32. I Almost Quit Last Week

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.

Welcome back to Fearless Infertility, on today’s podcast I am talking about when I wanted to quit everything. This was just a few weeks ago. At the end of the podcast episode you will know nine things that you can do when you feel like you want to quit everything. Stay tuned.

Ladies, thanks for popping in and hanging out with me for a little bit today. I am so proud of you for taking the time to fill up your own cup. I know that doing so is incredibly difficult when you have so many other responsibilities in life, but I also know for a fact that when you fill up your own cup, you then have much more to give to others. And we want to give to others, but I think that means being “selfish” first.

And what I love about podcasts is you can honestly listen doing whatever you want. So if you are sitting on the couch, putting your feet up, I commend you. What you’re probably doing is you’re busy doing laundry, running errands, working out. So I love that you can fill your own cup and learn more about what’s going on in your brain while also getting all the other mundane things done.

So, so glad you’re here with me today. Before we get started, I wanted to mention that I love reading your reviews, mostly because I don’t show up here for myself, I show up for you. And when I see that some of the things that I’m teaching and talking about really are benefiting your life for the better, it makes me so happy because I’ve been there where you’re at.

And this model and this coaching has genuinely just changed my life for the better and help me understand myself better. Helped me to have more self-confidence and has impacted my life and honestly more ways than I can even say. So I love reading your reviews.

And I also love the fact that when you leave reviews it helps make this podcast more visible to people who have absolutely no idea who I am or what I teach. And they’re feeling alone in infertility, they have absolutely no idea how common it is and how many other women are here to support them, and the resources that are available to them.

And so that’s why I love to give away some of my pajamas and socks every single week for one of you who has reviewed to say thank you for helping me spread this message and inviting more women into our community.

The winner of this week’s pajama and sock set from the Slice Of Sun is username Dr.Psych101. The review name is self-confidence and miracle twin episodes. She says, “New to the podcast and honestly was quite skeptical because I am a psychologist, but the podcasts self-confidence, and having a career and dealing with infertility, and the doctor that brought our miracle twins, especially the common myths in that episode made me think.

Infertility is an important issue in women’s health and from what I have seen is not given enough attention or support in the mental wellness world. The emotional and psychological aspects of infertility are huge and often overlooked during treatments. Looking forward to checking out other episodes.” Thank you so much. If you could email me at [email protected] with your address and size and I will get those shipped out to you.

And whoever else is interested, I would love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. You can find the link in the show notes or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts you can just do so there and make sure to give it a five star review if you feel so inclined. And I might be picking you next week, so make sure to check back here at the beginning of every new episode.

So this week, I am so excited to talk with you about a very raw and real experience that I’ve had recently. And it’s interesting as we go through the cycles of our life, I think we can feel on top of the world and the next week we can literally feel like, “Honestly, let’s just stay in bed all day.”

I feel like the contrast is honestly quite stunning, the highs and the lows. And I think what helps us get through that is understanding what’s going on in our own brains. Because when we do, then we can have a lot of grace for ourselves. And we can also not panic and know that this too shall pass.

So a few weeks ago I called my mom, I was struggling with a capital S and also a capital T-R-U-G-G-L and E as well. It was like a rough situation, a rough time. There were a lot of things that were going on in my life. One of them was just a big decision I had to make in my business. And it was hard to let some of the things go that I have built but that I want to focus so much more time and energy into helping you with infertility and pouring my resources and energy and brain into resources that will help you get these tools and apply them in your lives.

So it was a big decision there. And I was also on my period which is just a hormone tornado. And there was just a lot of things going on and I called my mom one morning and she’s like, “How are you doing?” I’m like, “Honestly,” I just burst into tears, I’m like, “I am not okay.” I’m like, “I legitimately just want to quit everything. I would love to just lay in bed all day and hand it to the covers where it’s safe and warm and no one knows me and can see me and it’s just much safer there.”

