Welcome to the Brilliant Fertility Podcast.

I'm your host, dr Katie Rose, and this podcast exists to help illuminate the path ahead of you. With expert interviews, clinical pearls and real client success stories, my intention is to bring you hope for what's possible on this journey and to give you tools and resources to navigate the ups and downs on the road before you. If you find this podcast helpful, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite listening platform. And I have a big request If you have a minute, can you leave us a five-star review and let us know what did you learn? What did you come away with? Did you leave with that spark of hope? This helps more people like you find the podcast. My mission is to support as many humans as possible on their path to become parents, and by you sharing and subscribing, you're part of that mission too, and I'm so grateful for you for being here.

Welcome back to the Brilliant Fertility Podcast. I can't believe I'm saying this because this time just flew by, but this is our 52nd episode, which means we have been at this podcast for a whole year now, and, as someone with probable undiagnosed ADHD, that feels freaking huge to me. To be able to show up to something this consistently is partly on me, and I will say that I'm proud of myself for that, but also thank you, because without you listening and sharing your experience with what this podcast has helped you with, I don't know that I would have been so motivated to keep going. So thank you for being here, thank you for listening, thank you for sharing your feedback. I'm so grateful to you, and I hope that you can pause and look at something that you are proud of yourself, for. I think we tend to be pretty hard on ourselves. The people that I attract into my world tend to be very similar to me in many ways, and we can celebrate our differences too, but the parts that are similar are often the perfectionism, the type A, the being hard on ourselves, the always trying to get it right and very easily seeing what we got wrong, what was missing, what we could have done better, and totally missing out on celebrating how far we've come. So can you take a moment to pause if you're in a spot where you can like literally pause the episode and write down three things you are proud of yourself for right now? Where have you already made some changes? Where have you grown as a person that you can celebrate.

These type of wins are some of the things that we look at in the Brilliant Fertility Program. These are where some of the big mindset shifts happen. And I know that a lot of you are sitting there thinking, oh, fuck the mindset. Like I'm so overhearing about that, like I know I need you to stay positive and you're wondering, like, what's wrong with my body, what's? Why haven't I gotten pregnant yet? What tests do I need to run? And I see you, I hear you, and the mindset really is that important.

I've had the opportunity this week to check in with a couple of our BFP alumni who graduated last month from the program, and I love to do these calls with our alumni because I'm always looking at what can I improve, and it used to be from that lens of like you know, what am I missing? How can I make this perfect? And now it's more of like how can I be of higher service? What can we look at that I wouldn't have thought of, like I. Our members are so brilliant and they think of things, they notice things that may not have come into my awareness. So I use this as an opportunity to really get collaborative and learn from them.

So I had our chance to check in with a couple of our alumni over the last few days and one of them who is a researcher and she works in higher education and she's probably listening to this. So I really want to honor her experience and her story. But she mentioned coming in and just having this feeling that, like something, something was kind of off, like there was an intuitive feeling that her doctors had missed something so far or there was just more to uncover and understand. But she really didn't have that connection to the mindset, the connection to being able to communicate with her body's wisdom. And discovering that within the program was an opportunity for her to communicate better with her partner, to open up the emotional processing that allowed her to just release and release and release so much energy that she had been holding onto and make space for what she wanted instead. So I'm celebrating her and her entering the second trimester of pregnancy and having moved through all the fatigue and the nausea of the first trimester and feeling good.

