Gratitude Hack: Backwards Nostalgia
A beautiful frosty sunrise glimpsed during a stressful morning last week
I have a trick I use when my life is feeling very overwhelming and stressful that I call “Backwards Nostalgia.” Here’s how it goes. You are feeling low, sad, angry or like your life isn’t the happy content experience you want. Take your mind on a journey to the future, it’s helpful if it’s somewhat far in the future. In fact, the harder it is — the further you should go. You are an older you, maybe 10 year’s older, maybe 20, maybe you are in your very old age. You are looking back on the moment you are in right now. What do you see?
For me, with my older eyes, I always think my life looks beautiful. I’m outside the pain I am experiencing in the moment and somehow that pain is now folded into a more beautiful experience that has lot’s that I savor and miss. Take for example the moment I captured above last week.
Last week was Halloween and then my daughter’s first birthday, this brought up a lot for everyone, especially my son. There was lots of sugar and more stimulation than normal. My daughter is going through a “leap” and if you aren’t a Wonder Weeks parent, that means she’s working on something developmentally that makes it much harder as parents because her sleep is poor and she’s cranky while she’s busy learning. Anyway - we were up early we were sleeping poorly and when we were up it was hard, lots of fighting, crying, stress. BUT we were also up to see these stunning sunrises over the field across our street. It was bitter cold and everything was covered in an icing of frost. As I passed by our windows I would rest in a moment of awe in the midst of the pain. The coffee and sugar I had offered a similar moment of pleasure to rest in. When I look back at this photo and last week, somehow the beautiful sunrise and the coffee and pain have all merged into something in my mind that I am nostalgic about already. I feel tender towards my children growing and their sweetness and vulnerability during this time, a time that will pass relatively quickly in my life to other challenges and joys. If I fast forward to thinking about this week after my kids have left home, I feel an intense and deep nostalgia for the entire thing - pain and stress and joys and beauty and all. The beauty and stress of raising a family.
Because in the end, life is exactly this - beautiful moments punctuating hard and stressful moments and ALL of it is satisfying if we can allow it to be. For me, in my future self, I find a shortcut to this through Backwards Nostalgia. There I can savor what I will be missing about my life, my youth, my body, my land, my children, my ability that soon will all pass.
Can you join me in this exercise? I am a futurist - its’ easy for me to live and see in the future -so I would be curious if it works for others. Can you look at your life right now and think what you would appreciate about it later on - the home you have, the way something smells or feels, your body, it’s youth and vigor compared to later on, time you have with someone now you one day will not? We don’t like to think about death and loss but truly they are what allow us to savor and appreciate life and all it’s complex glory.