Future pull
“Back to the Future” is a 1985 American science-fiction adventure comedy film where Marty McFly goes into the future to fix the present. What would happen if you could go to the future and create your better self?
When people first seek therapy, they are often focused on the past and what isn’t working. Change happens when they shift from the past to the future. The future doesn’t contain their old behavioral patterns or thinking. In the future they are able to connect to their goals and desires and pull themselves out of the slump.
Visualize Your Future
Victor Frankl tells the story of himself in a World War II concentration camp. He wanted to live but it didn’t look good. During the brutal winter of 1944 prisoners knew the war was almost over. The guards began to act differently and Allied planes could be seen flying overhead. One day the supply bridge was bombed and the prisoners were sent to repair the bridge. Frankl was on the work brigade but he was very ill. Before reaching the bridge, he began coughing and spitting blood. As he collapsed to one knee a guard started beating him.
Just as Frankl was about to give up he had a vision. He saw himself in the future giving a lecture on trauma. In his dream, he was saying, “The day I was being beaten to death, I imaged myself getting up.” At that moment, he was able to will himself to stand. Against all odds, he got to his feet and helped repair the bridge.
Because Frankl was able to visualize his future purpose, he lived through the present ordeal.
What are your dreams for the future? How can you do that?
A counselor asked a drop out teen, “What your dreams for the future? When she responded, “A princess,” the counselor said, “Like Princess Diana? She helped people dying from AIDS.” The teen said she wanted to grow up and help people too. When she was ready to act on her dream she talked her way back into school, went to college and became a social worker. When asked how she changed she said, “I just learned to believe in my future.”
Write a letter to yourself from the future where your problem has been solved. Use the time period from six months, one year or five years, or whatever time period you sense is appropriate from now. Describe where you are, what you are doing, and what you have gone through to get there.
Use Bill O’ Hanlon’s questions to guide the letter you write:
- What crucial things have you learned since back in______________ (present date)?
- What changed your perspective?
- What things were you worried or frightened about that seem trivial to you today?
- What problems seemed overwhelming or insurmountable in those days that you eventually resolved or overcame?
- What comfort would your future self give your present self?
- What sage advice would your future self give to that present self?
- What were your frightened by or concerned with that doesn’t matter as much now?
- What false beliefs in your past kept you from changing?
- What do you have now that you didn’t have before?
- What compassion can you offer yourself from your future perspective?
- How did you learn to accept your impulse but not act on it?
You too, can go back to the future and give yourself good advice. Brad Paisley agrees with me. In his song, “Letter To Me” expresses this same sentiment. He sings:
If I could write a letter to me
And send it back in time to myself at seventeen…..
You got so much up ahead
You’ll make new friends
You should see your kids and wife
And I’d end by saying have no fear
These are nowhere near
The best years of your life….
If I could write a letter to me
To me.
CAMILLE FOSTER, LCSW
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Other helpful articles:
You Are Stronger Than You Know https://provocounselingcenter.net/?p=2593
Inspired by Bill O’ Hanlon lecture 12/17
Photo by Ali Pazani from Pexels
Photo by Angela Roma from Pexels
