Hello everyone!

I hope you’re all doing well. 

I can’t believe we’re at episode 18, already!

It’s one of those things that feels like it started yesterday but also like 5 years ago. You know what I mean?

It’s so much fun to write and record these episodes. And A HUGE shoutout to my producer Anthony. He is so great and help keep me focused and grounded for deadlines and when we incorporate new technologies that I am not familiar with- all the things. He’s absolutely wonderful. 

If you have been loving the content and want to share the love, please rate and review the podcast. That is the BEST way to make the podcast discoverable for new people. If there’s a particular episode or nugget of wisdom that really resonate with you- share it on SM! You can take a screen shot of the episode and share it to IG or FB and tag me in it. I think this podcast is truly one of a kind that talks about how your brain works and why, and specific challenges that we face during infertility and IVF. My mission is to change the way that we talk about and experience infertility and this podcast is a HUGE part of that so I would love it if you would share it with your world. 

Today I am going to talk about something that is pretty central to my coaching philosophy. 

The idea is that a baby won’t solve for the things in your life that you believe aren’t working. 

There is a central belief- conscious or unconscious that a baby will solve for the things that you believe are broken in your life. Because you believe that your unhappiness is specifically related to your inability to have a child or another child. 

Before I break this down, I want to talk a little bit about why it’s important to understand these subconscious beliefs come up for us. 

I’ve probably said this 1,000 times at this point, but we are NOT taught about our feelings. We are not taught how to processes our feelings or process our feelings. 

Because we are not taught about feelings, we and I mean we as individuals and as a culture and society, but we are constantly looking for something external from us to help us feel better. 

Think about just the diet and beauty culture – they are hundreds of billion dollar a year bemouths. The messaging we receive is that we are broken, and they have the answer to our wholeness.  That it is the next trend, the next product, the next thing that will make us feel better. This is how they make so much damn money.  They are incredibly persuasive AND they perpetuate and capitalize on this belief that the answer to our happiness is outside of ourselves. 

This is one of the most important things to know about how society and culture curate our beliefs and thoughts. 

This also plays so much into our infertility experience because the messaging we receive through the patriarchy is that our bodies are commodities, adornments for others enjoyment. So, if our bodies are commodities then one of the main productions of our bodies, outside of sex, is having children. So, when we can’t do that or when we need help to do that, it strikes at all of the shame and fear and “less than” belief systems that we all already have. 

Ok, so that’s all important to know. Why we have these beliefs. 

So, I want to talk about the three central areas that I mentioned earlier. 

It’s also important for me to point out that these areas are the same for any circumstance. For this podcast we talk about babies, but you could just as easily sub in weight loss, new job, new house, new relationship, whatever, and it would still be true. So, it’s not just specific to this one thing.

So, the central area is your relationship with yourself.

This is where I spend most of my time with clients. I believe the relationship that you have with yourself is the most important relationship in your life. It influences EVERYTHING. It is EVERYTHING. 

For so many of us the pursuit of our family envelopes us. It’s all consuming. Particularly once you get to IVF because it is SOOO logistically heavy. But it’s this idea that “once I get”. 

Once I start IVF, I’ll feel

Once I get pregnant, I’ll feel

Once I have the baby, I’ll feel 

Right? This plays in our heads over and over again. There’s always a qualifier for us for when we get to feel any certain way. 

But the whole time, in our heads we’ve got this refrain playing like:

I’m a loser

I’m a failure

I can’t do anything right

I’m a piece of shit

I’m worthless

And we think that will change just because we get that baby that we dream of?

Now, I’m not poking fun because I did this too. I was so desperate for a baby and the conversation in my head was so awful that I truly believed that once I got pregnant and once I had the baby, I would feel better. Yet, when I had my first born that was NOT the case. 

Like at all, because the refrain in my head stayed the same it just changed from, I was a piece of shit because I couldn’t get pregnant to I’m a piece of shit mother. 

When you ignore or kind of accept that that is always how you’re going to talk to yourself, then that’s always how you will talk to yourself. Once of my previous clients, when we first started working together was sort of resigned to this idea that she would always have crippling anxiety. She told me, “well my dad has it, his family has it, I have it, so this is just how it is.” As if there was no alternative whatsoever. The refrain in her head was that she was a loser, she couldn’t do anything right, and that she kind of destined for this life as an anxious mess (her words). 

