I’ve discovered the fountain of YOUTH!! I’ve discovered the secret to slowing down the passing of time.

Have you ever noticed how, as adults, it seems that time flies by? Days turn into weeks, months and finally years.  One day we wake up tired and aged, death looming, and wondering what happened?  How did we get here?  What have we accomplished?  And feeling the quiet desperation of leaving a legacy.  Some of us are fortunate enough to have experienced some profound awakening, usually in the form of an immense challenge, a near death experience, the death of a loved one, the birth of a child, our own rebirth….

Our children, on the other hand, cannot wait to grow up, to hit teenage and adult years.  For children, time seems to painstakingly drag on, but only for fleeting moments, when they are not immersed and thoroughly enjoying the present moment!

Have you ever wondered WHY that is??  Why does time seem to whiz by for adults, the older you get the faster it goes, whereas our children experience quite the opposite.  We tell them to slow down, to enjoy life, and to stop being in a hurry to “grow up”.  Hmmm….perhaps we need to take our own advice.  But how to we do that?  Is there a way to slow down the passing of time?

You’ll be happy to know that there is a way.  The secret is presence. The older we get, the more experiences we have, the more memories we build.  Unfortunately that also comes with regrets, and more experiences and memories to dwell upon.  We tend to spend a whole lot of our time, our PRESENT,  DWELLING on the past.  This probably isn’t the best way to spend the precious moments we’ve been given.

The closer we get to the end of our lives, the older we get, the more we tend to worry. We worry about our future, and our retirement.  Will we have enough money?  Will we have accomplished our dreams?  Will our children grow up to be happy and successful?  As if we didn’t have enough of our own stuff to worry about, we actually take on our children’s problems and worries, and that of our friends, our community, even our world.   Of course worry for brief periods of time can be quite functional when it propels you to take action to aide in the prevention of that which you are worried about actually coming to pass, but that’s another article.

We wonder why time seems to go by so quickly. Perhaps it’s because we are not existing within time. We are literally sleep walking through life.  We are not even LIVING - being alive requires giving our energy to the NOW, to the present.  BE and live in the PRESENT.  We are literally MISSING our lives - spending our PRESENT dwelling and worrying.  How sad!

So what can you do to slow down the passing of time??

1.  You can have children.

Children are great beings to learn from–they are fully present.  They live every moment.  They FEEL everything and are completely centered in their hearts; their emotional core.

2.  You can have a near death experience, or get seriously ill.

Illness can be a very effective awakening.  We come to realize our own mortality and are less likely to waste the precious time we have left.

3.  You can participate in a loved one’s near death experience or death.

When a loved one becomes gravely ill or when we lose someone close to us, this also can help us to appreciate all that we have and use our time more wisely.  Unfortunately, this one is often short lived.  It’s very easy to slip back into our sleep state, or some people will use this experience as an excuse to dwell even more….living in the past…when that person was alive, or well.  Or much worse, some people get STUCK in the past when their loved one was ill and or when he/she died and re-live it over and over, usually in an unconscious effort to punish themselves, for being the one still living.  In essence they are more dead than the deceased one.

4.  Finally, and thankfully - there is another way.  Simply PRACTICE being HERE, NOW.

Catch yourself when your mind takes over and bring yourself back to reality - the present is all that exists.  Use your 5 senses to See, Hear, Smell, Taste and Feel all the glorious sensations and wonder that the PRESENT we’ve been gifted has to offer! 

All you want or need is here and now.  Now is all you have.  Now is all there is.

Accept the PRESENT God gave you. Do not insult God any longer with worry - all that shows is that you do not trust God.  Forgive and remember your past - but only for brief moments of learning.  Accept and love what IS!!

LOVE only exists in the PRESENT. In fact, if you think about it, GOD only exists in the PRESENT.  The past is gone - it does not exist but as a memory.  The future is an illusion.  If you wish to find and experience God - you must be present - that is where he resides - in your heart, right NOW.

Here’s a bit of a digression, but well worth the watch - Our perspectives of TIME affect everything!  It poignantly points out the contrast between us and our children’s perspectives on TIME!!  This amazing video clip  touches on why we are often (at home and in our school system, in particular) unable to keep their interest and meet their needs.  It’s an amazing little video clip!  Do take the time to watch.  It’s particularly good for TEACHERS and Educators.  Lots to think about!!  You’ll LOVE it!

WHO would you be without your story?

Put yourself out in the middle of nowhere with only the dingy clothes on your back. You have nothing, no one, no past and no future…only now.  You have no house, no family, no possessions and no friends.  There is only YOU - right now, right here…close your eyes and imagine it.  Now….WHO ARE YOU??

What WORD most represents who you really are??

I am LOVE.

I am Energy.

I am Light.

I am PEACE.

I am God.

I am Creation.

I am Harmony.

Let it all go; your story, your beliefs, your stuff….See and feel who you really are. The method for doing this is to SEE and feel from the perspective of your HEART.

