So I have been working on exploring and going deeper in the mindset of abundance, overflow and sufficiency.
Today, I was thinking about parents, and reflecting on what it is that you’d need more of to have a life experience of abundance and overflow.
I realized that probably one of the most precious resources for parents is time!
Imagine what would open up for you if you had more time?
You’d be able to spend more quality time with your kids. Playing and connecting with them which would fill their cups and probably make them act out less.
You’d actually have time for yourself. You’d be able to take a breather, slow down and do something enjoyable for YOU!
You’d also have time for your own passion project and do the things that light you up!
Perhaps you could spend extra time with your partner that would tremendously improve your communication and connection. Perhaps deepen your love and commitment and resolve resentments.
Wow! That’s amazing isn’t it?
Now that I’m writing this list, I am getting excited about the value it would bring if you had more time!
I know you might feel a bit frustrated right now and perhaps resigned as you’d probably tell me
‘Well, Paula that’s all fine and dandy but the reality is that I don’t have time!’
Then I’d get very excited and would tell you ‘just like me!’
The first step in creating more time is shifting your perspective about time and the story of scarcity we tell around time.
This scarcity of time is what drives us relentlessly forward to some imaginary, and often unrealistic destination. It’s like we’re on a horse that’s galloping fast, have no control over the beast, have no idea how to stop it nor do we know where it’s going.
In essence, we are slaves to the mindset of scarcity of time!
We make the kids rush around which is very unnatural for them as they live in the present moment.
Rushing kids makes them feel inadequate and like something is wrong with them because they can’t get ready and put their clothes on fast enough, come along and walk fast enough and they can’t even go to bed fast enough!
No wonder many of us feel like we’re not good enough because we’re brought up in the world of ‘not enough’!
What we do to the kids, we do to ourselves!
There’s a sense of never getting to do everything on the to-do list, not returning texts or calls from friends and family, not reaching out to people you really know you should because you don’t have time….
I could continue with the prices we pay, but I will stop here as I think you get the idea…
My point is that because it feels like there isn’t enough time, we believe the lie of scarcity resulting us reinforcing it versus stepping out of it into having an experience of ‘I’ve got plenty of time!’
Let me give you a few examples to highlight this point!
An old supervisor of mine comes to mind. I was doing a social work internship at the Gifford Clinic in San Diego. I was very eager to learn and to prove myself so I worked harder than any other intern.
My supervisor was into yoga, meditation and mindfulness, and he actually was one of the people who supported bringing mindfulness as a treatment modality to the clinic.
Both of us were in exactly the same environment working with the same kinds of patients. He actually had way more responsibilities than I as an intern. I lived in a scarcity of time, feeling like I never had enough time to get to things that I needed to do and he always felt there was plenty of time.
It amazed me how calm he could be when I rushed into his office in panic because of client situations that I felt were emergencies, yet he would calmly smile, ask me to sit down, take a breath and then proceeded to ask me about my day to start a conversation about a totally unrelated topic!!! It drove me bonkers!
One of the most annoying things he did was to walk super slow (later I realized he was practicing mindful walking) when I practically wanted to run so I could get to the things on my list.
Phew! That was exhausting! Can you relate?
My point is that he had a mindset of abundance in time, and I was in scarcity!
It’s our mindset and perception that determines our life experience.
What that means is that you may be in a situation where in your external life you’d have more time, but as long as you still have a scarcity mindset it would feel like it’s not enough.
It’s the same for rich and poor people. Poor people experience they don’t have enough, and the rich feel the same so they go on to buy more cars, houses, yachts and other things.
There is a tribe in the Amazon rainforest who did not have contact with the western civilization until the 1970’s. They had no idea what money was and had no relationship with it. But were they suffering? Were they poor? NO! They prospered and flourished as a community in their rainforest! Without money - without clocks or the western sense of time!
This is what I want to land with you today so you can shift out of the scarcity of time:
Managing your time is not an external job. Time management is about your mindset and relationship with time. In reality time has always existed, exists everywhere in the world right now, and always will. In reality, time is infinite, never ending and who knows how it even got started!
With that in mind, we can actually never in the real sense ‘run out of time’. We only have the experience of this due to the expectations we have, and the way we set up our lives.
Having a mindset of abundance of time is a perspective. It’s a context, from which we can choose to operate from regardless of our circumstances!
It’s a place we can ground ourselves on, firmly stand in it vs. stay on the spooked galloping horse.
When we step out of the scarcity mindset into the mindset of abundance, we stop reinforcing our experience of ‘not enoughness’.
This IS how you transform your relationship with time, and when that happens you transform your relationship with life itself.
It is simply a new frame of reference that serves you and your family far better than that of scarcity!
With this new mindset you can actually BE present to your life, your kids and your family. You can choose to give to yourself and pour time, love and attention to your relationships.
It has nothing to do with what’s actually going on with your time. You could have a genuine situation of extremely full plate AND you can still choose to experience time as sufficient which opens you up to be resourceful and creative vs. operating from fear and anxiety.
That my friend is how we transform time! The best thing is that you can actually start right now!
With Love,
Paula