How I Learned To Reduce Stress By Dreaming

“Warriors face the oncoming time. Normally we face time as it recedes from us. Only warriors can change that and face time as it advances on them.” – Carlos Castaneda

Do you ever feel like time is accelerating? Like it is going super fast and running away from us? I know I do.

Last Tuesday, I was rushing through traffic to get back home. I had a full day that started early in the morning with my dance class. Throughout the day I worked at my office seeing my clients, then I picked up my son from school, and went grocery shopping. Even though I do what I love and enjoy my work very much, I found myself rushing from one activity to another without a pause.

My head was spinning with thoughts  like “Gosh, I don’t have time, I have so many things to get done!”

“I need to get back home to finish my emails and then I need to cook.”

I was caught in the groove of daily demands where “I have no time!”

As soon as I got back home, I decided to shift my state and lay down on the living room carpet and take deep breaths to release all my stress. Then, I remembered what my teacher Carlos Castaneda taught me about time. His voice came back to me clearly:

“You have been trained to perceive time as it recedes from you. So, you rush, puff and push things and events through according to this interpretation. You are running on imaginary time where you are a victim of daily demands…You have no voice and no decision over “time.” Time seems to be something that you cannot control. You become a victim of your own interpretation of time. I, instead, choose to perceive time as it advances on me.”

Castaneda’s interpretation of Time being something that advances on us brought a smile to my face. As I continued stretching on the floor, breathing and releasing the tightness in my joints, more memories of his talks on Time came to me:

“Time advances towards you like when you are in front of a train that is running at high speed and the landscape advances towards you. You can choose to welcome your time.”

He told me to welcome my time. To welcome myself in this time.

“Your job as a dreamer is to dream yourself in this new way. You wake up every morning and you welcome your joy, your power, your warriorship, your strength. You welcome this life that advances towards you filled with opportunities to grow, with challenges to overcome, filled with mystery to amaze us, filled with possibilities. You welcome it, instead of engaging in the nonsense of your pseudo-victimhood. Chola, don’t run away from who you really are.”

I spent the rest of the night welcoming time, taking time to make eye contact when my child needed help with his homework. When cooking and washing dishes, I embraced and welcomed time. I welcomed time when putting my child to sleep and then I welcomed sleep and dream time before closing my eyes.

What Castaneda taught me has revolutionized the way I go about my life. It allows me to be at peace even when I’m busy and it feels like my demands and responsibilities are piling up.

Lately, I have been specifically meditating and practicing this new concept of Time daily in preparation for our upcoming retreat in Schweibenalp, Switzerland, where we are going to enter into a different time to dream and manifest our purposes.

Take just 4 days off from your calendar and join us to dream a new understanding of time for you. It will allow you to accomplish your intentions and create new thought patterns.

My mantra is “I always have time for what is meaningful, joyful and uplifting.”

What’s your mantra?