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Let’s Go Inside
“Slower is faster,” I say to my clients when they want the work of healing and transformation done yesterday. They often give me an inquisitive look which quickly transmutes into a broad smile of recognition. The message resonates with a deep inner knowing. They long to slow down, rest, and be present for the hard-earned wonders of their life but they are haunted by a sense of urgency and pressure. A part of them possesses the desire to slow down and relish the moment while another part of them comes alive through a persistent need for speed.
Time is a medium that offers a containing sense of coherence necessary for the expression of our life force across past, present, and future selves. Time is intimately linked to our identity and the ways in which we navigate the world as both a cumulative byproduct of our past selves and an active agent in service of our future selves. We have deep inner conflicts and polarizations around time as individuals and as a collective. This is why in this month’s newsletter I want to talk about time management and the parts of us that engage in the perception and experience of time. Not in the ordinary, traditional sense of productivity but in the extraordinary, mythical sense of the “rapture of aliveness” as Joseph Campbell would say.
One side of our psyches seeks out the commodification of time, using it to manifest our fullest potential through achievements providing increased fulfillment, purpose, meaning, belonging, validation, agency, etc. The parts of us in charge of this domain have a need for speed. They are rushing, doing, and whizzing through time. They are oriented toward outer expansion. The fleeting, ephemeral, and transient are inspiring and even exciting for these parts. They are aiming at quantity–they often want to live many lives in one or experience as many possibilities as possible. They are Doing-centered parts.
Another diametrically opposing side of our psyches compels us to savor time, relishing each moment in order to rest and imbibe the aliveness unfolding within it. The parts on this side of the equation often have a need to slow down or even pause. They are lingering, riding the natural rhythms of time. Instead of doing, they are being with what arises, offering us a sense of self- and world-coherence. These parts embed us in a greater structure, weaving together threads of our past, present, and future. In this way, we become bound to ourselves across time as a stable yet dynamic whole. They are aiming at quality—they often want to live with depth the one and only life that is guaranteed. After all, this is not a dress rehearsal. These are Being-centered parts.
Doing and Being “sides” are equally essential and, in fact, we cannot truly flourish without access to both. It would be like attempting to drive a car with access to only the accelerator or the break. It would be like trying to dance with only the left side of your body. But Doing is pitted against Being in our Western culture. We are rewarded for productivity, achievement, manifestation of potential, and the domination and mastery of the external world. Being is often a foreign concept, conflated with the absence of doing, or even non-Being. Perhaps one of the cultural burdens we’ve picked up is that Doing is proof of Being and that ceasing to do is ceasing to exist altogether.
When we’re not doing, we’re “wasting” or “killing” time, indulging in our capacity for “laziness.” We’re proud to be “busy,” making things happen. We’re ashamed to be doing “nothing.” We’ve put one side of our individual and collective psyches on a pedestal forsaking the parts beckoning us to slow down, lean in, surrender, and let life happen. I was once given this piece of advice about parenting in a light-hearted yet serious spirit: “You have to be willing to be shaped and molded by it. If you resist being changed by it, it will be a tragedy.” I believe this can be applied to many realms of life beyond parenting.
In our modern, whizzing, infinite scrolling world of ever increasing stimuli, we suffer from an overidentification with the role of the sculptor. We’re so busy scalpel in hand chipping away at the world to create the life we want that we forget we are also the marble block being created and recreated by Life, by a Higher Power—through the progression of Time. Asleep to the knowledge of our dual nature (both sculptor and sculpture) we turn the scalpel on ourselves accelerating the fragmentation of our psyches. This is the ultimate tragedy.
For those of us who are survivors of complex trauma, being shaped and molded, letting life happen to you, being the “object” on which external forces act upon, is threatening. It becomes an experience of subjugation as opposed to one of surrender. But to surrender is not to give up subjectivity, agency, or selfhood. It’s quite the opposite. It’s precisely because you do claim your selfhood and do stand firmly in your solidness (not unlock a marble block) that you can surrender to Being. This is a call to adventure, a call to experience the rapture of aliveness, and to transform tragedy into myth. This is the phenomenon of “slower is faster.” We may not be able to control time but we can manage our perceptions and experiences of time by inviting in, befriending, and dancing with both Doing- and Being-centered parts.
My clients are high achieving professionals who are used to the striving, productive, active life. Their Doing parts are at the helm navigating the currents of their inner and outer lives. Urgency and pressure comprise the fuel that propels them forward. Speed is not only familiar—their safety depends on it. Somewhere along the lines, a part of them picked up the message, “Keep the momentum going or else….” Pausing or even slowing down is risky business. What if you run out of fuel, lose momentum, become untethered, and get swept away into oblivion and devouring despair? What if on the other side of productive Doing lies complete and utter collapse into non-doing and non-being? For these productive, striving parts rushing through life is not only a means toward success and fulfillment but also a strategy of staving off the underlying vulnerabilities threatening the tenuous inner homeostasis they have achieved. For this reason, we need to redefine what slowing down means and offer a new possibility grounded not in subjugation, loss of self, and collapse but in safe yet expansive surrender.
Slowing down is the ability to surrender enough so you can simultaneously be a master of time (doing with it what you will to manifest potential) and a servant of time (allowing it to act upon you and carry you forth into a future of mythical proportions). Slowing down is the capacity to be both the one Doing the creating and the one Being created. Perhaps you will discover there a dynamic state of ease, flow, and resonance with your most heroic, highest Self.
Questions
What is your experience of and relationship with Time? Take a moment to notice what thoughts, feelings, sensations, perspectives, impulses arise when you think about time. These are all trailheads that, if taken, will lead you to parts of your psyche who belong most likely to the Doing-or Being-centered camps of consciousness. It’s important to note that both of these camps are valuable, essential aspects of your psyche and, when in connection to your inner knowledge, wisdom, and Self, they are necessary for genuine transformation and thriving beyond mere survival.
When you bring to your awareness the concept of “slowing down,” what arises within you? Identify the productive, striving, managerial parts who have concerns, worries, or even fears about slowing down. What are their hopes, dreams, nightmares, perceptions of your past, present, and future selves?
What are the parts of you that yearn for slowing down? Invite them to share with you what “slowing down” means for them and any hopes, dreams, nightmares, or insights into your past, present, and future selves they would like you to know.
Set an intention to continue getting to know both sides of this polarization. The more you can connect, befriend, and create a loving, compassionate relationship with them, the more inner harmony and the greater safety and freedom you will have to genuinely experience a slowing down and nourishing rest.
More from Sofia
How to Overcome Resistance, Get Unstuck, and Find Inner Peace At Last / article
I share with you how to overcome resistance by exploring it through the respectful yet powerful lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy. You will discover the parts of your psyche underlying resistance, especially if you are a survivor of complex trauma and narcissistic abuse.
How to Get Clarity with Almost Anything / article
I share the number one reason you are lacking clarity and five ways to gain clarity about almost any situation through the IFS therapy lens. You will learn to PIVOT from confusion and overwhelm to clarity and confidence. I share tools to help you master your emotions with greater self-compassion, meaning, and aliveness.
Invitations for Exploration
I'm Reading:
Fate and Destiny: The Two Agreements of the Soul by Michael Meade. This book invites you to awaken to your own Life Force by contemplating and applying the ideas of fate and destiny.
The Republic by Plato. I’m (re-)reading classics this year as I have found connecting to timeless truths and wisdom has a grounding, clarifying effect on my psyche. Can you relate? If you’re interested in the archetype of the philosopher-king and exploring the ways in which justice and true happiness are intertwined in the individual and collective, then I highly recommend this one.