Time Lines

Subjectively, we experience time as distance.

Eliciting a time line.

• Imagine the circle of a clock face. Imagine the movement of the hands around it each day. Now imagine taking that clock face with the numbers on it and unrolling it out like a ball of wool stretching into the distance making a line. Now imagine walking that line. This is one way of considering how we move through time.
• If you had a time line, where would it be.
• If you had to point in the direction of the past, where would you point?
• Where is the future?
• Now connect the two places. This is your time line.

In Time and Through Time

An in time line passes through your body. People with an in time line are associated to the "now". Often, the past will be behind them and the future will be in front of them.

A through time line is outside your body. It often has past on one side of the body and the future on the other side of the body.

An in time or through time line are choices, although many people tend to use one predominantly.

Walking The Time Line

Where is your time line? Point towards the past. Now point towards the future. Imagine a line connecting the two.

Imagine that line on the floor. Orient yourself so you are on that line facing towards the future. What does the future look like? How far does it seem to extend?

Look back along your time line towards the past. What does it look like? How far does it seem to extend?

Step off the time line and face it square on. Now you are through time in a meta position to your time line. What do you think about your time line? What can you learn from it?

Step back onto your time line. Walk back into the past, noticing powerful resources memories as you go. Stop when you feel you have gone far enough. Now walk forward, bringing those powerful experiences and resources with you into the present like a presence from the past. How does that feel?

Think of a future outcome that you want. Step into the future at the point when you want to have it. Look back from that future point to the "now" and imagine the steps and stages that you would have to have gone through in order to get from "then" (now) to "now" (the future). Come back to the present with that knowledge of how to achieve your outcome.