Sacred Time Management Preview!
By Heather Ash Amara
Satima, or SAcred TIme MAnagement, is the art of cultivating more connection to spirit in each moment. When we live our life as art we make room for creativity, flow, connection, synchronicity, and magic. We learn to slow down internally and make choices not from our fear, but from our stillness.
In the Western world we are trained to use our brains and our will to power through whatever needs to be done. As we become a more technological society and the speed of our communication increases, so does our own frantic pace to keep up. So many of us spend our time overwhelmed, feeling behind, frustrated, and never getting to the projects that lie in our heart. We cram meals and spirit in between work and getting the kids to school on time and paying bills. Our jobs become filled with drama or exhaustion or rote behavior. Our spirit begins to diminish from lack of nourishment.
A dear friend and mentor shared a story that embodies the poignancy of our need for change in our relationship to work. She is a professional, sought after teacher with students around the world. She travels constantly doing what she loves. And she confessed to me her own burn out.
“I went into teaching to support my spiritual path, but now I notice that my life is, ‘did the Germans get the flyer?’ ‘What workshop should we do in the Spring?’” She laughed and said “All I wanted to do was meditate, and now I have a farm!” She told me this story:
A monk and his disciple spend their days in silent meditation. One day the master leaves, telling his disciple he will be back sometime in the future. A couple of days go by and the disciple realized he is hungry. He decides to go out and buy a cow so he can have milk. He goes back to meditating. Then he realizes he has to feed the cow. So he buys some seeds and plants hay for the cow. The crop grows, and he needs help harvesting it. So he gets married. He has children. The family needs a home so he builds a house and gets more cows. They also plant a garden, and get some chickens. Years later the master arrives to find a whole farm where there once was only two men sitting in meditation…
We go into our work sometimes because we must, and sometimes because it is our joy. Yet how often do we end up swamped, not fulfilled, or burnt out? This problem is an epidemic in all types of work, from corporations to massage therapists, retail stores to spiritual teachers.
I deeply understand this dilemma, as I am a recovering overwhelmer. I founded and ran a spiritual center in Berkeley that began as a group of five beings starting a spiritual nonprofit. Soon it had blossomed into numerous apprenticeship programs, a teaching program, ten circles across the country, a staff, payroll, board meetings and outreach programs. It was a joy to make my dream come true, and I soon learned that my foundation was out of alignment with my vision. Over time what started as a spiritual blessing drained my energy, dissolved my enthusiasm, and left our entire staff burnt out and frustrated. This was not due to the Center or the staff or the amount of work, but to my own structure.
What I learned over the last year of the Center’s existence and in the two years since is the core of the Satima principles.
No matter how exciting and service oriented your work may be if you do not clear out old habits they will compromise all that you do. This principle also applies to all of your relationships.
If you do not enjoy your work, clearing out your old belief systems will bring you a sense of ease and fulfillment, no matter what you are doing.
If you are planning to leave your boring corporate job to pursue your dreams you will re-create similar dynamics and issues if you do not also focus on cleaning up your own old agreements.
Satima is not about better tools to make you a faster, more efficient business machine. It is a complete rewiring of your system, a foundational shift. Satima cuts through old programming, fear, and survival strategies and invites you to start making choices from your essence rather than your head. It invites you to use the workplace (and the rest of your life!) to explore and unweave tangled energetics in your being. It asks you to take responsibility for your creation. It asks you to be more intimate with yourself, to live from your depth instead of your crust.
When we live from our crust we follow unconscious habits and patterns, or simply model ourselves after what everyone else is doing. In Sacred Time Management we start with bringing awareness to these behaviors as a means to more conscious choice and depth.
I am slowly and deliciously working on this book; expect to see it in print at the end of the year....
Satima, or SAcred TIme MAnagement, is the art of cultivating more connection to spirit in each moment. When we live our life as art we make room for creativity, flow, connection, synchronicity, and magic. We learn to slow down internally and make choices not from our fear, but from our stillness.
