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Episode #64: The Future

Bonnie Lyman Loving on Purpose
The future is a mystery but yet we tend to spend a lot time thinking negatively about it that actually robs us of the present (which is a present and that's why it's called that). In this episode I give you 7 thoughts that will help you view the future more optimistically. We don't have control over the future but we can choose to view it with optimism.

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Episode 64 The Future Welcome to the podcast. Loving on purpose. I'm your host, Bonnie Lyman. If you're having trouble navigating through your relationships with your adult Children, if you are struggling to connect with them or having specific challenges, you're in the right place, You're listening to Bonnie Lyman. This is episode 64, the future. Welcome everyone. Happy Spring. You are my most favorite people to talk to because I believe with all my heart there is someone out there, one person in particular who needs to hear what I have to say and I hope that one person might be you, maybe they haven't found my podcast yet. So do them a favor and share this episode or your favorite episode. I can't believe I'm on to number 64. That's quite an accomplishment for me, but I couldn't have done it without a couple of you just every now and then I don't expect it. But you just tell me how much you enjoy my podcast and it just kind of gives me fuel for the next one. But I really do feel like I'm sitting at my kitchen table just talking to some friends. So I just, I enjoy doing this if you're new, I wanna welcome you. And so with this episode, well, with all my episodes, the foundation of my outlook on life, you could say the foundation of my coaching is I use a special tool called the model. So if you don't know what that is, you need to go back and listen to episode seven, the model is the secret sauce. And I explained to you what this formula is that I use in my coaching. I not only use it in my coaching, but I use it in my own personal life also. Yes, I believe with all my heart, that happiness and satisfaction is found when you learn how to use this magic tool. And I think, you know that I am a Christian. So I believe all of our problems are solved through the teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ and following him and believing in a God and in the holy ghost that prompts us. But I found that this tool has helped me more to apply those two genes than any other steady guide or whatever tool is out there, I have run across. And so if you don't know what the model is, it's the basic premise that our feelings are caused by our thoughts, not by the people around us and what they say and do or don't do not the happenings in our lives or the circumstances in our lives. But it's about the thought and meaning that we put to those circumstances in our life that cause us to feel a certain way. But today, I want to talk to you about the future and we, as humans, we like predicting the future or we like figuring it out. And the one reason why we can't do that is because there are no guarantees. Just as my one friends that have been married for over 50 years, they only dated for six weeks before they got married. So I'm sure there were quite a few people thinking this maybe isn't gonna last, they haven't gotten to know each other better. But I'm gonna talk about some things and I'm gonna, at the end, I'm going to leave you with seven thoughts that will help you view the future with more optimism because I think it's ok if we're off track, maybe on what the future brings to us if we're viewing it from an optimistic view because that's what keeps us moving forward, trying new things, learning new things, taking a chance on this marriage. And I don't know, you could still say they were careless, but like I said, there's no guarantees. So first of all, I want to talk about tattoos and I have learned a lot of interesting things about tattoos in the last couple weeks. But first of all, I want to talk about the comment that I hear so often that people that get tattoos are going to regret that they get tattoos. No, this is not coming from someone that has gotten tattoos, but usually it's coming from a parent or let's just say an outside adult that these people that get what they call sleeves and their whole arms are covered in tattoos. I hear most of the time that they're gonna regret that they, they have that they had these tattoos put on, but I don't believe that I believe there is a chance And even a 50% chance that they're going to regret, they got tattoos. But I also believe there's a 50% chance that they're not gonna regret. They got tattoos. I heard somebody say they started talking to somebody that had a lot of tattoos and they said, tell me about your tattoos. And this person said, well, most people look at tattoos. There's a story behind every tattoo. So when I went in for my pet scan the other day, the guy had all these tattoos up his arms. And I said, tell me the story behind your tattoos. He had one of the savior and his family. There were some people standing face toward the savior. So you could just see the backs of them and they were just solid. But you could tell they were people. He goes, and that's my family worshiping the savior. And then there was another tattoo about some experience he had gone through. I can't remember what it was. And another one about a favorite place that he had lived. So you say there's a story. So the next time you see somebody with tattoos just out of politeness, interest, curiosity, ask them to tell you the story behind your tattoos. But when we think about the future and they're going to regret that they get those tattoos to me that's kind of looking at these tattoos in a negative way. Now I have