.png)
Emotions Untapped
Welcome to the Emotions Untapped podcast, the show where we uncover all the information you need to better understand, use and manage your emotions in a positive way. When we understand our thoughts feelings and emotions we not only become more familiar with ourselves but also can foster healthier relationships with others. If you're aim is to relieve stress, communicate effectively and defuse conflict, empathise with others, overcome challenges and overall just have more meaningful relationships, then you've come to the right place. If you are searching for direction and more fulfillment in your life then the Emotions Untapped podcast was made for you. Each week we sit souind with therapists, experts, thought leaders, healers and so many more to bring you the tools and insights you need to start living a more emotionally intelligent life now.
Emotions Untapped
#007 Navigating Fertility Stress: Emotional Freedom and Resilience
Could managing stress be the missing link in your fertility journey? Join us as we chat with Vanessa Emily Hunt, who bravely navigated her path to motherhood amidst the chaos of pandemic-induced clinic closures and global geopolitical disruptions. Vanessa's resilience and determination serve as a beacon of hope, offering valuable insights for anyone facing similar challenges. Learn how she balanced the stress of her fertility journey with a demanding professional life and emerged stronger than ever.
Have you ever felt trapped by your emotions, unsure of how to break free? Discover the transformative power of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) tapping, as our host shares her personal breakthrough in emotional regulation. Growing up in an emotionally restrictive environment, she found solace in EFT during her own fertility journey. We'll also touch on other practices like yoga, meditation, and breath work, highlighting the importance of personalized emotional regulation methods. EFT's flexibility and effectiveness, especially during those sleepless nights, make it a standout tool for maintaining emotional well-being.
Do you know how chronic stress affects your body? We delve into the chemical impacts of stress, from cortisol spikes to the long-term health issues they can cause. By comparing modern stressors to those of our caveman ancestors, we underscore the necessity of mastering stress-relief techniques to prevent lasting damage. From physical activities to logical problem-solving, we'll explore various methods to manage stress, including innovative approaches like ice baths. Plus, we'll share a poignant story about overcoming fear and the importance of clear thinking in tackling life's challenges. Tune in for an episode packed with practical advice and heartfelt stories.
You can connect with Vanessa and find out more about how she supports others by visiting her WEBSITE and following her on Instagram, you can also checkout her FREE Resources.
We love to hear from you! Please send us your feedback and questions via the text link at the top of the show notes, or DM us on Instagram
You can connect with our community, connect with us on social media and find valuable (FREE) resources on our website www.eqnation.org
Welcome to the Emotions Untapped podcast. I'm your host, livia Lauder. This is the show where we explore the power of emotional intelligence in our personal and professional lives In this community. We dive into conversations with experts and thought leaders from a variety of fields to gain insights, strategies and tools for cultivating emotional intelligence or EQ for short. It gives me so much joy to create this show for you, to bring value and resources to you on your journey. I love your support in helping us create an even bigger impact. Just leave a five-star review and share this episode with a friend so we can continue to help others improve their lives by improving their emotional health. Now hit that subscribe button and let's dive in. The star of the show this week is Vanessa Emily Hunt.
Speaker 2:With stress. It's like you can only handle so much. I feel you can only handle so much stress before it really becomes something that can really I guess to say in a nice way bog you down terrifically.
Speaker 1:Vanessa's here to talk to us about stress management, specifically in relation to her fertility journey, and how stress played a huge role in that. So we'll be talking about the importance of stress management, understanding the chemical impacts stress has on the body, and how you or someone facing similar challenges can confront stress head on and reclaim control over your own fertility journey or their own fertility journey. So thanks so much, vanessa, for being here. It's great to see you again.
Speaker 2:My pleasure. Great to see you again too, Thanks.
Speaker 1:So your fertility journey did start a little bit later on in life. So why don't we start there and then we'll kind of roll into the rest of it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, you know, I just like to keep things challenging for myself. I guess, you know, I just didn't really have that call. I didn't have a call, and what I mean by that is any sort of inclination to have children, until I was like I think it was like 41, 40, 41, before I was like, you know, I think it might be nice to sort of embody that love.
