Linda Graham, MFT and author of Resilience: Powerful Practices for Bouncing Back from Disappointment, Difficulty and Even Disaster, shares an exercise to help cultivate your wiser self.
When we’re facing a difficult decision – leaving a job that’s no long in alignment with our values and passions, seeking new possibilities but risking failure, or staying in a job that provides reliable financial security and a rewarding social network but risking dying on the vine in a stultifying inertia…
It’s valuable to be able to consult with someone who has our best interests at heart and who can provide truly wise counsel, guidance, and support.  And the best resource for that wisdom and care may be our very own wiser self.
The wiser self is an imaginary figure, evoked through guided visualization, real to the brain, who embodies the positive qualities that would lead to resilience and well-being: wisdom, courage, patience perseverance.  This wiser self is someone who truly cares for you and offers you their understanding, support, guidance to help you change and grow.  Your wiser self could be a version of yourself five or ten years from now, when you have fulfilled your aspirations for strength, competence, empowerment.  Your wiser self could be drawn from a

Originally published at http://loveandlifetoolbox.com