Can mindfulness make a difference?

As we said before, our brain cannot really tell the difference between the imaginary and the real – due to special structures in the brain and the existence of mirror neurons.
It is very often in our everyday lives to think about the past or the future. We relive again and again past experiences, usually hurtful ones, or we plan ahead, thinking about what will happen next.
What happens there? We miss the most valuable time in our lives – What’s happening right there and then, OUR NOW.
Practicing mindfulness pulls us back into the moment. Being mindful allows us to appreciate the here and now, the little things that make a difference.
The benefits of mindfulness are numerous in most life circumstances and particularly in fertility challenges.
The cyclical nature of fertility by definition leads us to think about the previous cycle and the next cycle and so on and so forth.
Also, due the stress of sub-fertility, we tend to laser focus on that area of our lives and ignore or delete everything else that happens to us. You know, the little everyday things – a heartfelt hug from our partner, a good chat with a friend, a funny moment with your pet.
Practicing mindfulness helps.
First it increases our focus and effectiveness in whatever we do.
Second it enhances our feelings of gratitude. Gratitude markers are directly associated with feelings of wellbeing and life-satisfaction.
Many times, I wonder is the happy person grateful or is the grateful person happy? Are we grateful because we are happy or is it that through experiencing and expressing feelings of gratitude, we feel happy? Food for thought!
Finally, mindfulness trains us in self-observation. The value of this skill as I mentioned before is HUGE! Being the detective of our own behaviour leads to what the Ancient Greeks, Socrates the well-known philosopher called it ‘ Γνώθι σ’εαυτόν’ , ‘Know thyself’. How valuable is that!

Mindfulness can be such a wonderful tool when you’re going through infertility. It can really help you to just be in the present moment. Often a lot of your thoughts will normally be future-focused, thinking of your dreams and where you’re trying to head to and all of the practical steps that you’re taking to get there. Being in the present moment can really ground you and allow you some space and some relaxation, much-needed relaxation. But it can be very difficult to achieve as you can imagine because often your head is just so full of all these worries and thoughts.

I recommend using mindfulness tools, giving yourself different things that you can try at different times to help you get into that present moment. You might just go for a mindful walk. I often find that walking is easier than necessarily being mindful of where you are in your space or being still for some. Taking a walk in nature, and being aware of the sights, and the sounds, and all the smells, and everything around you and just whenever you have a thought that’s outside of that just gently bringing yourself back. I think that’s the key to being mindful is that you will have thoughts come in and prop in but just gently bring yourself back, don’t judge yourself that you’re not being mindful, that’s normal for everybody just bring yourself back to that present moment.

Another few things that you can do is being grateful, being aware of the things that are good in your life – that’s another way of being mindful. You could use meditation to bring yourself down into a relaxed state and being mindful in that moment. Being mindful in a conversation can be really important, we’re often not truly a 100% listening. In the next conversation you have with your partner try to be really mindful, actively listening and it can be a very powerful thing in those situations. Being mindful can bring you so much. I really encourage you to have a look into some of the tools that might work for you to help you to be mindful and to bring your focus back to the present moment rather than always being so future-focused.

I think mindfulness can make a difference but it has to be right for you. I think it’s become such a buzz word that people can get caught up in not doing it right and it can apply to lot’s of different things. It could just be that when you take yourself out for a walk, that you’re not listening to anything, you’re not on your phone, you’re just out enjoying your surroundings and being present. It could be that you take up something like meditation, yoga or you start journaling. These are all different things that are associated with mindfulness. They have to work for you. Part of being mindful is just being really present in how you’re feeling and also being kind to yourself and self protecting, it could be that mindfulness for you is actually stopping obsessing for something that you’ve seen on social media, so it comes in lot’s of different ways therefore don’t’ give yourself a hard time if the obvious ways of being mindful don’t quite work for you because you will be able to find something that does give you a little bit of an opportunity to just stop and have a bit more time to just be rather than always worrying and always thinking about the next thing you could be doing, it can be more simple than you think.

Mindfulness can make a difference, why? Because we, humans, are the ones that can choose to be miserable or happy no matter the circumstances we are in our life. Infertility is one of the things that can happen to anyone in the world; men, women, and will add to the normal stress and problems that we have in life. So happiness is not a magical thing that is going to happen by me telling you “oh, just smile and you’re going to be happy”. No, happiness is a choice, it’s the same with infertility.

When we are going through an infertility process and going back to the answer in the first question, the fact that we learn to accept that it’s not easy is a very important thing to walk through the mindfulness, to train the mind, to do mind shifts in our journey. When we accept we are trying to say ‘okay, it’s not going to be easy, I know that I’m going to cry, I know that probably I’m going to have days that I’m going to feel like crap and I just want to cry the whole day and I’m going to be the most negative person, but I will definitely do something after I get out all my negativity, and after I feel it I’ll move on and continue because I cannot stop, and this is out of my control so my attitude is going to be something that I put on the plate to make it a little easier’. How?

Meditation is also very very helpful and it doesn’t need to be a one-hour meditation you know, meditation is something that doesn’t need to be thought about, we can do it by ourselves. I have a brain that works at 10 million thoughts per hour; I want to finish everything at the same time. But somehow, in the day I sit and I say “okay, I cannot do that, I want to but I can’t, so let me do it one by one”. So meditate, take a deep breath, go outside, feel the air; for three minutes close your eyes, you don’t even need to tell your thoughts to be quiet, if your thoughts are going let them go, allow them because when we meditate we are giving a kind of food to our physical body to relax. And again, it doesn’t need toxic positivity, we need to let go of whatever toxic is in our brain and body, to open a space for the positivity to come. And how do we do that? By allowing that to be felt…

So yes, if we are very stressed or something, feel it. I have a friend that says “give 15-20 minutes a day to your crappy feelings”. Sit with them, talk with them and tell them “okay, yes, I know you are here, I can do anything… you want to be felt? Come, feel it, write, cry, whatever”. Then you’re going to feel a kind of relief and go to that mindfulness. Manifest that you are healthy, that you are doing all that is in your hands to walk this path, and that you will continue even in your most difficult moments to do whatever it is to increase the possibility of having that baby. But at the same time, look around; you have a life, enjoy a date with your husband if you have a partner, go for a massage, go for a manicure or pedicure, take time for yourself because self-care is a tool that can help our mind to shift right away. How are we going to be able to receive a baby or to prepare our bodies for pregnancy if we don’t take care of ourselves physically and mentally? So mindfulness is something that again is easy to say, difficult to take action on it but the only way between the two is to do it. I am going to do it, so make the decision and start step by step.