What is Your Relationship With Time?
I accidentally scrolled backwards through my google calendar. All the months and little boxes contained within them whirred past in a blink. Each one filled to the brim with bright colors to differentiate appointments. Client sessions. Doctors and dentists. Oil changes and school plays. Deadlines and days off. A record of a life, fleeting.
Time, time, time.
And then the subtle gripping and shrieking of my Ego, trying to slow down the ride.
A childhood friend found me on Instagram and sent a message. We haven’t talked in 30 years or so! “So what’s new?”, I felt like asking. With one of the hysterically laughing emojis included. Where does one even begin to begin?
Time, time, time.
A client and I made a list once of all the words people associate with time that are money related. It was a fascinating exercise. We “spend” time, “waste” time, “save” time, “make” time, “lose” time, “gain” time, “have” time, “run out of” time.
The craziest part of all, of course, is that none of these are even true! What’s true is that we possess a certain amount of ebbing and flowing energy and every single day + night that we’re alive in our current human form, we get to choose how we direct it, what we dedicate it to, whether we’ll take steps toward or away from our true heart's desire…
Time has us, we don’t have time. And when we’re living from our Egos, time has us by the jugular.
It fascinates me how dogs don’t live inside time. It’s a language they simply don’t speak. When I leave mine in the car and tell them: “I’ll be back in a minute”, my words do not reassure them. They look at me like I’m stepping off a cliff into never-never land.
Or when I tell them dinner is “almost ready”, they just stare back insistently, dismayed and unimpressed. Because in dog life there is only now. Something is either happening now or not happening now. What does ‘a minute’ or ‘almost’ actually mean?
My dogs know my energy though. They know the timbre of my voice. They know when I’m loving them and holding their needs as something urgent to attend. They know when I’m distracted and elsewhere too. None of these are connected to time. They are only connected to the quality of presence and choices being made as each moment unfolds.
When we talk about time, as human beings, we’re really talking about agency, fear and choices. When we say we “don’t have time” what we’re really saying is: we’ve chosen to prioritize something else. When we fret about “running out of time” what we’re really afraid of is: regretting the choices we’ve made. When we say we “need more time” what we’re really saying is: we want more inner permission to let ourselves do the thing our Soul is begging for.
The passing of time has a powerful hold on us and anything powerful in our lives warrants a clear, conscious understanding.
Make it a priority to analyze your relationship with time. Do you feel conscious and empowered around the choices you’re making? How are you using your energy? Are you in alignment with your destiny? Or running in circles alongside it?
Every time you exercise choice with integrity and self accountability, you come into deeper alignment with your true self and what you were born to do here. Don’t forget that!
Have an extra beautiful week,
