Living up to my Future Self

7 August 22

Following My Future Self Through the Present

Every meditation and visualization exercise circulating around seeing, speaking with, or stepping into the life of my future self, first off, always makes me cry.  The tears are happy and gratitude adjacent, I’ll call them.  Maybe relief is a closer descriptor.  Anyway, when I encounter her in these exercises, she is always what I’ll call flowy.  She has a stunning grace, poise, and dignity about her that is breathtaking.  She looks like me physically, of course, but she bears no resemblance to the awkward, cringy, apologizing for taking up space version of myself I currently feel.  She exudes calm, steady confidence and a wise kind of knowing.  She’s always wearing a peaceful, kind smile.  She always embraces everyone around her readily and warmly.  She wears well-tailored, tasteful clothing, usually a casual but quietly elegant flowy white pants suit or dress.  And, well, she just flows.  She is nothing like my current me but everything I want to be.  

So how do I get there?

Today I did an exercise to receive messages from my spirit guides, and of course my question at the forefront right now, What in the hell am I doing?  I am lost and terrified all the time.  I am floundering through things I thought I wanted to do, and now that I am here, I just cringe in a hole and refuse to explore.  I feel like I followed my intuition to get here, but where the hell is here, and where the hell is it taking me?

And the answer?  Never truly a straightforward answer in these kinds of exercises, naturally.  But a theme kind of solidified out of the mist.  Patiently observe.  You are here to watch.  Observe those around you.  Observe yourself.  Put down the fear; you don’t need it, and it is only serving to cloud and obscure what you need to see.  Sit without fear and without judgment, sit with no preconceived notions or assumptions, simply exist and watch.

It makes a weird kind of sense.  Or maybe not so weird.  If I spend this time paying attention to the world around me instead of awkwardly cringing my way through it, what insights might come to me?  I can see how a graceful kind of peace might grow from this.  I trust my guides that this enviable version of me exists somewhere in the future, especially when the visions and messages are so consistent.  I guess that leaves it up to me to drive us there.  I’m doing my very best.  I’m still largely terrified and lost.  

But today I am sitting serenely at a corner coffee shop in nowhere, France, too far outside of Paris to actually see or visit any of the sites or attractions.  My view is an unimpressive city block like you’d see in the middle of any city anywhere.  Traffic flowing, people walking, big buildings, construction, graffiti.  It’s very obviously a local hangout, and people around me are cheerfully chatting with familiar comradery.  I do not need to understand the spoken language to understand the body language.  These are friends and neighbors enjoying a midday coffee together before they resume whatever it is the rest of their day entails.  And I am sitting unobtrusively taking up a seat, a section of table, time and space.  No one minds.  For one moment, just this moment, I am taking up space without cringing or apologizing.  And I am appreciating the world existing around me in its own rhythm and pace.