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When the Fertility Journey Affects our Personal Image and Relationship with Ourselves · Love and Science Fertility

• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode six of the Love and Science podcast.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Today, I'm gonna be talking about a topic that is near and dear to my heart, and that is when the fertility journey starts to affect our most important relationship, which is our relationship with ourselves.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I think this can take many layers.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I think that when we think of ourselves, we have a certain image of ourselves, we have an identity.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: As we are trying to get pregnant, as we are trying to stay pregnant, that identity can take up all of the space, and when things are not working, we can take that as a personal failure, and so I think it's really important to take a moment and pause and I will help you in this episode to do that to really ask the question how is my self-image currently?
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: How do I view myself, how do I feel about myself, what factors are influencing that self-image?
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: And also, what can I do to get my agency back, what can I do to start feeling better again?
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Because when we can see ourselves in a more non-judgmental way, when we can see ourselves with the eyes of love, when we can see ourselves as our best friend sees us, that's when the grace happens, that's when the beauty happens, that's when we can really start to thrive again.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: So today I will talk about three ways in which the fertility journey can specifically affect our self-image and also five suggestions I have to get back into our bodies so that we can start to enjoy life again.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: All right, so the first way the fertility journey can affect our self-image is truly at the level of our bodies.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: So many of the things that we do along our journey can affect the way we look, affect the way we feel.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: One example is a lot of people are on a birth control pill in their teens, 20s and then they come off of it in an effort to become pregnant.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Right, and adult acne is so unfortunate.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I struggle with it myself and it's like, okay, well, I can tolerate this for a little bit, you know, and then I'll get pregnant and move on with life.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: But when we cannot restart that because you know you can't be trying to get pregnant and be on a birth control pill just the adult acne can be really, really difficult, and any I mean.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: I treat this all the time in my endocrinology patients who aren't trying to get pregnant.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: But any medication, for the most part, that we give to try and help with the acne is contraindicated in people trying to get pregnant.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know there's some creams and such, but all the good stuff is really not allowed.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: So looking in the mirror and seeing the acne and just feeling like a teenager again can be really distressing.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: I think there's a lot that can happen with our bodies and weight.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: I love talking about this because I think that body image is so complex.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: We have a certain societal image of how we're supposed to be.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: We can either agree with that or not agree with that.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: But even in our subconscious sometimes we have this running tape of like what our body should look like.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Or maybe we compare ourselves to what our bodies used to be like before we started this process.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: But it's super complicated, right?
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: So say you're undergoing a fertility process, a fertility treatment, and your REI specifically says what I need you to do is not exercise as much.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: And you're like wait a second, that's my stress relief, that's how I cope with life on a daily basis.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: What does that mean For me?
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: A light walk is not going to do the trick.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I really need to sweat it out.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: So finding that balance of like what exercise is acceptable, what exercise, you know, keeps me going in terms of mental health, physical health and also what exercise is not going to harm this process in terms of, say, you know, twisting an ovary or one of those more rare complications that you know we're ovary or one of those more rare complications that you know we're always worried about in the back of our minds.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Like, figuring that out, I think can be helpful, but a lot of times just say it's like an IVF stimulation or other things we really can't work out.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Like we used to say we used to train for half marathons or whatever you know be a long distance swimmer, we're told to modify our activity, and just that habit change can really affect how we feel about our bodies.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: If we feel strong, if we feel fit, if we've gained weight, if our clothes don't fit in the same way you know anymore, those things can really weigh on the self-image.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: So I think that embracing ourselves where we are, knowing that this is just a chapter of the journey and not the whole journey, saying I'm doing this in order to be a pregnant person if that's your story, that's not everybody's story but just understanding that this too shall pass and that our bodies have this inner wisdom and it will find equilibrium again, even if this is a relatively rocky time, I think, also acknowledging that some of the medications that are prescribed for the fertility process can increase the chances of gaining weight.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: So progesterone specifically makes us hungrier, so that really can.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: If we're hungrier, we often eat more, and if we eat more, sometimes we gain weight.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: And again, this is not about a number on a scale per se.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: So that really can.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: If we're hungrier, we often eat more, and if we eat more, sometimes we gain weight.