19. How to Move Forward with Confidence

 Hi, friends. Welcome to Fearless Infertility a podcast for women struggling with the mental anguish that comes with infertility. My name is Jenica and after suffering in silence for too long I was able to pull myself out of the dark, take control over my mind, and create joy during my infertility experience. I’m here to help you do the same, sister. Let’s dive into today’s show.

Hello my friends and welcome back to Fearless Infertility. I am so grateful that you are here today with me and that you’ve really taken some time for yourself today. Whether you are multitasking like I always do when I’m listening to podcasts, doing laundry, or on a run, or in the car, or whether you’re just taking some time to rest. I’m so excited that you get to use these tools that I will share with you today to change your lives immediately and really move forward with confidence.

Today I’m going to start with some reviews that we have had on Apple Podcasts. I give away a pair of pajamas and socks that I’ve created for The Slice of Sun that you can also purchase on the website. I give a set away to one reviewer every week because I love your reviews and partially because they’re so much fun to read just selfishly.

I love that what I’m sharing is so helpful for you. But then also so that other women who are experiencing infertility will be able to more easily find these tools as well. And we can bring them into this community and embrace them. And so they know that they are not alone in their experience of infertility.

So the winner of today’s pajama and socks set, you can email me at [email protected] with your size and address. Madadinn is the username, and the title of her review is so comforting.

She says, “This podcast is so helpful to the mind and soul. I have been a part of The Slice of Sun community on Facebook, Instagram, and now podcast for a little over two years. And it helped me feel not so alone when going through the struggle of infertility. It has taught me so much. I now have my miracle babe. But I suggest this podcast to my friends who are going through IUIs and IVFs and they love it too. So grateful for Jenica creating this community.”

Thank you so much, that makes me so happy. And I’m going to talk a little bit more in a second about what we have for you who are mothers after experiencing infertility. So I’ll let you know in a second, stay tuned.

But another amazing review I wanted to read was by the username Readytogo, and she said, “Such a blessing. Thank you Jenica for sharing your journey and being such a blessing in my life. The timing of finding this podcast couldn’t have been more perfect. Just stumbled upon it last week. And I think I’ve listened to almost every episode. Such great advice and reminders. If you’re in a season of waiting I can’t recommend this podcast enough. Praying over Jenica and the listeners of this podcast. Don’t lose hope ladies.”

I love that message for everybody. And I also really love the term praying over you. One of my friends, Gretchen, who was on I can’t remember what episode. Gretchen Rossi, I think it’s podcast episode six maybe. She said she likes to pray over her little girl. I love the term praying over and I grew up in Texas and I love how people say, “Have a blessed day” and things like that. I love that, it’s a beautiful sentiment.

The last review I’ll read today is by Ahepps. She said, “I swear Jenica can read my mind. I found this podcast after an extremely rough Mother’s Day of celebrating the moms in my life while struggling to become a mother myself. Every podcast since that Monday Jenica has brought a new topic to the table that seems to fit and help me through the struggle that I’m going through that week. I can’t say enough how this has not only helped me realize that I’m not alone but has given me the tools and grace to push on.”

I love it that and it also makes me so happy to say that it gives you the grace to push on because we’re all just humans. We all have really hard trials that we’re experiencing, whether it’s infertility and other trials as well. And we’re just doing our best, you know? And so I love that you mentioned giving yourself grace, because I think we’re a little bit too hard on ourselves sometimes. And that’s one of my missions, just to help you remember who you are, which is an incredible daughter of God who is not perfect but is just living a full life.

So at the time of this recording, wow, it’s been an interesting couple of weeks. That’s just an understatement. So as many of you know, we announced that we were trying for baby number three. And last week we did a polyp, well when I say we, I went through a polyp removal surgery.

And I say we because I guess Tyler was totally on board with it because he had to just witness the wrath of my awful moods. Because one of the things that was in my protocol was to get on birth control to help regulate the thickness of my uterine lining, so it was at the right thickness so my doctor could see the polyps to get them out at the time of surgery.

And I personally don’t do well on birth control. I feel like we could do a whole topic on that because it’s synthetic hormones and your body just doesn’t, I respond to them very well. And I felt like I was just crawling in my own skin.

I was not feeling well at all, to say the least. I felt so uncomfortable. It was almost like I was watching myself outside of myself. Like it was like I was in tunnel vision or like a dream, and I just felt awful. I was doubting, “Why did we start doing this?”

