Letter From My Future Self

Imagine that you receive a letter from your future self, from the last day of your life on earth, delivered back in time to your present self. A love letter with the best advice you could give yourself. I thought about what my future self could say to me and wrote this letter which you are about to read.

To my dear self in the year 2021,

Come home to your own belonging.
Spend long whiles listening.
Take your shoes off and sink your barefoot toes in the sand.
Live each day in the moment, one breath at a time.
Perfection is an illusion.
There is no arrival. The adventure never ends.
Do what you love to do.

Any moment is a good moment to begin.
There is no creativity that you can get wrong.
Do what makes you come alive.
Stop planning for life to happen. Simply be who you are.

There will always be a challenge in tandem with your joys.
Choose to magnify gratitude.
Build with eternity as a current state of being.
Make peace with your own death.
Then you will take the handbrake off of life.

Look deeper than the surface of appearances.
Search for the heart of your loved ones.
Take time to truly see.
There are no short cuts, and what’s of true importance takes time.
Make friends with time.
Be filled with grace towards your inner wilderness.

Forgive as a habit.
Receive the love God has for you.
Let love be the greatest thing.

Some people stay for a lifetime, others only for a season, others only for a lesson.
Heal yourself in your mind by growing thoughts of love.
You are a channel of love’s fire wherever you go.
Your weakness will be the place of your greatest transformation.

Some of your dreams will grow or change, some will be lost or rearranged, but hold onto dreaming anyway.

Let hope grow roots in you that go down into the earth.
Keep your branches reaching for the sky.
Don’t be afraid of a mess. God can do wonders with a mess.

Embrace your questions.
Keep mystery alive in you.
Return to your childlike wisdom.
Listen with joy-filled awareness.
Notice growing things in small places.
Play your music and sing, because you love to.

Even what feels dead in you can rise again.
Each season has a rhythm to learn.
Don’t judge yourself for not being perfect.
You are loved.
Let that be your centre.
Trust that there is a bigger process at work.

Failure is a stepping stone to wisdom.
Wisdom is more important than perceived success.
Slow it all down.
Trade overdriven striving for what rest works in you.

The past will always be there shaping the person you are becoming, but the past will not determine the outcome of things.
Your choices are powerful.

Time is always making you believe that life will start when everything is perfectly aligned.
But it’s never perfect.
You bring it to life by starting.

When you’re coming to the end of yourself, remember what it is to be loved.
The shaping of you through pain makes your foundations go deep and your grace potent.
There is never a too late with God, even when things look impossible.
There is always room for a fresh start.

Practice smiling from your eyes, laughing and crying too.
Your feelings are the messengers of hidden truths.
Allow your feelings to move through your body, don’t force them inside.

Love is behind every scene, guiding you intrinsically from within.
You will never be alone.
I am loving you as I cross the great threshold, through death, into life.

I love you, Dear Heart. I do.

Take some time to write a letter from your future self to your present self, and notice what comes up for you.