Welcome to IVF This, episode 79 The Power of Permission

Hello, hello, hello, my beautiful friends.

I hope you are all having a lovely day. 

I am so excited because today we are talking about permission. 

I love this topic so, so much because it’s something I don’t think many of us even think about. I think the vast majority of us think about permission within the context of work, or If you do have kids, then you are giving permission, consent, approval for that person to then do something. Right? At least that is typically how I view permission. 

However, there is an aspect of permission that I think is rarely self-explored bc like many of the things that we experience is in our culture, we hear key phrases or a platitude of like, “give yourself permission.”  But what does that mean? What are things we can give ourselves permission for? Maybe we feel like permission to do something isn’t even an option. 

The practice of giving yourself permission is the act of reasserting autonomy back over your life. In so many ways your brain hold syou back from doing things bc it fears that being wrong, ir fears failing, it fears making the wrong decision. But what if there is no “wrong” decision. What if it’s that you make decisions and the result is that you either get the outcome you expected or hoped for you or don’t. See because we only judge our decisions based on the ending, and based on that ending we place a moral judgement on the decision- classifying it as either right or wrong. But it’s really neither. It’s just a decision you make where you get what you expected/ hoped for or you don’t. 

So when you give yourself permission, you are speaking to that primitive part of your brain that is afraid. You’re kind of letting yourself off the hook for that black and white thinking of right or wrong. That’s why permission is so powerful. 

So here is a list of things I think we can give ourselves permission for:

1. Being human. Being human is tough. It’s painful and confusing and sometimes- like during infertility- it can feel completely intolerable. Give yourself permission to be human. To be messy like a human. To be confused like a human. 

2. To say no- This goes for things that people ask of you and for the things that you ask of yourself. If you have someone in your life that is asking something of you and doing so would be at the cost of something of yourself- say “no.” You can say no, lovingly. Maybe your fertility dr wants to continue on the same protocol but you don’t want to- for whatever reason, you don’t have to justify. Maybe your partner is wanting you to move forward with a transfer and you’re not quite ready. Maybe your family or friends are placing time demands on you while you’re going through treatment. Maybe a friends invited you to a shower or gender reveal. Again, you can lovingly say no. No does not have to come from anger or resentment. You can love yourself and someone else, at the same time, while saying no. If you worry that person will be upset with you, they might. They might. But that is for them to carry. And if that “no” makes them not like you, well, then the only reason they liked you to begin with was because you always said “yes.” I know there are a lot of people-pleasers out there that might need some time to digest that, and that’s ok. 

1. Now, saying no to yourself is something that I will cover in the next two points. 

3. To take a break/ rest. We have been raised in this hyper-productive, outcomes only metric that has completely skewed how we see rest. Rest is viewed as laziness. How many people you know that have 2-3 side hustles. Now this isn’t a jab at side-hustles but when you are physically, emotionally, financially, and psychologically push yourselves to the brink because if you don’t you’re just going to beat yourself up- well then even when you do collapse, you’re STILL going to beat yourself up. Like there’s no reprieve because the issue is in how you view rest. 

1. Taking a break with fertility treatments can feel almost dangerous. There is a lot of time scarcity with treatments and that creates this huge sense of urgency.  So often I see women that have questioned for YEARS if they should take a break from treatments- temporarily or permanently and they are completely burned out. Or, you decide to take a break and that feels good at first, like a sense of reilef, and then a little bit of time goes on and you start feeling really uncomfortable. Like that feeling of urgency or or FOMO or something- a lot of times we interpret that to mean that it is time for us to like get back at it- go back to treatment even if we’re questioning our readiness to do so. So another part of permission to take a break is that we give ourselves permission for that break, give ourselves permission to be human in that moment when we have a very normal human response and all of those thoughts come up like, I’m getting older every second, what if I am missing out on the perfect time to get pregnant, I know there’s a lot of questions in the US fertility community about what kind of impacts the overturning of Roe v wade might have- and THIS IS NOT a discussion about abortion this is referencing that IVF has never existed in a non-Roe v Wade world. Roe was passed in 73 and the first IVF baby was born in 78- so THAT is what I am referencing what there’s a lot of uncertainty. But I digress. Getting back to that example of taking a break and then feeling uncomfortable. Giving yourself permission to feel that discomfort- it’s going to be there anyway and to resist it will ONLY feel that much worse. So, remind yourself, of yea, this is totally normal to feel this AND I still get to decide when I start or resume treatments. It is always my decision, not my brains BS that decides for me. I can give myself permission to still feel all the human feelings AND still decide to rest. 

