Welcome to IVF This, episode 123, IVF and paper thinking.

Hello, hello, my beautiful friends. I hope you are all doing so, so well today. 

I am doing extraordinarily well, even though, you know, I always complain about the weather in Austin, particularly during the summer. And today is no different because the heat index in Austin is like 113 degrees. And can we just all agree that is uninhabitable? Like, I really don't know how my friends in Arizona do it. You guys are just a different breed. It is incredibly humid, incredibly hot. All the things that I normally complain about, I won't belabor my complaining. Just as long as we all can agree, Emily will continue complaining and we can love me through it, right? 

Okay, today I'm really excited because this is something that has been in the works. Parts of it for almost two years; I'm gonna be honest. 

I have a wonderful graphic designer, her name is Amber Wheeler. She and I have worked together from the very beginning, all of the logos and things that you see on my website and on my social media and stuff like that. She created, she's incredibly talented. I actually go to church with her, I adore her, all of the things. In the fall of 2021, we started working together to create an IVF mindfulness journal. 

So the idea was that I want to kind of bookend your day with some opening thoughts and closing thoughts for the day, right? And I'll explain it all in just a moment. It'll make more sense. 

And then that kind of got tabled. I was very sick during the fall. That was my last pregnancy. It was a very difficult pregnancy. Lots of things that were happening. And so we kind of tabled it. And then I forgot about it because that's what my brain does. It kind of shuffles shit all the way in the back. And then over the last few months, I was realizing that some of the things that I have on my website and, you know, my podcast is my free offering to the world. It's my largest and most frequent, consistent free offering to the world. But there are things like Coping Ahead and my weekly newsletter that I also offer to the world. And while the Coping Ahead, I still strongly, strongly believe that is an incredibly invaluable tool that everyone can utilize. I found it's probably not the most universally applicable thing. And that's what I want. I want to give you guys something that you, everyone, anyone who wants to use it can use it, right? Whether you're in the midst of an IVF cycle, considering IVF, past IVF, because I still use it. So that's why I wanted to bring the IVF mindfulness journal kind of the forefront. 

So what we're going to talk about is kind of two different things. The IVF mindfulness journal that is going to be available free for download is gonna be a 30 day version, okay? It's gonna be a PDF that you can print off, you'll receive a few emails kind of talking you through it, this will be a big part of that. 

But there's gonna be another IVF mindfulness journal, a full 90 day journal that's gonna come equipped with free writing pages that you can just kind of free associate, gonna be 90 days of journal prompts if you are more of a journal prompt person. And that is gonna be established on an Etsy store that I'm gonna create in the next few months that people can purchase anytime. 

I wanted the 30 day version so that you could print it off or you could go to an office supply store and print it off, however you wanted to do that. But I wanted to make that available to you without having to purchase anything, right? So if you wanted to print three copies of it and have the same thing that I might sell in my Etsy store, it's pretty much gonna be the same thing. There's gonna be a few different things that are gonna be available in the 90-day version, but the 30-day free version that you can print off in PDF and all that is still gonna be available to you. 

So that's what I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about today as to what are the benefits of kind of journaling, why I encourage journaling, and when do I not encourage journaling, and that's gonna be just as important. So I want you to hang out until the very end. So when I talk about journaling, the reason that I... I'm a strong advocate. I won't say I'm a universal advocate, but I'm a strong advocate for journaling is because it's got so many benefits. Benefits that have been proven inside and out. I know at least the University of Rochester, the University of Maryland, and the NIH in the UK have published studies, multiple studies, on the benefits, the psychological, the mental, and emotional benefits of journaling. 

