The Grief of Lost Time: the Internet, Aging, and the End of Another Calendar Year
I recently heard this phrase “the grief of lost time” and it hasn’t left my mind. I heard it used in the context of acknowledging the time lost in this current age of technology, where we lose hours of our lives to scrolling mindlessly, endlessly cued up shows to stream, and online shopping. We are constantly being set up for this behavior, constantly targeted to spend more time and money engaging in these activities. But I think this idea applies to other areas of our lives too, where we might feel a loss of time as it passes more quickly than we’d like.
The Internet: Are we really aware of the cost, of what’s lost?
Have we reckoned with all the time lost? What happens inside you when you see your weekly screen time report? My guess is most of us haven’t bothered to tune in long enough to notice. Check-in with my regret, sadness, embarrassment, or numbness about how I interact with technology? Not particularly pleasant, is it? But I wonder what could or would change if you checked in with yourself long enough to notice how you felt about your behavior. Is it in line with your values? Is it working for you? Is it costing you something? The reality is, this is not going to get easier. We are only going to have more and more opportunities and targeted ways of engaging in online content.
The Power of Presence and How to Get It
A question I often ask my clients, informed by my study of somatics and the nervous system, is: How much of you is here right now? 5%? 75%? Tell me about the part of you that feels here right now. Then tell me about the part of you that’s less here. How do you know? There isn’t a right or wrong answer. The point is to turn on our embodied awareness. To flesh out what it feels like in the body when we are here now. And to allow for whatever parts are less present to also be known. Almost always, at the end of a session, if I ask the question again, my clients will report feeling more present.
And I would venture that part of the sense of lost time is not being as present as we might want to be. Or not feeling the way we’d like to feel. When is the last time you felt the most like you wanted to feel? As a somatic psychotherapist, I want to hear about that moment. I want to help your nervous system feel what it’s like to feel that way and to really connect the dots of those experiences with as much of a present and grounded mind-body system as we can.
Aging: The grief of getting older
This one is a bit of an inevitability. If we’re lucky. It’s very lucky to grow old. But for many of us, growing older can bring up a lot of feelings. Feelings about where we are in our career and what we wish we’d done sooner or spent less time on. Feelings about how old our parents or kids are. Feelings about where we are in our age not matching up with where we thought we’d be at this age. This is such a common train of thought.
I work with many people in my practice who are reckoning with the grief of growing older and the losses that can come with not having what they thought they’d have––a partner, kids, a house, parents, a stable job––or feeling like they are behind. This can be a painful feeling to acknowledge and feel. It’s a hard one to bear alone, and I’m grateful to be with people as they are navigating this kind of loss of time. This often begins with teasing out the feeling––what is the emotion? What does it feel like in the body? Does it come with an image or sensory quality? Does it need any support from me? From you? What happens if you imagine that support? The hope is we can validate and make space for the feeling of grief, while also finding support that might bring comfort, companionship, or ease the feeling in a way that makes it more tolerable.
The End of Another Calendar Year: It’s always a blitz
Time feels scarce, doesn’t it? There never seems to be enough of it. I never seem to get done everything I aim to in a day. I’m always saying things like, “How is it November already?” or “Where did this fall go?” This last quarter of the year often feels like a blink. Things really start to pick up speed as we approach the holidays. The approaching end of the calendar year can feel exciting, with holidays, gatherings, and a fresh start in January. But it can also bring a sense of loss, of things missed out on, of goals unaccomplished, or unexpected struggles.
This past summer I broke my arm and it felt like my days entered a time warp. The seven weeks I spent in a cast seemed forever-long. And my days managing without my dominant hand were really tough. My injury slowed me down, but it simultaneously put a wrench in many of the things that would normally help me feel connected to the seasons, the passage of time, and my intentions or goals for the summer. It has meant I’m looking down the pike at the end of the calendar year and really feeling the loss of those weeks I spent incapacitated and grieving what I didn’t get to do. At the same time, things like injuries and unexpected interruptions can invite (or force?) us to slow down. Sometimes we need that. As I’m allowing myself to feel the sadness of lost time this year, I am also invited to be more present, to slow down, notice what’s happening inside, be right here, right now.
Feel the Feeling in order to Move Forward
How do we allow ourselves to feel the loss of time? Of how we thought things would go? There’s room for the disappointment of that. And I think we have to let go of any fantasies, high expectations, anxieties, or failures. Does doing so inform any way we wish to live differently moving forward? Does it invite us to live more presently, more engaged, more mindfully? I think it might. And it might also invite us to make room for the days or seasons when time or expectations are lost, things happen, and we might have to make room for the unexpected, for grief where we didn’t expect to feel it. If you find yourself resonating with the experience of the grief of lost time, I hope you’ll consider reaching out to explore how somatic therapy can help.