Episode 153 - Using the Past and the Future to Solve Problems in the Present
It’s so easy to feel stuck and overwhelmed when we haven’t figured something out yet. But what if you looked for the evidence in your life that you can solve the problem? In this episode, I share how I’m borrowing belief from my past self to help me make a decision I’m wrestling with now. Instead of demanding certainty or shaming myself for not knowing the answer, I’m using real proof from my own history to help me relax while I take the time to figure it out. Here’s what I cover:
How leaving the church one step at a time taught me how to untangle my beliefs
Why your brain relaxes when you offer it real evidence from your past
How to copy and paste a past growth process onto the problem you’re facing today
The self-judgment that creeps in when you think you should have it figured out by now
A powerful visualization to help you imagine the future version of you who already solved the problem
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Transcript
00:59
Short and sweet episode coming your way today that is really based on some work that I'm doing and a realization that I had that was really helpful. And I hope there's some value for you as well.
01:12
I am currently working on resolving how I feel about charging money for my coaching services. And I have struggled with this for years, years and years and years. I've charged more. I've charged less.
01:28
I've worried a lot about what other people think of what I charge. I have adjusted it. I've given it away. I've been all over the place. And a lot of that is because women are taught that we should be helpers.
01:43
We should be givers. We should be willing to help other people and solve their problems for free. That our time is not really our own, that it's the best and highest use of it is to help other people.
01:59
And so when you are in the type of profession that I am, where you are helping and wanting to help other people, for me, there's been some challenges. And there's a part of me that really believes that it is wrong to charge money when you could do it for free, right?
02:20
It's wrong to charge money for something that comes easily to you. It's wrong to charge money to help other people resolve their problems. I should be willing to just do it for free. And that it's wrong to profit in some ways off of other people's suffering.
02:40
And you can kind of hear that that part has kind of a dramatic take on what I do, because it's not all suffering. Yes, people pleasing causes a lot of problems and there is some suffering. Anyway, as I have tried to better understand what all the different parts of me have been programmed to believe, it has felt for a long time like this particular issue is just, I'm just kind of stuck in it.
03:11
I could charge this, but then that's too much. I could charge this, but then it's too little. I could do this or do that or do this. And it all just kind of feels like I am trying to land on the right number that will keep other people happy and that will make me happy as well.
03:29
And it's all over the place. That number doesn't exist. So you can see how the programming that I have grown up with really is kind of making me look outside of myself. What's the right answer? What does this person say I should charge?
03:46
What does this person, what will this person think? And it's kind of just tied me up in knots over the years. And so I just drop it. I've just kind of dropped it and, you know, kind of limped along, not really feeling like I've made a powerful decision or I've made a decision that I am very happy with that really kind of resonates with my values.
04:11
So I was talking about this with my coach last week. And in just the opportunity to talk through this with her, I realized I have had problems in the past that I thought were this kind of intractable, this stuck.
04:35
And I was able to work through them. And that gave me such relief and hope. And so what I wanted to talk a little bit about is how I am now borrowing the process and kind of borrowing some belief from what I did before to help myself feel confident in this time where I don't have this pricing issue solved yet, but I'm using my past success with changing something.
05:13
And I'm going to get into what it was in just a second. My past success in changing what I thought was just this intractable belief and how I was able to finally kind of loosen my grip on that and have a different experience.
05:28
I'm using that, the memory of that to inform what I do next. So what was the belief that I shifted? And why did it feel so immovable? When I was realizing just how out of alignment continuing to go to church was for me.
05:51
When I really looked, I'd looked at, you know, what the Mormon church taught about things that were really sensitive and tender to me, and I didn't agree. I wanted to leave. I wanted to stop going, but I didn't feel like I would ever fully be able to leave.
06:12
I felt like a part of me would always be wondering, should I go back? Was it the wrong decision? Am I messing up my kids? Am I missing something? Is there, you know, a part of something that I'm not seeing that if I knew, I would want to go back to church.
06:33
And so I kind of imagined myself leaving. And my fear was I would never fully be able to leave, that I would always feel kind of a lack of confidence about my decision, that I might always kind of crumple or collapse in the face of questions from people that I knew and loved who were still practicing Mormons.
06:57
And I felt really kind of immobilized by that fear for a while. Like I'm not ever fully going to be either in the church or out, just kind of in this limbo space between those two states. And it took up a lot of my time.
07:14
It took up a lot of my brain space. And I think if I look back, the parts of me that were active were just really trying to protect me from making a decision where I might be open to the criticism and judgment of others, or where there might be some very normal things to regret or to feel sadness about the loss of.