A few of those can be, just overall it improves your mental health, right? Getting things down on paper, and it's important that I distinguish paper from like journaling on a computer or something like that. The filtration process that occurs when you have to take something from your brain and write it down is a multiple level filtration process, right, so you're thinking it, you're conceptualizing it, and then you're kind of creating the steps for your body to actually physically write it. there are not as many filtration systems, levels, that you have to go through in order to type or to speak. If you're anything like me, there's probably very few filtration options for when you're thinking to speaking. The reason that I encourage you to physically write is because it actually is much more impactful, right? So when you're writing your thoughts down on paper, you're actually gaining a... deeper understanding of some of the things that can cause this internal tension that we feel that I've talked about all of the time on the podcast, all of the commonly core held beliefs that we have that usually causes so much pain, right? My worthiness, my acceptance, my abilities, just in general, like not even if we're in general. not even if we're just exclusively talking about IVF, but just the way we go through the world, there are commonly held beliefs that we have that are inherently painful, right? So when we take time to kind of write about those and question them, challenge those thoughts on paper, we actually gain a deeper understanding of them because you're having to go through so many different layers of conception, planning and execution. that really you don't get in any other mechanism, typing or speaking or anything like that. 

It really is just about getting the thoughts that are banging around in your head out on paper. 

Number one, so you get to feel like you've done something. You might not intellectually think, I've done anything with these concerns or I've done anything with these painful beliefs. That doesn't mean your brain doesn't think. Your brain just wants you to do something. with this information. And most of us just kind of walk around with them banging around in our heads and it feels, I don't just be honest, for me it feels so crowded in my head when I'm not journaling or spending time journaling. That's because all of the real estate from the 80,000 thoughts that we have all day, that we're only aware of about 20% of them, all of those thoughts are taking up real estate in your brain. So by getting a lot of them out on paper, you're actually creating more space in your brain to unpack some of the black and white thinking, some of the logic fallacies, if you're gonna use like a therapeutic, cognitive behavioral therapy term, you get the opportunity to get them out, get them out of your head so you can actually look at them objectively instead of just taking them at face value when they're in your head. That's what we do. When they're in our heads, it feels like... the truthiest truth of all the truths that we've ever spoken truth to. When we get them out on paper, we can be like, oh, maybe there's a little bit less truth to this than it feels in my body. Just because when you're in your brain, you're gonna believe everything you think, most of the time. I mean, there's gonna be some ridiculous stuff that you're like, oh, that doesn't even seem believable. But most of the things that you think, you're gonna believe it. When you get it out on paper, you get a more objective view. So that's one of the benefits. 

It encourages self-confidence, right? And I'm gonna talk, that's with an asterisk, and I'm gonna talk about that when I mention the section on when I don't want you to journal, okay? But it can encourage self-confidence, right? If you keep a journal about your thoughts, and maybe you have a schedule, when you keep a journal on your thoughts, and maybe that even helps you schedule or plan out your day, which is one of the benefits of the. the journal that I'm created, is that you can actually properly manage your brain and give your brain a direction to go. Most of us just walk around banging into stuff. Like we wake up in the morning and we have a little bit of a plan, and then all of a sudden it's like, well, what is the, we have a little bit of a plan, and we think that's a plan. We have like this. softly formed plan and we think that's a genuine plan and then all of a sudden life hits us in the face and we have no, everything just kind of goes up. The basket is thrown above our head and everything's falling out and we feel very out of control. 

The way that I designed my planner specifically has like an opening part of your day and a closing part of your day, right? I want you to give your brain direction. When we feel like we have more autonomy when we feel like we have more agency, when we understand our own power from a day in, day out perspective, which largely is attributed to planning your day, deciding ahead of time how you wanna show up, who you wanna be, without the false belief around what you have control over and what you don't have control over. So let me give you an example. So when we open our day, I call it the morning, Kickstart. 

