I have a co-coaching arrangement with a colleague in Britain and every week we share an hour of time. Lately we’ve been exploring the idea of a Future Self.

In my opinion,  we probably all have many Future Selves –I expect that they sit on the shelf of time like a a set of DVD’s, just waiting for us to pick one and play it on the screen of our lives. What we pick is, of course, up to us.

The Future Self I want to pick or maybe ‘activate’, for myself (and for others,) is the one that describes the BEST possibility of myself, the one that would be the fullest expression of all I could be.

The question is, how would one activate this possible self?

For me, I realized the first step was to get to know this BFS better. To do that, I had to spend some time sensing what she feels like–her core energetic, so to speak. After a few tries, I was able to write down a list of characteristics that described my Best Future Self.  She is:
* radiantly calm
* deeply trusting of her deep value
* wise
* has an air of incredible nourishment
* expansive

Overall, her energy is similar to that of the Dalai Lama. (Blush!)

Once I had the list of her attributes,  I started aligning myself with these characteristics.  As often as I can, I think the thoughts, feel the emotions, and do the activities that are most in alignment with the energetic of my Best Future Self.

It’s feeling wonderful.

In this way, I am bringing the future into the present. Or, maybe we’re meeting somewhere in between. As I reach forward to her, I feel her reaching backwards to me. It feels as if we’re becoming a team. I have asked her for more information about how to bring my Now Self into greater alignment with her and got a clear sense that she’s willing to advise me. I’ll report as we go!

What does YOUR Best Future Self feel like?

———————-

RESOURCE:

At my new website: http://www.happinessanyway.com, I’ve posted a whole bunch of meditations that you can do just by clicking on them. I’ve kept them purposely short so you can do them quickly and easily. Each and every one of them will help you modulate your energy. CLICK HERE for quick access. I’d love to know how you like them. I’m going to be offering a very cool online course in the next while called ‘Change Your Energy, change Your Life’ and these meditations will be part of that offering.

Check it out. Once again, CLICK HERE for the link.

The people on the planet just now are probably THE most manipulated in human history when it comes to wants. We get so many messages, telling us what we want, it can be difficult to really listen to our own truth.

I feel it’s my job as a coach to help people tap into their deeper knowing. I want to save people from pushing themselves up a ladder, one struggling step at a time, only to find out later that they’ve put their ladder against the wrong wall.

Take Samantha. When she called me, she told me she wanted to get married. As I probed further, I learned her partner wasn’t so sure he wanted this. Then, I asked her what she hoped being married would accomplish.

“It would give me a sense of security. I would know I’m loved.”

I asked her to think about her friends and family to see if  “feeling secure and loved” were the inevitable result of marriage

I could hear her wince.

“Well, I guess with the divorce rate at 50%, that’s not always the case.”

I invited her to explore other ways she might deepen her feeling of being loved and secure from within herself.  Now things got interesting.

As we did this, she started feeling more and more powerful. Obviously, she was liking not having her well-being depend on external circumstances.  And, of course, as she took responsibility for creating her own feelings of being loved and secure, she stopped putting pressure on her significant other. And of course, when her significant other felt free to give to her or not, he became a much more responsive partner.

So, when you’re thinking about what you want, go deeper. Ask yourself what you imagine this item, event, or experience will give you on the inside. Once you know this, see if you can just create it on your own. I have developed a whole bunch of ways to help people do what I call energy modulation, so if you want to go deeper with this, click “Free Ideas” up in the menu bar to set up a free idea session.

Meanwhile, here is something I loved that I wanted to share with you:

AN OPPORTUNITY:

Would you like to set up and run your own website? Or revamp your current one so you can manage it yourself?

Tomorrow, Christina Hills is having a tele-seminar on how to do just that. I can personally attest to what a great teacher Christina is, as I took her Website Creation Workshop last year and loved it.  I’m not only a non-techie, I’m tech-less!– but through her tutorials and videos, she shows you how to set up a WordPress website, even adding photos, audio and video. I not only revamped this site, personalbest.org, but I created a whole new one at http://www.happinessanyway.com

And instead of it being a gruelling, hair-pulling out experience, I found it fun and creative.

In the class tomorrow, she’ll explain how it all works, with pictures, handouts and non geeky web talk.  The class is a 10 am pacific time and 1 EST and it’s free. To find out more, go to:

http://thewebsitecreationworkshop.com/cmd.php?af=1079349&u=TheWebsiteCreationWorkshop.com/preview

Or, if you can’t make the call, go here:

Hold your hand up, palm forward. Now turn it to the side.  Same hand, but it looks entirely different. The difference, as you know,  is perspective. Before reading the funny story below, let me say a bit more about perspective.

