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Lipstick Mystic™ News August 17, 2005
From Jennifer Shepherd at LipstickMystic.com
Hi, everyone!
I don’t know about you, but I experienced a bit of a time burp this summer. July passed by with a hiccup, and it’s August already. Now that Mercury is out of retrograde, it seems time to send out another newsletter. I had been aiming to do this monthly, but I may change that around. For instance, I might start creating shorter mystic updates that happen periodically instead of on a straight calendar. That way, I can just listen to my spiritual guidance and write to you when it’s the right time. . .instead of on manipulated time. How does that sound? I’m also experimenting with sending this out in a text format so you won’t have troubles reading it. Many of you told me you can’t receive attached files, so I think this format will work better.(**So much for plain text. My apologies for sending you out an earlier copy of this newsletter, which for some reason turned out all garbled and unreadable. Sigh! The challenges of publishing a newsletter.)
Are you one of those people who hates being on a schedule? I know I am. I prefer to live on “shaman time.” In the days before wristwatches, people were still incredibly productive. There was always plenty of stuff for them to do. But people were more attuned to their body clocks and were more in synch with Mother Earth’s rhythms. So the work they did was aligned with their body’s innate timetable instead of an artificially imposed one.
Our world of “tick tock” moves us out of these natural rhythms. I believe that “tick tock” is a term that author and spiritual teacher Stuart Wilde coined. It refers to that rigid, automatic, robotic time stream that we tend to live in. It’s the time framework the “herd” lives by – going to work Monday through Friday, taking vacations at the same times of year, moving in lockstep with everybody else who is doing exactly the same thing.
I try to live on natural time as much as possible. I spent the last two years without a wristwatch, which was interesting. I still consulted the clock on my computer or on my car dashboard if I really needed to coordinate an appointment time with other people, but mostly, I ignored the artificial time template we all navigate through.
I found that I was MORE productive. I worked seven days a week but did so in a joyful, natural way. Nothing I did FELT like work. I still met all of my writing deadlines on my freelance projects (well, except for my July newsletter, which I had resistance about sending out for some reason.) But things seemed to flow in a more comfortable way than if I had artificially imposed a time frame around each action. “From 10:00 to 10:30 I will work on Article X. Then from 10:30 to 12:00 I will proceed onwards to Article Y.” I didn’t approach it that way.
Instead, I would build up a mental charge around all the creative challenges I had for that week, and I would set the intention that everything would get done in the perfect way, with a minimum of effort, on the perfect schedule. Each day, I wasn’t sure exactly what I would be doing, but I knew I’d be doing SOMETHING.
I moved into shaman time.
And it worked really, really well.
A rough explanation for shaman time goes like this: “Things happen exactly when they need to happen – not a moment earlier, not a moment later. They happen at the optimum time.”
We tend to operate on shaman time in certain aspects of our lives, but not with all of them. For instance, friendships often proceed on shaman time. If you haven’t heard from a friend for a while but don’t feel compelled to get in touch with them yet, honor what your instincts are telling you. You and your friend will be brought together when you have something positive to share, at exactly the right moment in time and space. Trust this, and you’ll be able to get more enjoyment out of your social interactions. Then, when you bump into that friend at the grocery store on a perfect day and have a great conversation out in the parking lot, you can go, “Man, we got together on shaman time! Isn’t that the coolest form of scheduling? It doesn’t get better than that!”
If you go around doing the opposite of this, pressuring yourself to call people you really don’t feel like calling right now, forcing yourself to “do the right thing” and stay in the loop with everyone, you’re actually creating more stress on the energy system of those friendships because you’re not proceeding from your authentic, true self.
Whenever we come together with another person and communicate from a centered, authentic place, we are operating on shaman time. When we’re forcing it or faking it, that’s artificial “tick tock” time.
Things happen with greater joy, greater ease, and greater success when you do them on shaman time. Things can still get done on “tick tock” time, but they will tend to lack poignancy, magic, and staying power.
This is the hidden secret to successfully manifesting your desires, the key your guru probably never shared with you. Surrender the achievement of your goals to the shamanic timetable, and they will end up materializing at the perfect moment. This metaphysical law applies to everything, from finding the perfect soulmate to attracting the perfect job to living out your personal dreams. God is never “late,” and God never leaves a prayer unanswered. (The answer to your prayer may not arrive exactly in the form you expect, however. That’s another issue.)
If you’ve ever been involved with the arts, you’ll know what I’m talking about. There’s that painting you’ve been thinking about doing for months, but your inner vision and your desire to create it haven’t quite synchronized. It’s not time to paint it now, but you sense it will be soon. “Soon,” however, could be next week, next year, or five years from now. And that’s fine. This creative project is building up energy on the inner planes before coming down into the world of “3-D” in a material form. It has to gather up enough energy or “steam” in the non-physical world before it’s ready to drop down here into physical form.
