Sometimes My Past Self Is Wiser than My Present Self

I begin every day by writing in my journal. Sometimes it’s a simple practice of vomiting words onto the page, filter be damned. Other times, I write a Letter from Love (if you don’t know what that is, check out

Elizabeth Gilbert

’s beautiful Substack), or I take something I’m wondering about or struggling with, and I let it lift out of my mind and land on the screen in front of me, where I can see it with fresh eyes and feel it with a softer, more curious heart. I rarely go back to read past entries, but today, without any conscious intent, I found myself reading an entry from a few months ago when I was on the Oregon coast. It felt like what I needed to read today, so I’m sharing it in hopes that it’s helpful for someone here.

Rain is singing on the windows, sliding down the glass. Beyond it, the constant orchestra of ocean, of waves pouring themselves onto the sand over and over and over again.

I want to be a wave. Even knowing that tides move in and out, that gravity will slip me back again, that it takes lifetimes for an ocean to become a forest (or a forest to become an ocean), I want to tumble myself heart-first into the world as if this wave, no maybe this one, okay how about now, might be the one that really matters. Because it all matters, doesn’t it?

It all matters, or none of it does. It’s all a miracle, or nothing is. Everyone is worth loving, or no one is. We all belong to everything, or else we belong to nothing. I’m going to go with all, all, everyone, all.

The world is a swirl of unfolding tragedies today. The suffering in Gaza, Ukraine, the West Bank. Hungry children everywhere. Birds dropping from the sky, planes crashing, ash trees thundering to the ground, glaciers melting like silty tears, the private traumas in every life, while men in power (and women, too) spew hate on trans folks, immigrants, people of color, like they can’t control the tide of spittle flying from their mouths. The easiest feelings to reach for now are rage, despair, anxiety, and a thick, beaten-down apathy like wet sand over my mind.

But all day yesterday, I watched shorebirds sail wind and rain like peril is the place of deepest aliveness, like being spun sideways is an invitation to find new ways to twirl, like the harder you beat your wings, the harder you feel the beating of your heart, and if you want to soar, you must learn to let heat hold you up.

I cannot choose which way I will need to tilt my wings in any given moment or how hard I’ll have to flap or when I’ll get to float like a kite on a wave of wind. But I can choose my direction. I want to choose love—over and over again, no matter how often I get spun around.

Photo by Rodolfo Mari on Unsplash

We’ve probably all heard that phrase about standing on the shoulders of giants. I like to think I’m standing on the shoulders of my past selves, too—or better yet, that we’re standing together, with our arms linked. That there’s a whole red rover chain of me lined up to help me show up to this moment in my life and this moment in the world. In my more woo woo moments, I feel my future selves in that chain, too. And if I get future-y enough with this image and consider the constant exchange of atoms between my body and the rest of the universe, it begins to feel like the whole interwoven web of us is here, in this moment, helping me learn to tilt my wings.

Is there some wisdom or resilience from a past version of yourself that you can pull from memory or glean from a journal and summon into this moment? Is there some future self whom you can imagine looking back at you with compassion, perspective, generosity, or words of encouragement?

We all need and deserve to be flooded with kindness. Sometimes this comes from the outside, and it’s so lovely when it does. But if we can also nourish it on the inside, then we can weather almost anything, sail almost any wind. And what a windy world it is, darlings. I am wishing safety, softness, and strength for each of you.

If you could use extra support in nourishing inner self-kindness or in choosing your direction through this moment in your life, then I hope you’ll check out my coaching and forest therapy offerings and consider booking a free consultation.