This question from your sweet darling 14 year old, his eyes and voice pleading for reassurance, is enough to make any parent’s heart explode. You are at once gripped by the intense desire to protect and reassure your child while at the same time your own fears and insecurities about the future arise - not only about theirs but possibly about your own as well.
It is very understandable that as a parent you would feel compelled to assuage your child’s fears with an emphatic “Of course you will darling - don’t worry about it! You are one of the smartest kids I know!” This is probably how your parents responded to you when you asked this same question as an adolescent.
However emphatically you manage to say it, it is still nothing but an empty platitude and while it may seem to do the trick, such a response will most likely leave your child feeling dismissed and as scared as ever. Since platitudes are perhaps even more harmful to those who inflict them, you will also feel unhappy and cheated by the exchange.
When we are uncertain about the future (and who isn’t at some point?) we tend to ask detail-oriented questions like when? where? and how? These are important questions, the answers to which are usually revealed one by one in much the same way the stars reveal themselves at dusk.
As you are convinced, even at dusk, of the magnificence of the fully illumined night sky, it is also possible to be convinced of the quality of your concealed (for now) future. How? Begin by imagining yourself as you would be if you HAD your dream job. Many of us would envision a comfortable home with enough material possessions to facilitate daily life surrounded by people we love and who love us back. The basic qualities that these circumstances evoke are security, comfort and love. It is these qualities that we must first identify about what our heart most desires as they are the true source of our motivation. If you can tap into this source, you will never lack the confidence and energy necessary for figuring out the details of your dreams.
In another common scenario, imagine wanting to lose weight. The first thing most of us would do is focus on the details like diet, exercise and lifestyle. We would set goals based on number of pounds lost within a specific time period thus requiring us to micromanage and often strictly sanction our behaviour surrounding food and physical activity. This path is littered with the debris of the failure of the multitudes who attempted its staggering peaks without first identifying the qualities of life that they wished to create with these behaviours. If you take the time to establish these qualities before embarking you will then be able to remind yourself when the going gets tough that you are not on an ordinary weight loss program but on a quest for improved health, vitality and joy.
Whenever I am feeling insecure about my future I imagine it full of beauty and grace. Immediately my anxiety and worry virtually disappear and I am filled with quiet and certitude. Not only is this very reassuring in the moment, it is also a much better place from which to iron out the details. To achieve maximum efficiency with this technique it is important to let go of fixed or preconceived ideas. I am grateful to be able to count much beauty and grace in my life already and I continue to discover new and unexpected ways that these qualities imbue my life. For example, I have recently been trusted to deliver a sweet, adorable almost 3 year old to his daycare in order to facilitate the task of his amazingly hard-working and inspiring mother who drops him off at my place on her way to work very early in the morning. He and I take the time to appreciate the rainbows cast upon the walls by the early morning sun as it refracts through the crystals hanging in my windows. His delight if ever there is a rainbow that falls on his little person is one of the purest examples of beauty and grace that I could ever fathom. He happily plays with our dog and the same toys that my own kids used to play with until it is time to go. I adore securing him into his car seat as he sits there trustingly and singing songs together as we drive to daycare.
My own son seemed satisfied and reassured with my answer to his question that is the title of this blog. His confidence is partly due to the fact that I am his mother and he trusts me but even more importantly, he could feel the truth of what I was saying in his own body, a feeling that cannot be generated by platitudes or hollow reassurance no matter who is offering it. Once identified, the projection of these qualities into the future allows you FEEL “in your bones” all of the potential that you innately possess to create the life that you desire the most. This is much more powerful and inspiring than a list of “key performance indicators” or school grades that are based on tragically limited criteria given that the potential of each and everyone of us is as vast and as mysterious as the stars in the sky.
If you would like some help distilling the qualities of life that you desire from your hopes and dreams then please don’t hesitate to contact me via the contact sheet on this blog. By requesting a Pure Love Perspective for a challenging situation or problem that has you stuck, you are helping to make my dreams of meaningful contribution and abundance come true. My goal is not to offer advice but to provide a fresh way of seeing that hopefully empowers you to "figure things out" for yourself. For some more thoughts on how to deal with uncertainty about the future, I invite you to read my earlier blog entitled "Making Friends with Uncertainty".
