A well known traditional folk song begins with "once I had a bunch of Thyme". It goes on to explain that she lost it due to a man and now that she is old she has none. It ends with "let no man steal your thyme". Obviously all the puns are intended here. How we experience time is subjective. Is it possible to feel like someone or a situation is taking it away from us? More so, how does this affect us emotionally and even physically? Is there some relationship between our sense of time and our sense of space, or spaciousness?
These are questions of psychology, and as Rolfers we are primarily concerned with what we can put our hands on, but there is a point at which experiences of the psyche and the emotions manifest themselves in our physical form and structure, and that does concern us. Let's start by considering a concept like identification. When I become drawn into an idea or a strong emotion, it tends to consume me. All of a sudden almost nothing else exists. To some degree it takes over my mind and my attention, but what happens to my body? If I observe myself during my experience of a negative emotion like anger, if I am able to do so, I notice that my heart speeds up, my temperature may rise, but most notably, I react with muscle tension. Unnecessary muscle tension ends up in unnecessary flexion and essentially I am folding in on myself and loosing my sense of extending into space. My world gets smaller.
The process does not stop there. Internally, I tend so speed up and rush into what ever I am doing next, or even act on the negative emotion, like maybe calling someone I am angry at, or simply going somewhere to vent. When this occurs I can see that I have not only lost my sense of space, but lost my time as well. Likewise, if I am rushed, late to work, or feeling pressed for time, I tense up and unnecessary muscle tension arises and my loss of time causes loss of space. This effects me emotionally, and physically. This is of concern to a person like myself, who's profession revolves around trying to help people stand up straight in gravity and move with greater ease.
Greater ease is a key word here. When we have a greater feeling of space, and likewise not rushed for time, we may feel a greater feeling of ease internally. We may have less muscle tension and less restriction in our breath as well. I believe it was Socrates who once said "A wise man is never in a hurry". I am sure he was not simply talking about slackers who don't do anything important, but rather someone who is calm an collected, and goes about their daily tasks without a sense of being rushed internally. Must be nice, that is not usually me, but it is a goal to aspire too. On a physical level, if we try to let go if internal identification, and unnecessary muscle tension, and being rushed, we have more extension outwardly, we take up our space, and we may have a feeling of our inner world as well as our physical world being bigger, more expansive rather than smaller.
Not being caught up in identification is easier said than done, anyone who has struggled with this knows that. Not to be identified does not mean that one just turns off identification by snapping their fingers, at least not if you are a normal person like me. What it means is coming into a greater/wider attention that will allow the thing being identified with to be present but not the totality of one's attention. In order not to be identified, I must be bigger than the emotion or thought that is sucking me in and winding me up. It may still be there, but it does not control me so much, it does not make me react. Instead of trying to banish it, or turn my attention to something else, I come into an attention that is bigger or more comprehensive and I am able to "host" my negative emotion or pain without it controlling me, at least not completely.
In my profession, by helping people become stacked better in gravity, and addressing restrictions, we are gaining greater ease of posture and movement. When we are aligned well, the deeper muscles of posture spring into action with a nearly tireless effort and we experience lift in gravity rather than fighting gravity. With this lift comes a feeling of extension into space around me, and I have a feeling of spaciousness rather than constriction. With this feeling of spaciousness, when I am not totally identified with pain or negative emotion, comes a sense of time or even timelessness occasionally. What do I do when feeling rushed, when angry, or fearful? The first thing I can do is to bring my attention to my body, maybe a light attention from head to toe. I can then become aware of my unnecessary muscle tension and try to let it go when possible. I can do this while being still, but one should also try while in action, while doing the things they do in ordinary life. In that way we can start to reclaim our time and space, and with that greater ease of posture and motion. Does this sound like a lot? It is, it's a lifelong practice that can develop into more sophisticated practices, but these basic ideas are available to anyone who wants to try making an effort. But we do hope that with experience, sometimes these efforts will be nearly effortless and we can rest in a feeling of timeless spaciousness.
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