TGIF :: Awareness #7 (of 8): Treasuring Time

#17 || Aligning our priorities with how we spend the most valuable thing we've got

🤍 home :: 6:30p 🤍

Are We Looking Forward or Looking Back?

Here in Northern California, we are well into the second half of “summer,” that stretch of weeks (wasn’t it months when we were young?) when the kids are all out of school, bedtimes are loose, and long golden ribbons of daylight linger in the halls of our home until well after dinnertime. Time feels like its going slower, until I realize how little time we have left before we are back in school routines again. Are we spending our time well? Are there things we wanted to experience this summer that we have not but still can, because we still have time?

And then on Wednesday I was reminded of my age-informed relationship with time. I often ask myself: Am making most of my time now—so that later I feel good about how I spent it? I assumed we all think that way until my sixteen year old, driving south on our local freeway with a ten minute old drivers’ license on his lap exclaimed: “I can’t believe it mom. I did it. The little me would be so proud.”

“The little you, who’s that?” I asked.

“The little kid version of me. I think of him all the time. What would he think of this bigger, older version of me? Today I think he’d be proud. I’m driving! Wait… You don’t think of the little version of you?”

I smirked and shook my head. “Nope, that’s all you kiddo.”

I reflected on this exchange later. It was a tender moment for us, one of those mom-son conversations that seem to be lessening in frequency these days as he continues to drift into adulthood. What a marvel, his forward-facing view of time: What would the “then-me” think of the “now-me?” It felt like an invitation to flip my own perspective a bit, focus less on dodging regret, more on harvesting appreciation.

Wednesday July 27, 2023 @the DMV. Shared with permission :)

The fear of regret is a fierce pillar of guidance for so many of us. Bonnie Ware, the celebrated author of the international bestselling memoir, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, lists as the number one regret of her patients in their final hours:

I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

She elaborates:

“This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.”

It’s no surprise: how we spent our time is the thing most of us reflect on at the end of life. At a certain point along this magical and mysterious journey most of us spend a lot of time dwelling in the rear view mirror: Did I live well? Did I love well? Did I honor myself and fulfill my dreams? Did I make good choices?

The Seventh Awareness: Treasuring Time

The Seventh Awareness: Time is our most precious currency, invites us to live with presence, intention, and a certain deliberateness around how we spend our most precious resource, our time—at any stage of life.

Our time is finite, we have no idea how much we have left, once spent it’s gone forever, and no amount of money or power can “get” us more… Yet so many of us take our time for granted—particularly in the “middle” decades of life—not really honoring it with the reverence it deserves until we are reminded that this glorious, unpredictable, surprise-filled adventure of life will end.

The first six Awarenesses on Clarity, Choice, Intuition, Healing, Freedom, and Respect invite a way of living that is more free, light, intentional, and authentic. The Seventh Awareness invites us to spend the time we do have in a way informed by the first six: clear, making good choices, honoring our intuition in defining our truest priorities, free of the weight of not yet metabolized difficulties or unhealthy relations. It’s a bid to treat the limited time we have with a reverence and intentionality that will relieve of us of life regrets later because we are true to ourselves—or as I was reminded by my son this week, in a manner that would spark awe or pride in a younger version of us.

This is not a dress rehearsal.

Are we spending our time on the things we care the most about—with the people we love, pursuing our longstanding dreams, following through on those visions, nurturing our crafts? Are we living a life that is actually true to ourselves, not merely fulfilling the never-ending stream of expectations and needs of others?

Our relationship with time features prominently on nearly every ClearLife journey. Many of us resort to various dimmers—escapist drinking, smoking, spending, working, sex or exercise—to quiet intuitive whispers within. These inklings urge us to work less, spend more time with loved ones, brave that bold career shift, summon the courage to apologize, muster the confidence to try something new, or make a potentially life-altering confession of love.

When we ultimately get clear and tune into this inner guidance, a torrent of questions might come up: What took me so long? How much time have I squandered? Why didn’t I do this years ago? Fortunately, the gateway to change and increased presence in our lives is never irrevocably shut. It's never too late to adjust our course.

