Your Future Self | Ep #44

I’m Andrea Giles, and you’re listening to the Heal From Infidelity podcast,
episode number 44, Your Future Self.

Hello, and welcome to the Heal From Infidelity podcast, where courageous
women learn not only to heal from their spouse’s betrayal, but to become
the boldest, truest, most decisive and confident versions of themselves
ever. If you know there’s more freedom than the life you’re currently
living, but don’t quite know how to get there, you are in the right place.
Stick around to learn how to create a life that will knock your own socks
off. Is it possible? It is, and I’m here to show you how. I’m your host,
Andrea Giles. Are you ready? Let’s dive in.

Hello, everybody. I’m so happy to be with you today. Today, we’re going to
talk about one of my very favorite topics to talk about. We’re going to be
talking about you in the future. We’re going to talk about what’s possible
for you. You’ve heard me say before, and you’ll probably hear me say it
again, that when somebody asks us information about ourselves like, “Tell
me about yourself,” or, “Tell me what’s possible for you. Tell me what you
can do,” most of the time we look in the past, we look in the rear-view
mirror are evidence of what is possible in our future. We look behind us.

Now, the reason why I want to talk about your future self is because I
can’t emphasize enough how important it is to look forward, to look to your
future for information about where you’re going, so today, I’m going to
talk with you about some of my clients and where this is showing up for
them, how they are gaining wisdom from possibility and not from past
experience. They are taking wisdom and knowledge from past experience, but
when they are answering what is possible for them, they’re looking to
future, and I’m going to teach you how I’ve helped them with that, okay?

I also am going to be telling you some happenings going on with me. It’s
been quite a month. There have been a lot of circumstances for me to
practice my mind around managing my mind. There have been many
circumstances that I’ve had to think through and work through. I have felt
a lot of feelings pretty heavily and I’m going to talk to you a little bit
about it and how this concept of looking to my future self has helped me so
much. I’m going to talk to you about that, okay?

What I want to say about your future is that our future… If you think
about our past, okay, if we think about our past, for most of us, we have
thought patterns that have been around for a very, very long time. For some
of us, we can’t even remember not thinking the way that we do, not feeling
the way that we do most of the time for most of us we’ve we created these
patterns when we were young and when we got married and then had some of
the things happen in our marriage, for many of us, it just strengthened
some of the stories that we told ourselves before we ever even knew the
person that we’re married to, and then for some of us, new thought patterns
have emerged from marriage, from some of the circumstances. That happens,
too. But for many of us, we came into the marriage with thought patterns.
We came into it with this idea of what is possible of what we can have, and
then we make it true because we often don’t know how to challenge our own
beliefs, right? We don’t know how, so we make it true.

Now, as you’ve heard me say, we have thoughts. We have beliefs. When we
think a thought enough times, it becomes a belief. We think thoughts, it
creates an emotion. We take action from that emotion or that feeling and we
create a result and round and round we go, right? We do it over and over
and over again. Now, it’s wonderful because it means that our brains are
trying to be efficient, that our brains are trying to preserve energy and
resources. Thank you, brain. Thank you, wonderful brain. But where it can
get us steered in a direction that is not helpful is when we are thinking
about possibility, when we’re thinking about what we can have, what we can
do, what we can create. Our brain is super fast to be a Negative Nellie and
say, “Nope, you’ve never done that before. Don’t do that.” Right?

When we think about the future, our future is defined only by what
definition we give to it, ‘kay? If we’re just taking all the information
from our past and setting that out in front of us like, “This is it, this
is all you can have,” it might be kind of depressing to think about the
future, and not only that, it might keep us from making bold choices today
if we don’t believe that we can create something different tomorrow. If we
think we’re just going to create the same thing over and over again, we
might stay stuck, we might stay in familiar relationships, even if we know
that we’re unhappy. We might even choose not to do the heavy lifting of
really changing our minds because we might think that it’s not possible,
“I’ve never done it before. I’ve tried before,” and so it might keep
ourselves in these patterns.

In the future, what you’re doing is you’re harnessing the power of our
brain, which is so mighty. Our brains are so powerful and we’re using our
brain to literally create something that has never been before. We’re
creating new results. We’re taking new action. We’re feeling new feelings.
We’re thinking new thoughts. We’re literally changing our life from the
inside out, not because the circumstance around us change, but because we
are creating it in what we believe, right?