And so I called my IVF coordinator and she was so kind. And she’s like, “Hey, can you do it for one more night? Can you take your birth control pill for one more night?” And I was like, “No. No, I cannot.” I was literally ready to just throw in the towel and be like, “This is not going to work out for me.”

So she said, “All right, you can stop today. We’ll make it work.” And so she’s like, “Call me if you start your period, any earlier than you were supposed to.” And I haven’t yet so everything’s still on track for my first ultrasound. And I will be updating everything on thesliceofsun.com.

There is a tab at the top called baby number three, so I’m updating it in blog posts. And the blog posts are written as letters to our future child. Which I actually did when I was trying to conceive our first child, which ended up being twins Harris and Goldie. And I will be updating the whole process there if you want to stay tuned.

And just, you know, the dramas and the ups and downs. It really gives me a chance to practice this incredible model and our thoughts and how our thoughts truly help us feel certain ways and act certain ways and give us the results that we want. And adding in all those crazy hormones just really does a number on you. So I will be updating you guys on that. And so far, after stopping taking the birth control I feel a million times better. So I’m not quitting yet people, we’re going to keep moving on.

I am so excited because I will be launching my coaching membership program on September 1st, where I will walk you through the tools that I teach here. The model that has completely changed my life. I have been able to take back control. I’ve been able to know how to feel however I want to feel and process the regular emotions. Both good and bad, the 50/50 of human life.

And I’m able to accept myself in those negative moments, right, “negative” moments where we all find ourselves sometimes. And it’s a normal part of being a human. And there are gifts in those moments, and so instead of running and hiding and trying to cover up those negative emotions, I now embrace myself in them. I’m able to process them cleanly and move forward.

So I will be helping you do the same on September 1st. So to be updated when that launches, and to come work with me, I would absolutely love to get to know you and work with you so we can apply these tools in your life as well, change your life as well sign up for my newsletter. It will be in the show notes and it’s also on the main page of thesliceofsun.com. And I cannot wait to get to know you.

So today’s topic of the podcast came to me when I was having a Marco Polo conversation with one of my friends. Marco Polo is an app that we use. It’s just basically like videos back and forth and it’s awesome because we’re all busy and we can just get on there, record it, send it, and then they can get back to us when they can.

So anyway, my friend Amanda and I were having a conversation and we were talking about how to move forward with confidence. And we’re both believers in Jesus Christ, we both have a relationship with God. And we both really take that time as sacred every day to be able to communicate with God and give ourselves that space to receive personal revelation from the Lord and to pray and to do the things that will fill our minds with peace and connection with God.

And she was asking me how specifically that I move forward with confidence when I’m making hard decisions in my life. And we were talking about business specifically. She is the health coach that has helped me a lot the last few months. We were friends before that, we’re still friends. She’s just an incredible person and so I love having these in depth conversations with her about things that really matter.

And so one of her questions was how to move forward with confidence. And I really thought about that because it’s a great question. And I kind of came up with a formula for myself that I use right now and wanted to share with you. Because it really helps a lot in moving forward with confidence. And we all have big decisions, whether it’s in infertility and any other experiences in our lives. We have to make decisions. We have our agency and those decisions will determine how our lives end up.

And how do we move forward with confidence when those decisions are difficult, right? So I came up with four separate ways on how I specifically move forward with confidence in my life when I am making a decision. And I want to walk through that with you because I think it will help you a lot. I hope it will help you a lot.

So the first way that I’m able to move forward with confidence is to ask better questions. I learned about this concept and became more aware of it when I did my coach certification. Which is the model that I teach you and became a life coach for women with infertility. And that concept is to ask better questions.

So instead of statements, you can turn your doubt into questions. For example saying things like, “I don’t know the answer.” That completely closes you off to possibilities, right? When you say you don’t know the answer your brain stops trying and looking for the answer. And while that may be true at the moment, another way to look at a situation if you’re wanting to make a decision on which way to move forward, is to ask better questions.

So instead of saying things like, “I don’t know the answer to that” you could ask yourself like, “Okay, so I don’t know the answer to that right now, but what if I knew the answer? What if?” And that takes some pressure off because we don’t expect ourselves to know everything, right? But it also opens up our mind to possibility.

What if I did know the answer? Okay, and your brains going to fight back and say, “Well, you don’t.” You’re going to say, “Okay, all right, cool.
But what if I did?” And that helps me to come up with solutions to the problem and be creative, right? And be able to open myself up to maybe pathways that will lead me to the answer that I’m looking for.

