Quest for Presence: Re-Imagine Time for Well-Being
Quest for Presence: Re-Imagine Time for Well-Being
Threshold: Time and Spirituality
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Hello again, Time Weavers. I'm so excited about this episode. This is one of my favorite episodes because we cover such a range of topics: music, research on time management, research on church attendance since COVID, 12-step insights, Enneagram insights, the Bible, but most importantly, personal experience. That's what this is all about. This episode, as always, is best listened to in conjunction with readings in The Connoisseur of Time and Invitation to Presence. Specifically in this episode, we're talking about 10 pages, the chapters Threshold, Time and Spiritual Health, and What is Spirituality. Those are pages 31 to 40. You can get this at no cost from our website, www.presencequest.life, or I created a bitly abbreviated uh website so you can directly get it. That's bit bit.ly forward slash Timeweaver99. Timeweaver 99. So listen in as Art, Ronnie, Christy, and I journey into the threshold and beyond.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Quest for Presence 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_02I think it's like you stand at the door as an observer. And that's what we all of us are. We're observing, we're observing life. But when you experience what we talked about earlier, you know, that that very presence and and coming from a space of appreciation, now the observer is observing who you truly are, and who you naturally are, which is that very essence of you. And and I think that's why you can stand back or you know and be at all, because now this observer is going, oh, there you are. And and in this moment that you're having you're witnessing yourself as your true being, as your true self. And it's an honoring of that space. And I think when you know, for you know, as we talk about threshold, it's standing there and understanding that all the things that are going on in my head, all the things I'm saying, I I'm really just observing. I'm just an observer of this life. But I and to allow yourself to sit there with that and notice what you're noticing and allowing that to be set aside and letting your true essence, the being aside, that thing that looks through your eyes come through and experience something new. And I mean, it's it's something that I think it takes a little while to really hit you, you know, and the only way I've really been able to do it, I would call my mirror my threshold. I mean, I have to look in it and say, Christy, that that that soul that looks through your eyes. That's you not all the things that life told you you are, not your name, not your arm, not your house, not your thing. It's that that that soul through your eyes. So I kind of I would describe my mirror as my threshold, that space that I sit at that stands between me and what I view as reality and the essence of who I am. And then you get really real with your really present with yourself. And that is is scary. Like that's like, oh, oh my gosh, who are you seeing? Like, who is that really looking through my eyes? I mean, that becomes very then it gets really real with you that I'm more than just a body and the things that this world has defined me as, or who I define me as, or all the conditions and everything. And and that that just that right there will bring you to a present moment that's so defining, you know, that's like, oh, there's something actually looking through my eyes. I'm just here as a vessel standing at the at the door, at the gateway, you know. So who am I going to come through? Am I gonna come through the human humanness of who I am? That observe, or I'm gonna come through the essence of who I truly am, that love, that serenity. And that's what presence does to you. It's a gift, it's that gift of life that we all have been given before we even got here. It's the essence of who we truly. When people ask, who are you? That's who you are. Look in the mirror, you know, and at the threshold, like Joel's talking about, standing at that threshold, you know. Um, which are you gonna come through? Are you gonna come through humanness or are you gonna come through the essence, that that true inner being and experience something new?
