“Our painful experiences are not responsibility – they are gifts. They give us perspective and meaning, and are opportunities to find our unique goals and strength.” –DR. Edith Eger, Choice: Embrace Possible
Losing an unfulfilled dream made me spin and fall into darkness. A darkness filled with despair and despair that I had never had before.
Attributing all my sadness to the sudden loss of a loving mother-in-law in early 2023 makes me safer and more comfortable. Her sudden absence not only in my life, but in my husband and daughter’s life was very difficult.
Although the loss opened the door to sadness, I hid more. When I was still in a gentle place, invisible loss and health panic came.
My husband and I decided to end my dream of trying to have a second child, which totally broke my heart. Since the beginning of our relationship, a shared dream and mine.
Neither of us could have anticipated the diagnosis of infertility that I could not explain and the four-year, beautiful, broken and growing parental path. Throughout the journey, I still insist on wishing we had two kids one day.
After we made the decision, the original sorrow in our hearts shocked me. When we first discussed this idea honestly, I was excited to build a life of a family of three. I know deeply that our family is complete.
But once we make a decision, I don’t want or know how to feel my sadness. For all the lost sadness. For everything that will not happen in the future. The outside world cannot see it.
At first, my negative, self-critical conversations took over my experience, which gave me a hard time. Full of self-judgment, regret, anger and shame. Overcoming the sadness, I forgot that I didn’t have to believe that voice and might be more kind to myself.
Morning is the hardest. Every day, I wake up with the tears under my eyes. Even though I slept well, my whole body was heavy and tired. My mind felt foggy. I will forget the little things, it’s not like me. It took a lot of effort to find a seemingly simple task.
After getting off the bus in kindergarten, I sat alone in the living room. I don’t have the motivation to do anything. If I don’t have a work meeting to prepare or deliver the results immediately, I’ll distract myself and be numb on my phone. This unhealthy morning period will last for a while.
Once I started working, I kept my pace and focused on the projects I loved.
My body and mind know what’s going on. My rational thought takes time to catch up. I need to allow myself to have my own sad experience.
An enlarged sad view
Developing an expanded view of grief and the experience of dealing with grief therapists starts to help.
One of the first concepts I learned is that there are different types of sadness. pass The map of the soula study professor, writer and a book by Podcaster Brené Brown, I know I am dealing with acute and disenfranchised grief.
Acute grief is a strong grief that occurs in the initial stages after loss. I am unfamiliar with the grief of being disenfranchised.
Brown wrote: “Sadness of disenfranchised is a form of grief: a sadness of grief that is not publicly recognized or publicly supported through mourning habits or rituals because this experience is not valued or calculated [by others] As a loss. Sadness may be invisible, or it may be difficult to see others. ”
Not only is my sorrow invisible to the outside, but I do not value the end of an unfulfilled dream.
The second concept is to focus on incorporating sadness into my life. My therapist shared that this is not moving forward after suffering losses. It’s about moving forward, how to blend our losses with our lives.
The third concept comes from the book by psychologist and Holocaust survivor Edith Eger Choice: Embrace Possible. Despite her unimaginable pain, she conveys a message of hope and recovery.
She shared: “When we are sad, it’s not just what’s happening – we are sad about what’s not happening… You can’t change what’s happening; you can’t change what’s done or what’s done to you. But you can choose your own life.” We can choose freedom, joy and love rather than suffering.
What helped me cope with and rebuild
During this sad period, I began to transform my experience from resistance to supporting myself. I started to accept that a simple day was enough. These methods can be beneficial for anyone who encounters grief, especially if they feel invisible.
1. Support yourself and get support
Once I remembered that I could support myself, my entire sad experience became much easier to manage. I already have the tools to be kind and compassionate to myself. This is a question of intentional use of them.
I started to notice and get people’s attention. Noting my self-critical voice, rather than getting stuck, has evoked self-compassion and kindness. I’ll say a statement to myself: It can feel like this. This is really hard. I can be kind to myself. Sometimes, I imagine wrapping myself in love.
I began to turn to myself with kindness and love. There myself. Working with my experience through writing.
I was open to my intimate relationships and therapists, where I did feel like I listened and accepted to share my struggles.
2. Feel my difficulties and bring light
One day, while I was meditating, I noticed what was happening inside. I’m open to a strong feeling. Before I knew it, I’ve gone through a shorter version of Tara Brach’s rain practice. This is a basic practice for me when dealing with infertility, but I may not have done a complete practice for years. Practice remember me.
The meaning of this framework is:
- Recognize what is going on.
- Let the experience be there as it is now.
- Interest and care investigation.
- Raise self-sympathy.
Once I practice back to my consciousness, I feel pain every morning.
