Letting go of Time

Today, my osteopath told me to stay away from strict routines. I love her for that. And I welcome her support in changing that aspect of my perspective on life.

I've written before (and more than once, I think) about how I struggle with clock time - how I'm often late, how I lose time, how I go into flow so easily and all that. I have a hard time with logging, scheduling and such things. I rebel against them. And yet, the self-help course, the doctors, the OT, the naturopath... they are all focused on me doing certain things every day, preferably at the same time, on a routine basis. So to be told that I need to break from that and honour my own being and its needs at any given moment is just liberating and feels awesome!

And of course, it comes at a perfect time in my journey.

I am actually reading The Power of Now, and it's been a few weeks since I did any logging, or lists. I have freed up a good deal of clock-time and energy by taking a break from online forums, and I even dropped out of the self-help course, because I wasn't finding I could keep up with it. So no goals, no tracking, no nothing for a few weeks, and I've been feeling great, even while using all my energy to fight a  cold last week (hence the lack of posts).

Some years ago, I was told by my apprentice guide that I have a gift for stopping time, for keying into magic moments. She also told me that I am very sensitive to pace, rhythm and flow - that if I try to live at a pace or rhythm that is not my own, that does not flow naturally for me, everything goes to hell. I wish I'd paid more attention, or rather, been able to live more within my natural ebbs and flows, rather than always listening to the voices in my head and pushing myself further and further.

Now, taking all of that into account along with what the osteopath said, I am actually going to go full-throttle on this, and see what happens. I am going to make a concerted effort to live outside of clock time as much as I possibly can.

There are some obvious blocks which I cannot remove, such as school and soccer schedules. But outside of that, no more forcing myself to sleep or wake at certain hours. No more worrying about taking a nap or not. No more eating on a schedule. I will eat when I am hungry. I will sleep when I am tired. I will be active when I feel energetic, and I will rest when I am not. I will not put a time limit on activities I enjoy, but listen instead to my body as it starts to send signals of tiredness. The hard part there will be listening to my body while my brain tries to drown it out.

I am slowly starting to comprehend in a deeper sense that logs and tracking sheets and capacity scales, and all external measures of health are nowhere near as accurate as the sensations that I find so hard to feel at times. I need to find my way back to that, to my instincts, to my deeper sense of self - the one that really knows.

My homework for this session is to start turning my senses around - to take the time during rest to focus on listening outwards - as far out as I possibly can. I used to love doing this as a child - I remember doing it in class, and then doing it with my students. The other piece of homework is to paint. It has been a long time since I expressed myself through visual art. I need to return to that. Painting puts me outside myself, and yet deeply rooted within my point of view, once again, inhabiting a space of paradox.

I feel strangely invigorated by this prospect. I want to set up a space to paint, but I know I won't - and that is where I need to let my mind lie still, and just do it, no space needed. Just supplies I've already got. So what if it gets a little more cluttered around here... it's my inner space I need to be concerned with at the moment.