SPEAKER_05When you say there's more to this than I am seeing, it's the old eye that you're talking about. The new eye, right? Ey E, that's the essential eye that you're talking about, is seeing more than your old eye can see. And so that's exactly the point that you're you're moving into this new this new space. You know, I'm gonna make a connection here to something we'll talk about later. If you think about the mythological or etymological or symbolic meaning of threshold, thresh means to thresh. To thresh was a space where they would thresh wheat, which means trample upon it, knock it down, make sure you got it to a point where you can get it refined so you can start using it for nutrition. So that was a threshing space. So there's some that believe that the origin of that was there was a place that separated the rest of the world from that space where you did the threshing. So this comes back to time and the idea that temp from template and temple and contemplation. Template means a place marked off. Temple is a place marked off for contemplation, for something beyond who you currently are, for something greater than yourself. That's what a temple is. So humanity has this kind of like two parts. You know, we are we are at we are animalistic, we have to feed ourselves, we have to do the work, we have to gather the grain, and we can't just do it out in the field. We need a place where we can do that work so that we can feed ourselves and our families, and you know, that's how civilization started from the agricultural shift for a large part of the history of humanity, but then there's this other place that's marked off, right? The temple. And so the idea of threshold goes both ways. Are we going to live the life of a creature? Are we going to live the life of a spirit? And so we are always having to do both. There's a lot more to this, and that's why I want to make sure we also talk about how this plays a role in spirituality. The idea of there's something beyond our self. Christy, you know, talks about the observ, talked about the observing self, that pure mind that just observes without thought. That takes us into our essence, our essential self, and then from that place there's a presence. And it's a presence to this amazing life that we have been gifted. So I don't know if you guys want to share about your own spirituality and and the journey, the the journey of our spirituality as a place of we have we have embarked on. The question is, do we embark? Do we take the journey as a seeker, as a practitioner, as a scholar? And how does that tie into our essence? Wow.
SPEAKER_03I'll jump in first. In terms in terms of my my spirituality. Um you know, I I have I've embraced this, I don't call it theory, but uh this practice of just like allowing God to work. And this is something that I have not embraced a lot, but you know, as I've matured and like I talk about often on this podcast, being a dad, you know, understanding that your kids, you know, you you you are you are renting them, you know what I mean? And there's a lot that's out of your control. Um, that's left me to bind tighter to this to this notion of letting God just work. And when I think about it with me in terms of my own maturation, what that that impact does is kind of like I said before, like it, if Ronnie can get out of the way, he, you know, he will then allow God to do great things. And what which takes you to like what I was talking about, the event last night where I was operating, as I told my wife this uh this morning, at a high uh emotional capacity. But that that was me, that was me agreeing and being intentional about getting out of the way and letting go. And I think a lot of that provides foundation for where I'm at with my faith and my spirituality.
SPEAKER_02I like that. I'll add, you know, it comes to me as a verse, and I believe it's in Revelations vaguely. Um, but it's um behold, I stand at the door and knock. That same standing, you know, as Joel called it, the threshold. It you know, standing at the door, and and he's saying, and not force, I'm not forcing this on you. He's not forcing anything on you, but yet inviting, it's an invitation to open up to something new, it's an invitation to embrace a new moment um in time, an invitation to a new perspective or a new way. And I always uh when I hear you talking, this kind of comes to me actually throughout, you know, as we talk today, is this it's this standing at the door and knocking. And and when we we get there, how important it is that we take a moment, and that's where that presence comes in, is taking the moment and understand I have this time to choose what I want to experience on the other side.
SPEAKER_03That's so good.
SPEAKER_02You know, it's just like I it's like powerful. It's like, oh my gosh, I'm I'm here, I like right here, you know, and that's what I write about in in the moment of now and embracing this beauty and this essence going I have a choice.
SPEAKER_05So it's I have this time now. I I love that. I okay, this is the quotable. I have this time now to experience what's on the other side.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, and and also, you know, I love of course the word now is like my favorite, favorite word. I love I love everything about it. It says so much, but it's it's the only place you live. It's the only place you're always arriving to it. And I love it. Now you're here, Art. Where are you?
SPEAKER_00I'm I'm here. I'm just bathing in everything I'm hearing. Imagine the view.
SPEAKER_05What's his face look like, Marlene?
SPEAKER_03I I don't know if I could put in the words. It's pretty bad though. I'm joking. Are his eyes open even? And there they are. He is he's definitely present.
SPEAKER_00It's it's interesting. Throughout my life, I can observe that when I try not to be the center of attention, somehow I become the center of attention. So that maybe there's a lesson there.
