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Transforming the Fertility Journey with Mindful Self Compassion · Love and Science Fertility

• 0:31
  Coach Erica: Welcome to Episode 3 of the Love and Science Podcast.
• 0:35
  Coach Erica: Today we're going to be talking about one of my very favorite topics, which is self-compassion.
• 0:40
  Coach Erica: At Love and Science, we have three main pillars the first is empowerment, the second one is compassion and the third is evidence-based.
• 0:49
  Coach Erica: Today, we will be talking about mindful self-compassion, what it is, what it is not, and how can it help us uplevel our fertility journey.
• 0:59
  Coach Erica: I absolutely love the work of Dr Kristen Neff, who writes an awful lot about mindful self-compassion.
• 1:07
  Coach Erica: She defines it as treating yourself the way you would a friend who's having a hard time, and let's just think about that for a second.
• 1:17
  Coach Erica: I think that for most of us, if we're really honest with ourselves, we are much kinder to our friends than we are to ourselves, and if you're like me, we have this inner critic.
• 1:29
  Coach Erica: That is the running chatter, and over time, we can learn how to turn that into an inner coach.
• 1:35
  Coach Erica: However, a lot of times we're not even aware how negatively we're talking to ourselves, and when we can actually bring awareness to that, we're like oh my goodness, I think I can do better.
• 1:46
  Coach Erica: Basically, in short, mindful self-compassion is a practice where we can learn how to be a good friend to ourselves.
• 1:55
  Coach Erica: In Dr Kristen Neff's work she talks about the three pillars of mindful self-compassion the first is self-kindness, the second is common humanity and the third is mindfulness.
• 2:09
  Coach Erica: So as we think about self-kindness, that is truly what it sounds like it is it is being kind towards ourself.
• 2:18
  Coach Erica: That means in our thoughts, in our actions, in our orientation to ourself.
• 2:25
  Coach Erica: It means if we make a mistake, we don't automatically beat ourselves up and we hold ourselves with spaciousness, with grace and with kindness.
• 2:35
  Coach Erica: It also means we learn how to soothe ourselves, which sometimes we think about babies learning to soothe themselves.
• 2:44
  Coach Erica: I think it's super fascinating that a lot of the things we learn as adults actually are things that we maybe didn't learn when we were younger or ways that we learn how to reconnect with our inner child.
• 2:58
  Coach Erica: But I think at some level we all want to be authentically soothed.
• 3:03
  Coach Erica: We often look for this in the externals.
• 3:06
  Coach Erica: Sometimes we use substances or behaviors like compulsive shopping, maybe two glasses of wine a night, ways that we are trying to soothe ourselves.
• 3:16
  Coach Erica: But at the end of the day, it's really that root knowing, that root understanding that we are loved just as we are, that we don't need to change, that we are beautiful, that we are enough, that we are worthy.
• 3:32
  Coach Erica: And when we learn how to treat ourselves with kindness, we are telling ourselves you are enough, you are worthy, you are beautiful inside and out.
• 3:43
  Coach Erica: And when we can start, I don't mean to say we flip the light switch and all of a sudden we have these magnificent thoughts, but when we can start to make these 1% shifts, it really really does have just such a profound impact on how we go about the world, how we respond when we maybe make choices or mistakes that we didn't mean to make, and also, eventually, too, how we are able to relate to others when maybe they miss the mark or they don't meet our expectations.
• 4:13
  Coach Erica: So that is self-kindness.
• 4:16
  Coach Erica: The second component is common humanity, and that is basically the fact that we are not just isolated individuals but we are actually part of a larger whole, part of a community, and that we share a set of sort of feelings and responses and behaviors that is not just isolated to ourselves but is actually quite common among us.
• 4:41
  Coach Erica: So one way I use this in practice is, I think, to myself, you know, if I'm like starting to judge myself and maybe my feelings about a situation, I might take a step back, look at the big picture and say, my goodness, erica, anybody would feel this way in your situation, right, Like it makes so much sense that you feel this way because you are a human having a human experience, and this is a very human response to what you're going through.
• 5:10
  Coach Erica: And when I think about it that way, I think about self-judgment as, like the second arrow right, we have the pain of the insult, whatever that might be, and then we have the second arrow, which is the suffering, which is when we think that either things shouldn't be that way or maybe we judge ourselves for feeling a certain way about a situation and it just gets so messy and thick and complicated.
