Balancing Your Past, Present, and Future Selves
Your life is shaped by a continuing exchange among three versions of you. Your past self made choices with the resources available then. Your present self lives with those results. Your future self will receive what you choose today.
Balance disappears when we resent the past, sacrifice the present, or ignore the future. A kinder partnership among all three creates responsibility without punishment and preparation without self-neglect.
This Guide Helps With
- resenting choices your past self made
- pushing the present self too hard for future goals
- procrastinating on small acts that would support you later
- treating rest as betrayal of ambition
- making practical care feel like a gift instead of a chore
- building continuity and trust with yourself
A Three-Self Check-In
Imagine three chairs or three places on a page.
- Past self: What were you trying to protect, gain, or survive? What do you wish present-you understood?
- Present self: What do you need today? What burden from the past needs compassion, repair, or completion?
- Future self: What small gift would make tomorrow or next month easier?
Do not let future-you become another demanding authority. A plan that repeatedly exhausts present-you is unlikely to create the future you want.
Let Each Self Offer Information
Past-you may carry an unfinished need, not merely a bad decision. Ask what would have helped then: protection, permission, rest, guidance, play, or someone trustworthy to say, “You make sense.” You cannot change the event, but present-you can stop repeating its deprivation.
Present-you is the only self who can act, so present capacity matters. Quiet, pleasure, and restoration are not theft from the future when they make you less brittle and more creative. Future-you can ask for preparation, but not at the price of destroying the person who must do it.
When the three voices conflict, avoid making one the villain. Let each name one need and one gift it can offer. The aim is a working relationship across time, not a perfect accounting of who owes whom.
Tapping: We Are on the Same Team
Side of the Hand: Even though I resent some choices my past self made, I am open to remembering that they were doing the best they could with what they knew and had.
Even though I push my present self for the sake of the future, I acknowledge that this self needs care too.
Even though I have not always prepared well, I can give my future self one realistic gift today.
Top of the Head: Past me left some difficulties.
Eyebrow: Present me is carrying them.
Side of the Eye: Future me keeps asking for more.
Under the Eye: It can feel like three people in conflict.
Under the Nose: We are actually one continuing life.
Chin: Past me had reasons and limits.
Collarbone: Present me deserves support.
Under the Arm: Future me needs sustainable care.
Top of the Head: I can learn without punishing the past.
Eyebrow: I can rest without abandoning the future.
Side of the Eye: I can prepare without demanding perfection.
Under the Eye: One small gift is enough for today.
Under the Nose: We can become a better team.
Chin: Each version of me belongs.
Collarbone: I choose compassion and useful follow-through.
Under the Arm: I am building trust across time.
Take a breath and name one gift for present-you and one for future-you.
Make Care Concrete
A gift to future-you might be setting out medicine, saving a small amount, preparing food, writing a note, making an appointment, or stopping before exhaustion. A gift to present-you might be rest, pleasure, help, or permission to change the plan.
When a task feels resentful, ask who it is really for. Cleaning for an imagined critic carries different energy from creating a comfortable room for yourself. Reframe the action honestly—or decide that it is not the right gift.
Self-trust grows when all three selves are considered, and none is asked to disappear for the others.
Session Audio
This guide was adapted from a Thriving Now session with Rick Wilkes and Cathy Vartuli.
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