This week I will share with you how I prepare myself, even... After all the years of coaching and being a certified life coach, I still prepare myself when I go somewhere that might be potentially triggering.

 

So let me tell you a little bit about what's in store for me this afternoon. So a colleague of my husband's is having an outdoor party at their home and they invited us to go. It's been on the calendar for probably two months and recently my husband told me that it's going to be an outdoor party and there's going to be a pool party for like all the kids that are going to be there.

 

And I found myself, a small part of me, wanting to say, you know what, maybe I'll make up an excuse and not go. Maybe I'll tell them that all of a sudden I woke up in the morning with a migraine and I couldn't make it. But I decided that I wanted to kind of consider why I would create that story. And why I didn't want to go.

 

So, today I want to talk to you about that and tell you... How I go through this process of deciding what I want to go to and why I want to go to it and how I can prepare myself to show up at this event that is going to be full of kids, full of parents, full of families, that, um, how I can go and really have a good time.

 

So the first thing I wanted to talk about is think of an opportunity that you have had to go somewhere. Or maybe there's something on the books. Maybe there's something coming up for you that you've maybe dreaded going. So this will be the perfect opportunity to work through this with me. So think about what it is and why you want to go.

 

And why you don't wanna go. And for me, I wanna go because I wanna support my husband. This is something related to some business colleagues of his, and I know it means a lot to him to go. I could certainly tell him I don't wanna go, and he would understand that, but. In my heart, like I want to support him and be an active spouse to him.

 

So that's one of the reasons that it's important for me to say yes to going. Even though there's part of me that gets nervous that I'm not going to have anything in common with these moms that are going to be there. Or watching these families at a pool party in the pool with their kids and I just have all these visions of how uncomfortable that might be.

 

But I want to focus more on why it's important for me to go. The other part is, we're going to take the long way there. Now think about that. Like taking the long way to somewhere that I would normally probably want to be like on the expressway, can't get there fast enough. But we're going to have an adventure leading up to our arrival.

 

So we're going to take local roads. We're going to go along Lake Michigan, the whole way there. Go through probably some beautiful neighborhoods, twists and turns. So going the long way is really important to me. Because it will give me time to bond with my husband. It'll give me time to decompress. It'll give me time to enjoy my surroundings.

 

in anticipation of something that might be potentially triggering, which might be, you know, running in again and seeing these families and these kids that feels to me in my head. I'm creating this anxiousness. I don't know if that's how I'm going to feel when I get there, but taking the long way will give me an opportunity to say, you know what?

 

Like, I'm so grateful that we have a lifestyle that we can take the long way somewhere that we can create our own adventures on the way there.

 

And then understanding, like, once I get there, I'm probably going to meet people that I've never met before. My husband probably knows a lot of people because it's going to be work people that he knows. And they're probably going to be asking me, Oh, so do you guys have kids? What's going on? Do you know, um, you know, do your kids go to school around here?

 

How old are your kids? And so I've decided already that my answer is going to be no. So when somebody says, do you have kids? I've already played it through my mind. I'm going to be like, no, and just be silent. Okay, like how easy is that to practice? One word. I don't have to over explain. Maybe I want to over explain, but what if I just say no?

 

I don't have kids and just pause and I don't have to jumble over my words and get nervous about whether I'm saying the right thing or whether it's Uncomfortable for them to sit there and  ask me why.  They're welcome to ask me why. And I've decided if somebody does, I'm gonna tell them.

 

I'm gonna say, oh,  we try to have kids and it didn't work out for us. Silence. Okay, maybe they'll want to say, well, you can always adopt. Maybe they'll stop and they'll not say anything. What if they just don't question why I didn't have kids after that? Why I didn't, maybe someone's not going to ask me, did you think about getting a donor?

 

Did you think about adopting? What if they're just like, oh, cool. Lucky you. And what if they say lucky you and I don't get triggered by that? What if I do actually think of myself as lucky that I have This journey that turned out so differently than I thought it was, like, what if you can think of yourself, maybe as lucky, not because you're not a mom, but because of the things that have come to you through your journey of not becoming a mom.

 

And that's really what I try to focus on. And then I've also thought about, maybe I want to tell people what I do. Maybe I want to tell people that because of my journey through infertility treatments and becoming childless, not by choice, I decided to become a certified life coach. And I've created a community for women who are searching to thrive and feel fulfilled, even though they couldn't have the children they dreamed of.

 

So maybe me elaborating on what I've done through my journey of infertility. will open their eyes that there's more women like us that are out there. Maybe they don't know anyone who's never had kids or gone through fertility treatments. Maybe they know somebody who's going through it right now who might need a community or might need a resource and they can say, hey, I met this woman.

 

At this pool party and I wanted to share her podcast with you or check her out on social media. She says that there's a whole community of women that she talks to all the time that are searching for support or are creating support or creating lives that they love, even though they didn't have the Children they always dreamed of.

 

So I could do a wonderful service. by telling people what I've done through my infertility journey. And I think that's really important, too. And then also establishing a check in time. So maybe if you're going somewhere and you're going either with a friend or a partner or by yourself. Take an opportunity, maybe set a timer on your phone and check in and say, okay, how am I feeling?

