How Can We Optimize Our Experience of Time?

Correct the imbalance in our energy centers by balanced breathing

The following passage from my book Results in No Time describes time stress as an imbalance in energy flow between the head, throat, and heart energy centers. "Avoiding the feeling of confusion [or some other negative feeling] creates an imbalance in the flow of energy through these three energy centers. The energy flow through the heart center decreases, so we lose some contact with our sensations and feelings. As a result we no longer have the natural fulfillment of full contact with feelings of the heart. The energy flow through the head center increases, showing up as a lot of labeling and thinking about our experience, trying to live in our heads. The energy flow through the throat center, which is closely associated with our SOTP [sense of time passing], becomes agitated. So we then have the experience of time flowing in the background between past, present, and future, with a dissatisfied self in the foreground seeking some kind of satisfaction. The self reaches out for satisfaction, looking to other people to fulfill desires, or seeking out special things and activities. The self looks forward to things, but then has difficulty fully appreciating them."

The most important technique that I have found to correct the imbalance associated with time stress is to breathe easily, gently, and smoothly through both nose and mouth, with the tip of your tongue on the upper palate just in back of your front teeth. To relieve time pressure and anxiety about time, practice this kind of breathing, and see if you can let the breath become more and more even and continuous, without breaks or jerkiness. Breathe in this way as often as possible. More information on this technique can be found in the book Kum Nye Relaxation by Tarthang Tulku (Dharma Publishing). Here's an excerpt.

Finally, a key principle

If you take a point of view separate from things, where you feel distant from what's happening, time will seem to pass strongly, with a strong feeling of friction and lack of control, no matter whether it goes quickly or slowly. And if you don't take a point of view and hold it, but get completely into whatever is happening, time won't seem to pass at all, or will pass without friction or feeling out of control, and you'll be most creative and productive. One way to get into what's happening is to try to find, and be at, the center of 'negative' feeling, rather than observing (or avoiding) it from a separate position. For an example illustrating this principle, see "Exploring Different Levels of Feeling."

Many other principles and a dozen more techniques are offered in other Results in No Time workshops.

This is the end of the Mastering Time 101 seminar.

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