As of today, we are just over 8,500 downloads of the podcast, which just tells me that there is more work to be done because at the rate, the podcast is growing, it's apparent women are searching to love their life, if they couldn't become a mom

Preparing for this episode, I've been thinking quite a bit - mostly because it comes up quite often when I'm doing teaching - if it's possible to be grieve something that you never had.

Is that really possible?

Is it a thing?

YES, it is a thing!

Tune in and listen how to grieve when there's nothing really tangible that you're grieving about.

You can grieve the thought and the dreams and the hopes that you had of becoming a mom.

For many of us it's something that we just thought was going to be in our future and so easy for us to attain.

We did everything we possibly could to reach our goal of motherhood. And it didn't happen. We grieve because we're saying goodbye to a vision that we had for our futures and a vision that we had for ourselves and the dreams that we had to:

• raise a child,
• grow a family,
• send kids off to school
• send them down the aisle to get married.
• become grandparents.

That is a whole story we created in our minds for so long. And we played in our minds since we were young girls. If you find yourself wondering why you have this pit in your stomach and sadness in your heart when you think about the lack of motherhood and the lack of children and the dreams that you dreamed of for so long, not being available to you, that is what I call grief.

Some people may tell you that you can't grieve something that doesn't exist, but in my teaching and in the way that I work in my coaching practice and with the students that I work with, spend a lot of time having compassion for ourselves and navigating this grieving process. Let yourself feel. As though you have lost something because you have, you have lost a dream and a vision that you had for your future.

There is absolutely nobody who can tell me that I am not entitled to grieve. You are entitled to do the same!

When a person thinks about grief, they typically think about sorrow that's associated with losing someone. But grief can follow many different types of losses. When I give you the example of losing something that you hoped for, but never had it's when you're finding out that your hopes and your dreams or expectations may not come true at all, infertility or pregnancy loss or infant child loss is one of the greatest things we have felt in our lives and something that we didn't expect.

As human beings, we just dream - it's what we do. For many of us motherhood was the biggest dream we ever had and it becomes so hard to navigate what you're feeling and how to overcome it and how to really put words around some of the things that we go through when we are mourning and grieving our ability to become moms.

I've noticed that society does not have a way to deal with these type of losses. There's no funeral when you find out that you're infertile or that you've lost a child before it was born and people don't typically acknowledge some of the things that you're going through. We're not out there talking about it, so when people don't hear us talking about it, they think recognizing it or gesturing it, may trigger us. So people oftentimes feel very alone because there's a lot of shame and a lot of judgment for ourselves that we're wondering what's wrong with us, that we are actually grieving something that we never had.

I encourage grieving - it's such an important part of us getting through this healing process and this process of learning to love your life. Even though you couldn't become a mom and society just doesn't have established ways to grieve. These kind of, um, intangible losses, if you will, I'd like to offer you some opportunities to consider of ways that you can grieve this process or grieve this loss that you have had because everyone's process is unique and it's best to discover what does and doesn't work for you.

So first I, offer you acknowledge what it is you have lost. It's not just the inability to have children.

What we truly have lost is:

• an understanding or the anticipation of what our future was going to look like
• that we didn't have to be the ones responsible for plotting everything we wanted to do in our future,
• that we would just be able to create this beautiful family and then live our life through the milestones that our children were going through.

Acknowledge that there is loss around that.

Find an opportunity to share your story.

Seek a trusted group or someone in your family that you can trust or someone you can talk to.

Do paper thinking about that (download The Guide to Loving Your Life Again).

Join the Thrive After Infertility Mastermind, a small group of women who get you.

Consider what it's like to grieve and why you are entitled to grieve and feel a sense of loss. and mourn this part of your life.

Do some work on your past self.

When you go through fertility treatments and find out that you can't be a mom, you just always feel like your life is at 80%. And oftentimes that's because we are living from a sense of our past self. When you are able to do some work on your past self and complete the story of your past, not necessarily forgetting it or acting like it didn't happen, but just allowing yourself to grieve who you were at that point in your life and who you wanted to be and allowing yourself to get really crystal clear that despite your life not turning out the way that you dreamed it would, it can still be a fabulous, fulfilling and abundant life.

I always acknowledge that the grief will never go away. I know that sounds disappointing, but the great news is, when you understand how to process your grief and work with someone who has been in your shoes and knows exactly what it feels like to wake up as you, every day, you will start to understand that the grief is just something that tags along with you. The more that you process it and process the future that awaits you and the future that seems exciting and fulfilling and so easy to wake up in every day. You'll see that the grief does not out outweigh that future version of you. It just is kind of along for their ride. And every once in a while, it'll pop it's head and you'll say, "Oh, grief.... there you are. I knew you were still here. I knew you were still with me. I knew you will always be a reminder of where I've been and how far I've come."

Feeling grief and feeling like you need to mourn in this portion of your life is normal. Nothing to be ashamed of! You're not weird. You're not odd. You are just an infertile woman. Who's doing her best to create a life that she loves. If you're interested in joining the thrive after infertility mastermind, the price is going up on September 1st. If you've thought at all about it now is your time to register. It is going to be the most magnificent three months of your life, because you are gonna have so many tools that nobody talks about. I feel so grateful to be the one to offer them to you because they are the exact tools that I have used to create this amazing life of mine, even though I couldn't become a mom.

Go to stitchcoaching.com/thrive. Register and make a commitment to yourself that you can get to the point in your life that you are just beaming again and wanting to be so excited about your future, because it is possible ladies. I know because I have done it. I would not be here today if I did not do the work that I am ready to teach you so that you can do the same amazingness in your life too.

So have an awesome week. And remember it is never too late to discover your meaning. I'll talk to you next week.