Mastering the Art of Time Travel through Mindfulness

Does it surprise you that we spend the majority of each day travelling through time?

This morning I listened to the Daily Calm and Tamara Levitt talked about the amount of time we spend time travelling each day. As humans, we can spend up to 75% of our days thinking about the past or the future.

In the morning we may time travel in our mind’s eye through our schedule for the day – thinking about the important meeting that is coming up later that day.  Or as we lay our heads down to rest for the night, we may be travelling backwards in time to replay interactions we had that bothered or inspired us.  Time travelling is an important part of our lives.

These moments of time travel – of deep self-reflection – are important.  They provide us with a way to reflect on our experiences, to get to know ourselves better (both our weaknesses and strengths) and to consider how to improve the way we react in similar situations in the future.

If we time travel too much each day, however, we can get caught up in the spin of replaying difficult or stressing about upcoming events, tasks, or interactions.  This mental spin can be exhausting – especially if we tend to beat ourselves up about things we could have done differently.  This spin can also be hard to turn off and may interfere with our sleep, as we replay events over and over and over.

So it’s important to be able to bring ourselves back into the present moment.

We need to master the art of time travel so that this mental spin doesn’t overtake our days but instead works to help us sort through things that we have experienced and move forward constructively,  proactively, and deliberately.

We need to be able to contain our time travel using mindfulness.

So how can we do this on a day to day basis?

Four Practical Tips for Incorporating Mindfulness into Your Day

By deliberately incorporating mindfulness you’ll be able to change the ratio of time you spend time travelling and draw benefit from a more healthy balance of time travel with being present in the moment.

Here are four simple tips that you can try to incorporate more mindfulness into your day:

1. Establish a key question to bring yourself back to the  present moment.

One important way to do this is to deliberately incorporate mindfulness throughout our days.  We can ask ourselves: “Am I present?”, “Am I fully in this moment?” or “Am I being mindful?”

At various times in the day as you ask yourself this question, take note of your senses:

• What do you see?
• What do you hear?
• Are there any scents you notice?
• How do you feel?
• What sensations are present in your body?
• Are you engaged and present with the person right in front of you?

Taking note of your senses can help to bring yourself back to the present moment and momentarily stop the time travel that your mind tends towards.

2. Use meals as keystone daily moments to practice mindfulness.

We can also use particular times of each day to bring ourselves back to the present.  Eating with others provides an opportunity each day to reconnect and practice mindfulness and being present with those around us.  Eating is such a sustaining and nourishing activity that it provides a natural time for deep connection to self and others.

My husband noticed early on in our relationship that there was a distinct pattern to our conversations at every meal.

I would say: “This is the best meal I have ever had.”

He would say: “You say that at almost every meal.”

And I would respond: “But it’s true every time I say it.”

Later on, I remember my mother-in-law saying the same thing: “You always say this the best meal you have ever had.”

And my husband responded: “It really is the best meal she has ever had; she means it every time she says it.”

Without realizing it, I had mastered the art of time travel – of living in the moment – at every meal.  At every meal, I was able to pull myself out of my thoughts about what happened that day or what was about to happen in the future and bring myself into the sensations of really savouring my meal – of enjoying every bite. (And it helps that I have always been surrounded by great cooks!)

As a working parent, I find it has become more difficult to bring myself back into the moment so remembering the importance of being present at meals helps me reintegrate moments of mindfulness into each day.

3. Commit to a daily meditation practice.

So many people recommend daily meditation – and there’s a reason for it, it is really effective to ground us and help us cultivate the skill of mindfulness.

Recently, I have incorporated a meditation into my daily routine.  In fact, right before I sat down to write this article, I listened Tamara Levitt’s 10 minute Daily Calm on my calm.com app.  I found it so inspiring that I sat right down and by 7 am had written this entire article.  For me, I find that I need to stack my priority activities in the morning.  So as soon as I get up, I meditate for at least 10 minutes.

Meditation is a great way to practice being in the moment and guided meditations are a simple way to incorporate mindfulness into our daily lives.  And the great thing is that you will reap benefits from spending just 5 – 10 minutes per day meditating.

4. Incorporate play into your everyday life.

For those of us who are honoured to have little people surrounding us, we can learn important lessons from these little teachers.

Children show us how to live in the moment.  Their emotions are raw and genuine in expressing their deep feelings of joy, excitement, sadness, disappointment and anger.

Children also show us how to be present in the way that they play.  They are curious, intrigued, engrossed in the activities that they engage in. They are masters of living in the moment.

As adults, we often forget to play.  We forget to laugh.  We forget to set time aside to relax and enjoy our lives.  We often feel overwhelmed with all the things we need to do and the weight of all of our responsibilities.

And so we need to learn from the littlest ones around us.

We need to find ways to incorporate play into our lives.  We can join these little people in play or we can schedule time for ourselves to play – to draw, to perform in a play, or to participate in a sports league. To do this, we can also remember what we were passionate about as children – remember those activities or pursuits that we could spend hours doing and totally lose track of time.

Find something to focus on that creates time and space for us to be in the moment – to focus on only the task in front of us and to let go of our time travelling worries about the past and the future.

Balancing the Tension Between Mindfulness and Time Travel

As a high performance athlete, I have learned that balancing mindfulness with time travel are an integral part of success. In sport, mindfulness involves being present in the moment and thinking only about the actual skill you’re engaged in.  Time travel involves reflecting on lessons learned, thinking of ways to improve in similar situations in the future, and visualizing the feeling and sensations of winning a championship.

There may seem to be an inherent tension between mindfulness and setting and pushing towards future goals or dreams.  Both are necessary, however, to create success and to live a fulfilled life.  It’s at once important to prioritize mindfulness and living in the moment simultaneously with setting ambitious, life-changing goals for the future.

So give some of these tips a try and see if you can reduce the amount of time you spend on time travel using mindfulness.  See if you can increase the time you spend in the present moment, connected with your senses and the people around you.  This doesn’t mean you won’t spend a good part of your day thinking about the past and dreaming of the future, it just means that you can experience the benefits of time travel while also bringing yourself back regularly throughout the day to the present.

We would love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below.  And if you enjoyed this article, please share it!

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