Engaging with hope is an active process. To cultivate hope, we need to be able to imagine pathways to the future that we want, and the concept of “nexting” is part of this imagining the future. Nexting is the ability to look at what is next or when something will happen again. For example, we think of the next time we will see friends, when our next dental appointment occurs, when the next Marvel Universe movie is coming out. Kids as young as 3 can do some nexting in that we can say to the child, “Next, we are going to brush your teeth…next, we are going to get in bed and read a story.”
This ability to imagine the future is quite helpful psychologically, and our ability to do our normal nexting has taken a huge hit. We don’t know when we will next socialize, go to a concert, go to school or work, get a next paycheck, travel to see family, or be able to go to the grocery store at regular hours.
We can approach this change in our ability to imagine the future by balancing acceptance and change. It is very normal to grieve the losses of not having our normal pace, routine, and connections right now.
We can accept that we are grieving and that are bodies and minds are going through a totally new experience throughout this pandemic.
There are also things that we can change in how we connect to our next events. In our personal lives, we can decide what book to read next or what TV series we will watch next. We can look at our available food and decide when to next go to the store. We can decide when we will next shower. We can plan when to reach out to a friend or go outside.
In our work lives, we can keep a calendar and notice the nexts that we do have for the day, week, and or even the month. We can look at our tasks and see which ones we can adjust for the current work environment and which may need to be set aside until we are working in a more standard environment.
It can be helpful to keep track of projects or tasks that we would like to do next.
Creating and illuminating our nexts can also be anchors to go to when we feel adrift in uncertainty.
If you would like, please close your eyes and think of at least one personal and one work-related next that you have today or in the next week. Notice how you feel as you notice these next events. Do you start to imagine the setting, think of who will be involved, or list what you might need to do before the event? Notice how that feels in your body. You may notice some increased energy or light alertness. You could feel some dread or curiosity.
No matter how you feel now, notice that nexting is a way that we can practice connecting to and building hope for the future.