Running Out Of Time

by Jon Terrell, M.A, L.M.T.

Are you out of time? It seems like there’s more and more to do and less and less of that most precious commodity, time.

It’s almost as if the more time saving devices and activities we get (smart phones, time management programs, instant meals, instant updates, you name it) the less time there is. On and on it marches, waiting for no one.

We are running out of time.

As we get busier and busier, time speeds up. We do more and more at the surface of our lives, but feel less satisfied. We miss the depth of genuine feeling and real connections with others. We become more superficial, people and situations become actions to take, activities to check off our lists.

These give us a superficial high that doesn’t last. We may feel like we are missing something, but we can’t remember what.

We've lost contact with our Self, our soul. We've misplaced our essential wellness. We've lost track with the light and love within ourselves.

As we rush around we don’t “have time” to relate authentically. Life passes us, almost like we are in a dream. And occasionally we wake up and think, “Where has the time gone?”

Part of you may be going “I don’t have time to read this, I’m so busy, but let me first check the headlines on the internet."

You're out of time.

You think, "If I can just clear my to do list then I can have fun."

We miss what enlivens us, and keep on searching for the fool’s gold of activity. As if more activity is better. But it isn't.

It doesn't feed us.

Sometimes it takes a shock to wake us up. Jacob Needleman, the philosopher, talks of his experience after the San Francisco earthquake of 1989. For a few days after people were much more present to each other, kind and attentive, before they fell back into the waking-sleep busy busy world.

For a while they remembered themselves and went deep. They connected to what was vital and human in themselves and each other.

When something serious happens…such as the death of a parent, we “take stock” of our lives. The shock briefly wakes us up, and sometimes this wake up call can lead to radical change.

Mystics talk about two types of time. The deeper, soul time, is “time out of mind.” It’s the eternal here/now, a spacious, rich space where there is no rushing, or trying to get somewhere else. It’s where we are trying to get to with all our busy busyness, but we’ve forgotten how.

Anyone who has been to one of our retreats can remember this place. It’s the realm of Presence, of embodiment, of Mystery.

I believe it is the power of Love that we experience, and that this is the greatest force in the Universe. It is so great that it can reach us when we are out of time caught up in the hypnosis of our busyness. When we don't even realize we've been asleep.

But too often and too soon, we lose track of this spacious, wide, timeless time, and get caught up in the narrow, lack-of-time world again. We get seduced by our lists, our striving to succeed, our story.

We forget the glory and depth available in this moment!

It may seem like a figment of our imagination, a fantasy. And to the thinking mind it is because we can’t get there through our thoughts, as much as we try. Our thoughts keep us on the surface, here and there.

They rarely take us into the depths.

So What Can You Do?

Even though it’s hard to experience the timeless, the deeper Self, when you are caught in time, you can schedule in time opportunities to go deep.

- - You can schedule in a vacation, or a time for meditation, or yoga. These can help you touch back into your body, the earth, your Self.

- - Even getting outside for a few minutes in nature can help you touch in, especially if you practice staying in your sensory awareness. When you find yourself in thoughts, gently bring yourself back to what you see and hear, and the sensations your body is experiencing as you move.

- - You can schedule in one of our Shalom or Grief and Loss retreats.

These retreats are specifically designed to help you go from the superficial into the depths. You actually clear out your resistances to being present and alive in your life. These resistances often take the form of emotionally charged memories that are buried by the busyness, that we avoid because they are uncomfortable.

And most of all, these retreats connect you to the power of Love that transforms and heals. You settle down into the arms of Love and see with the eyes of Love. You can come back from "out of time" and step into the timeless, which is eternally spacious.

Do it now, before you forget again!

Jon Terrell, M.A. is a psychotherapist with offices in Northampton Massachusetts and New York City. You can reach him through the form below.

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