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
It is very understandable that as a parent you would feel compelled to assuage your child’s fears with an emphatic “Of course you will darling - don’t worry about it! You are one of the smartest kids I know!” This is probably how your parents responded to you when you asked this same question as an adolescent.
However emphatically you manage to say it, it is still nothing but an empty platitude and while it may seem to do the trick, such a response will most likely leave your child feeling dismissed and as scared as ever. Since platitudes are perhaps even more harmful to those who inflict them, you will also feel unhappy and cheated by the exchange.
When we are uncertain about the future (and who isn’t at some point?) we tend to ask detail-oriented questions like when? where? and how? These are important questions, the answers to which are usually revealed one by one in much the same way the stars reveal themselves at dusk.
As you are convinced, even at dusk, of the magnificence of the fully illumined night sky, it is also possible to be convinced of the quality of your concealed (for now) future. How? Begin by imagining yourself as you would be if you HAD your dream job. Many of us would envision a comfortable home with enough material possessions to facilitate daily life surrounded by people we love and who love us back. The basic qualities that these circumstances evoke are security, comfort and love. It is these qualities that we must first identify about what our heart most desires as they are the true source of our motivation. If you can tap into this source, you will never lack the confidence and energy necessary for figuring out the details of your dreams.
In another common scenario, imagine wanting to lose weight. The first thing most of us would do is focus on the details like diet, exercise and lifestyle. We would set goals based on number of pounds lost within a specific time period thus requiring us to micromanage and often strictly sanction our behaviour surrounding food and physical activity. This path is littered with the debris of the failure of the multitudes who attempted its staggering peaks without first identifying the qualities of life that they wished to create with these behaviours. If you take the time to establish these qualities before embarking you will then be able to remind yourself when the going gets tough that you are not on an ordinary weight loss program but on a quest for improved health, vitality and joy.
Whenever I am feeling insecure about my future I imagine it full of beauty and grace. Immediately my anxiety and worry virtually disappear and I am filled with quiet and certitude. Not only is this very reassuring in the moment, it is also a much better place from which to iron out the details. To achieve maximum efficiency with this technique it is important to let go of fixed or preconceived ideas. I am grateful to be able to count much beauty and grace in my life already and I continue to discover new and unexpected ways that these qualities imbue my life. For example, I have recently been trusted to deliver a sweet, adorable almost 3 year old to his daycare in order to facilitate the task of his amazingly hard-working and inspiring mother who drops him off at my place on her way to work very early in the morning. He and I take the time to appreciate the rainbows cast upon the walls by the early morning sun as it refracts through the crystals hanging in my windows. His delight if ever there is a rainbow that falls on his little person is one of the purest examples of beauty and grace that I could ever fathom. He happily plays with our dog and the same toys that my own kids used to play with until it is time to go. I adore securing him into his car seat as he sits there trustingly and singing songs together as we drive to daycare.
My own son seemed satisfied and reassured with my answer to his question that is the title of this blog. His confidence is partly due to the fact that I am his mother and he trusts me but even more importantly, he could feel the truth of what I was saying in his own body, a feeling that cannot be generated by platitudes or hollow reassurance no matter who is offering it. Once identified, the projection of these qualities into the future allows you FEEL “in your bones” all of the potential that you innately possess to create the life that you desire the most. This is much more powerful and inspiring than a list of “key performance indicators” or school grades that are based on tragically limited criteria given that the potential of each and everyone of us is as vast and as mysterious as the stars in the sky.
If you would like some help distilling the qualities of life that you desire from your hopes and dreams then please don’t hesitate to contact me via the contact sheet on this blog. By requesting a Pure Love Perspective for a challenging situation or problem that has you stuck, you are helping to make my dreams of meaningful contribution and abundance come true. My goal is not to offer advice but to provide a fresh way of seeing that hopefully empowers you to "figure things out" for yourself. For some more thoughts on how to deal with uncertainty about the future, I invite you to read my earlier blog entitled "Making Friends with Uncertainty".
I look forward to hearing from you soon.