The journey to pregnancy is such an exciting time for many women. If, however, you have been on this journey for a while without success, certain doubts and fears can start creeping in which may affect the way you think about your fertile self. I know, because I have been there (and got the t-shirt). I started my fertility journey excited about becoming pregnant, and when I was confronted with multiple losses, after years of living cycle to cycle, doubts about my ability to conceive were very prevalent in my thoughts. It did not help that I would go to see medical professionals who would either tell me there was nothing wrong with me and I was just unlucky, to others telling me that my advancing age meant I should consider fertility treatment. Does this resonate at all with what you are experiencing? Well let me tell you about something that was a game changer in my (and many of my clients’) fertility journey.
I have talked about my fertility journey at length (you can read about it here), but one thing I believe was fundamental in my ability to finally conceive and carry my beautiful baby to term was daily mindset work.
You see, mindset work may sound like some hippy woo-woo concept, but it can be pivotal in helping you achieve your goals. Have you ever had one of those days where you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, you’re tired and grumpy and not looking forward to the day ahead, you spill your coffee on your shirt just before leaving the house, you miss your bus or your train is cancelled, and nothing seems to go right? Or have you ever contemplated purchasing a specific make and model of car and then suddenly see this specific make and model everywhere on the road?
That’s your brain looking for confirmation of your thoughts – it’s called ‘Confirmation Bias’. Some might also call it the law of attraction, but essentially it’s your brain’s tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs or values.
So, can you see how that might impact your outcome if you are constantly thinking about the fact that you are NOT pregnant yet, worrying about your age and the so-called ‘ticking biological clock’? What we focus on, we bring into our lives
Here are my best tips for using mindset work to shift the beliefs that are holding you back and get you excited and positive about your fertility again. I have used these myself in my fertility journey, as well as with my clients.
- Visualise the outcome.
Ok, so the ultimate goal is to have a baby and be a mother, right? But what does that look like to you? Can you visualise your baby growing inside your belly, walking around with a lovely big bump, holding the baby in your arms, and what your family life will look like when your baby joins it? Visualisation not only makes you focus on your desired outcome, but it also conditions the brain for the successful outcome. It is well known that many professional athletes visualise their games/ races multiple times before actually competing. By visualising the successful game, they are stimulating the same region in the brain that would be used when physically performing that action. You can incorporate visualisation into your daily self-care routine simply by spending a few minutes each day visualising your ideal life (e.g. as a pregnant woman or as a mother) and really tune into how you feel when you are rubbing your pregnant belly or holding your baby in your arms. One of the things I get my clients to visualise is the actual different stages in their cycle: for example, visualising their egg maturing beautifully in their ovaries, and travelling down the fallopian tube to meet the sperm, then the fertilised egg turning into an embryo and implanting in a lusciously thick womb lining. I often recommend the guided meditations by Circle & Bloom – a fantastic programme for fertility. You can download guided meditations for your natural cycle, or if you are going through assisted fertility. There is even one for pregnancy and labour. You can start by downloading this free 10 minute meditation and aim to do it daily before bed or when needed.
- The power of affirmations.
Affirmations are statements said with confidence, about a perceived truth.
These can be pivotal in helping my clients make changes to their lives because they can change the mindset into a more positive vibration – and what you focus on, you attract in your life! By saying, or writing positive statements daily, you are also being specific about what you want, and putting that truth out into the universe. It can feel a bit strange at first, and I certainly have had some clients feel uncomfortable about staring at themselves in the mirror and saying things such as ‘I am pregnant’ or ‘My body is healthy and ready for pregnancy’. But once they started doing this daily, it became easier and even pleasurable. Why not give it a try?
I absolutely ADORE this video of a little girl doing her daily affirmations. Imagine how amazing her days are 🙂
- Practise gratitude.
Ladies, I hear you. It may be hard to think about gratitude when you have been hoping to get pregnant for months or maybe years. When every cycle starts off with the excitement of a potential big fat positive and then it turns out it’s not your month…again. When everyone around you seems to be getting pregnant just by thinking about it and you feel all alone in your fertility journey. I hear you because, as you know, I have been there, and it sucks. If you’ve been on this journey for a while, it can become all consuming and soul destroying…and often it makes us lose focus on what we already have in our lives.
Our wonderful partner who is right there beside us on this journey, supportive friends and family, a job we love, a cosy home, loving pets…all of these things are already present in our lives and by expressing gratitude towards them we not only start to shift our mindset into a more positive direction (again, taking the focus away from what we DON’T have → negative!) , but also helps us move back into the present moment. So many of my clients come to me having lost themselves in their fertility journey, living cycle to cycle, focusing ONLY on the baby (or lack thereof), and having lost months and years of their lives in this pursuit. We work together to get them back to the present, and expressing gratitude for what they already can improve both their mental and physical wellbeing.
It can be as simple as writing down three things you are grateful for each morning, and at the end of the day, listing three great things about that day. One of my clients really struggled with this exercise when she first started it: she was so focused on her lack of baby that she found it hard to list three great things that happened to her, because most of her days were tinted with sadness and negativity. But by being forced to notice some positive experiences, she started turning her attention to them: the bus driver waiting for her to get on the bus, the staff at the coffee shop being particularly kind to her that day, noticing the beautiful trees on her lunchtime walk… Slowly she started to notice these things more and more, and was actually excited about writing them down at the end of the day. She told me in a session that she felt like this practise had given her her life back. This shift in mindset, focusing on the abundance that is already present in our lives, can have profound effects on our lives. And it’s such a simple practise to incorporate into our daily lives.
I’d love to hear if you have incorporated any of these mindset techniques into your life – how have they changed it for the better? If you’re ready to feel empowered and back in control of your fertility, click here to book a call and let’s chat about how some simple diet and lifestyle changes can help you flourish.
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