In the Western world we are trained to use our brains and our will to power through whatever needs to be done. As we become a more technological society and the speed of our communication increases, so does our own frantic pace to keep up. So many of us spend our time overwhelmed, feeling behind, frustrated, and never getting to the projects that lie in our heart. We cram meals and spirit in between work and getting the kids to school on time and paying bills. Our jobs become filled with drama or exhaustion or rote behavior. Our spirit begins to diminish from lack of nourishment.
A dear friend and mentor shared a story that embodies the poignancy of our need for change in our relationship to work. She is a professional, sought after teacher with students around the world. She travels constantly doing what she loves. And she confessed to me her own burn out.
“I went into teaching to support my spiritual path, but now I notice that my life is, ‘did the Germans get the flyer?’ ‘What workshop should we do in the Spring?’” She laughed and said “All I wanted to do was meditate, and now I have a farm!” She told me this story:
A monk and his disciple spend their days in silent meditation. One day the master leaves, telling his disciple he will be back sometime in the future. A couple of days go by and the disciple realized he is hungry. He decides to go out and buy a cow so he can have milk. He goes back to meditating. Then he realizes he has to feed the cow. So he buys some seeds and plants hay for the cow. The crop grows, and he needs help harvesting it. So he gets married. He has children. The family needs a home so he builds a house and gets more cows. They also plant a garden, and get some chickens. Years later the master arrives to find a whole farm where there once was only two men sitting in meditation…
We go into our work sometimes because we must, and sometimes because it is our joy. Yet how often do we end up swamped, not fulfilled, or burnt out? This problem is an epidemic in all types of work, from corporations to massage therapists, retail stores to spiritual teachers.
I deeply understand this dilemma, as I am a recovering overwhelmer. I founded and ran a spiritual center in Berkeley that began as a group of five beings starting a spiritual nonprofit. Soon it had blossomed into numerous apprenticeship programs, a teaching program, ten circles across the country, a staff, payroll, board meetings and outreach programs. It was a joy to make my dream come true, and I soon learned that my foundation was out of alignment with my vision. Over time what started as a spiritual blessing drained my energy, dissolved my enthusiasm, and left our entire staff burnt out and frustrated. This was not due to the Center or the staff or the amount of work, but to my own structure.
What I learned over the last year of the Center’s existence and in the two years since is the core of the Satima principles.
No matter how exciting and service oriented your work may be if you do not clear out old habits they will compromise all that you do. This principle also applies to all of your relationships.
If you do not enjoy your work, clearing out your old belief systems will bring you a sense of ease and fulfillment, no matter what you are doing.
If you are planning to leave your boring corporate job to pursue your dreams you will re-create similar dynamics and issues if you do not also focus on cleaning up your own old agreements.
Satima is not about better tools to make you a faster, more efficient business machine. It is a complete rewiring of your system, a foundational shift. Satima cuts through old programming, fear, and survival strategies and invites you to start making choices from your essence rather than your head. It invites you to use the workplace (and the rest of your life!) to explore and unweave tangled energetics in your being. It asks you to take responsibility for your creation. It asks you to be more intimate with yourself, to live from your depth instead of your crust.
When we live from our crust we follow unconscious habits and patterns, or simply model ourselves after what everyone else is doing. In Sacred Time Management we start with bringing awareness to these behaviors as a means to more conscious choice and depth.
I am slowly and deliciously working on this book; expect to see it in print at the end of the year....
posted by Heather Ash Amara | 2:38 AM
1 Comments:
SWEET ANGEL HEATHER ASH,
I AM SO GRATEFUL YOU SHARED THIS WONDERUL INFORMATION WITH EVERYONE. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR ABUNDANT INSIGHT AND CREATIVE WISDOM. THE INFORMATION YOU GIFT THE WORLD IS THE GREAT COSMIC BREATH. I AM A HUMBLE RECIEVER (AMONG MANY), JOYED BY THE INFINITE BLESSINGS FLOWING FROM YOUR CENTER, RADIATING THE PRESENCE OF LIGHT YOU ARE!
I LOVE YOU DEARLY.
NAMASTE HEATHER ASH,
MARLA
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