Time Shifting: Creating More Time to Enjoy Your Life - Softcover

Rechtschaffen, Stephan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385483902 ISBN 13: 9780385483902

Verlag: Crown, 1997

Inhaltsangabe

Do you ever feel so rushed that you can't stop to think?  That you don't have enough time to do your job well--or even to read this paragraph carefully?  That's because you spend your time either speeding forward or thinking about the past few minutes, without really concentrating on living in the present moment.

We all have the capacity to look at time--and, by doing so, to step into a new awareness of it and experience its next dimension, time freedom.  But we cannot just look with our eyes and understand with our mind, we must experience it with all the facets of our being; with all our senses, with our perceptions, our feelings, and our heart.  Timeshifting is the method for doing this, and how you can learn timeshifting is what this breakthrough book is about.

In Timeshifting, Stephan Rechtschaffen teaches us that time is subjective, not objective, and that we can take back control of our lives by changing the way we think about time.  We can relearn how to live our lives to their fullest potential; to have the time to enjoy ourselves, our families, and our jobs.  Timeshifting is not about time management; it won't teach you how to do more in a shorter period of time.  It will, however, give you back all the time you need to accomplish what you want, and you'll find that you are more relaxed, less stressed-out, and better able to enjoy the best things in life.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Stephan Rechtschaffen, M.D., brings more than twenty years' experience as a physician and leader of workshops on health and personal growth to Timeshifting.  He is a pioneer of the wellness movement and a founder of the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in New York's Hudson River Valley, a world-renowned center for holistic study of health, culture, spirit, and the arts.  He lives in Rhinebeck, New York.

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Self

Dwell as near as possible to the channel in which your life flows.
--Henry David Thoreau

The trouble with those of us in the West is that we're always busy, always doing, always on the go.  True, we're alone a great deal of the time, but even when we're by ourselves we're busy.  Indeed, our society proclaims that being busy is a virtue, and we feel vaguely guilty when we're not.

There is a need for more time for solitude, a time for contemplation and meditation, when the mind is quiescent and feelings are at ease.  Getting to that time is one of the principal aims of timeshifting.

Yet we're afraid of solitude because we're afraid of the feelings that will rise before we can be at ease, afraid to confront who we are when stripped of our "doing" nature.  I'm a doctor, a father, a lecturer, always in one role or another--yet who am I without all of this?

And so, when we're alone, we straighten the house, pay the bills, cook the dinner, watch television, surround ourselves with the canned noise of a radio or Walkman; in effect, we are seeking companionship even when there is no other human being around.

There is a difference between being alone and being lonely.  When we're alone, we can be in any sort of mood, happy or sad, angry or calm; but loneliness invariably hurts--and so, quite naturally, we run from it.

How many times, for instance, have we entered someone's house when a television set is on although there is no one in the room watching it?  Why, when we're alone, do we talk aloud to ourselves or suddenly pick up the phone to call a friend?

We feel a need to be surrounded by people, by activity; to entrain with another's rhythm--anything but solitude, for that's where loneliness lurks.

I remember vividly a time when my life was full of emotional turmoil and I could not turn to family for solace since they were part of the problem.  I didn't turn to friends, either, because I did not want them to know there was a problem.

So I stayed by myself in a small cabin on the shore of a lake near the Omega property.  One morning, after a troubled sleep, I sat in a chair on the porch, looking at the still water, and was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of loneliness.  I was sure that nobody loved me or cared whether I lived or died, that I was naked, defenseless.  I was certain that nobody would ever visit me again.

My initial urge was to get out of the chair and do something-- anything--to relieve the pain.  But I forced myself to sit where I was and I opened myself up to the feeling.  My feeling of loneliness shifted to that of rage and then to sadness, all uncomfortable and painful.  I can still feel the enormous effort it took to stay with those feelings--and their profound effect.

I noticed an oak tree on the shore of the lake and focused my attention on it, all the while awash in feeling.  I remember thinking that the oak tree didn't seem lonely where it stood, it was just playing out its part in the world as an oak tree.  It seemed majestic, a beautiful solitary figure against the horizon.

Suddenly I felt myself like that oak, solitary, alone, simply being myself, with an immense feeling of freedom--I no longer felt lonely, merely alone.

I had reached the depth of my feeling, and when I did, it vanished.  I had merged with the rhythm of nature, with the almost motionless rhythm of the oak.

I could feel a shifting of time.

It was a profound experience, one I recall in those moments that again bring up the fear of being alone.  It has changed my relationship with simply being by myself, with whatever comes up, just being, without anything to do.


From time to time, all of us, like Garbo, "want to be alone."  What a relief, we think, to get away from the spouse and kids, or from work, or even from well-meaning friends, and have some time to ourselves.  How happy we are if we can take a solitary shower, shut ourselves in our workroom, stay indoors when the rest of the family is frolicking outside, eat a meal by ourselves, or go on a business trip and spend the night alone.  No noise.  No interruptions.  No obligations.  Peace: It's wonderful!

If we can somehow manage to find a long-term period of solitude, a strange thing happens: We get lonely or afraid, and we wish we were securely back with our family, or our friends, or our coworkers.  Their "sins" are forgotten (or at least forgiven); we actually miss them!

All of this is about our resistance to being in the present, for in the present we experience this emotional discomfort, and then we want to be busy in our common environs with others.  But we miss the present when we are with them, for they are the means of avoiding our discomfort.  Other people provide our escape.

A client named Joan tells me that when she retired, friends hoped "she'd be able to keep busy."  Indeed, so ingrained was the sentiment that when it turned out she was not busy, and that she was enjoying it, she felt anxious, as though she had somehow transgressed.

"You're going to feel bad if you're not busy," she was warned, and when she felt good she imagined there was something wrong with her.  She was responding to what she was "supposed" to feel, not her authentic feeling.  Society (and tradition, family, doctors, ministers, government) is always telling us what our response should be, and we are somehow queasy if our genuine response is something altogether different.

A tennis-loving friend quit his corporate job to go into business for himself.  He could structure his own hours, and he promised himself that when it was time for the U.S. Open, he would watch it all on television and do his work in the early mornings and late evenings.

At noon on the first day of last year's Open, he found himself suddenly jumping from his couch, overcome by guilt.  "I should be doing something else," he thought.  "I should be working."

He was laughing at himself when he told me the story.

"Would you have felt guilty if you had actually been at the matches," I asked him, "instead of just watching them on television?

He paused, considering.  "Absolutely not."

"When you listen to music at home, do you find you can sit through an entire symphony?"

"Rarely, if ever."

"But if you're at a concert?"

"No trouble at all.  A symphony and a concerto, with enormous pleasure."

It was, I told him, a matter of entrainment.  When he was alone, he was entrained with society's inculcated rhythm, and his guilt was society's reprimand for "wasting time."

But when he was at the tennis stadium or concert hall, he was entraining not only with the sport or the music, but also with the audience, all of whom (having paid their good money for the event) were "permitted" to enjoy themselves, and therefore so was he.

The same event.  The same "free" time.  Yet in one instance anxiety, in the other, pleasure.

Society allows us to go to a game or a concert with others, but frowns when we watch or listen by ourselves.

It is very important to give yourself time to be alone doing something you really like, no matter what anybody says.  It's okay to not take your kids to the ballgame, okay to not spend each...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Crown
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1997
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0385483902
• ISBN 13: 9780385483902
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: MUSIC STORE professional GmbH; 022188841282; Lars.Mueller@musicstore.de; ; Istanbulstr. 22-26; Köln; 51103; Deutschland