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

I am doing well. 

I wanted to take a quick second and remind everyone that I still offer mini-sessions. These are 30 minutes of coaching, completely complimentary, with no strings attached. 

You come to the call with something that you want coaching on and we just get straight to it. Now, if you would like to find out more information about working together, we can cover that, either right after the coaching or we can schedule a separate call to discuss, but there is not requirement to even have that conversation. This is 30 minutes so that you can get help with whatever has been a challenge for you. 

So you can access that scheduling link a couple of different ways: the first one is in my bio on my social media- FB or IG. There is a link for the free mini session. And the second is by going directly to my website www.ivfthiscoaching.com and click Work with me and you can schedule from there. 

Ok, so today I want to talk about one of the most fundamental things that comes up for each one of my clients. The emotions of safety and fear. Now, MOST of us probably do not use the names of those emotions, specifically, you might say relieved or relaxed for safety or anxious or scared for fear. These are all synonymous. Fear is one of the most basic, well primary human emotions. 

I’ve been thinking about fear and safety a lot lately, because it’s come up a lot with my clients. But it’s also come up with me, recently, too. 

I’ve been on the struggle bus for a while now. This has been a very physically challenging pregnancy, there’s been a few complications, thankfully nothing too major, but I’ve really struggled with lots of thoughts and some big feelings. 

And I was thinking about how even a few years ago I would have struggled being on the struggle bus, if that makes sense. And I think that’s where most of us are. We get on the struggle bus and then we make that mean something about us, as people, as employees, as partners, as friends, as parents (if we are one), we just make it mean all of this stuff about us and then we end up staying on the struggle bus for far longer. 

And kind of where I am now, is that I can recognize that I am on the struggle bus. And I can just kind of settle into my seat on the bus, look out the window, and just accept that this is where I am sitting right now. I use “this is the part where” you know that acceptance tool that I talked about on the last episode. I have been using that a lot. And one thing that I have really started to notice, which is why I wanted to do this episode, is that I don’t make being on the struggle bus mean that I am not safe. 

So let me explain, first, of course there is such a thing as physical safety. And we can all agree that is actually pretty subjective. There are people who choose to do things that I would not feel would by physically safe (like jumping out of perfectly good airplanes, or jumping off something tethered to mere rubber band) but others might not feel physically unsafe at all. Right? So there is physical danger and there is physical safety. 

But what we’re going to talk about is something that most people don’t really think about and that’s emotional safety and emotional danger, which creates emotional fear. 

And emotional safety I think is just the absence of fear. So physical safety is really just the absence of danger. One of my coaches previously described it this way, Emotional safety is really just the absence of fear. I don’t think we have an emotion that feels like safety in the sense of kind of a set of sensations in your body that are only associated with that feeling. I think when we talk about feeling safe, what we really mean is that we don’t feel afraid. The absence of feeling fear. 

For instance, if you were just sitting around in your normal life and you’re not thinking about any threats, I don’t think you really feel “safe” or “unsafe.” You’re just not thinking about your safety or your lack thereof. Similarly, when people feel relieved, you only feel relief if you were previously feeling something negative. 

But if you start thinking about a threat, you feel unsafe and in danger. So if you’re sitting around not thinking about threats or safety, you feel neither, but if you start thinking about a threat, you feel unsafe or in danger. That feels like anxiety usually, which is fear. 

So here’s where it gets really interesting. Fear and safety are not exceptions to thought work. Fear is an emotion created by your thoughts, and safety is an emotion or the absence of an emotion, if it’s just the absence of fear, that is also created by your thoughts. 

You can be walking around and you can be in grave physical danger from a tsunami or a serial killer that are right around the block, but if you don’t know about them, you feel fine and you can be completely physically safe in a given moment, but if you imagine future danger, you’ll feel very afraid. 

The irony is what truly makes us emotionally unsafe is not knowing how to manage our minds and take responsibility for our own brains. Because if we know that we get to choose what we want to think and feel about ourselves no matter what, no one can take that away from us or control us, or make us think or feel things against our will. 

Now, because our brain evolved to keep us alive at all costs, there’s nothing it takes more seriously than “feeling unsafe.” So if you tell yourself that you are unsafe, or you tell yourself that you feel unsafe, your brain hyper- focuses on that. It’s one job in life becomes trying to get you away from the danger so you can feel safe even though the danger, if you are not in physical danger, is just your own thoughts. 