One morning, at the end of the rain practice, I visually brought light and love. Once again, I began to say a kind of loving meditation to myself. After feeling my difficulties, I began to combine all aspects of the enthusiasm that brought me.
3. Continue to be in awe
My sadness is the heaviest in the darkness of the winter in Colorado. At the beginning of spring, still overcome by sorrow, I began to walk in awe. A term from Dacher Keltner Awe Walks is walking, and you turn your attention outward. Your mission is to encounter something surprising and beyond. Every day, I search for new signs of spring on the trails near the house.
If I don’t look for them, I’d miss most of the early signs: flower buds, small green leaves formed on the branches, the first yellow wildflower flower to peek from behind the tangled branches. Then one day, I looked up and saw a green canopy covered with trees overlooking the trail. Spring has arrived completely.
I found the growth was small. At first there was almost no obvious meaning. Please pay attention to the changes that occur and slowly establish things. This is the basis for wanting to come out. The bigger message is that winter is the first one. Only after winter is possible.
4. Embrace leisure time
At the end of spring, I was tired of the heavy weight of persistent sadness. I was crazy about recording that I wanted a project. Something new can catch my attention. I long to experience the energy of summer.
However, sadness teaches me more. The next day, my deepest wisdom shared with me the embrace of the “retreatment era”. The term comes from farming. Allowing the land to lie down is a technique that hasn’t grown anything for a while. The purpose is to allow the land to rest and regenerate.
Rest time requires me to continue to respect the dreams that were once dreams. Before building the next one begins, take a break in the space.
What I open up is to allow something that once lasts great, without rushing to the next thing.
I found this cleanup to be the potential that might emerge next.
5. Reconnect with hope
I am full of hope for the outcome of having two children. Although hope for realistic results is important and keeps me moving forward, I discovered its limitations when I let go of my dreams.
But hopefully so much more than that.
One day, I unexpectedly felt the energy of great hope. Known as transcendent hope, good things can happen. This form of hope reignites the light deep in my heart.
Hopefully, we can build a beautiful life in front of me that I once longed for, in honor of dreams, losses and imperfections.
6. Rebuild the possibility and dream again
Initially, sadness and dreams feel uncomfortable with each other. It turns out that grief will create an openness and space for what you want to come next. Sadness is my winter, my leisure time. Just like planting flower seeds in autumn, it will not bloom until the second spring.
I first need to accept the past and close this chapter of my life. Then, I can connect with the potential of my dreams.
The dream I want to cultivate most in 2023 is coaching and writing. In the first half of this year, dreams come true but are so slow or seemingly none.
During this time, I was participating in a training coaching program that played the Big Promoter, but I didn’t have the ability or motivation to start building the coach as I wanted.
I have also been trying to write a personal article about my infertility journey but feel blocked. I started, but kept getting stuck. So I use written prompts (e.g. I don’t know how to write a few things.
In September 2023, there was a change in my heart. I was attracted to rebuild the possible possibilities in my life.
I tried to write a personal paper stream for several months. Stories about choosing to focus on personal growth and well-being among the challenges of burnout and infertility. The last article will be published later in 2024 in Little Buddha: How I Find the Benefits of Difficulties.
As Dr. Egar shares in her book, it’s about my experience of choosing.
September is also the month when I started my active psychology coach certification program. One of the reasons I chose this coaching program is because the impact of positive psychology and mindfulness on me so much while facing infertility and burnout. Meanwhile, I started offering career, life and wellbeing coaches.
I have to travel through the intensity of sadness to understand Dr. Egar’s wisdom: “Our painful experiences are not responsibility – they are a gift. They give us perspective and meaning, an opportunity to find our unique purpose and strength.”
I received a lot of gifts when facing infertility and burnout. It is the most wonderful thing to change my relationship with myself and my life. For me, this painful period is a connection to greater meaning and overall well-being. Transfer to work that feels more fulfilling. Rediscovering my creative self-expression, especially writing, has surprisingly impacted my personal life and work. Reveal a dream to guide others to create changes that are important to them.
My experience in the cocoon of sadness has changed me deeply. On the other hand, I feel more at home myself. My past challenges have been more peaceful. I feel the whole. Appreciate it all in depth – sadness, pain, gifts, gratitude and joy. I choose to move forward with new hope that replenishes hope and respects my dreams.
About Rachael Gaibel
Rachael Gaibel is a career, life and wellbeing coach who helps others unpin and find possibilities so that they can create changes that matter to them in their lives and work. She also serves as a Leadership Development Content Writer, Strategist and Advisor. Outside of work, she is a writer, mother, wife, natural lover and aspiring creativity. Visit her website here. Check out her newsletter here.
