Everything that exists in your life does so because of two things: something you did, or something you didn't do. Albert Einstein

The first time I met my Future Self was the summer of 1980. I was at a conference as a newly minted social worker, in a glamorous hotel in Los Angeles, having driven down from very rural northern California “Holistic Health and Education” had an A List of speakers, giving me a first taste of being in the presence of famously wide-open believers. Here were teachers who not only opened the Doors of Perception, they’d walked through and had adventures to report back. Three days of Ram Dass, Joseph Chilton Pearce, Ralph Nadar, John Diamond, MD (kinesiology to diagnose and heal), and many more, plus musicians and dancers and speakers who all knocked my socks off. I threw them in the trash so I could dance barefoot to African drumming.

On the first evening, the speaker asked 1500 of us in the grand ballroom to close our eyes. Simple instructions to “Just imagine yourself transported five years into the future, into an environment that would reveal your innermost dreams. Allow the images to surface, imagine looking down your body to see what you are wearing. Then look about, and discover what is there.” I can see it now thirty-six years later: a room with carpet, pillows on the floor, neither desk nor phone. Books. A fireplace in the corner. Tall windows. “What are you doing there?” I knew I was in my own office where I worked with individuals in counseling about… something. In real life? I was blissfully working as a medical social worker at a health center, inside a hot box of a trailer, no carpet, no fireplace. I lived in a 12 x 12 cabin with no electricity. And I was NOT working for myself, and never considered private practice.

Back in LA, a vital question emanated from the speaker: “Ask your Future Self what could stop you from having this come true?” I was given a clear answer, which I will not reveal. But it was BIG and I wasn’t ready to look at it. Still, I threw myself into the possible changes that came from two days of new thinking, African dance, and muscle testing.

Fast forward to August 1985: I’m working with a client in my brand new private practice: a single dad with a small child he adored, and a job he despised. I suggested there might be a life he could enjoy, saying “Let’s try a technique I learned: Close your eyes….” As he transported to future time and place, I looked around my first office as a therapist. It was all there. A fireplace in the corner, brown shag carpet, tall windows, $10 pillows from Macy’s on the floor and no desk or phone in that room. I had addressed the issue that could have stopped me, would have for sure. All done with NO conscious memories from that experience in the ballroom in LA until it sprung up five years later in service of someone else.

How do we move forward, get unstuck, make brave changes?

Neuroscience is slowly catching on to the power of the mind, which the ancients heightened via meditation, yoga, psychic travel and a myriad of disciplines. They started by challenging their fear of death, so change was a lesser deal. They had confidence born of experience that there are powerful forces of creation unleashed by opening a mind to Possibility. The power of ritual and habit ingrained calm, and invited big dreams and adventure. They were seekers and travelers in a time without GPS. And visualizing outcomes was an obvious first step.

Think about this: every human-made thing around you was first generated as a new idea. The pen I held while writing this draft, the ink, the paper, the alphabet, which a long series of someones developed…. I could go on, but nope, because you need the time to think about how you came to be here at this moment reading these words.

Was it a solid genetic predisposition inside you before birth? Or perhaps a series of (un)happy accidents? Chance meetings, invitations put forth that you said yes/no, to? Was there a script laid out for you that you followed or broke from? Perhaps it was bliss or a deep calling that brought you to the life you have now. Or maybe misery and fear that drove you to make drastic changes one night in the middle of winter. My life was built on each of these. If any one these hadn’t happened I’d be someplace else, maybe speaking a different language with a passel of kids. Crazy talk? You think? I clearly don’t.

How can we doubt that the life we truly want would be any less amenable to invitation now, than when we were young? Yet we spend too little time consulting a Future Self, naming what we really want for our bodies, homes, relationships, friendships, work, and …. It can be asked with pen and paper, as well as in deep exploration. When we mistakenly trade a search for desires with a focus on regrets, we entrench deeper into detrimental habits and thoughts we can change with a snap decision. Or a guided dream.

“Nothing changes if nothing changes” is a classic AA koan. It challenges the fears that our beloved ancients also confronted, and had to overcome with more courage, imagination and foresight than required today. Death is the only point that is fixed. Everything else is up for grabs:

* Where you live, what you eat, the books/shows you imbibe

* The people you hang with, emulate, study

* How many pets and vulnerable beings you tend to

* Adventures you plan for, allow to unfold, or kill with a shrug

* Habits and routines that determine health, wealth and how you spend your day

* If you choose to ‘publish’ or keep your creations private

We are talking about nothing less than what we each are willing to try on or discard. This is what makes us fully and completely alive, open-minded, and willing to be reborn in passion each day. Your Future Self is ready to invite you to risk all that is comfortable and known in order to feel that passion.

The poem “Love After Love” by Derek Walcott begins with this stanza…

The time will come
When, with elation,
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror,
And each will smile at the other’s welcome,
And say, sit here, eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

So, close your eyes and imagine your Self just a short time in the future, maybe a year or so. What would your home look like, and what (and who) might you have shed or added? It will make all the difference to who walks in that door.

Be brave. Be vibrant. Know you are made of stardust. Everything else is mutable.

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Futuring