Future-trippin’: An Embodied Approach To Worrying About the Future

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Future-trippin’: An embodied approach to worrying about the future. + a somatic practice

Have you ever felt like you don’t have control over your thoughts. You’re eating breakfast and bam! A stream of thoughts come through about a future event or scenario. I know I do.

I was recently having thoughts about an upcoming event that I chose to attend.

What am I going to wear? Is there parking?…I hope lunch will be good. Lunch will be later than I eat. Damn, I should bring snacks…There will be lots of people. OMG, eww lots of people! Will there be breaks? Chill, Albania…

These intrusive thoughts (perhaps different from mine) creep up throughout your day, and the energy spent on them can be exhausting. You feel like you have no way of stopping them.

So what can you do when you are future-trippin’ and how can you stop it?

That’s what we’ll chat about today.

The past in the future, that’s in the present.

Our thoughts about the future, like the one I’ve had about this event with lots of people, hasn’t happened yet. My mind and body are preparing for a potential threat (e.g. lots of people). My thoughts are the internal threat.

As I get older, my tolerance for being with people has varied (for various reasons). In the past, I’ve pushed myself to be in spaces where my body didn’t want to or felt safe, so that has registered in my mind and body.

The moment, we have a future unknown event that we worry about or fear, the body gets charged up (along with the thoughts), from a body memory of the past.

We might about to open up our laptop for the work day, while all this is happening internally. We are then in a stress response.

The more you resist, it will persist.

First, let me say, there’s nothing wrong with thinking about the future.

But when the thoughts are spiraling and running a mile a minute then…Huston, we have a problem.

There is no way to stop our thoughts. They just are. But hear me out for a second.

People want to resist them or over-identify with them, and that makes it worse.

Controlling the thoughts will have your thoughts persist even more, and you will start feeling even more stress.

Why?

Because your body will be constricting and bracing from the threat that’s internally in your mind. Remember, the mind and body, cannot distinguish what’s is real or imagined.

People try to meditate because they feel that that’s going to help stop the thoughts, but then find out, they can’t, and they start feeling like they are mediating wrong.

In meditation you are encouraged to not attach to your thoughts, instead to observe them going by.

It can be hard, but it’s possible.

Just like in meditation, you can learn to relate (through observation) to what’s arising within you and around you.

Every thought has a somatic (body) experience. Whether you are aware of it or not, when we have a thought, a sensation is accompanied by it.

Our body will feel what we think and we will identify it - if we don’t have the skills set in place.

You are not your thoughts

First important thing to become aware of is: we are not our thoughts.

Most people will say “I am anxious because I need to have this hard conversation with my friend”.

You are not anxiety.

A part of you is feeling anxious.

You are you.

You learn to filter out what is the emotion or sensation from who you are.

The Witnesser

When you are able to identify the part that is feeling an emotion, sensation, or thought, you then become the witnesser.

You are now then relating to that part that is showing up.

You are not attached to the feeling or sensation.

I am witnessing my thought that lands in my body (sensation) and I am not the sensation or the thought or emotion.

I am.

It’s also very spiritual. It is your soul being present and witnessing.

The Somatic Practice: