Victoria and I loved recording this week’s Gathering Gold episode on “How to Slow Down Time.” It speaks to the heart of what I’ve been writing about for decades in terms of the highly sensitive person’s acute awareness of the passage of time, and our misguided attempts to try to stop time (which is really an attempt to stop loss, change, and death). I’m including some of the transcript below, but to receive the true juiciness of this episode I encourage you to listen full conversation!

***

One of the hallmarks of the highly sensitive temperament is an acute and often excruciating hyper-awareness of the passage of time. From an early age, sensitive kids are aware of death, and the fact that our time on this earth is finite.

We devise all kinds of strategies for managing this unbearable awareness, from intrusive thoughts to compulsions to perfectionism, misguidedly believing that if we can get things just right we can stop time.

These strategies do provide a temporary stopgap against time because when we’re trapped in our heads on the spin cycle of a rumination or compulsively trying to get something right, we lift ourselves out of the present moment and into the cloud of the head where pain can’t touch us. This works temporarily, but eventually the strategies cause more pain than relief and we’re pushed to find a better way of managing the reality that time will keep moving no matter what we do.

We can’t stop time, but there are ways to slow it down.

Presence

Presence can mean coming into our senses and noticing what is happening in this moment in time. It also means being willing to feel the emotions that arise in the present moment, including the grief. When I’m walking these days and I see the extraordinary masterpiece of leaves changing color, I’m filled with joy-grief. It’s the bittersweet feeling that defines so much of being a highly sensitive person. But as I’ve often said, if we shut down the grief, we shut down the joy. So I consciously choose to open and open and open my heart even more so that I can receive nature’s expression as fully as I can.

 

Creative Expression

Being present often leads to creative expression, but not always. Sometimes the presence without expression is just what the soul needs to align with its own rhythm. But sometimes we’re called to express what we’re noticing in the present moment, and in this way we mark time, and the marking encodes in memory, which helps us if not to slow down time, to at least come closer to embracing it.

 

Doing One Thing at a Time

Another element of presence is doing one thing at a time. We have become masters at multitasking, and I think mothers are the champions of all. We have to be. I don’t remember multi-tasking nearly as much before I had kids, but from the minute Everest was born this innate survival skill jumpstarted, and before I knew it I was getting multiple things done in record time. It went into higher overdrive after Asher’s birth.

I have a video where I’m making eggs with Asher strapped to my back while I’m listening intently to Everest’s latest story. I have another photo where Asher is again strapped to my back and I’m standing in the kitchen with my computer on the counter writing a blog post. When I look back on it now it seems insane, but this is what mothers do.

 

Creating Spaciousness

This isn’t always in our control because sometimes we’re under the schedule thumb of an employer, but in our off time we can control how much we schedule and over schedule. Leaving gaps around commitments is very helpful. In my work, we were trained in counseling school to schedule a 50 minute hour and the 10 minutes between clients was the time to take notes. I have since learned that that is the fastest road to burnout and that scheduling at least 20 to 30 minutes between clients allows for the soul to breathe and reset before entering into the next person’s psyche.

When we cram more into an hour than an hour can hold time falls in on itself and quickens instead of slows.

When we stuff more into a day than a day can hold the hours blur together and time speeds up.

Being on our screens is the best way to lose track of time. We have all had the experience of lying down to scroll for a few minutes and before we know it an hour or two has passed. Screens are thieves of time just as they are thieves of presence, focus, and joy.

We can intentionally choose to do things more slowly. I, for one, am a master at efficiency. I can eat quickly. I can pay bills quickly. I can wash dishes quickly. But just because I can it doesn’t mean I must. The efficiency takes energy. Sometimes it serves me to do these things quickly. But other times it serves my soul to do them slowly. Likewise, I’m a very fast walker. Sometimes I like to walk fast but, when I remember, it’s also very nice to walk slowly. And when I do this, my soul throws a little party.

The Pause

We’ve talked a lot about the power of the pause on Gathering Gold. This is something that everyone can implement regardless of how busy our days are. When I take 30 seconds to express gratitude for my food before I eat it, my soul becomes more spacious and I step more fully into time.

When I pause at the portals of my doors or before I walk from the grass down to the creek and I say a prayer – or even just pause without saying anything – I feel embraced by the moment, and can feel my soul aligning with the rhythm of time.

Even one conscious breath cycle – an inhale and exhale – slows us down and helps us arrive into our bodies.