Expanding & Contracting Time

As I’ve been sharing on the podcast quite a bit, time has been on my mind a LOT in the last few months. I’ve always been someone who could fit a lot in a day, and the more I dove into the “spiritual” realm, I realized it was pretty effortless for me to expand time as I needed. To be honest – the key was always to not think about it too much — just flow with it. Like most things.

In the last few months, though, I have felt time contracting in a big way. Like, annoyingly so. I am literally losing hours in a day. As in, I watch the timer on my treadmill, it says I was walking for 45 minutes, I get off the treadmill, and the clock says 3 hours have passed. So, yeah – glitches. In the direction I don’t want! This is has been happening a lot, and obviously annoys the F out of me. When I tuned into it, a few things came up – the guides said A) they’re forcing me to cut things out of my life / focus on different things in my day (surprise, surprise!) and B) I have to really get into the nitty gritty of expanding / contracting time because it’s part of my path to move beyond time and teach other people how to do it as well. Let me tell you – this whole “must live through what you teach” thing is not always fun. Haha.

So I’ve been getting granular with what allows me to expand and contract time, and starting to collect information to put it all together. One of the things I have really noticed is how time and energy are connected – mainly, that when energy feels dispersed, time contracts. The more I concentrate my energy and focus, time expands. What that looks like is – if I’m pulled in too many directions, if I have too many tabs open in my brain, too many projects in the back of my mind, too many objects in my house, too many people reaching out / energetically connected to me — all of this disperses my energy and actually makes time contract. When I am single-focused in the moment and when things are wrapped up elsewhere, time expands.

So I’ve been taking time to close out all of the open tabs, and it is a PROCESS, but it is working. I have to be really conscious of not “opening up” any more “tabs” / projects until I finish closing out what’s already open. That is difficult for me as a perpetual starter! It’s in my HD chart – I’m very good at starting things, not so much at finishing them. Anyway, things that I’ve been doing – getting rid of a ton of objects in my house (clothes, food, papers, etc.) and organizing what’s left, deleting old photos, deleting things off my computer, closing actual tabs on my computer, deleting old notes, finishing books before starting new ones, finishing up those “to-do’s” that somehow stay on the list for months, selling a few of my businesses (that’s an ordeal), closing out programs that aren’t resonant (ego death), having ceremonies to complete old relationships – basically just closing out all the old stuff. And saying no to more things. Re-setting my boundaries. And the more I do that, the more I pull my energy in, and the more time expands.

I realized my perception of time is very much related to my stress levels, and as a generator, I really need spaciousness – in my physical space but also with time (but, I mean, don’t we all). When time feels contracted, so does my inspiration. Everything feels clogged, energetically. As a Generator, I really need spaciousness so I have room to respond.

The other thing about working with time is realizing it’s a relationship, and it’s all perception. I’m trying to be really conscious of where I’m in an energy of rushing, and where I’m telling myself I don’t have time (scarcity!!!). Because then I create more of that. I’ve been taking notes on what makes me personally perceive time differently. Why is it that some days feel like they last forever and you can do a million things, and other days feel like they’re over in a blink and you didn’t do anything that you really wanted to? Here are some of my notes about what makes me personally feel like I have lots of time / perceive an expansion of time.

  1. Time contracts when I’m focusing on other people’s to-do’s asks, and it expands when I’m focused on doing the things I want to do. I need to focus on my priorities FIRST. Which means not even checking any technology so I don’t have to deal with other people’s asks.
  2. Time expands when I’m doing what I want to do vs what I “have to” do.
  3. Time contracts when I have meetings / calls / anything where I have a time to “show up.” When I can work on my own time and schedule, I feel like I double my time in a day.
  4. Batching tasks / avoiding task-switching expands time. Multi-tasking actually drains time for me. Doing one thing at a time expands it.
  5. Putting away my phone obviously expands time.
  6. Waking up earlier expands time.
  7. During hours when people are “asleep,” it feels like time expands – late in the evenings and earlier in the mornings.
  8. Having things in the back of my head contracts time. So when I put off things that feel “less urgent” like – filling out a form, opening up my mail, cleaning out the garage, writing a thank you note, etc. — all of that is taking up energy in the back of my head and makes it feel like time contracts. When I get all of those things done, it opens up a ton of space. So I’m learning to NOT put off “little” to-do’s.” I’m trying to just do things as soon as they come up.
  9. When I’m fully focused on myself / self-care, time expands.
  10. When there’s nowhere to be and nowhere to go, time expands. What I mean is – it’s a feeling of waking up with no set place to be and feeling the openness of, I can do anything I desire today, at my own pace. 
  11. When I’m doing things that are out of alignment, time contracts. When I’m following what’s in alignment (aka what the guides tell me to focus on but I make up excuses as to why I have to do other things first…haha) — time expands.
  12. Re-ordering your day can create more space – finding your ideal flow / doing things in a different order can expand time.
  13. For me, having all of my days look different expands time. When my days feel the same / too routine, time contracts.
  14. I’m playing with moving beyond time in how I schedule things – having anything “set” on the schedule contracts it. I’m moving into – NOT scheduling far in advance (only schedule right before I know what I want to do), switching more to Voxer vs planned calls, opening up my business so times are always different / there is less routine (stay tuned for more on this!). Adding in more flexibility and getting out of planned “calls.” So grateful for Voxer. Haha.
  15. Ask for more time and don’t look at the clock. I get more time this way.

These are just some of my reflections — I am continuing to notice more patterns as I move through my days and experiment with different things. That’s the key — experimentation!

Would love to hear what you notice about how time expands / contracts for you, as well! Crowdsourcing always helps!