She told me this fate as if she was reporting the news. As if it was just fact that she had to accept and had accepted, and nothing was going to change that. It hadn’t even occurred to her that it was an option, when we met. 

We met and started working together when she was about to start her FET cycle. And she kept telling me that everything would be ok once she was pregnant. That it will all be worth it. 

And that feels like a pretty thought. Right. That feels true. Except once she got pregnant and then newness and excitement of the pregnancy wore off, once the fun started to wear off all she was left with was how she habitually talked to herself. 

What happens is that we give ourselves permission to feel good until the moment that the thing we wanted isn’t new and shiny anymore. And then its right back into those old patterns. 

And I think this is also part of the infertility culture and community- the messaging is that if you can’t get pregnant then you’re unhappy and bad and when you get pregnant, you’re happy and good.  But it doesn’t stay that way. Unless you change the conversation. 

People going through infertility aren’t miserable and hopeless. No one is miserable because they can’t get pregnant. Because many of us FFI folks have experienced infertility LOONG before we actually get pregnant and so if we were miserable and unhappy then it couldn’t have been about infertility because we didn’t know we were experiencing infertility. Same with MFI, we usually don’t walk into marriage or partnership with babies on the horizon and know off the bat that there is a concern with sperm. So, when we get onto this shit infertility train, we are not miserable and hopeless because of that. We are miserable and hopeless because of our thoughts about ourselves in relation to our infertility. 

A baby will not solve for that conversation you are having with yourself. It will not solve for how you think about yourself. How you view yourself. Or make you happy. 

That’s not a baby’s job, to make you happy. To make any of us happy. That’s an inside job. We’re the only ones that can make ourselves happy. Walking into parenting with that expectation is a recipe for a shit ton more suffering because babies are hard. Putting a baby on the pedestal that it will save you or save your relationships will only lead to more pain. 

So, why do we do this? 

Why do we place such an emphasis on having a baby, or buying a house, or starting a new job, or a new relationship- that that will be thing golden ticket to your happiness or freedom?

Because, if you’ll remember from earlier- there is a lot of cultural and social programming that tells us that the answer for our happiness is outside of us. 

When we believe the answer is outside of us, then that’s what we seek. 

A solution outside of ourselves. 

This belief that your life will start once you get a baby. 

Once this thing happens that you desperately want to have happen, then I will finally feel the way I’ve always wanted to feel.

But that’s not how this works. That’s not how life works. 

We join this life, already in progress. 

When we are constantly waiting for the “thing” that’s going to let it start, we miss out on the present. 

When we’re so resistant to where we are, RIGHT NOW, it’s like we’re waging war on the present. We’re resentful of it. We hate it. 

But the present, doesn’t care about that. Time is happening whether you are resentful or not. 

The present doesn’t have any feelings about you. So why would you spend so much time fighting and arguing with something you can’t control? With something that can’t think or feel?

I want you to ask yourself, how can I love my life RIGHT NOW?

What is there to love in my life?

Your brain will ALWAYS tend and veer towards the negative- towards the lack. That’s what it’s supposed to do. But it’s up to YOU whether you stay there or not. And for how long you stay there. 

When we are so eager to be someplace other than where we are, it’s because we are chasing a feeling. We think that if we get the thing we are chasing then we will get to feel XYZ. 

For me, I thought it would mean that I would get to feel whole, happy, and complete.

I wanted a baby but I was chasing those feelings because I thought a baby would give me those feelings. 

But when my oldest was born, that’s NOT EVEN CLOSE TO WHAT HAPPENED.

Because I never took the time, and because I didn’t know to do this at that time, to question my expectations. I never took the time to check in with myself as to what I was wanting to feel and why.

So when I did have our first, I was completely leveled because my expectations for this little person and the reality of what it was like to have a baby we’re so incredibly, hilariously incongruent. 

So, this week, I want you to think about those questions that I asked a minute ago:

how can I love my life RIGHT NOW?

What is there to love in my life?

When I took a look at what came up for me with that, and I was able to see what my life is like.

I realized that there were so many more parts of it that I loved than the totality of what shit that I thought it was. 

It’s messy and beautiful.

Peaceful and frantic.

All of the rough edges and sweet joys.

This is how we start to want ourselves and our lives as much as we want those little babies. 

And this is my hope for all of you. 

Have a beautiful week my friends. 

Remember, I adore you and you’ve got this.