• 5:34
  Coach Erica: So when I can validate and say any human being would have this response, erica, or this feeling, just give yourself some grace, this too shall pass.
• 5:43
  Coach Erica: It really just takes the pressure off of me personally, because I am part of the human race, and it also reminds me that I'm not in isolation, that I am never alone, even if it seems that way, and that I am part of a beautiful supportive community, of the village that I have actually cultivated and created, where I give.
• 6:05
  Coach Erica: I give of my time, I give of my talent, I give of my treasure, my ability to be in a healthy relationship, and when the time comes when I need support sometimes, even though it's not easy for me to ask for it it's right there waiting for me, and people are often happy to give in whatever way they can.
• 6:25
  Coach Erica: So that's just a reminder we are never alone.
• 6:29
  Coach Erica: The third component of mindful self-compassion is mindfulness.
• 6:33
  Coach Erica: Sometimes I hesitate to use this word because I think that popular culture has spun it into.
• 6:39
  Coach Erica: All you need is a little bit more mindfulness.
• 6:41
  Coach Erica: All you need is more hot baths.
• 6:43
  Coach Erica: All you need is more massages and more yoga.
• 6:46
  Coach Erica: I will tell you that more yoga is not going to solve the deepest levels of hurt and fear and anxiety.
• 6:53
  Coach Erica: As pertains to the fertility journey.
• 6:55
  Coach Erica: It can help an awful lot, but I think that when I'm talking about mindfulness, as it tends to self-compassion, that means that I'm not stuck in the past.
• 7:05
  Coach Erica: I'm not mired in everything that's already happened.
• 7:08
  Coach Erica: I'm not mired in the decisions that I made that maybe I regret or maybe I wouldn't make today.
• 7:15
  Coach Erica: It also means that I'm not stuck in future worry, because those things haven't happened yet.
• 7:22
  Coach Erica: And just as the things of the past are not in my control, the things of the future are definitely not in my control and many of the things I even fear may not even come to pass.
• 7:34
  Coach Erica: So it's a lot of energy that is expended and it keeps us from being present in the current moment.
• 7:43
  Coach Erica: So I have lots of tips and tricks about authentic mindfulness, which we talk about at Love Science.
• 7:49
  Coach Erica: I think one of the biggest ones is to really figure out how to get into our bodies and how to have a sensory experience of this life, whether it's going to a botanical garden and having the just beautiful, overpowering sense of the flowers just blow us away.
• 8:08
  Coach Erica: Or maybe it's we live in a place where we go on a nature walk and we can hear the crunch of the ground under our feet and we can look up at the leafy green trees and appreciate what a canopy is being created to shade us from the sun.
• 8:23
  Coach Erica: So many different ways we can get into our bodies, so many different ways we can get into our bodies.
• 8:33
  Coach Erica: It usually involves at least one of our five senses and being so fully in the moment that we can't be mired in the past.
• 8:37
  Coach Erica: We can't be worried about the future, because we are so fully present in that moment that there's not space in our brains or our bodies for anything else at that time.
• 8:48
  Coach Erica: That also goes to when we're with our loved ones.
• 8:51
  Coach Erica: I always try to be fully present, right?
• 8:55
  Coach Erica: We have screen-free zones in our house.
• 8:56
  Coach Erica: I put my phone away when I'm talking with a family member or a good friend, just because I want to give them my full presence, which, of course, is a gift, right?
• 9:02
  Coach Erica: I want to give them my full presence, which, of course, is a gift, right?
• 9:06
  Coach Erica: And we can really only be fully present when we're not distracted by any past or future worry.
• 9:14
  Coach Erica: So, in review, the three components of Dr Neff's mindful self-compassion are self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness.
• 9:22
  Coach Erica: Now, why can self-compassion be so difficult, I think, especially for a lot of us type A professional women.
• 9:32
  Coach Erica: We are so used to having that inner critic that cracks the whip, that tells us we're not doing good enough.
• 9:39
  Coach Erica: That has been our motivator for maybe 20, 30, 40, 50 years, and it can be so hard to let that go because we're afraid that we're going to lose our competitive edge if we give that up.
