Learn about the powerful practice of accessing wisdom from your past and future selves. Kaileen shares how to connect with who you were in the past and who you’ll become in the future so that you can navigate the present with more ease. With personal stories and actionable steps, this episode will inspire you to heal, receive, and connect deeper with your inner wisdom.
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(upbeat music) - What if you didn't just have access to the knowledge that you have now, but you had access to the knowledge you had as a six year old and the knowledge that you have in the future as an 86 year old? That is what we're gonna talk about in today's episode, all about accessing wisdom from past and future versions of you. I'm Kayleen Elise Seuss, your intuition coach and host of the Celebrate Cultivate podcast. And this is episode 177. In my work as a coach, one of the things that I often do is ask my clients to reflect back on what their younger selves might want them to know about this moment and even more impactfully what their future selves might want them to know about this moment. It's pretty easy to travel back and look at what parts of you were seeking comfort or guidance. It's also not as easy but accessible to tune into younger versions of yourself and give that past self what it needed. So as an example, in my 20s, I met my husband and we were together for a really long time before we got engaged. And then we didn't have a super short engagement and all I wanted was to be married and have babies. It's really, really, really, really what I wanted. Now on the other side of that, getting ready to celebrate our 10-year anniversary and having three healthy, lovely, amazing children who are also so challenging (laughs) if I could go back and connect with that 20-something-year-old self and just tell her to enjoy the moment and not just in this like passive way that older people tell younger people, oh, enjoy it and don't blink because it goes by so fast but in a way that's rooted in truth and love and knowing the angst and anxiety and frustration that she feels but just opening that window and giving her a view into, look, this is your life, you will get there, so slow your roll, take a few deep breaths and just be where you are. And I believe that having that moment with my past self does something, it shifts something, it soothes something inside of me because all of those various pieces of you are all kind of stacked up inside of you and if they're not in you, they're kind of floating around you and so when you are able to take a moment to connect and it doesn't have to be this like massive ritual or this big thing, it can be, certainly it can be. And I've had many moments like that that were deep in meditation or in a guided experience where all of the pieces of me kind of line up, like line up and get what they need. You know, I'm seeing in that episode of The Queen's Gambit when the girls are lining up to get their medicine and she kind of hoards it so that she can have these visions which, oh my gosh, I think that's child abuse and so many other things but it's a really poignant part of the show and my inner voice just showed me that. Like in these deeper experiences when all the passwords of me line up and they're getting exactly what they need and then they're seeing magical visions of chess pieces moving around on the ceiling and it's like magic. There are those times but more often in everyday life and regular experience in the comings and goings of your average day, there are opportunities to pause and connect to the past of you and the future of you and bring it all together in a cohesive way where you're not making all of the decisions from your just very limited moment in time now knowledge. I have a friend and teacher who refers to this as very God-mothering yourself. By going back to those past versions of you, you're able to gather insight and wisdom but also pass through insight and wisdom kind of like sneak it through the portals of time and space reality and show those itty bitty use that it all turns out okay. And you can move this forward, right? Like I said in my 20s, I had a lot of unknowns. Even later in my 20s, when my boyfriend at the time we were together, he turned into being my husband but there were a lot of uncertainties, a lot of unknowns and whenever that openness that like you don't know what's gonna happen next feeling, it's like you're jumping off a cliff, right? Well, what if you could go back and show that past version of you that it wasn't a cliff you were jumping off of, it was a bridge to what was next and you can do that. So that is something that is a really useful, supportive practice. You can just do it when you're sitting on the train, like you can just do it while you're waiting in line at the grocery store and you can do it as you live your life and see that you're in a business opportunity that a past version of you could have never even dreamt of and go back and tap them on the shoulder and let them know, look at this, look at this, can you believe it? And the past version of you will be like, no, I certainly cannot believe it, how did you do it? And you're gonna say, just wait and see or make sure you pay attention to what so-and-so tells you. And this threading together of the timeline makes it so that you are even more connected to the past version of yourself. And that past version of yourself looks to you now as a guide. And then what you can do, which is another one of my favorite things to do, is access the future you, who has lived all the life that you are going to live, that has made all the decisions that you're going to make and has navigated all of the pitfalls and disasters that have come your way and still manage to make it to 62, 88, 104, whatever it is, reach out into the future and snuggle up next to that future version of you. And depending on where you are in life and depending on what you're facing right now, future you might be just six months from now, it might be 60 years from now, right? You will intuitively know where to reach forward and then pull yourself alongside them or sit knee to knee and just witness and breathe and be with that future you. And then ask, what do you want me to know? What should I do? Instead of asking your partner or your person or random people on Instagram, what should I do? Go to future you. And again, you can do this through journaling, you can do this through meditation, you can do this through a deep guided practice with me if you would like. Just come to my website and book a session and we could focus on that because future you is just another aspect of your intuition. It is just another aspect of you. It's another way to tap into the wisdom that already lives within you on a different time space reality. And this might be super woo or weird or out there, but it's also just another way to play with your imagination. If you imagine yourself at 88 and you ask the 88 year old self, what do you want? What could I do for you today? That opens up a portal and opens up an opportunity for you to play and explore and to live your life today with a little bit more grounded sense of purpose and freedom and play. I'm fortunate enough to have four of my grandparents still living. So my