So I talk about this a lot in the context of the 2WW or taking a break. 

The 2WW can be a brutal period for many of us. That emotional rollercoaster that we are on, in and of itself, is pretty expected. That’s how our brains work. But when we think about the future and that test (whether it’s a HPT or beta blood test) we feel fear, it feels dangerous. Not because there is an inherent physical danger in not having a positive test but because of the emotional danger we fear we are in, or will be in. 

Many of us tell ourselves that we don’t know what we will do if the test is negative. Which isn’t true. When my clients tell me that and then we dig in, everyone knows exactly what they will do. They will grieve. They will cry. Maybe order greasy take out, pour themselves a drink of something, watch TV- no matter what their plan is, the important thing to remember is that they actually DO have a plan. 

For me, I would say that recognizing that emotional safety is found from managing my mind came fairly easily. Now, not naturally. Someone had to teach me and I definitely had to work at it. 

Do not get me wrong. Do not hear this to say that I didn’t work on it and if you need to work on it, there’s something wrong with you. I totally had to work on it. But logically it made sense once I understood it, that all I was fearing was my own thoughts and feelings, and as long as I was managing my mind, I was safe in this emotional, mental sense. 

And that’s a lot of what the 2WW is about. Is fearing our own thoughts and feelings. 

So let’s talk about the other aspect where I see fear and safety come up so often and that’s taking a break. So often, taking a break or even considering taking a break can feel dangerous. 

Now, there’s a few reasons for that. Namely, because IVF is so logistically heavy (the medications, the doctors appts, the scans, the protocols, all of those things) it’s so logistically heavy that it kind of lulls you into this false sense of control.

I think we intellectually know that we can’t control the outcome but we get a lot of control upfront and that can be very illusive. Because IVF is one of those things where the energy you put into the thing does not match the outcome- which, well, sucks. 

So when we’ve had this sense of control, and then we decide to take some time off, or we’re even thinking about takin time off, it can feel VERY dangerous. Because, I kind of like to think about how in school we move from learning the theory of something to the practical application of doing the thing. But in this instance we’re moving from the practical application of doing all the things to the more ambiguous, amorphus  well now what the hell do I do with myself- thing. And this is true whether the choice is your or not, like you have to take time off due to insurance or funding or something else. And even when the choice is yours- you need the break for your mental health, physical recuperation, whatever it is- I don’t want you to be surprised that when some of the relief wears off and you start getting afraid. 

What are we afraid of? There’s a very real sense of time urgency with IVF and fertility. Some of it is very scientific- based and some of it (most of it) is cultural influence. So it doesn’t matter is you’re 21 doing IVF or if you’re 48. There is a huge sense of urgency around IVF. Mostly due to infertility and all of the feelings associated with it feel really terrible. And when we are doing something we deem to be “productive” like being in an active cycle, then we get to feel better. We get to feel like we’re doing something and so it feels less scary. 

When we’re left without that sense of productivity then it feels very scary. Like we’re not making progress in our efforts to have a baby. 

So one thing that Is really important to think about when you are taking time off, is to redefine what that means for you- that the “productivity” is the rest. That the “productivity” maybe saving money. That it’s getting into better physical state, maybe you’re losing weight, or working on hormonal balance, working with a counselor or coach on your mental health or something like that. 

Reframing the “work” the “productivity” is going to be very important to help you not feel so unsafe. And you will absolutely have to remind yourself of that reframe over and over and over again- don’t get discouraged if it comes back around, it’s supposed to that’s how the brain works. But you, your logic brain, knows better. You really are healing and that is some of the most important work that you can be doing in that moment. 

So those are a couple of examples of when we can feel emotionally unsafe during our infertility journey. Now I say “can feel” because it’s not a guarantee. This might not be true for you- and that’s fine. But it is true or some variation of it occurs with many women.

And obviously there’s different kinds of safety we can talk about. But our experience of an emotion or physical sensation has so much to do with how we think about it. So for instance, there are studies suggesting that stress is only harmful to you if you think that stress is harmful. So what if feeling “unsafe,” what if feeling fear really is only terrible because we believe it means something that it doesn’t? 

