250 – Future Self Living

Elizabeth: [00:00:00] So what if I told you that the woman who already has the life that you want, the one who wakes up, rested, feels good in her body and doesn’t overthink every bite of food? She already exists. She’s out there. In fact, she is you. Just a few decisions away. The problem is that most of us are living from our past selves.

The versions of us who have no proof that it’s possible and who are exhausted, overextended, and trying to make everyone else happy. When you keep letting her run the show, you stay stuck in the same cycle of burnout, guilt, and the feeling that you should be further along by now. But what if you started taking advice from the woman who’s already figured it out, not me.

What if you made your choices about food, health and [00:01:00] boundaries, everything from her perspective instead. Now in today’s episode, I’m gonna show you exactly how I do that, how I talk to my future self, and how I make decisions with her in mind, and how that one shift completely changed how I treat myself today.

Because your future self isn’t waiting for you to become someone new. She is waiting for you to stop abandoning who you already are. So stay with me. You’re gonna wanna hear this one.

Welcome to the Total Health and Midlife Podcast, the podcast for women over 40 who want peace with food, ease in their habits, and a body that they don’t have to fight with.

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Total Health and Midlife podcast. I am your host, Elizabeth Sherman. And before we dive in, I just wanna say thank you for tuning in today. This episode is the [00:02:00] 250th episode of the podcast, which is wild to even say out loud, 250 conversations about health, food, emotions, aging, and all the messy, beautiful parts of being a woman in midlife.

Now, if you’ve been here since the beginning, or even if this is your very first, listen, I am so incredibly glad that you are here. I was trying to decide about what to talk about in this very significant episode, and as we wrap up another year, I’ve been thinking a lot about who I have become and who I am still becoming.

So. I thought it was appropriate that as the year is winding down to have this conversation because the truth is that health isn’t just about what we eat, how we move, or how many hours that we sleep. It’s also about who we [00:03:00] believe that we are. And for many of us in midlife, that can be like super complicated.

We know what we want. We want better health, more connection with those that we love, and maybe even some more free time. But we can’t quite see how to get there. We’ve tried the plans, the rules, the shoulds, and yet somehow we still end up stuck in the same loops. Overeating when we’re stressed, putting everyone else first, starting strong, and then losing steam.

And it’s not that something is wrong with us, it’s that we are using our current self, the one who’s overwhelmed and tired to make decisions that will impact us. Not only now, but in the future too. But what if we flipped all of that? What if instead of trying to fix ourselves, we started listening to the version of us who already has it figured out.

[00:04:00] The one who’s calm around food, who wakes up rested, who sets boundaries without guilt. She exists. I promise that she does. In today’s episode, we’re gonna talk about how to live into her, how imagining your future self can change how you show up right now in this minute. Because when you start living into her perspective, you stop managing your health out of fear and start creating it from love.

So I wanna tell you a story about how I first came to envision my future self.

Now, Gary and I were on our honeymoon on a small cruise ship in Tahiti. It was truly amazing. We would wake up eating a five star breakfast on sand dunes in the middle of the ocean, or drinking champagne on a floating bar. Everything about this trip was. Perfect. And I thought that I was supposed to feel perfect too, but [00:05:00] I didn’t.

I remember sitting on the deck one afternoon and the sun was on my shoulders trying to so hard to fit in, observing the other guests as we do on vacation, right? And then I saw her. Out in the water was this older French woman. She had dyed red hair, skin wrinkled from the sun, and she was laughing with her husband as she played with this tiny hermit crab in the sand.

She was topless and completely unbothered. Her body was not attractive in the traditional sense. It was soft and round in a way that mine wasn’t, or maybe I should say, wasn’t allowed to be. She wasn’t performing for anyone. She wasn’t sucking in her stomach. She wasn’t apologizing for taking up space. She was just alive.

And I remember this exact moment watching her and realizing that what I felt wasn’t judgment or [00:06:00] envy. It was longing. I didn’t want her body. I wanted her essence, her freedom. I wanted her ease, her playfulness, her unapologetic joy. I wanted to be the woman who could float topless in the ocean and not care what anyone thought.

I didn’t know it at the time, but at the moment it changed me. It was like something cracked open a window in a stuffy room that I’d been sitting in for years and suddenly I could breathe. Now that French woman became my North Star, the version of my future self, not perfect, not polished, just free. Free to eat when she was hungry, and stop when she was satisfied.

Free to laugh loudly, bria lived for herself. Instead of managing everyone else’s comfort, I would ask myself, how do I become more like her? Now, of course, I didn’t have the tools then [00:07:00] to become her. I still spent years trying to quote unquote get it right. Still chasing health from a place of control instead of connection. We don’t change overnight, right?

