infertility

this week was another hard week. one minute i was heartbroken and devastated and the next i was hopeful and looking forward to potential and possibilities. 

this week i did a lot of thinking about infertility. and let me tell you, they weren't happy thoughts ... 

being infertile makes me feel defective. 

broken. 

one thing that sets women apart from men is the ability to bare children. and i can't. 

and i wont. 

“The English language lacks the words to mourn an absence. For the loss of a parent, grandparent, spouse, child or friend, we have all manner of words and phrases, some helpful some not. Still we are conditioned to say something, even if it is only “I’m sorry for your loss.” But for an absence, for someone who was never there at all, we are wordless to capture that particular emptiness. For those who deeply want children and are denied them, those missing babies hover like silent ephemeral shadows over their lives. Who can describe the feel of a tiny hand that is never held?” 

― Laura Bush 

infertility hurts. i ache. there is no cure for my infertility and there is no cure for this pain. there are no words for the absence of a child. if i had a child and lost it, then people would know. people would understand that i am grieving. 

this week a student asked me, "why don't you have any kids? aren't you going to be lonely for the rest of your life?" 

stab.

right in the heart.  

we tried. for 2 1/2 years. we tried hormones and pills and injections and daily blood tests at 7am, and intrusive ultrasounds every second day and hundreds and hundreds of dollars. and each time we would hope. we would dream. we would be sure that this was the time that would work. and it never was. the test would always come back negative. i can't count how many test strips i peed on. 

“I found that each time a test was negative, it stopped the dreaming and hoping for a while. Taking the test was a way of puncturing the balloons of hope, because if I didn't, they would lift and lift without any evidence, and their falling back down every month was too painful. Essentially, I took all these tests to keep myself from hoping, because the hoping was breaking my heart.” 
― Shauna Niequist

infertility makes me feel like i wasn't supposed to be born a woman. like everything about me is all wrong. like i am broken inside. the cause of my infertility is too many androgens - too many male hormones. and i have male pattern baldness. what the fuck? how is that fair? i am a woman. i am supposed to have female hormones. i am supposed to have hair on the top of my head. i am supposed to ovulate. i am supposed to have regular periods. 

i am supposed to be able to make a baby. 

and i can't. 

since the beginning of human history, all over the world, a woman's worth has been defined by her uterus and it's productivity. i am supposed to have the CHOICE of whether or not i want to have a baby. i don't have that choice. 

and it kills me. 

“I remember thinking about how mothers were prepared to run into burning buildings to save their children's lives. I thought I should be able to go through a bit more suffering, a bit more inconvenience to give my children life. It made me feel noble. But now I realize I'm a crazy woman running into a burning house for children who don't exist.” 
― Liane Moriarty

eventually we had to stop. stop the craziness that was our lives. stop the roller coaster. stop the hoping and the dreaming. stop the heart ache that came with every negative test. 

and every negative test came with guilt about my body and it's inability to do such a simple thing as ovulate and fertilize and keep a child. something that billions of women across the world do every year. and i couldn't. 

guilt. 

i am trying to take my health into my own hands. to fight against this disease that i have. to take strides to take care of myself. i am trying. and it is hard. and no matter what i do, i have to live with this. i have to live with too many male hormones. i have to live with too much insulin. i have to live with hair loss. i have to live with weight gain and difficulty losing weight. i have to live with not being able to handle eating sugar. i have to live with being infertile. 

... needless to say, this was an emotional week. and i can't believe i made it to friday. but here i am, alive and full of possibilities. 

be kind to yourself,

xoxo

...

guilt

today's post is co-written by my friend LES. i almost feel like she wrote the bulk of the post. and i think it is an important post, so i am going to publish it. 

"Guilt is a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes—accurately or not—that he or she has compromised his or her own standards of conduct or has violated a moral standard, and bears significant responsibility for that violation."  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt_(emotion)

guilt is something that we all feel at some point. whether warranted or not. i feel like we are always already guilty. born with guilt built in as a mechanism of reacting and interacting with our world. the trick is to know how to use guilt as a teacher. 

LES says that there are 3 types of guilt:

1. you have no part to play but feel guilty.
2. you have some part but don't own it all
3. you are to blame and own all the guilt. 

how we deal with these situations is related to our resilience. 

"Guilt and its associated causes, merits, and demerits are common themes in psychologyand psychiatry. Both in specialized and in ordinary language, guilt is an affective state in which one experiences conflict at having done something that one believes one should not have done (or conversely, having not done something one believes one should have done). It gives rise to a feeling which does not go away easily, driven by 'conscience'.Sigmund Freud described this as the result of a struggle between the ego and the superego – parental imprinting. Freud rejected the role of God as punisher in times of illness or rewarder in time of wellness. While removing one source of guilt from patients, he described another. This was the unconscious force within the individual that contributed to illness, Freud in fact coming to consider "the obstacle of an unconscious sense of guilt...as the most powerful of all obstacles to recovery." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt_(emotion)

guilt as an obstacle. we get stuck in our guilt and find it hard to move forward. LES talked about full guilt and partial guilt:

with partial guilt, you can look at what is your part, but then look at how it isn't, who else was involved, how you are part of a bigger picture.
and with full guilt- you did do it - how you can learn from it and make sure you dont do it again. how you can understand why you did what you did in the moment and how this can help you release some of the shame /guilt and move forward and learn.

learning from our actions and our behaviour is the most important thing that we can do in life. 

so what? how do we deal with guilt?

