How Will I Feel About This Someday?
By Jen Kost, MSW, LCSW, PMH-C
There are moments in the perinatal period when everything can feel enormous.
A baby will not stop crying. A feeding session did not go the way you hoped. Someone made a comment about your parenting. Your partner said something that landed badly. You made a decision and immediately started questioning whether it was the right one. You are exhausted, overwhelmed, touched out, anxious, or simply having a really hard day.
In those moments, it can be difficult to see beyond what is happening right now.
One simple intervention that can help create a little space is asking:
How will I feel about this in two days?
Then:
How will I feel about this in two weeks?
How will I feel about this in two months?
How will I feel about this in two years?
This is a form of temporal distancing, a psychological strategy that involves stepping outside of the immediate moment and imagining the experience from a future perspective. Instead of looking only at what is happening right now, the mind is invited to consider how the situation may look and feel with more time, information, and emotional distance.
The goal is not to convince yourself that something does not matter.
The goal is to remember that how something feels right now is not necessarily how it will always feel.
When the present feels enormous
Perinatal life can make this especially difficult.
There are enormous physical, emotional, relational, and practical changes happening at once. Sleep deprivation can make a difficult moment feel even more urgent. Hormonal changes, anxiety, depression, birth trauma, feeding challenges, relationship stress, and the constant responsibility of caring for another person can all narrow attention toward the immediate problem.
When the nervous system is overwhelmed, it can become very difficult to access perspective.
A temporary problem can feel like a catastrophe.
A difficult day can feel like evidence that everything is going wrong.
A mistake can feel like proof that you are failing.
The question, How will I feel about this in two weeks?, gently interrupts that sense of permanence.
Maybe the answer is, I probably will not think about this very much.
Maybe it is, I will still be upset, but it will not feel quite so raw.
Maybe it is, I will understand this differently once I have had some sleep.
Or maybe the answer is, This is something I actually need to address.
All of those answers are useful.
The point is not to minimize what is happening
Temporal distancing is not the same thing as telling yourself to get over it.
Some experiences deserve attention regardless of how you might feel about them later. Looking toward the future should never be used to talk yourself out of recognizing a genuine problem.
Instead, this intervention can help distinguish between something that needs action and something that feels urgent because the nervous system is overwhelmed.
That distinction can be incredibly valuable.
Try moving farther into the future
Sometimes two days is not enough distance.
Ask yourself:
How will I feel about this in two days?
How will I feel about this in two weeks?
How will I feel about this in two months?
How will I feel about this in two years?
The further away the imagined perspective becomes, the easier it may be to see the experience as one part of a much larger story.
A difficult night with a newborn may eventually become a blurry memory.
The argument that felt relationship defining at 2 a.m. may look very different after a good night's sleep.
The parenting decision that felt absolutely critical may become one of hundreds of decisions made over the course of raising a child.
The thing that feels like a failure today may eventually become something that taught you what you needed.
And sometimes the exercise reveals that something really will matter two years from now. That information matters, too.
A question for the present moment
There is another question that can be helpful alongside temporal distancing:
What does this moment need from me right now?
Not what does the entire future need. Not what kind of parent you are going to be. Not whether everything is going to work out.
Just this moment.
Maybe the answer is food. Maybe it is sleep. Maybe it is a shower. Maybe it is asking someone to take the baby for thirty minutes. Maybe it is apologizing. Maybe it is setting a boundary. Maybe it is calling a therapist. Maybe it is doing absolutely nothing until the intensity comes down.
The future perspective can create enough space to figure out what the present actually needs.
Sometimes the most helpful thing is simply remembering that you do not have to experience today forever.
