You are Not Behind

Reclaim Your Value and Your Time

“ A rolex stops functioning

if it’s not being used regularly.

Maybe I am also a finely

crafted instrument that

needs consistency

to function well.”

As I clear my home and re-create it as a sanctuary, I find unexpected treasures.

The divine re-ordering of the materials that surround and reflect me allow me to see with new eyes.

Old, neglected pieces once again become precious and beautiful.

Like the grandfather clock that has been sitting in the basement, unused for a decade.

The only Korean story I remember hearing as a child was one in which a brother and sister escape from a tiger by hiding in some kind of cabinet. I always pictured it like this grandfather clock.

As a child, I loved the clock- pulling the chains, hearing the bells, seeing the picture on the top move from sun to moon to sun again.

Unfortunately, it was taken apart during a move and no longer worked when it was put back together. No one cared about it enough to repair it. So ever since, it’s sat collecting dust.

Dysfunctional after a move that rearranges one’s insides.

The way I felt when my family moved to a place I was told I didn’t belong.

In some ways, I’ve stayed frozen in time- as that outcast 7-year-old.

Still anticipating rejection, retreating into isolation, and keeping walls up, even when I’m being showered with love.

I don’t think I’ve ever functioned quite the same after that move.

Though I’ve done a lot of ‘healing work’ since then, I did not actually know how to repair myself.

— — — — — — — — — - Because it didn’t begin with me.

It started when my parents immigrated to the US and centered their lives around survival and making money.

And before that, when my grandparents relocated to an isolated valley to escape the war.

My grandmother’s depression began when she got married and left her hometown to be in a “safe” place.

Before that my grandmother’s mother abandoned her as a baby to live a life as an independent woman in a foreign country.

(Later, she tried to reconnect with her daughter, but it was too late- as a teenager, my grandmother wasn’t interested and never developed a relationship with her mother).

During a time when female babies were still being killed, because it was just too hard to raise a girl in a poor society that didn’t value them.

Like those before me, I tried to repair myself in 2 ways:

1. By fixing others. If I could just make everyone else better, then they would see how important I was, how much they needed me and I’d never have to face the pain of rejection again.

But, of course, this is exhausting, unsustainable. and not ultimately loving. For my over-responsibility for others would eventually lead to overwhelm, which would express as anger, impatience and frustration.

Meanwhile, because I’m so focused on others’ needs, I’m not taking full responsibility for my own.

I wonder why my life “isn’t working” and then seek outside of myself to try to fix the issue. Which leads to the second way I tried to repair myself…

By improving myself to fit an external ideal. If I could just make enough money, have the right relationship, be successful enough, then I would be lovable.

I can’t relax or enjoy the things I really want to do, until my work and value is validated in socially acceptable ways- like money and status.

“I cannot play until I work.”

“I cannot receive until I earn.”

This runs so deep that even now, when I have the luxury to do whatever I want with most of my time- I still feel like I don’t have enough time for what’s most important.

Like creating beautiful, nourishing meals, spending quality time with my parents, or creating art regularly.

I would often see these things as interruptions to my relentless, all important quest for self-improvement.

“I have to hurry up and fix myself so I have some time left over to actually enjoy life once I’m done.”

So, I eat quick meals and snacks, always feel rushed when I talk with my parents and constantly feel behind on my art projects.

I tell myself, “after I have my work figured out,” “after I’m more established,” ”after I’m in a solid relationship, when I feel more settled,” then….I can relax and make time for these “extra” things.

What if I’ve had it totally backwards?

What if the simple things that I judge as less important are actually the foundation from which all other potentials develop?

I had resisted committing to certain mundane daily routines because I didn’t want to feel that my creativity and wildness were being tamed. But what if surrendering to this consistency was actually an honoring of my nature?

Like the moon and the sea- constantly new and changing, yet with a predictable rhythm to their cycles.

What if paying more attention to time, and being more deliberate about how I choose to spend it, actually gave me the experience of timelessness that I long for (rather than made me feel more enslaved)?

I felt excited to have the grandfather clock working again. Taking time to wind it regularly felt nourishing, rather than a chore.

I told my father I wanted to fix the clock and he told me about a friend whose Rolex stopped working because he didn’t use it regularly.

He saved it for special occasions. Apparently, there’s oil inside the watch that hardens if not moved regularly.

In the past, his friend would shake the watch, and it would start working again. But shaking it like that damaged some of the tiny, delicate gears inside. And now it wasn’t working at all.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — -

How many times have I hurt myself in this way?

Not giving my body any attention for awhile, and then shaking it- pushing myself- when I need it to perform.

What voice told me that my body was less important than my mind?

Who decided what makes an activity- or a person- worthy or not?

Where did I get the idea that what I choose must be validated by external means?

These ideas didn’t begin with me. But they are ending now.

I will no longer be a slave to any foreign voices- that tell me what is or is not worthy of my time.

I own the time in my life.

Yesterday, I asked Saturn- Lord of Time and Death- to help me release over-responsibility for others (a pattern rooted in “not enough-ness” that doesn’t belong to me).

Astrologically, Saturn is often viewed as a negative force. The planet often presents roadblocks and restrictions. But, through these challenges, he helps you to grow something within that goes beyond the fleeting satisfaction of more immediate gratification.

“Saturn’s gifts take time to bear fruit, but when they ripen, they become permanently established in the soul (Astrologer Merlin).”

Saturn mirrors the Roman Kronos- like Chronos (which signifies ‘regular time’ in Greek). And I was reminded of a poem about timelessness…

“You are not a slave to time

You are its creator,

Like Ouranus- the Great Liberator.

He fathered Time,

then was castrated by his son for his sins.

For Ouranus had tried to kill his own offspring-

the ones he’d judged as ugly,

While Mother Gaia,

saw all her creations as beauty.

As if you could kill one,

without damaging the entire human family…

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity…”

I see how I’ve judged some of my creations as “ugly.”

That I was conditioned to value some parts of myself, some things I produced and experienced, but not others.

Sort of like Racism. Capitalism. Colonialism.

Man-made ideas that have made me forget my nature and my wholeness.

I will no longer allow this violence to make a home inside of me.

I will not let foreign noise that tells me “I am not enough” dictate how I spend my time or allow me to feel behind.

I will give myself the constant attention and care I need to grow, over time. like a pearl from a speck of sand.

I will not judge this as trivial or insignificant or slow.

Like Aphrodite rising from the remains of unloving patriarchy *

may the history of violence

which lives inside my body

give rise to a new world of timeless love and beauty.

*Aphrodite was born of the sea and Ouranus’ castrated genitals