Do you worry about the future?
‘I woke up this morning and it’s grey and miserable, and yet I just feel so happy. No real reason to be other than just an overwhelming sense of well-being. Working with you has changed so much in me. Thank you for helping me get here.’
This was a message I received from a client. This was someone who was worried about their future. They were worried that they lacked a sense of direction in their life. Worried that they were wasting their life. They felt like they should have a plan, be working towards something, but they didn’t know what that something was.
I can relate to this and maybe you can too.
We are told that ‘if you don’t know the destination then how can you get there..’
Makes sense right? And for those that have a clear vision of their future then this would apply.
But what if you don’t have a vision? What if you don’t have a plan? What if you don’t know what you want in 5, 10, 20 years time?
I want you to know that is perfectly ok. In fact it’s more than ok. Chill the f***k out!
There are a million different ways to approach the madness that is life. Infinite possibilities of how to make the most of this precious time we have here.
And spending energy worrying about a future that we can’t see into, a future that is so uncertain and not guaranteed anyway is absurd.
So, what can we do instead?
Grounding into who we are now. In the present.
Worry, fear and doubt comes from a place of disconnection within us. If we think that we ‘should’ be thinking, feeling, behaving a certain way and our reality doesn’t match that there’s conflict within us (literally in our nervous system). We separate from our true selves. Which is why we say ‘but I don’t even know what makes me happy anymore’.
When we have disconnected from ourselves because we are focused on what society tells us we should know about ourselves and our future, our nervous system is shutdown and so it’s pretty impossible to feel hopeful and create any future plans from this place. Knowing what matters to us, knowing what makes us angry, sad, excited, curious by paying attention to the signals from our body is so important. Which is why I teach people how to regulate their nervous system.
Taking time to get to know ourselves, listening to our bodies, spending time in places where we feel at ease, trying new things, being curious about when we feel good and when we don’t is a great place to start getting to know who we are right now.
Maybe the future is now…..
What if I said to you ‘Screw the vision, the plan, the future!’
How does that feel?
Scary?
Or did your shoulders drop with a deep exhale?
The future is already here.
You’re here. Now. You can’t be anywhere else.
And every second that is ticking by, you are ticking by with it.
So, what if we were living in line with what matters to us each and every day, right now. No grand plans, just deeply connected to who we are and how we want to be in the world.
Asking ourselves…
Have I been myself as much as possible today?
What have I enjoyed today?
In what ways (big/small) did I contribute today?
This is vision. Right here. Right now.
It’s ambitious. Radical even.
But can be a powerful antidote to worrying about the future.
This is what my client and I worked on. Helping them reconnect back to who they really are and what makes them feel alive. It was challenging, and meant letting go of the elusive future, but as you can read from their words at the start, brought so much fulfilment and satisfaction into their days.
And it’s from this place of connection to ourselves in the present that we can create plans, visions and dreams (if we choose to). Visions that are ours and not what society tells us they should be.
So if this has resonated with you today, then let’s chat and maybe we can work together.