Quest for Presence: Re-Imagine Time for Well-Being
Quest for Presence: Re-Imagine Time for Well-Being
Cross the Threshold from Clock Time to Deep Time
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Welcome, Time Weavers. Thank you for joining this next episode of the Quest for Presence podcast. I'd like to welcome new patrons who joined us in the past few weeks. That includes Michelle Mariscal, Laura Crowder, Durinda Casey, Judy Prokopiak, and Becky Papa. Thank you. And you too can join us by going to presencequest.life. That's www.presencequest.life. See you soon, Time Weavers.
SPEAKER_03Welcome to the Quest for Presents Podcast. This is an intentional community of time weavers. Many of us have been burdened by clock time. We forget that there are so many wonderful and beautiful features in this gift of time. Come join us. There is a treasure for you in every episode.
SPEAKER_02Again, welcome everybody. But before we begin, I want to get in a little bit to the difference between clock time and the deep time that we are talking about. Because the threshold is really about, and the quest is really about diving into deep time. I think Ronnie will have this image here that we can put along with the uh sh show notes for this. And this is a classic image, if you can't see it, I'll explain it to you. It's a it's an image of a circle with how much time we have. And it's based on uh data from the World Bank and the Bureau of Labor Statistics based based on the U.S. population. And basically what it says is uh we spend in the average lifespan of 78 years, we spend roughly 10.5 years working, nine years on TV, video games, and social networks, six years doing chores, four years eating and drinking, three and a half years in education, two and a half years grooming, two and a half years shopping, one and a half years in child care, and one point three years commuting. But what is the most time that we spend? Twenty-eight of our 78 years is spent, one-third of our life is spent sleeping. Except for Ronnie, who gets up and he you know gets a lot done before. This is an asterisk for me. So what? I said this is an asterisk for me. Right. But what that means, according to this view of time, which is completely just about clock time, it means we have nine years to ourselves. Right? That's what this means. This is the myth of clock time that this whole program, this whole quest is here to bust. If we only look at life from this view of how much time we have left, and it's all about clock time, we have once again uh drunk the Kool-Aid. You know, we've taken the wrong pill, and we have to transform our understanding of time because all this does is like, well, what am I gonna do? How am I gonna get it done? How is that gonna happen? In a moment, you're gonna hear from Art, who did the listening exercise, and how he identified his common tendency statement and his threshold statement. And after he did the exercise, he um emailed me this quote that he came across in his um daily reading. And and what it says is, I don't know who to attribute to, but hopefully he'll tell us how closely one keeps to the visceral moment-by-moment sense of the energies of the body, especially sensation, is a measure of how present and willing we are to make intentional use of our limited time on earth. So there's a paradox here is that we do know we have a limited amount of time, but that's the threshold, right? It's okay now what? Instead of looking at it being limited, now what? So let's listen to Art and see what he has to say about his quest and where he is on the threshold. And then we'll come back and Christy and Ronnie and I will dissect Art, eviscerate him, and get get to the core jewels of what this quest is about. So hey everybody, I'm here with Art who is graciously giving us his time. There's that word again, um around the listening exercise in the connoisseur of time, and he's gonna share with us how he responded to the experience. For uh a reminder, the exercise has uh five steps. Uh step one is to note your experience reviewing twenty different statements about your attitude towards time. Step two is to select one or two and reflect on the feelings, emotional tone, or mood the statement evokes in you. Step three is to identify your common tendency, which statement you most resonate with, which is hard, you know, but try to choose only one if you can. I think art selected two. Step four is to identify the threshold statement from those twenty. And then step five is to just be aware of the gap. So this is a kind of an in-depth contemplative exercise. So I'll turn it over to Art and how would you like to start sharing art?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, um, I actually did the exercise twice over a about a week or 10-day period uh just to kind of refresh it for me. And when I went through the common tendencies, uh I I read them through one time and then went back through and tried to slow down. Um, and I actually circled uh six of them as ones that I really felt some draw to in some way, whether it was negative or positive. And uh, but then ended up coming back and reducing it down to two statements, and then taking each of those and trying to just sit quietly and see what arose in terms of feelings and emotions around those.
SPEAKER_02That's wonderful. Yeah, I'm I'm glad you took the time, and that's what the intention here is is to find your own way into the exercise. So do you care to share what your two common tendency statements were?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it was the first and third on the list. Uh, first is we are all going to die anyway. Why bother setting aside time? And then uh three is my life as a numbing routine or treadmill, which it surprised me that I kept sticking with that one.
SPEAKER_02And uh what is your own comment reaction to those two? What what are you what's immediately present for you around those two?
