Our experience of time may be changing, even accelerating. But all the to-dos and busyness are temporary. Life slows down when we tap into the timeless Present moment.
Our experience of time may be changing, even accelerating. But all the to-dos and busyness are temporary. Life slows down when we tap into the timeless Present moment.It’s already October – can you believe it? Summer is over (except here in California, where it’s still blazing hot!) and autumn is unfolding. The year is speeding by.
We are living in an age of accelerated time. No longer do hot summer afternoons seem to last forever. Or if they do, 5 days follow that go by in a blip. Remember when you were a kid and summers were long, days were timeless and, having nothing to do, while it may have been boring, was often deeply pleasurable (or at least longingly looks so now!)? With far less on our plates, time seemed to drip slowly, filling us gently with simple but rich experiences.
Whether you attribute it to the fast pace of our culture, rapidly changing technology, overbooked schedules, or some higher vibration of consciousness, we are not experiencing time in the same way we did even 40 years ago. Everything is on fast forward and can feel overwhelming. I know it’s not just me when my daughter, even in elementary school, made comments on how fast the school year went. I never thought that as a child!
I have found myself feeling overwhelm and the rush of the minutes blowing past me. My daughter was only home from college for a short part of the summer, and I wanted to squeeze every last minute with my daughter before school started, so I put some unnecessary tasks on hold.
You may find yourself, like me, now returning to the tasks that lie ahead, and re-creating a rhythm for the “school” year. Even if you don’t have children in school (or now are an “empty nester” like me), most of us in the US still operate on a school-year mentality. Summer is for play, but fall sends you back to the serious stuff.
If you step back a bit, back from the perceived rush of time ticking and the many voices calling from your to-do list and appointment book (or rather, your app on your phone), you can stop here in the Present moment. It is the rush of thoughts that moves us rapidly into the future. The best way to slow down time is to step out of time altogether. When we’re truly in the Present, we’re in timelessness.
We can become Present when we focus on something concrete that is here and now. The sound of the airplane going overhead. The smell of cinnamon and clove. The wafting of steam into your nose from a cup of tea. Feeling the soft fur of your pet snuggled on your lap. Walking barefoot on dewy morning grass, relishing in the sensations. These simple sensory experiences bring me into the present, help me release the temporary busy-ness for a little while, and shift me into the inner peace that is timelessness.
The interesting paradox is that, in that timelessness, when our mind quiets, we realize that all the things we worry about, stress over, rebel against, and struggle with are temporary. They are conditions that come and go, like the breath and the waves on the ocean. The only thing that is constant through all of that is the Self within that watches all the changes.
Through all that is temporary, anchor yourself to the timeless Self – the unchanging essence of who you are.
