212 Part III: Opening the Toolkit
People sometimes identify their past as being behind them and their future
as in front of them. Others can have a V-shaped line, whereas some people
have their past to their left and their future to their right – which is interest-
ing because (as we discuss in Chapter 6) most people move their eyes to the
left when they want to remember something and to the right when they want
to imagine something that isn’t real, yet. In addition, some people arrange
their time line geographically, with their past in, perhaps, Cornwall, Los
Angeles, or Timbuktu, and their present where they’re currently residing.
Their future may lie in the place to which they want to move next.
A woman who attended Romilla’s workshop ‘Future Perfect’ (where people
come to create the future they want to live) became confused while trying to
find her time line. We discovered that her past was in South Africa, her pres-
ent in England, and she was unable to decide about her future. We asked her
to trust her unconscious and point her finger to where her future may be. She
pointed to her front and slightly to the right. Romilla asked her to point to
where she thought South Africa was. She pointed behind her but slightly to
her left. By getting her to draw a line from where she saw her future to where
she pictured South Africa, we were able to establish her time line ran in a
diagonal from her left to her right.
The idea is to find a line that connects your past and future and whether you
choose to do it by connecting geographical locations or simply by pointing
won’t affect the final result.
You may find that ‘drawing’ an imaginary line on the ground is easier. Then,
trusting your unconscious mind, you can walk along the line, from where you
think your past is to where you feel your future lies.
Walking along a time line can be difficult if spatial restrictions get in the way,
for example if you’re in a small room. The following exercise shows you how
you can visualise your time line in your head by ‘floating up’ in order to get a
clear view of the time line stretching out below you:
- Think of an event that you experienced recently.
- Now take a deep breath and just relax as deeply as you can.
- Imagine yourself floating up, above your present and way above the
clouds, into the stratosphere.
- Picture your time line below you, like a ribbon, and see yourself in
the time line.
- Now float back over your time line until you’re directly over the
recently experienced event.
- You can hover there as long as you like until you decide to float back
to the present and down into your own body.
Hope you enjoyed that trial flight. Remember this process because you’re
going to be doing a lot of it.
