When you feel time passing quickly and can’t catch up

“How did this time go by so fast?”

This time of year always seems full of transitions. It can be disorienting, half wanting to hold on to how things have been, half feeling the need to move on. It has me contemplating one of my favorite cosmic mysteries: Time. 

I like to work with spiralinear time, the idea of time moving forward and also cycling back around again and again.

In spiralinear time, the seasons, the moon phases, the sunrises and sunsets–all are as significant as the progression of years. On the one hand, we may feel ourselves aging, children growing up, elders losing independence. Everyone moving on to new chapters, never to return to the former ones. Tuning in also to the cycles of life, we might pause in this place and moment, feeling ourselves part of a much larger pattern. Waxing and waning, expanding and contracting, giving care, receiving care. All part of a whole.

In spiralinear time, grief can walk alongside curiosity, anxiety with peace. We are, after all, inheritors of resilience. We would not be here if we weren’t. 

When I work with folks, I always start with slowing down time. We enter a longer exhale, where a minute of quiet might feel like five. It’s the best way I know to move between one thing to the next. If you are going through a transition, I hope you feel the land beneath your feet, the sky with all its glorious movements above you. In the spiral of time, we are in this together.

With love,
Julia Aziz

PS- If you do best when you’re more tuned into the cycles and taking more slow time, you might really love our women’s circle. It has a true cyclical rhythm that continues as we all grow and change 🌖

Integrating Ritual and Sacred Time in Therapy

If you’re a mental health or healthcare professional interested in ritual, ceremony, and/or the integration of a spiritual perspective into psychotherapy work, give a listen to this podcast interview/CEU course. We explore meaningful ways to honor both big and small transitions–without imposing any particular beliefs or practices. With an emphasis on discernment and cultural humility, this conversation is meant to empower and inspire clinicians, opening more creative possibility for supporting the human experience.

New Podcast CE Course Featuring Julia Aziz, LCSW-S, OIM. Rituals for Resilience: Supporting Clients Through Change Using Culturally-Attuned Ceremonies

Available on all the usual podcast platforms on Light Up the Couch.

*Find more support for professionals through individual or group consultation, the women’s group program, individual psychotherapy, and/or personal ceremony.