Time after Time

It may surprise you what the number one attribute is that I look for in a teacher when I'm taking, let's say, a yoga class. It's not their energy or personality or the way that they sequence or cue movement. No, it's not even the music or the atmosphere. It's their ability to start and end class on time. There truly is something powerful when someone is holding time for you so you can sever yourself from the rest of the day. So you can, for that moment with absolute confidence, float in and out of thought and feeling without directives from obligations and responsibilities.

In that moment when you know you can go where you will go and right on time with trust. When that person holding space for you says, our time has now ended, go back into the rest of your day that everything that you have planned from that moment forward can happen without urgency, without haste, and with that benefit and that tank filled from your time set aside. And that's what we're going to explore today. When someone holds time for you and they honor that start and that finish, it truly is a different depth of relaxation and freedom that we find.

And how often does life end up feeling like an eternal game of red light, green light, right where you are going and you are flowing, but you are always waiting for that moment when you something happens, when you have to add a task, when you have to deal with a curveball. When all of a sudden that peaceful path becomes a little bit more frantic. We get very good at dealing with this game of red light, green light. We are very capable of putting up, of holding on, of being the accountable and the dependable.

That does not mean that we do not benefit from those times that we truly can unplug. And someone will tap us on the shoulder with kindness and with grace to say, hey, your time has now passed. Plug back in and get back to work. So who are those people who hold time for you? Perhaps it's when you go to get your hair cut. Or maybe it's when you get your oil changed. Or maybe it's something more set up for relaxation. Like when you finally use that 1 hour massage gift card that you got last Christmas.

Note the difference. This isn't the time that you carved out for yourself, which you are still responsible for in that moment. You are the one doing the carving. Now there's one more layer to the architecture. You carved out the time to allow someone else to hold time for you. So what are those times and what do you find within them? And take a moment to consider those things. It is within these times when someone holds time for us that we often stop doing and we start being. It's often in these times when time is held for us, we stop thinking about what's next and we start acknowledging what is.

And once we get a taste and once we become nourished by these moments of time being held for us, we start to seek them out more and more. And that wall or that strength or that stubbornness that says, well, I don't have time. You're right, you don't have time. Often someone else has it for you. And as you consider those people and those places and those passions that you put your energy, that often lowers the value of your own time and your own self care, it is often in those moments we are reminded of what happens to us and our role in other people's lives when we truly take that time to have someone else hold time for us.

And so that's what we're going to do right now. I'm going to hold five minutes for you. I promise. From right when we start, you are going to have five minutes to let go, five minutes to kick back, five minutes to rest, five minutes to stop doing, five minutes to be. So I invite you right now to close your eyes. As you close your eyes, take a deep breath in and a deep breath out. And starting right now, see what you see when time is held for you. Breathe in and breathe out. Roll out your neck. Move your fingers one by one, bringing each finger pad to your palm.

And then when you feel ready, open your eyes. So what is it that you found? Maybe it's hard to put words to it, but that's why we journal. Right within your journal, you can put fragments of thoughts, you can draw pictures. You can leave space. You can come back to it. You can write down something right now that makes no sense. And then you look at it tomorrow, and all of a sudden it seems like what you wrote down was exactly what you needed to hear in that next moment. Yes, we are very, very good at holding on, at being strong, at serving those people, those passions, those places that we care about and that we just look realistically.

We no longer have the time, or it would be nice if I did, but I don't. Once we start seeing what we see when time is held for us, the opportunity cost of taking these times increases exponentially. Because your self care and your self worth are what amplify the work you do for the people and the passions and the places where you serve and do the good that you do. So take the next few minutes to write down the evidence, the case for having time be held for you. I will tell you the most amazing moments that I have, the moments that set me up to do the things that I do have come out of that 30 minutes hair appointment.

Or that we're going to need your car for the next 90 minutes. Are you going to wait for it or are you going to come back? I will always wait for it. And yes, in those well timed yoga classes where I can truly unplug and trust that when the teacher says it is time for you to go, that I am not behind schedule. I have not lost time in my day, but because time was held for me, time has been given in leaps, in bounds. And that is your mindset work for this week.