Messages from Future you…
One of the things I do with clients, should the situation call for it, is a visualisation, introduced to me by a fellow coach who was also a client, designed by the CTI coaching group and included in Tara Mohr's Playing Big book and as an audio. It is called the Inner Mentor Visualisation. I highly recommend it.
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I have developed my own versions of these now that I use on retreat and on SFC coaching taster days. It's a whole system to traverse the Science aka Consensus Reality, Psychology aka the Dreaming and Spirit aka the Essence of anyone's reality (we all have biases for and against these levels of reality - I love a good dream and can hang out there for years)
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When I did this visualisation and visited myself in 20 years time, and asked for wisdom from that version of me, I noticed that I always had a cup of tea. A green coloured tea (I'm not fond of green tea). I wondered, why wasn't it a glass of crisp, cool wine? I tried to dream up a glass of wine, sitting down with present me and pouring her a glass of wine. But I never could.
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I could never ever conjure this image up - it was always a cup of hot green-coloured tea. It might even BE green tea yet I prefer Peppermint tea. But it doesn't smell of mint in the dream.
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So here's the 'Let it be HUGE' moment
Although, at the time of initial visualisation, I was enjoying wine and fine wines at that, future me ALREADY KNEW somehow that I would not be drinking. And never offered present-me, even drinking present-me a glass of cool Pinot Grigio or a crisp Rose. Not even a chilled Veuve, a champagne I was very partial to. It wasn't even in the imagined fridge.
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I was thinking about this recently and thinking how wise certain unreachable parts of us are. A good visualisation, if engaged in enthusiastically, gets beyond the conscious thinking mind and into something else.
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Future me knew not to offer wine.
On one occasion, I did the visualisation while sitting in the 1st Class Green Car on the way to a friend's house.
During the visualisation future you is given the opportunity to stop you, before you leave and return to the present. She caught my arm and firmly said to me,
"Sarah, you have got to manage yourself"
She looked me square in the eye and said that once.
It was so simple and straightforward and consensus reality focussed it shook me out of an era of my life that was coming to a close.
No nonsense.
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As I recall this - see this from 3 perspectives:
1 - my (then) upcoming change - and manage myself I did. In search of HRT it was discovered that things weren't as they should be and as my condition worsened I DID manage myself and advocated for surgery. One year ago - I feel bloody brilliant now.
2 - stopped drinking; the hardest and greatest gift I have ever given myself. Bar none. I won't harp on about it here as it is confronting for many people and I don't want to hurt you, but if you want to know more - I talk about it on my podcast so give it a listen, and I'm so happy to answer questions. It took two years of difficulty but I feel so well now - in a way I could never have previously imagined.
3 - Working with my amazing, wild and unruly mind. Like it or not, if I want to create life I want to have, and I truly have done that over and over again, but this epoch, I need to work with and manage my neurodivergence. See how I'm working WITH it. I do this for clients too - depending on where people are on either the diverse or divergent scale of mind activity, I work with that. I'm doing it for myself too. Just today - I have an important bit of paperwork to do - so I'm leaving it until last because if I get derailed in the process, it may derail my day and rob all my doing energy. If you are rolling your eyes - please imagine me with a wry smile and half closed eyes, so amused, and a skilled coach. Willing to work with people's specific needs in the Consensus Reality.
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Instead I have boosted through a million quick wins, written this short essay, cross-checked my calendar and will do that paperwork after getting the whites out of the washing machine and hanging it! You see EAT THE FROG 🐸 does not work for everyone. NOT me! So I'm working with myself and my energy and my divergence and managing myself - jumping from activity to activity and between them at the same time (this was going to be about 3 sentences). The frog comes next. After a flurry of quick wins, planning a coaching taster, booking rooms for events, writing an essay, putting some washing on, a run of quick email and breakfast and lunch!
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But the real reason for this is to reflect on the power of visualisation and dreaming things up. And how something that my future self new in the past has come to be in the present - but first I had to
1 Engage in the activity fully
2 Notice what was happening (only tea...?)
3 Take action on the advice given and then reflect - ooh that's interesting. It can mean nothing.
But I prefer to let it be huge and shall be conferring with my future self later today when I run out of doing steam!
Happy New Year SFC ecosystem!
Taking notes from future me?
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