Hello out there and welcome to the podcast. I’m your host, Emily Ginn, and I’m so glad you have joined me today.

Talk a couple of minutes about the weather and maybe how there’s a cat snoring on the couch behind you. (2-3 minutes)

Today, I am going to talk about feelings, specifically about normalizing the feelings you experience during infertility and IVF. A quick note before we get started, I will be both of the term’s feelings and emotions I get asked a lot what are the difference so I wanted to clear that up early on. Most people use them interchangeably to describe how we feel. According to the Googles, an emotion is associated with the bodily reactions that are activated through neurotransmitters and hormones released by the brain, they are physical and they are instinctive. A feeling is the conscious experience of the emotional reaction.  I like to think of them as two-sides to the same coin. 

Now, back to business, I wanted to dedicate the second episode to this because feelings are the most powerful force in our lives. Feelings are what dive us to take action, and sometimes feelings drive us to not take action. Feelings are so powerful and so important. Because of that, it is super important to understand them. This will not be the only episode where I talk about feelings, though. Don’t you worry, I will circle back to this fun and lighthearted topic again. 

For me, I find that the more I am willing to take a look at my feelings, the more I am willing to be curious about them, the more I am willing to look at the role they play in my life, the more I can leverage that information to my benefit. So, that is my goal for you, with this episode. By the end of this episode, my hope for you is that you can understand why what you’re feeling is completely normal and that it is part of this shared experience that so many people have. 

When I begin working with a client one of the first things we work on is normalizing their feelings this has to occur before we get to the work of understanding how our thoughts create our emotions. I find it it more beneficial to my clients to take this step because when we can understand that what we’re feeling is a normal, and an expected part of this process, we are much more willing to open our minds to the possibility of change. So that’s where we’ll start too. Let me tell you a little a story from my own experience. 

When my husband and I were first going through infertility, I think it was around the one-year mark, I went to the OBGYN, for my annual screening, and I sobbed on the exam table while talking to the doctor. It’s important to mentions that at that point in our conversation, when I had my breakdown, I think all she had said was, Hi. I’m doctor-I can’t remember her name-, how are you doing today?” With that, the floodgates opened, the levees broke, the, well you get the idea. There I was in front of God, this lovely doctor that I had never met before and a wide-eyed, slightly terrified medical assistant with nothing more that a thin, backless gown and snot-tears. 

I felt so alone. So isolated. So, well, hopeless. All of my previous excitement around starting a family had morphed into anxiety, depression, jealousy, resentment, and self-loathing. I was absolutely sure I was crazy. Like certifiable. I remember I kept saying, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” 

How many of you have been there? How many of you are still there?

One of the most common phrases that I hear is, “You must think I’m crazy.” I’m pretty sure every one of my clients has said that to me, at least once. What I want everyone who is listening to know, right now, is that is simply not true. I don’t think you’re crazy because YOU’RE NOT CRAZY. I wasn’t crazy! I was scared that I wouldn’t ever get pregnant. I was sad because I wanted it so badly. I was frustrated because it wasn’t happening as quickly as I wanted it to. 

Most people think that if they are experiencing what they would consider a negative emotion, then something has gone wrong. Something terrible has happened. Most people think their negative emotions are something to avoid or resist. That they “shouldn’t” be feeling that way- you can’t see it but I put air quotes around “shouldn’t” because I think in a lot of ways “should and shouldn’t” are useless words that when believed, end up creating a ton of suffering us- the word “need” would also fall into that crap-tastic category, but I digress. 

My clients come to me with a range of emotions. Any combination of depression, anger, anxiety, fear, guilt, confusion, frustration, resentment- you name it, they’ve got it. But, the most common thread that most of them experience, at one point or another, is the fear that they are alone in their feelings. That no one else is struggling like they are. That no one else understands what this feels like. That there is something wrong with them. 

But they are not. Nothing is wrong with you. I think that bears repeating, NOTHING. IS. WRONG. WITH. YOU. 

I do want to take a second and point out that I don’t really believe in the concept of negative vs positive emotion. Negative and positive are value-judgments that WE create based on our interpretations of those feelings. It’s more like certain feelings are more comfortable for us to experience than others. Peace is a more comfortable emotion to experience than frustrations. Happiness is more comfortable than sadness. Hope is more comfortable than hopeless. You get the idea. You’ll hear me refer to comfortable and uncomfortable pretty often and that’s what I mean. 

Now, another important point about feelings is that I don’t want comfort to be confused with familiarity. There are feelings that are more FAMILIAR to us, than other, even the uncomfortable ones. A familiar but uncomfortable emotion that I experience regularly is anxiety. I don’t like the way anxiety feels in my body. My heart feels like it’s racing, my chest gets tight, it’s a whole thing. Many of us are very familiar with uncomfortable emotions which is one of the reasons that they are so easily accessible to us.  

Let me give you another example, most people in the world don’t want to or like to get injections. During IVF, as we all know there are a LOT of injections. When my clients tell me, “I hate the shots. I know I should not hate them because it means I’m getting closer to a baby, but I really, really hate them. People tell me that I could be grateful for the injections but I don’t know how.” Now, the majority of people would probably agree that injections are not necessarily something to enjoy. Let alone forcing yourself to feel grateful for basically being a pin cushion throughout the process. That’s a true story, by the way , my client told me that and she believed, completely believed, that she was doing something wrong because she didn’t feel gratitude about the injections. I asked her how the belief- that she should be grateful for doing injection, served her? I guess what? It didn’t. It actually made her feel guilty that she wasn’t “grateful.” 