And then our second member that I checked in with this week, kelsey, who I've actually got a really wonderful video that she shared describing her experience in the program, is another example of how this combination of science meets soul really makes a difference. So Kelsey had lived in four different countries over the last many years countries over the last many years, had been trying to get pregnant for at least four years, had seen at least 10 doctors and had again that intuitive feeling like we're missing something. And I want to highlight that it's very possible to have that intuitive hit of like there's something else going on here and it's also very possible to have like that fear-driven voice of like something's wrong with me. The other shoe is going to drop that anxious feeling and I've talked about this in our three-day virtual retreat. But there's a difference between that fear-driven voice and the intuitive voice. Even if the intuitive voice is directing us towards something that needs to be addressed or uncovered, right, there's a bit of a different energy behind that. It takes some practice to decipher what that is. So Kelsey had this intuitive feeling like there's just something we're missing here and I'm not willing to go down the path of IVF until we really start to uncover what that is. So getting to touch base with her and learn, you know what was most impactful for her in finally getting a positive pregnancy test, and I'm always so interested and curious and often surprised at what it was about our work together, our time together, that allowed for things to begin unlocking, for them to not only feel better about life and this journey, but also perhaps get pregnant. And when Kelsey described that the process of calling her power back to herself allowed her to show up differently with her providers, to advocate for herself differently so that she could get the tests she needed, so that she could uncover what really needed to be supported differently. I will drop Kelsey's video in our show notes today so that you can go ahead and listen to her description of how things went down, how she got what she needed in order to eventually get pregnant without IVF.

And I'm not opposed to IVF. I'm not opposed to any of our scientific advancements. I think it's a modern miracle. But I am opposed to entering these expensive treatments that there's still some uncertainty around right In the sense that there's no guarantees with them. I wish there were. The statistics on them are getting better as the years go on and we have more advancements in you know how the embryos are maintained, and getting a little more fine-tuned in the IVF retrieval or the stimulation medications. So I'm not opposed to any of these things. But in cases that I tend to see, we have situations where people have been trying for years, literally years, and we uncover that they have subclinical hypothyroidism, that they have iron deficiency, anemia, that they have extreme vitamin D deficiency, and what I hate to see is when people end up going through fertility treatments without having those matters addressed first, and I just wonder how often we might be able to avoid IUI, ivf altogether if we had those foundations in place.

So, anyway, it was a good week in the BFP. It was a fun week to touch base with our alumni and and we're also having hard conversations in the program with our members. We've we've got situations where people are at a point of making decisions. We've got situations where people are at a point of making decisions. Now that we've got thyroid in line, now that we've got these nutrients in line, do we pursue IVF? And some of those big, hard questions that circulate like do we want to go into debt over this? What if it doesn't work? What if we get to the other side of this and now we're in debt and we don't have a baby? Those are really real questions that people are dealing with and rather than bypass what feels hard and just say, oh F that, stand in your power, you've got this. Money is just energy. It's like I've noticed that is a vibe that some coaches take and if we just try to jump straight into that vibe without actually acknowledging what are some of the core needs that are being impacted by these questions, needs that are being impacted by these questions, then we miss the boat on so much healing. So my way is a little bit gentler, a little bit more inviting of fun and really bringing to awareness what some of those core wounds are around safety and security. And, like you know, why is it that some people have anxiety around money and other people don't? Like we have to be able to have these real life conversations, and the beauty of these conversations are not only do they bring healing and more possibility to the fertility journey, but they have ripple effects into so many other areas of life as well.

There's a saying and I don't remember who said it first and where I heard it first but it's the way you do. One thing is the way you're doing everything. So I really resisted and kind of hated that statement at first. I was like that's not true, like I'm not doing that, which is always a sign that, like you, might be when you notice that resistance and that like ego voice really kicking in. But I noticed for myself like, oh gosh, okay, is the way I'm approaching, like you know, my exercise routine very similar to a way in which I'm approaching business Like, where are there these similarities and differences? And when I really focus in on improving and healing one area, what are the improvements in healing that I also noticed in this other area? What are the improvements in healing that I also noticed in this other area?

And this is why I am it's so weird saying this out loud, but I am also a certified life coach and that is because fertility is not just about fertility. Fertility is about life, and I wish I could guarantee a baby to everyone. I wish that I could take away all the uncertainty, and that's just not life right. So we have to have tools and resources to navigate life while we're in this chapter, while we're doing everything that we can to optimize our hormones and our body's safety and our wellbeing, while we're living life right, while we're finding the ways to increase joy and gratitude and connection and we can't separate this out If we're going to look at fertility holistically. We really have to look at not just your body holistically but your life, and if we've so narrowly focused in and like everything is fertility, every decision you make is related to how's this going to impact my chances of getting pregnant? If I eat those chips, is that going to decrease my chances this month? If I go on that vacation, is that going to ruin everything for the next two cycles?

