Do You Allow Yourself the Gift of Time?

Image by 畅 苏 from Pixabay

Since I rather spectacularly injured my toe on a wooden pallet last month, which would not have happened if I hadn’t been rushing, I have been reminded to give myself more space between things I want to achieve in a day.

I had been too keen to try to fit in a walk at the beach between commitments and, while it had been great to feel my feet in the warm sand, it had meant rushing back to get the kids’ afternoon tea ready for school pick up. As a consequence, I then found myself blocked in by a delivery when I was already running late.

Each week when I sit down at my keyboard to help crystalise what I’ve learned, there is most often an obvious theme that arises. This week, like many others, has brought mixed blessings; swinging between moments of kindness, insight and serendipities, and frustrating misunderstandings, delays and (to first appearances) blocks.

I wondered what the common thread was between them, because there is usually an ah-ha moment in there somewhere. This week I reflected on the gift of time, or allowing myself more space between the lines as I like to call it, and how small changes have had a major impact on my life.

For example, the kids needed an extra day at home after the weekend; they were far from recharged and one had been unwell, and I was glad to be in a position to give it to them. Though part of me breathed a heavy inward sigh, realizing the things I had planned would need to wait, I enjoyed sitting by the stream in the sun in the local reserve while the kids built a magical paradise for themselves from branches, stones and leaves.

The next day I was thankful to have gotten through my only appointment for the day when I got a call
from the school to pick one of them up. Again, part of me sighed as more plans were waylaid, but nothing critical and I enjoyed some one on one time with my oldest child. The day after, I prioritized a yoga session straight after school drop off, needing to find my equilibrium, and (literally) just as I finished the phone rang again, to go and pick up my other child from school. I was deeply grateful for the timing, and spent some wonderful one on one time with my youngest child.

Life can be like that with kids, especially at the moment with our winter weather and COVID19 restrictions. The kids are tired and schools are cautious, and I’m grateful to be able to accommodate it all with relative ease because I’ve stepped back from continuously having my foot full down on the throttle.

In contrast, if I look back on my early life, I can remember the constant feelings of anxiety attached to the need to get somewhere; to keep up with mum’s walking pace, to catch a bus, to get to the pickup point for swim training in the mornings, to get to school afterwards, to get home in time to eat lunch and get back to school before the afternoon bell… the list goes on.

Growing into adulthood, I took that ethos into my career. As I was climbing the corporate ladder, I had many operational tasks and targets to deliver on, and people to manage, but I also had to make time for the more strategic thinking and delivery, which is where my natural aptitude and focus were and, ultimately, where I wanted my career to head.

I worked long hours and they were jam-packed. Then I had babies, and there was hardly a minute of my life left unscheduled, and that which wasn’t became open season for the kids to get in their mamma time, which they naturally wanted and needed. 

I was great at multi tasking if you were to look on the surface; I could tick a lot of boxes on the to-do list. But where was the space in between to actually process the events and interactions of the day in relation to my own journey here on Earth? My adrenaline and cortisol levels were so high my mind was constantly absorbed in basic survival, in flight or fight mode, there was no space to process anything at a deeper level.

While I’m pleased I at least stepped off the corporate wheel, it is fair to say that old habits die hard. Dialing back on commitments has been a long and painful process, especially with children in the picture. Their dependence on an adult, me in this case, creates all sorts of new and seemingly unending commitments that are no more attractive than the array of dull weekly meetings I was obliged to attend in corporate life. Learning healthy boundaries and how to assert them has become a priority.

Still, I notice I have a propensity to load up my days too much on occasion, and life delivers me a swift and painful reminder (like the toe incident) to leave myself some space.

A few weeks back I was doing an exercise, led by Dr Jean Houston, on subjective time. She gave us one minute of clock time to go and explore something we have always wanted to do – one suggestion was a trip around the world. In my case, I decided to imaginatively take the trip to visit my family in the UK that we had to postpone last month due to current travel restrictions.

