Hello, hello, my beautiful friends. I hope you are all doing so, so well. Today is gonna be a little bit different of an episode. we're gonna do a little bit more of an intellectual exercise than me giving you say like three concrete steps to work through this or whatever. 

The idea of fairness is something that is so common. Inside the world of IVF, outside the world of IVF, just live in life in general as a human, the idea of fairness comes up a lot. Now, if I had a dollar for every time I said, that infertility or IVF wasn't fair, or if I heard other people say infertility or IVF wasn't fair, we would all be trillionaires at this point because that idea is so pervasive, and that idea is in a lot of ways kind of validated and reciprocated a lot within the infertility IVF community. Right? 

And I wanna lay the disclaimer, I usually do in most of my episodes, but this one is for sure. Again, number one, this is an intellectual exercise, so I'm just gonna kind of ask questions, and I just want you to think about it, right? And the second thing is that this is cafeteria style. If this podcast does not work for you, that's not a problem. You don't have to write me off. Nothing has to happen. You can just skip this episode. This episode does not hold value for you. Wonderful, that's okay. And you keep what doesn't. And you keep what does work, right? If you find a nugget of value in this one, and I only lay this disclaimer on so thick is because the idea of fairness, again, as pervasive and as common as it is, most of us hold onto it with a vice-like grip. And so it can feel a little bit confrontational for someone to kind of challenge the idea of fairness. And we also hear a lot of really obnoxious comments like, Life isn't fair. Who said life was fair? My dad, when I was growing up, he used to say, like, fair was a thing that would come to the town in the fall, right? That's what fair, that's what a fair, that's what fair was. Fairness, as we kind of think about it, equality or whatever, is a made up construct. It doesn't exist because life isn't fair. So I know that idea can be, a little bit triggering for people, it certainly was triggering for me for a long time. So that's why I'm just laying, slathering on the disclaimer. Okay? 

So let's talk a little bit about fairness. It's very common. Like I said, incredibly pervasive inside the infertility and IVF community, outside of the infertility and IVF community. The problem with fairness is that it's very vulnerable to perception, right? So... One person might not think that IVF is fair, which is completely valid. It's not a problem that you think that. But another person who has a very different set of expectations, situational information, might believe that IVF is incredibly fair. Maybe because it's based in science, right? There's a science and an art to IVF. Maybe it's because they... or their partner is a genetic carrier of some disease, so IVF actually gives them a better shot at having normal, chromosomally normal, at weeding out some of those genetic abnormalities, things like that, right? That might feel incredibly fair to them. So that's a perceptual issue, right? That just means that you guys have different viewpoints on it. There's no right or wrong, right? 

There is an understanding that there is an evolutionary aspect that actually drives us towards fairness and equality. There's a lot of research that even talks about humans aren't the only species in the world that interprets or understands fairness. I believe it was chimpanzees. It's been a while since I read that article, I'm not gonna lie. But they could see kind of perceptual differences for animals. again, I think it's chimpanzees, when they talked about fairness or when they created situations where, you know what, I'm not gonna bore you with the specifics, but there is evidence. There's also evidence in child development, which is kind of where I was first introduced to this idea of fairness and what that looks like, that children can actually develop a sense of fairness before the age of two, right? 

So it's not even something that only adults have because we have a fully formed prefrontal cortex. there is an evolutionary aspect to this fairness and equality belief system that we have. When we're talking about our infertility and IVF journey, one of the things that we tend to get caught up in and why I think that we play the, it's not fair, it is fair kind of game, is that it can be incredibly validating. You almost get to feel a sense of righteousness when you scream to the heavens, it's not fair, right? Because maybe you're feeling hopeless or out of control or you don't feel like you have anything going for you. So you're gonna switch to a more powerful emotion because power less feels terrible for your brain. It feels terrible for you. And so your brain's gonna try and switch you into something that feels more powerful and screaming this isn't fair or it's not fair can do that, can flip that switch in your brain so that you get to feel anger or incensed or justified or righteous. That's totally understandable, right? 