When every decision becomes about how this impacts you, it doesn't end up feeling like you're living to the depth and breath that most people desire to live, and so that is, you know, a huge part of why I think the Brilliant Fertility Program has the results that we have, that we have the community that we have, where people are willing and open to talking about what's hard, to being vulnerable, just really really seeing and hearing each other and knowing that you're not just a number, you're not some clinic statistic where you know we're just trying to get you pregnant so we can check off a little box and say, great, add another one to the marker or to the board, whatever. However they do it, this is like you are a human being who is worthy of being your healthiest. You are worthy of living your best life, no matter what happens, and my goal is to help people as best I can to optimize their chances of getting pregnant, to understand what their options are for fertility treatments that would be best suited to them and their clinical history and their labs and their imaging and all the physical pieces, and to zoom out and get perspective on life. And especially now when it feels like the world is going absolutely mad, I feel like we're at a I don't know a precipice, an edge. Something is shifting. I hope for the better. I hope we see it in our lifetime. I hope we see it in these next, I don't know, sometime soon, but it's just highlighting to me how necessary it is to be able to have hard conversations, to be able to build capacity for whatever the hell is going to happen next in life, because the reality is it's uncertain.

One of my mentors, who she's a very blunt, very dry sense of humor type person this is Dr Alex Golden. Alex, I don't know if you ever listened to the podcast, know if you ever listened to the podcast, but in one of our very first trainings, when I joined their program, to learn about neuro-linguistic programming and hypnotherapy was well, the only certain thing in life is that we're all going to die, and I was like whoa that and deep right out the gate. And yet it's true, right, that is true. And the sooner we can make peace with our own mortality, the sooner we can actually start living. And knowing that, and knowing that, okay, there's going to be a lot of uncertainty along the way. We have to decide how we want to live.

So if you are in a place with fertility where you're feeling very uncertain about what choice to make and you start to spiral out, when you go down that path, like, okay, if we spend 20, $30,000 on IVF and it doesn't work, are we just going to be living in regret for the rest of our lives? Are we going to be resenting that debt that we've taken on and the fact that we don't have this baby, even though we tried everything? We don't have this baby even though we tried everything. I would argue that that is going to be a hard way to live. And so what's the solution to that? This is maybe going back to one of the very first episodes that we did on surrendering, one of the hardest episodes, possibly most necessary and most helpful things that we can do surrender.

So if you make that decision coming from a place of okay, like I'm, trusting that I'm coming into this with all the information that I could have possibly gathered, trusting that I'm always doing my best with the information I have, trusting that I'm worthy of this investment and that, no matter how it pans out, I will learn how to love and accept myself. There's some other conversations that we've had around this within the Brilliant Fertility Program to bring some more fun into this, looking at the embodiment pieces. So, like you know, if that that big angst is around the money chunk and spending tens of thousands of dollars when you don't actually know what the outcome is going to be, and if you knew the outcome was going to be that there's a baby in your arms and be like, fuck, yeah, it's worth it, I'll take it. But when there's that even 1% doubt, then it's like, oh, do I risk it? And so what if we did imagine that there's a version of us in the future? We're like you're, you're good, money is not a problem and you just fully trust and believe that you are worthy of every penny that you have invested in this.

You know that if you got to the end of your life and you left any stone unturned, that you would always question what else you would have done. What could you have done differently? What could you have tried instead? And if you know that, and you know that you're worthy of it and you know that you're just going to do whatever the hell it takes to live the best life you can I don't know if you can feel it, but I feel a different energy to that. I feel like this expansive sensation in my chest as I just start to riff on the energy and the thought process of someone who is stepping into that. And if you're coming from that energy and then you think about okay, this decision that I have like, do I want to make this choice, how does that shift when there's uncertainty?

