the morning. With the exception of one time in the afternoon, it has always happened during the evening hours. Perhaps those hours feel safest to me. So it was encouraging that I came so close to turning off pause in the morning. It tells me that perhaps I'm becoming more generally ready to turn it off, not so confined to a set of narrow conditions such as a particular time of day. I'd say things are looking up!