The Toothbrush
I wake up, its early May, light streams in thru the window. 6:45am , Damn I’m late, I drag myself out of bed head to the bathroom sit down and pee, I grab my tooth brush squeeze some toothpaste out. Damn must remember to buy some at Trader Joes later. I remeber that cute girl from TJ’s parking lot yesterday. Why didn’t I say hello to her? oh that’s right I had to hurry home and get that report for my boss, oh crap he wants it by 2pm. I imagine myself in his office making the usual excuses. Oh God it doesn’t look good for my assessment.I see him sitting at his desk. Suddenly I come back to the my bathroom. I’m sweating, my heart is pounding, gees pull yourself together! I get up garb some clothes, skip breakfast and head out. HAlf an hour later I’m driving into work late again. I glance in the mirror, omg toothpaste all over my nose. How did I miss that…..
Is this familiar to you? Do you understand what is really happening to you when you live like this? The problem with us humans is we exist on so many levels all at the same time. To keep it simple lets assume 2 levels, but its more complicated than that in truth. But bare with me, THe Problem is we are divided in two. We have a human part, the physical, and then there is this other part lets call it the “Spirit” for now. Don’t get stock on the labels too much please.
The thing about spirit is it can travel anywhere in time and space. Sitting on that toilet bowl my spirit went off into the future to 2pm in the afternoon in this example for that meeting with “you know who”. The other part of me is my body sitting simply brushing my teeth.
The physical part is always in present time. It cannot be anywhere else, It’s totally impossible for it to time travel or move large distances in a short time.
“So what” I hear you saying? Here is the thing that happens while the spirit is off in the future: that poor body is sitting there experiencing the emotions of all the things the spirt is up to. In other words the body FEELS what it is like at 2pm and all it is trying to do is brush its teeth. This is why there is toothpaste all over my nose, because “I” was off in the future not paying attention to the present moment. There is nothing inherently wrong with this ability. Lets call this ability a name “Trance Mediumship” the ability to travel as a consciousness out of the body. In effect I was in a trance out of my body in the future.
Okay so as my day progressed I soon found myself in that office , with my boss” my body had caught up with my spirit , collecting back up bits of my consciousness. Many people exist like this continually living a life where they are out of their body trying to navigate their way thru each day. It becomes “normal” to them to be this way. Now of course it doesn’t stop here. Once I reached 2pm I am off again into the future at home imagining what I’m having for dinner, my spirit off on its wandering around. This is what we call life and then we wonder why life seems to go so fast!
The reason life goes so fast is because we are never really in present time for much of our day. We skip huge chunks of time in our own little fantasy life.
My answer is to realize that because my body is always in present time simply by acknowledging that by say for example “pinching my arm” I can bring myself back from the future (or the past) back into the present and that way I will get to enjoy every second of every day and thus by “slowing” down and not constantly trying to get ahead of myself I will actually enjoy the moment and remember it and time will almost stop!