850th Week: I Am Willing to Live My Optimal Life
One of the things I’ve worked with for nearly 40 years is the concept of accessing the optimal future self and, drawing on ideas found in quantum physics, accessing my optimal life. What I like about working with intentions that focus on what is optimal is that it draws from the infinite range of probabilities, what some people call the “quantum foam”, those that offer optimal outcomes and input to my life.
Having called on various expressions of my optimal future self over all these years, my experience has been that my life has unfolded in ways I would never have anticipated and yet in ways that leave me, in my 70’s, deeply contented, even as I continue to be quite busy work-wise.
Over the years, I have offered many people journeys into their optimal futures, always explaining that it’s not actually about the “future”, since the Now is only and always the present moment. Instead, it’s about drawing from our underlying wholeness aspects of being that haven’t before come into the foreground of who we are in the world.
What I like most about this work is that it asks us to be willing not to know, not to have to plan or figure out how to live into our optimal life. I feel this because our planning or figuring out draws on only what we know already and the goal here is to get out of the way of our many preconceptions, beliefs, shoulds, and rules. Instead, it’s a process of being willing to be open to receive unexpected, unanticipated, and not always comfortable changes in how we move through the world and what we do with our time.
In my experience, the process lives into us, arises, and is definitely a non-cognitive process. Perhaps the most important aspect of calling on optimal futures is to get out of the way mentally and allowing yourself to experience the felt-sense of that optimal state. Early on, I learned that “what the body learns, the psyche will follow”, so for me the fundamental resource in this work is the lived experience of connecting to the optimal future self. This is most often achieved by blending with that aspect of self and feeling from the inside the sensations, body state, perceptions, and perspective of the optimal future self.
For this week’s practice in conscious living, I invite you to engage your optimal future by starting each day with the intention, “I am willing to live my optimal life,” or, “I am willing to live into my optimal life.” Don’t add anything else to this intention. Instead, say it with as much heartfelt truth as you can feel and then notice what spontaneously and organically arises in you as you move through your days. It isn’t always comfortable to move into your optimal life, as it may confront you with changes you need to make, with protections that no longer work or are getting in the way, with whatever keeps you from engaging aspects of your wholeness that are part of the expression of your optimal life.
I am convinced that every one of us has an optimal expression that brings us into a state of wholeness, that generates a reality that fits us like a glove even if how we live is something that no one else would want. The key is to come into a sense of wholeness that brings a feeling of settled, grounded, and comfortable “rightness”, where we can sense that we are truly coming home to ourselves.
As with all these practices, please remember to bring along curiosity as your constant companion and to pat gently on the head any judgments that may arise. Also remember to put a “gentle arm” around any old protections that may be stimulated by this journey into wholeness. Most of us met with rules and limitations that were part of our growing-up context and moving into your optimal life will probably invite you to let these go. That’s not always comfortable, even though it is ultimately freeing and positive.