During an online meeting I attended last year, or the year before (2020 and 2021 melted together), one of the facilitators opened the meeting with a mantra. Gently singing and chanting “Take Your Time”. With each repetition of the phrase emphasizing a different word, changing the quality and meaning. TAKE your time, take YOUR time, take your TIME.

Since that day these three words would ring in my ears, each time with a different melody. Fast forward to a GIM (guided imagery and music) training I attended recently about archetypes, we were asked to look inward (as one does during any form of psychotherapeutic training), and low and behold the three words came back to me. Possibly for the first time since this phrase crossed my path, I listened with my entire being and not only my rational mind.

We often get these repetitive themes, calls, nudges (call it whatever) in our lives that we ignore initially. But they just come back stronger. For me, it is this “Take Your Time”.

It is such a WIDE spread message and yet we often do not listen. So I have been forced to do some introspection and reflection on these three powerful words. So I turned to art, nature, music, and poetry. I realised how easy it can be to keep responding to the constant hustle and bustle of the world around us. Constantly feeling pressed for time, being “behind”. This state of frenzy left me feeling exhausted and gave me an ever-lurking sense of failure. Walking through each day feeling “not enough”. I didn’t do enough, didn’t give enough, didn’t thrive enough. It’s exhausting. I know I’m not alone in this feeling. I recognise it in my clients,  family, colleagues, friends and even in the eyes of the cashier and driver in the car, I pass on the road. So to you and myself, I want to say: