Tag: I need more time

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I don’t have enough time!

Have you ever had the thought there isn’t enough time?

It’s almost laughable to ask the question, I know. It seems to be a common thought. Even children say “I didn’t have enough time!” to finish their homework, clean their room, watch a favorite show, play with their best friend.

It’s a complaint, a reason to be upset.

The other day, I was working with a client who was so frustrated with going to work. Spending time at a job she felt sure she didn’t like.

The thing is, when you have this kind of thought, about absolutely anything–and there’s not enough TIME–you feel like you’re in prison, or trying to achieve something impossible.

I need to get “x” done. I need to choose what I’m doing all day long (and if someone else tells me to complete a task, I’m on THEIR time, not mine). I need to check off all the boxes on my list. I need to buy all the presents. I have to go to the gym. I must clean my house.

Oh the list!

I need MORE time!

Like it’s so scarce and limited, since we’re packing it all in, and the mind screams for more. Have you ever heard people say they wish there were more than 24 hours in a day? Kind of funny. As if that would help this dilemma.

As I sat with the client I was working with, I loved opening up to the concept of time, even more than I have in the past when questioning stressful beliefs about it.

Is it “mine”? This “time” I’m thinking I need more of?

Is it really better to be doing whatever I want, vs what someone else asks? Am I sure what I want is what’s best for me, for the world? Am I positive what they want, isn’t what I want?

Do I really need to finish this list, in order to be happy? Or skip lunch, or meditation hour?

I’ve had so many thoughts in the past, very repetitive, about “time” and what should be accomplished in it. Success, accumulation of money or savings, cleaning, transporting people (kids, myself) from here to there, learning, buying, improving, errands, gaining, achieving, changing….even getting enlightened. I need to have these things “done” and THEN I’ll be happy!!

But who would you be without any thought whatsoever that you need more time, you don’t have enough time, that time is limited, that time is the stepping stone from here (not so great) to there (much better)?

What if nothing is required, in order to be happy?

For some reason, the whole thing makes me laugh. The mind comes in with its ideas about the passage of time and the accumulation of time and almost immediately the thought there’s not enough. (I need to live LONGER…right?)

Who would I be, what would I be, without my conditions or thoughts or complaints about time?

Turning the thought around: I do not need more time. Not in this moment “now”. The whole entire future is unknown and mysterious. The past is a bunch of images and memories and replays at this point. In this NOW moment, I don’t need more as I’m simply pulsing with life, doing what I do, being here.

The client I was working with then noticed a most lovely thing, in the middle of turning her thoughts around about time:

What is this “I” that apparently thinks it needs more time?

Only the mind imagines a need for more.

The inner “I”, or “I am” has nowhere to go and nothing to do. It is itself, being alive, already. It’s just….here.

Does your very force of life need to go out and make sure you complete all your tasks today to “get ready” for whatever is coming in the future?

No.

And it doesn’t mean you won’t move towards the car with your keys in hand to head off to acquire something.

But you don’t have to be in charge. You don’t have to get it done. You don’t need it to be different in order to be happy. You’ve made friends with the universe and reality and what is (even if your mind isn’t so sure).

You are free to be simply alive, no “more” time required.

“I follow the way of it, which is always revealed in the moment. It’s God’s will, and it’s always crystal clear. When you no longer have a will of your own, there is no time and space. It all becomes a flow. You don’t decide, you flow from one happening to the next, and everything is decided for you.” ~ Byron Katie in 1000 Names For Joy #68

Much love,

Grace

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No Such Thing As More Time

I WANT MORE FREE TIME!

I had this thought the other day as I thought about the stack on my front porch of boxes, knick-knacks, little kid bike, drum set, printers, doodads, books and “stuff” that needs to be sold, or given to charity.

That stuff needs to be gone.

What has to happen for that stuff to be gone? I need time.

I need time….so that I can clean things, continue to go through the shed of stored boxes, take photos of the good stuff, post it on the internet, actually have a “garage sale” (I used to think of these as a huge waste of time considering how much money could be made) and borrow a truck and go to the dump.