• 9:52
  Coach Erica: Now, as I do because I'm a coach, I will lovingly and gently challenge that notion because there's actually a lot of research that when we can tap into those areas of our brains that are more mindful, more self-compassionate, more loving.
• 10:10
  Coach Erica: It actually increases our brain activity and frees up our creativity and that space for thinking outside the box and solving problems that we actually can perform at a much higher level if we embrace this discipline of mindful self-compassion.
• 10:27
  Coach Erica: It's just that we have to get over that fear.
• 10:31
  Coach Erica: We have to get over that initial resistance.
• 10:33
  Coach Erica: It does not make us soft, it does not make us weak, it does not make us lazy or self-indulgent or slackers.
• 10:42
  Coach Erica: It's also not a pity party.
• 10:44
  Coach Erica: I hear this sometimes too.
• 10:45
  Coach Erica: I think that understanding and just taking a leap of faith that when we are self-compassionate with ourselves, it's not that we drop our standards.
• 10:55
  Coach Erica: In some ways we actually embolden our standards and even raise the bar higher because we're coming from a place of love and not fear.
• 11:04
  Coach Erica: It's just understanding that this is a different way for us.
• 11:09
  Coach Erica: It might feel uncomfortable, it's like, as an aside, I'm training for a triathlon this summer and part of that involves honing my swimming skills and I haven't swam since I was a kid.
• 11:22
  Coach Erica: Really, I mean, I would never drown.
• 11:23
  Coach Erica: Thankfully, I don't think, because I took swimming lessons my whole childhood and, by the same token, I'm an adult with these sort of not so great habits.
• 11:35
  Coach Erica: I'm a very inefficient swimmer, so when I learn the new strokes, the way that they're supposed to be, it often feels really uncomfortable at first because I'm not used to being that way right, I'm not used to moving that way right, I'm not used to moving my body in that way.
• 11:49
  Coach Erica: But when I see how I can glide through the water with so much more grace, with so much more efficiency and ease, and then I'm actually faster, I think this analogy is absolutely perfect for when we think about what a mindful self-compassion practice can do for us, that we actually move through life with more grace, with more ease, with more efficiency and we can actually get to our goal sooner.
• 12:15
  Coach Erica: I think that's a nice segue into thinking about how mindful self-compassion can help us on the fertility journey.
• 12:22
  Coach Erica: I thought it would be really helpful to take each of the pillars of Dr Neff's schema and looking at an example of how we might feel that we faltered or that we're uncomfortable currently on the fertility journey and what this different paradigm can teach us in terms of how we might be able to uplevel our experience.
• 12:44
  Coach Erica: So let's look at the first, which is self-kindness.
• 12:47
  Coach Erica: This is something I hear all the time from my patients and my clients Say it's 8 pm, you're doing an IVF cycle and you go to give yourself the first night of medications and you're supposed to give yourself, say, 300 international units of FSH.
• 13:02
  Coach Erica: If you don't know what I'm talking about, do not worry.
• 13:04
  Coach Erica: But this is like the vocabulary of somebody who's going through IVF and say all of a sudden you realize you gave yourself the whole pen, which is a lot more than 300 international units.
• 13:15
  Coach Erica: What do you do in that moment?
• 13:19
  Coach Erica: Many people, especially if they're conditioned to beating themselves up about things, might call themselves names.
• 13:25
  Coach Erica: They might call themselves incompetent or stupid, or you know, I should have paid attention more in the nursing seminar, whatever it is.
• 13:33
  Coach Erica: Does that help at all?
• 13:36
  Coach Erica: In the moment it doesn't, but it's our old patterning that's speaking.
• 13:40
  Coach Erica: All in the moment it doesn't, but it's our old patterning that's speaking.
• 13:45
  Coach Erica: So what a mindful, self-compassion approach specifically self-kindness might say is okay.
• 13:48
  Coach Erica: Well, that's out of my control that I gave myself more meds than I should have tonight.
• 13:52
  Coach Erica: I'm either going to call the on-call team, I'm going to call first thing in the morning.
• 13:57
  Coach Erica: Maybe I'll even look it up.
• 13:59
  Coach Erica: Be careful, looking things up online, but go to a reputable source and see if there's any consequence.
• 14:05
  Coach Erica: Some people I know even post in a Facebook group to see if people know the answer.
• 14:10
  Coach Erica: Again, be careful there.
