Hypnotized
Learning how to be in time
Dear Reader,
For the past few weeks I’ve been doing Hypnotherapy with my friend Sarah, who is a therapist in training. It’s not a hard form of therapy; it doesn’t require any digging or sitting with discomfort. I really love the hour I spend each week lying on my couch, listening to Sarah’s lovely British accent over zoom as she guides me down a beautiful imaginary staircase into my innermost self.
My goal when I started this therapy was to work on my negative self talk. My inner critic is hard-core, and while I thank her for pushing me at times to accomplish near herculean feats of achievement in the midst of chaos, she wears me down. I want to learn to get things done while also being kind to myself, and Sarah is helping me to do this.
About halfway through the Hypnosis visualization—which is the same every time—I come upon an old grandfather clock in a long hallway. As I stand before the clock, Sarah tells me to notice something: the ticking of the clock is only a signal of time passing by and the true time, the true now, is the space between the ticks.
I think that I have been in a state of rushing for nearly all of my life. I have ADHD and am a true space cadet, and so to make things work I have to always be hurrying up. My shoulders are tense with this feeling of trying to move at a pace that is unnatural to my true sense of time.
A couple of years ago I undertook a yearlong study of witchcraft. Learning the wheel of the year and the energetic flow of the seasons and moon cycles, I saw for the first time that time, true time, is not steady. It ebbs and flows in seasons and cycles. Since then I have tried to allow for more ease in my own sense of time. But old habits die hard, especially in periods of stress and overwhelm.
I woke up this morning with my jaw clenched. There is so much to do. Always. There is so much happening. So much chaos in a household with two tornado people, one big and one small. Something is always missing, the homework or soccer jersey or the pair of garden shears I use at work.
But then I remember the grandfather clock and I let myself ride that moment between the ticks, allowing my perception to expand outward. I feel a physical sensation of slowing down and then another sensation—being in my own time.
When I am in my own time the chaos of my life makes sense. I find the tool I was missing at the exact moment I remember to miss it. It was under the seat of the car and when I’m moving at my own pace the red handle catches my eye as I’m putting my work bag on the seat.
It doesn’t matter that I’m messy when I’m in my own time. I find that the mess has a purpose and a meaning. It is an extension of my own inner meaning that I am able to navigate with relative ease.
When I’m in my own time I notice how beautiful the light is when I’m on my way to pick up Angelo from daycare. I notice the honeysuckle on my neighbor’s fence and I stop to smell it. I am able to absorb this magic of honeysuckle in October and melting fall light. The space between the ticks stretches wide, letting more and more in.
In world time, it is almost Halloween, the last harvest. The days are getting shorter. The whole earth is slowing down. Can you feel it?
All my love,
Kate