But it planted a seed. And over time that seed grew into a quiet truth that I live by today. We all have a version of ourselves, somewhere out there in the ocean of future possibilities who already knows how to be at peace. She’s not waiting for a diet or a new routine. She’s waiting for us to stop fighting ourselves long enough to listen to her.

After that trip, I started thinking more about that woman on the cruise. Not just about her specifically, but about what she represented. And over time, she became this idea. I now live by and teach my clients that I call my future self living. Here’s what [00:08:00] that means in practical terms. It’s not about manifesting or pretending that everything is fine.

It’s about building a relationship with the version of you who already has all the qualities that you want, the peace, the confidence, and the ease, the relationships, the problem solving, the eating habits or perspective about your body that you desire. Some people might call it meditation or having intuition.

For me, it’s more like an ongoing conversation, and so when I’m struggling with something, a business decision, a conflict in a relationship, or even something as small as, should I eat this cookie? I kind of tune into her and I ask. I ask my future self. I’ll literally close my eyes and take a deep breath and picture her sitting across from me.

And I’ve been thinking about her for so long that I have such a clear image of what she [00:09:00] looks like, how she moves, how she handles herself. She’s calm, she’s grounded. She loves me exactly as I am, even when I’m spinning out of control because she understands me and she has unconditional love for me. And I’ll ask.

You’ve already figured this out. How do I get there? What is my next best step? What do I need to do now? Sometimes I don’t hear anything right away, so I take it to my journal and I sleep on it before bed. I’ll write a question for my subconscious brain, something like, future me. How did you get through this?

Or what do you know that I don’t know yet. And then I go to sleep and I let my brain go to work, and almost always when I wake up, of course it might take a little bit longer, like a few days or weeks. There’s a little whisper of clarity, not a thunderbolt, just a little nudge to get me through the next step [00:10:00] because the thing is that she’s not perfect.

She still has the same problems that I have. She’s just figured out techniques or tools to make them less of a problem. She still has stress. People who get under her skin days where she eats too much or forgets to stretch. The difference is she doesn’t make it mean anything about her. She has the tools and the self-trust to manage what used to feel unmanageable.

So when I ask what would she do or how does she think about this, or what would make her proud tomorrow, what I’m really asking is, how can I bring her wisdom into me today? How can I be more like her? It’s a practice in self-trust, and while it’s powerful, it isn’t always easy because for so many women, even imagining that future version of themselves feels next to impossible.

[00:11:00] And honestly, there’s a reason for that.

So I wanna pause here for just a moment because I know for some of you, this whole idea of connecting with your future self might sound. Foreign far away, or maybe it’s just a brand new concept like, sure, Elizabeth, that’s nice for you. I can’t even fathom life in the next hour, let alone next week or five years from now.

I totally get it, and that’s totally normal. Most of us were taught not to center ourselves. We were taught to center everyone else around us. From the time that we were little girls, we learned that being the good girl meant being helpful. Being accommodating, making sure everyone else was happy before we even thought about what it was that we wanted.

And if we ever dared to think about or ask for what we wanted, either it didn’t seem worth the effort [00:12:00] when everyone else was complaining that it wasn’t what they wanted or we got labeled selfish or high maintenance, or even worse, narcissistic. So we got really good at being the good woman, the caretaker, the peacemaker, the one who remembers birthdays, anticipates needs, and fills the fridge and holds the emotional glue of the family together doing for everyone else.

We became masters of everyone else’s world, but the cost is that we lost the thread of our own. And so we’ve spent so many years scanning the room for what everyone else wants and needs that when someone asks, what do you want?

We defer and we say, oh, whatever. Because we genuinely don’t know. And even when we start to remember what we want, like peace, health, rest, adventure, joy, a little voice pops up and says, who do you think you [00:13:00] are? You should be happy with what you have because deep down, we’ve absorbed this old, sneaky belief that we we’re good enough, selfless enough, patient enough.

Someday we will get what we deserve. That the universe or our kids or our partner or our boss will notice all we’ve given and reward us for it. But that day never comes, does it? Because no one is coming to save us, not our families, not a diet, not a New Year’s resolution. We have to become the woman who saves ourselves, the woman who stops waiting for permission and starts building the life that she actually wants.

And here’s the thing. That woman isn’t cold or hurt or selfish. She’s whole. She takes care of herself so that she can give from abundance instead of depletion. And [00:14:00] one of the most powerful ways I’ve learned to bridge that gap between who we are and who we’re becoming is through compassion.