Speaker 2:And so there began my quest, and the partner that I was with at the time wasn't available for that, and so I began to approach the journey as a single mom by choice, and I mean, I dated in the interim and I just, you know, just never happened where a partner was on board for the full, you know, I guess, the full experience of, you know, having children together. So I continued to move forward, pandemic with clinic closures and even touched on geopolitics a little bit in that. One of the clinics that I had selected was in the Ukraine and yeah, well, we know what happened, that got invaded, are being so working that out. And so I decided on another clinic in Europe and I'm actually here doing that, going, for I went into the clinic today for blood work. So, yeah, it's happening, it's going on, and I know I just fed through all of that, but that's not to say there wasn't horrific amounts of heartache and stress, distress, during that process. I'm able to look back at it now without a lot of, you know, emotional attachment to it, like I can tell it to you like nice and a nice calm. I can tell it to you like nice and a nice calm, neutral way and so, but that really that is kind of like what led me to explore how stress impacts on, particularly in fertility.
Speaker 2:I mean, there were other things going on as well with my work, because I'm here in Bulgaria now I had to really outsource a lot of my business. I do residential leasing, and so I had to turn a lot of that over to a management company. And you know I've been going at this because I started quite late, as I said in life. You know I've been going at this because I started quite late, as I said in life. You know I've taken breaks and so during that time I would like, you know, hire a team to, you know, get a place ready to rent, and so managing that had its own stress, and so with stress, it's like you can only handle so much I feel you can only handle so much stress before it really becomes something that can really, I guess to say in a nice way, bog you down terrifically. So that's it in a nutshell.
Speaker 1:That's the journey you know in in in the kind of like the 20,000 foot view well, especially, um, you know, I mean you're, you're going to different countries and when you mention the pandemic, it's like let's take an already stressful and overwhelming situation and then add that on top of it. Like I can't imagine that that just would have been. I mean, at any point were you kind of questioning, giving up on the journey at all because of the amount of stress?
Speaker 2:yeah, definitely, I was definitely. Um, I was definitely questioning my sanity, uh and uh, just the timing of things and the way things were working out for me. I was taking so personally. It's like, wow, now I've finally gotten, you know, gotten to a point where I selected the clinic, I've selected the sperm donor. Oh, we're going to. Oh, this country got invaded, I can't go there anymore. Oh, here we go with the pandemic. All the clinics are shut down.
Speaker 2:I guess I could look to, and I kind of really liked my donor's bio and so I really wanted to use my donor and I briefly looked at, you know, shipping, shipping the sperm to the US use. Luckily I didn't have to, because by then the pandemic ended, but it was really, it was really stressful, yeah, it was. It was just wild, just not knowing what was going to happen next. And I think everyone could relate to some portion of not knowing what was going to happen next. And I think everyone could relate to some portion of not knowing what was going to happen next during the pandemic, certainly. So that was just like for me, like you know, an extra, extra bonus piece of unknown and how it was all unfolding for me.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well, I'd like to shine a bit of light on just your resilience in that situation. I mean, there were so many roadblocks and things that came up that probably, you know, had you questioning, like you said, your sanity and all these other things. So I just like to, yeah, shine a light on that and just, you know, good on you for like keeping going and staying the journey, because I feel like that's a whole other topic we could talk about with emotional intelligence. It's just like resilience and like staying motivated and staying committed to the journey even when it does get hard. So kudos to you for, you know, seeing it through. So you're in Belgium now, you said. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm in Bulgaria.
Speaker 1:Bulgaria sorry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know I wanted I just wanted to rewind super fast and just say you know I have to attribute a lot of the resilience to some of the coaches that I was working with. At the time I worked with a couple of coaches. One coach was out of Australia and she specialized in fertility related coaching, although she had never been through the journey herself, never been through the journey herself. And then I worked with another life coach out of Oregon and she's terrific and she had never been through the fertility journey herself. However, you know, I still learn tons and tons about, you know, stress management, how to work with stress, the importance of managing stress, particularly in this kind of journey. So I didn't do it all alone. I have to give credit, where credit is due, to some of these coaches, but they were. Although they had not gone through the journey specifically, they really helped me understand how to reframe and, you know, whatever coaching techniques that they use helped me look and shift, shift, look at things differently and shift perspectives. So, yeah, it helped.
