Reclaiming Timelessness

Time in the Western world is scarce, fast-moving, and stressful.
The lack of it keeps people up at night, “I don’t have enough time.” It dictates business relationships, “Time is money.” We divide up time like so much cocaine on a plate. But there have been, and still are, cultures that don’t experience any of that. The aboriginal people had no word for time before new faces arrived on their shores. They would go on walks where they communed with ancestors, and embraced the dynamic energies of nature and spirit. There was no past, present, and future. It was all one.

The benefits of timelessness are yours to discover.
You might not have the resources or interest to go on a long walk in the Australian desert. That doesn’t mean you can’t live in your own culture and experience a collapse of time. It’s likely that you already have. I experienced it when I went through an oil painting phase. The collapse of time was certainly more notable than the art I produced. Hours would go by and I wouldn’t notice. I felt that I entered a sacred space and didn’t have to search for joy, it was already there.

O ye, who wishes for more time to experience joy, love and peace, I offer you a challenge.
What if every day for the next three weeks, you reclaimed a sense of timelessness?

Understandably, your response might involve the word, “How?” Excellent question.

1) Upon waking DO NOT go to your computer, don’t text, or get on the phone – nada for electronics.
Instead, stretch like a cat before you get out of bed. Have you ever noticed how happy a cat is while stretching? My cat, Willamena, loves, loves, loves to stretch her front paws way out in front of her, put her butt way in the air, and stretch her back while yawning. Make the most of those precious moments before getting out of bed. Stretch one side of your body, roll over and stretch the other. Make funny, happy, grumbling noises.

Once you’re out of bed, let the electronics continue sleeping, and spend a couple of minutes in silence. Write down everything you’re grateful for, while sipping your coffee or tea. A gratitude practice will change your outlook drastically. Then, take a shower and thoroughly relish the hot water that flows without any effort on your part. Appreciate the feel of lotion applied to your skin. Wear fabric that feels luxurious and comforting. Indulge in the littlest things because doing so brings you into the present moment and dissolves the perception of limited time.

2) Breathe. Deeply. Again.
While driving to work, and in between meetings, even now while reading this, BREATHE. Deeply. Again. Shallow breathing creates anxiety, and anxiety thrives on scarcity. Breathing deeply doesn’t take away time from anything else, unless you’re practicing the “hee-hoo-haa” television version of Lamaze Breathing. Deep breathing massages the internal organs and centers the mind. Chill, baby. All you have to do is breathe. It creates space around you. It can also give you a sense of timelessness by bringing you back into the present moment.

3) Go where the geese go, where the trees are abundant, or where the waves lap the shores.
Get outside. If you live in a big city, pull out a map, find the greenest spot and go there. Nature has rhythms that we are often out of touch with. Those rhythms are part of our cellular memory. We grew up as a species in those rhythms. Just because we don’t live in caves or huts now, doesn’t mean we can’t still experience the expansiveness of nature. Going for a walk in the woods always quiets my mind, and chills out my internal clock. Tip: leave your phone in the car. The buzzing and vibrating may cause you to reengage.

4) Find a time-collapsing career or hobby.
A career utilizing your strengths will collapse time. Your greatest strengths are the activities you do that give you the greatest exhilaration. I often lose a sense of time while working one-to-one with clients. Since birth, I’ve been fascinated and in love with people. My career uses my greatest strengths. If you have a career that gives you that same juice, Bravo! If not, not to worry, you don’t need to quit your job to experience strength-based timelessness.

A hobby, like the oil painting I mentioned above, can help you transcend circumstances, annoyances, and time. For some people, cooking is the way. For others, it’s exercise or playing an instrument. Or writing novels. Or meditating. Maybe for you it’s playing with your children. Whatever it is, do more of it. Edge out the unhappy stuff with the joyful, life-affirming activities. Martin Seligman, the creator of Positive Psychology, identified “Flow” as being one of several key components to overall well-being. He also found that the highest levels of happiness came when people where engaged in a flow that contributed to a higher purpose.

Rise to the challenge in the next few weeks.
Why not? What, besides stress and anxiety, do you have to lose?