So today like many others, is my first day back at work in my acupuncture clinic.
I truly enjoyed this xmas and the time off.
A time to reflect
A time to see where I am right now in my life and a time to plan the future.
A little side note, it only occurred to me today that we are now in the ’20’s’ …….. that last time that happened was over 100 years ago….
MAD !!!!! I know.
With all the excitement of the 2000 and moving into a new century… the ’10’s’ lets call them… well…. Were quite mmmuuuhhhhhh!!!!!!!
100 years ago… not so much…
We had the Spanish flu which killed almost 50 million people…… We had World War I killing 40 million people……. So 100 years ago….. quite dramatic…… times in the ’10’s’
The 1920s however were called the “roaring 20’s” because of the exuberant, freewheeling popular culture of the decade. The Roaring Twenties was a time when many people defied Prohibition, indulged in new styles of dancing and dressing, and rejected many traditional moral standards. The Jazz Age…..
So what has all this to do with you. Sometimes as human beings we can focus on….. the small stuff. Im not saying what you are going through is small… Its absolutely massive. I know that infertility and IVF are big big things. And this is not something you planned. Doing IVF is so expensive on multiple levels…. Emotionally, Physically and Financially……
December…….. was a tough month for me and my patients in our Acupuncture Clinic…. We had some amazing successes in patient pregnancies….. but towards the end of the year…. There were some… not so happy results…. I can think of 3 in particular….and to me they are heart breaking…. I really thought we would get those positive results… my patients have worked so hard over the last few months….. they have changed lifestyles inside and out.. done acupuncture…. The medication and drugs to get them to their IVF cycle….. then to transfer… and finally their test date…..
and its a ’No’ – I get the text messages, the emails and the phone calls and its just heart breaking….. and there is never a good time to get a negative pregnant test…. But to be fair…. I think… a negative pregnancy result at Christmas…. Sucks a little more……
So how do we start again, how do we get focused and get our IVF Game Face back on. How do we let the last year… just go….
Well a simple technique I use… is within what we can the ’Timeline Therapy’ framework. Simply put we reframe our thoughts from last year.
So for a moment…..
- Think of one good thing that happened for 3 or 4 months, of the 12 months…. of last year….. for me its Paragliding off Mont Blanc and almost killing myself in the process, not the killing part but the amazing chance to actually jump off the mountain and glide around it. So that’s one, the 2nd is going to Iceland and Scuba Diving the tectonic plates in freezing glacier water….. (I think Im seeing a theme here.) And finally, helping one of my patients through some of their major side effects of chemotherapy and actually start to feel better….
- Now I know if I asked you to list the not so good things there…. We might have a list a mile long… but we are not going to do that….
- So now that you have looked at 2019….. Lets take a look at the last decade… lets look at where you were in 2010… what was your life like, where were you working, who were you with, had you met your partner… and now lets look at how different your life is right now…. Not the negatives of last year… But the big changes…… you see if we look at things in smaller batches the smaller things well, look much bigger…… if we look at things in larger longer… time frames, well the bigger things stay bigger and the smaller things. Stay small….. So again look at last year and your fertility maybe IVF journey….. now… immediately look at your last decade and where you have been and again where you are right now…… there is a strong strong chance things have gotten better for you in your life over the decade….. and of course there are big things that happened in the last 10 years that are well… to put it mildly….. crap……
- Now look at the next decade, the next 10 years of your life and I promise if you can do a little better than the last 10 years….. its going to be a good life….. and you really really need to get your Game face on for the next few months…
You…. know you can email me at any time…. Gordon