I don’t have enough time.
Not enough time to listen to all those podcasts I’d like to hear, not enough time to read the books I’ve already purchased, not enough time to finish a book that’s half written for many years that I think I’m writing (kind of).
Not even enough time, apparently, to sit and meditate for 15 minutes this past week.
I used to meditate an hour a day, like I was taking my medicine with no question. Get quiet. Do it.
Funny how time feels scarce. Limited.
I need more of it.
So, what ARE we doing with time?
I noticed the way I spent my morning was rising, putting on a sweater and turning up the heat, moving to kitchen to make a green smoothie and boiling water for hot cacao (I’m experimenting with absence of tea or coffee–it’s rather lovely at the moment).
Now, up in my little treehouse office, I write after checking my calendar for the day and also noticing about six things I’d like to do all at once.
In only fifteen minutes,Year of Inquiry group meets–so the constant presence of a circle of inquiry has certainly entered my life no matter how much time I think I need or want or don’t have. It’s my job.
(Seriously, what a gift).
I start the zoom meeting so it’s ready while people arrive, and turn back to this inquiry–so curious.
Time.
Oh, right. I need more of it.
I’ll never finish this before the group, now in 4 minutes.
I need, I need, I need.
The song of the self with a small “s”.
It’s not a bad thing. It just is.
There’s a voice, calling out its needs. Thinking with sadness or disappointment or dread or anxiety that more is required.
I had this thought when my dad was dying almost 30 years ago.
I need more time with him.
I’ve had this thought when preparing for some retreat events: I need more time to share them, announce them, promote them.
One fantastic way to move further along this line of inquiry, is to genuinely hear what you’re telling yourself you need more time for?
I need more time for: Money-making, connections with people, learning something, accomplishing a task, being alive, enlightenment.
Once you identify what you need more time for, you’ve got better focus on the self-inquiry that comes next:
I need more time, so that I can have more ______ .
I need more _______ (from above) so that I can _______.
I usually notice I need more time, so I can have more of something else, and I need more of that something so that I can feel a certain way.
I believe I’ll feel better, with more time to acquire, do, achieve, get, accomplish, practice that thing.
I’ll feel safer, I’ll feel more loved, I’ll feel proud, I’ll feel acceptable, I’ll feel calm, I’ll feel generous.
The story is born, blossoms, with a thousand facets into the future. All from a moment where a thought came through about “more” and “time”.
What a great inquiry:
Let’s do The Work.
Today I asked myself when I began this Grace Note (3 days ago now, LOL) why I need more time?
Because I could find that thought inside every day, I bet.
Today, I had the privilege of doing The Work with a brilliant inquirer who felt he had not succeeded in life: rejected by his girlfriend (they are breaking up), ineffective in other areas, not quite “getting” there to the promised land of peace or worthiness.
Not arriving at the place we are believing in when we say “more”.
Oh the pain of noticing what it’s like to believe we need more than we already have. We need more days to live, more hours with another, more success. More, more, more.
Sometimes people think if they give up this striving for more of something, they’ll flop to the floor and do nothing for the rest of their lives.
If I didn’t want to do all that stuff, if I didn’t need more time to do it, then I’d become totally resigned with doing nothing, going nowhere, apathetic, caring for nothing, sparked by nothing, surrounded by chaos.
Who would we be without the belief we need MORE daylight, and the sun just set?
Without the belief we need more loving contact, and we’re sitting at the deathbed of our beloved?
Without the belief we need more money than we actually have?
Without the belief we need more unconditional love or a spiritual pay-day that catapults us into some kind of place beyond this world (as some people like to think of as enlightenment)?
What if nothing more was needed right now, in this moment? Even if you feel some anxiety, a sense of turmoil? Even with a sense of impending loss or future disappointment?
I keep noticing with this inquiry, the only frightening thing is a story–a thought about the future, or a memory from the past.
I’m believing thoughts about scarcity, about loss, about inadequacy and suffering.
If I don’t do this thing I apparently need more time for, I’ll suffer. If I don’t acquire this thing I need more time to acquire, I’ll suffer.
I’m fail to notice I’m suffering in the middle of the moment of thinking I need more of something or I’ll suffer, later.
Turning the thought around: I don’t need more time. Not one more second. I don’t need more time with that person, I don’t need more time to practice, I don’t need more time because I don’t need to finish right now, I don’t need more time to wake up.
Who is this “I” anyway?
Nothing but a thought.
“Before thought began in that first moment, there was the pure unknown: love. That’s one of the many revelations that people discover when they sit deeply in the fourth question (‘Who or what would you be without the thought?’). They begin to recognize the real world, the world of being love, the fearless, the nameless, the beautiful, the world where nothing is separate and creativity is allowed to flow without interruption, and the new is witnessed and appreciated at every moment, and your’e always alone with yourself, and you’re everyone and everything, free to take full responsibility as the creator of the entire world–your world, the world of your imagination.” ~ Byron Katie in A Mind At Home With Itself
If you think you don’t have enough time for self-inquiry or doing The Work, I’d question that. LOL.
But seriously, sitting and asking myself these truthful, deep questions about what is running through the mind has been totally life-changing.
It’s brought me….just about….everything I’ve ever dreamed I wanted more time for.
Certainly it’s brought me peace around what I believed was worth fretting about, and finding a heart-broken joy about being alive, and gratitude.
If you’d like to get a taste of this practice of questioning your stressful thinking and changing the way to experience life and the world, or anything that’s troubled you….
….consider coming to online spring retreat.
It’s coming in exactly one month March 25-28, 2021.
Sign up for Thursday only, Thurs+Friday, or the whole retreat Thurs-Sunday (Saturday’s a bonus day for everyone enrolled).
We gather for 3.5 days of 3.5 hour sessions (Pacific Time 9am-12:30pm) to dive into one issue, relationship, money, job, memory, concern, situation bothering you.
It’s all sliding scale, you choose (suggested fee a minimum of $60 per session).
Thursday 3/25, Friday 3/26 and Sunday 3/27 we meet 9:00am-12:30pm Pacific Time, and Saturday we meet 8:00am-9:30am PT followed by dancing–online–for those who’d love to attend.
Read more about spring cleaning retreat here.
Spring Mental Cleanse Schedule Online:
Thursday March 25, Friday March 26, Sunday March 28
9am-12:30pm PT
Noon-3:30pm ET
5pm-8:30pm UK
6pm-9:30pm Paris
7pm-10:30pm Israel/ South Africa
6am-9:30am Hawaii
(Saturday March 27th we meet 8am-9:30am PT +dancing)