Hello, hello, hello my beautiful friends. 

I hope you are all doing so so well. I am getting ready to leave for a business trip, for the first time since November 2019! I can hardly believe it. I’m so excited, and a little bit nervous. But I’ve decided that I am going to have a great trip. Parts of it are not going to be that fun- like being at the airport and flying and all that, but I’m doing a fun riverboat cruise with some people and a couple of other fun social stuff with my group so that’s gonna be amazing. It’s all 50/50, right?

So, it’s interesting, I wasn’t intending on making this a two partner, but as I was reflecting back on the first part of the time scarcity episode I don’t really feel like I fleshed out the “I’m running out of time” aspect of time scarcity. Now, if you haven’t listened to last week’s episode the first part of the time scarcity, I want you to stop this one and go back to that one. Because some of what I say might not make sense since that was originally designed to be a stand alone episode. 

So what I said about that sense of urgency, from the last episode, still stands for this thought. This thought, “I’m running out of time” is still seeped in a great deal of urgency because the underlying belief is that I am still feeling this sense of urgency because I don’t want to be feeling what I’m feeling now and I think it will be better somewhere else. Right, so I won’t belabour that point but just to say that that still very much applies and the questions that I have you at the end of the last episode is still a great technique for combating that urgency. 

But I want to expand on the “I’m running out of time” thought. In the last episode I did talk about the very real biological nature of female reproductive anatomy. There is a “ticking clock” -even though I hate that phrase. 

So, let’s take all of the stuff I talked about in the previous episode and we’re going to add in this idea that time, at its core, is a mental construct that people created to help quantify and understand the universe and movement. Time is truly only a reflection of change. 

So time is just made up. It's just made up in our heads. 

We came up with a 24-hour system. Not all civilizations had 24-hour system, the number of days that we have, the number of days in a week, in a month, in a year, all about time. I mean, even how long a second is, all of this stuff is a mental construct. That means that it's created in our heads with our thoughts, and then our thoughts assign meaning to them. We don't typically think that a second is a long time, but if someone you love isn't breathing, a second feels like an eternity. Sometimes, an hour feels like it will never end. Other times, an hour flies by. How is that possible? It's because of how we are experiencing it through our thinking. This is actually really similar to money. Money is a total mental construct made up by humans. In America, we said, "We have these bills. They're green. They have dead presidents' faces on them, and here we go. This is what you can get." This is the relative value of that, but it's all in our heads. It's just an agreement that we all have. 

Similar to our time scarcity, many of us have a lot of money scarcity thoughts too. I talked about how over the course of the next few months I’m going to do a podcast on money scarcity, too. Lots of people have just as many scarcity thoughts about time as they do about money. The same way that when someone's asking for money, if you have a lot of money scarcity, you're like, "No, I'm not going to share my money." It's the same way when you have time scarcity. Like, "No, I'm not going to give you another half hour of my time to sit at the meeting. No way." 

Now, this is not to say that there isn’t a biological implication to how our bodies and fertility diminish and deteriorate over time- I talk about that in the previous episode too. 

What we’re wanting to focus this episode on is how we interpret the passage of time, and how, when we tie that to our infertility, it makes us feel awful. 

So, let me ask you this- how many times, over the past month, have you thought “Time is running out.” In reference to something that was not within the context of infertility? 

Maybe you’re working on a project for work or school.

You have a deadline approaching. 

Maybe it’s just you have a list of things you want to get done today, just for fun maybe, or work, and it feels like time is slipping away?

Maybe you have a list of to-do’s and then a Drs appt towards the end of your day. You’re trying to get everything off your list but as the appt grows closer, you tell yourself “Time is running out.”

I would venture to guess that most of you have had that thought, at least once this month, outside of the context of infertility. 

When my clients talk to me about “running out of time.” The way that they describe it is like they’re telling me the news. Like it’s just a straight fact. 

But what I want you to understand is that it is still just a thought. It is your current experience of the time. 

So let’s say that you’re 41 and starting IVF, a running thought might be “I’m running out of time.” 1) That thought is not exclusive to a specific age range. I’ve had clients in their mid-20’s say that to me because where they are in their lives, does not equal where they expected to be at that age. One of my clients expected to be pregnant at 26, she is now 28. In her words, “I had my whole life planned you, I was going to finish my degree at 22, my masters at 24, get married at 25, and start having babies at 26. 

Now, it can be very easy, if you’re older than that and experiencing infertility to dismiss her concerns- not that you would but because that idea of time scarcity is not true for you. 

And that is because time scarcity and that thought about running out of time, is a thought. If it cannot be universally true, like 1+1=2, then it’s a thought. It’s not a fact. Now, I understand that it FEEEEEELS very true to you. And that’s understandable. But simply because something feels real to you, does not make it real. 

So, now we’ve identified the thought, “Time is running out.” We’ve noticed it. 

We have to see what feeling that is creating- I talked a lot about urgency in the last episode, so that might be applicable. Another one might be panic. You might experience a sense of panic when you think, “I’m running out of time.” Or “Time is running out.”

When we feel a sense of panic, remember our brain cannot differential between a physical perceived or real threat or a psychological perceived or real threat- it’s all interpreted the same. So when our fight or flight kicks in, which tends to happen when you experience panic, alllll of your executive functioning goes out the window. That beautiful and, if you’re over the age of 26, fully developed pre-frontal cortex is completely inaccessible to you. All of your executive functioning, planning, responsive techniques are not available to you. You’re emotionally flooded. And just like when a car gets flooded, that essential function of continuing to run, is not available. That’s how your brain works when you get emotionally flooded. It perceives a threat, and shuts down any and all functions that are not necessary for survival. Your executive functioning skills are not necessary for your survival- so they get cut off in the power drain. 

