An Experiment With Time
Please replay the scene and re-watch it with just one focus – noticing the speed of the rain. The speed of the rain in the foreground, the background, and the explosion of splashes the drops create as they fall and hit the flat surface of the leaves at great velocity.
Now please replay the scene again and focus your thought on this concept – What if the rain was falling at twice the speed? How does that make you feel? Are you more relaxed or less relaxed? Notice your heart rate and any other physiological changes.
Last time – please replay the scene again and imagine the rain is falling at half the speed. How does that make you feel?….
INSIGHTS TO INSPIRE YOUR DAY
When you sped up the rain in your mind, how did your body respond? Did you feel a little frantic, stressed, excited, overwhelmed, or maybe something else? And how about when you mentally slowed down the rain? Did you get a sense of ease, calm, control, did you imagine the drops exploding in slow motion or even smile at the concept of playing god over the speed of time?
So what was the point of all this?
Glad you asked! Imagine if each of those raindrops were thoughts. If you allow them to “fall” at their natural speed, they will do so. If you consciously try and speed them up, you will likely increase your heart rate, raise your blood pressure, develop a headache and find yourself stressed and overwhelmed. Who would want to do that?!
Consciously slowing down your thoughts on the other hand, that can have amazing benefits. When you imagined slowing down the drops of rain, the scene still ran for 1:10 mins, but there would have been half the number of rain drops in that time – if you were actually able to slow down the rain. And so it is with our thoughts. If we can practice tuning in and becoming conscious of our thoughts, observing them rather than attaching emotion to them, and slowing down the influx of thought volume – we are creating peace and space in our own mind. Space we can fill instead with thoughts of our own choosing. Moments of joy, appreciation, wonder, gratitude and excitement.
As you go about your day, have fun with it – play god with your thoughts! Slow them down, speed them up, throw them out the car window, squash them between your hands like a mozzy in summer – whatever visualisation brings a smile to your face and opens space in your heart to enjoy more of your day.