Successful people learn to switch their perspective to keep their energy high. If you tell yourself that “Business is terrible”,  or that “No one cares about me”, you’re not going to have much energy. But if you tell yourself, “Business is  recovering” and that “People are beginning to value me”,  not only will you feel more like taking your life/business on, but brain science tells us, you’ll be changing your future.

We now have solid scientific studies that prove the fact that “Neurons that fire together, wire together”.  What this means is that the more you repeat a thought or action, the stronger the neurological patterns become, the deeper the grooves in the brain and therefore, the more easily that thought or action can recur.

That’s what makes it so difficult to change our perspective sometimes–the pathways are so well trodden, we can slip into them easily. Developing new ones may feel like a slog at first, but it’s worth it for our thoughts shape our actions and our actions shape our future.

Here’s the fun story:

Bill was working on his family genealogy and found out his great-great uncle, Remus Starr was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889. He even found a photo of  Remus, showing him standing on the gallows. On the back of the picture were the words:

“Remus Starr–Horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison, 1885. Escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged, 1889.”

Bill decided to revise things a bit. He cropped the picture into a head shot, then he rewrote the text:

“Remus Starr was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory. His business empire grew to include the acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and included intimate dealings with the Montana railroad. Beginning in 1885, he devoted several years of his life to service at a government facility, finally taking a key role in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency, In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honor when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed.”

Now that’s a change in perspective! (Maybe Bill should consider a job in gov’t public relations!)

For more information about the book or the teleclass, visit www.passagepoints.com

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Sorry about the mucked-up email that went out last week. New distribution glitches were the problem, but they are now solved.This newsletter is the one you should have received. Here it is now!

Don’t you just love the fresh start the New Year offers? No matter what 2009 looked like, there’s a brand-new year ahead, waiting for you to create it the way that you want.

What would it take to make 2010 special year?

Are you tired to doing the same things in the same way?

Are you frustrated that the problems that plague you continue to plague you?

Would you like to create a WONDERFUL 2010, one that will make you grin? Check out the offer at the bottom of this post!!!

People often ask me what’s the #1 catalyst for people to change.

Is it a clear picture of your goal?

Is it being more organized so you have the time to create your goal?

Is it having confidence in yourself?

All these things count, but in my experience, the #1 thing that guarantees success is this:

SUPPORT!

Here’s why. Let’s say you decided to climb Mt. Everest. Impossible, you might think. With things the way they are, that’s probably true.

But let’s say you had highly skilled trainers, fabulous equipment and the best Sherpas on the planet. Chances are you could pull it off. In fact, there’s an fabulous story about an Ontario family, The Mallorys, that pulled off this very feat.

Dan Mallory (not related to the famous Mallory that died on Everest) his wife and 3 kids made it their goal to see if they could make this dream come true.

Here’s a picture that says it all:

Four of them made it to the top. (The fifth had an injury that prevented them for attempting the climb.) What an extraordinary feat!

This story shows that no matter how big your dream, you can do it–IF you have support. That ’support’ can be in the form of know-how, equipment, mentors –but the most important is mentors or coaches. Coaches help you hold the vision of your best life, they help you get the skills and equipment and cheer you on every step of the way. All exceptional athletes have coaches. So do many highly successful people. Having a coach makes attaining your goal more easily and more quickly.

HERE’S MY OFFER! To help you create YOUR best 2010, I’m offering two months of coaching for the price of one! Two months is the perfect amount of time to get some big new habits installed, like losing weight, or starting that small biz, or completing those tasks you’ve been procrastinating about. If you’re wanting to do a few life renovations, now is the time to start! If not now, when?

This offer is available to anyone who is not currently in an active working relationship with me, but for those who are, you’re welcome to extend this offer to friends. And if one of your friends does sign up, I’ll give you a special “Energy Modulation” session as my thank you. I have been exploring “energy modulation” techniques for a while now –in fact I’m about to unveil a new website called Happinessanyway.com where I will be offering you further tools for this, but you will get a chance to experience some of these awesome tools for tweaking your own energy.

This offer is available until the end of this week only. To contact me to find out how this could work for you, or to sign up, email me: karen@personalbest.org or go to the contact page on my Free Session Idea page and put OFFER in the message line and add you details. Let’s make 2010 the BEST year ever!

Every blessing to you!

Karen Hood-Caddy

http://www.personalbest.org