Time Management Through Meditation
How do you deal with the ever expanding demands on your time? What do you do on a regular basis to put your first things first?
People are often surprised when I tell them that I meditate daily. Maybe they don't think that I look like the meditation type? I am not sure. What does your average meditator look like? I do not walk through the halls chanting " om..." but I do work in a very demanding field where burn-out is epidemic. Meditation is teaching me to put things in perspective. I am learning to use meditation as a means to stay mindful. Mindful of what is important to me. It is easy to get caught up in making plans, worrying about what happened yesterday and what lies ahead today or tomorrow or next Thursday. Do you find that you want to manage your time? When I googled time management I got 114 million hits. Apparently managing our time is very important to us.
Stephen Covey, who has written numerous books on how to manage our business/personal lives, how to set and achieve goals, how to make the most of what we have... states that we cannot manage time. Everyone has the same amount of time in a day, the same number of days in the week... etc. So we cannot manage time but... we can make choices around how we use the time we do have.
What is time really? It is an ethereal mechanical measurement that we often feel dictates much of our life. There is pressure to perform, pressure to have a certain body of work done by a 'deadline', pressure to let time manage us. What if instead of measuring our accomplishments and our expectations by past present and future we simply lived the experiences.
But, how do we do that? How do we move from our heads into our heart/soul/spirit? To be in-spirit (or to be inspired) is to take something in, not just into your brain/mind/ego, but into your inner being, into your spirit. To go within, to be in-spirit, to let go of ego and BE. I was inspired by a blog entry I read that was written by Gregg Krech. Gregg and Linda Anderson run a retreat centre in Vermont, The ToDo Institute (pronounced toe-doe) where "By blending Japanese approaches to mental health, they provide an approach to living well that bridges the gap between the spiritual, the psychological and the practical."
Gregg's blog entry is about awakening, how he has changed his focus upon waking each morning. Instead of waking up and starting right off the bat to plan his day, rather than jump right into considering all of the many tasks that lay before him he has taken to spending the first few minutes being mindful - in the moment. He takes a moment to be thankful for having a warm bed to sleep in, he takes a second to stretch and be thankful for the body parts that move at his subconscious will, he breaths, he enjoys the first sounds of nature beginning to stir outside, the song of an early bird, the whispering of the wind, the lightening of the sky.
That is what meditation does for me. It gives me the opportunity to stop in a perpetual-motion-kind-of-day , to take stock, to slow my life down to something as simple as breathing in and breathing out. It allows me to slow to a speed where I can luxuriate in the scent of a freshly cut flower. I can bathe in the warmth of the sun coming in the window. I can savor the taste of warm sweet tea. With each breath in a renewed energy fills me up, with each breath out a letting go of tension, concerns as well as a soft outflowing of my gifts to share with the world.
Barbara Shanahan is a Women's Spiritual Enrichment Coach, Facilitator and Registered Nurse From her extensive background working with families dealing with chronic and terminal illness, growing children, aging parents... the many issues women face, comes a passion for working with women to develop a kind, loving, nurturing relationship with themselves. She is a guide for women, who wish to explore their spiritual life purpose, women who are looking for authenticity and fulfillment in their lives.
People are often surprised when I tell them that I meditate daily. Maybe they don't think that I look like the meditation type? I am not sure. What does your average meditator look like? I do not walk through the halls chanting " om..." but I do work in a very demanding field where burn-out is epidemic. Meditation is teaching me to put things in perspective. I am learning to use meditation as a means to stay mindful. Mindful of what is important to me. It is easy to get caught up in making plans, worrying about what happened yesterday and what lies ahead today or tomorrow or next Thursday. Do you find that you want to manage your time? When I googled time management I got 114 million hits. Apparently managing our time is very important to us.
Stephen Covey, who has written numerous books on how to manage our business/personal lives, how to set and achieve goals, how to make the most of what we have... states that we cannot manage time. Everyone has the same amount of time in a day, the same number of days in the week... etc. So we cannot manage time but... we can make choices around how we use the time we do have.
What is time really? It is an ethereal mechanical measurement that we often feel dictates much of our life. There is pressure to perform, pressure to have a certain body of work done by a 'deadline', pressure to let time manage us. What if instead of measuring our accomplishments and our expectations by past present and future we simply lived the experiences.
But, how do we do that? How do we move from our heads into our heart/soul/spirit? To be in-spirit (or to be inspired) is to take something in, not just into your brain/mind/ego, but into your inner being, into your spirit. To go within, to be in-spirit, to let go of ego and BE. I was inspired by a blog entry I read that was written by Gregg Krech. Gregg and Linda Anderson run a retreat centre in Vermont, The ToDo Institute (pronounced toe-doe) where "By blending Japanese approaches to mental health, they provide an approach to living well that bridges the gap between the spiritual, the psychological and the practical."
Gregg's blog entry is about awakening, how he has changed his focus upon waking each morning. Instead of waking up and starting right off the bat to plan his day, rather than jump right into considering all of the many tasks that lay before him he has taken to spending the first few minutes being mindful - in the moment. He takes a moment to be thankful for having a warm bed to sleep in, he takes a second to stretch and be thankful for the body parts that move at his subconscious will, he breaths, he enjoys the first sounds of nature beginning to stir outside, the song of an early bird, the whispering of the wind, the lightening of the sky.
That is what meditation does for me. It gives me the opportunity to stop in a perpetual-motion-kind-of-day , to take stock, to slow my life down to something as simple as breathing in and breathing out. It allows me to slow to a speed where I can luxuriate in the scent of a freshly cut flower. I can bathe in the warmth of the sun coming in the window. I can savor the taste of warm sweet tea. With each breath in a renewed energy fills me up, with each breath out a letting go of tension, concerns as well as a soft outflowing of my gifts to share with the world.
Barbara Shanahan is a Women's Spiritual Enrichment Coach, Facilitator and Registered Nurse From her extensive background working with families dealing with chronic and terminal illness, growing children, aging parents... the many issues women face, comes a passion for working with women to develop a kind, loving, nurturing relationship with themselves. She is a guide for women, who wish to explore their spiritual life purpose, women who are looking for authenticity and fulfillment in their lives.