1. identify what kind of guilt you are experiencing.
2. identify the purpose of the guilt in your life?
3. make amends. 
4. recognize what you did, and move on.
5. learn from your behaviours/actions

and how is guilt connected to resilience? 

resilience is our ability to bounce back from our guilt, from things that have happened to us, from things that we think are our fault, whether or not they are. 

LES has been exploring resilience, how she can relate to other people's stories and how resilience can hold strength and weakness in one definition.

so what is resilience and how is it helpful?

resilience is the ability to adapt to stress and adversity. it is the ability to get knocked down and get back up again. 

i want to talk about ferns ... yes, that's right ... ferns ... the plant. 

ferns are really cool for a number of reasons. and they are a symbol of resilience. 

ferns have been around for about 360 million years. they grow in various climates and ecosystems, from dry lands to oceans. ferns don't have seeds. they contain everything within themselves to reproduce. ferns grow in adverse conditions. and when conditions are adverse, ferns curl up to protect themselves until after the storm. 

ferns are also used as a spiritual symbol. 

"The tightly curled fronds of young ferns are deceptive and it would be impossible to guess what a full grown fern would look like at this stage of development. Human kind is the same. Our consciousness must be awakened through life experience, learning, and awareness. Like the fern, we grow and flourish if we unfurl toward light or truth. The more we unfurl, the more the tendrils of our true nature begin to show as we loosen, surrender and soften, releasing and opening as we let go of old stories and rigidly constructed belief systems which contribute to negative patterns of behavior." http://www.fernlifecenter.com/about-fern-life/why-the-fern/

LES said: 

the fern has such strength and yet equal vulnerability. It has the ability to let itself be vulnerable and be beatiful in its vulnerability. I love that they also have the strength in their core to keep them going when things get tough and that they are able to curl themselve up and weather the storm - protecting their vulneralble branchy bits… still there, still holding on, just able to keep all the bits safe with the strength of the core. its a resourceful little bugger… i love that about it. it is often overlooked becuase it isn't shiny and pretty on the outside but it holds much depth and strength and intensity…. i like that. I identify with that.

what does resilience mean to you? what images come to mind? what symbols? 

i look forward to your responses. 

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

guilt

guilt. 

we all have it. we all claim that it's not worth having. we all want to be rid of it. and we all have it anyway. 

“Maybe there's more we all could have done, but we just have to let the guilt remind us to do better next time.” 
― Veronica Roth

guilt can be used as a means to get yourself to do something that you don't want to be do. it can be used to remind us of what we can improve upon. there is always something that could be better - something that could have been done better. 

"There's no problem so awful, that you can't add some guilt to it and make it even worse.” 
― Bill Watterson

today nosy nora absolved me of my guilt over something small and huge that i did. it doesn't matter what i did or didn't do. the point is that it took someone else telling me that it's okay. it took someone else to forgive me before i could forgive myself. maybe that's why confession is so important. maybe we need to have someone forgive us so that we can do the work required to forgive ourselves. 

“So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.” 
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

guilt can eat you up. in an attempt to prevent the world from knowing what you feel guilty about, you often show your cards. we can't keep secrets forever. we have to tell someone. no matter how guilty we feel. no matter how shameful the secret is. 

there is a difference between shame and guilt. 

shame is a deep feeling of unworthiness, whereas guilt is a regret for something we have done. they are not the same thing. yet, you can feel both guilt and shame about the same event. 

“Sometimes I just want to paint the words "It's my fault" across my forehead to save people the time of being pissed off at me.” 
― Christina Westover

sometimes we have so much guilt that it is easier to just walk around apologizing for everything despite whose fault it is. there are times i feel so guilty for something that someone else did that it crushes me. 

“Guilt isn't always a rational thing, Clio realized. Guilt is a weight that will crush you whether you deserve it or not.” 
― Maureen Johnson

guilt is crushing. it just is. 

“I get up and pace the room, as if I can leave my guilt behind me. But it tracks me as I walk, an ugly shadow made by myself.” 
― Rosamund Lupton

we can't walk away from our guilt. it follows us throughout life and throughout time. and the only way to get out from under guilt is to forgive. i don't mean rationalize, i mean truly forgive. 

when i was 18, i was working at the school library. on the last day before the christmas holidays, a grade 9 boy found a wallet and turned it in to me. i then turned it in to the office. it had over $2000 in it. the gentleman who had lost the wallet, right before christmas, was so impressed and grateful, that i was given a monetary reward. my friend gigi said that i shouldn't keep the money because it was the young boy who found the wallet and turned it in. 

i kept the money. 

it has been 18 years and i still think about that. i still wish that i could find that man, and give him the money and apologize for keeping it. 

i had to forgive myself, however. i didn't know who the boy was. i wouldn't have recognized him. and i was so overcome with grief at gigi's death that it didn't occur to me that i could have made an announcement to find him. 

i forgive myself. 

but i don't forget. 