Speaker 1:it helped when I went to Bulgaria that's beautiful that you had such a supportive community and people to to help you along the journey, because, you know, I think in anything that we go through, that is stressful, having a support network of either like and it's interesting that you said too like they hadn't been through that journey, but having people that are just there to understand perhaps even just the emotions and the things that you're feeling, regardless if they have experienced something similar or not, is so powerful. It's just it kind of just lets you take the pressure off yourself a little bit. Like it lets you kind of just relax and go oh, okay, like, not just me, like someone's kind of holding me here and I'm going to be okay. It's just like a good kind of reminder of, like, I'm going to make it through and I'm going to be okay.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Being seen is huge. Being seen and witnessed is just monumental.
Speaker 1:So I mean mean when you go through this type of journey, of course there's a lot of hormone imbalances and there's a lot of things that are going on that are like, maybe, maybe not unnatural to the body, but you're, you know, you're taking certain medications and you're doing things, so you're changing, kind of the the natural hormonal structure that your body would otherwise be in if you weren't going through this process. So I know for myself, like you know, in certain times of my cycle, I mean, ems comes up and emotions come up and it is really difficult sometimes to to regulate in those circumstances. Now, add on the fact that, oh, we're going to introduce like a whole new batch I don't want to call them like fake hormones because they are, like you know, real hormones, but they are potentially like new to your body and your bodily environment. So I'd love for you to share a little bit more around that. I mean, when you're in that situation and stress is happening, it's almost like heightened yeah.
Speaker 2:That's correct. Yeah, the, the hormones really have the ability to do a number on you, and so I only speak from personal experience here. But mine was like progesterone. I think the adjusting and tinkering the levels of progesterone in IVF was really interesting. Progesterone in IVF was really interesting, yeah, and you know, when you're freezing your eggs, it's not so much that you're injecting the progesterone, rather you're you know you're taking in things that will grow your follicles, so it stimulates your ovaries. So it's a different set. It's a different set of hormones but nonetheless, yeah, while they are hormones that are, you know, kind of part of the body there, you know it's you're adding to the body and so, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:It can be kind of an emotional process, definitely, I think, as you go along, I mean it's. You know, I personally have done work with feeling my own feelings and I there was a time in my life where I was very much afraid to feel my feelings. I was very much afraid to feel my feelings, and so I would say it's really important to get comfortable with that and I think a way to downregulate when you are feeling the emotions and a way to kind of support yourself and to calm the nervous system, definitely. But yeah, it's wild because you know you can't be thinking a thought and the next thing you're like whoo, you know you're. You're like 30 miles down the road or you know whatever, 50, 50 kilometers down the road with the next thought and it's like how did I make that jump? But that was not a lateral jump and it's wild. It's wild.
Speaker 1:It can be an emotional process for women, for sure on this journey, because I think that's what, you know, the audience really excited to hear about is like, when we're in that state, when we're in that heightened state of stress, what are the things that we need to think and feel and do in order to, you know, get ourselves back to just like a normal regulating kind of level?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I want to offer, I'd like to offer this point and I'm not saying it's true, but it's a, it's a way we could go about thinking about it would be we could try it on, kind of like we're at a store and we're trying on a dress, so, uh, we could try this thought on. So the thought is that, um, our mind is, um, causing the emotion in attempt attempt for us to do something, to get something done. So it's a thought, so the idea is that mind is causing these thoughts outside of our conscious awareness, and so one way we could rework the thought is, yeah, through our subconscious, or we can regulate our nervous systems, which is also a great approach. You know, it can be as easy as getting up, moving your body, shaking, journaling, so movement, so those are things that we can do quite easily. Breath work is another great one. I love EFT tapping. For me, that's really how I love to calm my nervous system. That's something that I love so much.
Speaker 2:And you know, as I said earlier, that I'm someone that used to be really afraid of feeling the emotion. I kind of grew up in a home where, you know, we weren't allowed to feel our feelings. It was just kind of an environment where, you know, my parents probably didn't have the emotional bandwidth to manage their own feelings, let alone, you know, a young kid, and so I had to work with that even before the fertility journey began. So I guess I've sort of kind of had that awareness. But really, coming into the fertility journey, it really took everything I had to kind of, you know, stay on track because you get that extra, that extra how can I say it better? That extra homework, that extra task of dealing with the added hormones. So, yeah, so I think those are great ways and I'm sure there's others.