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: And again, this is not about a number on a scale per se.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: It's how we think about ourselves and feel about ourselves.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: But just acknowledging that our bodies may change throughout this process and that's okay, and figuring out ways to be as healthy as possible, both mentally and physically, I think that's super important.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: You know, say it's side effects to the medication.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Say you're on estrogen or IVF medications or Clomid even Clomid is really well-known for this.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Say you're having mood swings, or say you have headaches.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: That can really make it harder to get through each day.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: So just acknowledge that bodily changes are part of this process, mitigate the side effects whatever way you can and just say this is one chapter and this too shall pass.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: So that's the first way that it can affect our self-image.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: The second way is really the rigidity of life.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: So I cannot count the number of times people have said, well, I was planning on going on this really nice vacation for our anniversary but then my REi said that she could fit me in for an ivf cycle and so we canceled our plans.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Or you know, say somebody close to you is in a wedding and you really want to go but it interferes with the ivf treatments or the you know the sort of iui treatments, whatever it is you're doing, like you have to tell that loved one I'm so sorry I can't stand up for you in your wedding because I have this other thing going on.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: And even like, just on the course of the daily life, like in terms of what it takes to be going through the world trying to make your job every day, like what if you have to be in at 7am and you have to do your IVF ultrasounds and blood work and all those things?
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: It can be really tricky to navigate life and what do you tell people, what don't you tell people?
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: And so just feeling like you live your life according to a calendar, feeling like there are certain things that you want to do but you can't do at this point in your life because of, you know, the restrictions, because of treatment.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I think all of that needs to be called out, and my sort of antidote to that is to find joy wherever you can.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: If you can't go anywhere, try to find it where you are.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: But just really saying, gosh, like I.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: I, you know, thought I was a free person before, you know, with all the the calendar flexibility, but now I don't.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm living in this prison and I just want this, this part, to pass.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: And it's okay to have those feelings and thoughts.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: My goal is to help to navigate, help you navigate that, um, those restrictions.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: In terms of the third way that the fertility journey can affect our personal self-image is really when we start to judge ourselves.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: And so I think that when we think about our bodies, when we think about maybe an unsuccessful cycle, a lot of us start to think well, this was my fault, it's my fault that this didn't pan out this time.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: And if I had only done X, y, z, if I had only started trying sooner, if I had only done these things, I would have had a different outcome.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: And we start to judge ourselves right.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: And so I think that when we start to get in that self-judgmental cycle, we have to take a step back and say, okay, any human being would have these thoughts and feelings in response to bad news or lack of success, and we take the pain which is the actual thing itself, like the bad news or the say it's a negative pregnancy test or say it's that, the journey just got a little bit longer.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: We take that, and then we judge ourselves for being upset, we judge ourselves for feeling shame, we judge ourselves for maybe spending a lot of mental energy on it.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: And so I think when we can look at it and notice how we are judging ourselves and how much energy we're spending doing that, we can say, okay, this is the second arrow, which is actually the suffering.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: I am increasing my own suffering by judging myself.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: And how can I take a little bit more of a self-compassionate lens towards this?
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: And I think when we can do that, it just makes it a lot better.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: So there are a bajillion ways that this process can affect our image of ourselves and our relationship with ourselves, which is our most important relationship.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: I just mentioned the bodily changes, the rigidity of life and the self-judgment I mean you can journal and make your own list, but I think just really noticing for a second how many things are different and how we don't have the freedom we used to in many ways, I think that's really important to call out before we start to think about what we can do about it.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Many ways, I think that's really important to call out before we start to think about what we can do about it.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: So the second part of this podcast is where I offer my suggestions.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I think that you know there are a few things that I have learned over the years that really seem to resonate and really seem to help people with feeling better in their bodies, feeling joy again, even moments of joy, really not feeling as stuck I think stuckness is really hard and also just understanding that many people do struggle with infertility and it's not about personal choices or decisions or lack of decisions, but it's one in six couples.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: It's one in four female physicians, but it's one in six couples.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: It's one in four female physicians and unfortunately, this is part of the journey, part of the story.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: And what can we do?