I think this would all take about 4 days, working most of the days, to be entirely complete, only stopping for food and water.

I barely have time to hang out with my own family, and they are definitely a priority.

And now that I’m thinking about it, I have quite a list of tasks that I KNOW I want to engage in….all of which take time time time.

I love looking at language about time.

Things “take” time, things “waste” time, things are time “sensitive”, I’m in a time “crunch”, I “spend” time, I’m “losing” time, I have “too much” time on my hands, I “don’t have much” time.

Funny to say all the quantity-amount words about something that is only a concept.

I mean, right now, in this moment, where is time? Do I have a bucket of it? Do I actually have four hours “left” before I teach my next class, and one hour before a client, and eight hours before a hair cut appointment, one month already gone of the gorgeous summer months of the Pacific Northwest?

Lots of measurements, all describing a limit, a known quantity, a set amount of something, a quota.

A beginning, middle and end.

Yeah! And I need MORE of it!

When I believe this thought…it can be supremely stressful.

Here is this thing called “time” and since there’s only so much, I have to go really, really, really FAST when I need more of it.

The body gets all hyped up, zippy, full of adrenaline, pushing, noticing those other “slow” people out there who are hindering my progress.

Have you noticed how your body feels when you are in your car, and you are on your way to something incredibly important?

You turn the car onto the freeway and suddenly, you are in very, very slow-moving almost-standstill traffic….

….you have a job interview, you have gotten a call that your child is at the hospital, you find out your house is on fire, your partner is going on stage in 12 minutes for opening night…

How do you react when you believe that you need more time! NOW!

The wave of tension is like a buzzing accumulation of energy. For me, it feels like some part of my self is out in front of me, my stomach is in knots, my chest can’t breathe, there is tight live-wire electric energy shooting out of my arms.

I’ve seen people yell out of their windows in traffic, or give people the finger or start commenting and talking to other drivers, swearing…angry, furious, frustrated, frightened.

Who would I be without the thought that when I see the pile on the porch, or in ANY situation (the length of my life, to give a deep example) I need more time?

What do I actually need more time FOR?

Can I absolutely know that its true that I should be somewhere other than where I am, in this moment? Is it really true that I need to have that thing completed, that I think needs to be complete?

Am I so certain that as things are right here in this moment…in traffic, walking by the pile of items that I want off the porch, looking at my calendar with appointments scheduled back-to-back, noticing that I’ve lived over fifty years so far in this lifetime…that I actually need more TIME?

No.

Who would I really be, right here in this situation where more time seems desireable, WITHOUT the thought that I need more time?

Without the thought….I feel an empty space, a relaxing space, glow from within. I lean back, I sit back, I breathe deeply.

If I’m in a car, other drivers appear fascinating. I see colors, hear sounds, I look up into the sky. I notice things everywhere all around me.

I feel like laughing. There is a lightness of nothing really mattering.

It doesn’t mean I won’t do anything, in fact it sounds fun to move stuff from porch to other places soon, but it doesn’t really matter exactly when that happens.

My to-do list looks much more fun.

I notice I love working with clients…my favorite. I love teaching. I love being alive. I love doing inquiry. I love watching, looking, investigating reality.

I am amazed by the world moving before me, an epic movie of amazing proportions.

“Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time–past and future–the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

If I don’t make it to the hospital bedside on time, if I don’t make it to the applause opening moment of the Big Show, if I’m late to the interview, if I walk in to a meeting that already began, if the pile of stuff is on the porch for “x” days….how would I know that isn’t perfect?

Can I be open to finding advantages, benefits, sweetness…for things happening in just the order they’ve happened?

What if there is always enough time?

Perhaps the more I stop believing that I need more time, the more joy I experience in this present moment….the more of the most important things will get “done” when they get done, and this body will move from Point A to Point B in just the right timing and order.

Even dying right on time.

“Patience is the training in abiding with the restlessness of our energy and letting things evolve at their own speed”….”In truth, there is enormous space in which to live our everyday lives.” ~ Pema Chodron

Love, Grace

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