Just pretend…

I made an interesting observation. Oftentimes clients feel resistance to changing certain dietary or lifestyle habits – for example to stop drinking alcohol or to go to bed earlier – as a means of preparing for pregnancy and optimizing fertility, while they would have no problem at all to drop those same habits if they were indeed pregnant.

So in other words, they wouldn’t do to their baby, what they do to themselves.

The root cause for this can be found in a lack of self-esteem and self-valuation and working on those is definitely necessary in such cases. However that can take time.

In the meantime a simple mindset shift can help to solve this dilemma quicker, namely the awareness that it’s not just what we do DURING pregnancy that influences the mental and physical health of our baby, but also what we do BEFORE. It’s a fact that it takes 3 months for an oocyte to mature into an egg in your ovaries, so everything you do in those 3 months will have a direct impact on the quality of this egg. Your blood sugar, your gut flora and your overall hormone status also all influence the development of your baby – and those can take many months to rebalance.

So in fact, I absolutely mean it if I suggest to you to just pretend you are already pregnant. Because the truth is you are! Even if you are just starting to think about it.

Adopting this mindset actually makes implementing change so much easier! Just imagine all the things you would do and would not do if you were actually pregnant, for example:

• You would stop dieting and make sure to eat enough food
• You would not drink any alcohol
• You would try to eat as little sugar, processed foods and junk foods as possible
• You would try to eat lots of vegetables
• You would make sure to get enough rest and sleep
• You would not over-exercise, but maybe take a gentle yoga class
• You would limit toxin exposure as much as possible
• You would frequently caress your belly and talk nicely to it
• You would be amazed by your body and all that it is capable of
• …

Something interesting happens if during preconception you act as if you were already pregnant:

1. First of all, what used to feel like a constraint or “oh so difficult” to put into practice, starts to feel more like an act of love and care that actually comes naturally and easily. Even if this love and care is directed at your “mind baby” rather than yourself, you will definitely benefit from it, too. That’s the beauty of love and care: When we give it, we actually get it at the same time.
2. Second, by “creating the end result first”, you actually give a strong signal to the Universe that you are indeed ready for this new phase and to say goodbye to your old life. The Universe wants to know that you are “grown up” enough to take on the responsibility of raising a child. If you can’t even take care of
   yourself, how are you supposed to convince it?
3. Third, the more you feed yourself with natural Real Food, the more you will re-educate your taste buds and the more you will LOVE them. I promise, there will come a day when you would not trade them back for those foods that now you feel you cannot live without.
4. And last but not least of course you create the very hormonal conditions that you need to get pregnant.

So if you are wanting to get pregnant at some point, but still find it difficult to change your habits and to say no to certain foods, behaviors or activities, I invite you – just as an experiment – to try on the mindset: “I am already pregnant”. And then see what happens.

P.S. Don’t forget to tell your partner, too, so he doesn’t offer you a drink per accident 😉