Living in Einstein Time

Posted by lauriemorin in Authenticity, Following Your Passions, Passion, Purpose | 5 comments

May 13, 10

I’ve been on sabbatical from my teaching job since January, but it officially ended with graduation on May 8th.  Even though I’m not teaching this summer, I’ve spent the past few days grieving the loss and worrying about all the things I didn’t get done.

Yesterday, I happened upon the list of projects I made at the beginning of the sabbatical.  My entrepreneurial self was going to write a book, create a membership site, attract 10 people to my health & wellness business, and start a master mind group.

My inner Renaissance Girl was going to learn Spanish, take Nia and Zumba classes, complete yoga teacher training, make a quilt, walk a half-marathon, and ride a century.

Not to mention that my academic goal was to write and publish three law review articles.

I have always been very disciplined, so I set up a rigorous schedule for myself.  Starting at 6 a.m. every morning, I had every minute and every hour of every day strictly accounted for.

You’ve probably guessed by now, that strict schedule just never happened.  Some days, I found myself waking up later, taking a long morning walk, and never getting down to “work” until well after noon.  Other days, I woke up with something on my mind and spent 10 hours straight sitting at my computer.  I read a lot, learned a lot, wrote a lot…but some days I simply whiled away the afternoon with my friends Ellen and Oprah.

All of this is completely out of character for me.  I am generally a pretty driven person.  I always have a full plate, and rarely do just one thing at a time.  But my inner being just was just not down with the program I had laid out for myself.  As uncomfortable as that made me, I had to give myself the time to see where this new way of being would lead.

Where it led me was to a new way of thinking about time and accomplishment.  I was really influenced by Gay Hendricks’ wonderful book, The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level.  He makes two main points that relate to the notion of time and how we use it.

First, he talks about “living in your zone of genius.”  That means honoring your own unique gifts and passions, doing what matters the most and delegating the rest.  Have you ever noticed how hard it is to put yourself first? Thinking about that big writing project, how all of a sudden it is more important to wash the dishes, take out the trash, or clean out your email inbox?  That is because of what Hendricks calls your “upper limit problems”…internal barriers that hold you back from happiness and success.  Once you identify and face down those barriers, you can spend more and more of your time living in your zone of genius.

Once I started working with this concept, I realized I had lots of internal barriers, but they all stemmed from one source…not feeling worthy.  These thoughts and feelings were created by childhood experiences, and they operate largely on a nonconscious level.  In another post, I talked about some strategies for clearing your ANTS (automatic negative thoughts).

I also highly recommend using audio hypnotic suggestion.  Two that I have enjoyed working with are Wendi Friesen’s series on creating abundance, and Joe Vitale & Pat O’Bryan’s clearing audios.

Once you are living in your zone of genius, Hendricks’ urges you to take ownership of time and your feelings of pressure about time.  He calls this ”living in Einstein time,” because time and space really are relative.  Did you ever notice that there is never enough time to do all the things that you didn’t want to do anyway?  And how time flies when you are doing something that you really love?  That is because time is relative and subject to your internal perceptions.

Once you make this conceptual shift, you can get more done in less time, have abundant energy for your most important and creative work, and feel good rather than constantly feeling stressed about time.

If this whole discussion about time resonates with you, you might want to read my friend Kate’s post entitled “It is Never Done.”  Kate reminds us that life is a process, and no matter how many things we cross off our to-do list, we will never be finished.  So you might as well get into Einstein time and enjoy each moment that you create for yourself.

So, my intention during this sabbatical was to make the shift to living in my zone of genius and living in Einstein time.  I can’t say I’m a changed person overnight.  I sometimes wake up with anxiety in the middle of the night because of something I didn’t “accomplish” the day before. But more days than not time seems to flow from one activity to another, and I spend a lot less time looking at my watch.

When I look at what I have done during this sabbatical, it feels just right.  I can’t cross everything off my “to-do” list, but the universe led me in the direction of my soul’s desire.  And I still have all summer to create the time for those unfinished projects!