What is in charge is your limbic system which, among other things, is the part of your brain that controls your emotions and activates the fight or flight responses- interestingly enough, another function of our limbic system controls our desire for reproduction and maternal instincts as well, so it’s all fascinatingly connected. Anyway, this is where all of the unconscious thought patterns come from, that negativity bias that I’ve talked about, all of that is in charge in that moment. So of course, when you think that thought, what’s gonna happen?

Your brain is going to go on a free-for-all down the spiral rabbit hole about how terrible it is, how little time there is, how when time runs out you’re going to be confronted with this child-less life, or maybe a family that looks VERY different from how you had always imagined it- those are very painful thoughts. 

So, one of the ways we want to try to calm that response, is by grounding yourself. When your emotionally flooded, until you can calm your brain down and reassure it that you’re not going to die, you will not be able to address any thoughts. Emotions first, then the thoughts. 

I’ve shared a few grounding techniques on the podcast before and honestly, you can search on google or Pinterest for grounding techniques and you will find hundreds. One that I will share with you is the candle/ flower technique for breathing. 

This is a way to calm your breathing in moments like this. 

So, you want to hold your index finger out about 6 inches from your face. And you are going to pretend that your finger is a flower and that you’re going to smell it- inhaling for a count of 5. 

Then for the exhale, you’re going to pretend your finger is a candle and that you’re blowing out the flame, and exhale for a count of 5. 

You’re going to repeat that cycle 3-5 times. When you feel much more centred and grounded. Now for the cognitive part.

Since time is a mental construct, any issue you have with time originates in your brain. It is not external to you in the world and your surroundings. Let me just repeat that. Any issue you have with time has nothing to do with other people, with the world around you. It's 100% how you think about it. I want you to know, and some of you are going to be like what? But I want you to know that you really could get twice as much done every day if you simply manage your mind around time. So many of us, well, pretty much everybody completely resists this at first. Like, "What? How dare you? No way. There's no possible way that I could do that," but I am telling you, just try me and see how much you can get done. 

When you create so much stress for yourself regarding time, then you are more likely to use your time to eat to feel better, use social media or shopping to feel better, drink or use recreational drugs to try to feel better- instead of dealing with the discomfort. We think, "Oh, but I need... I'm so exhausted at the end of the day, and I'm so wiped out, and I need this time to just unwind," not realizing that the reason we're so exhausted and we need to unwind is because of all the stress and the pressure that we're creating for ourselves because of the way that we think about time throughout the day. 

Creating, practicing, and then believing ABUNDANT thoughts is one of the primary ways that you counteract a scarcity mindset. 

Now, it’s easy for me to go and say, “Just think, “There is enough time for me to get what I want in life.” Or some Affirmation like BS, you all know that’s not what I am about. 

Not because that thought has no use or value, because it’s a beautiful thought, but for many of you, it’s not believable. 

We have to build up to it, and we do that by using a Thought Ladder. I did a whole episode on the Thought ladder, maybe a year ago, so go check that out. But the basic idea is that we have to start with the thought you have and build up to a more aspirational thought, like a goal thought. And the goal thought doesn’t have to be super positive and abundant like the one I just offered. 

So here’s my , what I believe to be a very realistic, thought ladder to start untangling time scarcity- man, I gotta work on that title. 

So, we’re starting at the bottom with “I’m running out of time”

Then we would work on something that’s a little less than that and it kind of believable, maybe like- It’s possible I have more time than I think I do. When we are working on building belief, we have to give our brains ALLLLL of the qualifiers. 

Maybe another thought about that could be, There’s been other times that I thought time was running out but I actually finished that thing early or on time, or I got something unexpected during the time, these are just suggestions to get your brain going.

Another one might be, There are other people in the world, women going through what I am going through, the same age as me, that don’t feel like time is running out. What do you think those women think about? How do those women spend their time? No judgment about them or you, only curiosity. 

Another thought could be, there’s no wrong way of spending time. This one is really good if you have a goal and you keep procrastinating- maybe you keep telling yourself that you want to reach out to a new clinic to get a second opinion but something keeps you from doing it and the things that you use to numb the feelings associated (maybe you pick up your phone to call a new clinic and you open FB or IG and distract yourself) and then you beat yourself up for doing that. There was a reason that you stopped yourself. There was a thought, that created a feeling, that drove the action, or in this case, inaction, of making that call. There’s no judgment. Just curiosity. What was more appealing about IG or FB that kept me from doing what I said I was going to do?

Maybe at the top of that ladder is, I always have time to complete/ accomplish/ or focus on the things that I choose are important. 

And I want you to really pay attention to the language I am using here. It’s not that the outcome is guaranteed, but rather that I can choose where to focus my energy and my time, in pursuit of that goal. 

Because, here’s the thing, if you’re already in the process, then telling yourself over and over and over that you are running out of time is completely useless. It doesn’t do anything to help you manage your mind. If anything else, that is a sign that your mind is running amuck.

If you already have an appt with an RE or a clinic, if you are waiting to start your workup, if you’re waiting to start a cycle, if you’re in the two week wait following the egg retrieval or chromosomal testing,  or waiting for beta, you’re about to start taking medications for a cycle, even if you have made the decision to take some time off for your mental, emotional, physical or financial health, or if you’re waiting for insurance approval- like, I want to impart this on you, just because you are waiting for something, does not mean that time is running out. 

You are still in the process. Trust yourself. Trust that process. 

That is what I want for each and every one of you. 

Ok, that is what I have for you today, my beautiful friends. Have a great week. And I will talk to you soon.