It seems people constantly speak of how fast the world is today, of how hurried they feel. We talk constantly about how fast the year is flying by in our fast-paced world and many people feel overwhelmed by the demands of life in 2013. We all know that we should be taking time out to relax, to re-group, to re-new. But there is simply no time!

Life races on.

Suddenly it is mid-year, the end of the year, ten years later, and that’s when we really feel confused about where all that time went.

In times past there was far more awareness about marking the important times in our lives. Families and communities lived a slower, more measured life and were able to recognise and acknowledge the passing of time more easily. They would gather for birthdays, religious celebrations, housewarmings, engagements and marriages. In many indigenous societies they would also mark the passing of the seasons and the lunar calendar.

But today many of these occasions for celebration have disappeared, while other celebrations are done in such a way that may not hold the same meaning or have a significant effect on the person.

We have all stopped pausing to take stock of our life.

Time to Assess Our Life

Making the effort to stop and mark points in our life forces us to take the time to look at where we have been and how far we have come since the last time we examined our life.

When my clients feel despondent about their health, I often read back their history notes taken months or years earlier, during their consultation. This allows them the opportunity to actually recall how bad their health was in the past and compare it to how much better they are now. Frequently as they improved, they stopped remembering how bad they had felt or how incapacitated they were when they first came to see me. When I remind them, they are able to then appreciate their vast improvement and to go on with a renewed positive outlook. Taking the time to review their life experience provides them with life marking points for later.

However, I don’t see this as simply a time issue. All too many of us are our own harshest critics. We set standards and expectations for ourselves at impossible levels and we fail to recognise our achievements, let alone acknowledge them.

When we pause and assess where we are in life, what we now do differently, what we’ve learnt, how we view the world around us or engage with the people we encounter differently, we create a marker that we can use to compare and notice changes within ourselves. It allows us to realise that although we feel we are racing through our life in fact we are also changing and growing. When we take this pause it affords us a chance to recognise ourselves as the wonderful person we are and perhaps to judge our faults less harshly.

Marking Our Milestones

We have just celebrated a 21^st birthday in our family and I insisted we hold a celebration for close friends and family. My son was very reluctant and in fact resistant. But partway through the night he told me how glad he was that I had forced him have the event.

Through the week since the celebration I have watched with joy as his reflections have allowed a wonderful self-appreciation to blossom, and he is bubbling with plans for the next few months. I am sure that without marking this significant occasion he would have drifted on through the year, and perhaps his life, without this exuberance about himself and the possibilities that life offers him.

Our lives now run 24/7. Everything seems to be available at all hours of the day or night. Stores no longer close up on the weekend; movies run non-stop and we can find what we want at any hour, day or night. The world is on permanent ‘GO’. Nobody seems to make the space to ask, ‘Where have I come from, and where might I go from here’.

Tapestry of Our Life

The lyrics of the opening verse of ‘Tapestry’ by Carole King have always resonated with me, and whenever I hear them, I cannot help but pause and reflect on my own life tapestry.

My life has been a tapestry
Of rich and royal hue;
An everlasting vision
Of the ever-changing view;
A wond’rous woven magic
In bits of blue and gold;
A tapestry to feel and see;
Impossible to hold.

~ Carole King

Consciously Weave Your Personal Life Tapestry

Instead of racing on with your life, never noticing or appreciating the intricate and beautiful pattern of the life tapestry you are weaving, take some time out for reflection.

Try to make a regular time each week to ‘take stock’ of what you have done, what you achieved, what you learnt, how you could change things. Perhaps even start a journal in which to record your thoughts. Then do the same monthly, then every year on your birthday.

Mark your life path. Find something you love to do, maybe a meal with friends, a facial or massage, walk a labyrinth, see a show, take a balloon flight, whatever you love to mark the important occasions in your life. This is an acknowledgement of your worth and of the contribution that you are making to those around you and the earth as a whole.

Take some time out to reflect on the rich and royal tapestry of your life.

Do you already have a practice that helps you to reflect and take stock? Leave a comment below and tell me what you do, or what you plan to do, to make ‘acknowledgement’ space in your life.

 

Disclaimer.

All information and opinions presented here are for information only and are not intended as a substitute for professional advice offered during a consultation. Please consult with your health care provider before trying any of the treatment suggested on this site. 

© Catherine Bullard and Happy Holistic Health, 2013. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Catherine Bullard and Happy Holistic Health with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.