Remember when you were 6 years old and your teacher asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up? And maybe you answered astronaut or zoo keeper or time traveler? Or maybe you wanted to be a doctor or a mad scientist or Willy Wonka so you could eat all the candy you wanted? Whatever it was, didn’t it seem like it was possible?  Like you really, truly believed that you could do anything?

These days, confidence shattered by unemployment, I’ve been wondering where that feeling went.

So, when this lovely life coach emailed me last month, I jumped on the opportunity to work with her. And it has been so empowering, people. We’ve been doing a lot of visualizing and manifesting and magic weaving and I must admit that the very logical, science-y part of my brain wonders if it’s just a bunch of hocus pocus but the essence of me knows all this to be true. Deep down, under the layers of doubt and fear and all the crap I’ve accumulated over the years… I know we are all made of light, that we are divine. I feel that fire in my belly when I am in that centered place. Sure, I’ve been orbiting around that centered place these days like a thousand meteorites burning through the earth’s atmosphere and crashing into the desert and all that is left of that fire in my belly are cinders that stopped giving off flames months ago. Still… I know this to be true – the light is real, the darkness is not.

I met my future self today. My 47-year old self. I met her in the future kitchen of our future home. And as I walked down the driveway to her house, I kept thinking “Surely there’s been some brain glitch. This can’t be my future home?” But the vision was steadfast and would not bend to the ideals I’d created over the years. In this vision, my future home was my father in law’s current home with the same low ceilings and same country smell. The light, however, was different. A golden summer light with dandelion fluff hanging in the air.

She opened the door dressed in Wellies and rolled up jeans and a V-neck t-shirt, salt and pepper hair pulled back in a loose pony tail. She was holding carrots from the garden in her hands. She looked radiant and warm and confident and very much in her element. I sat in the kitchen, one leg curled under the other, and asked her what I needed to do to get to where she was and she answered that I needn’t worry about such things, that everything was set in motion and would work out as it should. And in my head I was all “Yo, future self, why so cryptic and mysterious?” and then I realized that she could probably hear my thoughts because she was me, after all. I asked her what she did for a living and she didn’t volunteer the information. I sensed, however, that she worked from home and I imagined a typewriter and shelves lined with vintage cameras somewhere in the house. Her husband was out catching tadpoles with the children. They wouldn’t be home for another couple hours. I asked her if we were happy and she answered: “Very.” When I stepped into her, I felt how light and heathy and loose in her body she was. I felt her in my heart center, shoulders back, chest forward, head high and I knew everything would be just fine.

On my way out, she gave me a gift – a book we’d written. And I don’t remember what the book looked like or felt like. I do not know its title or subject matter, whether it was fact or fiction, but she had a twinkle in her eye that said… BEGIN.

I am clueless as to how this visualizing thing works. All I know is that I am tired. Tired of beating myself up. Tired of the negative critics. Tired of giving power to the bitter old nag in my head (She just sits there and smokes and points her yellow finger at me and tells me that I’m not good enough and she is such a bitch!) I’m tired of not being true to myself. I’m tired of letting fear and limiting beliefs get in the way. I’m tired of playing small. And if visualizing helps me slay those demons, then so be it. I reckon it’s better than eating a pint of ice cream in self pity and escaping in a bottle of wine.

I am breaking down and realigning and rewiring and deconstructing myself these days to make room for what I am to become. I am rewriting the story. It hurts and it’s bloody uncomfortable and I feel like every single one of my bones is cracking and my body is aching and all I want to do is run away from this feeling, but I can’t because I am on the cusp of something big.

And this is just the beginning.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness That most frightens us. We ask ourselves Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small Does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking So that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, As children do. We were born to make manifest The glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; It’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, Our presence automatically liberates others.” - Marianne Williamson