Episode 79: Transcript

You are listening to episode 79 of the Path to Motherhood podcast.

Welcome to the Path to Motherhood podcast.

I'm your host and fertility life coach, Sarah Brandell.

Join us each week as we walk through navigating your trying to conceive journey.

My mission is to share the skills of managing your mind, processing emotions,

and living a full life to create a more authentic path to motherhood.

Hello, hello, and welcome back to this week of the Path to Motherhood podcast.

I feel like I haven't talked to you guys in a while, and I know I just had an episode last

week, but I pre-got ahead on all of February and all of March episodes to get myself a

little bit of a leave, and now I'm back and I'm recording.

So we will get to today's episode topic here in a moment.

For those of you that want to just dive right into that, go ahead and fast forward.

But I wanted to give you guys an update.

I'm coming at you exactly one month from having our sweet IVF miracle, Isabella.

She is doing amazing.

And it's been just a whirlwind of a month.

Yeah.

at 39 and 2. It was a wonderful birth and we've been you know enjoying the

postpartum period. Don't get me wrong it's been hard. It's been exhausting. I

haven't slept much the last few nights and we will do an episode dedicated to

again a really important topic which is motherhood after infertility, after loss,

especially being you know on this side of pregnancy after such a long journey.

But right now I'm just soaking it all in enjoying it grateful as ever and just

starting to kind of ease back into things. So over the last few weeks I have

eased back into picking up a few clients each week back up and meeting with them

and connecting with them and supporting them and I'm just so happy to kind of be

able to keep doing that and supporting them and pretty soon I'll be able to

start seeing new clients if you've been interested. And now I'm going to start

recording episodes for the podcast again. So you're gonna hear fresh takes on how

things are going. And yeah, just enjoying it all. So I didn't perfectly think this

through just because this first episode I have to record on the week that my

My preschooler is on spring break.

So that's me, a preschooler, a newborn, and trying to find time to record a podcast.

But we're making it work.

And we will find a new routine.

I know we will.

So that's how we're doing.

Like I said, I will give you more update in the future.

But I know you guys have been following along.

I know a lot of you started with the first episode, which was my fertility story.

And so this is the update on our fertility story.

And we will talk about, you know, how it's going and what the future holds and all of

that in the future.

But for today, we're just enjoying what we have and grateful.

And I want to dive in to an important topic.

So what I want to talk about today is really asking you, what are you making your infertility

story mean?

And when I say that, I will share that this isn't necessarily a new topic.

We've touched on this before, but I would say it's more of a new take on the topic,

a different way of thinking about it.

What I really encourage you to do is to just look back over your life and really over your

life over the last few years, as long as you feel you've been in the trying to conceive

journey and ask yourself, what are you allowing that story of what you've been

through, what you're trying to conceive journey has looked like mean about you,

right? What are you allowing that story of your journey of your path to mean? How

are you letting it show up and tell you who you are, who you're meant to be, what

you're going to become and what your future is going to look like. How are you letting

this journey define you? For me, I can tell you that there were so many times in my journey

that I would tell myself I was broken. My body doesn't work. The world is out to get

me. I'm a failure. If I could just figure this out, fix this problem. I could be a whole

person. I could be a normal human. I could be one of those normal moms who gets pregnant

easily, sound familiar?

Really, truly ask yourself,

how are you defining you

based on your infertility journey?

Because I promise you that you're doing it.

I promise you.

This is how our brain works.

It looks at the past for evidence

and uses it to define our future.

If you guys are hearing some background noise,

it is pouring right now.

This is the time that I'm able to squeeze things in

so we're gonna go with it,

but man, it is pouring, it's loud out there.

So I have five things that I want you to reflect on

as we think about this story.

So you've taken the time to think about

what are you allowing your history to tell you

about yourself?

And then now that you have that,

I want you to think about these five things.

Number one, I kind of alluded to this,

but number one is that if you're doing this,

don't be surprised, don't beat yourself up.

Our brain truly is wired to define our future

based on our past.

It's all it's got and it wants a certainty so bad.

And the only way it knows to seek even like

a version of certainty is to take a look

at your past journey of trying to conceive

and use that to make assumptions.

I always tell clients that this journey feels so out

of our control that our brain only knows one thing to do

and that is to look at what is known and that is the past.