SPEAKER_03Well, the first one on we're all going to die anyway. Why bother setting aside time? I think that one has been it's I don't know how far back, but I I would think at least six to seven years struggling with that, I think for me lends to can can lend to a temptation toward apathy. Apathetic, I believe, was one of the feelings or or emotions that you had listed as a possibility, but before I even saw that as a possibility, that was what had already arisen. And maybe even maybe even a better word is ambivalence. For the second statement, number three, my life is a numbing routine or trivial, most people would probably, either from afar or closer up, would have thought, be surprised, I think, that I would say that because I have a fair amount of routine of varying uh things that I do daily and weekly, but for some reason that one I couldn't shake that one. And it felt like even though I was maybe doing different things, maybe even things people would be think that's kind of exciting or interesting or worthwhile, there still has been this pattern in me for a number of years that feels like I'm I am kind of a groundhog day kind of a thing going on.
SPEAKER_02I'm I'm noticing a feeling of surprise, like you said. You know, people would be surprised because you have such a rich and varied life. You do a lot of service work, you do a lot of spiritual work for others, you're a coach and a counselor. Um were you yourself surprised by this, or what feelings came up for you because of those? Because those are your you're saying those are your two common tendencies. When you think about your attitude towards time, that's what comes up for you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the the the first one about we're all gonna die, I wasn't surprised at all. As I said, that one has been some version of that's been percolating for, like I said, for several years. Um uh and so almost this uh, you know, kind of a darker Ecclesiastes kind of a thinking about things, and that's been going on for a while. The the second one did surprise me that it wouldn't I couldn't let it go. It just it just didn't seem to make sense. But when I went back over and over and over it, I could let some of the others go easily, but that one really did stick with me. So I was I was surprised, but wasn't particularly shocked, you know.
SPEAKER_02So the feeling the the feelings that you identified were both apathetic and ambivalent.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean apathetic was the actual you know option that you gave, but before I even saw that on the list, ambivalent was the one that rose up for me. And uh the other things that I felt and wrote down were um kind of a yearning uh stuck was one, uh struggling, restricted, um a little bit anxious, helpless about it.
SPEAKER_02And what are you feeling now sharing it with me?
SPEAKER_03Okay, um maybe just a tad of uh I wouldn't even say anxious, it's it's more apprehensive a little bit. It's not even it's not heavy at all. It's relatively light for me. It's pretty easy to share that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_02Wow, yeah, that's amazing actually that I appreciate that you can be with and have that acceptance around these feelings. You know, for many people, apathy, ambivalence, numb, numbing, right? Uh those are not necessarily feelings that people are willing to be open with or share about. So I want to I want to acknowledge that, right? Very, very great. I mean, in the openness to that. So so then let's go to step four, which is the threshold. Did you notice a statement that, as it says here, the one you would like to experience more often?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. For sure. Again, uh a number of them at least attracted some attention, but two of them um kind of held on. Uh first is statement 13, the the positive statement, my body feels open and calm because of my relationship with time. Uh boy, I would love that. Um it's it's just an interesting thing to me that most of my life I've always been in a hurry. And until much later in life, I didn't realize that my tendency with my thinking was more often than not prevalently into the future, out quickly out and pushing out without me realizing. More often than not, uh unconsciously, I was out into the future and and I was always in a hurry. And I think I always hurried. I often I hurried people around me because of my hurrying energy. And um for a long time in life, I I don't I don't think I recognized the anxiety that was underneath that. It was it was right under the surface, but I could uh I could outrun it uh for the vast majority of my life by doing a lot, doing a lot quickly with a lot of energy, um staying busy and up and running and over the top, you know, and just so I think I I can hold it at bay. Uh, but in the last, you know, 10 years or so, it's been much more difficult to hold it at bay. And honestly, I think at this at 68, I'm just now learning how to to live with it, be okay with it, and not have to outrun it all the time.
SPEAKER_02Thanks. So um again, thanks for being so open around it. I I uh and articulate. I I'm noticing that it's almost the common tendency statement, which was about this apathy and vivence and then numbing routine or treadmill. By talking now, there's something in between that feeling and this anxious hurrying that you're talking about now. And that's really great, and that's just for everyone listening in, that as you do this work, you may notice other other uh places between the the common tendency and the threshold. Other things are there, right? So that's that's really great that you identified that because what you're looking for is it's interesting, you can be open and calm with your ambivalence and apathy, but it's but it seems you have difficulty being open and calm with your hurriedness.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, in the sense of um it took me a long time to catch up to the fact that uh the hurriedness, while in some respects could be fruitful or helpful in life, but there was what I didn't understand, it was also working against me a lot of the time in terms of uh being present aware with with people with whatever was happening.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I want to I wanna I don't want to get too off on the side, but as a as a man for myself, I I've experienced that testosterone has something to do with that. You know, the need to get things done, the need to move on to the next task, the need to accomplish things, you know, that that's what's there for me. I don't know if that's there for you, but that that's how I relate to it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I'm sure there's a commonality there about that. Uh for me, it just it seemed like it went beyond that uh as well, in kind of a sense of uh, and again, for most of the decades, I was I don't think I was really conscious to the fact that um it it seemed normal to me to always be in a hurry, right? And I don't think I was awake to the fact that often that was an unconscious way of not feeling you know some of the anxiety underneath about uh which which I think would lead into that next statement. Um the the other thing that I really am connected to or would like to be more common, which was number 15. My life is one unfolding project or pattern of meaning. Pattern and meaning. Joel at this stage in life, I I wonder a lot about whether the fact that that's not how I view my life and feel like it, that that doesn't hasn't been a part of the anxiety uh over a long period of time. That I I've never could see a an unfolding plan and I couldn't see patterns.