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Not what can't we do, but what can we do to meet this head on and to start feeling better.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: So my first suggestion is to connect with that part of you which is bigger than yourself, and there are many ways to do this, I think.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: For me, one of the best ways I find to do this is to spend time in nature.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Nature just does what it does.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: It doesn't judge itself, it doesn't think it should be a different way.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: You know, if the wind has been blowing in a certain direction, maybe the tree starts to take that shape and you can say, oh, the wind has been there and you know we don't think, oh gosh, but it should be looking this way.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: It's like no, this is what happens.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: These were the forces and this is what happened.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: It isn't that interesting that the tree grew that way.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Or maybe the tree's on the side of a cliff and it only found nourishment in one direction, and you can see some asymmetry, because the tree actually grew.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: And I find those images just so interesting that life will find a way many times in nature, and maybe it's not the way that we initially thought.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: So spending time in nature is, for me, a way that I can get out of my own head and also just connect with a force that is greater than me.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Another way I could do this is yoga class.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: You know, I think that love I think most of us would agree that love is a force that is greater than ourselves, beyond ourselves.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: We get to delve into it, we get to experience it, if we're lucky.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: I also believe that we are love at our core and so if we can connect with that energy what I believe is divinity, that beautiful energy that is at our core, that flows within us, that flows between us I think that can really help to realize.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: You know, sometimes I feel isolated and sometimes I feel like I'm the only one struggling with a certain thing, and when I can realize that I'm actually part of a bigger whole, I'm actually part of a community, I'm actually part of just a universe that is abundant and beautiful and strong and has its seasons and knows what it needs to do.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: When I'm on my yoga mat, for some reason, maybe it's that my mind finally slows down, maybe it's that I only have one task at that moment and that's to do that particular pose.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: But for some reason, and maybe it's just because the people who go to yoga are nice, kind people Like I just love, I love the community at yoga, just because people are kind and they're down to earth and they try to do the right thing.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: It seems, you know, kind of like you know we think of in terms of other very socially minded groups of people.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: There's something about yoga that helps me connect with that which is greater than myself, so that's helpful.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: For some people it's a 12-step program, for some people it's going to church.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: There is so much evidence that it's not just about us, because I think our world can get so small.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: But even when we can say, like, what am I grateful for?
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: What is one thing I can do to help somebody else today and make somebody else's life better?
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: What is one thing I can do today to notice some natural beauty?