The only issue that we come up against when we talk about it's not fair, we tend to get stuck. Whether that's you're just not taking any action to get yourself out of the situation, that is not IVF specific, that is just kind of general, life in general, or you kind of continue ruminating on this idea of it's not fair. And so you're almost paralyzed as a strong word, but it's the only word that's coming up to me, right? You almost just freeze because the idea of the disparity from what you expected to what's happening feels so overwhelming, okay? And that's the part that we wanna talk about. That's the intellectual exercise that I want to invite you guys to do. When we talk about it's not fair, there is rarely like a second part of that phrase, right? That's the part we get stuck on. That full sentence, it's got a period, that's it. It's not fair. When I get stuck in the it's not fair kind of circle of rumination, all of that stuff, I don't, it's not my best self. Let me just say that, it's not my best self. I would actually equate it to like, it looks very temper tantrum-y, right? That's me, I'm calling out myself on that. It doesn't have to be you, but that's definitely where I got to a point where I was like, oh my goodness, look at what I'm doing when I am embracing this idea. of it's not fair. 

Now, another reason that we get stuck is because the tension that we hold, right, if you've ever heard me talk about the term cognitive dissonance, we talk about it a lot in psychology, it's where you're holding two contradictory beliefs, thoughts, emotions at the same time. Right? So there's natural tension whenever there's cognitive dissonance. Now the idea of this isn't fair, whatever this is in one hand, and the reality of what is happening in the other, that is textbook definition of cognitive dissonance. Right? You have two opposing things that you're holding at the same time. There is an innate tension within that. And that is, I think, something that we... Over? No. And that is something I think we under emphasize, right? And so that's the part that I think that if we were able to break down or lessen the heaviness of the it's not fair argument, we might even be able to squeeze out a little bit less pain for ourselves, okay? 

So my job is never, but certainly not in this podcast episode, is not to convince you that IVF is somehow fair. or to tell you that you need to let go of that belief. I gotta tell you guys, I'm now a couple of years removed from the IVF experience, personally, but I still have that, it was not fair. It was not fair that we had to do that, it was not fair. I haven't fully 100% let that go, and I don't know that I ever will. So my job is never to tell you, you need to let go of that thought. That thought is not serving you. You are the only person that gets to decide. if that thought is serving you or not. I'm going to guess that it's not just because of how we tend to interpret it and how it tends to show up in our lives, but it's not for me to decide, right? 

So how can we acknowledge that it doesn't feel fair, understanding that fairness is a perceptual issue, right? What is fair for me might be unfair for someone else and vice versa. So how can we acknowledge that this experience is hard, maybe unfair, maybe not, doesn't matter, no matter what you decide to think  add an and. Now let me tell you what I mean by that. When we talk about the sentence, or I remember I was adamant, this is not fair, it's a full and complete sentence. The problem is that is so certain, and the certainty with which we think about things, the black and white thinking that we have is usually the problem, because it doesn't allow for more than one thing to be true at the same time. But if we add the word and, we are inviting possibility, right? So how can we acknowledge and validate that this is an extraordinarily difficult, challenging time, period, journey, whatever, but not make the. but not continue to embrace this idea of fairness. Okay?  So that's why we bring in an and. We're trying to combine two thoughts at the same time. This is a really hard journey and what for you. I know that this feels unfair.

So that's something that I want you to think about. Is there a way to couple, this isn't fair, or even if you're wanting to reframe, this isn't fair to this is really hard, or this is difficult, or this is challenging, you can do either one, and then add. and then add an and to the rest of that sentence. So whatever that belief is for you, it's not fair, it's hard, no matter, I want you to see if you can pivot it by adding an and, creating more possibility in your brain so it doesn't feel so heavy. This is challenging and I know how to take care of myself through challenges. This is challenging and I... I had another one. This is challenging and I've lived through many challenges before, right? This isn't fair and I'm still willing to go through this process, right? This isn't fair and I don't deserve to beat myself up over this as well, right? So that's something that I want you to kind of think about. How can you reframe it or at least break it up where it doesn't feel so heavy and so all consuming for you? 

And so, sort of the intellectual exercise I was thinking about is, you know, when I was starting to unravel some of the beliefs around fairness, I was thinking like, life is not so much unfair or unjust or inequitable, like life in general, not people, not situations, but life. it's not so much unfair or unequal or unjust, no. It's not so much unfair, unjust or unequal, it's just life, right? 

Life is just the thing that we're living. Life, or IVF in this case, doesn't really know anything about fairness, right? Infertility doesn't know anything about fairness. And I just, I found that to be almost a little bit reassuring. Don't get me wrong. I still throw my tantrums, but I almost found that because I, I almost found that very grounding because when I was kind of really struggling, like in the thick of the it's not fair kind of situation and the stomping of the feet and everything, I think I was almost blaming my infertility, which is was a medical diagnosis. Right, it was just what was happening in my body and in my husband's body. I was kind of blaming it, but the infertility, right, the two things that were wrong, one with me, one with my husband, it wasn't feeling any of it. Right, it had no concept whatsoever about like, you're to blame for this. And just like life or IVF has no concept of blame, it has no concept of fairness, it has no concept. of unjustness. 