Imagine/ visualize that your heart has eyes, ears and a mouth.   What would it see?  Hear? Feel? And say?  in response to;  Who am I?  and Why am I here?

Now see others through your heart. You can experience the truth of who your spouse is.  Who are your children, really??  Perhaps you’ve never met them before.  Have you met your parents?  your siblings?  Close your eyes - imagine that you are sitting accross from them and frustrated by their “usual behavior”.   Now…release the story…the self talk…your thoughts, and LOOK at them..with soft eyes, through your heart’s eyes - that of love.  Who do you see??  Do you understand them better now?  How much easier is it to show compassion and truly understand them from this new stance?

Check out this enlightened clip from the brilliant Bryon Katie to really begin to wrap your head around all this:

Seek FIRST to understand…to hell with being understood! It’s really not important.  Once you begin to understand and fully accept others - I promise you, you will become a living magnet and have more understanding and compassionate friends than you can fathom!

Schools are a perfect reflection of society.

They mirror the dysfunction in families.  They mirror the dysfunction in Government, and in the the world.  Parents blame schools.  Teachers blame parents.  People blame government, government blames the people.   Bosses blame employees and employees blame the leadership.  And we WONDER why our children have become so irresponsible and disrespectful.  Children are not taking responsibility.  They are constantly pointing fingers at others or at the situation.  It’s never “their fault”, they have an excuse for everything, and nothing is ever good enough; they complain constantly.  Remind you of anyone??

What has happened, we cry,  to the “good old days”??  REALLY?  Is it really that difficult to figure out?

For one thing, the good old days were not so good - those days are what created TODAY’S dysfunction. That “goodness” is what has been passed on from our grandparents, to our parents, to us and now to our children:  The pain, the repression, the belief that we’re never good enough, strong enough, rich enough, smart enough, pretty enough.  They’ve passed on their inability to express emotions or at least the belief that we should not because it’s not appropriate; we hold them in to the point that all that’s left is hurt, which becomes anger, because strangely, anger is more acceptable to express than sorrow (caring! compassion!) and heaven forbid if we expose ourselves to the point of expressing our vulnerability….our love.

Our children are our mirrors.

They are a perfect reflection of our dysfunctional people, families and society.   Think of a school as one big family.  Let’s see…what are some of the problems in families today?

Parents both work.  We are not spending the quality time with our children.  We are too busy.  We worry about money, how big our house is, how nice our clothes are, how we compare to the neighbors,  how many friends we have, and how powerful and important our friends are.

Schools worry about exams.  How well will the kids do?  How will the students’ marks reflect on the school, the teachers and the administration?  Teachers fear the administration coming down on them if their students don’t perform.  Administrators fear the school board….

What if we stopped worrying so much about exams and grades and how well our children are performing and started worrying about our children, our future and whether or not there will even be a future?!

Separation and Divorce are rampant.  Parents are fighting each other.  Parents can’t seem to agree and get on the same page when it comes to how to raise the kids most effectively.  There is no consistency, so children do not know what to expect.  Parents insult and disrespect each other right in front of their kids….

Schools also lack consistency.  From one teacher to the next, children do not know what to expect.  In one classroom they get away with everything, while in another they get in trouble for so much as a whisper.  Teachers criticize other teachers and insult and embarrass kids in front of the whole class.

What if a whole school got on the same page and made consistent rules and consequences in every grade and every class?  What if the children always knew exactly what was expected of them and what the consequence would be every time?

What if the rule was RESPECT and RESPONSIBILITY - among staff and students - always and ALL ways?

What if school staff all started behaving as if every thought, word and action was heard, seen and copied by the children.  What if parents realized the same thing?

So what, really, is the purpose of schooling?

Is it really about learning reading, writing and arithmetic?  About filling our childrens’ heads with knowledge?  About how well students are able to perform on standardized tests?  Or is it about training our children for life;  For a lifetime of Happiness and Success?  To be future leaders?  To save our planet?   Do teachers even know what school is really about?  Here we have all these amazing and caring people, teachers,  spending more time with our children than we do, and sadly they are essentially putting up with daily abuse.  Many of the most loving and compassionate teachers quit because their hearts and bodies simply cannot handle the heartache.  While others, out of necessity,  become hardened drill sergeants, yelling, screaming and abusing our children…perpetuating the problem!

So what will it take to make a shift?

The world ending in 2012?  A little late then, don’t you think?  Some say that 2012 will BE the shift.  We’ll be just scared enough about the end of the world to start to worry about the really important things.  Perhaps that’s what it will take to stop worrying about exams and how well our children compete , about how we “look”, and more about who we are being, about stepping up, summoning our courage and worrying about who our children are becoming.

WE must stop blaming and start to realize that what we see our children becoming IS a perfect reflection of US!!

We must start to BECOME the person we wish our children to become.

As Ghandi stated : “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”  Be the change you wish to see in our children!!