Just as a baby needs nine months to incubate in the womb, so do creative projects need time to mature and complete themselves in the inner world (the realm of the subconscious mind) before they can arrive here in perfect form.
Shaman time is attuned to these natural cycles. Living on shaman time is more effortless and fun, because there is this constant natural process going on where things are being created on the etheric plane, generating energy, and then they sort of drop down into the physical plane at the perfect moment.
Those of you who have worked diligently with your own power prayer program, focusing on manifesting a particular desire into being, need to know that just because the thing you seek doesn’t arrive on a quick schedule doesn’t mean that it’s not preparing to arrive at the right moment. The universe has your desire within its embrace, and you have to trust the process. Approach this goal, this wish you want to bring to fruition, from shaman time, and realize that it WILL happen at the optimum moment – not earlier, not later. And that moment will be when it will be.
Living on shaman time relieves us of that self-imposed pressure of overdoing things, of being a Type A overachiever who is always overwrought and unhappy because he is carrying around this impossible “To Do” list which has become a beast of burden.
We weren’t meant to live that way. Our nervous systems are designed to experience joy and spontaneous creation, proceeding from THIS moment. If we aren’t experiencing THIS moment fully, then we will never learn to savor joy from any of our accomplishments stemming from future moments.
I’m sure you have a Type A person in your social circle. This person is always forestalling joy, always putting off a vacation, always saying, “I’ll give myself a break only after I have achieved X or Y, and until then, I will batter myself with stress and hard work.”
It’s a CHOICE to live that way. Many people don’t realize this.
People who don’t understand the ancient science of energy wisdom often think that shaman time can’t possibly “work” in the sense of allowing you to function in society, be successful, and be well. They think of it as being “lazy.”
This is an illusion. There’s no laziness involved with shaman time. In fact, once you’re in touch with the natural rhythms of the universe, you get charged up creatively, inspired to do things, and you can become very busy. The energy flow of the universe is vast and inspiring. Place yourself IN that stream, and real magic can happen.
If you observe someone living on shaman time, they seem calm, happy, centered in the moment. They are unhurried. An example might be a young person sharing coffee with friends at a coffeehouse, happily talking until all hours. “Doesn’t that kid have some place to be?” mutters the angry Type A executive speeding by in his BMW.
Why, yes, that kid DOES have some place to be. It’s RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, connecting in an authentic and loving way with his friends and celebrating the process of life instead of standing ASIDE or APART from life.
Experiencing Life Through Virtual Reality Instead of Authentic Reality
Too often, we experience life via proxy. We don’t have close friendships, but we do have plenty of TV to watch. We don’t have intimate conversations with our loved ones, but we do play lots of video games and spend hours in a simulated environment. We don’t feel comfortable meditating and JUST BEING because our bodies have become acclimated to the disruptive, on-the-go lifestyle of a two hour commute and a lack of sleep and the rush to – well, the rush to get SOMEWHERE. (We just don’t know where.)
Being in the moment, where you are, right now, with the people, the animals, and the environment you find yourself in this minute – that’s the shamanic approach.
When we mentally project ourselves into the future “I need to do THIS when I get THERE and then THIS will happen” or reliving the past “I can’t believe THAT happened” or shutting down completely “I will just watch this reality show even though it sucks” moves us out of shaman time and transports us to a shadowy netherworld of misery. We’re neither here nor there. We’re nowhere.
This is all a roundabout way of saying – see if you can get out of “tick tock.” Don’t quit your day job today. But do think about ways you might free up portions of your life so that you can experience shaman time and live naturally for at least part of your week.
How can you do this? Here are some things you can do today.
How You Can Start Living On Shaman Time
1) Kill your internal “To Do” List. Okay, so maybe you can’t completely get rid of it. You probably have one for work, which is your list of tasks that you need to complete at work. And you probably have a To Do list that relates to your personal life, your household, your family routines. But somewhere on some of those lists are things you can get rid of or “kill off.”
Or, if you don’t want to completely get rid of those items, at least give yourself a “time out.” Tell yourself, “I know I have X or Y on my To Do list for this week. But you know what? The world won’t end if I postpone them until next week. Or the following week.”
Free up some time. Give yourself permission to enter the Lazy Zone. Relieve some of the pressure you’re under so you can experience more moments of relaxation and authentic being. If you are completely overloaded with your schedule, you may have to just carve out tiny bits of shaman time. But even a free afternoon when you JUST DO NOTHING will start you on your way to experiencing shaman time and help you to reconnect with your own natural rhythms again.