1. Permission to TRUST yourself- now this also goes back to what we were just talking about, trusting yourself to make the best decision about when and how to get treatment, to take a break from treatment, AND when to walk away from treatment. You have likely heard me talk about how the diet and beauty industries, culture, socialization, and patriarchy have all combined to cultivate a deep sense of self-distrust for women. This distrust is only nurtured, and I use that term a little ironically, as we grow from young children, into adolescence, our teenage years, a young adulthood, and then adulthood. Like there isn’t a time in our lives where we AREN’T exposed to harmful messaging that is meant to make us believe that the answers to all of our problems are outside of ourselves. Right, that’s what it all boils down to- this product or this thing is the answer to whatever is bothering you because you can’t trust yourself to have the answer. Our internal GPS is CONSTANTLY overpowered and drown out by messaging that reinforces this divide between our internal knowing and what is being marketed to us. I was talking to one of my clients that was really struggling with her partner. There’s been a lot of friction lately between them and one of the things that comes up is that her partner feels like my client blames them for their infertility. This is a situation where there is unknown infertility- right that 33% bucket of yuck that some of us experience- and there are some social and behavioral things from her partner that my client feels might contribute to the infertility. Now she freely admits that this is by no means certain. But as we talked about, her brain needs to go somewhere with the blame. This is completely normal. But when they would argue her partner would say “you’re saying this or doing this because you blame me for our situation.” And during our session I asked a couple of times if she felt like that was true- at first, like most of us would do, she denied it. Intellectually, we don’t WANT to blame the person we love and care for most in this world for this. But it is completely normal if we do. Once we went through a few think-feel-do cycles, we got to a point where she was able to admit to herself that she did harbor some resentment, that there was a little bit of blame. I gotta tell you, the look of relief on her face when she admitted it, was noticeable. For that moment, she trusted herself enough to admit the truth. To listen to that inner voice and admit something that did not feel good, that even felt a little shameful based on how she perceives “resentment.” So we talked through that stuff. But I think this is such a telling example of there being A LOT of things that we keep stuffed down because we don’t trust ourselves to admit. We think that if we admit it to ourselves then we might act on it. Like if I say the scary part out loud then it will somehow take us over. When it’s actually the exact opposite. She was lashing out at her partner BECAUSE she wasn’t saying the scary part out loud. Because she wasn’t acknowledging it. Because she was trying to deny it and stuff it down. She didn’t trust herself enough to know that by saying it, admitting it, and owning it she actually has power over it, instead of IT having power over her. 

1. I think another facet of this is the distrust we develop for our bodies during fertility treatments. There’s a lot of “my body failed me” belief systems we grab onto during this journey. That thought, oh gosh, that thought is one of the biggest sources of pain throughout this journey. Now let’s remember that this thought likely did not just pop up during this time. Some semblance of it has likely been there (and again reinforced through social messaging) for the majority of your life- things like weight loss, even if you compete or competed in a sport and weren’t as successful and you expected to be. Hell, even when we freaking try on clothes it’s more about our bodies not being what we want them to be rather than the clothes not being right for our bodies. That is how far we can take the distrust of our bodies- that we put more stock in a garment, than ourselves. When the truth is, that our body failing us is a thought. It’s a really powerful and I would argue believable thought- but it doesn’t make it true. 