Another really great question to ask yourself is what’s in the way? Maybe you don’t know the next step, but what’s in the way? What is that thing, that next step that is maybe blocking you from getting closer to your answer?

Another really great question is, what am I making that mean? Another question you could ask yourself when you are stuck and wanting to move forward with confidence is, are you willing to be that person? And I’ll talk about that more in a minute.

So just ask yourself better questions. Instead of shutting yourself off, which our brains like to do because it feels easier in the moment, ask yourself better questions and see what will come. And give yourself that space to be creative.

The second thing that I like to do in moving forward with confidence in a decision, or in moving forward with action is putting the thought in my mind that it’s not about me. It’s about helping people, for instance. So I think so much of us get stuck and are held back because we let our ego get in the way of any results that we want.

We are afraid of what people will think of us. We are afraid of making mistakes. When we make it about ourselves, we stay stuck because we make results mean things about us. And I’ll give you an example here. So I was on TV a few weeks ago, and normally I’d be pretty nervous about it. I think that most people don’t love getting up and speaking in public or being in front of people and having the spotlight on them. And I’m no exception to that. You can kind of get worked up, right?

So I woke up that morning, for instance, and I wasn’t terribly nervous beforehand but I looked in the mirror and I was like, “Oh!” I’m like, “I should have gotten my hair done.” I hadn’t got my hair done in like three or four months or something like that. And I was like, “Oh, maybe I should have gotten my hair done before I was on television.” And then I started thinking about what I was going to wear. And I’m like, “Oh, maybe I should have thought about this before.”

And all of these thoughts sort of popping in my head that don’t matter. Like you think about it, they had asked me to come on TV to talk about infertility and thoughts that are common during infertility that aren’t helpful. And ways to reframe that. And that was what it was about, right? That’s what it’s about.

It’s not about my two inch roots that are growing out of my hair. Do they look great? No, not really. Does anyone care? No. Literally no one cares.
And so to remind yourself that it’s not about me, it just literally takes the pressure off most things, honestly.

So I would challenge you to try that out. And to remind yourself that typically what you’re doing isn’t about you, right? If you’re so caught up in protecting your ego, then think about if that’s the way that you want to live your life.

And so for me, what really took the pressure off of that TV segment was to remember I wasn’t going on there so people would think I was cool. I wasn’t going on there so people would look at it and be like, “Oh man, that girl’s hair looks great. She sure doesn’t have two inch roots.” You know, literally, I doubt people were thinking that. And even if they were, I don’t care. It’s not about me.

The reason why I went on there was to help any woman who happened to be listening to that TV segment that day, who was feeling alone, who was feeling frustrated, who had thoughts coming into her head that she didn’t know how to control. My purpose in going on there was to show her what those thoughts were doing in her life and to help reframe them to help her move forward in infertility.

And so when I thought about that, it’s not about me, no one cares about me. In a good way, right? Obviously, people care about me, my loved ones care about me. But people don’t care about what I’m wearing, they don’t care about my hair. What I was going on there for was to help women with infertility. And so it really honestly took the pressure off. And I was like, “Hey, cool, I can do that. I’m really good at that. I’ve learned a lot about it, I’ve got this.”

And so that’s my second how to move forward with confidence bullet point, if you will. Remembering it’s not about you, it’s about helping people. And it’s about getting whatever result you want, and letting your ego go and keep out of the equation.

The third way that I am able to move forward with confidence is that I am not afraid to fail if I don’t make it mean anything about me as a person. And I want to give you a specific example. Because like I said, I’m launching my coaching membership program on September 1st. I’m beyond thrilled about it because I know for a fact that what I will be teaching there and I will be helping women with infertility there. Hopefully, I’ll see you there.

I know that what I’m teaching will literally change their lives. It is the most helpful thing I’ve ever personally used and experienced. I’ve been able to take back all of the control of my life. I’ve been able to get results that are impossible, right, “impossible” because of this amazing model that I’ve been taught and I have applied to my life. And I want to be able to teach other women to do the same for themselves.

And I was terrified. I was like, “Why am I scared of this? I’ve been online for a few years; I’ve shared about amazing products that I love. It doesn’t give me anxiety to share about products that I love.” I’m like, “What is it about selling this, if you will, that is giving me so much anxiety?”

And I did coaching on it, I hired a coach to help me with that specifically because I’m like trying to figure it out. And I’m like, “What is it about this specifically that gives me anxiety? It just makes me feel very uncomfortable.” And through the coaching, I was able to figure out that it was because I was making it mean that if someone didn’t want the coaching membership program that there was something wrong with me. That I was a failure, right?

