TIME – How Your Emotions Effect Your Perception of Time
This video is going to be about the influence of your mental and emotional energy on how you feel about time.
The internal/biological clock is triggered inside of us, creating pressure. Women often respond to the pressure by saying “I’m running out of time to have a baby.” “I have to do this soon as possible because my fertility might go away.” Suddenly, time feels it will run out tomorrow.
Truth is, fertility doesn’t disappear in short period of time…. not two, three or six months. The idea that there is a sudden cut off of time is a fallacy.
I wanted you to understand the definition of time better. I look up time and found two definitions that resonate with me.
Time – A definite portion of time allotted, used or suitable for a purpose.
Time – Favorable or appropriate time to do something, the right moment.
When you read these definitions, it is about YOU making decisions for YOURSLEF about how to USE your time. How do you see YOUR time as having purpose? It’s about you making decisions when the “right moment” is for YOU.
2 minutes
There’s nothing in the definition of time where time is limited or running out. If time is not running out, then why do you feel like it is?
Part of the work I do with women who are trying to conceive, is help them understand where they are on the mental and emotional journey and how it is affecting their ability to give time to conceive.
The best analogy I can come up with – the gas tank in the car.
There are two ends of the spectrum. First is the car with a full tank of gas. On the other end is the car with a quarter tank of gas.
There is a gray zone existing between the two ends and the majority of women watching this video will be here.
The idea of the gas tank: energy inside of our bodies, we run on fuel called energy or Qi (in Chinese medicine). There are lots of other names for it and you maybe more familiar with those terms.
In Chinese medicine, Qi is used in many ways in the body:
- Helps us to stay focused and dedicated to the journey.
- Helps us have a purpose on the journey.
- Motivates us to move forward on the journey.
- When qi is abundant, we can handle the difficult parts of the journey.
3 minutes
If your car has a full tank of gas you know you’re going to be able to drive five hours. There’s lots of energy to stay on the journey and time will feel abundant. When detours happen, it’s not a problem. There is energy to for the side roads which haven’t been planned for.
On the other end, you have a quarter of a tank of gas with about time two hours of driving time. When your tank is low, the journey will feel hard and time is not on your side. Sudden detours require energy which is not present. It feels like you’ll never get to your destination and time is running out.
4 minutes
If you have tons of energy and feel like the journey is manageable, you are in the full tank area. Full tanks provide you with stamina for the journey. You may feel less focused on time or minimal pressure in conceiving.
At the other end of the spectrum, there’s less energy present and you will feel time is running out or the opportunity to conceive is limited. You may feel it is harder to be motivated and focused on the journey.
In the gray zone (the place between the two ends of spectrum) is where you can feel your energy starting to be depleted.
Depletion has a beginning point, the first basic symptoms you are going to notice is tension. Generally, women hold tension or pressure in their chest. There can be a lot of ruminating thoughts, busy mind. You may feel tension or pressure in a part of your brain were all the talking is going on.
5 minutes
You may notice you are experiencing these very basic symptoms all the time. Tension is a normal part of the human experience. It can be very transient or stick with us depending on the situation.
Transient tension won’t drain your tanks as much as consistent ongoing tension.
Going on the fertility journey can create chronic tension and has the ability to drain your tank, such as experiencing all the different elements of getting pregnant:
- Seeking treatment, sitting in a doctor’s office.
- Being poked and prodded.
- Being told about everything that’s not work or wrong.
- What else you should be doing.
- Waiting for a pregnancy test result.
- Pressure from outside sources, family/friends.
It can create tension and drain your tanks.
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What’s the hardest part? It takes a lot of stamina to stay strong AND keep your tanks full to keep you motivated on the journey.
As the journey depletes your tanks, tension becomes more consistent. When tanks get very low – in the quarter of a tank range – tension can turn into physical and emotional symptoms. At this point, I see women coming to me with physical symptoms, like irritable bowel syndrome, migraines, headaches and insomnia. Emotional symptoms can be walking up and feeling “off”, depression, irritability and anxiety.
7 minutes
The zone between the two ends of the spectrum is large. Yet, what is noticeable, as your energy levels drop, physical symptoms will appear. Why? because if you still need to drive five hours a day and you only have two hours of gas in the tank, the last three hours need to come from somewhere. The “somewhere” is a place deep inside of us, where we scarified our well-being. As your well-being is chipped away the physical symptoms will appear.
What can be helpful:
- Stay in tune with where is your baseline energy. On a day to day basis, where is your energy levels?
- Pay attention to your energy going up/down and what influences it. You may notice a great weekend with hubby – your energy goes up. You may have a medical procedure, stick yourself with a bunch of needles, got poked and prodded then your energy goes down.
- You can pay attention to the baseline and see what increases your energy.
8 minutes
This step can be very empowering.
Anything that is depleting and you know it’s going to be coming up, like an IVF cycle. You can plan activities to fill up your tanks. Go to the movies, hang out with a friend, get the husband to do something fun. Then when you go through a difficult procedure, it won’t drain your tank as much. You can maintain your baseline.
Remember the more your tank is full, time will feel abundant and less constrained.
828 – 1130 minutes
Case study – listen to video for info.
One way to help yourself stay in the journey when your tanks are not full, is to have someone present to where you at and support you in that place.
It is helpful if you can find a support system that can help you go the five hours of driving time when your tanks are too low to go the distance. Support can help to keep you fueled up.
12 minutes
I’ve noticed two major factors that play into a woman’s feelings around time.
- Where you are in the journey – it requires stamina and a tone of courage, focus and dedication. That requires a lot of energy and that can be depleting to some women. Some women find the journey energizing and it fills their tanks.
- Another factor can be the multilayers playing into your fertility. The more layers presenting in your case (like high fsh, PCOS, endometriosis) can drain your energy and increase the feelings of not having enough time.
13 minutes
You can start having a look at where are you are on the journey you and what’s going on with your fertility to understand your mental/emotional energy levels.
Empower yourself by checking in with your body and see how these components are playing into a gas tank of your car.
The empowerment of time can be influenced by your mental and emotional energy. When your tanks are full you have a really great support system, you have a treatment team you are comfortable with, it’s amazing how much easier the whole journey can be.
14 minutes
I can’t emphasize enough that the more you become depleted the less time you’re going to feel. Your internal body is going to tell you, time is running out quickly.
It can be empowering to being truthful and honest with yourself about where you are on the journey and how much time you feel you have. Remember time is not an end point, where your fertility disappears. Time is more complicated and your mental/emotional energy has a huge influence on feelings of time. an la