Working with The Energy of Time
Time is something we run our lives by. We measure our days by moments in time. We use time to come together in a cooperative space such as meeting for lunch or a business meeting. We use time to give ourselves expertise (i.e. 10 years of experience), permission (i.e. the right to vote or drink), and socially to celebrate life's milestones (i.e. graduations or having kids).
What is time anyway? Even the Merriam-Webster dictionary has multiple definitions. Let’s take the dictionary approach first. Wikipedia defines time as "Time is the indefinite continued progress of existence and events that occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.” Phew, no wonder we are exhausted!
Since there are so many definitions of time, let me specify the one I am tackling with your energy field.
“the point or period when something occurs”
Slave or Master?
This is important, think about how much of a slave you are to time. How much time means to you in moments of the day and how much it requires your attention and energy. What do you want time to do for you instead of just to you?
Are you harnessing time in a way that makes you feel productive or at ease? Maybe you don't even want to care about time at all and just want the days to pass easily, leaving you fulfilled no matter what you do.
When you reset your relationship with time, it becomes your friend and you can begin to intentionally use it to your advantage.
Time as a definition of self and others
What do you think of a 20-year-old? What do you think of a 60-year-old? More than likely you just pictured something about those ages that is a stereotype or an assumption. You have it in your head what is possible at those ages and what isn't. Depending on your age and culture, you have also likely identified your present age as "good" or "bad."
We often use age to define what someone is capable of, what someone is worth, and what usefulness they have to us. This is especially true in the workplace but it is also true within your relationships outside of work. Think about it, is there an age group you judge or see yourself as not relating to? Are you making assumptions about what the passage of time has done to those people? Maybe the assumptions are limiting you and limiting the way you think about yourself and you don't even know it.
You have seen those articles declaring "forty is the new twenty". It is a framework in which we are viewing ourselves. But if you go back to the definition of time being "a point when something occurs", wherever you are, whenever you get there, is "good" timing.
Time as a certificate of expertise
When I was 20, I was trying to purposefully defy the odds of time. I had already gotten my bachelor's degree (working on my master's), married, bought a house, owned a car, had a full-time job, and resented everything about being told "when you are older."
When I was in the corporate world, I was hell-bent on being seen for something other than my age. It didn't work. By the time I was 23, I was easily working in technology with 40-year-olds, had my first kiddo, my second house, and my second degree. But do you think people saw past my age? NO WAY! I couldn't beat it. I had one person tell me (when I bravely went in to ask for a raise) "I would have been glad to make what you make at your age." What about being paid for my output, not how much time I have put into my body?
The point I am trying to make with this example is that we often miss opportunities because we put labels on things in limiting ways. We make assumptions and pass things over because we think time means something it really doesn't. One person could work at a job for twenty years and never work on growing or learning while the other could work for two and have learned a lifetime worth of stuff.
I see people doing this to themselves all the time, holding off on their dreams until they are more "qualified" through time. It isn't time that qualifies you, it is what you do with that time.
Time is flexible
In 2016, the Huffington Post put out an article about space and time possibly being an illusion that goes into the scientific theories behind this speculation. Time has been a long-explored concept by scientists and we are addicted to "proving" things.
But you don't have to measure time or do any crazy calculations to observe how time is flexible and dependent on the person observing and acting through time. Hang out with someone from a different culture or travel around the world and you can see how differently people handle time.
Think about the concept of "island time". If you have ever been somewhere more relaxed, the idea of "I will be there at 5pm" can mean a lot of different things. It can even mean tomorrow!
Business Insider published an article in 2014 about how different cultures relate to time. I highly recommend reading it to give you an awareness of how concretely you work with time and how you might be more flexible. This article is called "How Different Cultures Understand Time" by Richard Lewis.
You can use this flexibility to your advantage. You can begin to consciously work with your relationship with time. You can begin to understand your assumptions, limitations, and beliefs around time and how it may or may not be serving you. You can begin to play around with how flexible time is to you and how you might use your assumptions and beliefs to see what changes occur in your perception.
Working with time
Time is just another tool in your perceptual toolbox. Play around with various time-keeping tools, blocking off times of day for specific tasks you might not otherwise feel you could get to. It will seem, all of a sudden, you have time for that thing you never thought you would.
Dig into your beliefs around time and what you value regarding time. For example, do you believe being on time is a virtue? What do you think about people who are chronically late? How are those beliefs serving you and how aren't they?
This exploration into your relationship with time will allow you to free up some of your constricted energies and use it for manifesting miracles!