SPEAKER_01That's the art to life. The best name ever.
SPEAKER_05I want you to really take that phrase center of attention and and realize that that's presence.
SPEAKER_02That's here now.
SPEAKER_05That's the where where our attention is centered. Of course, this does not have anything to do with you art, so I'm taking it back. Maybe the whole issue about being the center of attention is just a call to presence.
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely. I mean, absol I was joking I was joking in a way, but it actually is the probably the the central uh awareness that I've had to come to that uh all of the time, energy, cleverness, words, actions to try to get people to see me have kept me from being present.
SPEAKER_05But then when in that moment when you are seen, the uh the the irony or the poignance, which is another treasure of it, is that in that moment where you are seen, you are present.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and the cleverness, you know, I I love that you brought that up, right? You know, what's the next thing I can do that is clever or that will draw attention to me?
SPEAKER_00And you and you and you have to be you have to be able to do it where people can't pin it on you, too, right? You get double points if you can draw attention and they don't know you drew the attention, right? I mean, if we're if we're keeping score, that's double points. I've I've I've it's always irritated me throughout my life to be around the people that are drawing attention to my to themselves. And I'm like, dude, everybody knows you're drawing attention to yourself. You get no point, right? I can do it where they I do it where they don't know. I get double points, right?
SPEAKER_05There's a song I gotta tell you, I really maybe we can play. I don't know what we can do about music, Ronnie, but I'm I'm uh I totally love Florence and the Machine. They have the she has this song called Free. And in the the line is she says, I'm always running from something. I push it back, but it keeps on coming. And being clever never got me very far. Because it's all in my head, and you're too sensitive, they said. I said, Okay, but let's discuss this at the hospital. It's a great song, and and it's all about being free. So it's this idea of art, they need to have that attention because I'm in the same place as you, which is why art and I constantly battle with each other, is it's freedom. And you know, art, it's the it's there's a any the the two-point on the Enneagram, right? Of being standing out, being the one, yep, you know, two, three. And the holy idea associated with that is freedom, holy freedom, divine freedom. We're not having to be clever. We're not having to be the center of it's not the compulsion anymore. Right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. I was in bondage to idealistic freedom as a seven.
SPEAKER_05Say more about that, if you don't mind.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean the the essence of uh for sevens is that um we're idealist, and it's strange because most people that are around sevens are they're not very idealistic about anything, they're hit or miss. But there is an idealism, an unconscious idealism around uh freedom. And um but because the ego can only imitate that essence, that you know, it can kind of vaguely remember it as part of the essential created state, right? So it can only imitate it and until we become more conscious and aware, which means I was putting myself in bondage to freedom. Idealistic it's when I started doing step work, they would keep asking me what makes you angry. And I would write all this stuff, and it boiled down to basically when somebody restricts my freedom, I get angry. And it was a big deal to begin to understand that I idealized uh freedom as if it could be obtained in this world by all these things we just described: being clever, getting attention, escaping restriction, whatever. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05For me, I remember in second grade, I don't know when it was, I would raise my hand in class and I would say, uh, do we have to do this? You know, and it got me such great attention. And I I I kept doing that to the point where I was a real pest. So I can see the teacher like when I had my hand raised, she would look at me like, I know what he's gonna ask. Yeah. And but it it helped me not only get attention, but it was also this way of of um speaking for the crowd. Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah. Speaking by on behalf of the of the group. Yeah. And that that's you know, my my I've written all these books on leadership and talk about leadership. And you know, it really is just hey, I I want to be out there and and make sure that we don't have to do what the authority tells us to do, yeah. So it's it's that militancy. So that so there's a lot to the personality aspects of this, you know, how our personality forms as a way to uh be present in the world.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but it turns out to be an imitation of presence, right?
SPEAKER_05It's an imitation of presence, that's right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's what's blocking real presence, but until we're aware, how would we know?
