Ease and action
The restrictions we’ve been experiencing over the past year in the UK are slowly easing. After so much time spent with so few and without many in person interactions, the return to activity may seem exciting but also daunting.
If you’ve been struggling with an IVF journey this past year without the outcome you were hoping for, or if your fertility experience was a while ago you may find that being busy can be a way of blocking out the pain of not having children or covering up the disappointment. Or you may be over-compensating for having a smaller family than you’d hoped and fill time with activity and meeting others. These approaches to life beyond IVF are understandable.
At the end of a fertility journey it’s all too easy to compensate for loss by over-achieving or launch into a busy career to find meaning. There may be pressure to spend time caring for others needs at the expense of your own needs and to be seen to be living a perfect life via social media platforms. But with busyness often comes exhaustion. Filling our time so we don’t have to confront the space that a child free life offers can prevent us from living our lives to the full.
However, balancing action with ease will help bring peace and calm.
Trust your inner wisdom – is an activity or a project you’re involved with bringing you joy or draining you of energy? If you feel uneasy about it then find ways of saying “no” or arrange things so that they suit you better and do not impact your energy levels. Listen to your heart and let it be your guide.
Question your motives – are you creating busyness to cover emptiness after IVF? Do you find it difficult to give yourself permission to rest?
Change the narrative – being child free does not mean you have to spend your life caring for others whether that’s at work or home. Create healthy boundaries so that you’re not at the beck and call of work, friends or family and value your own needs.
Find ease amongst the action - allow time to recover from a busy schedule by bringing in balance. Find time to enjoy activities that nourish and revitalise whether that’s spending time in nature, enjoying a sport or craft, or going for a spa treatment - whatever you enjoy, make it a priority in your life so that you can find rest and ease.
Elm and Bloom are here to help if you need support to navigate life beyond IVF no matter how recent or long ago your experience was. If you find yourself feeling out of control in the busyness of life and want to find a way that is less frenetic but don’t know where to start, the packages Elmwell and Elm and Thrive could be for you. See the Services page for more information.