Dear Future You - reimagining 2020 one letter at a time

Our visions for this year may seem like too much to ask in the face of a global pandemic, but will the future you thank you for downsizing your aspirations - or even shelving your dreams altogether?

“You want to be a fairy?” my dad quipped when he saw my 2020 vision board.

It’s a kind triptych and on the first panel there’s a woman, her back to the camera, arms flung joyfully in the air, and a set of beautiful blue butterfly wings on her back. She might look like a modern-day fairy, but what she represented to me back in January was freedom.

Ironic, eh?

Well, while Lockdown Life might feel far from free it’s offered some of us (non key workers) another type of freedom. Work has been pared back. Staying in no longer means missing out. Right now, we have space to reimagine.

Which got me thinking about butterfly symbolism and associations with transformation.

Back to Better Basics

This pandemic has set the stage for getting back to basics.

On the one hand we’re valuing simpler things, like connecting with neighbours and being more creative. Yet, it’s also throwing up darker stuff around family, finances and the future. In short, these so-called ‘unprecedented times’ are encouraging us (sometimes rather forcefully) to reassess.

Some of us might interpret this as shelving our dreams and aspirations and trading them in for some cold hard realism. But what if we think more Marie Kondo when faced with rearranging our lives? Instead of seeing what we have to give up could we ask:

“Does this bring me joy?”

And, can we learn to embrace certain limitations? After all, necessity is the mother of invention, as they say.

Imagining Your New Normal

But where do we begin? Transformation is uncomfortable and challenging. It requires energy and perseverance. What if you feel stuck? Overwhelmed? Or helpless?

Zone out and watch TV?

Well...

For a while Instagram had me wondering if everyone else was busily baking from scratch, and pinning rainbows to windows, while peacefully homeschooling their kids, and performing business pivots that would render Craig Revel Horwood speechless.

So I signed onto some FutureLearn courses - I needed to get my head round the world's financial system pronto. Except, well, I haven’t. In between work and Lockdown Life with my sister and three young nephews I’ve managed, instead, to vastly improve my glare and, yes, my telly watching capabilities.

I know!

Right!?

Then I saw this (Nationwide) ad in which people share some thoughts and feelings about their current lives with their future selves in six months' time - a kind of Lockdown (video) letter, if you will. And, it got me thinking:

“What will the future you thank present you for?”

Dear Future You...

Writing letters to the future you is the kind of writing prompt you might do at school or, like me, on a community volunteer course, say. It’s simple, yet effective. And, I’d argue that these strangest of times provide an ideal opportunity to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard, if you prefer).

As composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim once said:

“The more restrictions you have, the easier anything is to write.”

So, if you’ve been confused, sidelined, or even crushed by this pandemic and the fallout, how about feeling out what your New Normal could look like by writing to future you? What would you like future you to remember or to have learned? In short, where would you like future you to be?

Think of yourself as a reassuring friend, and consider:

• Starting by reflecting on where you are now - clarify and revisit recent experiences

• Sharing how you feel - What are you enjoying? What are you concerned about?

• Reflecting on your values - What matters to you now? Why?

• Setting goals for your ideal New Normal future

• Giving yourself advice - reassure yourself like a friend

• Asking yourself questions

Think in terms of:

• Reflection meets gratitude list meets pep talk

PS you’re a chrysalis

While it’s tempting to zone out with a bottle of wine and a box set, realising I could either see this time as a kind of prison or a vessel of potential - a chrysalis, perhaps? - was a wee bit more empowering than worrying about, well, the entire world.

TIP: I usually handwrite letters to my future self and keep them in my journal, but you might want to use an online tool, like Future Me, and set a time for your letter to be emailed back to you. While a year (or more) is usually popular, six months (the end of 2020 at time of writing) is probably ample distance in these fast-changing, coronavirus times, I reckon.

Have you ever written a letter to your future self? If so, what did you discover?

How to Not Choose the Wrong Images for Your Vision Board

Call them dream boards, action boards or treasure maps, creating a clear vision for our lives can work wonders. But vision boards can go wrong - remember that phrase ‘be careful what you wish for’ - and it starts with the images you choose…

About twenty years’ ago I made a vision board. Central to that vision was my wedding. I was already engaged, but I dreamed of getting married in a blue dress a la Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief, in the South of France.

Fast forward a few years and there I was in my blue dress, on the Amalfi Coast (France proved complicated) getting married. Problem was, I felt awful.

The bright Sorrento sunlight had thrown something into stark relief: I’d duped myself into believing that becoming Mrs Somebody would mean the end of Little Miss Nobody. But it was obvious, that feeling I was seeking to avoid wasn’t going anywhere.

I remembered the vision board. Yes, it had worked. My wedding looked the part. But it didn’t feel the way I’d hoped. Where had manifesting my desires gone wrong, I wondered.

And, so began my adventures into the ins and outs of vision boards. Here are three things I’ve learned about choosing the images which depict our dreams and desires.

Images are magic - here’s why

We use images to help make sense of an often overwhelming world.

Carl Jung, the famed psychoanalyst (he behind the collective subconscious and all that) made a case for this in the renowned book Man & His Symbols. Jung even explored his personal relationship with images through The Red Book, a kind of elaborate art journal.

But now neuroscience can go some way to explain this mysterious power. Tara Swart, author of The Source: open your mind change your life - and a big advocate of vision boards or action boards, as she calls them - writes:

“Pictures resonate more deeply than words alone, because they bypass the cerebral cortex, where language is processed, and register directly with the intuitive (limbic) and visual (occipital) parts of the brain.”

• So, choose your images with care...

Images - all style no substance?

Remember Charlotte York from Sex & the City? Well, she had a vision for herself when it came to husbands (I’m not obsessed with husbands honest!).

Enter the dashing Trey MacDougal who looks the part, but turns out to be a relationship washout. One divorce later and Charlotte meets bald, brash, divorce lawyer with a heart of gold, Harry Goldenblatt. Et voila!

It took releasing the way she thought her life should look for Charlotte to discover what she was really yearning for - a loving relationship, not an image in House & Garden magazine, as per aptly titled episode All That Glitters.

• The key is to think less literally and more in metaphors when choosing images for your vision board. For example, if your ideal relationship was a colour, place or song what would it be?

Feel into your images

My-blue-dress-blue-me experience caused me to doubt my ability to know what I wanted, or what I needed. Yes, I continued to make vision boards, featuring the usual suspects, but these things alluded me.

Then I discovered Danielle Laporte’s Desire Map:

“So many of us have the procedures of achievement upside down. We go after things that are outside of ourselves, but what we’re really reaching for is a feeling. When we combine our freewill with our Core Desired Feelings, we become intentional creators. Inner attunement = wiser attainment.”

• So, when you choose your images aim to feel, not think, your way through the exercise. Otherwise your rational mind is likely to get all diva-esque. The aim is to select images that deeply resonate and get your creative juices flowing.

Summary

Creating a dream board is a powerful way to hone your vision and inspire you to action. But when it comes to choosing the images to represent our vision we can often get distracted by all that glitters, forgetting the gold lies in how we want to feel.

So when choosing images for your vision board:

• Consider why images are powerful

• Think more in metaphors - that’s how our dreams work, after all…

• Ask yourself how you want to feel

Want to create your own vision board and art journal in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex? Then book your place on the Create Your Year With Art Journaling workshop I’m holding with Sketchy Sister Farida Kamruddin on 25th, January 2020.