And I know for a fact that this program will genuinely help women go from feeling completely alone and scared and not knowing how to move forward in infertility, to confident and to knowing how to manage their minds during this process. So it’s not about me, right? It kind of ties in with bullet point number two, but any result that you’re getting doesn’t mean anything about you as a person, right?

It doesn’t mean that I failed if someone doesn’t want to join the program. It might mean that it’s just not a good time for them in their lives for whatever reason. And I know that that fear could hold me back from helping hundreds of women be able to manage their minds and share these tools that have helped me so immensely.

And so when you are trying to move forward with confidence, ask yourself, what are you making it mean? And if you’re making it mean something about you as a person, I want you to really evaluate that. And ask yourself if that’s what you want to be making it mean.

And for me, my offer and what I’m creating, isn’t me. It’s a beautiful, amazing thing that women can take to completely transform their lives and love their lives again, but it’s not me. So I think that if I’m not afraid to fail because it doesn’t mean anything about me that I will be able to be confident in moving forward. Because then I can make that failure mean, if there is failure, right? I think whenever we’re trying something new there probably will be. I can just make that failure mean that that’s something that maybe didn’t work out and that’s not the path. So now I know what isn’t. So then I can move forward to what is and try new things and be creative.

The next thing that really helps me to move forward with confidence is to ask myself, who would a person be who gets results like that? Not what would she do, but who would she be? What would she care about? What would she think? What would she spend her time on? What would she not care about? And then, am I willing to be that person?

If that person is that way, and I want what that person would have, hypothetically, am I willing to be that person? And if I am, then be her now. And that is something that has helped me so much to really help get specific answers in how am I going to get from here to there? Who would a person be who gets results like that?

I think that you need to start with who the person is because your thoughts determine your feelings, which determine your actions. And so another way as well, if you’re having a hard time with that, is kind of what do I think this person would be doing? You can also ask yourself that, if that helps you better, if your brain finds that easier to start.

And then work your way back. Okay, so if this person that gets results like that, that I want, does these things, then how would she be feeling when she’s doing those things? Choose an emotion, one emotion. Would she be feeling confident? Would she be feeling happy? Would she be feeling determined?

And then that will determine what thought you need to put in your brain and truly believe and keep there and work to keep you there. Because that’s the person that you need to be to accomplish results like that. And maybe there’s not anyone out there that is getting the results that you want, right? Maybe you can’t think of someone specific. And so you could even ask yourself, “If I was someone who got results like that, who would I need to be?”

And I’ve been able to answer very specifically who I would need to be and what I would need to care about to get results that I want in the future. And that really helps me to be confident and gives me like a compass. Because now I have the person that I need to be and I can start being her now. I can start caring about the things that she cares about now.

I shared a quote on Instagram, if you’re not following over there, come on over, we have lots of fun. The Instagram handle is thesliceofsun.infertility. And my coach, Brooke Castillo, who trained me to be a life coach. She said something the other day that was so profound and I absolutely loved it, and it’s something that I truly believe as well.

She said, “I don’t believe that there are average people. I think everyone’s extraordinary. I think the difference is people willing to do hard things get to experience how extraordinary they are.” And that’s Brooke Castillo, she said that.

I love that because I truly think that we are all absolutely incredible people. I think that the same God made every single one of us and we all have this truly limitless potential within us. But I think a lot of us hold ourselves back because we’re afraid to feel really hard feelings.

And I want to talk about self-confidence and where that comes from. And kind of what that means and how you can measure it for yourself. So if you won’t give up, that means you are a 10/10 out of confidence. And that’s really what self-confidence is, it’s moving forward knowing that you can handle whatever emotion comes our way.

Because that’s the worst that most of us will experience, is just a negative emotion. And that makes us really, really uncomfortable. Right? A lot of us don’t want to feel anger. A lot of us don’t want to feel embarrassment. A lot of us don’t want to feel failure. A lot of us don’t want to feel that way. And so we hold ourselves back thinking that we’re just incapable of accomplishing that.

Well, that’s not it at all. It’s exactly what Brooke said. She says, “I think the difference is people willing to do hard things, get to experience how extraordinary they are.” You’re already extraordinary. But maybe you’re not experiencing it because you’re so scared and you’re telling yourself that you can’t do these things, when really what it’s about is that you’re just not willing to experience that negative emotion that’s on the other side, to get there.

And of course there are exceptions when it comes to physical safety. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Physical safety choices we don’t come across too often. I think most of us probably listening to this podcast are fairly safe physically in our life. So that’s not what I’m talking about here.

