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What are You Doing to Cultivate Your Qi?

by Gabrielle on June 19th, 2008

Qi (you know, chi, pronounced “chee”) could be just as important to your baby-making ability as the more physical parts of the equation. Kind of like prana, Qi can be translated to mean “life energy” and according to my new favorite book, Qi:

flows within us and around us, giving all things life, animation, warmth and form. Similar to electricity, Qi is invisible but its effects can be seen. When the Qi is flowing in harmony, the body is able to take care of itself. However, the flow of Qi can become obstructed or unbalanced.

And balancing and freeing up that Qi is a big part of what acupuncture can do for you - get it flowing smoothly again throughout your body and more importantly, to those baby-making parts that need it. But you don’t need to rely on those little needles to get your Qi back in check. There are lot of things you can do to help.

Perhaps I shouldn’t say “do” because what restores your Qi isn’t necessarily doing, it’s just being. More from Fully Fertile:

most of your daily activities deplete Qi. Working, playing, worrying, and exercising all cost us some Qi. We develop or cultivate our Qi by eating nutritious, well-cooked foods, meditating, practicing Tai Chi or yoga, walking for pleasure, appreciating art and music and other types of restorative or non-activities.

In other words, its about finding a balance.

Fully Fertile recommends keeping a Qi Drain/Qi Gain journal, if only for a week or so to recognize which side of the equation is off for you. It didn’t take more than a few lines for me to figure it out.

Lately, I had been feeling a lot of anxiety related to work and multiple pending projects, and that had begun to seep into my personal life, I am sure to the detriment of my fertility (and my relationship with Michael). “You are being awful,” he said to me at one point last week. And I couldn’t argue. Do you ever have those moments when as words are actually coming out of your mouth you think to yourself, wow, I am being an *sshole, but you keep talking anyway? I was having a lot of those moments. So reading this chapter and really thinking about that balance and working towards even-ing it out again couldn’t have come at a better time. I was putting so much of my time into doing, that there was really no time left for being. Every time I sat on the couch with Michael, I felt guilty. Every moment I wasn’t at my computer I was seeing as a lost moment, when really it is the opposite.

So this is what I have been doing to cultivate my Qi:

• I went kayaking - a smooth, midweek, peaceful jaunt up the river and back, through the reeds. Being in the water is my ultimate meditation and I think I somehow forgot that;
• I bought a kayak - in the hopes of not forgetting that again;
• I spent all of Sunday morning sitting on my balcony in the sun reading a book (guess which one) and gently reminding myself that Monday didn’t matter, at least not yet. This moment in time was for me; and then
• I spent Sunday afternoon playing with my in-laws dogs and basking in the sun. Weekends are not made for working. This is my new mantra

This week has been easy to fit in some Qi time because my boss has been on vacation. Let’s see if my resolve and my balance maintains once she’s back.

What are some things that you do to cultivate your Qi?

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POSTED IN: acupuncture, fertility boosts?, infertility treatments, living with infertility, shared experiences