Day 12 – Future Self
Write a letter to your future self, telling the future you what you hope for you.
Dearest,
I have such hopes for you and I; hopes that I’ve begun to speak aloud.
Seems I’ve spent so much of my life listening to others’ hopes and dreams, they’ve displaced my own. Reminds me of a time someone said, “If you treated your friends the way you treat yourself, you’d have no friends.” That’s a tough one to admit.
But this is an opportunity to be honest and tell you what I wish for.
I dream of a slower paced life; one that gives me time for more of what I love – writing, travelling, connecting. I imagine you sitting at an outdoor table somewhere warm, writing about your travels and adventures. Writing about people and their stories; writing about your own.
I hope for a new level of health and well-being. I so want you to feel good 20 years from now. I know I’m going to have to work hard to fulfill this intention, but I’ve got good people supporting me and I’m trusting that all will be well. When I close my eyes I can see you dancing.
I wish for a more intimate experience of life; not just in relationships but with places and cultures, with you. The practices I’ve begun will serve you well: meditating, honouring silence, writing. They will allow this intimacy to deepen.
I dream of making a difference in a new way, of waking people up. Perhaps in a way I’ve yet to discover but I instinctively know you’ll revel in.
I dream of looking back and remembering this time with gratitude and appreciation.
Who you are for others is anything is possible. It’s time to be that for your Self.
xoS
“Now is the only time. How we relate to it creates the future. In other words, if we’re going to be more cheerful in the future, it’s because of our aspiration and exertion to be cheerful in the present. What we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now.” – Pema Chödrön
Over to you:
What would you say to your future self?
This exercise might surprise you.
#reverb11 is a prompt driven writing project during the month of December. Its purpose is to inspire reflection and create intention for the coming year.
Right now, if I were to write a letter to my future self, I’d tell her to stop making up shit about what she thinks happened, and just be with what is right now in this very minute. The stuff she makes up is the stuff that causes her the most pain and keeps her from being present with what is.
What if you wrote that letter in the most loving, compassionate way possible? What then would you say to that future you?
Yah, I was not in my most compassionate state last night. Maybe. I’ll give it some thought…thank you Sandi.
Dear One,
Remember that woman we met at the retreat a couple of years
ago? The one who was so comfortable in
her own skin? The one who had quit her
day job to pursue her art full-time? The
one who had wangled some kind of a grant to go live somewhere in South America
and pursue her art further?
Remember she was the one who radiated a deep down,
unshakable serenity? The one we just
knew really loved and appreciated herself but not in an arrogant, icky
way? The one who moved confidently in a
grounded way but with her eyes trained on the sky?
That is what I wish for you, for us.
Remember how we never, ever thought we could be like her? Remember how we believed we were too flawed, too wounded, too something, not enough something else? I don’t believe that any more. Do you? No? Good.
Love,
Me
Oops. Sorry about all the vertical spacing. Don’t know why that happened. 🙁
Oh my God Carol, your letter brought tears to my eyes. I want that future for you as much as I want the future I wrote about. You reached out and touched my heart my friend. xo
Thanks, Sandi. And you were right — the exercise did surprise me. I’m glad I did it.
Dear Self,
Remember that moment that you realized that you alone are responsible for your happiness? Well I hope that you have clung to that with the ferocity you are capable of.
As time has passed, I hope you have been able to let go of guilt and feeling of responsibility that sneak up and whisper in your ear late at night. I hope you have remembered all the letters and notes you have received that told you that “you make a difference, you made me laugh, you made me think.” I hope that you tell yourself these things daily and keep striving to make a difference.
Do you remember that one day when a gift you gave made the difference in someone’s life? A small motion from you and it changed them for good. I hope you have continued to hold onto that feeling. Even something small matters. Anytime is a good time to make a change. Make an impression.
Remember no matter what storm has crashed around you, you have been through bad times before and the sun has always come back out even if hidden behind the clouds. Some days you just have to look for small rays of light behind the edges.
You are loved. You matter.
Imagine if we carried that last line with us as we go about living…
I have tried to write such a letter to myself before and it isn’t as easy as you made it look here. You have a good grasp on what you want for yourself, I have no doubt you will make it a reality.
It’s not that it was easy or even that clear when I began Jason. It was more like beginning lead me there. And to be honest, putting them here on the blog for everyone to see has me scared stiff.
The thing that I do my best to remember is this…I don’t have those things in my life now, so I’ve got nothing to lose by saying I want them. It is terrifying to admit you want things. I get it. And like I tell my clients, do it anyway 😉
I’d tell her to be gentler to herself, to ignore the inner judge, and to simply live the dreams. There’s no need to keep thinking “if only” when little changes could make the dreams that much more tangible.
It’s always the little changes that make the greatest difference. Thanks Meredith!