In that one minute I was able to imagine: my partner taking the kids and I to the airport, both legs of the flight (even the change-over’s in Los Angeles and London), arriving at our destination, the car ride back to my dad’s new house, looking around the house and garden for the first time, and even some of the people and places we might have visited; all this while also imagining some of the little parent-child moments I might face in escorting the kids on such a trip.

It’s amazing what can be achieved in the mind alone when I’m in a relaxed and focused state.
Yesterday, as I drove to a long awaited appointment with a doctor across town, I found I was aiming to be early so I would feel relaxed and more likely to take in the details of our meeting. I had also gone prepared with a list of things I wanted to discuss.

Afterwards, with no other commitments planned, I drove to the pool thinking through everything I had learned as I swam. Then I went home and made notes as a reminder, something I would previously have made no space for and then would likely have woken in the middle of the night recounting the conversation – or a month later some important information might have worked it’s way back to conscious memory.

In fact, that particular appointment was one in the private rather than public sector, and the glorious difference in the doctor-patient interaction was the gift of time in the consultation; time to explore the issues more on both sides. Straight away I felt the difference; it did not feel rushed so, as well as the things I had wanted to convey, I was also able to ask the questions that arose in my mind during our
conversation.

Unlike in the exercise with Jean Houston, one minute of clock time would not subjectively equal all the time in the word in a rushed doctor’s appointment. In fact, the feeling of being rushed evokes that flight or fight response and tends to freeze my brain so is counterproductive. In the public system I too often think of the questions I want to ask long after I’m out of my appointment.

I wonder how much time and money could be saved in the public healthcare system if a little more care was spent upfront simply to allow for a more relaxed doctor-patient interaction?

For me it’s not about finding hours and hours of time in my calendar, it’s about taking a bit more time upfront with things, being smarter in relation to when and what I schedule, and consciously including all the things that I used to just try and fit in somewhere.

All this is to say I don’t need a lot of clock time in order allow myself the gift of time. The gift is more about a focus on:

• exposing the list of things that don’t always require a specific clock time but do need my attention; like paying bills, grocery shopping, washing, preparing food, weeding and so on
• leaving deliberate space between calendar commitments so that I’m not rushing from one thing to the next, and I actually have time to take care of my other responsibilities and process what is taking place in my life  
• making deliberate time for the things that nourish me, including regular meditation, time in nature for appreciation and contemplation, swimming, yoga and writing
• dropping into my heart space around issues that trigger me to ensure I am acting from a place of authenticity and not mounting a full scale defence or attack that perpetuates things I don’t want in my life – this is an amazing time saver, when I think of all the hours/days/weeks/months/years I used to ruminate on what had happened or what I thought should have happened or what might happen in the future, not to mention how much worse I always felt

There was a particular misunderstanding this week that sent me into a bit of a tail spin. Previously I’d have mounted a defence and gone in guns blazing. Given I hadn’t planned to see that person until next week, the issue would meanwhile have dominated much of my thoughts as I stewed.

Instead I took time to notice the rant in my head, and drop into my heart to figure out how the issue was really making me feel and why. I explained my fears and concerns to other person as concisely as I could, seeking clarification. She understood and, to my relief, there was more to the situation than I was aware of (as is often the case) and we were, in fact, aligned in our thinking.

Allowing myself the gift of time also means allowing it in others; to allow them the space to consider things I’ve asked or said before responding. It means I allow things to unfold in their natural time, like allowing my body time to heal without the compulsion to act now and intervene.

The more I give myself that kind of space, the more I notice I allow it in others. I notice too the difference in how my body feels, more relaxed, like it’s not fighting itself, nor fighting with others. The quality of what I get done is better, and the quantity strangely hasn’t suffered, everything seems to still happen, and more easily.

When I look back on that constant compulsion I used to have to do everything now, I can easily remember how stressed I was. Now I realise I will never be done, so I may as well increase the quality of my interactions with others and situations by allowing myself and them the gift of a bit more time. Do you allow yourself the gift of time?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Get out of Your Head and into Your Heart, Kneel at the Doorway of Your Heart to Usher the Dawn of a New Era, Do You Need to Heal Your Boundaries? To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.