Use mindfulness to improve your relationship to TIME and reclaim LIFE © Andrea Herber 2012

I love talking to people about time. I listen to their stories each day, and a common theme is:

Not having enough time

Not using the time they have

Procrastinating

Feeling stuck or depressed

Hating their work

Feeling unhappy in their lives

Many of the popular theories of happiness today utilize mindfulness and meditation to help people to learn how to live in the present, and how to engage with the lived moment in a richer way. This helps us to put the stressors of life on a back shelf without judgment. This lack of judgment that we give our troubles and worries, provides a different kind of calm in the present.

If you are consumed with worry, it eradicates the lived moment and fails to change anything about your situation…other than you living the “fear”.

I often think about growing up with the blessing of understanding the intimate ways of people that lived simply, and had little but one thing-  integrity in its truest form.  Many had less opportunity than I, but they lived more in the present. Their present involved surviving in the simplest ways…having food, shelter and being part of their community. If they got what they needed to survive there was laughter and sharing of the little they had. The laughter was real, there was gratitude for simplicity, and generosity in sharing. When I look back they were some of my best teachers…because they truly embraced their present. I knew many that overcame their hardships because they knew who they were and where they were headed, but refused to give up their centered principles.

Many of the people I work with are constantly focused on achieving success. They have worries about failing and they work harder and harder. Their work leads them to a realization of how their present has been bulldozed. Corporate America is definitely guilty of pushing this perspective deeper. The demands of organizations..even with their incentives and perks continue to push the perspective that one needs to sacrifice too much joy for work. I have sat with many people who work for “flexible” and “life balance aware”  organizations that are known to be “people oriented”…but many times I hear the same thing…”there is not enough time for life outside work”, and so many of the efforts made by organizations still don’t translate into happy employees. 

Work is vitally important to a healthy life,  and finding meaning is crucial.  The trouble is that people get on these future oriented treadmills and judge each mile as a success or failure at the expense of everything else.

Is your job meaningful? Do you enjoy it? Can you have a balanced life if you choose? Of course there are time that you may want to work harder than others…but can you work hard and still find time for play and for feeling your lived present?

Living in the present can mean many things…some people are just focused on pleasure, I often hear “ life is too short for drama” this is the realization that they do not want to be  weighed down with negative feelings. Others realize they are in the present and feel like they have no control of their future, and they become cynical…then there are those that seem to be more spiritually centered and can tolerate the strong emotions of the past, the uncertainty and certainties of the future and recognize the importance of the present. Mindfulness methods can help teach much of this…the ability to be aware of past, present and future and anchored securely amidst them without judgment.

Happiness is really a choice. Where do you place your focus? The best thing people can do is to reclaim time. To be present with the ones you love. To pursue the gift of fulfillment, meaning and happiness in the future…but also in the moment to celebrate that one is alive.