Gone with the time
- personal experience -
Hello …. How are you today?
This week's topic has been inspired by the way time has passed in my own life and by my personal and professional reflections. I don't know about you, but I spent a good part of my life wishing that the times that were challenging would pass quickly. I had this thought that the future would always be better.
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Typical phrases
I remember telling myself, "I can't wait to move to such and such city", "I hope the finals are over, so I have more free time", "I hope school classes finish and the summer break starts", "I hope this project ends and I'll be able to dedicate more to this other one”, etc. etc. I can give you a thousand of those examples. Don't tell me you haven't ever toyed with the idea of your kids growing up so they would become more independent, or being a certain age to fly away from your parents’ nest, or climbing the career ladder to get more significance or financial freedom.
“The year is over for me”
Last week, one of my clients told me “the year is over for me”. I looked at him feeling confused because we were at the beginning of June. I asked him to clarify what he was saying. He told me quite comically, “June goes by quickly with our children's school coming to an end plus all the things we have to do before the summer arrives. During July, we close projects because in August, everything stops and everyone goes away. In September, activity is reactivated and when you least realize it, the year is over”. This client has endured many difficulties this 2022 and it is natural for him to long for the year to be over. If there is someone listening to all this who doesn’t feel identified, please raise your hand. I feel that if I had you in front of me, there would be no one raising their hand.
A Personal Experience
I started treading the path of mindfulness 12 years ago. Until then my life was fast, very exciting, and even risky. I lived from challenge to challenge. Halfway through one project, I already had my mind set on another. Time slipped through my hands like water because I had many academic, life, and work commitments at the same time. I felt so overwhelmed by doing so much that I yearned for time to go by quickly while I crossed out items on my to do list. With my mindfulness practice, I learned to be present with everything that happened to me day after day. More than ten years later, I am still a learner but my anxiety and impatience have noticeably decreased. I learned to contact my inner wisdom and to observe my inner experience. This has enabled me to respond to what happens to me, leaving behind the reactivity and impulsiveness that characterized me in the past. The Georgi of today is the opposite of who I was 12 years ago. To say that I lived running from A to B is an understatement. I still remember pushing my baby's stroller while talking on my cell phone on my way to run an errand. No wonder I wanted time to fly! I always needed to go on vacation or in that particular example, I longed for my baby to grow up and go to daycare. I didn't understand that the way out is always in. I didn't see that I needed a mindset and habit change. I idealized the idea that everything had to happen quickly so I would get rid of challenges fast as well. Time taught me that I was stuck in a vicious circle where the passage of time was not going to free me.
Time Management and Self Management
Last week I turned 46 and to be honest, my wish was to go deeper into the path of self-awareness and mindfulness. I want to ground myself more, I want to taste my days slowly, I want to thank my blessings on a daily basis, I want to strengthen my ability to return to my center. Life will always demand things from us because we are always moving. The important thing is not to contract due to stress but to expand trusting our abilities and opening to the possibility that everything will be fine. I always say that a lot is said about “time management” but very little about “self-management”. Instead of wasting our efforts wishing that time flies, we could take care of our energy to move with greater clarity and discernment. How? Prioritizing, setting boundaries when necessary, leaving our impossible parameters of perfection and control, and honoring our lives by being faithful to our deepest needs.
Self-compassion and Pause
I would like to round off by saying that it is important to accept and embrace our humanity. Self-compassion, which is the ability to treat ourselves in the way we would treat a person that we love, is essential to begin to live one day at a time and to be holistically connected to the present. There will be days that you enjoy and feel awake and others when you’ll feel out of alignment and disconnected. Be kind to yourself when that happens and start over where you left. This reminds me of the number of times when instead of enjoying my meal bite by bite, I gobble it down. If in those moments, I can’t perceive that it was just a slip, I will start whipping myself and it will be more difficult for me to return to my healthy habits. And although it may seem counterproductive, pausing, meditating, contemplating, and doing something that is nourishing every day will help you calm down and it will prevent you from leaning into the future, in the end, the future is pure imagination. Above all things, peace of mind allows us to witness our evolution and that of the people we love, it helps us see the changes and characteristics of every season of the year and the charm of nature, and it connects us to our essence every sunrise.
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A big hug ❤