Timeline Therapy
When I was initially trying to figure out what to call my technique the words timeline therapy kept coming up for me.
Looking back on the whole of my life, I sadly spent way too much time spiraling in a mental landscape of coping and surviving… years of my life went by in which I can hardly say I was even there! There are photos and I’m even smiling in most of them so I was there, but not the way I’m here now.
I think if I had to boil it all down, the essential gift I’ve been given through learning these skills is my presence in time. Look I have no idea if this is going to make any sense to anyone reading this, if anyone ever even does read this but…
When my coping mind was busy thought-spiraling and stuck in victim/martyr mode it was SO LOUD. I’m not sure at the time I even knew I had a problem - I knew on a surface level that our thoughts are not who we are, but they were so convincing! When I finally learned how to give myself some peace and my thoughts went quiet for long enough for me to experience deeper and deeper moments of peace, I was able to show myself some compassion and not only get to know my true self free of judgement, but to actually like myself again. The result was this beautiful expansiveness. I suddenly felt like there was just all this time. Plenty of time in a day to achieve things and have ease. To love all my people and myself, to be present with them and with myself.
That’s the bottom line. The key. The being part. Who you are choosing to BE is everything. So many people say it in so many ways… ‘It’s all an inside job’… ‘Your thoughts create your reality not the other way around' etc etc. Your personality is not permanent. But I was so exhausted from the fear, anger and sadness I was carrying around while spinning the plates of my life that I was never really at peace inside my own mind. Just not present with myself. And I’ve had a beautiful life! Such an amazing life you have no idea. That’s the saddest part to me.
I wish I had a time machine so I could go back to the beginning with the skills I have now and really BE THERE more deeply.
I understand now why people write memoirs….kinda;)
I’m gonna quote Frankl again:
“Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now.”
This idea has helped me feel a sense of deliberateness in enjoying my life on purpose everyday when I drift back to that old mindset. That’ll happen. The difference for me now is that I have learned how to stay present far more of the time that I ever knew was possible.
We get to stay true to ourselves and experience the stressful things in life without being thrown completely off course. It’s so crazy.
It would be so hard to explain to our younger selves anyways, and we can’t time travel yet which is a bummer, but the cool part is that we get to show the younger people now. Who we are actively being as we age can inspire them. I get to choose to be at peace with myself while taking courageous actions and enjoying the ride.
And I get to help teach other people how to do it too.
The wildest most transcendent part to me is that I still have time.