Welcome to IVF This, Episode 105, Coping Ahead

Hello, hello, hello my beautiful friends. I hope you’re doing all so, so well. I’ve gort a new tool that I am going to teach you all today. I’m gonna try to keep it quick so that you can refer back to this as often as you need to.

I do want to mention that another free, open coaching call is coming up. Tuesday, February 14th at 1pm central, 2pm eastern. It’s completely complimentary. You can jump on and get coached, hear someone else get coached, ask a questions, or if you want me to talk more about a specific topic, I’m all yours. You can join anonymously or not, totally up to you. You don’t have to register, or anything like that. You can find the link to the call in my social media bio’s. I also email my list the day of, as a reminder, so if you want to get on my email list so you will never miss a call, plus any other news or updates, you can either go to my website at www.ivfthiscoaching.com or to either my IG or FB profiles @ivfthiscoaching.com.

Ok, so that’s that. Now onto the topic at hand. 

Coping ahead is not something that I created, it’s not necessarily a “new” concept but it’s something that I use with pretty much every one of my clients. 

So, I’m gonna tell you a little bit about what it is, what it’s used for, and then how to use it. 

I’ve also included two different worksheet sets, a pre-coping ahead worksheet that helps you to identify your current coping strategies, and then a worksheet that will help you develop a Coping Ahead plan. And that will be in the show notes for this episode, as well as the links in my social media bio. 

Ok, so Coping Ahead is a foundational practice is Dialectical Behavior Therapy, DBT. DBT is part of the third-wave of the cognitive behavior therapy. It’s in the same wave as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy- which is one of the foundational principles that I use in my coaching practice. Now, I have a whole podcast episode on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy called Lessons from ACT- which talks all about the different waves of cognitive behavioral therapy, so if you’re interested in that, which I mean who wouldn’t be, you can check out.

But a little about DBT, similarly to ACT, Acceptance and Commitment therapy, it was born our of identifying limitation to traditional Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)- all acronyms today on IVF This. DBT combines standard cognitive-behavioral techniques for emotion regulation and reality-testing with concepts of distress tolerance, acceptance, and mindful awareness. So it’s all aspects that I already focus on in my coaching. 

Coping ahead is a skill that helps us to regulate our emotions, by helping us to prepare to better handle potentially emotional situations. It’s incredibly useful any time you anticipate a situation wherein you might have a lot of thoughts that could create worry, fear, sadness, and especially anxiety. 

Coping ahead is NOT about trying to guess the future, which is what most of us do when we think we are “preparing ourselves” for something. Now that’s not a jab, that’s how our brains work. Our brains HATE uncertainty, so you can follow your brains logic of well, if I can predict the future, then I won’t have to feel so terrible. Except we fail to understand that our brain will spend FAR more time thinking about all of the terrible things that will happen, or it will think of something that is based in a perfect scenario- either way, you’re going to be in pain while imagining the awful terrible things your brain comes up with, or you will be in pain when the utopian expectation you have placed on the person, place, or thing are not met. 

Coping ahead is much more about knowing and understanding who you are and the typical ways in which you have been triggered in the past. It’s about recognizing and recalling previous situations that have left you feeling hopeless or helpless, or what has led you to what you might consider less than desirable coping skills: which might be drinking, eating, shopping, using social media as a means of distraction etc. 

We all have patterns to our behaviors. All of us. It’s not good nor bad that we do. It’s just what our brain does, it habituates everything. And you want it to. If you had to think through every possible step for every action that you take, your brain would melt. Like it would be way to much for your brain to handle. So you want your brain to do this, sometimes. This is an instance where we can use those patterns of behavior to our advantage. We can use the patterns from our past to try and cope ahead for when we encounter the same, or a similar situation again at a later date. It is by no means foolproof, and what may work one time may not work for another time, but there are many times when it can help us, and when it does, it can feel like a lifesaver. 

You might be asking, what are some examples of these situations, that’s a great questions, I’m so glad you asked. 

Things like: doctors appointments, waiting around for your doctors office to call you, tests, exams, before you take or inject your medicine, the time leading up to an egg retrieval, during all the different waiting times (between the egg retrieval, after a transfer and awaiting beta), leading up to a baby shower or gender reveal that you have decided to attend or be part of, going to a birthday party, or family gathering and you know kiddos or preggos are going to be there. And that’s just specific to IVF. Work deadlines, upcoming family visits, the holiday season- this skill has pretty much universal application. 

So, the way that I create coping ahead strategies with my clients, the first step, always is to identify the positive coping strategies that you already use- I call this the “pre-work.” 

