Resilience: The secret salve you need to support your fertility journey
Wanting to have a baby is surely one of our most primal desires. Let’s face it, without it, it’s likely none of us would be here. So what can we do to make the journey to fulfilling this particular desire easier, especially when it’s a longer road than we were anticipating?
First off, let me clarify – as much as I would love to be able to fix any and all fertility issues, my specialism is in making the challenges we face easier to bear. If you are looking for help with natural fertility, I highly recommend Ingefleur – Fertility Homeopath and Magda Wright Homeopathy, both specialists in their field.
Okay, back to what I can help with…
How to thrive* whilst trying to conceive?
First off, let’s talk emotions
Desire that is easily satisfied can be one of the most delicious emotions, think of the feeling you get when you know you’re just moments away from the ice cold drink you’re craving on a hot day, or the feeling you get when you’re on your way to see your partner after a few days apart. It can feel like excitement, happy anticipation, the best kind of relief.
Desire that is not easily fulfilled however, starts to feel like envy, impatience, fear (that it will never be satisfied), anger, self-criticism (what have I done to mean this isn’t happening? what is wrong with me?)
So what happens that means we trip over from the delicious to the destructive? Aside from all the physical aspects, one of the key emotional changes is that we lose confidence, or faith. This isn’t specific to fertility – think of a time when you went for a job interview, feeling excited about the possibility of a promotion, only to notice a ‘better’ candidate in the waiting area…suddenly you’ve gone from delicious to despairing.
Facing up to the realities of your situation is important, but so is holding onto the faith or confidence that your desire can and will be fulfilled. It’s a difficult tightrope to walk – realism vs faith – but your path will be much easier if you can manage it.
How do we actually do that though? What’s the secret to walking the tightrope?
Well, I believe that the secret is resilience. Not the state of being that’s so often talked about, the one that feels like a veiled criticism (‘you need to be more resilient!’) but the toolkit, the set of actions you can take to DO resilience.
Walking the fertility path is really damn hard at times and it’s only sensible to make sure you’ve got your survival kit on hand to help you along the way.
Resilience will help to ensure that when you reach your goal, it’s not at the cost of your important relationships, your health and wellbeing, or your boundaries.