When we got married we knew about my wife’s (but not my) infertility and that we would probably not be able to have children. We loved children, we both worked in youth and children’s work and had many God-children (being the token couple without children!). But we thought we were OK with the fact we will probably never have any of our own. We thought wrong…
You know what you want don’t you? You know with all your heart all you want is to have a baby don’t you? And you believe you can/will be successful don’t you? Well a part of you does otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this or doing all the other things to increase you chances of success. However, you may be also be aware of a part of you however big or small that is not sure whether it is going to happen, perhaps it is starting to believe it is never going to happen or that the next cycle is not going to be successful, it doesn’t want to get your hopes up, to protect you from disappointment.
After a while my wife begin working on her health and fertility looking for a more natural and holistic way to manager her PCOS, not with the intent of having a baby as we never thought that was possible, purely for her health and wellbeing. It soon became apparent that the potential of her regaining her full fertility was becoming more and more a reality and the whole subject of whether we wanted children became more real.
We realised that deep down we longed to have children. We had been telling ourselves that we didn’t mind not having our own children as a way of protecting ourselves from the pain and grief of not being to. We had got on the rollercoaster of infertility which was to last many more years! In truth, we had allowed ourselves to get on, to truly experience our longing to be parents and thus the pain of infertility.
What about you, are you aware of a dialogue/tension/battle inside between part of you that believes you will get pregnant and part of you that not so positive, not wanting you believe it can happen? Let me guide you through exploring this further because if there is a part of you holding you back, that is what it is going to do, hold you back from being successful.
Play with this with me, put your logical thinking mind in the corner of the room and trust your instinct, intuition with this. Find somewhere quiet where you will not be disturbed to go through this exercise. I suggest you read through it first and then go through each step at a time. Listen to whatever you become aware of inside you, listen with feeling.
- Hold out your hands in front of you, palms up.
- If one hand represented the part of you that believes you will be successful which one would it be? There is no rhyme or reason to this, trust your instinct!
- So the other one is the part of you that for whatever reason doesn’t believe things will happen, almost doesn’t want you to believe it can happen.
- Think about the part of you that you will be successful. As you look at that hand what is like that part of you? What comes to mind when you think about that part of you? If an object/symbol/shape/person came to mind what would it be?
- Now do the same with the other hand/part. As you look at it/think about it what’s like that part of you?
- Turning to the positive you, what’s the intent of this part of you? It sounds obvious but see what comes to mind. If you had that fully and completely what would that give you? What comes to mind? And again, if you had this fully and completely what does this give you?
- Now do the same with the other part of you. What is the intent of this part of you? Perhaps to protect you from disappointment? Perhaps to protect you from something else? You may be surprised at what comes to mind. If you felt that protection/whatever it is trying to achieve fully and completely what will that give you? What comes to mind? And again if you had this fully and completely what does this give you?
- You may start to see how both parts are trying to achieve something similar – however in reality they are not achieving that as they are not working together.
- If there was something the not-so-positive part of you could learn from or respect about the positive part of you what do see coming to mind?
- Now, if there was something the positive part of you could learn or respect about the other part what do you think that is? Be open to it, you may be surprised to become aware of something, whether it is it’s determination, strength or something else.
- Now begin to have a dialogue between the two parts. What does the positive part want to say to the other part?
- What does the other part want to say in response? Keep the dialogue going and you may be surprised at what insight, understanding, coming together of these parts you may experience.
- Close your eyes and in whatever way you imagine it imagine these two parts coming together to be integrated inside you so the strengths of each one mean they are working together for what they are both trying to achieve. How does that feel?
- Rest in that place.
Enjoy the insight, understandings and integration you may experience with this!
Please do let me know how you get on. Post your comments and questions below!
With love