The fact that this is happening,

the fact that you're using your past to define your future

is not surprising, nothing's gone wrong,

you're not messed up for doing that,

that is just part of how this works.

Number two is that is just it.

These are not facts, these are assumptions.

So what do I mean by that?

You, me, and the girl down the street

could have all lived through the exact same

trying to conceive experience,

and we will have totally different understandings

of that experience.

We will tell totally different stories.

We will end up with totally different results.

And the standard example I give of this

that is completely unrelated is weather, right?

Sometimes I talk about the temperature,

sometimes I talk about the rain like it is right now.

If there's four people,

one is trying to have a wedding, one is a farmer,

One is a person training for a marathon,

and one is someone who has lived in a desert their whole life,

and they're somewhere where there is a downpour rain,

all four of them are gonna have totally different

experiences of that rain.

That person trying to have a wedding is gonna be devastated.

That person growing a farm,

or who has never lived around rain in their life,

is going to be fascinated or excited or happy to have the rain.

Right?

So, just because we have the same exact circumstances, the same facts, right?

The fact is that it's raining does not mean our experience of that rain is going to be

the same.

The exact same thing is true of the infertility journey.

The exact same thing.

For example, I can tell you that there can be two clients that come to me.

client tells me I got two embryos and they are elated. They are so grateful. They truly

did not think that was even going to happen. And someone else can tell me they had two embryos from

their IVF retrieval and be devastated. Think they were going to end up with seven and they're so

disappointed in their two. Same thing is true of your story. And I see this time and time again

in different people and how they're able to cope. I've said recently that there have been multiple

fertility providers that have told me this game is really a game of perseverance. Who has the

mental fortitude, the emotional skill to be able to persevere and push through even when this gets

hard. Even when this isn't going your way, even when it feels like it's taking forever. Those are

the people who can see success in this journey. I will add the caveat that that's ignoring

money because sometimes people would persevere but they just simply don't have the finances

to do it. But setting money aside perseverance is so important and what I have seen is depending

on the person they could be through the same exact experience two years of trying test

after test, after test negative, three unsuccessful IUIs,

trying to decide next steps.

One person may say, you know what?

I have been so emotionally disappointed

through this journey, I'm done, I'm stopping,

I'm moving on.

And another person could say,

it's time for IVF, I'm ready to go.

And those are two totally fine answers.

There's not one that's right or wrong.

It's just to prove to you

that what you have been through is the facts.

how you're experiencing what you have been through

is your story, nobody else's.

And really the only way to differentiate those two,

the facts, the true circumstances from the story

is to write it out.

So what I tell people to do is to write out

their entire experience on a piece of paper,

every thought they've ever had

about their trying to conceive journey

and then go back through and highlight

what is actually a fact?

How do you know it's a fact?

It can be proven in a court of law, right?

It could be proven in a court of law

that you've been trying for three years.

It could be proven in a court of law

that you've experienced a loss.

It could be proven in a court of law

that you've had nine negative cycles.

It could be proven in a court of law

that you've gone through two agritribles.

Those are facts.

The disappointment, the pain, the grief,

The, this isn't fair, my body is broken,

everything's out to get me, I'm a failure.

Those are not facts.

Those are stories you are telling yourself.

They're beliefs you have about your life,

yourself, your body, your experience,

based on the cards you've been dealt.

Those are two different things.

And why does this matter?

Why am I spending so much time on this?

Because number one, once we see that thoughts are just thoughts,

they're not facts, there's room to change them.

Number one, now do I always believe in forcefully changing

our thoughts?

No, actually I don't.

Often I'm totally fine with leaving our thoughts

where they are and accepting them and believing

that they're true and working with them.

But I need you to have some awareness around that story

and awareness that you're the one creating that story.

You're the one believing those thoughts.

And it's okay to believe them.

Nothing wrong with doing that.

Just acknowledging we're doing that.

And so number three on this five important things

to acknowledge about this story you're telling yourself

is that when we believe things,

our brain wants to keep believing them.

Our brain doesn't like change.

Our brain likes to be right.

So we've talked about before, we have the RAS

or the Recticular Activating System in our brain,

which their job, this job of the RAS,

is to look for evidence of what we believe to be true.

Right?

And to kind of repeat frequently the proof

that what we believe is true.

And so our brain goes to work proving our storyline

that we are broken, that we are a failure,

that something is wrong with us, that life is unfair,

that the world is dealing us all the worst cards.