Go back to before you were TTC- the whole GOAL was to not get pregnant, right? At least it was for me. So the times when maybe you weren’t as vigilant with preventative measures and there was a potential for possible pregnancy but you didn’t get pregnant? You didn’t walk around saying “my body failed me.” Hell no! You probably walked around thinking, “phew! Dodged that bullet.” If that was you, cause it was damn sure me, then your body failing you because it isn’t getting or staying pregnant isn’t some personal failing of your body. It’s not a universal truth. Its an incredibly painful thought. When we are faced with a challenge to our belief systems- like how “easy” it is to get pregnant, it is very easy to turn that against yourself. We do that as a way of trying to make sense of what’s happening. But it still doesn’t make it true. 

1. Give yourself permission to explore options. A lot of individuals going through fertility treatments think that certain things are the only things available. Life rarely works that way. Let’s take the example of our drs. There ae some drs that we completely jive with and those that we do not- just like people. But that does not mean, that you have to stay with that dr for the entirety of your journey. You can explore your options. You can decide you want to try a different dr or clinic, or you can decide that you don’t want to. But either way, give yourself permission to explore what else might be out there. Maybe you want to seek out guidance from alternative medicine. Maybe you haven’t before now bc your dr or clinic doesn’t really ascribe to that- good for them. They aren’t you. You can give yourself permission to seek out 2nd opinions, naturopaths, acupuncture, reproductive immunology, energy healing, dieticians, whatever you choose, even if someone does not agree with it. In this journey, I fully believe that we have nothing to lose and if nothing more than piece of mind is gained- well friends, that can be worth more than we can even imagine. 

2. And lastly, give yourself permission to invest in yourself. This can go along with number 5 too- but we are taught for very early on to be all things to everyone in our lives which means putting our needs on the back-burner. We tell ourselves that we will get to what we want and need, but let’s be honest, that never really happens bc we always find a need that is more urgent. Investing in yourself can look like a million different things. It could mean education, training, a day off from your normal responsibilities, a trip or experience, a cleaning person for your home, all the things I mentioned above, therapy, or coaching. Hell, some of you probably walk around with clothes that don’t fit you well bc you don’t feel like you should invest in your wardrobe. Even well fiting underwear- you’d just as soon be pulling panties out of your ass all day than take the time and little extra money to buy yourself underwear that feels good. And I’ve literally spoken to clients who do this so it’s no hyperbole. And fertility treatments are costly. I’m not suggesting that you have complete financial freedom to do whatever the hell pops into your brain BUT you also don’t have to sacrifice EVERYTHING in pursuit of this dream. And everything does include your own happiness and comfort. Do you know the number one reason people contact a coach like me and don’t decide to work with them? Most of you would say money. But it’s usually fear that they will spend the money and not trusting themselves to make changes. They tell themselves stories about how they invested in a gym membership 10 years ago and then never went and “wasted” all this money- and then that one or two things have like defined who they are as people. They’ve made that mean that they are not good at investing in themselves, or that they fail when they try to invest in themselves- like all of this BS that isn’t even relevant to their current situation. And so much of it is this internalized belief that investing in themselves in wrong or selfish. It’s not. You have every right to treat yourself well bc I guarantee if someone you loved needed something, your ass would be the first in line to take care of them. Turn that mirror towards yourself. Love yourself the way that you love other people. And why not? You’re freking AMAZING. You know all those people that you love, that you think are amazing? Well they love you back because YOU are amazing. That’s what attracted those amazing people to you in the first place. YOU. My beautiful friend. It was you all along. So it is ok to invest in yourself-  in the words of Donna Meagle on Parks and Rec- Treat cho slef!

- ok, this is by no means an exhaustive list, so, If you do any paper thinking and if you’re new here, that’s what I call journaling, then I want you to spend a little bit of time (2-5minutes) and write down the things that are specific to you. What can you give yourself permission for? Permission to do? Permission to feel? Permission to think? 

I’m going to leave you with this last thought- permission is this beautiful gift you give yourself. Permission gives you the gift of possibility. It reminds you that you can be open to possibilities- that you don’t have to stay stuck. Permission allows you to open up to some amazing possibilities for your life. Without permission there is no change. There is no growth. 

And I want each and every one of you to have that experience of possibilities. 

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