• 14:11
  Coach Erica: You might not get exactly the right answer, but what is in my control in that moment in terms of how I can proceed?
• 14:18
  Coach Erica: What's done is done.
• 14:19
  Coach Erica: There's nothing that can be done.
• 14:21
  Coach Erica: This is a very complicated process.
• 14:23
  Coach Erica: It's complex with lots of medications and even if we're in medicine, it is stressful to give ourselves these medications.
• 14:29
  Coach Erica: A lot is at stake.
• 14:30
  Coach Erica: So saying you know what?
• 14:32
  Coach Erica: I did the best I could.
• 14:33
  Coach Erica: Maybe I didn't do it quite right this time, but I'm going to find out the answer either tonight or in the morning and then I'm going to do my best.
• 14:40
  Coach Erica: Moving on from there, and I will tell you from my experience most medication errors are actually not so grave as they may seem.
• 14:48
  Coach Erica: There can be some flexibility with the medications and most of them do not ruin a cycle, but sometimes it feels like the end of the world when this happens and we feel like there's something fundamentally wrong about us.
• 15:00
  Coach Erica: I would just say, if your best friend called you and said she's going through IVF and she thinks she messed up her medications the first night of the journey and what to do.
• 15:09
  Coach Erica: Just think about how you might respond to her and try and turn that energy to yourself.
• 15:14
  Coach Erica: So that's the first example, and that's an example of self-kindness.
• 15:19
  Coach Erica: That's the first example, and that's an example of self-kindness.
• 15:23
  Coach Erica: The second example I want to give is say you are waiting for the pregnancy test and you are thinking about how you want to spend that time.
• 15:29
  Coach Erica: So this is really an exercise of mindfulness, which is again one of the three pillars of Dr Neff's schema.
• 15:35
  Coach Erica: There is no right way to spend the time as you are waiting for your pregnancy test, whether you've done a cycle of relations at home, an insemination cycle, even an IVF cycle with an embryo transfer.
• 15:48
  Coach Erica: I think it takes a very individualized approach and that depends in part on your personality and just kind of how you see the world and how you move through your life and how you interact with time.
• 15:58
  Coach Erica: I will tell you time will keep passing, but by the same token, how do you want that time to feel?
• 16:04
  Coach Erica: So I have many clients and patients and this is not right or wrong who decide to purposely distract themselves during that time.
• 16:18
  Coach Erica: Maybe they choose to work a little bit more.
• 16:19
  Coach Erica: Maybe they choose to stay busy, maybe they choose to go on a trip where they're still not in the Arctic tundra, but somewhere where, if something happened, they could reach their REI clinic without too much difficulty, and that's one way of dealing with it.
• 16:30
  Coach Erica: Another way is to say, ok, well, whether this works or not, I really hope it does, of course, but whether this works or not, the time is going to pass and I might as well make myself feel as good as I can during that time.
• 16:43
  Coach Erica: So sometimes people intentionally get a pedicure or a facial or they go on a nature walk in a beautiful space, but just really being very intentional about how to spend that time and maybe even doing something every single day to get into their senses.
• 17:00
  Coach Erica: I actually have a client.
• 17:01
  Coach Erica: Recently and I adore this she bought a new pair of shoes for work and she bought a new bra and that was her treat to herself while she waited for the pregnancy test and actually spoiler alert it actually worked.
• 17:13
  Coach Erica: I'm so excited for her.
• 17:14
  Coach Erica: But, in terms of she said, I just really want to get into my body and I want my body to feel good and these are things I've been meaning to do.
• 17:21
  Coach Erica: I'm not going to do my taxes because that's going to stress me out, but I'm going to really intentionally do things to get embodied, to really experience my body in a positive way, and I just think that that's so very beautiful.
• 17:33
  Coach Erica: So that's that mindfulness that we talk about in terms of intentionally getting into the present moment, so that thoughts about the past, thoughts about the future, don't continue on these rumination loops, but instead we can access all that life has to offer, because, it is really true, all we have is the present moment, so we might as well enjoy it.
• 17:58
  Coach Erica: The third pillar that we talk about is common humanity.
• 18:01
  Coach Erica: I know my order is a little different, but I think you can bear with me.
