The Future Does Not Exist
What if you told the story of how it all works out?
I am a futurist. That means I study the futures and help others learn how to use their relationship with the futures to enhance their capacity to be a positive force in the present. My first initiation into futures studies was with my beloved mentor Dr. Jim Dator. Jim is a founding father in the field of futures studies and he has a few deceptively simple, but philosophically profound ‘laws of the future.’
The first law of the futures is: The future does not exist.
Read that again.
Obvious. But what this means on a spiritual level is that worry, anxiety, the negative stories we tell about the futures are a distortion of our power of imagination. And it means that we get to choose what we imagine.
Get this: Your imagination is a superpower.
As multidimensional beings of biology, energy, emotions, thoughts and dreams, we literally build worlds with our imaginations. Everything created by humans was first created in the human imagination. Your imagination, when it is in alignment with your values, your beliefs and your most profound visions, is a tool for catalyzing and co-creating new lifestyles, systems, communities, creative projects and cultures. As they say, if you can dream it you can do it. On the flip side, your imagination when captured by the distortion of fear becomes anxiety, worry and panic. Both stories of the futures are true and not true because both stories do not yet exist.
If we can agree that the futures do not yet exist, then we can also agree that every act we do, every thought we think, every choice we make from the smallest to the biggest in the present moment shapes the potential future scape that we will eventually inhabit. We literally build the futures with what we do in the present moment, individually and collectively as a society. Every day, with every choice, with every collective agreement we make to uphold our world as it is. We made this world we inhabit, which means we can make the world differently. And here’s a secret hidden in plain sight – when we make the world in co-creation with the earth and with capital-L Life at the center, magic happens. Joy happens. Peaceful co-existing and collective liberation happens.
So, what if, instead of telling ourselves the story of the worst-case scenarios, those awful scenarios of scarcity and falling apart that keep us up at 3am, instead of repeating and giving more solidity to those potential futures, what if we started to tell ourselves the stories of how it all works out? Both are not yet true. Both are possible. What if…
I know that sometimes the troubles feel so overwhelming, the mountain to climb to be in a place of thriving feels so high, that we get frozen, stuck. But what if we saw those moments of overwhelm as opportunities to pause and process our grief, our rage, our frustration using positive, free and available tools like breathwork, screaming into a pillow, going for a run or serving meals at a food bank? Because really beneath our fears, beneath our anxiety is something else.
Usually underneath our fear is grief about change, or loss. Beneath our fear is anger about betrayal or feelings of disempowerment, past traumas from times when we were out of control or hurt by others in power over us. Beneath our fear is the emotion we want to avoid because the experience that created it was so painful. But if we don’t feel that painful feeling, we get stuck, frozen, trapped in a loop of anxiety and dis-ease. When we don’t fully feel those painful feeling, we unconsciously retell those stories and trap the emotions of fear in our body so they can’t move through us and be released.
Worry and anxiety keep us in this trap. Looping in cycles that we call ‘triggers’. Have you noticed how when you’re triggered by something you can feel a rush of adrenaline in your body? Notice that next time you get upset. This is the chemical reaction of fear and if you let it get stuck in your body, it will go on repeat, triggering you again and again until you release it. Breathwork, intense exercise, dance there are so many ways to release stuck emotions, but you have to be willing to feel. And sometimes that takes courage. But we only have one precious life and your birthright is the joy on the other side of release. Trust me, once you feel the feeling and let it move through you – which usually requires tears, screams or big movements like shaking – it is transformed and released.
And the payoff is profound. Once we can release the anger, the frustration, the grief, then we are clear and clean to imagine something else. And this is where our power lies. On the other side of looping fear and worry is the story of how it all works out. How the knots of your struggle turn into the purpose of your life’s story. How the trauma you endured becomes the gift of healing you offer to others. How your understanding of the difficulties of being human in a world full of suffering becomes your ability to empathize and build deep, meaningful relationships. On the other side of release are these new stories you start to tell yourself when worry wakes you up at 3am. Plot twist. Magic and miracle.
Pronoia is a term in modern psychology that describes the antidote to paranoia. It is the perception that the world is always meeting you halfway, here to help, working things out in your favor. All the time. Pronoia is the knowing that coincidences and synchronicities are the signals from a benevolent universe that has your back. It is the ground for synarchy, the positive upwelling feedback loops that bring you into greater joy, peace and fulfillment.
The futures do not exist so why not paint a picture in your mind’s eye of your best life? The one where it all works out. Feel what it feels like to be there. And then give yourself the grace and devotion of getting up each day and taking small steps, waging small bets to get yourself moving in the direction of your dreams. One step at a time. With grace and forgiveness for the days when you step backwards or fall flat on your face.
You have the superpower of imagination. It is a precious gift capable of magic. You are a builder of worlds. Straighten your spine, breathe deep into your belly and move in the way that makes your future-self proud to tell the story of you. We’ve got this. You’ve got this.