And I’m saying all these things and knowing in the back of my mind that I know this will pass, but it was also one of those days where I was like, “You know what? It honestly would be a lot easier just to stop doing some of the things that are causing so much resistance.” And in doing this work, I know that life is 50/50. And for me, this was like a really, really low part of the 50% of life that is just awful.

And I also believe, I’m a woman of God, I believe in Jesus Christ. And one of the things that I believe is that we also have an adversary who doesn’t want us to do good things in our lives. And for me, I could tell he was turning up the heat and making me feel like it was just too hard. All of the effort, all of the pushing, all the trying, all the discomfort was just too much. And I was just done.

I’m like, “Mom,” she’s like, “You know what? Since you’ve made these decisions about your business,” she’s like, “honestly, I think the adversary just really doesn’t want you to do that. There are so many women who are alone in fertility and the last thing that he wants is for them to feel like they aren’t alone anymore. That they have a group and a community and resources and tools to help pull them through.”

And I literally responded, I knew that that was true, but I’ve responded, “Well, he’s winning today.” And I sat in the parking lot at the studio that I go to, to work out. And I literally sat there for 30 minutes. The workout class started at 9:30, I legit sat in my car till 10 o’clock and then I decided to go in for the last half of the class.

And I was able to talk to a couple of my friends there who were so kind and just listened to me. And they’re like, “You know what? You’ve got to really just pace yourself, take the day off today.” That’s what my mom said as well. She’s like, “Girl, you’ve just got to take a little break today, give yourself some space.”

So today I want to talk to you about what to do when you want to quit. And we’ve all been here, I don’t care what you’re experiencing, whether it be because you are experiencing infertility, or all of the many other trials that you probably currently are or will experience in your life. But there’s days that we just want to quit and not move on because the path of least resistance would be to hide our talents. Because sometimes showing up for what God would want us to do is not easy. And I’m going to say the majority of the time, it’s not easy.

And it’s honestly easier just to play small. And we fool ourselves into thinking that that’s true, when in reality it wouldn’t be easier. Because we would know that we were hiding and it wouldn’t feel comfortable because we’d be sitting in the discomfort of not progressing in our lives. And that is a really, really uncomfortable place to be as well.

But there are going to be days where you just want to quit and it’s too much. And I very much believe in giving ourselves breaks in that space. And I believe that we were not meant to be a machine that is going 24/7, and that truly taking care of ourselves is incredibly important. Because when we don’t, we have nothing to give.

So I have a few tips on what to do when you want to quit. And the first tip is to give yourself a freaking break. And I say this because it’s so much easier said than done. I think that it’s much easier to tell our friends to take a break, right? It’s much easier to see that our family members need a break. But when it comes to actually giving ourselves a break, it’s so hard to slow down and say, “You know what? You’re a human who needs a break today.”

And so I want to encourage you that when you are feeling like you literally want to quit life and quit everything that’s going on, give yourself a break. Watch Netflix for a few hours in the middle of the day if you can. Take a bath. Cancel your plans. And the people who love you will understand. Just say, “I’m just really, really struggling. I just need to take a break today.”

And don’t feel bad. And, obviously, there’s certain things you can’t cancel or commitments you’ve made where it would probably make you feel worse if you cancel. But give yourself a break and realize that you’re not meant to be at 100% capacity all of the time.

The second thing that I would suggest may help when you want to quit is to be realistic about your calendar. And I have a mini course in the Fearless Infertility Coaching called Monday Hour One, which has literally changed my life. And I remember when my mentor, Brooke Castillo, it was in the coaching certification that I took through the Life Coach School when I got my coach certification.

And when I went through the Monday Hour One program it’s like this light bulb went off and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, okay, well this is why I was feeling so overwhelmed 24/7.” Because long story short, you essentially plan your week very detailed, and you’re very realistic about what can fit in a certain time frame.

And I was having all of these things on my to-do list, not actually putting them on my calendar and just expecting them to magically get done in super short amounts of time. And so when I actually took a full hour, which I do every Monday, to implement everything that’s on my to do list into my calendar at specific days and times. And then follow through, and trust myself when I set those that I’m going to follow through. Then it’s very clear to see where you are overwhelmed.

