Hello, hello, hello my beautiful friends. 

I hope you’re doing so well today. 

I know so many of us are gearing up for the holidays that are coming at us full-speed ahead. 

And I just want you to know that as this year is winding down, my brain is producing all kinds of chatter from the drunk asshole in there. 

Oh, yes. This happens to me too. I’ve had a lot of anxiety recently. Like more than my usual baseline. I haven’t really felt motivated to do much of anything. And honestly, I haven’t felt well overall. Seems like we have had back to back illnesses in our house for the past 6’ish weeks. This is the first fall/winter in 18 months where we are not actively masking for most things. I still where a mask if I am out and not feeling well and there are some other examples too. But kind of as a society, certainly in the US, people are not as strict about masking and so all of the bug, and colds, and stuff that we didn’t have for 18 months are just rearing their ugly heads everywhere. I recently went to the dr to get a steroid shot, some of you may know that I have kind of touchy asthma. I’ve been hospitalized several times for it and colds are one thing that can really set me back with an exacerbation. And normally, I have to take a anywhere from 12-18 day steroid taper- which if you’ve ever have the misfortune to take steroids, they cause some very unpleasant side effects. But the upside is that they help me to keep breathing- so, I guess in a side-by-side comparison they do, kind of, have that advantage. Anyway, because I am pregnant, I cannot take the steroid taper unless it becomes a life threatening situation- one of the many side-effects of steroids is that it raises your blood pressure. 

So, my only option is to get a single-dose steroid shot. Do A LOT of breathing treatments, take a cough syrup and try to manage the symptoms as much as possible to avoid a full-blown exacerbation. 

So I have A LOTTTTT of chatter in my head about this. About my asthma in general, which over the last few years have been kind of a salty bitch. About how often I go to my doctor- either my primary care dr or my pulmonologist (a lung specialist), how much medication I have to take, that I hate the albuterol, the coughing, and just feeling like crap in general. 

And I’m sure that each of you can relate to that. Maybe it’s not asthma. Maybe it’s something else. The endless drs appts with IVF, or even just the workup to get to IVF. The months of waiting. Maybe you also have a chronic condition that you are managing. Maybe it’s family. Right? Maybe you’ve spent a lot of time with family during this holiday season and you don’t quite find the support and such that you hope for and so you don’t enjoy or feel good about spending time with family. Maybe it’s your job or a specific aspect of your job. Whatever it is, we’ve all got something, so whatever it is the tool that I am going to teach you today, can be applied to it. 

Now, let me start by saying this tool IS NOT about forced gratitude, toxic positivity, minimization, it’s not some silver lining BS AND most importantly this is not a self-help tool that you weaponize and use against yourself- you know that’s not what I am about so that’s not what this is about. The tool which we call “This is the part where…” is an acceptance technique. 

So, here’s the thing. Most of us are accidentally creating suffering on top of our grief and we don’t even know it’s optional. 

We’re doing it in those moments where life falls short of our expectations, when other people aren’t behaving like we want them to, when we don’t like how we behaved, or when something just isn’t going according to plan. Maybe we’re experiencing a negative emotion or maybe an old belief pops up that we no longer want to think. 

So, When I am having that full human experience that I’m not enjoying (like right now), when I’m feeling that, whatever those negative emotions are, my brain, of course, tells me that something has gone wrong. My brain is really sure that it’s not supposed to be like this. My brain is like you’re an otherwise healthy 37 year old that takes pretty good care of yourself so THIS shouldn’t be happening. 

This is actually something I on all of the time which is this assumption that if you’re feeling negative emotion, something’s gone wrong. It’s not supposed to be there, which makes us so fixated on getting away from it and trying to control something or somebody else to make them change it or to make it change. 

It’s such a relief to accept it and to just allow that being a human is going to involve negative emotion. And so when I’m in that kind of headspace where I can see that I think that having negative emotion means something has gone wrong and something needs to change, and I think it’s not supposed to be like this or it should be different, that is when I practice one of my favorite phrases, which is, “This is the part where...” 

It’s a way of deconstructing my thought process to shift it. And I still love that about this form of work. It’s what makes it so much more effective for me than kind of some other approaches that are only about observation, rather than intervention. 

And yet sometimes, there are thoughts that I can’t always shift right away. My brain simply isn’t ready or I still believe them too much or I can’t believe an alternative yet, or I can’t even see an alternative, or I can’t even access what the belief is, or I’m just not there yet for whatever reason. 

