It is easy to tangle facts with drama when you tell the story of your infertility experience. We all do it, though. But knowing how to separate out the two will save you a world of heartache along the way to motherhood and is a skill worth learning now.
We each have a story to tell about the journey we are on. We know the pains and the struggle all too well and how to emphasize where we deem things unfair or any injustice to have been served. We are storytellers by nature and that is a good thing but in the case of infertility, it is important to be mindful of what story you are telling yourself.
With infertility there are two elements: science and drama. Science is all of the facts. Facts are indisputable. They could be proven in a court of law and universally everyone would agree on them. This is everything that happens externally from us in the world that we can’t control. Science doesn’t have emotion attached to it and it certainly doesn’t have a lot of descriptive adjectives either. The world is made up of a bunch of circumstances that are completely neutral until we think about them.
That is where drama kicks in. Drama is what occurs in our heads. It consists of all of the beliefs we have crafted from our thoughts over time. Those thoughts are the sentences that run through our brains all day. They are our opinions and judgments about all of the facts of the world. In essence, they create all of the juicy parts of the story we tell about anything.
But things get muddled in our minds when we start taking our thoughts and stating them as facts. Remember, circumstances are neutral and everyone in the world would have to agree on it. If they wouldn’t, then it probably isn’t a fact. “Infertility sucks” is completely your own opinion. “I had a miscarriage” is a fact of your life experience. See the difference?
The most important thing to point out is that your thoughts are always optional which is a beautiful thing to know because that means you can change them. The science is harder to change, but the way you think about it will make all of the difference in what kind of story you are living.
Want to change the story you’re telling about infertility? Reach out to me for a free strategy session to get started.