And I think a lot of us expect a lot out of ourselves because we want to accomplish a lot. And that in and of itself is not a super negative thought, it seems very innocent until you are running yourself into the ground. And so if you’re in my coaching program, make sure you watch that mini course. It’s honestly been one of the things that has drastically changed my life.

And when I looked at my calendar, I saw very clearly, of course I’m overwhelmed. I’m trying to plan three hours of work into a one hour time slot and literally setting myself up for disaster. And so being realistic about your calendar, I think, will be very helpful in not overburdening yourself so that you get to the point where you are completely exhausted and depleted and burned out.

The third thing that I would love for you to be aware of when you feel like you want to quit is a concept I call buffering. And buffering is anything externally outside of yourself that you turn to so that you don’t have to feel a negative feeling.

An example of this for me that I honestly didn’t even know that I was doing for a long time was after my kids were born I felt like I wasn’t allowed to have bad days or to think that it was difficult. And so, I mean, it was hard. I think anyone can admit, no matter if you’ve gone through infertility or not, that raising two newborns who are completely dependent on you and were in the NICU for five weeks, I mean, that situation is not easy.

And I, however, didn’t give myself the grace and honestly didn’t know the truth at the time that life is 50/50 that I would buffer. And specifically what that would look like for me is my kids would go to bed at night and I would eat lots of candy and I would sit in front of the TV and try to kind of numb out. And it works for a while. It works, I felt fine for a little bit, I turned to that.

But how you know it’s buffering is one of two things, you are running away from feeling a negative emotion that you don’t want to feel and using external circumstances to do so. That may be eating, that may be drinking, that may be over watching Netflix, that may be overworking, it could be anything. And none of these things are bad in and of themselves, but when you’re using them to run away from feelings that you don’t want to feel, they can compound themselves.

And so the second reason you know that you’re buffering is that you have a net negative in your life. So for me, that meant that I started to beat at my body, I was gaining some weight, and I don’t feel like I looked my best. And I honestly didn’t feel my best because I was eating so much sugar.

And then I constantly allowed negative thoughts about my body to stick in my mind. And thoughts like I need to lose five pounds, or I need to lose 10 pounds. And if I did, I would just look so much better, and my jeans would fit better and everything would be so much better.

And so I was running away from feeling these negative thoughts of overwhelm, where had I just felt them and lived in them, and sat in them for a little bit and allowed myself to be the human being that I am, then I wouldn’t have had to run from them and cause myself this net negative effect where I had this big problem that was consuming so much of my energy and that was being mean to myself and beating myself up.

In October’s workshop and Fearless Infertility Coaching, I would love for you to join us, we will be talking about buffering and a lot more details about what that can show up as in your life. This has been truly one of the main concepts that has helped me to be able to accept myself in all of the good and all of the bad, and accept myself as a human being, allow myself to process through emotions rather than running from them.

And I hired a coach to help me work through this as well. So I hope you’ll join us in October’s coaching. And that’s our workshop for this month and I’m really excited to get to dive deeper into it and help you guys and hold your hand through the specific problems you’re having that you may be running from and buffering with.

The fourth thing that I want you to consider or that I believe may help when you want to quit is to notice your schedule. And I know we talked about calendaring but I also wanted you to take a look at your schedule and do you have boundaries on work life and home life?

Recently I have literally discovered, so I went to this internet marketing event in Florida last week, I just got back. And one of the main takeaways from that was that I really need to set very strict boundaries around work life and home life. Because as most of us know, you can work literally 24/7. And if you don’t have proper boundaries in your work life and home life, then it can feel like you’re constantly exhausted.

So, for example, I work from home, I have an office from home. And what I started to do, literally just today, which honestly helped so much was that during my working hours, I don’t do laundry, I don’t know make my bed because it should have already been done in the morning in my Morning Mindset Magic Checklist, which is also in the coaching program. And don’t do anything in relation to my house. I pretend that I’m physically away from my home.