“When you are guilty, it is not your sins you hate but yourself.” 
― Anthony de Mello

guilt causes shame gremlins to shout at you that you are unworthy, undeserving, useless, and a loser. guilt makes you hate yourself. which is why it is so important to forgive yourself and move on. learn from your mistakes. and don't repeat them. 

“It has always seemed that a fear of judgment is the mark of guilt and the burden of insecurity.” 
― Criss Jami

guilt is the fear of being judged. by others, and by yourself. the fear of being judged makes me choose to do things that i don't want to do because i feel guilty saying no. i feel guilty standing up for myself. i feel guilty not doing what i feel obligated to do. 

“I would forget it fain,
But oh, it presses to my memory,
Like damnèd guilty deeds to sinners' minds.
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

I would love to forget my guilt, but it is ingrained in my memory. so how do we move on? how do we forgive ourselves? what do we have to DO?

“Guilt is a destructive and ultimately pointless emotion” 
― Lynn Crilly

we simply have to forgive. there are no steps. there is no magic wand. there is only forgiveness and knowledge that you have learned a lesson. life is about learning. life is one giant classroom. without mistakes, the world would be boring. without mistakes, there would be no creativity, no inventions, no inspiration, no adventure. guilt is what keeps our morals in check. 

be kind to yourself, and forgive yourself. 

xoxo

...

balance and self-care

www.achieveinafrica.org

when i was a child, i had penpals all over the world. my favourite activity was to write a letter, on real paper, put it in an international mail envelope, put a stamp on it, and then drop it into the red mailbox. then i would wait about a month until i received a reply. my best pen pal lived in zimbabwe and sent me all sorts of letters and presents. i still have a necklace that she sent me 25 years ago. 

as an adult, in our constantly advancing technological world, i now have a digital pen pal: WTR

howtothisandthat.com 

WTR and i met randomly on a scrabble app about 4 years ago. and after a year of playing each other and chatting, decided to become facebook friends. and now she is my pen pal, only we chat in real time. funny how the world and the ways we make connections has changed so much in 20 years. 

today when i was chatting with WTR about my guilt over having been off work, she said:

"As women, we're programmed to think we can and should do it all. it's hard to accept that we can't and shouldn't try."

she is so right. 

from birth, we are conditioned to think that we can do it all. and when we can't do it all, we feel bad about ourselves. and we judge other women who don't seem to be doing it all. we judge women who give themselves permission to take time for themselves. we judge women who choose to stay home with their kids and we judge women who leave their kids and go to work. 

vicky-lifeonthehill.blogspot.com

we feel guilty and ashamed of being unable to balance work, family, home, friends, and a social life. cooking, cleaning, working, being a loving and attentive wife, a mother, a friend, a daughter, a sister, a cousin, a niece, an employee with responsibilities ... it's hard work. and no one can do it all without giving up themselves and their own needs. 

i decided to ask CP how she manages. she said:

"mostly i just make it all happen. and it feels like no one really notices,, except for other mamas. i tend to have a deep connection with those women. so, i make it work until i can't. and when i can't, i let it wash over me ... the way i do when i sit in a river with moving water. i cling to rocks and let the cool waters swim past me. and hopefully, when i come up for air, pieces of me haven't washed away ... no matter what, a new version of me will eventually be molded, eroded, and sculpted. and most of the time i am tickled and delighted to be in it. but it's fucking hard." 

how do we balance our lives so that we can give to others and to ourselves? how do we give to ourselves? 

kirstentulsian.com 

i think the balance comes in finding something for yourself. maybe it's coffee with a friend once a week, a yoga class, a favourite tv show, meditation, going for a walk, going to the gym, or even blogging. this blog is where i put my energy for myself. and writing posts for this blog is how i take time for myself.

i asked CP, what about time for yourself? her response was "hahahahahaha, i have to work up the courage to ask for it. and not feel guilty. or shitty."

so i asked Kate the same question. she replied: 

"i am an extremely high energy person. i value my time and my life. i love my job but it will never take precedence over my kids. i love my girls but work made me a better mom. working out gives me joy, a social life, and keeps me fit and sane."

so how do we give ourselves permission to do the things that nourish our soul? how do we make ourselves believe and accept that we are worthy and deserving of time for ourselves? 

Geneen Roth wrote:

finding the things that are worth doing is the secret to happiness. i totally just made that up. but i think that it might be true. "celebrate every one of your hungers" whether it be hunger for food, or hunger for writing, or hunger for running, or dancing, or reading, or walking, or talking to a friend, or volunteering ... "if it doesn't bring you pleasure, it's not worth doing" doesn't mean don't do the laundry. the laundry needs to get done. so do the dishes, and the cooking, and the cleaning, and paying the bills, and doing the grocery shopping ... what it does mean is, if working out at the gym doesn't bring you pleasure, then that isn't the right exercise for you; find a dance class, or go for a walk, or swim, or ride your bike. find the thing that brings you pleasure. 

in the meanwhile, as always, 

be kind to yourself,

xoxo

...