(Day 195 / -106 lbs.) Freakish Youthful Idealism

Dry weather, a nearly empty gym, and a kind scale made for a most excellent workout this morning. After six months I think I'm finally getting into the groove of this whole renaissance-thing.

Wuh-wo! Flashback time!

Once upon a time I was sitting in one of those new age hippie encounter groups sharing my hopes and dreams while listening to sitar music and soaking up some mind-widening “incense”. We went through a number of guided “exercises” designed to open our minds and visualize our dreams and goals and somehow get in touch with our inner selves. It was groovy, man! Consider though, that it was the 80's and instead of hippies it was a bunch of soulless yuppies bent on corporate ladder-climbing. The sitar and incense stuff was still groovy.

At one point we were to pick three of our goals and make an object out of clay representing each one but I think I'll save the telling of that experience for some other time. The gibberish I'd like to blather on about now is more about the whole goal setting process and how serious a thing it truly is. Serious? You bet, considering that whatever you set as a goal and focus upon will most likely come to be- at least that's how things have worked out for me. So we each were told to close our eyes and lie back as we visualized our lives as we saw them at that moment. We were to mentally see our stuff (houses, cars, clothes, etc.), our relationships and everything else going on right then and once we had that picture nestled in our brains, mentally move forward in time five, ten, twenty years and see how things turn out. Then we inserted our goals as if they had been achieved and did the same flash-forward exercise. Now, I don't know if it was the incense or the sitar but it was pretty easy to imagine the different, more improved future.

I still use this method- especially when it is something I think is really important. I've done it with my weight loss goal. I've imagined myself both as I was and as I plan to be five, ten, and even twenty years down into the future. It was a pretty dismal future the way things were going- not really much of a future at all and scary enough to get me to the gym. Conversely, my imagined healthy future is bright enough to keep me there and bring me back time after time.

I can't wait to meet the future me.