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Meaning Map - Past, Present and Future Alignment
Confirmation
Alignment
When your timelines harmonise, your Emotional Self feels confident and reassured.
The Meaning Map: Harmonising Past, Present and Future
The illustration shows the areas from the Meaning Map animation you (hopefully) watched, which, as you now know, need to be understood in terms of causes and responses as you work towards a positive retirement.
In this section, you will revisit Parts One and Two, but this time consider how your past, present and future influence each area and how your Emotional Self takes these different time zones into account when sending its emotional messages. The aim is to establish whether your past, present and future are in or out of sync, understand what this might mean for you, and respond accordingly. As before, use John’s completed example to guide you through yours.
Remember the moral of the story from the animation: "Make sure you take it with you this time!" Keeping your Meaning Map with you at all times reduces the chance of you becoming helplessly lost in your retirement forest.
Every stage of life leaves its mark in the form of memories, experiences, successes, and regrets. Retirement can bring all of these into sharper focus, as it did for Laurence, particularly his fears of suffering the same fate as his father.
‘Seeing my past, present and future mapped out helped me understand how much my father’s experience of retirement was still influencing me. I could see what I was carrying forward from the past, how it was affecting me in the present, and why I was so worried about my own retirement. Once I could see those connections, I knew what I needed to work on: my business and plans to live abroad.’
Laurence
John’s Meaning Map: Past, Present, and Future
Below are John's scores and notes for his Causes (C) and Responses (R) entries, and his notes on the alignment or sometimes misalignment between his past, present, and future.
Yourself
Identity, role, status; self-esteem and self-worth
While I’m not in crisis – hence my score of 6 – I know it is being protected by other areas, which isn’t sustainable long term. I do need to do some work in this area, as my career and identity were deeply connected.
Given what I said in the causes table, I think it fair to say that I don’t have a response.
I am too connected to my past professional identity, that’s for sure. I need to disconnect. My focus needs to be on the present, as this will take care of my future identity.
Home and Family Life
Home environment, family relationships and stability
I am very lucky. No issues here. Probably the main reason my identity area isn’t in worse shape.
I need to keep doing what I am doing, which I hope is to be a good husband and father.
This is an area where my past, present, and future are aligned.
Relationships
Personal and professional networks, friendships
Again, this is a good area for me. Plenty of contact with former colleagues who are rapidly becoming friends, plus existing friends.
Similar to home and family life. Keep being a good friend and colleague.
The same for home and family.
Work
Career, professional development, retirement work
This is the most challenging area. I don’t consider myself to be ‘old’ at the age of 62, and always assumed work would be a part of retirement but at this time, I am struggling to know what I want to do.
As identity
This is past-focused and needs the same approach as my identity.
Health and Wellbeing
Physical fitness, health regimes, mental wellbeing
I have always looked after myself and continue to feel in good shape.
Keep to my regime.
Good alignment.
Financial
Financial comfort, budget, advice, passive income
We (my wife and I) are cutting our cloth accordingly, but I have no financial worries. I don’t need to work, but any additional income will be helpful.
Keep following the advice of Stephen (Financial Adviser), but don’t lose sight of the benefits of finding additional income.
Good alignment.
Lifestyle
mix of activities, commitments, structured routines
For now, I like the mix of activities and commitments I/we have.
As a lot of my lifestyle involves my friends and family, I just need to keep talking to them, suggesting ideas, etc. However, I have chosen a higher number because I need to find a professional direction.
Good alignment, but I acknowledge a bias towards the past that I need to be mindful of.
Social
Community interactions, feelings of connection vs isolation
No particular concerns here.
Stay connected.
As for lifestyle.
Cultural
Engagement in learning, culture, exploration of values
This is a new area and concept for me. I have scored it a 5, pending further exploration.
This is a work in progress.
Nothing to add here pending further exploration.
Environment
Surroundings, home locality, contact with nature
Happy with where I live and spend my time.
Keep investing in my home and get the most out of my town and surrounding countryside.
Good alignment.
Your Interactive Meaning Map - Past, Present, and Future
Indicate the alignment of your past, present, and future for each area (e.g. past, present, future, or combinations). Your previous Causes (C) and Responses (R) entries are shown as a guide.