07:43
There are so many positive things about having a religious community, and Mormonism does a few things really, really well. There's a lot of opportunity for social connection and service and a lot of opportunity to meet other people who are like-minded.
08:02
And I thought about the loss of those things and thought, gosh, will I ever get over that? Will I ever just not grieve that anymore? And so that limbo between wanting to leave, but not feeling like I was able to, it feels a lot like the stuckness that I'm feeling right now.
08:21
So when I looked back and asked myself, okay, so how, how did I do that? I had the opportunity to really kind of step through the steps. So first thing that I did was that I didn't demand that I make a change within a certain time period.
08:43
I knew that I was going to need some time and some space to be able to feel comfortable. And I could also, now looking back, I can see that my brain wanted to know, what does the end look like? Our brains crave certainty.
09:03
They create concrete evidence. They crave, you know, the known and do not like the unknown. And so my brain at the time was really wanting to get to what is this going to look like on the other side?
09:15
And I couldn't come up with something really concrete. But what I did was I had to trust myself to take just the next step. And if I look back, the way that I left the Mormon church was one step at a time.
09:36
And for me, that journey was over lots of years. It was like over seven or eight years, right? Just one little step. And sometimes I didn't even realize that I was taking a step. But as I told myself the truth and didn't discount what I was feeling, I let it really, really matter how uncomfortable I was, how much I wanted something different, how the effects of what was being taught at church were showing up in my life and in the lives of those that I loved who were affected by them.
10:09
I just did the next thing, the next step. I skipped meetings that I didn't want to be at. Then I started declining invitations to participate in other things that weren't in alignment for me. I started talking about my fears.
10:29
I got a coach who helped me work through the grief. And I just did the next thing that felt right. And so what I was able to create over time is a lot of trust with myself because every time I took the next step, I felt better.
10:51
I was still scared, right? In a lot of situations, I was scared to completely disengage, completely leave. But I was the next step, the next step, the next step that really showed me you can do this.
11:07
You can do this. So when I think now about how stuck I felt around being able to fully leave Mormonism, it's not that it feels silly to me because I remember what a struggle it was, but I am so confident and solid in my choice.
11:24
I've had lots of people, you know, question or try and poke holes in my reasons and, you know, share their opinion of what I should be doing. And I can just say, okay, yeah, well, thanks for sharing your opinion.
11:38
And I feel so rock solid, sturdy, and confident about that decision that it gives me a lot of hope that I can also feel that way someday about this decision that I'm working with now. So now, when I'm looking at this current quote unquote problem, right, opportunity to better understand myself, to better understand my parts, and to solve the issue at hand, which for me is I want to make a powerful, grounded, aligned with my values decision about what I charge. And I don't want it to be up for discussion. I want to feel confident and joyful about it. And I want it to accurately reflect the value that I provide.
12:26
So the value that I'm getting out of looking back at how I solved that old problem is I realized with this new problem, what I charge, I was really being hard on myself. Why haven't you figured this out?
12:44
Why are you still going back and forth about this? I mean, for heaven's sake, you've been a coach now for eight years. Why don't you have this down? So I had to drop that really sneaky judgment. And I got to look back at how I already did it by taking the next step and holding it with gentleness, not a strict timeline, not any judgment or criticism, and some spaciousness that kind of gave my nervous system a chance to relax.
13:24
Because the message that I was sending to myself is, listen, we can take our time with this. We can take all the time that we need to be able to make a decision that feels good. And so all of that felt really good when I realized it last week.
13:42
And then it just kind of made me zoom out a little bit and give myself some space. But also my brain started thinking, okay, why does this work? Why does it work to look back on past success and kind of copy and paste what worked to what the problem that needs to be solved now is?
14:03
And I just briefly want to point some things out. Our brains are designed to conserve energy. Clinging to familiar beliefs because they feel safe is easier energetically in terms of just the energy that it takes to create new beliefs.
14:21
And so, of course, your brain is going to want to cling to the familiar because in terms of energy, that's what conserves the most energy and it's what feels the safest. So when you show your brain proof from your own history, you know what?
14:39
We have untangled some sticky beliefs before. We have made decisions that felt powerful and so aligned before. And when we can offer that to our parts, to ourself, to our brain, there is some relaxing that happens.
14:59
It's like you take a deep breath. You're like, oh yeah, we've done this before, right? That builds self-trust because it's built on what actually happened instead of, I think, what sometimes for me feels a little out of reach, which is more like fantasy confidence, right?