There are four sections to the Morning Kickstart. At most, this is going to take you about five to ten minutes, just depending on how much time you want to spend and how thoroughly you want your thoughts fleshed out, things like that. I maybe spend two minutes a day if I'm in a rush or if I've woken up late or if I have a lot on my plate. Just get something down on paper, okay? So the Morning Kickstart consists of your three goals for the day. I like to work in numbers of three because it's not too overwhelming, but your three goals for the day. That can be as specific as a lot of times I'm doing like what I'm gonna work out, like how I'm gonna work out, if I'm gonna do kickboxing, or if I'm gonna do a run, what my mileage is gonna be, what my goal for that particular run or my goal for that particular kickboxing experience for that day. That's generally one of my number one to-dos. Number. Another example for my to-do list is say if I have a podcast episode that I want to record. That's going to go on my morning to-do list, right? But those are the three goals you have. It's not necessarily a to-do list, right? Most of us do to-do lists not incorrectly, but we do them to a disadvantage to ourselves, right? Because they can feel very overwhelming. What I want you to think about is the goals you want to set for yourself that day. maybe have an outcome tied to them, like recording a podcast episode. But maybe it's about how I'm not gonna beat the crap out of myself for something, right? Maybe it's I've packed my lunch for the day and I'm gonna make a commitment to myself that I'm gonna eat that lunch instead of going out to buy lunch, right? It literally can be anything you want. And it doesn't, I do not, do not, absolutely do not put on their things. that are incongruent with reality. We're not looking for unrealistic expectations here. We want reality-based things, okay? I'm gonna go for a 30-minute walk or a 20-minute walk, hell, a five-minute walk on my lunch break or one of my breaks during work, right? When I go to bed tonight, I wanna make sure that I don't turn to Dr. Google or Reddit or the Facebook forums or Instagram, chasing a feeling. and researching on IVF and all of this stuff, right? That's not what the goal is here. The goal is number one, it's a no bullying zone, okay? Number two, we're gonna create realistic expectations when we're talking about the goal for the day. Then, based on those three goals, or however many goals you fill in, nobody's handing out A pluses here. If you get one goal down, the next goal, or the next question is, Why is it important to you? Okay, so for instance, this morning I did kickboxing. Why was that important to me? Because it's important to me to move my body, okay? My ADHD is to such an extent that if I do not follow a pretty strict routine, which includes getting up, exercising and showering, yes folks, showering. That has to be part of my routine every single day, otherwise I won't do it. And if one part of my routine gets messed up, there's a pretty good chance that the rest of my routine is just kinda collapse. That is the nature of executive dysfunction. I try not to bully myself about it, I try not to give myself a hard time about it, it's just what it is, and here we are. So, what are my goals today? Why are they important? Gratitude. What am I grateful for today? And I talked about this in a pretty recent podcast episode about gratitude and why that's really important and how that can be super beneficial for you. Again, I'm gonna reiterate what I kind of talked about in that podcast episode, but it doesn't have to be these super affirmation-esque gratitudes, like I'm so grateful for the opportunity to do IVF. We know we are. You don't have to force yourself to that gratitude. This section of the journal, no forced gratitude, zero at all. If you are grateful for the fact This morning I wrote that I'm grateful for the fact that I had a perfect mix of a leave-in conditioner and my hair product, my curly hair product, that my curls actually look pretty fantastic today. If you have curly hair you know that it is just Russian roulette every single day and some days that's something I'm grateful for. Yes I'm grateful for my husband and my beautiful children and my beautiful house. I am grateful for those things. But some days I have to think smaller. I do, I have to think smaller. I'm grateful for the fact that I have really strong legs because I was doing a lot of kicking and kickboxing today and that's what I'm grateful for, right? You don't have to go above and beyond or force that gratitude every single day. It will feel disingenuous and completely opposite, the polar opposite of what we are going for. So if you have to start out with something incredibly small or what you might previously have deemed insignificant, that's okay. I just want you to focus on how you can cultivate a practice of gratitude because it is tremendously beneficial. And then the last part is kind of a again just like the first two kind of feed off of each other, the second two feed off of each other. So what are we grateful for? And what are three things that you like about yourself? I don't care if it is something as small as, I like my eye color. I don't care, that's beautiful. I just want you to start a practice of appreciation. You are literally the only you that exists in the world and you are the most beautiful version of that right now. You don't have to find yourself. You are never lost. You don't have to change yourself. You are not wrong. There's nothing wrong with you. And you do not have to pick yourself up. You are not broken. You are absolutely perfect. You are healing. You are working. That is what I want you to focus on. What do you appreciate about yourself today? That's the very last question. And that's gonna be one of the things that's going to drive and direct your brain. and how you flow through the rest of your day, okay? 

