Living in the moment

I have always thought that living in the moment was something positive to aim for. Now I am seeing it in a different light courtesy of Drake Eastburn.

Drake is a Certified Hypnotherapist from the US (Denver, Colorado to be precise) and his wife is the fabulous Lynsi Eastburn, the creator of the HypnoFertility programme. I had the pleasure of training with Lynsi in Belfast earlier this year and am pleased to say that she has found time in her busy schedule to come to the UK again in 2009 to be a keynote speaker at the annual conference of the National Council for Hypnotherapy.

Anyway, back to the point in hand. Before training with Lynsi I bought a copy of one of Drake's books called "The Power of the Past" in which he explains Transformational Replay, his take on Hypnotic Regression Therapy. The technique he teaches is brilliant and I now use it in my own practice. I would urge any practising hypnotherapist out there to have a read. Drake's writing style is so easy to read that you'll consume it whole in a matter of hours and then go back for more.

So, again I have digressed. The point about living in the moment is made in the first chapter, "How We Become Who We Are", and Drake explains that at any given moment not much is really going on and that whatever is going on is the product of all the stuff that happened prior to that one moment. Basically, he asserts that without our history there would be no moment.

So far so good, but it really comes to light when he introduces the analogy of music. He explains that the moment, the now, is just one single note. And now I'm going to quote directly because Drake's own words are so much better than my paraphrasing:

"No matter how sweet that note might sound, for that brief moment while it's drifting through the air, it is just one brief note. It is all the other notes that led up to that note that create the melody that, when brought together, sounds so delicious. With only one note there will be no melody..."

"Our history creates the melody of our lives. Without our history we would not be the people we are today. Each moment in our lives is one of the notes that creates the melody (story) of our lives."

The point he goes on to explain is that our history is an important part of who we are now and it can be a motivator or an excuse for how we live our lives. It's up to us to choose. People who recognise their history and deal with it in a healthy manner can gain wisdom and build character in the process.

Having recognised our history we can then go on to move forward and change it, or rewrite our own symphony, to return to the musical analogy.

That's where regression therapy comes into play because one of the problems with trying to change our history is that early events are often no longer in our conscious memory but in the subconscious memory, where they continue to play an important part in how we act and think (we just don't realise it!). So regression therapy is about talking to the subconscious mind to get to the core issue quickly and effectively so that we can start to move forward.

Thank you for the inspiration Drake.

Namaste,

Tracy xx

IVF Pregnancy Due Dates

I recently found a fabulous tool on one of my favourite websites and I thought that I should share it with everyone.

On the Fertility Friends website is this thing called an IVF Pregnancy Due Date and Fetal Development Calculator. What first struck me about this was the fact that rather than simply working from your LMP (last menstrual period) you could alternatively put in the date of egg collection or ovulation. This is particularly important for those of us who achieved our pregnancy through IVF because the date of our LMP is of little relevance when calculating due dates is it.

But, there's even more to it than that. When you've put in your date you get your due date and a whole load of other REALLY useful information too. There's due dates for multiple births, your own personalised dates for various tests and scans and then a week by week description of fetal development (together with the dates at which you reach these milestones).

But that's not all. The Fertility Friends website is also a great source of information and support. In particular, their message board is fantastic - and free to join. There are a multitude of different forums specific to your own circumstances: whether you are just starting out of your fertility journey, in the middle of treatment (with different forums for different treatments and different stages of treatment), pregnant, dealing with pregnancy loss, taking a breather or deciding to move on. In fact, there's too many for me to do them justice here so I recommend you take a look yourself and give it a go.

I hope you find the whole site as useful as I do - let me know what you think.

Tracy xx