15:19
I can look back and see, no, I actually did this. I'm not trying to manifest anything. I'm referencing my actual past history. And it became such a powerful moment for me because I could relax like, okay, we've already done this once around something that felt like impossible to unwind.
15:42
And we did it. So we can have all the confidence and faith that we're going to be able to do it again. So if that is valuable for you to look back, there is often a lot of success that you've already created by taking small steps or doing what it was that helped you that you can reference for what you are working on now.
16:11
Lastly, looking back isn't the only way to expand your reference for what is possible for you. Because another way to do it is to actually go to the future and create a version of you that exists in the future, future you, that is based on who you want to become.
16:37
So that's what I want to do right now. If you're driving, just listen. If you can write some things down and you want to, great. I'm going to take you through a little bit of a visualization that teaches you how to draw on the future to create an idea in your imagination, which is really, really powerful of who you could become or who you would need to be to solve the current problem.
17:04
So here's what I want you to do. Just start to imagine yourself two to three years from now. What is that person like? The belief or the problem that you're currently struggling with, it's no longer running your life.
17:19
It's not a problem anymore. And I want you to really imagine that version of you in a specific set. And I want you to ask yourself, what do you notice about her? How is she sitting? How does she hold herself?
17:40
What does she believe about herself? What does she no longer tolerate or argue with? What is she capable of doing that current you is not able to do? How did she get there? If you look at who she is and you work backward, what is one small move that you made to become her?
18:14
What is one small belief that feels accessible to you now that she just absolutely like nails? Sometimes it's helpful to think about a ladder, right? If she's at the top of the ladder, what are all the rungs that she had to climb in terms of action she took or beliefs that she developed and held that got her to where she is?
18:42
And what is one small move or step that you can take in her direction this week? How would your body move if you were already her? What would you be thinking and believing? I want you to just let that image sit with you.
19:04
So if I were doing this about this desire for me to feel confident and joyful about the money that I charge, I would imagine future me explaining what I charge to a client, smiling, feeling so grounded and calm, handling objections with ease and with compassion, because money is, you know, it's a sensitive subject for a lot of people.
19:33
And what one person thinks is a lot of money, another person doesn't, and vice versa. So I just imagine myself talking about it very openly, very compassionately, but also feeling like sturdy about it.
19:50
I'm smiling. I don't feel any pressure or any embarrassment or any shame. It just feels like sturdy confidence in my body. And so then if I ask myself, okay, if that's at the top of the ladder, what's like the next rung for me?
20:10
It might be something like reviewing my current prices and seeing how I feel about that. Like, do I feel happy and joyful and confident about where I am now? Interesting question. And I would take a look at that.
20:25
And so using future me to guide this is so beautiful because it gives me a really powerful tool, my imagination, to create who I want to be and hold that out like the light at the end of the tunnel. And then all I have to do is let her tell me what I would do.
20:51
I can ask future me, what's one thing you would share with me right now? Let me see. Let me see if I can. My head really wasn't in it because I'm recording this episode, but I'm going to give myself just a beat here.
21:06
Future me would tell me that it's possible to have a joyful exchange of money for goods and services. And if you're watching, you know, this on my YouTube channel or otherwise, my face just kind of totally lit up because that's a belief that I don't have yet, right?
21:29
I can see that it's possible. And I can see why my part who grew up with a lot of money scarcity and insecurity would have a hard time believing that. Like it's possible to have a joyful exchange of money for goods or services.
21:49
And that feeling, it feels amazing for me right now, but also I would not have come up with that on my own had I not been doing this exercise with you right now. So I invite you to look to the past and to the future for help with solving the current issues that you're wrestling with.
22:15
What have you already done in the past that can inform what you're doing now? Copy and paste what you did onto your current situation. Adjust it if it needs, but give your brain the evidence from the past of something you've already done.
22:35
And another equally powerful tool is looking to the future. Who do I have to be to solve this? What is she like? What does she believe? How is she different? What would she tell me about this issue that I am working through right now?
22:54
And how can I walk up the rungs of the ladder toward where she is? It is really powerful to use our past evidence and our future imagination and bringing those tools to the present. Because I think I know I feel like the stuckness, I feel like it's just going to go on forever.
23:18
And this is a really beautiful way to draw on evidence that you already have that beliefs can change. You don't need blind faith, right? You have actual reference points. That past self is proof. And your future self is a beautiful, powerful guide.
23:36
Thank you so much for listening. I would love to know if you feel like there is something in this episode that really resonated for you. If you do that future me exercise and want to share that with me, I would love to hear it. sara@sarafisk.coach.