1,000 Hours of Found Time

While ClearLife invites us to reflect on how to make the most of the time we do have, it turns out that a choice to live without dimmers can actually give us more time too. I dedicated an entire newsletter on this topic back in May: What Would You Do With 1,000 Extra Hours?:

“Found time” ended up being an unexpected upside of ClearLife for me. When I put my favorite dimmer down (evening drinks) in 2017, it wasn’t long before I realized my relationships were evolving, my health was improving, and I was saving money. Almost a year had passed before I realized how much more life I felt like I was living. It felt like more hours in the day. I see now it was.

When we pause a habit that is taking us away from presence, we free up a lot of our time, especially when the habit is a daily (or close to daily) one. It’s not just the time spent doing the thing, it’s the preparation time, the time we spent dimmed or tuned out, recovery time, the fixing-things-we-may-have-done-while-not-fully present time, and the thinking-about-whether-we-should-do-the-thing time.

In my case, regular “social” drinking was pretty time consuming. The preparation time (making plans to meet out or host boozy events), the actual drinking time (not all wasted, as there were some great times drinking), the being just-buzzed-enough-to-not-do-anything-else-well time (reading myself or with the kids), writing, or something creative), and then of course, the recovery time (sleeping in on weekends, skipping exercise, unhealthy breakfasts, the lost hours while shaking off the booze in my system from the night before)—it added up!

This does not include the time wasted thinking about drinking, that little conversation we are having inside of ourselves, distracting us from the present moment: Should I drink tonight? I guess so, everyone else will be. If I do, I’ll just have one… or a glass of water for each drink. Maybe I’ll wait to start until a bit later, so it is less drinks over less hours. It’s a weeknight, I guess I can wait until the weekend? Who cares, I’ll just have one. One more won’t hurt. And so on and on and on.

In my case, I did the math. I figure on average I was spending about three hours a day on the above, roughly 1,000 hours a year.

My Story: Newfound Presence …. and Regrets

My relationship with time shifted dramatically when I “got clear” in 2017. The best way to describe what I experienced is “presence.” I wasn’t checked out anymore. I was in each moment. I experienced a new level of awareness of the world around me. It was as if I put new lenses on and could see everything in high resolution for the first time. My dear friend Erica describes her version of this beautifully in response to a question I posed on my @clearlifejourney IG this week:

As I continue on my clear path, the time I’m the most aware of and profoundly grateful for is NOW. *This* moment. *This* experience, right here. It’s incredible and intricate and fleeting and precious. This ongoing awareness + gratitude feel both subtle and huge. It’s a tremendous gift, as I really am getting in my bones that this is all there actually is.

This reverence for time and thrill with the beauty of the present moment outside of our dimming loops is a common theme across ClearLife journeys (I love hearing them if you have reflections to share). But at some point after the shaken snow globe has fully settled, many of us discover shadows too.

In my case, all of that clarity meant I could see my entire life a lot more clearly—and it wasn’t all pretty. I had health issues to address, financial messes to clean up, and broken relationships to heal—or move on from, all of which I did, albeit slowly.

Yet, when I think about the arc of my ClearLife journey, the toughest part was addressing some piercing shame and regret. I’d been largely absent from my closest loved ones for years, addicted to the highs and lows of my Silicon Valley executive career—softening all of those uncomfortable edges with my socially sanctioned evening drinks and “festive” weekends—and traveling for work a lot. How did I miss so much? I’d ask myself, noticing how disconnected I felt from my sons in particular. The now-me wanted to reach back to the then-me and shake her: What the hell are you doing? Your kids are little and this time with them is precious. They need you around more. Wake the hell up already. Be their mom. 💔

April 2016. There, but not there.

As I deepened my awareness around the cost if my dimmed out years, regrets around how I spent so much time, my heart literally ached. I wished I could go back and somehow “reclaim” the time I’d missed while elsewhere, distracted, or even worse, in their physical presence, but checked out. Just like my own mom.

