It’s time to build a relationship with your Future Self.
They say when the student is ready, the teacher will appear, but seriously, sometimes, we don’t have time to haggle with intermediaries who refuse to email us back and aren’t interested in being our Obi-Wan. Sometimes we need to go straight to the Source: The Future Self.
What you’ll need:
- A car or safe walking path
- A shower or body of water
- A notebook (paper or digital)
The Best Version of You?
Those in the self-help community love our emotional bumper stickers. Live your best life. You do you. Be the change. Great tag-lines but who is supposed to accomplish these actions? Is it the you who dreads getting out of bed? The you who is angry and desperate to vent? The you who is working hard to stay positive, delete negative self-talk, and get to the place where confidence is the norm?
It’s likely the you who levitates with Zen-like power is the Future You. We’ll assume it’s the best version of you. What do they look like? Where did they get such confidence? Is it possible to be them all the time? Can you have access to Future You’s knowledge now?
Give it a try. In your notebook, jot down a description of your Future Self. Provide all the sensory details: what you look like, where you live, your ideal mode of transportation, favorite hobbies (now that you have time to do them), what dreams you’ve accomplished (specifically those you’ve overcome in the present), and who gets to share your good fortune. Even go so far as to address the failures that have paved the way to your success.
If you find this strange or incomprehensible, write yourself as a fictional character. Bonus points if you put them in a futuristic, fantasy, or Sci-Fi setting. They will have the traits, strengths, and flaws as your Future Self, and you won’t be as emotionally attached to their struggles and therefore blinded by the anticipation of fear.
For reference, think of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Harry and Hermione go on a time traveling expedition to save Harry’s uncle, Sirius Black. Harry produces a protective charm to ward away evil spirits sucking at their “past” selves. He explains this strange ability to Hermione as, “I knew I could do it all this time…Because I’d already done it.”
Time Is Flexible
According to quantum physics, time is not a straight line. There’s no such thing as the past or the future. This moment is all there is, all that ever will be, at least in this dimension. Which doesn’t account for why time flies with fun, crawls with boredom, repeats with déjà vu, or fleas with FOMO.
There is objective time, but also subjective time, the kind you wear on the inside of your wrist, next to where the pulse lies. And this personal time, which is the true time, is measured in your relationship to memory.
— Julian Barnes, “The Sense of an Ending”
Time, the suggested fourth-dimension, might be the key to multiverses and space travel, but it remains a dictator unless we can see it as flexible. Suppose you had absolute proof there are dimensions surpassing how we experience time. That means everything you’ve done and are going to do exists in an infinite loop with an infinite variety of choices. The mere act of entertaining this concept is enough to put the rational brain on pause, and that’s what we want to do. Suspend disbelief. Short-circuit judgment. Sidestep logic.
While the computer brain is busy stretching into thought nebulas, the emotional brain reaches downward, sinking like roots in a riverbed for stability. This is where instinct and intuition live, fed by an undercurrent of sensory information and, for the time being, access to supernatural wisdom.
If time is flexible, can you become a time traveler?
Accessing the Divine
The awareness of the conscious and subconscious mind might be the only significant thing separating us from other species. Even this assumption is shaky since we have no way of asking other species if they are aware of themselves, outside providing them a mirror strapped to the bars of a cage. Some of them certainly act aware. Dolphins, dogs, and whales could very well be closer to the divine than us tormented humans, am I right?
What do those critters have in common? In their natural element, they have freedom. They play, go to war, and know how to relax. They create tribes and offspring. Confined in human trappings, they develop neuroses likes humans, e.g., anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorders. They act aggressive. They stop having babies. They pace and hurt themselves and suffer insomnia.
It seems rather obvious movement into and out of energy fields has a direct impact on our state of being. This might explain why great ideas happen in the shower, why we feel a sense of well-being standing barefoot in the grass, and how some problems need a good long walk to work themselves out.
When we walk, swim, or bathe, we’re displacing negative charge, (see also: Earthing). When feet are firmly grounded in soil (not concrete, not wearing rubber-soles shoes), there is a molecular exchange. Same happens when we’re in a body of water. Climbing on ancient rocks and floating in a salty sea is being plugged into a vast conduit of energy and information. No wonder we feel alive.
Where is your favorite place to reset, reconnect, and re-energize?
What Do You Really Need to Know?
Now that we’ve primed the imagination, what do you want to ask your Future Self? Get your notebook. Make a list of questions. Don’t overthink them. Mine usually have to do with: What am I pretending not to know? Which project should I be focusing on? What do I need to let go of?
Leave the list alone and go for a walk, take a shower, or find a place to swim. It’s best if the landscape is as natural as possible, but if this isn’t accessible, don’t sweat it. A little transference goes a long way.
While you’re engaged in your activity, let your mind go blank. Ah, blessed space…
When you being to feel tired, now is the time to talk to the Future Self.
This can feel like talking to God or a passed relative, but since it’s truly YOU commentating and listening, you can be as emotional as you want. Curse, get pissed, throw a fit. Indulge in a mini pity party. Cry.
Don’t be surprised if your Future Self presents in the perfect manner of Nurturer or Drill Sergeant and everything in-between. After all, they know exactly what buttons to push, when to stroke and when to strike. They might say, they’ve been waiting to tell you what you need to hear for quite some time.
If you’re holding on to denial, doubting the responses, or labeling the Future Self as a figment of your imagination incapable of giving real advice, check in with your body. Every time you ask a question and the answer is delivered, how do you feel? If your body relaxes in any way, that’s a confirmation. If you hesitate, strain to eagerly or demand an answer, be open to the concept, “No” might be forthcoming.
Don’t be surprised if they stand you up. Whether real, spiritual, or imagined, it’s no fun consulting with someone who doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. Silence is also an answer. Your Future Self isn’t being a prick; they/you know there are things you’re not ready to hear, answers that could cripple you so completely, it would send you into a regression. Your Future Self doesn’t want this. They want to be known as much as your Present Self wants to be known.
Keep the Conversation Open
Once you establish contact, don’t waste the connection. Set up a meeting every day, several times a day, whatever it takes to get comfortable listening to your voice deliver the answers you want to hear. Walk, lie in the grass, stare into a candle, take a bubble bath.
Ask about all of it. Leave no rock unturned, no definition too vague. Ask how they feel about the Universe, God, true love, conspiracy theories, the best place to go on vacation. Ask why it takes as long as it does to become ourselves and why, even after we are known, we get lost again. Ask them what the meaning of your life is.
Shakespeare did us a grand service by commanding “To thine own self be true.” How can we possibly keep to this discipline if we don’t carry an open conversation with the one person who will be with us as long as this corporeal being is alive?
What would your Future Self do or say if they were with you right now?
My Future Self said, “God, I hate that chair.”
That’s it. Nothing more needed, but I’m smiling because yes, I hate this chair. I’m always curious about her—particularly her hair. She always has wavy hair, and I loathe doing my hair. Do I finally figure out how to style my hair in the future or she just imagines herself done-up this way for my benefit? How does that even work? Questions for our next bath time discussion.
Alas, I don’t think talking to one’s Future Self is a replacement for professional expertise. Even a hack dentist doesn’t give himself a root canal. He will seek out the knowledge of his peers, get multiple opinions, and pick a professional to cut open his mouth.
So, if you’re someone who doesn’t see themselves having a future, it might be time to get a coach or consult with a therapist. Outside feedback—when delivered in a neutral, unbiased way—is the business of thriving adults. And who knows? Talking to someone about your future, you might meet your Future Self. Your Future Self might know my Future Self, and they’re thriving together…
… or at least talking about quantum physics.