You probably have seen before, experienced before where maybe a
circumstance did change, something happened, something changed, and you
thought for sure you’d feel different once you had that thing, right?
Wrong. We find a way to bring old thought patterns with us, they come
along, unless we decide to do the work of changing our reminds. Unless we
do that work, it doesn’t matter what circumstances we change, we’ll still
create the same thoughts, same feelings. We’ll still recreate over and over
again, ‘kay?

I’m going to give you first some client examples and then I’m going to tell
you some developments that have happened in my life that I want to share
with you today, so hang around. Stick around. You’ll hear some things,
okay? First of all, I want to tell you about one of my clients who
throughout her life has really loved having a home that is a gathering
place for her family. She loves it. She loves having Sunday dinners. Now,
this client of mine had been married for almost 50 years and she is now
going through a divorce, and because she has a lot of evidence from the
past about what is possible, she is convinced that she can’t have that same
kind of gathering place that she had before that she had in her marriage
because he was the main financial breadwinner. He paid for making the room
that they had where they fit everybody in, where the family had their
gathering places, and they’re selling it, and she’s pretty convinced that
she won’t be able to have that, that it’s not possible.

In coaching her, I was able to point out to her how she did, in fact, help
create that in the first place, that gathering place. There are plenty of
open spaces where people could gather and they choose not to, or people
with large homes where people choose not to come, right? She created a
gathering place where people come and where, in her words, “people feel
love and loved,” and so she was looking in the rear-view mirror and feeling
kind of depressed that that part of her life, that she can’t create that
anymore, and in coaching her, I was able to help her to open up to
possibility. If this is something that matters to her, then she will create
it. She will make it happen. We talked about different possibilities. What
if she has not found the solution yet, the how? The how, right?

But I’m going to do another episode about the how and that how knowing that
information, we’re not privy to it right away, it comes over time. What we
have to hold onto is the things that we want. She wants that gathering
place, so who does she need to become? What does she need to believe about
herself to create that? She needs to be resourceful. She needs to be
creative and look for options. Maybe think outside the box, maybe ask
people for things, maybe be assertive, and in looking in the rear-view
mirror, she was telling herself that “He was the one that was kind of in
charge, and so I can’t have that because we’re not going to be married
anymore,” so how powerful for her to know that she is in fact still going
to have that?

You know what? She’s either going to have what she had or something better.
How fun is that, this or something better? She’s either going to have a
similar setup or something better. She just doesn’t know what it looks like
yet. She doesn’t have the how, but her looking to the future sets up that
I’m going to make this happen. It gets her looking forward instead of to
the past. It gets her out of feeling depressed or feeling stuck and feeling
defeated into feeling curious, open, excited, even, to go look for the
solutions that will create that for her again, ‘kay?

Now, another client has spent years wishing that her spouse would be a
better provider, that, “Once he’s a better provider, then I will get to
feel happy in my marriage. Then I’ll have the support that I need, that
I’ll feel this way,” and in one particular session, I pushed her on it and
I asked her straight up, “What other ways can you support yourself?” I was
not talking financially, just in general: “How can you give that support
that you are assigning to him to yourself? How can you create that for
yourself?” and she lit up. I could see the light turn on and she got
excited and she knew the answer. She knew what to do. In that session, she
knew what to do, and she made a bold decision about how she’s going to move
forward to create support for herself, and then she is inviting her husband
to come along: “I’d love for you to come with me. This is what I’m doing.
This is how I’m going to support myself. This is how I’m going to take care
of me,” instead of waiting for him to be something that so far she hasn’t
seen him be, and what a relief to him to know that he can be and that she
can create the support that she wants for herself.

Okay, next is another client who had years of dysfunction in her marriage,
and she decided that she was going to put a stake in the ground and make
some changes herself and put more stock in what was possible in her future
and in their future together than in what was in the rear-view mirror. In
their marriage, there was an affair. There was a lot of dysfunction,
there’s a lot of deceit, and this person decided that she was going to
think more, focus more, create a marriage where the intimacy was much more
than it ever was before, the truthfulness, allowing themselves to be seen,
and to see the other person, real intimacy, and she committed to that. She
committed to what is possible in the future rather than looking behind and
going, “Well, this happened and this happened,” and she decided to set that
down and look to the future and so did he and they are now happier than
they ever were before. They are thriving because they made the decision to
take intel from what is possible to help direct what they’re going to do
today, what decisions they’re making today, rather than focusing on the
things that have been done and determining that this is the best it’s going
to be.

