Lately everyone seems to be afraid about being late. 

“I’m sorry I am late.”

‘I just want to let you know that I will be a few minutes late.”

“You are early today; you usually start a bit late.”

“There was so much traffic today. It made me late.”

“I wanted to respect you by not being late.”

I find myself a bit rattled by the constant language around lateness and it has brought me back to pondering my relationship to time. After reading my last blog about time, a colleague of mine let me know that she did not think I was finished with this exploration, and as it turns out, she was correct. 

In my personal life, when I am the student, the employee, the patient etc… I am the person who hates to be late, who bristles with fear if she is stuck in traffic on the way to an appointment and then arrives 20 minutes early to make sure she is not late. I am painfully aware that we live and work and learn in systems that are not inherently safe, and, therefore, we can not assume that one’s humanness will be understood, empathized with, or accommodated. Therefore, to circumvent the possible judgment or critical response, I am on time. 

I also am the person that wants to show my doctor, my therapist, my trainer, my friends, my family that I respect them and their time – therefore I am not late.

When I am a therapist, my whole perspective shifts. I move into what I like to call nonlinear time. In this concept of time, productivity, industry, and hierarchy are no longer the focus.

Time is not the expression of respect. The focus of nonlinear time is rather exploration, collaboration, and presence. In the world of linear time someone may be late for a session, but after they arrive and the concept shifts, what was once late is now the perfect time, the time that they were able to arrive. Without the pressure of moving in linear time the brain is often able to slow down, emotions are often able to be attuned to, and body sensations are more easily recognized. When these shifts happen, people are more able to connect to the parts of themselves that are desperately trying to hang on and not become extinguished by the ways they had to survive. These small embers of self are separate from toxic messages they have internalized about themselves from their parents or community, or from the false narratives that have been repeated for generations. These parts of self are waiting for a moment that feels secure to them. These moments will sometimes only show up when there is surety that there will be a lack of criticism, assumed narrative, and punitive action. Nonlinear time leaves space and breath for these moments. 

As a session draws to a close, I, as well as my clients, am aware that we are moving away from this time together and reentering linear time. It is often hard for me to end a session, as the time we have created together is meaningful to both of us. 

I, alongside my clients, am working to bring this nonlinear sense of time into non-therapeutic moments. As we try to be intentional about the dance in and out of linear time, we can remember the words of Abraham Joseph Heschel: “There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord.”