Now, I want to be very clear here, there are many times that accessing gratitude during IVF serves us so well. Gratitude is one of my favorite feelings. Gratitude does so much for us: it improves our mental, physical, and emotional health, some research suggests it help improve our sleep, and our self-esteem. Plus, Oprah talked about doing daily gratitude’s, which I still do, so I think that alone should already sell you on the idea. But we’re not talking about gratitude, per se. We’re talking about using gratitude against yourself. Using this belief of how we “should” feel or what we “should” be doing, as a way to beat the crap out of ourselves. That’s the part that doesn’t serve us. Now, I will talk more about thoughts that don’t serve us in upcoming episodes to help you better understand what I mean, but, right now I want to go back to the belief that uncomfortable emotions or feelings are bad. I want to help you understand why this this belief is so detrimental. 

Our society and culture don’t do us a lot of favors in this department. In fact, our Instagram, Pinterest-worthy expectations do everything to foster the belief that that if we’re experiencing an uncomfortable emotion that something has gone wrong. Toxic positivity, which I will dedicate an entire forthcoming episode to, is partly responsible. But the main culprit is this belief that we should be happy ALL THE TIME. How many of you have thought that? Or at least thought you should be happier more often than you are? Probably all of you. I know I have. I still can get caught in this trap, if I’m not paying attention.

My mentor, Brooke Castillo, talks about how life is 50/50. Meaning, 50% of the time you’ll experience comfortable emotions (excitement, happiness, joy, peace- to name a few) and 50% of the time you will experience uncomfortable emotions (anger, frustration, sadness, disappointment, grief, again, just to name a few). We experience both comfortable and uncomfortable emotions just by the virtue of being a human being. A natural byproduct of being alive. Both sides are part of the human experience. 50% of the time you’re going to feel amazing and 50% of the time, you’re going to feel like shit. Now, many people will argue with that percentage. They argue because it is completely contradictory to how we are socialized. But think about it, some of the best moments in our lives were 50/50:

The excitement of deciding to do IVF AND the frustration of waiting. 

The joy of becoming pregnant AND the grief of a miscarriage. 

The elation of a normally developing pregnancy AND the fear and worry for any or all potential complications. 

For so many of us, when we picture our futures, we expect them to be filled with comfortable emotions, 100% of the time. 

“Once I get pregnant, then I will feel…”

“Once I get to a certain point in my pregnancy, then I will feel…”

“Once, I have a baby, then I will feel…”

But it won’t be 100% happy, or even 80% happy. It’s always going to be 50/50. 

So how do we manage those uncomfortable feelings during IVF? We plan for them to be there. If our suffering comes from believing that we “shouldn’t” be feeling a certain way, then by PLANNING for it to be there, we cut out the suffering. We aren’t layering it on top of our pain like the worst effing parfait ever. We can embrace this concept of 50/50. By embrace, I mean “accept it willingly”. 

If we willingly accept that we will always waver between comfortable and uncomfortable, we don’t have to resist or avoid the uncomfortable. We know it’s going to be there. It’s normal for it to be there.  WE don’t have to like it; I want to make that very clear. We don’t have to like the uncomfortable emotions. I don’t like anxiety. Yet, it is with me MOST days. I just don’t have to fight it now. Not fighting it, changes my experience of it. It doesn’t feel AS uncomfortable as it used. It doesn’t have the same power over me that it used to. When you plan for the uncomfortable to be there, you get to be in charge of it, not at it’s mercy.

One of my favorite authors is Pema Chodron, if you don’t know her, that’s ok but to give you a little background she is a Buddist monk that swears- so she’s obviously a hero of mine. 

She talks about this idea in her book, Start Where You Are, which I HIGHLY recommend, she says, “We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”

We normalize feelings and behaviors to help reduce the stigma. To reduce our suffering. 

Normalizing our feelings during IVF is such an important step to breaking free from the near-constant barrage of anxiety, shame, guilt, anger, sadness- you know the buffet of uncomfortable emotions we experience during infertility.  I don’t know why I picture it as a buffet, like, ooooo, that resentment looks pretty fresh. Maybe I’ll get that with a side of self-loathing? But that’s just how my mind works. 

We get more comfortable emotions in the buffet too. We get the laughter and joy and happiness too. We get it all. We get to experience it all. 

So, whatever you’re feeling today, it’s normal. 

If you feel hopeless- totally normal. I did.

If you’re feeling angry- totally normal. I did.

If you’re feeling jealous, or resentful when you see other people that are pregnant or have families, that is totally normal. I did. 

Any and all emotions that you experience during this journey are normal and valid. There’s nothing wrong with having the uncomfortable emotions. We just don’t typically like how they feel. That’s why we try to avoid them. That’s why we try to push them away.

But avoiding your uncomfortable emotions is a lot like trying to shove a beach ball under water. It doesn’t matter how hard you try or how strong you are, eventually that beach ball is going to pop back up and smack you in the face. 

Now, this might sound a little woo-woo but if you are in the throes of an uncomfortable feeling, listen to your body. Take a minute, close your eyes, connect with yourself and let your body take the lead. Your body will tell you what it needs. 

If you want to sob your eyes out- do it.

If you want to scream until your voice is horse- do it. 

If you want to throw a tantrum or punch a pillow- which is one of my favorite things to do- since punching other people is, like, illegal a pillow is often my go-to physical release- then DO IT! 

Take the steps you need to take in order to release those feelings. 

I want to repeat this phrase one last time, so it stays with you a little while longer.

There. Is. Nothing. Wrong. With. You. 

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Until next week, I adore you and you’ve got this my loves. I’ll talk to you later.