TIME

I have always been interested in the concept of time. A few years ago, I wrote an entry to all of you titled S P A C E about the hard choices I had recently made to slow down and focus on less. What came up in the created space was small and lovely at first:

-less hurry
-time to bake a cake for a friend
-the capacity to shower the dogs after a muddy walk without getting pist off
-being there at pick up every day
-reading one more story before bedtime
-lingering in the shower and exfoliating my skin

and then, suddenly, the unimaginable began to happen:

-I was invited to Copenhagen, and because the space was there, I was able to say YES
which led to
-co-leading a retreat in Tuscany
which led to
-an invitation to collaborate on a curriculum offered to college-age women designed to lay the groundwork for reclaiming the narrative about the place that work will occupy in their lives
which led to
-teaching that curriculum and mindfulness to the women's soccer team at Middlebury College
which led to
-co-creating a retreat for mothers of daughters to support their girls on a non-linear path
which led to
-re-opening my counseling practice and Blue Light Yoga in Hamilton
which led to
-launching Blue Light Collective online.

If I hadn't slowed down in 2016 (and the pandemic hadn't happened), I'd still be commuting back and forth to Boston, guzzling gas, rushing, dreading, depleting my resources, and beating myself up for not being at story hour; and I never would have had the time, let alone the energy, to go to Copenhagen on a whim. Something deep within me knew I was off track. Recently, I put that deep knowing into words: "as soon as it feels urgent, you're off your path." Urgency has become my tell tale to slow down, take a deep breath (or many), drop into being, and out of doing.

The late Irish philosopher John O'Donohue said that when we create more time and space, we are able to see that in the world of spirit, time behaves differently--rather than being a product of the calendar, time is actually "the parent of presence". During my own slow down, I kept telling everyone I had made space for the unimaginable. I didn't know of John O'Donohue at the time so I was floored when I recently read this passage from his book Anam Cara: "Possibility is the secret heart of time. On its outer surface, time is vulnerable to transience. In its deeper heart, time is transfiguration."

O'Donohue encourages us to view moving forward in time as a creative act that we are constantly shaping and building. With this mindset, we become the creative authors of our lives rather than victims or targets of time. In modern life, we view time as an enemy to stave off or hoax at any cost. Rather than being the subject of our time, we are captive to its tick-tick-tick. We fend off the unimaginable with routines and schedules. O'Donohue said "over structured time is stolen time." Unstructured time, on the other hand, is the space where possibilities unfold, imaginations work, and greater potential exists.

Many of us not on the front lines of this pandemic have been re-gifted some of our unstructured time. With less to do and nowhere to be except on zoom, we have rediscovered what life can look like when you're in one place each day. All those minutes in cars, trains, and airplanes have been given back to us. All those hours of structured sports and after-school activities have been returned. We have had to depend on our imaginations rather than routines to fill our days. What has surprised me is how out of practice we are at living in unstructured time. We're so out of practice we easily resort to resenting the time and space, or worse, refilling or restructuring our time as quickly as possible to recreate feelings of control and worthiness.

I am not suggesting we live without routines or that structured time is bad. On the contrary, fresh, mindful routines are crucial to our well being. What is harmful is where there is no room in how we spend our time for beauty, reprieve, or spontaneity. The pandemic has afforded some of us an invaluable opportunity: a remembering that we can exist doing less and being more, and taking it one step deeper, the quality of our lives (not to mention our planet and her other inhabitants' lives) actually depends on it. We are never without the capacity to create moments every day to relax into, simply be, and wonder what else is possible. In these moments, we can connect to the transfiguration of our beings. Without them, we are stuck on our hamster wheels as the clock ticks away.

How often do you say you're "busy"? How often do you tell yourself or someone you love you don't have time to do something? I find these answers (which I am guilty of giving from time to time) boring and small-minded. The idea that we don't have time is a self-created concept. We were created with plenty of time to do what we're here to do, we just have to be creative and authentic in how we spend our time. The first step is to believe that, or at least, entertain the possibility. The second step is to practice making time, even if only clearing your schedule for five minutes a day. The third step is to pay attention, and notice, with patience, what happens in that created time and space.

Before we rush into our post-vaccinated lives, take some time to ask yourself the following questions:

-how much of my time do I spend on tasks that matter to me?
-how much of my time do I spend with people who matter to me?
-how much of my time do I allow myself to relax?
-how much of my time do I spend being each day?
-in what ways am I playing a creative role in how I spend my time?
-what time is unstructured in my days and what comes up during these times?

and then ask yourself the mirror of the above questions:

-how much of my time do I spend on tasks that don't matter to me?
-how much of my time do I spend with people who don't matter to me?
-how much of my time am I wound up?
-how much of my time do I spend doing each day?
-in what ways are other forces or people dictating or controlling how I spend my time?
-what time is structured in my days and what comes up during these times?

The answers to these questions can help you shape a more authentic, meaningful, and intriguing post-pandemic life that is more in sync with the natural world.

If you'd like to discuss the concept of time further, please join me in our next Blue Light Discussion (open and free to all) on March 31 at 630PM. You can register here.

As always, thank you for reading.