As part of my personal and professional infrastructure reboot over the past year in the run-up to my 60th birthday this April, I have been working to identify subtle and not-so-subtle beliefs that add stress to my life and hold me back from reaching my full potential. A biggie for me was realizing that for most of my life, one of my driving beliefs was that “I don’t have enough time.”
I track this back to eight days after my 13th birthday, when my beautiful father (also a pioneering transplant surgeon) succumbed to the burdens of bipolar disorder and took his own life. I did not have enough time with him.
Three years later, Mt. St. Helens erupted about 60 miles from where we lived in Washington State. We had talked about visiting Spirit Lake on the north side of the mountain, assuming it would always be there. And then one day, the volcano blasted and Spirit Lake was gone. It was another “I didn’t have enough time” message seared into my psyche.
This fear-based “not enough time” mindset drove me to cram in as many life experiences as I could in my twenties when I was single, and continued through my early parenting years (funny how at this stage, “early” includes middle school). As I described in Blooming Into Mindfulness, it wasn’t until cancer slapped me into the present moment that I realized all that rushing was preventing me from actually experiencing and savoring my life as it was happening.
I have since cultivated many practices that strengthen my capacity to stay focused on what matters most each day. I make an effort to not overschedule. I savor spaciousness when I have it, and use my mindfulness and Mental Fitness tools – including awareness of my inner Saboteurs and Sage powers – to navigate high activity times skillfully, with less stress and more presence.
And still…
Another Awakening
Just when we think we are liberated, another layer of chains reveals itself. Two years ago, when I became a co-sponsor of two Afghan refugee families (two brothers, their wives, and twelve kids between them), I set a boundary for myself that I would not create birthday celebrations for them. They didn’t arrive with this tradition, and I’m not great about remembering birthdays anyway.
So for two full years, while being all in on every other aspect of their resettlement process and falling in love with each and every one of these kids in the process, I intentionally never acknowledged their birthdays because, I told myself, “I don’t have time to do all those birthdays. I shouldn’t set the precedent because I can’t meet expectations.”
More recently, I found myself stuck in an internal narrative that I didn’t have time or energy to provide assistance to two new families who arrived a few months ago, brothers of one of our original moms. All of these fathers, by the way, worked to protect American personnel at the US embassy in Kabul before it fell to the Taliban, and therefore have targets on their backs under the current regime.
Between running my business, teaching and coaching, elder care, helping with driving to doctor and other appointments for my original Afghan families, weekly home visits to read with the kids, and my own self-care (walking my talk!), it was easy to stay stuck in my lifelong belief that “I don’t have enough time to do all the things I need or want to do.”
Checking In With the Story In My Head
I started to notice, though, a constriction in my chest whenever the thought, “I don’t have time” materialized in my head. I realized I was framing time from a scarcity mindset. Heavy energy descended with this thinking pattern. What came to mind was the Grinch’s heart when it was two sizes too small.
What would happen, I wondered, if I simply let go of the belief that I didn’t have enough time? What if I brought curiosity and openness to this experiment? How innovative could I be in this new space of potential, navigating the expansive possibilities from a place of inspired alignment with my deepest values?
Even as I pondered these questions in my journal, I felt uplifted. Soft fireworks went off in my body, signaling, “Yes, Martha! You can let go of this scarcity mindset that feels so yucky.”
Within this place of exploration (a Sage power), I realized that the conditions around me had shifted. Our two original families are, in fact, a lot more self-sufficient now. With fewer resettlement challenges to help them navigate, a teen driver now able to help with transportation, and dental, medical, and school issues smoothed out, actual demands on my time have declined.
I was overjoyed to feel the shift from “not enough time” to “I can now redirect my time and attention to FUN stuff with the kids (including birthdays!)”. Fun is energizing!
I had shifted the narrative, with my Sage powers (Empathy, Explore, Innovate, Navigate, Activate) now behind the steering wheel. My scarcity-driven saboteurs were buckled into the third row of my minivan, where I could barely hear them.
Leaning Into Birthdays and Easeful Service Work
Letting go of my scarcity mindset around time has been transformative. My schedule hasn’t changed. I am not “doing” more and am not any “busier” than I was before this shift. In fact, I feel that I have even more spaciousness now that stress-producing thinking patterns aren’t taking up precious real estate in my mind.
What has changed is my energy expenditure. All that thinking around “I don’t have time” required energy itself and drained me in ways I hadn’t been aware of. When I just let it go, an immediate sense of spaciousness arose, accompanied by a greater supply of joyful energy at my disposal. I had shifted the birthday story from a guilt-driven “should” to “I can do this! Birthdays are fun!” growth opportunity.
Even with this new mindset, I knew from experience that healthy boundaries are important to avoid burnout. I therefore reflected on what would be sustainable for me at this current juncture of my life and decided on a birthday visit and a small gift, rather than delivering a whole party. Most important to me was that each child knows they are special to me and deserve to be seen and celebrated as an individual (which is challenging when all 16 family members live in a combined household).
As for the two newly arrived families, I shifted from “I don’t have the bandwidth” to “What unique capacity do I have to help them gain a footing here?” The answer: I have circles of generous friends and acquaintances, many of whom welcome easy opportunities to help when asked.
I didn’t have time to pick up donations since I was simultaneously navigating my mother’s hospitalization over the holidays, but I could ask that contributions be delivered to my house and arrange for pick-up by family members. Rather than lead the team as I did with our first families, I could be a team member contributing my gifts and experience, while leveraging my privilege in ways that didn’t deplete me.
More Joy, More Energy, More Heart
Breaking the chains of my scarcity mindset around time has been liberating. The shift has led to significantly more ease and flow in my life. The extra spaciousness has allowed my heart to grow bigger and bring more to the world.
This shouldn’t be confused, however, with simply saying “I have time for absolutely everything on my list every day.” You DO have time for the things that matter most. It takes work to develop the focus, clarity of mind, and sense of purpose that underpins a life of flow and alignment.
Building Blocks to Enable An Abundance Mindset Around Time
- Trust the process (the universe has your back, despite what your inner saboteurs might tell you)!
- Be clear on your deepest values and how those translate into purpose, meaning, and action for you.
- Cultivate mental fitness and emotional intelligence to read your body’s messaging about what energizes you and what drains you.
- Set boundaries mindfully (based on true present moment conditions, not old fear-based stories).
- Make decisions and set priorities from a place of empathy, joy, inspiration, curiosity, and laser-focused values-based action (positive emotions and Sage powers).
Interested in strengthening your skills to live your life with more ease and flow? Schedule a free Discovery Call with me here!
