I want to talk about feeling better when we struggle with infertility. We all want to feel better when we’re struggling to conceive, but the question is how?
How do we reduce the unwanted feelings (there are so many!) and how do we create more good feelings?
There are those days when we wake up and it’s a good day. Life just feels good. For me, those days tend to happen more when life is going better. It didn’t feel like there were many of those days when I was struggling to conceive.
Sometimes something happens that makes us feel good. We find a forgotten $50 in our pocket or that perfect pair of jeans, or, we have that long-awaited positive pregnancy test. Other times it’s the reverse. Something bad happens and we feel awful.
When I was trying to conceive, it felt as if nothing brought me joy. I was so focused on my goal of having a baby that it consumed me. That’s the way infertility seems to work. My life was on hold for many years. If I could just get pregnant, I told myself, if I could just have a baby, everything will be ok.
I waited a long time.
I know it’s not just trying to have a baby we do this with – we do this with many things in our lives.
So often we live our lives telling ourselves we’ll be happy when we lose 10 pounds, or when we get the promotion we deserve, and yes, when we have the baby.
When this happens, we give away control of our happiness. As the quote from Adriana Huffington goes “we have little power to choose what happens, but we have complete power over how we respond”.
When our happiness is based on good things happening, then it only lasts until something happens to make us unhappy. It’s not sustainable.
Focussing on the outcome of future events is a gamble. Yes, we may be happy when we get the dream job, but we may not. We may be happy when we win the lottery, but that may not last. We may be happy when we have a baby, but that’s not guaranteed.
There is no guarantee that getting what we want will make us happy, even the baby we have dreamed of all of our life. I will never know if having a baby would have made me happier. All I know is that trying to have one made me miserable.
I see things differently now. What changed? I had to learn to accept the present, whether I liked it or not.
I realised that acceptance is the key - accepting that life felt unfair but I had choices. Eventually, I embraced an attitude of trust and now believe that life is always working out for me. That’s been a game-changer.
Being happy is a choice, a choice to be here now and embrace the uncertainty that is this crazy life. We can choose to know that life is challenging AND know we are ok.
Imagine being able to be happier, even just a little more. We all can. It starts with a decision and it continues with the choices we make and the practices we do.
We need to live fully now, embrace life with all its uncertainties, complexities, and ‘what ifs’.
For me, developing a meditation practice was instrumental in this. It enabled me to cultivate more presence and acceptance in my life. It took some time, plus the help of a great coach, but I eventually was able to surrender to what was and let go.
I know it’s not easy to let go and trust. It’s been the hardest thing I’ve done in my life but it’s also been the most liberating. It’s a daily practice for me to be present, to actively cultivate more joy in my life, and to trust that life is always working out for me.
When it comes to having a baby, we can’t always choose when or even if it will happen. All we can do is surrender to what is, focus on the things we can control, and trust that everything is working out for us.
About the Author
Kathryn Grace is a Life Coach at Fertility Potentials. She is passionate about supporting women on their fertility journey and helping them find acceptance and peace whatever the outcome.
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