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: All those things can help us get beyond our own minds and beyond our own limited experience of ourself.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: So I highly recommend that I meditate every morning.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: I love the Chopra app.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I don't get any kickbacks, I just love to sit and just breathe and realize that I can handle whatever comes my way that day, and for me it's my way of not getting sucked into my emails, not getting sucked into social media first thing in the morning.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: It's like I have my priorities, I have my perspective, I can breathe and then whatever comes will come.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: So there's that, I think.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: The second way that I recommend getting out of the mind and into the body if you're like me and you overthink things because you're very cerebral is to do something very physical in your body for your body.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's going for a run, in whatever phase you're at.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's a gentle run, maybe it's a vigorous run, maybe it's getting a facial or a massage, maybe it's going to yoga, right, because that's very physical.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's doing a cold plunge Because that's very physical.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's doing a cold plunge Now, that would never be my first choice because I hate feeling cold, but many people do find that that's very invigorating.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: But really, just do something to get in your body that engages at least one of your senses, that takes yourself from wherever you are in the past or the future mentally and bringing yourself to the present moment.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: So I highly recommend that I think it's super powerful and do something nice for yourself, do something for your body.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: The third way that I recommend sort of dealing with this altered sense of self is to connect with yourself as a vessel.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Those of you who have worked with me know that I love my guided meditations.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: I think so much of the time we are at odds with our bodies.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: The body's an enemy.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: The body's a machine.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: It's not working.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: We got to fix it.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I do think that our bodies have inner wisdom and I think a lot of the time, just like our intuition, we block it.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: And the more we can connect with our bodies as a vessel or a potential vessel if that is part of your story, again, I know there's many people who may be listening who either don't have a uterus or they're doing reciprocal IVF, something to do with that.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: So this is to be inclusive and not exclusive.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: But if your goal, your intention is to carry a pregnancy, really imagine that little embryo implanting, imagine it getting everything that it needs to grow and flourish and develop and all of those things.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes we realign ourselves with our body instead of fighting our bodies, and that can just be super powerful in terms of energetic alignment.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: The fourth thing that I recommend in terms of realigning yourself and having the best relationship with yourself is to feel your feelings in your body.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: This is something I did not know how to do until, probably, I was in my 30s.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: I think I had a vague sense that there were feelings.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: I think I often ignored them because I just was a workaholic and just decided to like work a little harder, and then that passed the time.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: But you can only do that for so long.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: And I could only do that for so long because I think if there's things that are going on under the surface, they come out sideways, they come out in strange ways.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: It's like that whack-a-mole game at the fair, where we punch one thing down, maybe by distraction or resisting or whatever, but then it comes up in a different way and until we can solve the root problem, which is like the human condition and being with ourselves and acknowledging that life is 50-50 and that there is suffering, and how do we internalize that and how do we find meaning in all those questions, if we can't feel our feelings in our body, then they continue to run our life without us even knowing it.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: So what I've learned how to do is to first of all name what I'm feeling, and so I actually have an app on my phone.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: It's called how we Feel.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Last time I checked it was free and it prompts me like three times a day to say how are you feeling?
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: It's fantastic.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: It divides the feelings into four different categories One is high energy and pleasant, another is high energy and unpleasant, another is low energy and pleasant, and the next is low energy and unpleasant.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: And it's really nice too, because you can take notes and say, like what am I doing when I feel this way?
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: And really, if you do this long enough, say, like you know, three to four weeks you can start to see patterns.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: You're like, oh interesting, every other Monday I feel this way and like I can connect to it with something that happens every other Monday in my life.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Or maybe it's like seasonally, like maybe in the winter months, when the days are shorter, like you know, like where I live in upstate New York, maybe it's that you really feel kind of much more in the low energy phase and then as the days get longer, as there's more flowers, as there's more sunlight, you start to feel better.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: And so I think, the more we can understand ourselves and our inner wisdom, our inner world, then we can say, ok, well, I may not like the fact that I feel overwhelmed right now, but at least I'm aware that I'm feeling that way and I get to choose what to do about it right.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: So in coaching we always know like this is what I learned in coaching school is that when we have a feeling, it comes from a thought.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: So maybe my thought preceding my overwhelm is I don't have enough time to do all the things I have to do, and then I get overwhelmed right.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: And then from overwhelm I might, maybe I procrastinate, maybe I Um ruminate, maybe I catastrophize.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: I do all these things, but if I can understand where that's coming from, I can just feel the overwhelm in my body.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: I can locate it, I can breathe through it, I can let it go, I can even befriend it a little bit because overwhelm has served me well at other points in my body.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: I can locate it, I can breathe through it, I can let it go, I can even befriend it a little bit because overwhelm has served me well at other points in my life.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: When I can really do that in authenticity, that's when I can say, okay, I haven't resisted the overwhelm, I felt it.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Now, what do I want to feel instead?
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Right, I want to feel empowered, I want to feel calm, I want to feel productive.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: And so what if I told myself the story?