SPEAKER_05Well, that's what this is for. That's what this community is for. That's why we're doing this podcast, that's why we're, you know, doing all the work that we're doing. You know, I want to make the transition here to the time piece and time management because the I still believe that even though we go through the charade of it, art, you know, even though we put on airs and we figure out how we're gonna be whatever we are the perfectionist, the leader, the militant, the actor, whatever mask it is that we're wearing, underneath it all, there's this to Going back to Christy, there's an inner observer, there's an essential self. There's there's something that's calling us to that place where Ronnie was last night of complete deep gratitude because they he had the opportunity to love on somebody. And so we all walk around acting as if, you know, all the world's a stage. But deep down, there is a truth. And so the whole thing about time management that in in the chapter is we know that if we're proactive, if we take control of our life, if you will, as much as control we have, but we act as if we have some role in our own destiny, we end up being happier. We that people who do that, who have a purposeful orientation to time, according to the research, have greater well-being. And the the thing about this study, which we talk about, is that 54,000 individuals, 100, almost 160 high-quality studies. What is the relationship between being able to manage your time and having outcomes in your life? And they thought, well, it's a for productivity to be more efficient. That's why people do time management. That's why in the 60s and 70s, with downsizing and everything, all these time management programs came into place. This company called Kronos, Amazon.com. Oh my gosh, do you know how much time and money and energy they put into those clocks of being where you have to be and when you have to be? And in the course, I show that clip from the movie Castaway at the beginning where Tom Hanks says, you know, if you don't, time is the God, you know, we have to make sure we are there on time. So we've been believing that time management is for that. But what did they find? What did they find in their study? They found that people who time manage, there's a greater chance that they're going to have more well-being in their life. They're still efficient, but the better outcome is well-being. So we think we're managing our time to be more productive. Like Ronnie, this goes back to the whole conversation about getting my tasks done. But there's another part of our brain, our nervous system, our cardiovascular system, our heart math coherence, our, you know, polyvagal, all the different other systems that are happening in us where it's not just about the task. It's not just about fulfillment of something. It's also about being alive, right? It's also about just being alive and being grateful to be alive and being happy to be alive. So I'll I'll read this and then we can talk about it. They, this is what they say in their in their conclusion to all this research they did. Historically, people have managed time for other reasons than efficiency, such as spiritual devotion and philosophical contemplation. Just that sentence alone. That's the Sabbath that art talked about. It it manifests in different ways. Historically, people have managed time for other reasons than efficiency, such as spiritual devotion and philosophical contemplation. So I want to pause right there and say if you're listening to this, thank you. Because you're giving your time to something that we want to recognize and acknowledge as precious. I mean, I don't know how many people, uh Microsoft laid off recently and Google laid off recently. Right here we are in 2023. It's only recently that time management has become synonymous with productivity. But we're in a threshold phase. We're in a transition phase. Again, people are starting to realize maybe there's more to this time than just efficiency and productivity. One of the earliest time management studies explored how time management relates to having a sense of purpose. Very few studies have followed since. So what they're saying, and if you look at that one quote, we know that spirituality relates to these transcendent transcendent experiences that life has to offer. Devotion, contemplation, sense of meaning, and sense of purpose. I don't think it's a coincidence that our relationship to time includes and is perhaps inextricably tied to our relationship to spirituality.
SPEAKER_00So when you were talking, one thing that occurred to me, I don't know if it's directly on topic, but it still occurred to me was the shift we're seeing um as we come through and out of the COVID pandemic. Um and the shift in the amount of time that uh people that heretofore had been regular attenders of religious services a given day and time and a rhythm, and how that was interrupted, and then how it's not returning to uh the same scale that it was before. And then there's all kind of discussion and talk about whether that's good, bad, or indifferent, but I don't want to get into that. But the whole concept of um what it what is the reasoning behind mass numbers of individuals deciding that they want to shift their use of time or focus of time in terms of what had been um pretty regular prior to that in terms of their spiritual pursuits, or if not spiritual, religious pursuits. So does that thought make any sense to anybody?