• 18:04
  Coach Erica: So one thing that a lot of my patients and clients tell me is just that this process is so darn isolating, and I think you know when we think about how can we connect with others, when maybe we're feeling shame that we're going through this, maybe we feel stigma, maybe our family members just don't understand, maybe they're against fertility treatments for some reason and they don't support what we're doing.
• 18:28
  Coach Erica: There's so many ways that we can feel isolated.
• 18:31
  Coach Erica: I mean, we might even think that we're the only one we know that's going through this, and I promise you that is not true, because when one in six couples has infertility and one in four female physicians has infertility, we are never alone.
• 18:42
  Coach Erica: Everybody knows somebody, but we suffer in silence and social media keeps us thinking that the only good things that are happening in the world are baby announcements and things.
• 18:53
  Coach Erica: And I promise you, it's the people who are suffering who are not posting, and they may even be an equal measure to the people who are posting.
• 19:00
  Coach Erica: But that is just how, unfortunately, social media works.
• 19:03
  Coach Erica: It's a big filter.
• 19:04
  Coach Erica: So thinking about what common humanity means is that I'm not the only one with this particular problem.
• 19:13
  Coach Erica: I'm not the only one with these big, heavy feelings, and I know that there's people I can connect with to ease the burden, share the burden and even, you know, from a karmic standpoint, when we celebrate other people's journeys at whatever point that they're at and I say this very cautiously because I know that when somebody in your life gets pregnant, it's a really, really tough thing if that's something that you're experiencing.
• 19:37
  Coach Erica: But even from the very beginning like, for instance, when we come together at Love Science during our Friday night support groups, wherever people are at in their journey, whether it's deciding whether to freeze eggs, whether it's deciding whether to do an IVF cycle, whether they're full on an IVF and they're about to have an embryo transfer and waiting for the pregnancy test all of that.
• 19:59
  Coach Erica: We celebrate each other, we support each other, we challenge the model, the societal model, that women have to be in competition with each other.
• 20:07
  Coach Erica: It is just so beautiful and I can't think of any better example of common humanity than what we do at Love and Science, because we intentionally come together to support each other and everybody has their season, everybody has their turn and everybody is seen and valued and validated, and it's just so beautiful.
• 20:24
  Coach Erica: So I think that creating safe spaces is really important as we think about mindful self-compassion, specifically the common humanity piece, because when we hear each other's stories, when we hear each other's struggles and triumphs, we realize that that's our story.
• 20:41
  Coach Erica: It's just maybe the small details are just a little bit different, but every journey at the core is the same.
• 20:47
  Coach Erica: We all on this journey, have the same fundamental desires and hopes and dreams, even if the stories take a little bit different flavor.
• 20:55
  Coach Erica: So I want to say we are here for you at Love Science.
• 20:59
  Coach Erica: If you're curious, we'd love to support you in that way with the one-to-one coaching and especially the group calls.
• 21:05
  Coach Erica: But really, even if it's not Love Science, find your tribe, find your community.
• 21:09
  Coach Erica: There is so much healing that happens when we come together and we really, really need not suffer in silence.
• 21:16
  Coach Erica: It just makes everything 100 times worse, awesome.
• 21:18
  Coach Erica: It just makes everything a hundred times worse, awesome.
• 21:20
  Coach Erica: So with that I will end by summarizing what mindful self-compassion is.
• 21:26
  Coach Erica: It is treating ourselves as we would treat our very best friend.
• 21:30
  Coach Erica: It is turning that inner critic into an inner coach.
• 21:34
  Coach Erica: It is pausing and learning how to self-soothe, and not necessarily doing things that distract us from our reality.
• 21:45
  Coach Erica: That's okay, especially if it's intentional.
• 21:47
  Coach Erica: But I think that like authentic self-soothing in terms of getting into our senses, coming together in community, deciding how we want to spend our time and not just feeling like, oh, my goodness, I've just scrolled social media for three hours because I really am uncomfortable right now, I don't want to face certain things and now I just feel worse.
• 22:05
  Coach Erica: It's a very intentional approach to life and it also means that when something happens that doesn't go according to plan A, we can take a step back, be kind to ourselves, realize that anybody in our situation would have this experience, this struggle, and we can really give ourselves some grace.
• 22:24
  Coach Erica: So, with that, thank you for joining me today.
• 22:27
  Coach Erica: I adore you, I'm here for you, I'm rooting for you always.
• 22:31
  Coach Erica: Bye.