The last year and a half have been a sort of unravelling so to speak.
The illuminations that have revealed themselves – my truth – have been so starkly honest.
I am eternally grateful that I have the capacity and the self compassion for myself to be able to witness and digest Truth without reverting to shame cycling, self flagellation, or in any other way making “wrong” the truth behind my actions and decisions.
This is a sort of mourning for and shedding of my future self.
This “future self” is not of course, the natural unfoldment of my own beingness – an authentic future self.
No.
This is my projected future self that I am (and have been over the course of months now), mourning.
Perhaps many of us have a fantasy future self.
I know I’m certainly not alone in this.
The realization of articulating my own fantasy self came from other women talking about how they got into financial trouble by buying things for a version of themselves who they wanted to become in the future.
Full stop.
You have my attention.
I realized that I too had been “investing” – basically trying to buy my way – into a future fantasy version of myself.
I too was hooked into by a deep yearning I felt. My yearning to be this independent, successful, intuitive entrepreneur.
I started investing in business coaching programs – even esoteric “feminine” and “desire led” ones – from this deep deep desire to actualize my fantasy future self.
As I listed to different women’s stories about their shopping addictions for clothing, house wares, and just their overall spending habits and I listened to them speak to this future fantasy self that they were hoping to buy their way towards, I felt a deep resonance.
I am not addicted to shopping, but as I moved through my own financial crucible this year a very clear pattern emerged from my own financial decisions – they too were based on a future self.
A future self that is clearly not aligned with my core essence however carries some pretty clear truths about my deepest yearning, my hunger, my desire.
A future fantasy self that somehow attempts to fulfil real hunger – unclaimed hunger.
Now I want to be clear – this is so much more that about money and making wise financial decisions.
This is so much more about how marketing tactics literally manipulate this deep yearning within us.
And it’s more than just “killing off” or attempting to banish some kind of “false self” in order to become more authentic and self actualized.
You see, the more intimate I got with my own fantasy future self, the more intimate I got with true desire.
The yearning, the hunger that we feel that is underlying our decisions is real.
Desire is not the fantasy.
The creation of my fantasy future self didn’t come from seeing other’s successful lives and then wanting something like that for myself.
No.
It came from a very very real hunger within my soul.
Unclaimed hunger.
Misunderstood hunger.
Fantasy was a natural and easy way to try to satisfy it – placate it in a way – so it didn’t feel so intense.
Kind of like buying snacks at the convenience store to get you through your voracious hunger instead of just holding out till you get home and eating a really satisfying meal.
Unravelling and illuminating the underpinning hungers and desires that my future self was filling in for is one of the most incredible gifts – and uncomfortable truths – that I could receive right now.
It’s about the vital and utmost importance in owning and knowing our deepest true desires and yearnings, and our capacity to be with all of that with patience, reverence, and deep inner nurturing.
You see, I too have unclaimed desires of becoming.
We all in some way have a version of our future fantasy self.
I too get caught in believing the marketing and the information and all of the logical and “correct” habits, and mantras, convincing myself that if I do this, then I can have that, without even really questioning if that’s really the thing that will satisfy my desire.
Fake it till you make it (what do a truly desire to even make?).
Visualizing myself in some kind of fantasy beach home in the future (how much am I influenced by images and marketing?).
You’re just one ____ away from your goal (are these goals even touching the place of true hunger?).
Let’s stop there for a moment – on satisfaction.
The basis of our unclaimed hunger and our deep yearning.
Reaching for, buying my way to my future self and a “some day in the future” satisfaction.
Sound familiar?
Two massive themes I have been exploring over the last year and a half have been nurturing satisfaction.
Embodying satisfaction.
In the present moment.
In my body.
In my home.
In my finances.
In my life.
The more I connect with authentic satisfaction on a cellular level, the clearer and clearer I get in my hungers, my desires, and also, how I’ve been outsourcing fulfilment to this future fantasy self.
Every decision I’ve made over the years from a place of unclaimed honest desire – illuminated.
And so, clarifying the cellular sensation of what it’s like to make decisions based in satisfaction.
Recently I’ve been embodying this in how I spend my money, and how I manage my finances in a sort of experiment grounded in this very thing.
Every time I need to make a decision, I feel into my bones and ask “where is this itch really rooted?”.
I’ve been letting myself sit with each choice – not making it good or bad either way.
Just sitting with awareness, compassion, and letting a little bit more unclaimed desire shyly emerge.
A few of my own examples of the unclaimed hungers that have emerged (and revealing the real desire I have been mourning):
- I had this fantasy version of my business and who I was when I was in it – from having an office in my house filled with pretty things, and crystals, and a fully booked calendar with a waiting list. Mourning my unclaimed desire to be sought after, to be wanted, to be desired, for my work to be acknowledged and seen by others.
- I had this fantasy version of myself with such an overflow of money that I would just jet set to the US whenever I wanted to go on a shopping trip, buying fun makeup, and clothing, and rarities that are not available here in Mexico. Mourning my unclaimed yearning for familiarity and the loss of being surrounded by things and customs I grew up around, and the hidden sense of security and safety that comes from that.
- I had this fantasy version of myself that I could make more money than I knew what to do with – all to battle my deep seated fears and shame that deep down, I didn’t have the capacity to take care of myself and that I would be forced into abusive or manipulative situations to have my basic needs met.
Clearly there are deeper (and often more complex) yearnings and fear (and shame) at play.
I realize now that by letting go of the version of my business I had tried to create, I revealed the true yearnings I had been after in my attempts to build said business.
My desire to be desired.
My desire to be wanted and witnessed and acknowledged.
These are no small things.
No amount of business coaching, strategies, or visualizations were going to buy my way to fulfilling any of that.
I have to touch these places with the utmost respect, reverence, and the deepest nourishment.
Nourishment so rich.
Nourishment that my soul literally aches for.
I hadn’t even considered the depth of yearning for a sense of safety and rootedness that we normally connect to from our sense of place, our family, our community, our place in the world.
While I was certainly aware over the last few years in doing some deep unraveling and healing in the realm of relationships, familial systems, mother, sense of “home” that this sense of rooting was shapeshifting, I had no idea the impact that it would have on finances, going deeply into debt (a place I’d never been before) – all in a desperate sense in trying to build a new sense of ground for myself.
I suppose, in reflection I am mourning losses that I am only now becoming aware of.
And these losses I had attached to some kind of future version of myself.
My future self has always been intact – whole.
She has always had my back.
She’s always been with me, present, patient, full of compassion.
She can hold the space – and the clarity – from fantasy and reality.
I want to end by saying that this is not about ceasing to dream or let myself float off into fantasy land once in a while.
It’s about clarity.
It’s about true self love and compassion.
It’s about sharing my experience in the power of being grounded in our sense of personal satisfaction.
Growing from there.
Nourishing ourselves at the deepest level.
There is a distinct difference now when I relate to my future self.
She is free of expectation.
She is free to be herself.
She is free to explore.
She is free from failure.
She is free to play and to do with her life whatever the fuck suits her.
She is free to be rooted in her bones.
She is free to experience, learn, grow, in her way, at her pace.
She is me.
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