Speaker 2:Yoga, meditation are also great ways to kind of, you know, regulate and calm the nervous system, are also great ways to kind of, you know, regulate and calm the nervous system, drawing creative expression. But yeah, I'm sure there's plenty of others too. So it's really what works for you and that you can remember to use in the moment. That you can remember you have ability to access within that moment. That you can remember to choose in that moment that there is another choice in whether you you want to feel bad going back to the beginning because your mind is getting trying to get you to do something which is probably not feel like, but your mind is trying to get you to do something you know, uh, that would make you feel better. So that's why your mind is like making you feel bad, because your mind wants you to feel better actually.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. I've never kind of had that perspective or, you know, had someone share that perspective of it's really coming back to the mind. So then we can kind of relate it back to you know, mindset practices and the way we speak to ourselves and really practicing like healthy mindfulness in that sense and that's like totally an ongoing practice as well. I did want to ask, as you mentioned, you know, obviously and I agree, different things work for different people In your journey, was it something that you kind of threw spaghetti at the wall and was like waiting for something to stick? Did you try all the things before you kind of found that one or handful of things that really landed for you? Um, or did you kind of, with your coaching and the support that you had, was it kind of like, okay, this is what you can try, and you did it and it just like worked right away, or was there like a lot of fumbling and kind of figuring it out along the way?
Speaker 2:yeah, I'm not gonna lie, I fumbled, I fumbled a lot and I mean I love meditation, I just it's, I just can't sit there, and so breath work is a lot more accessible to me, to someone like me. I love movement, but that's something that I don't remember to do when I'm like in the moment. Remember to do when I'm like in the moment, so that doesn't come naturally to me. When I took my first EFT workshop, I remember I was actually here in Bulgaria and it was held in Australia, and so that meant it was like the middle of the night, like it started at 10pm and ended like at seven in the morning or something like that, and I was hooked. I wasn't tired at all, I was just hooked. So that for me it was kind of like, oh and the light shine. It was shown down upon me and for me it was very easy to know, wow, that was it. But that's not because you know, I went through so much trial and error with some of the other stuff beforehand.
Speaker 1:Cool.
Speaker 2:So EFT is something that really works for you then you know there is that um, there is a little bit of an energy exchange, I feel, and so you're witnessing, uh, the other person.
Speaker 2:You can do EFT alone, but I, you know, I think it's more powerful um to do with someone, but you know, it can be effective alone because they can lead you through um, you know specific phrases that you work out together and yeah, so for me it just was, yeah, it was very apparent that that was my way to regulate my nervous system. It's something that if I wake up in the middle of the night and I have like those thoughts and I know we've all been there, we've all woken up with the what if? Wtf thoughts at you know, those wee hours I don't have to do anything to get out of bed. All I have to do is take my hand and, you know, tap on the points you know on my head, collarbone and side of rib, and you know that's nice that I don't have to get up, turn the light on. You know, write down the thoughts Super available.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. We'll be right back after a quick break. I hope you're loving the show so far. This podcast is all about bringing value to the collective. You're here because you're looking to gain insights, strategies and tools for cultivating your emotional intelligence. Join our community online, where we share even more valuable resources to help you grow and thrive. Links in the show notes and, hey, we love hearing from you. Share this episode in your stories and tag us at emotionsuntapped.
Speaker 1:Let us know what your biggest takeaway is from today's show. All right, let's get back to it. With EFT being so powerful for you, was it something that you are doing routinely, on a regular basis, making a habit out of it, for example, waking up in the morning and taking yourself through a practice or is it something, as you kind of did just describe, that it's an in-the-moment, on-the-spot thing that is kind of your tool. You grab right out of the toolbox when that big, heavy emotion comes over you or that you know debilitating thought drops in. Is it something that you're kind of doing for preventative measures or is it something that it's kind of like I say right on the spot, as it happens, or perhaps a bit of both?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think you just said it. It perhaps a of both. I I also like it to sort of um, like if I'm working with an affirmation or um, a statement that I really want to bring into my subconscious, uh, I'll tap on it, kind of like, drive it in, um. But yeah, it's also cool that it's like. You know, god, I feel like shit, I'm driving, let me tap. And so you know, yeah, I drive and tap, I'll admit it. I'll admit it to the world.
