There is a lot of talk of loving your present self, as is. In fact, I dedicated all last month to it with the Self Love Series. There is also talk about loving your past self, about forgiving yourself, loving your inner child, etc.
But I rarely hear talk about loving your future self. There is talk of preventative medicine and preparing for the aging process and all of that, but have you really framed it in the way of truly caring for your future self like you would an old friend?
I hadn’t until this past week while I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts Afford Anything. The host Paula Pant is all about how you can afford anything, just not everything. And she talks a lot about the inner relationship with money, which I find really refreshing.
In a recent episode she made a great point about why we should create a healthy relationship with money:
“Your money is there to serve both your present self and your future self. Treat your future self really, really effing well. I find a lot of joy and a lot of satisfaction from knowing that no matter what happens to me, my present self might be a train wreck, but my future self? Totally taken care of. And that brings me an unspeakable amount of peace.”
Treat your future self well right now? What a concept! And naturally, it got me thinking about the why of self-care. And how a self-care practice ultimately is a way to care for your present and future self, no matter how old you are.
Perhaps when you are sitting there wanting to do some self-care activity but you don’t feel like it or you don’t think it will make any difference, think of your future self. Think of how it might feel over the next few days, weeks, months, years, if you didn’t care for your self on a daily basis. If you never cultivated a healthy relationship with yourself. If you never followed your inner wisdom.
Think about all of the love you have for your future self and the quality of life you want to have. Think of the fears you have about yourself in the future and how your self-care practice could bring peace instead of fear. What a beautiful idea. So let’s put it into action!