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Areas › Low mood and hard feelings › Question the thought
It sounds like a party trick and it usually is not. The future you tends to speak in a tone you cannot yet manage towards yourself, less panicked and more forgiving, because they already know how this part ended. If nothing comes, shorten the distance and try next spring instead of ten years.
Whoever is given wisdom has truly been given much good, but only those with insight bear this in mind (Quran 2:269). Sitting with your future self is one way of bearing it in mind when today has crowded it out.
البقرة
يُؤۡتِي ٱلۡحِكۡمَةَ مَن يَشَآءُۚ وَمَن يُؤۡتَ ٱلۡحِكۡمَةَ فَقَدۡ أُوتِيَ خَيۡرࣰ ا كَثِيرࣰ اۗ وَمَا يَذَّكَّرُ إِلَّآ أُوْلُواْ ٱلۡأَلۡبَٰبِ
and He gives wisdom to whoever He will. Whoever is given wisdom has truly been given much good, but only those with insight bear this in mind
Qur’an 2:269read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Imagery exercises like this have a modest record on their own. A randomised trial of a week of positive imagery training found only small gains for depression, and no clear added benefit when internet CBT followed it. A much larger meta-analysis of 306 comparisons did find that deliberately changing how you think about a situation reliably shifts how it feels, which is the work imagery is meant to open a door to rather than replace.
Williams AD, Blackwell SE, Mackenzie A, Holmes EA, Andrews G. (2013). Combining imagination and reason in the treatment of depression: a randomized controlled trial of internet-based cognitive-bias modification and internet-CBT for depression.. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology doi
Webb TL, Miles E, Sheeran P. (2012). Dealing with feeling: a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of strategies derived from the process model of emotion regulation.. Psychological bulletin doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Distance in time does what distance in a room does, it lets you see the shape of the thing.
If you cannot picture any future at all, that is worth telling someone rather than pushing through alone.
Picture somebody you love saying this exact thought about themselves. What would you say back, and why is none of that available to you?
A belief you have carried since childhood will not fall over because you asked it a good question this afternoon. You are planting something, not winning an argument.
At the end of a stretch of thinking like this, ask yourself plainly what you believe about yourself now, and how that differs from an hour ago.