How to kick the guilt when you're TTC

It is so easy to get on the guilt train when you are trying to get pregnant. There are so many reasons that you can begin to blame yourself for things not happening yet.

Maybe you’ve been told your age is an issue
Maybe you’re in a bigger body
Maybe you’ve been handed a PCOS/Endometriosis/Adenomyosis/Premature Ovarian Failure diagnosis
Maybe you have an underactive/overactive thyroid
Maybe you just have irregular cycles and you have no idea why
Maybe you don’t ovulate
Maybe you’ve experienced pregnancy loss
Maybe everything seems fine but you just cant shake the feeling that it’s somehow your fault you cant get pregnant

The big word here is fault

When you thing it’s your fault, that’s where the pesky guilt comes from.

You start to thing about all the things you could’ve done differently, what if….. what if….. what if….. these thoughts haunt you time and time again.

But the thing is poppet, you’re doing your best with the information you’ve got. And that’s all we can ask of anyone.

That’s easy to say, so what can we do practically to move past these feelings of guilt?

How do we get off the guilt train?

Understand that your body is protecting you. Your body is clever. when it feels like its in a dangerous situation – it equates chronic stress from work to being stalked by a tiger or the latest diet to dangerously low food supplied – it will protect you and your life. It will not “waste’ valuable resources on a pregnancy, instead keeping your essential nutrients and energy for keeping you alive. It makes sense yet is insanely frustrating. Your body doesn’t hate you.

Grab a pen and paper and answer these questions. Bringing awareness to your beliefs about this is the first step to healing them.

What do I feel guilty about?

For each of these things, what is being guilty about this giving me? (Trust me I know this is a weird one but go with it, we never do anything without it benefiting us in some way, really dig deep into how this guilt is helping you or protecting you)

How can you get these benefits from other things?

Say for example you felt guilty about being in a bigger body and you felt like this was having a huge impact on your fertility

Thinking about what this guilt is giving me, I’m subconsciously using the guilt to make me feel better about being fat. In our society being fat is not acceptable so this guilt is helping me come to terms with living in our society as a fat woman. I’m also told that being fat and getting pregnant will be really unhealthy so this guilt is keeping me from getting pregnant whilst I believe it is unhealthy for me and/or my baby

So how can I find these benefits elsewhere? Uncovering the belief that I believe its unhealthy for me to get pregnant at this weight is a powerful one. When you uncover beliefs like this, it can be quite surprising. Think about where they come from, do they come from you or someone else? Do you still want to have this belief?

If you want to change the belief – start to notice where it crops up in your life and in your thoughts. When you spot it you need to mentally create a new neural pathway of what you want to belief. It’s like a path in a park, so much easier to follow to well worn one. When you want to create a new one, you need to go down it a few times before it is worn in and becomes the automatic route.

For me, the benefit of living in our society has been to learn to not give a fuck what others think of me and to do what I want anyway. These things don’t have to be perfect. It’s all in intentionally deciding what you want in your life and making little changes in that direction.

The subconscious benefit of not getting pregnant can be gained when you change your belief around that and the benefit will become getting pregnant.

You can choose your beliefs and thoughts. Use the power of your mind for good and it will go a long way to helping you relieve some of the guilt you feel.