Then the second part of the day, again, only taking about five, three to five to 10 minutes, depending on how much effort, how much focus, and how much writing you wanna do about it, but it's called the close of the day. It's like a daily evaluation of what you have done, right? So the first question is what you did well today. That's all. Maybe you showed up to work. Right? Maybe you feel like, maybe you're sick, or you're in the middle of stims, or you're in the middle of a transfer cycle and the progesterone or the Lupron is just wreaking havoc on you. And maybe you're like a 60% version of yourself. But you know what, you showed up to work, you did as best as you could. If you are showing up at 60% and you're doing the best that you can, I want you to think about that, you're doing 100%. Right? If you are at 60% capacity, you're showing up and you're doing your thing, then you are actually doing 100% of your current capabilities. That is what you did well today. If it relates to the things that you wanted, like the things that you decided were your goals for the day, that's beautiful too. The second question, what didn't work? What didn't work? If it's the printer, it's the printer. If it was that you let someone's opinion about you, change how you viewed yourself and then you were able to catch it, right? First part of that is gonna go into didn't work and then the second part of that where you caught yourself, that's gonna go into what did work well, right? And it's really important that we do it in that order because I want your brain to get out of the habit of turning directly to the negative. I want instead for your brain to focus on what you did well first. And then we can revisit like what didn't work so well, right? And the third question is, what will I do differently? Let's say you let someone else's opinion of you or of your choices influence how you felt about yourself and your life and them throughout the rest of the day. Well, we're gonna put that. How would you like to make that different tomorrow? Right? How would you like to make sure that you have your own back? And when people express their opinions because they have them and they're going to express them, how can we make sure you're gonna take as best to care you as possible in the face of that. 

Okay, so all of that, all of those elements that I just outlined, that is working on self-confidence, that's boosting your emotional intelligence, it's helping you achieve goals, it's, there was something, I actually find that it helps boost my memory, it can enhance your critical thinking skills with that closing part of the day. Like there are so many things, so many ways that journaling is very, very beneficial for you, okay? 

So the last part, when I don't want you to journal, and this happens, this can happen, it's not a problem when it happens, but I just want you to be aware of it. There's a point, and depending on your background, maybe you've experienced tremendous trauma, maybe you have... experienced abuse in your life, things like that. I know that I'm talking a little bit in more extremes than I normally do, but I do want you to know this. If journaling makes you feel worse, don't do it. Don't do it. You have my permission. You have heard me sing the praise of journaling, but if it does not work for you, do not force yourself to go there. 

The worst thing that you can do when you're trying to feel better, when you're trying to heal, is do an activity that you think you need to do or you think you should do that makes you feel like crap. Nope, no, no. It's the opposite of what we're going for here. We will figure out another path, another plan, another thing, but I do not want you to force yourself to do something that is not beneficial out of obligation. Obligation to... expectations, obligation to me, obligation to yourself, whatever. Zero. I do not want you to participate in journaling. 

Maybe it's just a question of you're having going through a really rough patch and it's just a couple of days. I have a client who we talk about, she has PMDD and there are about, I don't know, five to ten days per month where I tell her do not journal. Do not journal. It's not going to be beneficial for you because you're just going to keep getting kind of sucked in to that negative thought pattern and it's not gonna be beneficial for you, okay? So that is my caveat around journaling. I do think it is a wonderful practice. It is not a universal practice and that can be okay. 

So you'll be able to find the IVF This Mindfulness Journal, the 30-day free printable PDF version, either in my social media bios, it will be in my link tree, on my website, www.ivfthiscoaching.com. or in the show notes for this episode. 

So I hope you have a beautiful day and I will talk to you soon. Bye bye.