When we can get into those patterns of thinking that “This is as good as it
gets,” it can be quite depressing, or when we get into patterns of
thinking, “This is the only way I know how to do it,” and then we can feel
depressed. With that, I’m going to tell you a little bit about myself and
some things going on with me, ‘kay? It’s been a really eventful month for
my family. I had a stepdaughter get married. I had a son get married. I had
a daughter graduate from high school. Three days before the first wedding
of my stepdaughter, I got some news that I was not prepared for at all, at
all. The news is that I am pregnant. Now, keep in mind, I’m almost 44. My
youngest kids are 12 years old, I have twins that are 12. I have two
grandchildren. My husband had a vasectomy a year-and-a-half ago, and yet
behold, I am pregnant. I’m starting over.

My brain did exactly what brains are supposed to do, and as soon as I got
this news, my brain freaked out, and I looked in the rear-view mirror for
evidence of what is possible, and I’ll tell you where I went to my brain,
okay? When my kids were little, I always stayed home with them. I was a
stay-at-home mom. I moved all the time. I moved so many times for my first
husband to do his higher education, for various jobs. I just picked up and
moved and I stayed home with the kids. I wanted to be home with the kids,
but it was hard. There are other ambitions that I had that I put on hold.
Now, I am doing something that I love. I love coaching. I love having a
business that pushes me. I love being a businesswoman and challenging
myself. I love being an entrepreneur.

My brain instantly was like, “Well, that was a fun run, and I guess now you
got to set that down. I guess you have to quit,” because my brain got
evidence of what’s possible in the future from the past: “Oh, you’re just
going to be a stay-at-home mom and stop doing this thing that you love,”
and I was really depressed. I was really sad and really depressed and even
a little mad because I had the best plans, right? I had so many great plans
of what I was going to do. I started having children when I was 21 years
old, and now I’m starting over at 44, so I will have many, many more years
of having kids at home, and my brain did not like it, and I felt depressed
because of the story that I was telling myself about all the freedom that
suddenly, just like that, was gone.

Now, I want to say to those of you who are listening, I know there are some
of you out there that would love this news, that would love to be pregnant,
and I want to say I love you and I hear you and I do understand the miracle
in this and I do see it and I do think it is a miracle, but at first, my
brain took me backwards because that’s what our brains do. I had a hard
time seeing the miracle in it. My husband had such a hard time. We had a
rough go when we were trying to wrap our heads around this and starting
over. This will be 12 kids, 12 children, my seventh biological, 12 total.

Now, do you want to know how I helped myself out of this? By taking my own
advice, by looking to the future, by looking ahead. My brain wants to go to
extremes, black and white, just like in my, in my podcast, a while back
about black-and-white thinking, “Oh, you’re just going to have to quit.
You’re going to have to walk away. Quit. That was fun, but that’s done
now.” What helped me move forward is looking to the future, the future
version of Andrea, where she is a amazing mother, she’s an amazing business
owner, an amazing coach, where she really does have it all, where she has
help, where she hires the help that she needs so she can thrive, and
thriving for her looks like continuing her coaching practice and being a
mother. She gets to do both.

Now, I still don’t know exactly how I’m going to pull it off as far as
hitting my goals and things like that, I don’t know exactly what that’s
going to look like, but you know what I can tell you? It’s going to be
good. It might very well be better than all the best-laid plans that I had.
This news is teaching me at a higher level this very skill that I’m
teaching you, to get my intel from my future self, not from my past self,
to look ahead to the wise powerhouse version of me that truly has it all,
that is an excellent mother to that new little one that’s coming and all
her other kids and runs a powerful business. That is where I’m going.

