Episode 278 Minisode: Future Casting
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When life feels perpetually heavy and hard, it’s easy to believe that you just can’t catch a break because you think the issue is out there. The money, the schedule, the situation with your partner, politics. But what if the only real problems are your emotions? And everything out there is just a distraction, a challenge, an opportunity, or a matter of logistics. Today, I want to share a simple mindset tool.
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that’s been a game changer for me. It’s called future casting. It’s how I get out of my head and into the version of myself who’s already solved the problem, the woman who’s calm, clear, and well-grounded on the other side of it. If you’ve been spinning in stress or self-doubt, this mini-sode will help you shift instantly into a better perspective. Because when you stop reacting to life,
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and start responding to it from a place of wisdom, everything changes.
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My name is Colleen and I’m a mindful drinking coach helping high achieving professional women permanently reduce their alcohol consumption by 80%. Join me each week for evidence based holistic strategies to regulate your nervous system, balance your dopamine, and activate the growth mindset that makes you so powerful in other areas of your life so you can stop worrying about losing control and trust yourself again. Get happy, not sober. It’s not about the alcohol.
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So I want to introduce you to a mindset hack that I’ve recently learned. And it’s called future casting. And imagine yourself on a timeline. Like point A is where you are right now. And point B is wherever you want to be. And often we do this exercise in context. So it might be your relationship with alcohol. It might be a financial goal.
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it might be an emotional goal such as, you know, reducing your anxiety and not spending so much time in your head and getting into the habit of getting into action whenever you start thinking about something, like whatever it is, you’ve got point A and then you’ve got point B. And if you just think about this as a simple drawing on a piece of paper with two dots and a line between, what separates point A and point B is a problem. Like whatever your brain
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thinks is stopping you from achieving that goal. And there may be more than one thing, right? But there’s a reason that your brain thinks you can’t get there, or it’s going to be hard, or it’s going to take a lot of time. And I want to introduce a hypothesis for you that all problems are emotional. Every problem that you have is emotional. Because by definition, if your brain is seeing a problem,
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That means you are not emotionally sober. The external world, the circumstance, whatever is happening, even if it’s inside your body, right? If it’s a lab test or you’re sick or an energy level or you’re tired or whatever, like whatever the circumstances, it’s neutral. It’s not good or bad or right or wrong. It’s only your thoughts about the situation that create the problem, that create the emotional reaction.
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that this shouldn’t be this way or that something has gone wrong. So if you accept the hypothesis that all problems are emotional, then the way to solve any problem is to resolve the emotional resistance to whatever is happening. Because if your brain is telling you something’s wrong, that’s creating a stress response in your body.
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Your brain is telling you this isn’t right. This is a threat to my survival. This is a threat to my well-being or my community or my tribe or my, you know, safety, whatever it is, your brain is telling your body something is very wrong. And so now your body is producing cortisol and adrenaline and interrupting digestive processes and immunity like your body’s in fight or flight. And of course there are lots of levels of fight or flight. You can be in a low grade response.
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But any amount of anxiety or emotional resistance is going to block your perspective. The more stressed you are, the more myopic and negative and black or white, all or nothing catastrophic thinking your brain generates. So if you could just get into the habit of identifying your primary problem at all times when you realize there is a problem is internal, it is your thought processes, it is your mindset.
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And if you resolve for your mindset, that will clear the emotional inflammation, that will clear the biases and the assumptions, that will open you from a calm, open-minded state to be able to see things from a different angle, from a broader perspective, from a bird’s-eye view. So applying this future casting concept, when you are at point A and your brain has identified the problem that’s blocking you from point B,
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resolve the emotional inflammation, understand, regulate your nervous system, breathe, sing, move, or lay down. Whatever your body wants to do, do the opposite of that. oh And bring your body back into a calm state. And then visualize yourself at point B, the version of you that has moved through this challenge or obstacle, this version of you that can look back and say, oh, yeah.
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Here’s how we handled that. Here’s how I overcame that. I’m so proud of myself. I learned a lot. I was resilient. I kept going. That was a great source of wisdom. That obstacle from hindsight is now a source of wisdom. So if you can connect to the emotional feeling of being at point B, and yeah, you have to imagine it.
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But anxiety is just you imagining the worst, that this is never gonna work and I’m never gonna get there and nothing good ever happens and I knew this was gonna happen and blah, blah, blah. Like you’re imagining all of that. So if you’re gonna tell yourself a lie, just tell yourself a better lie, right? Because there is only ever this present moment. So yeah, you have to imagine yourself in that state. And even though the specifics of the problem may not be solved, know, logistically in your brain,
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you can connect with the emotional state, the version of you that overcame it, and then just sit in that emotional state. So you are future casting, like if you’re fishing and there’s like a dock or a board and you have to throw the reel over to the other side, you are fishing for an emotional response to this obstacle from the other side of the obstacle, because you know life is long.
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If this does, unless this kills you, you’re going to come through it one way or another. So future casting is just identifying that your emotional state is the problem, clearing for the emotional statement through nervous system regulation, and then conjuring an image of yourself from the other side of this obstacle, the version of you that knew how to solve the problem, that dealt with all of the challenges and moved through it. And just sit.
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in that awareness and connect with that feeling. Because that feeling, while it’s emotional, it does inform your thoughts. And that sensation of clarity and confidence will generate the thoughts that solve the obstacle.
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All right, thanks for listening. And if you’re a high achieving, coachable woman who is ready to commit to manifesting your best life, and you’re going to need to reduce your alcohol consumption by about 80%, so that alcohol goes back to being a pleasure instead of a soul sucking problem, get in the show notes and click the link and schedule a discovery call with me or my team.