Imagine Your Future Self: Is There A Light In Her Eyes?

I knocked on the door.

Not a real door. An imagined one.

In an exercise I'd been led through, I was asked to picture my future self's home. To walk up to the door and knock. To wait.

I wasn't entirely sure what I expected.

She answered.

And I knew immediately she was me. Some version of me that hadn't happened yet. She smiled like someone who had stopped waiting for things to be different. 

And she had this light in her eyes. There was this way she moved -  the kind you notice in women who have quietly made peace with themselves.

She invited me in.

We sat for tea.

I looked around. The home was calm and warm and exactly what I'd always wanted. Nothing extravagant. Just right. 

And she was the same. Not perfect. Not finished. Just genuinely, fully herself.

We talked.

And something in me shifted that day. Something I didn't have words for at the time.

Who Do You Want To Be?

I'd been asking myself for a long time: Who do I want to be?

But I'd been asking it in the abstract. Like an idea I was circling. Like a question I kept setting down and picking back up.

Meeting her in a way that felt real, even though it was inside my own imagination, changed that.

She became my compass.

Not a pressure. Not a standard to perform against. 

A direction. 

A living image I could return to every time I faced a decision, every time fear made my stomach lurch, every time I wasn't sure which way to turn.

What would she choose?

What does she know that I'm still learning?

What one step, today, moves me closer to her?

I couldn't keep moving forward without that image. I still can't.

Who Is The Future Self Version Of Me?

Here's what I've learned about the woman I'm becoming.

And…about the woman you're becoming.

She isn't fearless. That was never the destination.

She still hears the voice that asks are you sure? 

She still has moments of doubt and hesitation and what was I thinking? 

Hesitation, doubt, anxiety still show up. That’s how she said she knows something matters.

But she doesn’t spend much time in stress mode.

How? Because fear in any form no longer drives the car of her life. It rides along. It advises her. And then, she decides where they're going.

She speaks up even when her heart is pounding. 

She says the true thing, gently, even when it costs her something. 

She makes decisions that would have stopped her cold five years ago. Not only because she's a bit more certain, but because she's more herself.

She has this knowing inside.

Progress is not just about how far she still has to go. It’s measured by how far she has already come.

Perfect is not a goal. Living her life is.

And here's the part I remember most about her advice to me. (because I tend to want to leap every cavern instead of stopping to build a bridge.)

She got there one step at a time. A Tiny Brave Step.

Just one small, honest, courage-shaped step after another - until one day she looked up and realized she was already moving forward. Already becoming. Already her.

That's what a Brave Enough woman looks like.

Not arrival. Just movement. In the direction she sets for yourself.

Your Tiny Brave Steps

Step one. Find ten quiet minutes this week. Close your eyes. Picture the door of your future self's home. Walk up and knock. Let her answer. 

Notice what she looks like:  the light in her eyes, the way she carries herself, what her home feels like. Ask her one question and let yourself hear her answer.

Write down what you see.What you hear.

Step two. The next time you face a decision - even a small one - pause and ask: What would she choose? You don't have to take the whole leap. Just the first step in her direction.

Want to explore this more deeply? Try the Tiny Brave Steps Generator with this prompt: "Help me connect with my future self. The Brave Enough Woman I am becoming. Ask me questions to help me see and hear her advice. What does she look like? What does she know that I'm still learning? And what is one Tiny Brave Step I could take today that moves me closer to her?"

And if you want to do this work alongside women who are taking exactly these kinds of steps,  Creative Spaces is where we do it together. 

No performing. No pretending to have it figured out. Just real women in a Zoom group, practicing becoming who they actually are.

One Tiny Brave Step at a time.