chosen not to get a tattoo just be and I do like them. But because I respect the leader of my church who I believe is a prophet on the earth. Today, I belong to the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. And we call him President Nelson that he has asked us not to mark our bodies because our bodies are a temple to our spirit, which is a very helpful and special tool are a part of us. So because I support him, I just said, OK, I won't get a tattoo. The other thing about the future is I have many clients whose children's Children have left their faith and it has been other faiths just besides my faith, the church of Jesus Christ. I have another client who is is pretty upset about that. But Because one has left The faith they were raised in, we can't predict the future. And again, there is a 50% chance they will return to the faith they were raised in. And yes, maybe they won't. There's a 50% chance they won't. I'm not saying we can decide the exact percentage, but let's think about the future optimistically. And it's possible they may return to this faith. They were, they were raised in. Then there's the idea of, I call it when your adult Children divorce you and they cut out all contact with you. They've told you they don't want any contact with you and you can't have any contact with their Children, your precious precious grandchildren. I know that that's painful. I know that makes you sad. And so you just, you gotta feel sad for a while to lessen that feeling and of course, you'd feel sad, but let's be optimistic about this. Nothing ever stays the same again. There's the chance, even in the near future, there's a possibility that it's not always going to be this way and something will soften their heart and they will want you and welcome you back into their life and their adult Children and into their children's lives. Maybe your Children are acting very irresponsibly. They can't hold a job maybe because they don't like it or maybe they've started drinking and it looks like it's starting to turn into a problem. Maybe they're even stealing, maybe they're being dishonest. I just kind of call this irresponsible behavior but there's always the chance they're going to change. They're going to find out that this way of life doesn't serve them or they're gonna run into somebody that becomes a mentor to them and they want to be just like them. So they start cleaning up their act again. There's as good a chance of that happening as there is of them forever into the future, continuing their irresponsible behavior. I'm gonna give you a scenario from a movie. I rewatched the other night and why? What happens? The choices that our adult Children make the way we live our lives is exactly as it's supposed to happen. Because in the end, everything gets all worked out. We all have our customized our challenges. We all have our customized journey of learning those things that we're supposed to learn when we came to earth and usually none of them are the same. My children's challenges and journeys and what they have been learned have been so different because they each needed to learn something different. But in the end, it all works out exactly as it was supposed to happen. Then after I tell you this scenario, I'm gonna give you seven thoughts to view the future in a more positive way. The name of the movie I wanna tell you about is called sliding doors and it gives you the same incident. But with a little glitch in what caused a different outcome because of a minor little happening. So this is a story about a woman who has a husband. She goes to work she goes to work that day and she gets fired and she lives in New York or someplace where she has to take the subway. She grabs her bag, she runs out, she's running to catch the subway. she's running down these stairs and she comes across a little girl in different other obstacles that cause her to miss the subway, she gets there and she cannot get in. So then she's doubly frustrated and it takes her a long time to get home. And so when she gets home, it's the normal time that she had gotten home. But while she was away, her husband who was supposedly at home writing a book is, has a lady friend over and she catches them in bed. And so she runs out and goes to her girlfriend's house and is very upset. The second scenario is she goes to work, she gets fired. She hurries out, she's running down the stairs. She runs into an obstacle of this little girl, same obstacle, But she's running and she gets to the doors just right before they close. There's about 3" left. She pr them open and she goes in and she sits down now there's a young man she sits down next to and he's talking to her and they're just chit chatting, but he's kind of a nice guy. So anyway, she gets off the subway and she comes home, but she's come home early than what she normally does and she walks in the door and she finds her husband in bed with another woman. In the first scenario, she didn't know that was happening because she got home on time. In the second scenario because of that one little sliding door that hadn't closed all the way. She was able to get home early and discover this to make a long story short. She eventually leaves this guy and that nice guy on the subway, she tends to run into him again and the movie ends that there seems to be an attraction between them and it's all gonna work out exactly as it was supposed to. And so we just never know what's in that future. We never know how things are going to work out exactly as they're supposed to. I think many of you knew know that I have a daughter that wasn't married and got pregnant. And I can remember standing in the garage and because of this pregnancy, they, they broke everything off. If they decided to get married, they would have kept these babies. I mean, of