Something is getting in your way from becoming a parent. You may think your body is the main thing holding you back from motherhood, but one emotion is guaranteed to stop you completely from having the baby you’ve always wanted. What is it?

Self-pity.

I see it over and over again with my clients. When you feel sorry for yourself and helpless in your situation, you are most likely experiencing self-pity. As it is defined, self-pity is “excessive, self-absorbed unhappiness over one’s troubles.” When was the last time you lamented over your infertility experience? Last month? Last week? Five minutes ago?

Thinking you are a victim of infertility will lead you to indulge in self-pity. If you think things should be different than they are, self-pity is sure to follow. Most likely you are feeling sorry for yourself and where you are at. How does that show up for you?

When you think infertility is happening to you, you open the door for self-pity to take hold. You are then living at the effect of your experience instead of deciding intentionally what the experience means to you. Infertility is an experience you are having in your life. It isn’t happening against you or intentionally for you to be miserable. However, when we indulge in self-pity, that is exactly what we are doing.

Self-pity becomes very clear when we try to compare our situation with the people we know. Your fertility experience is different than what your cousin, best friend, or co-worker is having. It is your experience to own.

If you are starting to feel sorry for yourself, you are contributing to our own suffering. When we feel that way we stop taking meaningful and purposeful action in our lives. We pity ourselves and lament over how hard things are. As a human living in the world today you are going to encounter hard things. For you, infertility happens to be one of those things. But the truth is that the harder your life is, the more you are going to learn about yourself along the way. The harder it is the more growth is possible for you. When you indulge in self-pity you are not making any progress towards your dream of motherhood. What are you doing instead? Just spinning your wheels and wasting time. Self-pity stops you from moving forward towards your goals.

So if you are experiencing infertility you have the opportunity to learn a lot about yourself as you work towards motherhood. The harder your life is the more growth is possible for you.  The harder it is, the more chances you have to see how strong you can be.

I don’t know anyone going through infertility that thinks their life is easy. It’s not supposed to be easy. It is supposed to be hard. Really hard. Even so, if today is hard, show up for what it has to offer you. Don’t pity yourself. Move forward, take action, and see what happens. You might be surprised at what is possible when you do.

Want help moving forward through infertility and onto motherhood? Let me help you.