Yourself
Identity, role, status; self-esteem and self-worth
Home and Family Life
Home environment, family relationships and stability
Relationships
Personal and professional networks, friendships
Work
Career, professional development, retirement work
Health and Wellbeing
Physical fitness, health regimes, mental wellbeing
Financial
Financial comfort, budget, advice, passive income
Lifestyle
mix of activities, commitments, structured routines
Social
Community interactions, feelings of connection vs isolation
Cultural
Engagement in learning, culture, exploration of values
Environment
Surroundings, home locality, contact with nature
Past, Present & Future: What Did You Discover?
Now that you have completed your alignment map across the past, present, and future, take a moment to reflect on your discoveries:
How has adding past, present, or future enabled you to make greater sense of why things are as they are - to find the MEANING that you need? Has it helped you to understand your causes better and, therefore, how to respond?
Use the questions and prompts on the following slides to explore how these timelines interact and where you might need to focus to bring them into greater balance.
Your Emotional Self sends positive messages when your past, present, and future are in harmony.
Exploring through Time Travel
Use these questions to examine how your Meaning Map entries are spread across the past, present, and future.
Which areas of your Meaning Map are weighted towards the past, present or future? Consider where your attention tends to go when you think about each area. For example, is your identity strongly connected to the career or roles you have left behind; are your relationships and lifestyle grounded mainly in how you live today; or are your thoughts about purpose, where you will live or how you will spend your time dominated by what you hope for or fear in the future? Some areas may span more than one time zone. Identifying where the weight sits can help you see whether your past, present and future are working together or pulling you in different directions.
Are any time frames missing or less prominent than they need to be? Consider whether each area gives enough attention to your past, present and future. For example, are you planning for a future lifestyle without considering what you enjoy today; are you so focused on what you have lost from your working life that you are overlooking what is available to you now; or are you concentrating on the present without thinking enough about what you may want or need in the years ahead? A missing or underrepresented time frame may reveal something important that needs to be brought into your thinking.
What is keeping an area anchored in a particular time frame? Consider why an area of your Meaning Map may remain strongly tied to your past, present or future. For example, is your identity still connected to work because of what your career gave you; are established roles and expectations keeping a relationship tied to the past; or does your preferred lifestyle remain in the future because you have yet to take steps towards it? Consider whether that connection is helping you or hindering the area's development as your retirement evolves.
Where do you see continuity between your past, present, and future, such as values or strengths that run through all three?
Exploring through Time Travel
Where do you see continuity between your past, present, and future, such as values or strengths that run through all three?
Where do you see breaks or contradictions, areas where the story doesn’t quite connect?
Are you carrying forward lessons and successes from your past, or holding on to experiences that no longer help you?
Are you time-travelling equally among your past, present, and future to ensure they all align, or are you feeling pulled too strongly by past memories or future concerns?
How does your Emotional Self feel when you visualise your past, your present, and your future together?
Exploring Through Time Travel
1. Where do you see continuity between your past, present, and future? Consider the values, strengths, interests or qualities that have remained important to you over time. Which parts of who you have been are still evident in your life today and have a place in the retirement you want to create?
2. Where do you see breaks or contradictions? Consider areas where your past, present and future do not seem to connect. For example, are you planning a future that conflicts with what matters to you now, or living in ways today that make the future you want harder to achieve? Look for places where the story across your three time zones does not quite add up.
3. What are you carrying forward from your past? Consider which lessons, successes, strengths and experiences remain useful in the present and for your future, and which may have served their purpose and no longer need to influence what comes next.
4. How well are your past, present and future working together? Consider whether what you have learnt from your past, how you are living now, and what you want from your future support one another. Where they do not, what might need to change to bring them into better alignment?
Where could letting go of an expectation, story, or self-judgement create freedom across all three?
Exploring Through Time Travel
What could you do to bring your past, present and future into better alignment? Identify specific actions you could take, or, if your three time zones are already working well together, what you need to continue doing to keep them that way.
What can you do in the present to support the future you want? Consider the attitudes, habits, decisions or actions you could maintain, change or introduce now to make that future more achievable.
What might you need to leave behind? Consider whether an expectation, story, belief or self-judgement from your past or present is influencing the future you are creating. What might become possible if it no longer carried the same weight?
A life in motion, shaped by time but no longer constrained by it.