mom's dad and step mom, my dad's mom and dad and they're for sure aging. And I have a pretty young family and I'm the oldest grandchild on both sides. Mathematically, it makes sense that they're still around, but they're all getting older. And I know, especially from talking to my grandma that she wouldn't trade a thing. It's not like she's longing to live in the past, but she reminds me to be present. She reminds me to enjoy what this is because even in the annoyances and the challenges and the frustrations, not to discount it, not to bypass it, but even those are a gift and you don't always know it and you don't always know why. And sometimes it's just nonsense and sometimes it's just terrible and this too shall pass. But knowing that your 88 year old self has traversed these journeys might give you a little extra courage or a little extra strength or an insight of, "Oh, this is interesting. Follow this breadcrumb. Notice this thing. Explore this idea. Talk to this person and insight and a guidance that you wouldn't otherwise have." So yeah, this can be like a super woo out there thing or it can be highly practical. 'Cause here's the other thing. When you're living your everyday life, the stuff that kind of stresses you out and kind of bugs, most of the time isn't stuff that actually matters. It doesn't mean that it isn't buggy. It just means it isn't as buggy as it needs to be. And so even tuning into your past self and your future self can alleviate some of that bugginess. Can let you access a little looser grip on the details or can zoom your focus in on the details that really matter. Like when I talk with my grandma, ultimately it's enjoying the work that I do, loving my husband and snuggling those babies. Those are the things that she tells me to do over and over again. And so it's not like she's not telling me, "You know, you really should make sure that your kids are eating enough vegetables." She's not telling me that. She's not telling me to stress about whether or not my kids are getting enough sleep. I remember when I had a little baby, my first son, I was really struggling 'cause he wasn't sleeping the way I wanted him to sleep. And it was before the magical invention of the snoo came about, which by my third son, gosh, this new was amazing. He was also a giant baby. So who knows why he was a good sleeper who's also the third. So we only got to him when we got to him. So he had to work some stuff on his own. But with our first, he really struggled to sleep and we struggled with his sleep. Then my grandma said, "Kelene, if you have done everything that you know how to do and it hasn't put him to sleep, put him in his crib and walk away." And granted, my grandma is not my future self. We are quite different. But having access to her wisdom and being able to get her insights has helped me dream and vision and tune into my future self. So when I tune into my future self, I get a few different versions depending. There's one and she's like, probably not that much older than me now. Several years ago when I started this practice, she was quite a bit older than me. Funny how that works. But she's like a little bit hippier than me. She's got long braided hair, tan legs. She's thin and fits. And so also she maybe isn't exactly who I'm gonna be by the time I get to her. I don't know, but she is there to kind of comfort me and to lower my shoulders. She has a nice, steady breath. And she tells me I'm doing an amazing job and to keep going and to keep connecting inward and to keep enjoying the life that I have. So she's very comforting. She's very motherly. In last week's episode, we were talking about self-mothering. This is also a huge practice of self-mothering, right? Tuning into your future self or tuning into your past selves, mothering your past self, being the mother from your future self to your current self, it's all connected. When I tune into that version that like a little bit hippie dippy, I only think that she's a hippie because she's got those long braids. Just one on either side, split down the middle. I mean, she's kind of chic still. It's not like she's like totally crunchy. But in my business, she tells me to open the doors and I can see her running down that hallway, a long hallway of doors and just like kicking them open. I've seen that vision before. So if you just play with this, you'll start to see and feel things. Does it matter if you're making them up from the mind? That's a question that I get so often from clients and from podcast listeners and no, the answer is no, it doesn't matter if you're making it up from the mind. How does it feel? Your imagination, your intuition, your receiving of wisdom is a co-creation, a collaboration between your mind and your inner voice because the mind ultimately is the thing that interprets what your inner voice or what your future self or what your past self is telling you. It's the radio. It's not the radio station, but it is the radio. And if you are able to tune in and allow that radio to connect and really dial into the station, right? Like if you're the old dials or even on the button ones, when you're going to a radio station, there's like it can be fuzzy in between and there's a lot of static and sometimes you'll catch every other word or whatever. It's not wrong to be in the middle of the stations, but it's not as clear. So sometimes really seeing emotions helps clear that static and dial you into the right dial. Sometimes it is just being still and really giving it a moment to settle in, working with someone like me really helps with that because of that external accountability. I've been getting the nudge from my own inner voice to have some more support, some more containers because even though I know how to do all of these practices, I am much more likely to do them when I pay for it and block it off on my calendar. You're just 'cause you can do pushups, it doesn't mean you will until you're sitting there with a friend or a personal trainer or whatever. And so same thing is true with this. Maybe this episode listening to this is enough of that external nudge from me to get you to explore this idea or maybe you need to talk to a friend or a mentor and say, you know, I'm really struggling with this idea or I'm really challenged by this situation but I tuned into my 55 year old self and she said this and just taking it outside of your own inner experience and verbalizing it to someone else gives it a little bit more validity. Of course, explore who you're talking with 'cause some people and you already know who they are might be like, what, you're crazy. Don't bring it to those people. Bring it to the ones who are going to say, wow, that's a really good insight or hmm, I hadn't thought of it like that but you're right or what would your 55 year old self say about this and then explore and experiment and see? And this exploration of your past self and your future self absolutely will impact the care that you take on yourself and your work and how you show up in the world which will ultimately help you manifest exactly what your soul and your inner voice desires and ultimately that's the magic. That's it for today's episode. I'll be back next week with a fresh episode. I'll talk to you then. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