Speaker 1:Hey, it's better than drinking and driving there you go, totally, totally. I love that. No, it's really cool. And then I love that you just mentioned that too, like even using it as something to anchor in affirmations, like that's using it. I mean, it's using it in the same way, but essentially using it in a totally different way, which is really really fascinating, because that also just ties into what we were talking about previously with the mindset piece of it all as well. Very cool.
Speaker 1:I love what you said, too, about movement. So something came up for me like a week, week and a half ago, and I kind of just had this aha moment of what I find works for me, or what seems to work for me. Movement, yes, but then on top of that, like changing my body temperature. There's something about I really love saunas and ice baths and that kind of thing, and movement and changing your body temperature kind of ties in a little bit, because if you, you know, put on like a hypey song and you dance and you shake around, you're obviously going to, you know, increase your heart rate, your body temperature is going to elevate a little bit. And yeah, I just I had to share that because I had an experience just in the last couple of weeks where I was feeling a big emotion and it was in the movement and the the body temperature thing where I was kind of able to. I think what it did was it kind of helped me come out of my head and just into my body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which I think, which I, which is what EFT really does for you too, right yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:So I was just going to ask which way did you go? Do you go hot and then cold, or cold and then hot, or how did you?
Speaker 1:well lately.
Speaker 1:I I haven't been super close to like an ice bath, like I haven't really had accessible ice bath. I used to do them when I was living in Australia last year. A lot. I usually start in the sauna and then go into the ice bath and then I'll do rounds.
Speaker 1:Um, if I don't have an ice bath, what I tend to do I was just at the community pool there this week and I'll just, uh, I'll come out of the sauna and I'll just turn the shower super cold and just stand in it for you. You know, probably not as long as I should Like, I could probably withstand a little longer in there. But pushing through that uncomfort a little bit to just stand in there and, yeah, just have that extreme, you know, from one extreme to the other, it feels it just, it makes me feel like totally alive. So I do know people, though like I don't know, there's some science and stuff around this. I haven't done a whole heap of research, I kind of just go with what feels good for me. But there is a bit of science around. You know the heat and the cold and how long you should stay and you know which should be first.
Speaker 1:But I think it's easier to get in the ice if you're already warm beforehand me anyway, I find that true. They say it's easier. Huh, they say, although you know I I will share that. One thing I found with the ice bath, because I've also been like I love it, like when I was doing it before and I would bring friends along and, um, I would always like friends that would jump in. They would, they would struggle, or they were maybe doing it for the first time. I would say to them OK, just if you make it past the first 30 seconds, that's the hardest part. If you can just sit in it for 30 seconds, I'm like, if you can do 30 seconds, you can do two minutes. And I feel like that's almost true, for you know, you can kind of like relate that to, like emotions as well.
Speaker 1:Like you can just yeah like yeah. Like Life, yeah Life, yeah. Like if you can just get past that first bit, that's real uncomfortable. Like it gets easier after that initial shock of it right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know if I'm going to jump in a tub anytime soon, but I do appreciate hearing about it. I'm like, well, there's a way to there's room to grow with that, yes.
Speaker 1:I highly recommend you should give it a try. You know there's. Yes, I highly recommend you should give it a try. You know there's other ways too. There's like um, cryotherapy, like another thing that's kind of similar to cooling down the body temperature. I haven't tried that, but I think it might be a little less. I don't know, because I don't think you're like in freezing cold water, so it might be. It's just a bit of a different sensation. Um, are you a fan of saunas at?
Speaker 2:all, yeah, yeah, I'll do a sauna. But um, and yeah, you're right, I I did go to a place I did infrared there.
Speaker 1:Um, I do remember the cryo, I guess, the cryo chamber, and it was kind of like just stepping into a refrigerator yeah, it was like air on your skin instead of water, which I feel like is maybe a little bit I don't know easier to a stand, perhaps.
Speaker 2:I'll have to try it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's. Stay tuned, I'll try it and I'll get back. I'll get back to yeah.
Speaker 2:I look forward to hearing about that yeah, yeah, cool.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it really comes down to you know, I guess in a way, we're kind of adjusting, like what's going on chemically in the body when we move the body, change our body temperature, start to breathe, start to to touch right Like the tapping, it's having all these kind of chemical effects on the body the same way Well, not the same way, but as breath has chemical impacts on the body as well, how do you feel about talking about that, the chemical impacts that stress has on the body, when we're actually in that state of heightened stress?
