Can you travel back into your past and alter something that will change yourself in the present? And could you travel into your future and also alter your present? It looks like it might be possible, and it’s not science fiction.

Both Einstein and the Eastern mystics have explained that what we call the past, present and future are an illusion: A fabric of space/time, in which all exist seamlessly together. In this view, “…the future and the past are not any different, so there’s no reason why you can’t have causes from the future just as you have causes from the past,” according to David Miller of the Centre for Time at the University of Sydney in Australia.

And now, some new thinking and research suggests that, in fact, the present can change the past, with implications for the present; and, that the future can also change the present. This is known as “retrocausality” and has interesting implications for your life — at least, metaphorically, aside from the quantum physics it’s based on. It’s that you might be able to change something about your present life that was originally set in motion in your past. Or, that you might be able to use the future — even though it hasn’t “happened” yet, from your time-frame, to also change something in the present.

In fact, I’ve found that this perspective is helpful with some psychotherapy patients and well as others who feel stuck and unable to change or grow. I provide some exercises below that might help apply retrocausalty to changing your life. But first, a brief explanation of retrocausality. Continue reading →