Sometimes I’m still resisting the emotion, which of course, makes it continue. And so when that happens, I know the human instinct is to want to get away, to resist, to avoid. And so that’s when I practice the thought, “This is the part where...” 

And what’s so brilliant about this thought I think is that it helps us access a future perspective. We’re looking at it from a place where the story has already moved on and we can look back with more peace and compassion. So I’m going to give you an example that came from one of my teachers, Kara Loewenthiel. 

“If you were watching a movie of your childhood and you saw the moment where your little brother stole your ice cream when you were three and you had a tantrum, you would think, “Oh right, this is the part where I thought ice cream was the most important thing in life. This is the part where I had a screaming tantrum in the ice cream parlor.” 

Most of us can see that about our childhood. This is the part where that was really hard. This is the part where I went through this thing. This is the part where I was homecoming queen. Good and bad. And most of us can even do that with our younger adult selves.”

I can do this when I look back on those first few years of our infertility journey. Oh right, that was the part where I created so much suffering for myself because we weren’t getting pregnant, I made that mean that I was broken. That there was something inherently wrong or unworthy about myself. 

And the good news is you don’t have to be a time traveler to use this shortcut. Because you can use it now. You can take whatever thoughts are causing your suffering now and think, “Oh right, this is the part where...” 

This is the part where I feel anxious during the two weeks wait. 

This is the part where I get frustrated and yell at my partner because I am feeling very overwhelmed. 

This is the part where I feel terrified about walking in to my clinic for the US.

This is the part where I feel grief over my loss, or my journey, or anytime I feel grief. 

This is the part where I dread doing my shots or when the clinic calls. 

This is the part where I feel regret over (whatever)

It works for anything because anything can be the part where. For me, it’s such an important and helpful reset out of wanting something to be different and into remembering that whatever I’m experiencing is part of my story. It’s all unfolding the way that it should. 

Not because there’s a divine plan in my belief, but simply because it is. It is what is happening. This is the part where I feel this way. Whatever I am feeling, whatever I am thinking, whatever is happening, this is the part where that happened. This is the part where I had those thoughts. This is the part where it feels this way. 

It’s not an aberration, it’s not a mistake. It doesn’t mean the plot has taken a wrong turn. It’s just that part of the story. I enjoyed the part of the story where I felt amazing, that part was great, and now this is the part of the story where I don’t feel amazing and that’s okay too because the story always changes. 

Because really, what is a story? A story always has a dramatic arc. There have to be challenges. If there isn’t a challenge, if there isn’t a journey, if there isn’t a struggle or an obstacle, then a story is just one sentence. A person felt fine forever. The end. 

For me, this is the part where I feel frustrated that my body, my lungs, can’t physically do what I expect and want them to do. This is the part where I feel vulnerable, which is not a feeling I enjoy, because I have to rely on my doctors and it takes time to heal and sometimes I have to ask for help. 

Now, do you see with that, there’s no pie in the sky, rainbows, blissfully positive statement there. It is always going to be a statement of fact. Acknowledging what it is I am experiencing, the emotion, remember I called it an acceptance tool. And that’s the most important thing to remember. An acceptance tool doesn’t mean that I am suddenly over-the-moon excited about going to the dr for medication that I dislike taking. Or that I am suddenly super comfortable asking for help. It just means that I am accepting that when this happens, I will more than likely feel this, and do this. And I can accept that. 

So whatever is happening in your life, in your story, whatever thoughts you’re thinking and feelings you’re having, it’s all okay. When we watch a movie or read a book, we don’t assume that the protagonist just will feel the same forever and nothing will ever change, then the die. 

We know that wouldn’t be a story. We know there will be a part where this is happening, and then there will be a part where that other thing is happening, and they will be transformed and the journey will continue. And the same is true for you. 

This is the part where. It’s all just the part where. This is the part where you loved and lost. This is the part where you risked and failed. This is the part where you were about to succeed but you just didn’t know it yet. This is the part where you fell apart and this is the part where you put yourself back together. 

It’s all part of your story and the story isn’t over until you are. So when you’re struggling this week, when you’re resisting your reality, you’re resisting your own thoughts and feelings, when you want something or everything to be different, I want you to take a deep breath and remind yourself this is the part where it is this way and that’s okay. 

So this is my hope for each of you. And this is what I have for you. 

Have a beautiful week, and I will talk to you soon.