Now, a few years ago when Gary and I moved to Mexico, I left my scale behind in Texas. Like I literally threw it away. It wasn’t some dramatic, I’m free of diet culture moment, although I hated it and how my mood changed depending on what the number was. I just didn’t wanna haul it across the border. I was done.

But that decision. ended up being one of the best things that I’ve ever done for my relationship with my body.

Without a scale, I needed some other way to make sure that I was maintaining my health, that I wasn’t gaining weight or sliding backwards. So I started taking pictures of myself once a month. It was on Saturday mornings in my workout clothes. So similar clothing, and then the same place. So the bathroom mirror, nothing fancy.

Justjust a quick snapshot to check in from both the front [00:15:00] and the side. And

At first, I thought of it as just data, a neutral way to measure my progress, but over time it grew into something entirely differentthatI was not expecting, because when I looked at those photos month after month, I started to notice patterns that went way beyond the size of my stomach. Months when I was really taking care of myself, I was sleeping well.

I was eating real food, and I was moving regularly. I looked vibrant. My eyes were bright, my skin glowed. I looked alive. And the months when I was running on stress and caffeine, when I was skipping meals, pushing too hard or not sleeping, quite honestly, it showed I looked tired. Puffy sallow. My face would sag in a way that green couldn’t fix.

I could see my body saying, Hey, I am doing the best with what you are giving me, and I could really use a break here. And that realization [00:16:00] softened me to my body because I started to see my body not as something to fix, but as something to care for. And this practice shortened the distance between the past version of me, the one who was trying so hard, and the current version of me.

The one who could finally see her with compassion. And it reminded me of how we all have that moment where we look back in an old photo and think, I can’t believe I ever thought that I was fat. We see ourselves now and think, oh my God, I was beautiful. I wish I had known and been easier on myself.

I think of her now as my right or die. She has been with me through every bad haircut, every heartbreak, every diet, every comeback. She is the one who gets me out of bed, carries me through workouts, laughter, travel, all of it. She’s not perfect, but she is mine [00:17:00] and she deserves my care, not my criticism.

This body is the only one that I get, and I want to give her everything that she needs to carry me into old age with strength, energy, and ease. Now this practice of monthly photos has become a reminder of that partnership. It’s shortened the distance between the past version of me, the one who was trying so hard, the present version of me who can finally look back with compassion.

And it’s made me think about the future version of Me Too, the one who will look back on these pictures someday and think you were doing great. I just wish that you would be kinder to yourself. That thought changed everything because when I picture her the future, me and the past, me and the woman I am today, I see the three of us walking together arm in arm.

We are not enemies. [00:18:00] We are a team going through life. Past me was doing her best with what she has. Present me is doing her best to learn and grow and do as best as she can for future me and future me. She is cheering us both on and she is so grateful to us. Every choice that I make, what I eat, how I rest, how I move is my way of loving them both, protecting the woman I’m becoming and honoring the woman who got me here.

So as you think about your own health. Your own future. Ask yourself, how can you have your future self’s back? How can you be her right or die starting right now? Because the truth is, every act of care that you give yourself today is felt by her tomorrow. And when you act with compassion, she always feels it.

So [00:19:00] as you head into the new year, I wanna leave you with one simple question. What is one small thing that you can do today to make your future self life a little easier, a little lighter, a little bit more joyful? It doesn’t have to be big or dramatic. Maybe it’s scheduling that doctor’s appointment that you’ve been putting off.

Maybe it’s cooking a real meal instead of eating a protein bar in the car, or maybe it’s simply closing your laptop 10 minutes earlier and stepping outside for some fresh air. Like these small moments all matter and they add up. Intentional living isn’t about perfection or willpower. It’s about acting from.

The point of view of who you’re becoming, not who you’ve been your future self. Doesn’t need you to fix everything. She just needs you to keep showing up for her. You don’t have to see the whole path yet. You don’t even need to have your health, your [00:20:00] habits, or your life figured out.

You just need to take the next step, the one that moves you closer to her. The version of you who already knows how to rest, how to eat in a way that feels good, how to stop apologizing for merely existing because she is real. She’s already out there waiting for you to meet her. Now, if today’s episode spoke to you and you want to keep exploring these concepts.

I wanna invite you to download the Total Health and Midlife Listeners guide. It’s a curated roadmap through 250 episodes, all designed to help you start living from your future self today. You can find that@elizabethsherman.com slash roadmap. And finally, thank you. Thank you for being here, for listening, for being part of this amazing community that keeps growing and evolving.

250 episodes. Oh my gosh, what a ride. [00:21:00] I can’t wait to see what’s ahead for both of us. That’s all I have for you today. Have an amazing week and I will see you next time. Bye-bye.