If those are the things that we're believing,

we are going to search for all of the evidence, all of it,

that can support our beliefs.

I think about it literally like a library

and you have a shelf about a certain topic

and you have a couple of books on that shelf

but then you start living your life

and as more and more instances happen

that could be considered similar to that,

we start adding to that shelf more evidence to prove

what we believe is true is true.

And we think, look, no one can deny it.

I am broken.

I am a failure.

Life is unfair.

I am dealt all the shitty cards.

But what we don't realize is how conveniently

we are skipping out on so many other noticing effects

that do not prove this to be true.

How we just don't acknowledge all the ways our life is great,

that things are going well, that we're not a failure,

that we're not broken, that our body does take care of us,

that we do have redemptive qualities.

We ignore those.

We don't focus on those because our brain wants to prove

what it believes is true

and that's the only thing it's focused on.

It also has a tendency for the negative.

And so what does this mean?

This moves us to number four.

This is typically where I tend to get pushed back

because women will say, "Sarah, I am upset.

I do feel broken, I do feel out of control.

All of those are true.

What do you mean?

And what I will say is this is where you can decide.

I'm gonna like choose to change my beliefs

and you can work on that.

But I often don't think the hard work and coaching

of forcing ourselves to think something different

is always the right answer.

And right here, I don't think that that's the right answer.

But what I say is, yeah, sure,

you've been dealt some shitty hands.

You have some tough things that you're dealing with.

There's a lot of grief there.

There are things about your body

that for some reason don't seem to be working properly.

Those are not the only things

you're experiencing in your life.

That's the key.

We have to put in the work and be the one

to remind our brain that while yes,

maybe those thoughts are true,

Look at all these other thoughts that are also true.

I am capable.

I am successful in my business and my career.

My body is able to exercise and take care of me

and carry me on these amazing hikes I take myself on.

My body is able to afford me the ability to work

at the job that I work at,

or I'm nourishing my body to heal it

and it has redemptive qualities

and it's able to heal, or I do have some things

that I've been dealt that are really tough,

but also look at all these beautiful things life

has given me.

We don't spend enough time there.

This is where people talk about how healing

and how amazing and how important gratitude is.

This is really what I see this being.

Intentionally taking the time to look for ways

your life is going well.

Look for ways your life is working.

Look for ways that your body is serving you.

Look for ways to be grateful for your body.

Look for ways to be grateful for the life you've been dealt.

Yeah, we've got it covered.

We've got all the reasons to not be grateful.

But what are the reasons we can be?

And so number five,

this is where you get to go about the work

of creating your new story.

One that is inspiring, one that is empowering,

one that feels less painful to believe,

one that doesn't give all the power of your entire life

over to your infertility,

one that chooses to be happy, healthy, and fulfilled,

regardless of what outcome you get

on your infertility journey.

That is possible for you.

if you take the time to look at both sides of the coin,

not just the negative, but also the positive,

on a daily basis, reconnect to it.

I challenge you this week,

instead of taking the time to do just gratitude,

to sit down and write five things

that are rewriting a new story

that you want to believe about your life.

Each night, write them down,

Focus on them, remind yourself of them.

And notice how much more motivated you might be

on this journey when you don't feel 100% defeated.

I really hope that this is helpful.

I really hope that you see how beneficial

this truly can be for you.

And that you start to think about

how can I rewrite my story?

How can I change how I see my future potential?

I hope that you'll do this work.

Message me, tell me how it's going.

Tell me what you came up with.

I so wanna know and I am so grateful

to each of you for listening this week.

Like I said, I'm very close to taking on a few more clients.

If you wanna go ahead and schedule a call with me,

that's a free call where we just talk

about what the coaching experience looks like,

how it's set up, hop into the show notes, click apply,

and make an appointment, and we will talk about things,

and then we will move on from there.

Hey there, inspired mama.

If you enjoyed this show,

I want to invite you to leave a review

in your podcast player.

This helps to share the message

with so many more women just like you.

Also, if you know of another hopeful mama

on her path to motherhood,

please share this episode with her.

I would love to get this into the ears of anyone who needs to hear it.

If you are ready to step this work up and not only learn these tools but to apply them

to your unique story, head to the link in the show notes to apply for a free consult

call.

I would be honored to help you.

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