When I Take Time To ‘Just Be’

I waste less time

People always talk about how time speeds up as we get older, but maybe it’s just how we’re spending it. Five minutes of meditation can feel like an eternity while hours can be devoured binge watching a television show. When I think back to when I was young, I had fewer distractions and was easily swept away in the beauty and awe of life. I spent hours drawing, wandering in the woods, gazing and wondering at the stream behind our house in Western Massachusetts. Time is a strange thing, a few words from a person we love and moments of pure presence can shape us, and linger through an entire life.

Meditating in the boxing gym. PHoto by Sonya Kitchell

Author and Jungian analyst Jean Shinoda Bolen writes that Greeks had two words for time: Chronos and Kairos. Chronos is the time with which we mark our days and Kairos is “timeless time; moments at which the clocks seem to stop; feeding, renewing, more motherly time. It's the time with which we feel one..." Kairos time is the sort of time that lengthens life and stretches days so that we inhabit them fully without the sense that we weren’t really there. 

I have always sought the feeling of timelessness. When I unplug and step back to tune in, whether through meditation, a walk in nature, creative exploration, an intimate conversation, or curling into my beloved and listening to the rain, time expands.

But even if we consciously unplug, it can take a while to come down from the frenetic pace of busy-ness and our attention (or addiction) to technology. There are times I feel distracted and restless but I know if I breathe and endure an inevitable period of boredom and resist the desire to be entertained, I’ll  crack open into stillness and receptivity where my senses are more awake and alive. Where I feel the hypnotic procession of clouds across pink, purple and blue skies, the hiss of a wick as my candle is lit, and notice the exquisite detail of a tiny flower.

Lemon Balm flowers

Sometimes my mind feels like a maze or maybe more accurately, a labyrinth. I'm not trying to get out, I just want to arrive at the center instead of swirling around the perimeter or getting stuck in the same corners again and again.

When I feel this way I might take a walk, try to meditate or make a strong infusion of lemon balm leaves and St John’s Wort flowers, combining them for their nervine and uplifting qualities, and pour the brew into a bath. Soothing, cooling and uplifting lemon balm baths are ideal in warm weather. When I feel the water caress me and I can relish the subtle sounds and sensations of my hands, I know I have dropped in.

Lemon Balm Tea

It is in moments like these — taking long baths, wandering in the woods, sitting quietly in nature or even meditating in a boxing gym — where the some of my best writing emerges. It is where I find solutions to problems that were gnawing at me in the busyness of a workday. It is where I stop swirling around the perimeter of my mind and arrive, more embodied, at my center. Then, when I get ‘back to work’ I have more focus, clarity and momentum.

Conditioned to be ‘productive,’ this is something I have to remind myself over and over and over again: when I take time to ‘just be,’ I waste less time.