Speaker 2:Yeah, somewhat. I think most people, I mean, are familiar with the cortisol flood. So, yeah, I mean, adrenal glands on top of the kidneys will produce the cortisol and then, you know, the cortisol will spike the glucose, so your, or you know, your, blood sugar level rises and if this happens, you know, um, constantly, you're living in a constant state of stress. Yeah, that can ultimately affect, uh, your health. I mean, there are two, there's two kinds of stress. Right, your eustress is like the useful stress.
Speaker 2:Um, you need some stress um, in your life, in your body.
Speaker 2:Otherwise, just be like, um, I'm trying to think of that cartoon, uh, where we're all basically just blobs of people.
Speaker 2:So we, we do need some stress, um, but distress is that you know more unhealthy stress that I was just mentioning, where, when we were wearing furs and maybe some of us were chasing woolly mammoths, we would need this stress so that our legs could get strong to run from, you know, whatever was chasing us the wolf or the saber tooth tiger.
Speaker 2:We really don't need that function anymore. We really don't, you know, the glucose spike to that extent anymore because we're not being chased being chased, so it's kind of, we're kind of like a race car is pulling the Thanksgiving float in the Macy's Day Parade. We don't need that type of power anymore and so, yeah, so when we encounter stress be it that commute, work or, in my case it was the fertility journey with constant unknown and news that wasn't the best or what I had hoped for or what I hoped was going to happen next, and then constantly trying to navigate that process, I think, yeah, your body can kind of a lot of harm can happen to the body when you're living at that constant level of stress.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I actually know, like brings up a really good point. I know a few people in my life actually who have been in, been in, you know, stressful long-term relationships or you know other stressful situations that like they now have disease, like they have autoimmune diseases, disorders, whichever they're called um, they have like there's long-term effects on the body when we stay in that restful state, that the bad kind of stress for for too long and so like. Again, you know, just to stress the important, use the pun, but to stress the importance of understanding how this does affect the body and really being able to master these techniques to bring us out of it. Because if we don't, and we allow this to continue to weigh on us, you know weeks and months and years on end, it is going to cause some serious undoable damage, unfortunately, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean sleep problems, headaches, restlessness, chest pain, I mean shortness of breath, I mean these are all things. It's like, oh, you're just having a bad day, but these are really you know I'm not diagnosing anyone but, um, you know, irritability, um anxiety, you know, uh, lack of focus, burnout, these are due to stress and, um, these are, you know, they could lead to other other things too, like, you know, hypertension and whatnot, without diagnosing anyone, hypertension and whatnot without diagnosing anyone. But, um, yeah, yeah, stress, stress can it. It wreak, it wreaks habit on your hormones too. Um, it actually ages you more quickly, hormone one makes sense.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, the more stress on the body right, like, the more it's working and this overdrive and all parts are moving and it's gonna you know, it's like a machine, like parts move. Eventually those parts are gonna wear out and and fall apart. So I love the um kind of like analogy and the correlation that you used to in, you know, comparing like caveman days kind of thing, when it was about like hunting your food and chasing it down and like the stress in that environment, how it was meant to keep us safe. And now I mean the body. The thing is, is the body's doing the same thing? Right, it's, it's acting the same way, except for we don't need that anymore.
Speaker 1:We're in this you know society where we get food from the grocery store and everything's kind of right at our fingertips and we don't need to have all this power and we're, you know, unfortunately, as a society, we're living this sedentary life compared to how things were then. So I think, like having these kinds of conversations and having an understanding around all that, all of the chemistry involved and how our body behaves and acts, hormones, you know all these things, the thoughts, the feelings, how they're all connected, and understanding around that, because we live in this type of society now is so important, because it really does just highlight the importance of like taking care of ourselves in this way yeah, absolutely, and I think also taking care of the way that we, we think and um, I guess just super quick example um, I have a really good friend.
Speaker 2:She was supposed to get on a plane and fly from Berlin to someplace south of Spain. She's super afraid of flying and she didn't get on the plane and the opportunity came to rebook to get back on the plane and just couldn't do it, just couldn't do it, and so you know. But then she went into this whole thing about like how you know, oh gosh, why haven't I figured out this fear of flying? I feel so bad about this fear. So you know, there was a level. It's not just the flying or the turbulence that she's afraid of, she's afraid of the fear, she's afraid of how the situation made her felt. So she was like compounding it.