Even if I don’t know exactly what it looks like, I can create that feeling
today and I can take notes and I can listen to that. I can listen to myself
and go, “Hey, this is how you need to feel to take the action to create
that.” What do you need to be thinking? I need to be thinking that I can
create whatever I want, that I can put anything in my result line of the
thought model. As a refresher, the thought model, you have a circumstance,
you have a thought about the circumstance. The thought creates a feeling,
we take action from the feeling, and then we create a result. I can put
whatever I want in my result line because I have a powerful brain, and so
do you, and we get to create our results. We’re powerful. We’re so
powerful.

While I don’t know right now all the logistics, I just know it’s going to
be good, and I know that I’m going to figure it out, and that I’m going to
blow my own mind with what I create in the future, that I’m going to take
this circumstance, and it’s going to be a blessing to me, to my family,
this little one, and that I will grow in the ways that I need to grow most.
I’m trusting that, and that this little one will be so, so loved and so
well cared for and that I will continue to grow my business, that I’ll
continue to move forward.

Truly, what made the difference for me and coming out of the fog I was in
was in reconnecting with my future self. She knows some stuff. She’s wise.
I believe that that future version to me is who I always was intended to be
and who I really am in my core. I’m just lining her up. She already is
powerful and strong in all of these things and I’m just lining up. I’m just
getting an alignment with that. When we get in alignment with things, the
circumstances are created. We create these amazing results for ourself.

My friends, I want you to hear me on this: You might be in marriages where
you know that you want more, where you know that you are playing small,
where you know that you’re capable of showing up in a different way. I’m
guessing that every single one of you on this podcast listening has had
moments where you have known in your bones that you were meant for more,
that you are meant for greatness. We try to talk ourselves out of it. I
want to talk you into it. Who is that person? What do they know that you
currently don’t know? What would happen if you trusted it? For many people
that are trying to decide, for example, if they want to stay married or
not, there are dilemmas about, “Well, what about the kids? What about
money? What about this? What about that?” While I am not trying to discount
that those are things to be concerned for, that they are things to think
about, right? They are things to consider, absolutely. Don’t get your intel
of what you’re capable of by looking in the rear-view mirror. Look forward.

If you could create whatever you want, would you stay married? If you knew
that you could figure out a way to create the income that you want, would
you stay married? Do you like your reasons for staying? If you knew that
you could create whatever you want, would you lean in and trust more in the
marriage? This concept of your future self, it can go either way with
staying in your marriage, leaving your marriage. Either way. But trusting
in your future more than the chatter of the past, it’s an act of faith, it
feels scary, but it’s how you’re going to get what you want. It’s how
you’re going to get where you’re going, so I want you to practice this. I
want you to practice hanging out with you in the future. You, not other
people. I care so much more about your opinion of you than of anybody
else’s opinion. Do you value your opinion more than other people’s opinion?
If you have a hard time accessing your opinion now, or trusting your
opinion, go hang out with you in five years. What does she have to say? She
knows. She knows some stuff.

Okay, that’s what I’ve got for you today. In a future episode, I’m going to
talk about how. I’m going to talk about how we get in our way for making
decisions when we have greed, to know how. We want to know how before we
take action. I’m going to talk about that soon, okay? I will say, if you
want help with this, this is what I do all day long with my clients. I help
my clients access their own wisdom, their own desires, their own wants, and
we create a blueprint of how they’re going to get it. They learn how to
feel new feelings, how to access their emotions, how to process emotions,
how to allow themselves to want again. It is powerful, powerful work, and
it’s kind of scary sometimes. That’s why having a coach can be such a great
asset.

Your future is worth any investment you can make today. You’ve got life
ahead of you. You’ve got so much life ahead of you. If you want help
getting out of your own way currently or from stories from your past, to go
create the future that you want, come talk to me. This is something I love,
that I love helping my clients with, and I’d love to work with you. You can
find me on my website, andreagiles.com. There are buttons on there where
you can book a consult with me. Now, for those of you who live in different
countries with different time zones, if you don’t see a time that works for
you, just send me an email, andrea@andreagiles.com, and we’ll figure out a
time that works for your time zone, okay? All right, my friends, that’s
what I’ve got for you today. Thank you for being here. Sending all my love
to you and I’ll see you next week. Bye-bye.

Thank you for listening to the Heal From Infidelity podcast. If you would
like to be kept in the know about upcoming free classes, new podcast
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it’s andreagiles.com/lies-about-infidelity/. I will see you next time.