SPEAKER_05Say more. I mean, there there's a recent study uh that people have been quitting church attendance.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's lots of different studies uh or just observational fact on numbers that it was already happening before the pandemic, but the pandemic has accelerated it in terms of because in many cases you couldn't physically attend a spiritual or religious service. But then when the ability to do this returned, uh the attendance is still lagging and doesn't seem to be on a trend to return anywhere near the numbers before. And so, you know, inquiring minds want to know, okay, what's going on here. And so the one thought is that people are shifting their concept of time when it comes to these rote traditions. And um, the break is for some people is like, okay, you know, I'm not sure it was healthy what I was doing before, but that was part of my tradition, my upbringing, my discipline, however you want to look at it. And so there seems to be a correction being made or an overcorrection in some cases, perhaps, who knows, but that people are trying to figure out how do I recalibrate this without just jumping back into my old pattern. Maybe there's something about that break that told me something about my use of time when it came to the devotion of spiritual practices.
SPEAKER_02I think it's interesting. I grew up, my dad was a pastor a good portion of the time, me growing up.
SPEAKER_00So you're a PK.
SPEAKER_02I am, I am. And you know, I was um I was one of five kids. My dad used to, we'd get in trouble, he'd sit us on the front row. You had to love that one. It's like you fucked it up here so we could keep an eye on us, make sure we behaved in church. And I just think, oh, this lasts forever. Why do we do this? And you, you know, you you hit on tradition, and we do like we do things out of tradition. I have a large military family. Why? And and my husband and I were talking about this last time. Tradition, it's honorable. So when you go to church, for some that is honorable as well, because this is what you do. You that that's like a showing up. Now, I was always kind of uh always like, this doesn't make sense to me, kind of child, or you know, trying to, you know, like come from and think. I was the one that, you know, mom used to do the whole um little um, I can't think of what it's called now, but at Christmas where we were with the candles and everything, and she read a story. And I was the one that was like, do you think it's hard riding a camel and a dress? How'd they get up there? You know, just these questions. I was that kid. But in my adult life, saying all that is in my adult life, I greatly questioned why I would go every Sunday, why I would go. And um, and then I found myself not going because I thought, man, you know, I'm stressing myself out for what? My kids don't really want to, they don't enjoy it, I'm not enjoying it. And on the other hand, I'd be um I quit going and um a very dear friend um invited me uh to be a part of a a women's group um she thought would benefit me. So uh we started going to that church. And what I found is that once I looked at it different, when I could just sit back and just enjoy that present space, I think that I before I couldn't enjoy it because it was I was always thinking of it as something you had to do in order to get to heaven, you know, order to be, I don't know, this righteous because this is the do good thing. But I found that if I just sat there and was very present, ideas flowed to me. The energy was flowing, the everything. And then that I began to embrace the loveliness that I didn't need to be doing anything. I didn't have to pick up anything. I wasn't having to watch my kids, I was kids, I was having, and then I began to enjoy the peacefulness of what that is. And I think that it's hard when you find that I can find this peaceful as hell, not fighting anybody to get somewhere because I was doing it for the wrong reasons. And when I became come from a different space and I was doing it for the right reasons, as to just honor the space and just allow for whatever, whatever this I need to hear and allow for that, I began to greatly enjoy it and we began to go again, you know, and I still listen online, even though I, you know, it's two hours for me to drive there to go to church, but I listen online and I can still be in that honoring of the moment um of that. And I think that makes it hard. You you have to really just come, you know, for a lot of people, come, you know, like we're talking now, come from a different space and think of something, you know, think of it in a different way. And so something I have to do is something I can do, you know, and then what am I gonna do when I get there? And stuff. That's my kind of you know, I met it head with it a lot.
SPEAKER_05You said you did it for the wrong reasons earlier. What is the right? Can you quickly say what is the right reason?
