This is How We Really Lose Time:

The Mystical Time Warp

I used to be shy, awkward and often felt like being left out. I was ostracized at school by my girlfriends and gossips were how we bonded together. Once I rang the bell to come to play at my best friend’s house but nobody would open. Then I’d hear a bunch of girls from school stacked behind the door whispering and laughing. I was alone. I felt unworthy and stopped reaching out. 
In my twenties, I worked vehemently on Increasing my self-esteem.  Read books, did some courses and training, stormed a bar in California with confidence coaching groups to own the place, or learned endless techniques about public speaking.  

But nobody told me this: that the confidence boost we get from some situations happens at the expense of others. Nobody wants to admit this, but when we feel we are somehow better than others, more successful, skillful, experienced, beautiful, witty, knowledgeable, happy, or more socially connected, eg. we have our crew with us - we feel boosted. When we think we are not as good as others, not as successful, intelligent, funny, or conscious - we struggle with esteem and power. And it has nothing to do with what is real or who we really are. We are dealing with an image living in a timeline, a thought, a belief - with no actual presence in Reality.

Both the good and bad news is that you don’t actually have to put any effort into trying to boost your self-esteem. There is a way how we successfully boost our self-image all the time. We do this without thinking about it. I am not talking about trying to convince the self-image about its imagined goodness aka affirmations (who are you trying to convince?). I am not speaking about self-love exercises, communication tips, or confidence hacks. Tools like this can never work permanently because one thought can change how we feel at any moment.

So the boost is so fleeting as our thoughts are changing so quickly, we have to do this very often. We got very good at it, so good that we don’t realize how often we do this. The person living in time uses an ingenious system, that is not easy to see through. A system that’s simple and effective: We boost our self esteem by judging others. 

We judge and alter our behavior towards others, even if it’s just inside of our thinking. We do this because we try to control the other person to fit them into our story, into our fantasy where we are good enough, where we are somehow better. The idea that someone who doesn’t share our values and views that keep us protected from the unending anxiety is so unbearable, we have to shut them in a box.

But judging others, even though it is one of the most pervasive hidden activities we engage in on day to day basis but don’t schedule in a calendar  - comes with a high price tag. We have to compensate to retain the status of a good person. This compensation is the time warp. It creates rush, impatience, and thoughts that we don’t have enough time or need to get things done quickly. It’s never about distractions we feel guilty about, those are just the symptoms. 

It may sound completely counterintuitive but I’ve seen this reliably hundred of times in working with clients, and it always comes as a painful surprise: 
When we judge others, we try to control them. And one of the most pervasive controlling tools we unintentionally do is that we try to please them. 

We beat around the bush or stay silent to win their approval. This is followed by internal overthinking that takes our time, energy, and presence to really be with people. Beating around the bush is a form of trying to control something. It takes effort. It takes time. A lot of time.   There is a mystical time warp that eats time.  Those who find themselves in it become underpaid, overworked, underutilized, or underappreciated. The time warp is full of good busy and well-meaning people.

Looking back at my stories from childhood, the bullying, gossips, and painful stories were the catalyst to become obsessed with psychology and increasing my self-esteem. I had to go through this simply to discover for myself that it doesn't work. Two psychology degrees later, I felt trapped more than ever. That’s because we don’t want to feel worthy and successful. We want to feel worthy and successful all the time. It’s hopeless. And when we do, it comes with the underlying anxiety of losing what we think we gained. It’s a never-ending race we cannot win. This book is not about ideas, theories, or psychology that works on the personality level. This message moves away from sustaining the identity we believing ourselves to be. 

In reality, we can never lose time or gain more time, speed things up or waste our time. It is not possible because the real You cannot experience time, as we’ll discover later. What I described above is an ingenious system that creates the illusion of a loss of time. And it has nothing to do with having too much to do. And you can’t get away by slowing down. Or being more mindful. Or trying to manage the mystical ticking beast. And it has everything to do with keeping the false character living in the deceptive timeline alive.

Next week, (and my idea of a week might be longer than yours) I will share with you the genesis of time. I will build on this idea of beating around the bush and how exactly we manipulate others when we modify our actions in time. By shining some light on the hidden agenda of the time-bound beliefs about ourselves, it is not only possible to be timeless and living without stressful thoughts, impatience, and overwhelm. It is your True Nature.

What do you think?
Love,
Olivia