Those are concepts that we as people with our beautiful brains and animals with their beautiful brains, that's the concept that we have decided because of evolution. And that's okay. But I think that what worked for me was being willing to acknowledge like at this point, playing the fairness game with myself is only hurting me. It's not actually doing anything because Although my brain wants to blame something, which is normal and natural and expected, there is nothing there that can take this blame or take this feeling of unfairness. It's just me. So I'm feeling like a situation or something is unfair, and I'm feeling the repercussions of trying to blame that thing that cannot be blamed because it has no concept of it on myself. So it's like I'm doubling down on that pain. 

And so, And so what I started thinking about was like life is pretty much regularly Unfair in our favor and Fair in our favor, right? We just don't really recognize it So when I talk about like being fair and unfair in our favor The other day I was driving and I was a little bit distracted. I'll admit 100% I wasn't like looking at my phone, but I was listening to a book and I got really into the book and I was starting to distract myself and I was kind of looking around and yes, if you're curious, I was in fact driving. I was the person in the driver's seat. And all of a sudden this car, two cars ahead of me, stopped very abruptly. And that required the person in front of me to brake abruptly and then I braked abruptly. And rest assured, I was staring into the rear view mirror making sure that there was no one else behind me. There wasn't. And so, I kind of attributed it to luck. Lucky that no one was behind me. I didn't get into a crash. The person in front of me didn't wreck. But that was fairness, if you want to think about it that way, in my favor. 

An unfairness in my favor would be the reverse happening, where maybe we weren't so quick to break or something like that. But I think that that's how we. often think of things, we don't think of things in terms of fairness or unfairness until we get into a situation that feels unfair. 

But these things, because life is happening around us all of the time, are things that are equal parts fair and unfair. And last week when I talked about realistic optimism, I talked about the 50-50 of life and it just made so much sense to me that would also equate to fairness. that 50% of the time life is gonna feel fair and 50% of the time it's not gonna feel fair. Now, if you have been on this IVF journey for a long time or maybe you've suffered a tremendous amounts of loss or even just a loss, that might not feel true. But we have to consider our entire experience as humans. And again, if you have suffered loss and if you are in the thick of it and you just think that I am spouting BS, That's okay. But I think it would warrant looking at when you're ready to try to reframe and try to kind of unclench your fist from this idea of fairness. 

And that's why I talk about it as an intellectual exercise. Because I think if there's anything that we can give to ourselves, it's that space to be human. And that space to make things, again, things that are happening in our lives, make that a little bit easier.

 I'm gonna give one more example because this comes up so often as well, but when you're kind of on this journey and on this path and then everyone and their dog is getting pregnant and it doesn't feel fair and people were always getting pregnant around you. Always, they have always, people will procreate if nothing else. We just weren't aware of it. We weren't balancing it on this it's not fair. scale before we got into this situation. 

I think that, again, that being such a triggering thing, if we're able to loosen the ketchup bottle just a little bit to where it's not so much this feeling of righteousness, which has a little, it feels powerful, it has kind of a short shelf life. I think that maybe we can find a little bit of peace and maybe this process can be a little bit easier, right? It's not fair that other people are pregnant and not me, and... I'm willing to be kind to myself. And I'm willing to send a text of support, but maybe not seek out being with them and seeing their pregnant bellies, right? I can do both things. I can scream to the heavens that it is not fair, and I can take care of myself and love myself and love my friends while I'm also making sure that I am a safe place for me. 

Okay. That is what I have for you. I would be fascinated by your thoughts. If you screenshot this and share it in your stories on Instagram, make sure you tag me. Tell me what comes up for you. Again, I wanted this to be an intellectual exercise. 

This is certainly not a five step to creating peace around fairness because that's not my place. If fairness is a perceptual thing, then unraveling fairness would be a perceptual thing. So I don't have the answers for that, but I'm just curious if you found this helpful. If you think I'm full of BS, probably both, that's okay. But I wanted to offer it to you nonetheless. 

So I hope you have a beautiful week and I'll talk to you soon.