And this allows me to truly be fully present when I’m working. And then when I’m home, I don’t go into my office, I don’t say, “Okay, I’m just going to hurry and record a podcast,” or “I’m going to hurry and get this email sent.” When I am home, I am home. I am doing stuff like making dinner with my family, playing games with my kids, being fully present with my husband instead of half listening to him and half thinking about the things I need to get done at work.

And setting these clear boundaries will allow you to be fully present and truly enjoy what you’re doing and pour the energy into what you’re doing. So you’ll honestly do better at work and at home, and feel more whole in both places. And it won’t be constantly draining energy thinking, “Oh, I should be doing this, or I should be doing this,” but you’re not. So you’re in constant opposition or contradiction from where you’re actually at.

So really notice your schedule and make sure you have clear boundaries on work and home life. And then trust yourself and stick with those, even though it’s hard. Even though, yeah, you could send that quick email and it wouldn’t take that much time. But creeping into the boundaries of work when you’re at home, or home when you’re at work, is something that will suck your energy and ultimately, I think, lead to feeling really burned out.

The fifth thing that I think will be helpful for you when you want to quit is notice the media and what messages you surround yourself with. I think that it’s obviously important to be aware of certain circumstances that are happening in the world. But at any given time there are absolutely horrific, horrible, unspeakable things going on in the world. And it’s been that way since the world existed.

And we get sucked into the news a lot of times because the news headlines, they know. They want you to be sucked in with these graphic, horrible, awful things. And I think to a certain extent, it’s good to be aware so that when we have the capacity to reach out and help others, we know where to do so or where our heart lies. But having the news on 24/7 is something that I could never do and have very much drawn a line in my life.

I don’t watch the news, I don’t look through the internet. And I don’t even have the words for it because I never even look at those things. And it’s because when I’m constantly looking at all these things that are out of my control and I can’t do anything about, necessarily, it just leaves me feeling powerless and stressed.

And the truth of the matter is, absolutely, we need to be kind and loving to everyone. But something that’s happening across the world, me just simply sitting and feeling sorry about it and feeling awful about it won’t make that circumstance change across the world.

Now, if I decide that I want to change something and take action and do something to better it, that’s a completely different circumstance. And it can help with certain things like for example, OUR, this marketing conference I just went to, we raised money and I donated to, all of us I think in the room probably, donated to this incredible organization who helps children out of human trafficking.

And that’s something that I can feel good about because I’m taking some action with it. And I just have so much empathy for these precious souls who are helpless without our help. And so when we’re taking action to help people that need our help, I think it’s incredibly important.

But I think it’s also incredibly important to protect your mind, protect your soul, and your spirit. And when you’re constantly allowing yourself to be bombarded with these awful messages that the media puts out, I don’t think that’s healthy. And I don’t think that doing so will give you the energy that you need to accomplish the callings that you have in your own personal lives. And we all have those callings. And we know what they are.

The sixth suggestion that I have for you when you feel like you want to quit is your morning routine. I spent a couple of years creating a specific morning routine and being very curious about what I would include in it and what I would leave out of it and make sure to never do. And I created my Morning Mindset Magic Checklist, which you can download for free in the show notes or on fearlessinfertilitycoaching.com.

And this is a list of seven items, I can check mark them, you can print them, get the free download if you want to join me as well. And these are items that I do every single morning or items that I do not do to protect my mindset. And I never want to do them.

That’s the thing about them, I never wake up and I’m like, “Yes, I get do all the items on my checklist!” But I know for a 100% fact that I will feel at least slightly better after I do all these items and it puts me in control of how I start my day.

So, for example, one of those things is to never, ever look at social media the first thing that you do when you wake up. For me, I like to be in control and I know that reading certain things will put me in the best mindset.

So for example, say I get on social media and I see something that’s super upsetting and I don’t like it, or I guess I could also have the opposite and get on social media and see something that’s amazing and that I love, and that makes me happy. But the problem is, is that it’s a total gamble. And for me, I don’t like to gamble. I want to be in control of the things that I put in my mind initially. And this can look different for everybody.