Speaker 2:And then, because she elected not to get on the plane, she's like, oh well, I'm going to. She's a translator. She's like I'm going to pick up extra, extra jobs, as if she were like punishing herself because she had the fear and the fear of the fear. And so we have to be really careful in how we think about the problem and get as logic and as clear as we can. You know, some problems aren't immediately solvable. She was like how am I going to get rid of this fear of flying? And it's like, well, you get rid of the fear by doing the action that will get rid of the fear. You don't have to worry about getting rid of the fear by doing the action that will get rid of the fear, don't? You don't have to worry about getting rid of the fear, you know?
Speaker 2:I said to her. I said we, you know, I, I tried to work with her and I was like I, I don't care about your fear, I care about you getting on the plane, because I know you want to go to the south of Spain and so. But for her it was indistinguishable the fear and the actual. You know the problem. And then what she thought of the fear, it just couldn't. We couldn't disentangle it. So that was super interesting and definitely I was trying a uh coaching modality with her. So, yeah, gonna need some more practice on that one, I suppose I love what you said there, like the mind audit.
Speaker 1:That really that really that really hit me.
Speaker 1:I'm like, oh, that's a good one to kind of just like keep in the back of the toolbox, remember, yeah, the mind audit because, yeah, how you feel about the stress or the fear, it can almost be more stressful or more fearful. In your story that you just shared, it really seemed to me as though she was feeding her fear and as, as you described, it was compounding it, which you know. Really good thing to have awareness on, you know. Um, yeah, as well. That was a really great share. Thank you, that's. I think that's going to hit home with the with, with the people listening. Absolutely, so you work one-on-one with clients as well through their own fertility journeys and stress management. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Right, not so much the fear of flying. Obviously. Stress management Is that correct, right? Not so much the fear of flying. Obviously I'm not an expert on that yet. But yeah, I stick to where you know. You know what I know really. So, yeah, I do. I support women moving through the fertility preservation process. In particular, I love supporting women in that particular part of the journey because I feel like that's kind of like an overlooked area and a lot of it is kind of overshadowed by, I'm going to say, the noise of infertility. Why I say that is because you know the the reason why women are choosing to preserve their fertility and freeze their eggs are choosing to preserve their fertility and freeze their eggs or embryos. They're at a different point versus someone who is actively trying to conceive, and so then I feel like the needs are slightly different, the values are slightly different and at that particular point, the goals are different, believe it or not.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, I'd love to open it up to any final thoughts and then just go ahead and share. You know where people can get in touch with you, where they can find more of you if they're interested in going down that route, if they're on that journey themselves and looking for support, where's the best place to reach you? And then, yeah, any final thoughts you'd like to share with us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I just really appreciate coming on and sharing with you. I'm so tempted to take an ice bath now I am. I'm like, well, maybe that might be a nice winter treat. So I get to put that off until spring, but then then, if you know, we'll see.
Speaker 1:Keep me posted. I need to hear about how this goes for you. Yeah, kind of like a guide of?
Speaker 2:things to consider if you are thinking about fertility preservation. It's kind of like a zoom out guide in terms of like, what areas of your life, what kind of see the big picture and what areas of life would you like kind of envision for that future paced version of yourself who would be looking at ability preservation kind of like? Um, I, I look at, I think of it as kind of like a telescope, so you're just kind of like focusing into the future amazing.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks so much for coming on and sharing and being vulnerable about your story as well. That's always a huge part of just understanding the information, getting that little bit of background. So I really appreciate you taking us on the journey there and sharing your insights and strategies along the way. And, yeah, I look forward to hearing about your future ice bath endeavor. We'll be in touch on that.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, insert giggle. Thank you, I love that.
Speaker 1:That's a wrap on today's episode. I am beyond grateful for your participation in today's conversation. I hope you enjoyed today's guest on the Emotions Untapped podcast. My intention is that the information shared here today has inspired you to deepen your understanding of emotional intelligence and how it can benefit your life. If you have any questions about today's episode, you can DM us on Instagram at emotionsuntapped, and check the show notes for any and all resources mentioned in today's show. You can also reach out to today's guest through the links provided. I'm Livia Lauder. See you next time on Emotions Untapped.