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Or what if I had the thought I have time for all the important things, all the important things will get done, and that is just such a different space to come from right.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: So from that space I actually do feel calm, I feel self-assured, I feel relaxed, which is interesting because those of you who know me, relaxed is maybe not a feeling I check off so much on my app.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: So it's all about the awareness and feeling, the feeling and then what we do with it.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: But I do think that unless we're aware of what we're going through, it's really hard to do anything about it.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: So that's what I would say in terms of realigning yourself with yourself we need that awareness of our own inner world, our own inner landscape, and then decide what we're going to do about it.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: The fifth way I recommend realigning ourselves with ourselves is through radical self-compassion.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Mend realigning ourselves with ourselves is through radical self-compassion.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: I mentioned this a little bit in the first part in terms of using the common humanity part of self-compassion to kind of normalize the experience of being a fertility patient and how hard that can be.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: There's another two components based on Kristen Neff's work that are self-kindness which note that's the opposite of self-judgment and also mindfulness that really really help change everything when it comes to how we view ourselves.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: We're so used to self-flagellating, we're so used to letting our inner critic run the show that when we can actually ask ourselves how would our best friend talk to us?
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Would they talk to us in a nicer way than we're talking to ourselves right now?
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Like what would self-compassion do?
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Sometimes for me, self-compassion is actually stopping not being so productive, feeling my feelings and taking a rest.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: I do a lot of work in my own inner life in terms of that acceptance that it's okay to take a rest, it's okay to take a break.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, ironically, there's data that when we take a rest we're actually more productive.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Of course, I can't do it from that spirit this is just me being funny and silly but I do think that sometimes I think we judge our worthiness by our productivity.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: We think that if we just work a little bit harder, if we just read another study on the fertility journey and the particular thing we're wrestling with, that we'll find the answer, and that will be the thing Sometimes.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: What we need to do is pause and rest and give ourselves some nurturing, give ourselves some self-kindness, give ourselves some common humanity, give ourselves some mindfulness, which is getting into our bodies and really being very sensory in that moment.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: And so I think self-compassion means a little bit different things to all of us, but when we can learn how to soothe ourselves, when we can learn how to love ourselves in a very physical way too I don't just mean like pie in the sky, I mean actually love ourselves as another person would love us I think that changes everything.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: So I will recap the five suggestions I have and again, this is not an exhaustive list, but it's just some suggestions that I've learned from all of my time doing this over the years.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: In order to realign ourselves with ourselves, I suggest connecting with that part of you which is bigger than yourself.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: In whatever way that you do that I recommend getting into your body in a very sensory way.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I recommend connecting with yourself as a vessel if that is part of your story and stop fighting your body and realign yourself so that you can work with your body.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: I recommend feeling feelings in your body, and that is something that I love helping people to do.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: So if that's, if you're curious about that, you know, book a session with me and we can even do a little preliminary feeling feelings on the, on the call.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: And then the fifth way is really to learn more about radical self-compassion and to do at least one kind thing to ourselves every day, because we are worthy, we are deserving of this fertility journey to go well.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: We are worthy of having love and nurturing and community and compassion and decreasing the suffering.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: We are truly worthy of thriving and not just surviving.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: And so there are so many tools that are available to us.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we just don't know that they're available, and even if we know that they're available, we just think they're for other people.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: But I will say I have learned time and time again that these suggestions work and they will transform your life.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: They will transform your life.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: They will transform your life not just in the fertility sense, but they will help you feel more calm in those moments of silence.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: They will help you uplevel your relationships.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: They will just give you a deeper, more beautiful experience of life and handling the hard things.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Because, as I tell all my clients you know, spoiler alert this is not the last hard thing that will come.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: It feels like the end of the world right now, but there will be more hard things to come, and so the more we can learn how to navigate these hard times.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: It's just going to set us up for a more authentic whole experience of life.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: So I will end you with that thought.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: You know I love you dearly and I'll talk to you soon.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Bye.