course, when she found out she's pregnant, she didn't know she was pregnant with twins, but it wouldn't have been a good marriage. And I can remember standing in the garage in front of my freezer thinking this is what it took in order for this marriage not to happen. Pretty hard lesson to learn. You may not be able to believe that. But two wonderful girls were born, they were placed for adoption, but they're still very central to our lives. I'm going to give you seven thoughts that I hope will help you view the future in a more optimistic way. Number one, the future is unknown. So let's stop trying to predict outcomes. That doesn't mean we don't have goals and we don't plan for the future, but there are no guarantees that the outcome will be the way we want it to be. But don't get, I call it terminal in our thinking, the, the things can't get better if they're not real good. Right now. Number two, worrying about the future doesn't give you the result you want. We think it's, we're at least doing something because we're worrying but it doesn't help change behavior. And I'm always, of course, thinking about behavior of adult Children that we're not too impressed with, we're told to act and think like a child for a reason. They don't worry about the future. Number three, most things work out just the way they are supposed to. What about the person that loses his job? They're devastated.They don't know how they're gonna pay the rent. They're worried, but they've got the motivation to go out and look for a job because there's a need there and they end up finding their dream job, which they never would have found if they hadn't have lost that job. Number four, the past, you can't redo, you can't go back and fix it, you can't go back and change it if it's something very traumatic. Yes, you need therapy for that, but just let it go and move on with your life. Number five, we can only control what's going on in the present and I don't mean control circumstances. I'm talking about controlling how you feel by controlling your thoughts because we can't predict what our thoughts are gonna be in the future, so we can't control those thoughts. So let's just hang out and be concerned about the present. Number six is one of my favorite and I say it a lot. So you'll probably hear it again. God conspires in my favor. And if I believe that I am optimistic about the future, that means God is looking out for me. If I do my best, whatever that might look like and my best to me doesn't look like your best. But if we do our best, he's gonna try to help us have a good life. And if we're looking for good things, we're going to find them and he's gonna help us find them. Number seven, it's possible things will work out better than we ever could have imagined when I get really down. That's what I turn to. I don't worry about the future. I don't worry about how long it's gonna last. I focus on things that are going to get better and they're probably going to get so much better, they're going to be better than I ever could have imagined. So, just deal with things as they come. Don't make up problems or outcomes based on what you believe today. Don't become a predictor of the future. You can be hopeful. And like I said, that, that's a good way to view the future because there's no harm in being hopeful. A lot of my clients tell me, well, I don't want to be hopeful because then I think I'm setting myself up for disappointment. Well, don't anticipate things getting worse if things start getting better, bask in that, enjoy it while it's there. Yes, other challenges are gonna come to our life. But some of the challenges we have today are gonna go away because we go, we will have learned what we were supposed to have learned our kids challenges and their journey. Yes, they become our journey also. But it's our journey of how are you going to handle this? Can you love him still when they're irresponsible adults, when they're unkind to you? Stuff in the future is coming. You've handled hard things before and you will again, I so love talking to you and I hope you will try to practice some of these things. And that's what coaches are for. That is my mission to help as many people, especially women because they seem to take things so personally to help as many women as I can live a peaceful contentful life. So if you feel like you need some guidance on this event, I suggest, first of all, You go to my website and you get my free resource three steps to being yourself around your adult Children and it's in the show notes. And then if you want even more help on my website, you can also book a call and I call it a relation ship fix strategy call and we'll just talk and I'll give you some help. I wish the very best for you and your families and I'll talk to you next week if you like this, be this episode and you felt it was of benefit to you. I ask you to share it with somebody that perhaps it could also benefit. But if you're still feeling kind of stuck in that, you don't know how to apply what was talked about or where to start on, on changing your thoughts on changing your perspective on bettering your relationship. Get on a call with me and we can have a discussion and I can tell you how to apply it and where we start and then you get to decide what you want to do about this relationship that maybe you're struggling with, with your adult Children. There is no reason to go on the rest of our lives, struggling with our relationships with our adult Children. Let's assume the best. Let's assume that we all love each other and we're just trying to figure out how to maintain our own boundaries and respect another ones, but I can help you with everything. So just go to Bonnie Lyman dot com and book a call. I can't wait to hear from you. .

     
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