Your patterns have been keeping you feeling safe. So if you’re scared, for instance,  of what other people think, then you’re going to keep yourself small to try to avoid their judgment.

So if you decide to do something big and bold, and whatever that means for you, you could try to coach yourself for months or years until you don’t feel fear. Or you can feel fear and be willing to do it anyway. 

Maybe IVF is your Big and Bold- I know it was for us, certainty the second time around. There was a lot of judgments that I heard from people because at that point we already had two children. Why do you want a third, people would ask. Or, at least you already have two, other well intentioned people would offer. But we were determined and we both felt an immense amount of fear. I did coach myself a lot along the way, but a lot of the process, I did while still feeling afraid. 

I was willing to do the things scared. I have really coached myself on the understanding that feeling fear isn’t the giant red STOP sign that we are kind of socialized to believe it is. It’s more like a flashing yellow “caution”. Possible danger ahead. But it doesn’t mean an out-and-out stop. 

And it’s so interesting because I think we are willing to embrace being afraid, or at least our inspirational quotes on Instagram do. Be afraid and do it anyway. But if we call it feeling unsafe, all of a sudden, we act like it’s an emotional emergency. So I think we have to be really careful about that. 

Safe is not a magic word. Our safety isn’t necessarily important in the way we think it is. Our brains are not always good at determining what is dangerous or what is safe. Emotionally or physically really. Just because our primitive brain overvalues its own perception of safety over everything else doesn’t mean we should let it set the agenda. 

We have to use our prefrontal cortex, our rational mind to discern what truly constitutes danger or safety and when they are appropriate priorities and they are not. When they may be holding us back. 

I was coaching a client about this today actually and I said to her, we hold ourselves back out of fear because we’re like, I’m feeling the fear, this is terrible. Something’s really gone wrong. But what if you thought you were having a heart attack and then a doctor was like, don’t worry, it’s just indigestion. 

Now all of a sudden you might have the same physical sensation, but you don’t think that you have to give up and lay down and die, or go to the hospital immediately and not do whatever you were supposed to do that day. You’re just like oh, it’s just indigestion. I can just take it with me. 

One of the most important things that you can do, is to learn to create emotional safety for yourself. I remember the first time I did this. I had talked to my coach about my anxiety particularly when I am running late. Now I have ADHD and sometimes time management or even just the concept of time can be difficult for me, “I will forever believe that my toxic trait is telling myself I can take 15 minutes to do something like getting dressed, even though I have SO, so, so much evidence to disprove that theory. But when I run late, I can get very anxious. Like screaming at other cars and red lights to get out of my way- like I can look like one of those unhinged drivers you see. I fully own that. 

So my coach at the time, had me practice questioning my anxiety, my fear. 

So when I would feel that anxiety, I would place my handover my heart, take a few deep breaths and ask myself if I was in any danger. Like physical danger, either me or my family. And the answer has always been “no”, which is probably will be 99.99% of the time. Then I would ask myself what was I afraid of, and the answer usually has something to do with judgement. Either I was judging myself for not feeling “put together” or that I was fearing judgement from someone else. And then I would remind myself 1) my judgment of myself is ALWAYS optional. I can choose to judge myself for being late but I don’t have to. And 2) What other people think of me is none of my business. Now, MOST people are so busy worrying about their own lives they do not even notice it. If they do, then they are typically very understanding. And if they’re not. That’s ok too. I can live with someone not understanding. I don’t have to be unkind to myself. I can always try something else to help myself. 

So creating safety for yourself is all about reconnecting with your body- my favorite way is always going to be the hand over my heart and deep breaths and reminding myself “hey love, nothing has gone wrong here” This might not be EXACTLY how I saw it happening, but that’s ok. Or, “hey love, I know it feels like were not doing anything towards making a baby because we’re not doing a cycle but what we are doing is taking care of ourselves: physically, mentally, financially, whatever”

It’s that idea of talking to yourself more than just listening to yourself. 

And when we talk to ourselves, we generally can create more safety for ourselves and help ourselves to understand that fear isn’t a bad thing. It’s an emotion to be experienced, just like all the rest. 

Ok, that is what I have for your today my beautiful friends. Have a good week and I will talk to you soon.