Allowing Time to Learn
Time is redefined in these surreal and challenging times. Normal work schedules may have evaporated or accelerated. and family needs may have shifted to a new gear. Anxiety can be accompanied by a sense of urgency and rush. Unstructured time can untether us from our previous coping strategies. It’s hard to recall the day of the week, or how long we have been in this slow motion disaster.
In addition (as if the above wasn’t already too much), we may have to learn new technologies and choose fresh means of calming and enlivening in the spiral between uncertainty and information overload.
We have plenty to learn, and will have to keep on learning in an Accelerated Program. We didn’t sign up for this, but we are enrolled anyway.
From an Alexander point of view, we learn best and most effectively welcome new means if we allow time. “I have time” has a far different psycho-physical outcome (thought/sensation/emotion/movement) than the thought “I don’t have time”. The dynamic pause to allow time and to refuse to rush requires only a moment, although we may have to gently and cheerfully repeat our request to ourselves.
Walter Carrington said in his training course lectures, “You have time to free your neck even if the house is burning down around you”. We can move through these weird days more effectively, and find our best means, if we allow ourselves the generosity of unhurried time, even for a moment.