Exploring Through Time Travel
Next, read through some case study examples and then, as with causes and responses, on the final slide, record what has stood out most to you as you have time-travelled between your past, present and future. Again, regularly repeat as for causes and responses.
Case Study
Alan
Alan – reframing the past
When Alan, a retired engineer, completed his Meaning Map, Work, Career & Professional Development, which he marked 'negative', immediately stood out. He realised that his Emotional Self, by sending messages of guilt and regret, was directing him to a career decision he had made decades earlier and had never fully come to terms with because of the inner conflict it had caused at the time.
These feelings were his Emotional Self’s way of highlighting this unresolved issue from his past. As Alan revisited that decision, seeing it through the lens of the family stability it created rather than the lost opportunity it represented to him at the time, the guilt and regret gave way to acceptance. His Emotional Self, seeing Alan let go, responded with a message of calmness, signalling that his past was now better understood.
Alan completed a new Meaning Map. For Causes, he reclassified Work, Career & Professional from “negative” to “neutral”. For Responses, he brainstormed possible professional options for his retirement now that he was no longer consumed by guilt and regret.
Case Study
Sheila
Sheila – addressing the present
Sheila’s Meaning Map revealed that most of her entries focused on the present. She figured out that her Emotional Self, in sending messages of flatness and sadness, was pointing her to a lack of present meaning, purpose and connection in her life after leaving teaching. These were messages, she realised, seeking explanations for why important needs were no longer being met as they once were.
When she revisited her Lifestyle, Social and Cultural Meaning Map areas, she especially saw opportunities for mentoring, creativity, and connection that she had previously missed. As a result, she contacted and joined three local UEA Groups, leading her Emotional Self to replace her flatness and sadness with joy and inner tranquillity.
Those new entries reassured her Emotional Self that Sheila's brief retirement-related despondency was over.
Case Study
Martin
Martin – Grounding the Future
Martin’s first Meaning Map was dominated by the future column, filled with words like 'crisis of identity' and 'loss of role and status.' His Emotional Self, in sending messages of anxiety and sometimes anger, was directing him to find new identities, roles and status as he looked ahead into his nascent retirement.
When Martin went back to the 'Yourself' area of his Meaning Map, he recognised that he was the 'problem', more specifically the battering his self-esteem and self-worth took from retiring. When he worked on how he felt about himself post-career, he found solace and enormous satisfaction in taking it easier in life, being a 'proper' Grandad, and rediscovering his love of travel and creative writing. As a result, he gradually recovered his intrinsic value.
His Emotional Self responded with messages of contentment and gratitude, and unusually for Martin, pride at coming through the initial challenges of retirement.
Case Study
Ruth
Ruth – Integrating the Story
When Ruth completed her Meaning Map, her past, present, and future read like separate stories. Her Emotional Self was sending messages of confusion and weariness, emotions reflecting a fractured sense of identity after decades of caring for others. It was signalling a need for coherence.
By tracing shared values across Home and Family Life, Health and Well-being, and Social areas, Ruth saw how compassion, loyalty, and service connected every stage of her life. As she built future goals around them, her Emotional Self responded with a message of calmness mixed with excitement.
The calm she felt was confirmation that her life now made emotional sense again.
Case Study
David
David – Maintaining Time Harmony
David's Meaning Map was balanced from the start. Each area, Work, Health, Lifestyle, and Social, contained past, present, and future entries that reflected continuity and purpose. His Emotional Self was sending messages of contentment and satisfaction, signals of time harmony.
Together, we used his Meaning Map to check that alignment remained strong as his circumstances evolved. Adding new future intentions around community contribution and learning reinforced that balance.
His Emotional Self continued to respond with messages of calmness, confirming that emotional well-being follows naturally when past, present, and future are in dialogue.
Each feeling, whether comfortable or not, is information guiding you toward greater harmony across time.
Like Alan, Sheila, Martin, Ruth, and David, You've Explored How Your Emotional Self Responds to Time
Like Alan, Sheila, Martin, Ruth, and David, you’ve explored how your Emotional Self responds to time, how your past, present, and future influence one another. Their experiences show that emotions are messages: guilt can point to unresolved meaning, sadness to lost connection, anxiety to imbalance, confusion to fragmentation, and calm to alignment.
As you review your own Meaning Map, listen to what your Emotional Self is saying. Each feeling, whether comfortable or not, is information guiding you toward greater harmony across time.
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