One of the wonderful things about today was being with several children who visited the Drop In with their parents. It’s easy when you are an adult to hook all of your attention to being here, there and anywhere on schedule, to time and in time. From about the age of seven we start to understand the concept of time. We learn that our experiences are broken down into little bits – things like minutes, seconds, hours. We start to take on board the idea that time can be wasted. We practice giving an account of how we have spent our time. Yet the children who were around today were all free of time. They were too young to fall in with our idea of time.
The adults stressed about keeping the children ‘occupied’ so that the adults could have a little time for themselves. The children did things for exactly long enough to have experienced what they were busy exploring. Then they moved on to the next thing to explore. As adults, when we see young children flitting about, we often assume that they have a short attention span (another time measurement). We think they should focus for longer; entertaining themselves with something for as long as we might. We forget that we have been trained to stick to one thing until it is finished before moving on to the next thing to be finished. Our activity has become structured, organised, planned. We allow very little of our day to unfold in exploration. We have forgotten how to flow with where our interest or activities take us.
Life is on track, on schedule, going to plan. Until something knocks it off balance. When we are small we have the flexibility and resilience to move on to the next experience. As we reach adulthood much of that flexibility has disappeared. So I relish the chance to experience the flow of spontaneity through the presence of children. I spent a pleasant time with a pirate who took a rest, designed a fab crystal structure and drew a map, complete with tunnels that looked to me like energy portals, to Lost Land and Treasure Land. I also enjoyed a conversation with other children about how to use a therapy bed to share energy, received a gift of a drawing of an angel and watched a boisterous game of hide & seek.
If times passed I wasn’t aware of it. For a while I was in a timeless space with my young companions. My Guides are always saying that in their dimension there is no time. They tell me that everything is now. The adult me struggles to understand what they mean. But the child in me knows exactly what it is like to be outside of, free from time. I’m learning to let myself step outside the demands of time. My communication with the Energy Beings is free of any thought or feeling that time is passing. Although I still keep a diary it has lots of space and flexibility for the unexpected & unplanned. I do have plans and timescales. However I no longer stress myself if I end up not doing anything I have planned. I’m learning that following my curiosity, diving into every experience as if it is exactly the right thing for the moment has a happy feel to it. Who am I to judge if my time has been well spent? And who says I have to judge it? And who decided what was a valuable use of time anyway?
We can learn so much about being human from our children. They are human beings without all of the social conditioning that we end up joining in with. Their lives, expectations and needs are very simple. They have happiness and joy in what they are doing moment to moment. We are the ones who impose ideas that end up restricting them. If we want to change our adult lives we can start by taking the lead from our children. Is it time you learned to step out of Time?
Day 61 of my blogging challenge.