Perhaps You're Suffering From "Time Sickness"
"Time is an illusion."
Albert Einstein
It's Sunday, my day off of work and all I can think about this morning is how many activities I can cram into it. How much can I accomplish? What can I get done? I should of course work out, and clean up a bit, and contact some clients and perhaps get a head start on work for next week.....
I even said out loud that "I wish I didn't have to go to Sammi's soccer game " because it would take up so much time in the middle of my day.
Whoa! As soon as that came out of my mouth I knew that my priorities were way off, but so many thoughts whirled around in my brain that I couldn't even think straight. Fortunately I know that when I feel that kind of anxiety, it's time to quiet the chatter a bit, meditate first, and then make decisions from there.
I have been following Oprah and Deepak's 21 day meditation challenge and sat down to day #3 (because I'm already behind)- a lesson on Recognizing and Healing Time Dysfunction.
In this meditation, Deepak describes the epidemic of time sickness. Time Sickness, he states, is "the ultimate disorder because it throws the mind and body out of balance. As we race against the clock and measure every day on what we did or did not achieve- life isn't lived. We know we suffer from time sickness if we feel there is never enough time, if we are constantly looking at the clock, if we find ourselves dreading the passage of time, or if we feel frustration or failure if we did not achieve all that we thought we should during the day. "
As I sat in silence after today's lesson, I recalled Aaron Conner telling me a few years ago that there "is no such thing as time." In that moment, I couldn't quite wrap my head around that idea.....but today it occured to me that perhaps another way of putting it is that there is no such thing as a lack of time, because time is infinite. If, as Chopra states, "time shifts depending on what is going on in the inside" then time is of limitless abundance. If you believe that we are more than just a body, time has no meaning. Past, present, future......it's all an illusion.
Pretty deep I know- so what do we do with all that? It all goes back to being in each and every moment. Each moment we birth our own experiences. We can change them whenever we want.
If you find yourself dreading time passage, then find something else to do.
If there is never enough time, allow for space.
If you keep looking at the clock, undertake an adventure where the minutes are irrelevant.
If you are frustrated by your lack of accomplishment- then accomplish something damnit!
So, as I let today unfold, I walked by the TV and sat down for 40 minutes to see Shalane Flannigan kicking ass in the New York marathon (inspiring the hell out of me). I decided to write. I'll get a little work done after I watch my daughter score a few goals in her final soccer game, and perhaps sit and read a bit this evening if thats the way things unfold.
It's funny how thankful I was this morning for the "extra hour" alloted to us as daylight savings time ends. Maybe if we could see the abundance of time available to us in each and every day, we could make every moment matter and in turn our reward will be a healthy relationship with time.
Albert Einstein
It's Sunday, my day off of work and all I can think about this morning is how many activities I can cram into it. How much can I accomplish? What can I get done? I should of course work out, and clean up a bit, and contact some clients and perhaps get a head start on work for next week.....
I even said out loud that "I wish I didn't have to go to Sammi's soccer game " because it would take up so much time in the middle of my day.
Whoa! As soon as that came out of my mouth I knew that my priorities were way off, but so many thoughts whirled around in my brain that I couldn't even think straight. Fortunately I know that when I feel that kind of anxiety, it's time to quiet the chatter a bit, meditate first, and then make decisions from there.
I have been following Oprah and Deepak's 21 day meditation challenge and sat down to day #3 (because I'm already behind)- a lesson on Recognizing and Healing Time Dysfunction.
In this meditation, Deepak describes the epidemic of time sickness. Time Sickness, he states, is "the ultimate disorder because it throws the mind and body out of balance. As we race against the clock and measure every day on what we did or did not achieve- life isn't lived. We know we suffer from time sickness if we feel there is never enough time, if we are constantly looking at the clock, if we find ourselves dreading the passage of time, or if we feel frustration or failure if we did not achieve all that we thought we should during the day. "
As I sat in silence after today's lesson, I recalled Aaron Conner telling me a few years ago that there "is no such thing as time." In that moment, I couldn't quite wrap my head around that idea.....but today it occured to me that perhaps another way of putting it is that there is no such thing as a lack of time, because time is infinite. If, as Chopra states, "time shifts depending on what is going on in the inside" then time is of limitless abundance. If you believe that we are more than just a body, time has no meaning. Past, present, future......it's all an illusion.
Pretty deep I know- so what do we do with all that? It all goes back to being in each and every moment. Each moment we birth our own experiences. We can change them whenever we want.
If you find yourself dreading time passage, then find something else to do.
If there is never enough time, allow for space.
If you keep looking at the clock, undertake an adventure where the minutes are irrelevant.
If you are frustrated by your lack of accomplishment- then accomplish something damnit!
So, as I let today unfold, I walked by the TV and sat down for 40 minutes to see Shalane Flannigan kicking ass in the New York marathon (inspiring the hell out of me). I decided to write. I'll get a little work done after I watch my daughter score a few goals in her final soccer game, and perhaps sit and read a bit this evening if thats the way things unfold.
It's funny how thankful I was this morning for the "extra hour" alloted to us as daylight savings time ends. Maybe if we could see the abundance of time available to us in each and every day, we could make every moment matter and in turn our reward will be a healthy relationship with time.
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