2) Reattune yourself to your natural body clock. This one can be tough if you’re used to using caffeine as an “upper” and/or alcohol as a “downer.” A lot of people drink their coffee throughout the day and have a glass of wine at night, and this helps them regulate their sleep/wake cycle. You know you’ll be functioning well at work with the coffee and sleeping better because of the wine.
But spend a month without the substances. Go cold turkey. This includes cigarettes and soda. If you can’t face the idea of quitting forever, that’s fine. Maybe you’re not ready for that or don’t want to do that. If you have too much resistance to something, it’s important to honor that resistance.
I guarantee you that if you spend just four weeks without coffee, soda, alcohol, or cigarettes, you will LEARN about your body clock. You might be someone who really needs nine hours of sleep at night. It’s important to find this out so you can begin to think about making some long-term lifestyle changes which will allow you to honor your body’s needs. How healthy do you think you will be over time if you continue to ignore its most basic requirements – enough sleep?
Another thing you might discover about your body clock is whether you’re a day person or a night person. Some people are living lives that are completely unsuited to their body clock. You might learn about this over this four week experiment, which might, in turn, give you some ideas about starting your own online business or shifting your career around so you can begin living according to your body’s natural rhythms. Do some exploring. Listening to your body clock will give you some important tools for self-discovery and help you to start finding the shaman time within your own bodily system.
We tend to place a lot of judgment around our body’s needs, chiding ourselves if we need more sleep or if our true desire is to do creative work until two in the morning instead of forcing ourselves to function at 8 in the morning. It’s important to let go of those voices of self-judgment. Being a night person isn’t a “bad” thing. Being a nine hour sleeper doesn’t mean you’re “weak.” Our bodies are magnificent instruments with an innate intelligence, and it’s by reconnecting with this intelligence that we can start to feel better, live better, and experience greater energy. Sometimes we have to do a little detective work, a little digging, to figure out what our body has been trying to tell us all these years. But I say DO IT. Uncover the messages your body has been trying to send you. Now.
3) Make one significant change to your schedule and maintain this change for at least a month. If you always go to the gym on Friday nights, experiment with not going to the gym on Friday night. That doesn’t mean you can’t go to the gym at other times. Just open up a fresh window in your schedule. If you always watch a certain TV show on a certain night, avoid it for four weeks. If you must, tape the show so you can watch it after the month is up. This exercise isn’t about denying you your TV, it’s about breaking up your schedule.
Any element of your life where you have a “lockstep” approach, automatically repeating the same behaviors over and over again without thinking about them, is taking you out of shaman time and immersing you in artificial “tick tock.” We can get into regimented behaviors beyond our work day, and it’s important to SEE what we’re really doing. By taking just ONE thing that you ALWAYS do and stopping it for about a month, you’ll see what wants to move into that empty space. Would you feel better chilling out and relaxing during that time? Or do you have an idea for some creative fun you’d like to get involved with then? Dare to shift ONE regimented, scheduled, automatic thing that you are doing and either put it somewhere else on your schedule or drop it entirely for a month. That will give you room to breathe, to take in some fresh personal air, and encourage you to feel the energies of shaman time.
Shaman time is NOT regimented. Regimentation is control, which stems from fear, and shamanic living connects with the stream of life. It’s doesn’t proceed from fear. Too many of our daily routines stem from fear.
By taking ONE thing that you are doing and STOPPING it for a month, or at least moving it to a different place on your calendar, you may realize that you are a bit addicted to that thing that has been on your schedule. What’s the addiction about? Why are you feeling afraid or anxious if you don’t so X or Y at that particular time? Examine those feelings. Do some breathwork, meditation, or prayer to release the fear and anxiety surrounding that thing. Step out of “tick tock” by breaking up those heavily regimented behaviors and start looking into WHY you are doing X or Y in this automatic way.
Humanity was not meant to be a slave race. We are not robots. Anything in our lives which forces us to shut down our emotionality, close down our hearts, and lock off our “beingness” is moving us out of shaman time. Shaman time is about expressing your true self and being fully engaged with life – not trying to force life to fit into comfortable slots on the time table.
I hope these suggestions trigger some excitement in you. These three tips I’ve provided are just a starting place, a way for you to examine your relationship to time. By experimenting and adjusting your pace of living, the way that you are living, and the things you are doing, you can tiptoe your way into shamanic time and learn how richly rewarding it is.
And living on shamanic time really feels good! So I encourage you to connect with it.
Thanks very much for reading this newsletter. And I want to welcome all of my new subscribers, too.
See you next time – that is, next shaman time.
--- Big energy hugs to you, Jennifer
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