The outcome of this was a newfound reverence for time and a commitment to spend it in a manner that reflects what matters most—a daily awareness.

Practices to Align Our Spend of Time

One of the greatest returns on an investment in a ClearLife path is spending time aligned with our truest values and priorities. We do this by identifying what matters most then intentionally structuring our discretionary time. Here are some practices to help:

1. Calendar Reflection. Write down the top three most important things in your life, for example, family, purposeful work, health, creative work, and so on. Now review the last month of your calendar entries, plans. Is your discretionary time being spent in a manner that reflects priorities? Equipped with that awareness, take time each weekend to review the week ahead. Is time being allocated in a way that maps to your priorities? If not, shift things around until it is.

2. Assess Reactivity vs. Proactivity. Consider discretionary social time, the time spent with friends, family, community members, and colleagues. How often are you responding to invitations vs. initiating time spent with others? If weighted to heavily on one side or the other, consider why and whether a shift of some nature may be in order.

3. Make a “Time Budget.” We plan and track money far better than we track time. What if we intentionally planned how we spend our time with the same level of attention and care as we do our money? How many hours a week do we want to spend on various activities (exercising, learning, reading), or not doing certain things (scrolling, watching TV, shopping)?

4. What Are Your Big Rocks? This metaphor is used heavily in business, but it is just as relevant to our personal lives. The idea is to prioritize time spent on the important things first so we don’t fill our life with unimportant projects or tasks. A “clear life” helps ensure we are actually paying attention, listening to our intuition, and prioritizing our time well.

A friend recently shared how she maps her time using a similar approach:

I have a 6 month to a year view, when will we travel, go visit [an adult child overseas], big stuff that I plan, a camping/road trip in the shoulder seasons.

Then I look out for the next month or two….who do I want to see, have dinner with, hike with and plan that.

Then I look at the next few weeks of work, meetings etc and plug in things that bring me joy daily, a hike every day usually after a work out or yoga. Then afternoons for house stuff, errands, kid stuff and always with a nod to being home before traffic. Very pedestrian but practical..

My happy place is a hike with a friend with great conversation . . . or a solo hike in nature with no noise or sometimes with a great podcast.

I do assess how I spend my time from time to time and make changes. What do I want to add or drop do more of or less of. It usually comes back to nature and spending time there . . .

What Would The Then-Me Think?

So… back to those shadows, the shame and regret I felt when I finally got clear. It took me a while to both clean up my messes and forgive myself for how long it took me to snap out of it. I had to go back and do some tough work, fully explore why I’d ignored my intuition for so long (Awareness #3) and allow for some curious self-inquiry as part of a healing process of my own (Awareness #4).

In time I came to fully accept that I’d done my best with the tools I had in each moment. This compassionate self-view is very similar to what helped me shift my relationship with my mother years after she’d passed. It took a while, but for the most part, I am forward-facing again, like my son, thinking that the the then-me would probably be proud of the now-me, and that is enough. ❤️

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Miscellaneous…

This week, this ClearLife TGIF was listed… in SoberStack: Substack Newsletters on Addiction Recovery & Sobriety among authors I have been following for years… women who’ve helped me craft my own path including

Laura McKowen

, Holly Whitaker,

Benya Clark

, and many more. Thank you,

Dana Leigh Lyons

, for your work in helping us to shape a community here. Writing can be a solitary journey and you bring us together in new ways. ❤️

There’s an app for that…. This week I had the good fortune of meeting with one of the founders of Sunnyside, an app that “provides a simple but structured approach to help you drink more mindfully.” I love what they are doing and they have some great traction to date. Full disclosure, Wisdom Ventures is exploring an investment.

See 💖 Barbie 💖 … What a brilliant film. My favorite moment? When Gloria, the mom (American Ferrera) is delivering her peak rant about the excruciating difficulty of being a woman, and my 12-year old took my hand and whispered, “I love you mom.”