SPEAKER_02I think for me, the it's different for everybody. For me, the right reason to go was to honor the moment, to be very present and to allow whatever it is I needed to hear or see or experience just to be open in that moment. And and before I was just I sat there, you know, in non-resistance. I call it non-resistance. I needed to go in non-resistance before I went and I was resistant. I mean, I was secretly kind of grumbling because I have 20 million things to do. And after this, I gotta go home and think of what to fix for dinner and blah blah blah. Right. But when I could go, and I was so resistant to everything, but when I could go in non-resistance, then it was peaceful and I found serenity there. And and then I began to miss that experience.
SPEAKER_05You know, it's interesting. Uh uh Art, before I comment, do you want to comment on how what Christy shared goes back to your original thoughts about the post-COVID trend?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I do I think what some people probably are discovering was, and maybe this is part of what Christy's describing, is that uh sometimes we have to be taken away from routine for a while to figure out what what it was about it that was true, beautiful, and good that we need and we need to gravitate back toward in some form. And so so maybe, you know, circumstances remove us from the routine, or we get sick and tired of being sick and tired, and we remove ourselves. And it gives us the space to observe, become aware of uh, you know, you use the terms right and wrong. I would prefer healthy, unhealthy, resourceful, non-resourceful, whatever, because right and wrong has a sense of duality, right? And and so, but just a sense of um what's healthy and and not healthy for me at this time religiously or spiritually. But the removal of ourselves from it often gives us the space um to actually and again it goes back to Joel's the whole concept here is well, how am I using time anyway? Or how is time using me?
SPEAKER_05And yeah, the yeah, so to kind of yeah, to wrap up this this particular episode, I like a couple of quick comments. Isn't it ironic that your common tendency statement was my life is a numbing routine or treadmill art? Yeah. And so here what we're talking about is it's the break of routine that maybe brings us back to our essence.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05The other thing, the other thing I want to comment on is it's Christy said it's different for everyone. And we can put this link here to the this is a there have been a number of these studies that have come out. This is from the Survey Center on American Life, just got published, January 2023. And what they found was that those people who were consistently prior to the pandemic, who had the routine of attending services, after the pandemic, they came right back. Right. So that consistency of that devotion, right? That we talked about, which you have to manage your time. I mean, people who are devotional have a spiritual routine. So, routine we're gonna look at in a lot of depth later on, but they also found that the biggest drop-off was in the younger age group. Young adults 18 to 29 uh had 30% less often from before compared to 65 and older, which were 16% less often. And so, and that not only that, this goes back to Chrissy's point, there was great variety across different religions. Um interestingly, Hispanic Catholic um and white mainline Christian were the ones that have also higher drop-off than Jewish or you know, of course, the latter-day saints, right? They were right there. They didn't change at all. You know, and so that's very important for what we're about to talk about, which is this understanding of how much our religion, our devotion, our routine, the institution helps us to be present. And how much our spirituality helps us to be present. Yes. And that's what Christy was saying is that if it's if I feel restricted by the institution, if I have to do this, right, if I'm compelled to do it, can I really be present?
SPEAKER_00Right, which is which is one of the main, I think, uh awarenesses in in 12-step work is uh the difference between spiritual and religious, and to be careful about that container.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and we're saying here we want to be careful that we're not anti-religion here, right? At all.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_05You know, uh it's like include that's the nature of this invitation to presence. It's got to be inclusive, whether you're you know, a Protestant, a Hispanic Catholic, a Latter-day Saint, Jewish, a Buddhist, and to understand that for many people, that devotion that comes from spirit from religious routine, that right, that that piece, that's a critical part of being present. And I've been to India, we can talk about that and have just an amazing experience of people wanting to be present to the guru, being present to the master, be in the presence of the teacher. And they'll travel thousands and thousands of miles to be in the presence of the teacher, to be in the presence of the guru.