Why is it that when you choose what car you are going to buy you suddenly see more of them on the road? When I was training as a hypnotherapist our trainer used to do a group hypnosis session at the end of the day to help cement the learning etc. and he used to have some fun by priming us to be surprised at how many minis we saw on our journey home. This always surprised me at how it worked! I used to get the tube home but even in my short walk to the station at either end of the journey I was suddenly aware of mini’s in the traffic when usually I probably wouldn’t have been aware of the traffic particularly.
There is a phrase, ‘the more you focus on, the more you get’. My mind was primed to see minis. It was focussing on minis so it could make the match and identify them when it saw one. Your mind is pretty much constantly on your infertility journey and how much you want a baby. So guess what, what do you see more of? Pregnant women and babies. Pretty tough eh?
For me seeing fathers with their young children was tough for me. It was a trigger for despair, anger and sadness. This is called an ‘anchor’. It is an external experience creating an immediate internal response. For example you may notice how certain smells take you back to childhood? Perhaps they remind you of your grandparents, parents or something else. It is automatic response. I was automatically transported from the mood I was in to being acutely aware of our infertility and my fading hope and increasing despair.
So, what can you do about it? Well, the more you explore and let go of the thoughts and beliefs that surround your infertility/wanting to have a baby the more your mind can find peace in the moment and not be constantly (even subconsciously) thinking/feeling. When you mind finds peace (which doesn’t mean giving up trying/wanting to have a baby) you are not constantly thinking about things, including hidden thinking – at times you are not even aware it is on your mind, just like me and the minis, it was in my subconscious, I didn’t have a pen and notepad/actively looking for them. When you mind lets go of thinking about it, you stop seeing things associated to that thinking. You can start to be more in the moment, experiencing the world in a different way, calmer, more peaceful and a sense of wellbeing (yes, it is possible believe me!).
Secondly you can actively create anchors, positive anchors. For example of you find it hard to speak in public and it is a necessary part of your job you can spend time imagining speaking in public, seeing it going really well and you feeling great doing it and associates this feeling and experience with either a physical sensation e.g. squeeze a knuckle or a particular smell e.g. an essential oil/favourite perfume. The more you spend time associating that experience with the squeeze/smell the stronger it gets. So when you come to speak you can either take a whiff of your smell or a subtle squeeze of your knuckle and the nerves are replaced with that confidence you felt when you imagined that great talk.
Remember, your mind cannot tell the difference between imaginary and reality so the emotions you feel when you imagine speaking with confidence are the real thing, your mind becomes familiar to it and can recall it more easily when you need it. I had a client who used her favourite perfume and before we went to speak would take a big breath of it in (having put some on just beforehand) as she walked up to speak. It transformed her state to one of confidence.
So, you could do this with seeing pregnant women. Imagine would you want want to feel, hopeful of confident that it is going to be you one day? Spend some time imagining you with your baby, or being pregnant, really experiencing how it feels. Once you are really experiencing that imagine seeing pregnant women, whilst keeping hold of that feeling. As you practice that you may be surprised how different you feel next time you see one out and about.
This is a fabulous way to turn that negative experience in to something more positive for you, and your fertility.
With love
