Even if you are the most resilient person out there, if you are dealing with infertility, that resilience will be severely tested. Understanding and practicing mindfulness can be a way to cultivate acceptance, strength and even happiness on your journey towards a family. As you grieve your projected timeline, that somehow has escaped you, mindfulness will remind you that the present moment is all we have.
Mindfulness is a moment to moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings and any surrounding sensations combined with acceptance. In other words, I may not like this moment, feeling, or experience, but I am going to accept it, just as it is.
Mindfulness is inclusive. It does not judge or reject.
Mindfulness is what happens in the spaces between the distractions of our thoughts and intrusions that surround us as human beings. Mindfulness is always present (no pun intended) and it is up to us to drop into it in a way that is free from what usually holds us captive.
Mindfulness enables us to really be present in the here and now.
There is scientific evidence that shows how Mindfulness can help create an inner sense of relaxation and peacefulness so that there is less of a struggle with what’s actually happening in reality. When we allow ourselves to change our relationship to difficult experiences, we create room for clarity, positivity and balance. We turn on our inner response mode and get off the reactive one.
The main muscle used in Mindfulness is our attention. As we consciously focus on both our inner and outer world, we get close to the ways of our mind and what keeps on taking us away from the present. You may notice patterns and contrasting thoughts that are positive, but primarily negative. When we are in the midst of the struggle of infertility, we can get lost in dark and negative emotions. It can be incredibly empowering just to pay attention to all that is unfolding.
By paying attention purposefully and focusing on the present, we lose our identity to the usual conditioned thinking like what we should be doing, what should have happened, and what we want to happen. The present moment has no judgement, wants or needs. As we label the passing thoughts that rise and fall at a rapid pace, we reinforce the fact that we are separate from these thoughts. We are separate from our feelings. We are separate from our experience.
We are not our infertility.
Mindfulness helps to cultivate patience.
As we continually move our attention back to the present, we spend less time in our head worrying about the future. Over time, with practice, what is happening in the moment becomes more interesting than what is occurring in the mind.
Mindfulness is a way of life.
Are you dealing with infertility and looking for support? Join our upcoming Mind-Body Fertility Group.