What strategies do you already use to help you cope with things. Usually when I ask my clients about their current coping skills or strategies, it’s pretty quiet. So I always offer several examples to help start generating ideas. Now, before I list the ones I usually refer to, with the understanding there are HUNDREDS that people can use, it’s always important to set reasonable expectations, which is also considered a coping skill come to think of it, anyway, these aren’t things you WISH you did more often, or things you bully yourself about NOT doing. Making a list of those things isn’t going to help you feel calmer and more comfortable. It might even create the opposite if you’re used to beating yourself up over them. Do things that are a stupid-easy “yes” for you. So here are the things I usually list off:

Yoga

Journaling

Painting

Being with other people

Watching TV

Working on a project (car, art, home improvement)

Listen to music

Take a shower or bath

Clean something

Work outside

Mediate

Exercise

Bake/cook

Dance

Color 

Animal watch

Take a walk

Deep breathing 

Get a manicure/pedicure 

Aromatherapy 

Ok, so now we have our list of things- as many of the things you want. For instance on my coping ahead pre-work, there’s usually exercise, being with my family, prioritizing down/alone time, writing, and watching stand up comedy. Finding things that ignite your humor, like stand up or your favorite TV show, is a great coping skill!

So, now that you have your list, you’re going to use that to help craft your coping ahead plan. So now you’re going to answer a series of questions, I created, to help you craft that plan. 

So first is to describe the upcoming situation, as factually as possible. And if you’re familiar with my style of coaching, you are familiar with this, because we do it. In the think, feel, do cycle. It’s the circumstance, the thing that happens, that gives you the opportunity to have a thought. “I have an upcoming egg retrieval”- like there is zero fluff with this one. You don’t have to add on, “and I’m nervous about how many eggs we will get” That’s an example for the next question. The describe the situation is just that. 

So the second question is: What are some thoughts you can expect will come up regarding the situation or event? If we’re sticking with the egg retrieval example from earlier, some examples might be:

I’m worried that I will ovulate early. I’m worried that none will be mature. I’, scared that none will fertilize. I’m scared I might develop OHSS or ovarian hyperstimulation Syndrome. 

The third question is: What emotions can you expect to feel, as a result of those thoughts?

From that list, it sounds like we’re dealing with a lot of fear, worry, and maybe doubt. 

Piggybacking off that question, what are some of the physical sensations you can expect to feel based on these emotions? I don’t know about you guys but I’m thinking probably heart palpitations, maybe you feel like you have butterflies in your stomach, or me when I feel really anxious it’s like a I have bowling ball in my stomach, maybe you could get hot/flushed, feel chocked up, or like you’re being squeezed. You want to show your brain that these are fully expected sensations for when the thought inevitably comes to you, and the feeling inevitably follows, and you have these physical sensations, it’s not coming out of the clear blue sky. You’ve already planned for those sensations to happen, so if you plan for them, then you won’t have this overwhelming feeling that something is “wrong” because you’re having these sensations. I mean you might, but expecting them to come really kind of takes the wind out of the sails of these emotions. It takes the power away from them. And that’s why this work is so important. 

The next question is: What coping skills, remember the list you have ALREADY created in the pre-work, what of those would you like to employ when you experience those thoughts/ feelings/ sensations. Be specific. Try to match them up. This is obviously not a binding contract that can be enforced I n any way, if you decide to call you friends instead of go for a walk. But the biggest thing is, is that you are not asking your brain, in the midst of fear, overwhelm physical discomfort, whatever, to help you make a plan to take care of yourself. IT'S TOO MUCH TO ASK. You want to plan these things when you are feeling calm, and grounded, so that in the moments that you are NOT feeling calm and grounded, you have a playbook to follow. Maybe by you, for you- nothing could be more personalized.

So the final step to this plan is to imagine the situation happening, as vividly as possible. Plan what you would like to say, how you would ideally like to react based on the news you’re receiving, and how you will employ your coping skills. And then, I love it when my clients finish this off with some deep breathing. You always want to cultivate safety in your body, while you’re doing this- once way I love to do that is to place my hand on my chest, and remind myself, “I am safe. Nothing has gone wrong here.”

Now one really important note to make about the visualization part- that is a visualization that is only to be used to make conscious decisions about how you want to show up- not a time to daydream about ideal outcomes, or to terrify yourself with the worst possible outcome. If that’s where your brain is going, you’re not in the right headspace to do the visualization, AND THAT”S OK! It’s not mandatory. The previous 8 questions, THAT”S what’s going to give you the most mileage for coping ahead. If you find yourself going down the spiral, trying to do the visualization, I want you to stop yourself but turning your attention to a coping skill! It’s built right in there. 

Ok, so that is my process for Coping Ahead. I have the free PDF worksheet for the Coping Ahead pre-work and the coping ahead plan. You can download them in the show notes of the episode. 

Refer back to this episode as often as you need to. I promise you this is not a NEW skill you’re learning. Most of us do Coping Ahead techniques in our day to day lives, we just don’t call it that. If you’ve got a big presentation coming up, you practice. You research, you prepare, you rehearse- all three of those are coping skills and by employing them, you are coping ahead. 

I promise you, Coping Ahead is one of the absolute best strategies that I have used with my clients to help them manage the emotional rollercoster of this process. And that is what I want for each and every one of you. So get the PDF, have this on repeat, and I will talk to you again, soon. Have a beautiful week.