 

Am I at my max? Am I like ready to get out of here? Am I like good with saying, hey, I came, I, you know, showed my face. I was supportive to my spouse. We said hello, but I'm ready to like get out of here. That's fine. Maybe you can set a timer and just have that be an opportunity. You know, your husband is.

 

Like mine or your partner's like mine. He sometimes like gets caught in conversation and forgets that I'm standing there by myself And so I've got to be like, hey, honey, so maybe if we both set timers on our phone, it'll be an indication that he Steps away from the conversation that he's in and comes and checks in on me and just even if it's like a little Hand on the shoulder and it's like hey, babe.

 

How are you? And we just kind of already pre communicated that we were going to have these check ins with each other. And if I'm starting to feel like uncomfortable or feeling like I don't really have much in common with these people at the party, we can just agree ahead of time that we're going to support each other and we're going to head out soon after that.

 

So I think that's something really important to do is kind of have a check in for yourself. And then one of the things that I'm planning on doing is on our ride home. Or on our drive home or departure from, from this event whenever we choose to leave, is really think about was it that bad? Was it as bad as I was anticipating it to be?

 

'cause I think a lot of us, rightfully so, get a lot of anxiousness because we're not sure what to expect. But if we evaluate what went right, For us or what felt easy for us or what didn't feel as uncomfortable as we thought it would, maybe it won't feel. So scary the next time, or maybe we can recall those things when we have our next event that we have to go to, because let's be honest, there's going to be events, whether it's with our partners or friends, or maybe it's through work, you have like a networking event, or you're going to this Symposium or meeting at work where you don't know a lot of people.

 

These are skills that you can continue to build upon and start to increase more confidence in yourself because you're practicing them. And the best way to practice them is to pay attention. Like what happened, what felt good, what didn't feel good, and what might change the next time. Maybe you thought of a, something new, maybe a new answer you wanted to respond.

 

With when somebody said, oh, you know, are your kids here? Or Are your kids in the pool? And just practice that. 'cause I think a lot of the anxiousness that comes up for us is because we're. going in foreign places that we're just not sure how to respond. so I'll go over that again.

 

So you're going to understand why you're going. If you like your reasons for going more than you like your reasons for staying home. So you don't have to fake the migraine, but you can fake the migraine.  Understanding that maybe you can take the long way there and that your route there or your time in the car, whether it's the long way or the short way, having time to appreciate your togetherness with whomever you're with in the car, understanding that you can respond the way that you want to respond when somebody asks if you have kids.  You can just simply say no. You can maybe educate them through your story and understand that by you telling your story, you might be helping somebody else that you don't even know is.

 

Searching for help or searching for a connection because who knows, maybe that person you're telling your story to. If you feel comfortable doing so, might have a friend that you don't even know exists that she could say, Hey, can I have my friend call you? Can I have my friend connect with you? Maybe for me it's.

 

Tell me the name of your podcast. I want to share it with my friend. I know she's been struggling and I don't know the right things to say and so maybe your podcast could help her. So you might be doing that same thing through telling someone about your Infertility diagnosis and you don't have to go into the depths of what you've tried or what worked and didn't work, but maybe just explaining to somebody what infertility is like or that people have infertility.

 

They might have learned for the first time from you about something that can help somebody else. And lastly. Checking in and just have a check in time with your partner or whomever you're going with and established ahead of time,  maybe every 30 minutes, every 15 minutes, you're going to do that check in, be like, Hey, are we, are we good to stay a little bit longer or should we head out and understanding that you don't have to have this long drawn out hours of being somewhere that feels uncomfortable and just knowing that you have that support. 

 

And then lastly, just deciding at the end of the day what went well, what maybe felt a little bit uncomfortable, and do you want to work on that thing that felt uncomfortable? Do you maybe want to practice more times of explaining what's going on with infertility, what it was like, why you don't have kids, and then from there, deciding maybe next time it doesn't have to be that scary.

 

So I hope that that's really helpful for you, and if this is something that you're wanting to work on a little bit more in your life, I invite you to learn more about the Thrive After Infertility Mastermind, because this is the type of stuff that we work on.  I'm coming on here and just sharing this with you for you to listen, but if you could actually be in a community,  be amongst people, think of ways or hear ways that other people respond to the question.

 

Do you have kids? That's the type of stuff that we do in the thrive after infertility mastermind. Or if you do the thrive one on one with me, it is The most powerful way that you can start to create a voice for yourself, because I know how it feels when you go through fertility treatments and you don't know what feels right, or if somebody else has.

 

Been through your journey and you feel really alone and isolated. When you join Thrive, you'll start to learn that what you're feeling is so normal and it makes you just feel understood. And maybe you've gone through fertility treatments alone and you don't feel like you have anyone that you could actually talk to about how infertility feels and how this journey can feel so isolating and thrive after infertility is the most glorious way that I have found to create a story that makes me feel proud of who I am  proud to say that she is childless, not by choice, and I want that for you, too, but wanting that and actually seeking it are two different things, and it may feel like your story is Too sad to recover from or that the type  of sadness that you've experienced through your fertility journey, people just don't recover from.

 

 I wanna tell you that that's false because I see women every week share some of the most amazing work that they have done to create this life that just feels easy again and feels like they are in ownership of their life again.

 

It's available to anybody who's just willing to say yes. I want more of that in my life. So I will leave you with that. I love you. And remember, it's never too late to discover your meaning.