When you’re just not sure your heart can stand to break again.
When you feel like giving up on everything.
When you start to wonder if it’s meant to work out for everyone else but not for you.
When all you can think is…
Do I risk everything one more time or say enough is enough?
If I do, will it work out THIS time or will I be left picking up more pieces from a broken heart?
If I do end up giving up, will I always be left wondering what if?
Will I/we ever be OK?
When the uncertainty is unbearable…
Just know, something important is happening. You are coming back to yourself to find that inner compass that will tell you which way is the right way for you. Feeling this vulnerable is scary as hell, terrifyingly uncertain, but you are in the process of ‘Daring Greatly’.
Why is it that when you most want to feel calm, sure and clear about the way ahead, you end up wading through the murkiest swamp of vulnerability, doubt, fear and confusion instead?
When you just want things to line up, for that trail of breadcrumbs you can follow, that confirms that you are going in the right direction.
When you just want to know that if you try again, risk your heart, your finances, put your body through it all again, it will all work out this time.
If we could only know that pregnancy was just around the corner with that final IVF treatment, or was about to happen naturally that month, or that our babies were waiting for us some other way – wouldn’t it be so much easier.
But instead of the lovely clear path, instead so often it involves wading through the murk. I TRULY HATE it with a passion, but I’ve also come to see it as a really important part of the process.
It always brings to mind the book, ‘We’re going on a bear hunt”, where they have to navigate many obstacles to find their bear. Every time, the book says, ‘Can’t go round it. Can’t go under it. Can’t go over it…GOT TO GO THROUGH IT and off they go through the squelchy mud, and the deep dark forest.
Only instead of the mud, we’re squelching through …
‘I’m too old’, ‘too stressed’, ‘too broken’
‘It must just be me’
‘My FSH is high / my AMH is low’
‘I must be stupid or even worse a bit sad and desperate’
‘My head is screaming one thing but my heart is whispering another.’
‘It’s so much safer, easier, simpler to just accept things as they are and not take this risk’
‘I’m going to get it all wrong’, ‘It’s all my fault”
So how DO you get through all of this?
How DO you know when it’s right to continue or right to give it up and carve out a different path?
The best way i’ve found is this…so simple but true.
What makes you feel (even just a tiny bit) relieved? We’re talking seriously teeny tiny here.
Is it jumping straight back in?
Is it pausing, taking a breather, finding yourself again?
Is it changing direction?
There will be all sorts of truly scary emotions bundled up together in every one of these decisions but somewhere in your heart, your inner compass will point to the one that makes you feel a slight sense of relief more than any other. A tiny fraction of the tension and fight in your body will release. That’s YOUR WAY.
It will be dark and squelchy and that’s all fine.
You don’t need to be 100%.
You don’t even need to be 55%. Just go with the one that tips it slightly for now. Even if it seems to fly in the face of all logic. One step at a time. Knowing that any time you need to, or your compass re-directs you to, you get to change direction.
And if your compass just spins out? It’s ok. The panic will probably feel huge, but give yourself the time you need. The panic and the direction will settle and then that little spark, however minute, will kick back in.
And remember…
Whatever choice you make, remember you are daring greatly, as Brenne Brown would say.
These decisions are huge, and complex and involve so many layers of emotion. Wobbling, doubting, putting it down and picking it up again, free falling, feeling vulnerable, stupid, and totally exposed, that’s all part of it.
It’s not pretty, and it’s definitely not comfortable and takes so much courage, trust and faith, but it’s that courage that i see in every single person that’s on this journey.
Cath
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