“Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time’ is saying ‘I don’t want to’.”
- Lao Tzu
Like most people, I’m busy. But unlike so many people I see, I’m busy being in awareness, and subsequently choice.
I choose where to spend my time. Whether that be seeing clients, writing, expressing myself to those I consider worth my effort by invitation in expressing myself to, or investing in myself, doing housework and family activities. My time is precious and I know it.
Like anyone, I could quite easily choose to be ‘too busy’ to… [insert matter of avoidance]. But I’ve learned from experience that there is a cost to taking time for granted. There is no guarantee of tomorrow. I could tell you some woeful stories but it’s not my intention here to leave you weeping into your mocha.
Instead I’ll briefly highlight two reflective moments of my weekend that have led to this post.
The one where I decided to get my 11 year old son a gaming headset to verbally connect with his best friend who’s just left his school leaving him gutted, along with his favourite teacher. Poor kid. He’d just spent some quality time with his friend and minutes earlier said goodbye for goodness knows how long, and he was understandably emotional. Stepping out onto the car-park I paused indefinitely, took him in my arms, and simply held him until he got some strength to walk into the shop. Unbeknown to me, a lady had got into the car next to us who lowered her window and said with wistful eyes, “Oh my goodness, that’s so lovely to see” in a tone that emphasised it had been a long time since she had ever witnessed vulnerability or closeness, never-mind in public. This left me fighting tears because the emotional detachment and loneliness I see here in New Zealand is beyond any descriptive words I could put together here and the reason I do what I do.
The following day I walked into a farm cafe public restroom and tried the handle of an unlocked door, to a lady completely decent and on her way out. Despite being my profoundly polite and apologetic self, I found myself on the receiving end of a passive aggressive and incredibly rude projection that left me momentarily annoyed, before I caught it and spent less time upset than I would’ve done a year or two ago knowing full-well it was about her, not me. I sat back at my table and immediately did a double-take noticing the back of a man who could’ve been someone that means a lot to me. It wasn’t and that was the problem. He’s someone that is always ‘too busy’ (for me). Someone that avoids any kind of honest interaction despite clear divine intervention, and rests on the laurels of there ‘always being a tomorrow’ to change that. Except tomorrow will remain a mirage without awareness, courage and honesty in taking responsibility of today.
And to my horror, I started to cry.
Since I’d arrived at 11:11, I knew it was another test to notice where I was focusing my energy and in the last few minutes, it had been on childhood wounds of unworthiness, being dismissed, emotionally neglected and being projected onto. And that is what linked the restroom incident to the man. And to the day before.
As soon as I joined the dots, I got it together and my energy changed as quickly as flicking a switch. This is the beauty of awareness and living evidence of how working on ourselves is never a waste of time and how many defining moments are orchestrated to show us where we need to heal and how far we’ve already grown.
We are always being tested to see if we are ready for the next stage that evolves us.
These two separate moments were mainly about time, emotional connection and balance. That is, taking the time to break our old patterns that bind us to painful avoidance and creating joy and connection that leads to emotional fulfilment within all our relationships, no matter how brief or long-lasting. It was about self reflection, being and doing what matters and living in integrity.
Nothing goes unnoticed, and nor should it.
Time is a mindset and we choose how we spend it. I could spend my time grumbling about doing chores, or I could be grateful for the reasons why I’m doing them. Despite time waiting for no one, nothing will change unless we do. Time allows us to evolve, to become aware of ourselves and to learn from experience.
It’s all about perspective.
We choose everything. We even choose the actions that lead to the event that determines how we then choose to spend it. Good or bad. There’s very few of us that don’t regret somewhere in our life where we chose to apportion our energy.
How we choose to spend our time is often something we say we have no choice over. We ‘have’ to go to work to a job we don’t like, or we ‘have’ to earn money to survive. We can go about our days feeling a victim of life to the standards we’ve dictated we live by. To the choices we made and need to stand-by for fear of losing face.
Or, we can choose something different for ourselves that honours our truth, and not our conditioning.
There may be people you desperately want to spend time with but are physically unable to. Maybe they’re not in the same location as you, or maybe they’re dearly departed. Or maybe they are here.. but you are imposing barriers that may as well mean the same. Until one day it’s too late and you have no choice. You have no time left.
Maybe your children have grown up and moved out, or created lives for themselves in another country. It’s now too late to play that game that remains in the cellophane and you’re left with regret because of time you wished you’d spent playing it instead of not leaving the washing-up until they were in bed.
Or, the person who’s door the universe keeps leading you to but you push away because of your unhealed childhood wounds. You think they’ve moved on having chosen themselves; no longer a possibility you avoided for so long. But you can’t say for certain because it feels safer to live in denial. It feels safer not to check because then you’d have to face the mirror.
Maybe you’re tortured in the small hours with a plenitude of regret for all the things you wish you’d said to someone you cared about, or the time you now wish you’d spent creating memories. Because now you have no choice. Time ran out. Regret is a powerful emotion that shows us where we need to operate from strength in facing the lessons of time-sensitivity.
We must not take time for granted.
Time is something we profess to wanting more of, but we are guilty of squandering it. Time is not money since it cannot be earned. We need to use our time wisely by being honest with ourselves and facing our fears that lead to wasting it.
Divine timing is always at work guiding us to where we need to be. However, whilst we can trust in these universal laws, it remains our responsibility to observe and respond, versus using it as a source of avoidance on the assumption a tomorrow will arrive. Divine timing is not about waiting for something to happen but instead trusting that everything will happen in the right moment for us following our forward movement.
Divine timing does not reward stagnancy and we are always being asked to choose between fate or freewill.
We may like to consider the conversations we have with ourselves to be more important than the ones we have with others. If we’re projecting our unhealed wounds and subsequent emotions onto those around us in a way that generates an unfulfilling behaviour, we’re asking others to be the container for our darkness through the lens of our own vulnerabilities and fear. It’s always about our energy. Our reality. Our choices.
Both my parents are no longer walking this earth and I lost my mother fairly early in life. I no longer have the gift of time to let them explain their behaviour toward me as a child, instead I channel my generational healing into my children. Revelations and evolution are now held through my intuition and feeling. It’s often not until we need these conversations and are unable to have them, that we realise the critical nature of owning our choices, our priorities and our time.
Silence is not always golden, sometimes it can be the thief that steals our fulfilment and leaves us feeling isolated and alone. When we keep our thoughts and feelings within, we not only rob ourselves of the opportunity to express and release them, we prevent others from understanding, and ultimately prevent happiness and peace. Silence smothers honest expression, breeds anger, misunderstanding and resentment, and risks turning into health issues.
Trusting in our path can feel harder than simply reading the words on a page that implore us to be in flow. When we trust, we fill our soul with revitalising energy, connecting us to our humanity and divinity. Each of us holds both light and shadow aspects but remaining self-focused can only crush and disconnect us. It can seem easier to barricade our hearts behind silence but trust is something we develop by connecting with and listening to the wisdom of our experiences. We are not meant be solitary creatures and no person is an island.
What if all you needed to focus on was to trust in your own courage and in your ability to release the outcome you fear?
So today, right now, who can you let know of their meaning to you? Who can you send a smile to? Who can you energetically work on forgiving, or send your loving energy to if they’re in their spiritual home? Who can you hold after you’ve first held yourself?
You will undoubtedly mean the world to the person who needs to hear from you even if you cannot trust in your own worth just yet. Your gesture, no matter how small, requires less practice than words do and unlike silence, will cost nothing.
“Time is the most valuable thing one can spend."
- Theophrastus