What I’m talking about is those scary emotions that come from trying new things and maybe failing. And so if you’re willing to experience all of the emotions and you won’t give up, then you’re really at a 10/10 out of self-confidence. Because you know that you’re capable of experiencing any of those hard emotions that may come your way. And honestly, most of us have experienced a lot of them, if not most of them, already in our lives. And if you haven’t, you’re capable of it. And it’s a decision that you can make.

I also wanted to say that in something that you want to accomplish and move forward with confidence towards, make sure what that is is worth your time. And if it’s a result that you truly, truly believe is yours and it’s essentially as good as done, because that’s something that you want so desperately. Then that’s something that’s worth the time to coach yourself through.

And it’s worth coaching yourself through that mentally. Because you will be able to get there when you do. And when you can choose thoughts that will allow you to progress. So choose things that are genuinely worth your time. And those are the things that will be worth putting the time into to work through.

And, yeah, they might not always be easy, and that’s okay. I don’t think that most things worth doing are going to be easy, because they’re going to push you beyond who you already are. And they’re going to give you skills and give you tools through that experience that you don’t have right now. And you will be a bigger, better person on the other end of that.

And so make sure what you’re wanting to accomplish is worth your time. And if it’s not, not a big deal. You can drop it. We all have missions in our lives, we all have goals and results that we want in our lives. And we get to choose where we put our energy.

I am so excited to get to start coaching you through those things and helping you apply these tools. So make sure you sign up for my newsletter. Again, it’s in the show notes and on thesliceofsun.com.

Another thought that I absolutely love that my coach shared with me when I was going through the coaching certification program at the Life Coach School, she said remember that rose colored glasses and gray colored glasses are literally just both made up. There is no actual reality when it comes to what is possible for you. But the world says it’s safer to see it through gray colored glasses. And I say do whatever you want because both are made up either way.

Our reality is based on whatever thoughts we choose to believe. And just as a recap on the model that I teach, our circumstances are always neutral. And the way that we know that is because I might see it, the exact same circumstance, differently than you.

For example, raining outside is neutral. I might absolutely love the rain. I might think it’s cozy. I might love to wrap up in my blanket when it’s raining outside and watch a movie inside. And I might think it’s amazing. You on the other hand, it might hate rain. You don’t like when it rains outside. It’s too cloudy and depressed and it’s not allowing you to go outside and do the activities that you normally like to do.

So that circumstance is neutral, by the way you and I see it completely determines the feelings that we have about it. But it’s neutral until we have those thoughts.

So the same applies to the way you see any situation. There is no actual reality when it comes to what is possible for you. But like I said before, the world says it’s safer to see through gray color glasses, and we can decide that that’s not true for ourselves. Our brain just tries to protect us and we can choose to see it differently.

Our reality is shaped by our thoughts, so the rules that we’ve convinced ourselves are true and that we need to abide by just honestly don’t apply. We can make up our own rules. So why not see the world through rose colored glasses? Because either is made up anyway.

So to recap today’s episode, the four ways that I am able to move forward with confidence are to ask myself better questions. Number two, it’s not about me. Three, I’m not afraid to fail if I don’t make it mean anything about me as a human being with my worth. Because all of us are 100% whole. And then four, who would a person be who gets results like that? Ask yourself that question.

I am so excited to launch this coaching membership program. If you’re not in our private Facebook group, make sure to join that. The link will be in the show notes, it’s called Fertility Family by The Slice of Sun. It’s a really amazing way for me to get to connect with you and for you to connect with other women experiencing infertility.

So I’d love to have you there and sign up for the newsletter I will be reaching out to you to give you more information as it gets closer so we can work together and apply these tools in our lives. And I love you guys, I will see you next week. So, so grateful you were able to join me today. Bye-bye.

To celebrate the launch of the show I’m going to be giving away pajama and sock sets from The Slice of Sun that I have personally designed. They are the most buttery, soft, delightful things you’ll ever put on your body. And I’m going to be giving away five bundles to five lucky listeners who subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts. It doesn’t have to be a five star review, although I sure hope you love the show. I genuinely want your honest feedback so I can create an awesome show that provides tons of value to you who are experiencing infertility.

Visit thesliceofsun.com/podcast launch to learn more about the contest and how to enter and I’ll be announcing the winners on the show in an upcoming episode.

Thank you for listening to Fearless Infertility. If you want more tools and resources to help you during your infertility experience visit thesliceofsun.com. See you next week.