For me, it is removing myself from my bed, putting myself into my chair in my office where I can be more awake and alert. And I read my scriptures and I connect with God in that way, because I know that it will always make me feel better than when I started.

So that’s just one of the things that I do every morning. So be very aware of and deliberate about what you do first thing in the morning. Because when you get your day started in the right way, it tends to give you that power that you need to keep going and being very intentional about where you put your mind and what actions you take throughout the day.

The seventh suggestion I have when you want to quit is the people that you surround yourself with are incredibly, incredibly important. And when people are talking about something negative or something disturbing all of the time, then your thoughts are automatically going to go to that place when you are hearing that constantly all the time.

If you are around people who are positive and who are taking action to better the world and better their own circumstances, then that’s contagious as well. So I think it’s incredibly important to surround yourself with people who are smart, who love to talk about ideas, who support you and love you. And we all have those people. And I think that we all know who those people are not.

And I think that it’s so incredibly important to love people and not allow people to determine how we feel. And to give grace to people, because people are really, really good at being themselves. And that’s just a fact. I don’t think that we should ever try to change people. But I also think that we can be deliberate about who we spend most of our time with. And I think it’s important to surround yourself with people who make you want to be even better.

I am very intentional when I find someone who I think is absolutely fantastic to try to put myself in their life. And not in a creepy way, I don’t show up at their door when they’re at least expecting it all the time. But I really try to be aware of surrounding myself with the thinkers, the positive people, the people that are taking action in their lives because that helps motivate me.

And I think who you surround yourself really, really helps in determining what your life will look like. And it is always so incredibly important to surround yourself with people that make you want to be a better person and help you see the world in a way that you want to see it.

The eighth thing that I think is important to do when you want to quit is to be very curious and notice the tone you speak to yourself with when you make mistakes. You are a human being. We are at Earth school right now, all learning, all making mistakes constantly, growing from those mistakes and becoming better versions of ourselves every day.

When you make those mistakes, which you will, you will make multiple mistakes as I will constantly. Notice the tone in which you speak to yourself when you make those mistakes. This was a big epiphany I had last week as well. And I’ve honestly had it for the last little while where I would never speak to my children in the way that I speak to myself oftentimes when I do something that I have committed not to do but make a mistake and do it anyway.

So, for example, sometimes I’ll stay up a little later that I want to watching Netflix and the show that I watch is just so good. It’s so dumb, but so good. We all have those shows where you’re like, “Honestly, it’s real stupid, but I can’t stop watching.” And there’s been several times where I’ve stayed up a little bit later than I wanted to watch it and I’ll wake up the next day and I’ll be tired and I’ll be like, “Jenica, come on, you know better.” And just beating myself up internally.

And I think it’s really important to stop and just really sit back and be very curious and listen to the tone of voice and the words that you’re saying to yourself when you don’t live up to the full potential that you wish you would have. And for me, I think that loving myself into becoming the person that I know I can be is the only way, truly.

I can’t hate myself into the person that I want to be because hating myself and the thoughts that cause hate do not lead to actions that lead to the results that get me to the person that I want to be. It’s a fact. Loving myself will make me feel so much better and help me to have actions in that space. It will allow me to do better next time, to be a little gentler next time with myself.

And to be able to take those action items that I know will help me better my life even when it’s not the easy way, and honestly 99.9% of it isn’t the easy way, unfortunately. But noticing how I am talking to myself in those moments, and it really helps me to be able to think about someone else that I love and pretend that they made that mistake and how would I talk to them.

If I was talking to my daughter I would say, “You know what? You made a mistake, you are a human being and look at you. Look at the incredible job you’re doing. You almost got it this time, you almost did it, you’re almost there. Don’t quit. You can keep going. I believe in you.” And talking to yourself like that, I mean, doesn’t that just like relax you?

Honestly, that love and compassion and grace and patience. I mean, it just like melts me. I mean, instead of hearing like, “You should have done it better, you know better, Jenica, come on.” I mean, that just makes me tense up, it makes me feel anxiety, it makes me want to honestly buffer and go eat some candy.