SPEAKER_02I hope you are enjoying the conversation so far. I just want to mention that I will be doing a full day quest for presence workshop in San Diego this September, 2023. You can find details on our website. I hope you enjoy listening to the rest of the episode. Anyone doing this needs to, but I want to us to linger just a little bit here and do a recap. So for art, the common tendency statement were number one and number three, we're all going to die anyway, why bother setting aside time? Number three, my life is a numbing routine or its treadmill. And then the threshold statements are my body feels open and calm because of my relationship with time, and my life is one unfolding project of pattern and meaning. So now when you have the when you have those statements 13 and 15, can you share, uh, reflect upon what feelings you would like to have more of? What feelings does having more openness and calm and having this sense of your life being an unfolding project of pattern and meaning, what of what feelings do those evoke in you?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, um I said and you know, kind of felt my way through it, let it arise. The ones that I wrote down were security, uh relax is a big relax was a big one, um, meaning, joyful, understanding, optimistic, and uh uplifted.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so now to kind of make the exercise more succinct for some people, when you notice, this is the fifth step, be aware of the gaps, take note of both your common tendency statement and the threshold statement and feelings, and notice taking a breath, what the gap is there, and then have you what have you been noticing around that gap? And as you said, you've been contemplating this and it's been in the back of your mind for a while. What are you noticing about the gap?
SPEAKER_03Boy, there is a gap. Or it really seems like there's a gap there. Part of it, I think, that is magnified is that I just turned 68 last month. Belief or worry or struggle that I'm running out of time uh to get this right, you know, to to actually close the gap. Uh and so that can leave me feeling kind of hopeless some days that I'll ever close the gap.
SPEAKER_02You as a contempl as a contemplation exercise, there's no call to action here that requires you to close the gap, right? There's nothing that you need to do, just to be clear. All you're doing is raising awareness and and to let it deepen in any way that it it works for you. And I think the whole idea of this this work is the whole idea of the quest based on that awareness of the gap. That there's something that's attracting you. We've talked about this before. The idea that there's something that is attracting you to a new or more common attitude than the numbing, ambivalent, and pa apathetic one. So focusing on that, what do you sense aside from your age and maybe, you know, in the fact that you have to quote get it together from your own spiritual perspective, what do you think is attracting you to be in this project of unfolding project of pattern and meaning?
SPEAKER_03Well, the first thing that occurred to me is it just I feel like if I was really in that as a common thing, then I would actually be much more relaxed and less anxious, uh, enjoying moment to moment more. I really want to uh finish my uh days where I still have uh you know, can string two words together and actually be active by doing good with all that's come before uh in my life, the stuff I didn't invite and the things perhaps I was intentional about. Because I felt like there's been a huge reservoir of uh you know wisdom building up in here and a way to bless the world. And so um I that's I assume that's part of what's drawing me to the idea of the pattern um and meaning.
SPEAKER_02Right. And this is how we'll close, well, we'll start closing up the exercise. I think, and for anyone else, when you get your threshold statement, a good thing to do is to ask yourself, how is dot dot dot? So how is my life one unfolding project of pattern and meaning? That to look at it, because of course I know you, and my God, I I think of your life as you said, you know, looks like there's a lot of meaning there. I mean, with a lot of the work that you've done, and you're helping out with spiritual retreats often you help out with the community, you know, the nonprofit there in Birmingham with your with Carrie. So I think that's something to write these statements down. You know, how is it that my body feels open and calm? You know, how is that, how am I doing that? Because it's really the mind that gets in the way. It's our it's really our mind's adherence to clock time rather than this deeper time of the project of your whole life. And I think the more that you, it's a suggestion that you contemplate that, you'll be able to get more in touch with those feelings of calm because you can settle into it. It's like the it there's a wisdom to that, right? Like that sobriety is a word that comes up for me. How does that sound? I mean, how does that land?
SPEAKER_03Uh obviously it's the connection to sobriety is kind of has a double meaning for me uh as a recovering person, but also as a virtue uh in terms of um balance and you know, taking only what I need, no more, no less. Um, you know, being satisfied with that. So I don't know, so it's something to think about, to contemplate.
SPEAKER_02Well, I appreciate your sharing so much of yourself with everybody, and um I'm I'm looking forward to your crossing the threshold.
SPEAKER_03Thanks, Art. Now, when you cross the threshold, you that sometimes just puts you outside in the in the opening for a while, right? You don't you don't just get to go into the next room, right?
SPEAKER_02I don't know. Thank you for listening. You're always welcome to join our community at www.presencequest.life. Also, please join me and friends this coming September 2023 in San Diego for a full day quest for presence workshop. You can find details on our website. See you later, Time Weavers.