The Best Way to Predict the Future is to Create it

THE BEST WAY TO PREDICT THE FUTURE IS TO CREATE IT THE BEST WAY TO PREDICT THE FUTURE IS TO CREATE IT

Déborah Nichol

The day the world stopped...what a

crazy statement? Right? However, here we are, living this life that feels surreal. We are inundated with information coming from every direction. Some of these information sources are unhelpful and cause more stress and anxiety as if we don’t have enough to deal with already. So, what is helpful? How do we make it through when we can’t see the light at the end of it? What do we do when we feel like we have lost everything? How do we navigate this new reality? What does it mean for our kids, our businesses, our jobs? What is everything going to look like after, jeez, never mind after, how the hell am I going to get through the day? So far the consensus of coping is, baking to feel productive, Netflix binging to distract us, Wine and other beverages to feel like we can cope and of course eating our feelings, sometimes doing most of these while we zoom with friends and family. Don’t get me wrong, as I have been guilty of all of the above, but these things in great quantity actually keep us from acknowledging and addressing our feeling and emotions. Who cares? Well, you might want to...because the best way to not only survive this but figure out how to thrive from it.

“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” ~ Jack Kornfield.

When things are shitty in our outer world, it’s time to go inward...it is a perfect opportunity for us to lean it, feel what we are feeling and then course correct from there if needed.

The best place to start is with our story of our inner critic, our self-criticism, self-judgement, we say to ourselves things we wouldn’t dream of saying to others. Why is this? It’s that little piece of us that never feels good enough, no matter what we accomplish in life. So, how do we start changing this bad habit? My answer would be self-compassion.

Self-Compassion is learning to motivate yourself with kindness rather than criticism. Self-compassion builds emotional strength and resilience, allowing us to recognize the places where we fall short of our expectations. When we are kinder and gentler to ourselves it opens the door for us to show that kind of compassion to others. The world needs us all to have a little more self-compassion.

Years ago, I attended a workshop, during the workshop, the facilitator said: “ everything we don’t heal we pass onto our kids” These words rang in my ears and all I could think of at the time was “my kids are F@#%*^”.

Self-compassion was non-existent in my world at the time, however, I was motivated to find a way to make sure I was passing along as many good things to my kids as I could. At the time I didn’t have enough worth and value to do it for myself but I could sure do it for my kids. A funny thing happened along the way, I found that having compassion for myself brought out so many great things, not only within myself but also in others.

Here are a few things to stop that inner critic from ruling your life; Find a mantra, such as I am Enough, I Love & Trust Myself or anything that resonates with you. Post this mantra where you can see it. Whenever that inner critic shows up, say your mantra. You might be saying that mantra a hundred times a day. And although it might seem silly, it works. I wrote those 2 mantras on the palm of my hand every morning for a year, and still, use them today when needed.

Make a list of things you like about yourself. Use these things as a reminder of how absolutely fantastic you are. If you are having trouble with this, make a list of things you don’t like about yourself, then for each thing find the opposite of that. That’s one of the beautiful things in life is there is always something good.

Make a list of things that are stressing you out right now. When you finish, ask yourself these two questions? Is this in my control? Or is this out of my control?

Write your answer beside each stressor.

What this does is it gives us a complete view of our thoughts and feelings on the things that are causing us stress. It helps us see what we have control over and what we don’t. Then we can spend our time figuring out what we can do about the things we can control.

Self-compassion alchemizes criticism, a secret magical tool for transformation. We may not have control over what’s happening in the world but we sure do have control over what story we are telling ourselves, how we react and what kind of experience we are having. Going forward the world will be happier and more successful with the growth of compassion.