But when I talk to myself, like, “You know what? You’re doing a great job. You almost did it this time, you’re getting so much better every time. I’m so proud of you.” How amazing does that make you feel? It just makes me relax my shoulders, the tension goes out in my chest.

The ninth and last thing that I want you to consider that may help when you want to quit is notice the time of your cycle that you are in. For me, a few days before my period and while I’m in my period my hormones are absolutely having a whirlwind and they’re just having a party, they’re all there. Every single one of the hormones that have ever existed in my body is just out to play in full force and they are loud. They don’t want you to tell them to be quiet. They just want to really just have their time to shine.

So for me, I have been very aware as I’ve gotten a little bit older in how I’m feeling in certain times of the month. And it’s actually fascinating as I’ve done a little bit of study on it, and I’m like such a beginner. But there is an app called Flo that I pay for and it helps me to track when my period is and I can kind of track where I’m at in my cycle.

And it is so interesting to learn about different parts of your cycle. So for example, when you’re ovulating typically you will feel a lot better about yourself. You’ll think that you’re skinny enough, you’ll think that you look good.

And the reason for this psychologically with the hormones is that it is your time to conceive. And this may be a sore subject for all of us here because we’re like, “Okay, cool Jenica, I’m trying to.” But our bodies, if they do ovulate, typically have those hormones that make us feel more attractive because they want us to want to procreate.

And then when you’re on your period you obviously can’t procreate, your uterine lining is shedding. It’s like a whole situation and you don’t feel that great about yourself and your hormones are having a whack attack. And I know that there are ways to balance our hormones a little bit better.

But I also know, for me, that typically no matter how healthy I’m eating or what I’m doing, I just honestly feel more tired. And I think it takes a lot of energy to do the things that your body needs to do when your monthly cycle comes around.

And so for me, I just feel exhausted. I feel tired and I oftentimes feel more moody. And I just need to be aware of that to give myself grace in those circumstances and not try to like hit the ground running doing a ton of things, planning a ton of meetings during that period. Those are the days where I plan to relax more.

And the more that I am aware of this, the more I realize how important it is. Because if I plan a ton of things to do during my period it’s just going to be a disaster because I’m going to expect all this out of myself, but I feel like crap, and my brain is feeling a little tired. And my body’s feeling a little bit crampy. And it’s just not a good situation.

So planning the things in your life that require the most energy during the periods of your cycle that you are feeling your best, I think really sets you up for success. And so you can start by just being very aware of how you’re feeling in certain times of your cycle.

And it can help you to download any apps that help you to track that so you can kind of predict when the next period will be. And also it could help you predict if your periods are abnormal as well, which obviously helps in conception too.

But I think the main thing is just notice how you’re feeling hormonally in different stages of your cycle and then give yourself grace and kind of plan accordingly so that you can know not to burn yourself out when you’re feeling at your very lowest.

I love you guys so much. I hope that you will join us in Fearless Infertility Coaching this month as we dive deeper into buffering and I can help you become very aware of where you’re doing it in your life, even though you might not even know that you’re doing it. So I will see you there, go to fearlessinfertilitycoaching.com and then I will see you here back on the podcast next week. Love you friends, bye.

I know how tough it is to struggle through infertility. If you’re ready to get ahead of the pain and frustration, the best way is to give yourself an ironclad mindset. I have a free download for you, it’s my Morning Mindset Magic checklist where you’ll get the seven tips I use to conquer my mindset each morning.

I spent a couple years of trial and error before I finally came up with this list of things to do or not do each morning that help my mindset every single time. And I do these things especially when I don’t want to because I need them the most during the hard times.

Throughout my own battle with infertility these seven simple morning habits have helped me regain control over my thoughts. They will also help you, like they have helped me, take back the power over your feelings and emotions, prevent anxiety, and accomplish all you want to achieve each day. They clear out shame and guilt from my mind and prepare me to win each day no matter how tough things get. Download for free in the show notes or at fearlessinfertilitycoaching.com.

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.