If we sit in the entanglement of the what if, what if, what if? And all of the what ifs are bad. Or if we're sitting in the oh I should have, what a cuta. I wish I'd done that and you're being hard on yourself and beating yourself up, both of those scenarios are going to again make it very challenging to live now. So if you notice yourself trending towards one of those and I think I've I've heard it um described also as like when you're thinking too much into the future, that's anxiety. When you're dwelling too much in the past, that's depression. I think there's a lot more nuance to that, to be quite honest, um, but there is a sense of like a stuckness when you think of the shoulda, woulda, couldas, and there is a sense of definitely like anticipation, being on edge, anxiety when we're like what if-ing, what if-ing, what if-ing? And especially if the what if-ing is on the end of like what if it doesn't work out.

So when we circle back to like my whole point in this episode, I think, was around celebrating yourself how far you've come, and also like how do we navigate the hard things, how do we navigate the big questions and the uncertainty? On that piece of uncertainty, it's more about like, how do you want to live, how do you want to look back at things? If you could imagine, like zooming all the way out to the end of your life and looking back and saying, like what would have had to have happened for me to have no regrets? And saying like what would have had to happen for me to have no regrets, what would I need to step into to make a decision from a place of empowerment and peace, and trusting that there's no such thing as a wrong decision here. There's only lessons that I can choose to learn from or not. And what lessons am I willing to learn?

We're going to be doing some episodes in the future about money. So if, like that piece of this conversation today got you a little like, oh okay, but I do have anxiety there, there is tension there and some of us may have good reasons for that, and sometimes it is just like these old patterns that we carry and old, you know, generational traumas around money that we are continuing to hold on to. So, yeah, more conversations about money coming in the future. So, yeah, more conversations about money coming in the future. But I want to I think I want to end today with just that belief again that there's no such thing as a wrong decision and all of the beliefs that we carry about. You know what is to come and why things haven't happened yet.

We've we've actually done a lot of belief clearing breakthroughs in the program this month around beliefs Like there's something wrong with my body. Beliefs like I'm running out of time. We just did a parts integration this week around, like if you've ever heard yourself say, well, part of me just wants everything to be perfect, and then part of me has, like, seen for other people, like things don't always have to be perfect and like it's okay to rest and relax and like, uh, so when we have those parts that are truly on different pages and they're almost like exact opposite in what it seems like they're pulling towards, uh, parts integration is a way to understand each part's higher purpose and see the common ground between them and really begin to integrate them. Lot of the things that we carry about ourselves can be. We can just bring so much more ease in by doing parts integrations. It's one of my favorite tools. So we've been doing a lot of these breakthrough sessions in the program this month, which has been so much fun for me. It's one of my. These are some of my favorite things to do.

But when it comes to our decisions, I really want you to take this in there's no such thing as a wrong decision. I know it can feel like there's so much pressure around getting it right. When there's no guarantee, there's no certainty. So big, deep breath about these decisions right now. No matter what decision you make, there's going to be some opportunity for lessons, lessons. And where I know that I have grown so much, where our program members have grown so much within the past few years, is being open to learning the lessons, being open to building the awareness so that you learn it the first time instead of having it thrown at you in multiple different ways with the old patterns that tend to just pop up like whack-a-mole if you ignore it too many times, and to know that you can play with decision-making before you actually make a decision.

With decision-making before you actually make a decision, you can step into that future version of yourself. Imagine if you were already this person who was really confident about the decision they made and really feeling solid about their relationship and their money mindset and the fact that, no matter what happens, you can live a good life. How does that decision feel? Look at this as an opportunity to play and discover and stay curious, versus coming at it from a place of judgment and, oh my God, what if I get this wrong? And am I wasting resources? Am I a failure if I F up this decision? Stay in that zone of curiosity as often as you can. Ask the curious questions. See what it feels like to almost take on a script of this character, who you would love to live that life of that character.

There's so many ways that we can play with this to shift the energy and decrease our stress response. And it impacts not just the energy around your fertility journey, it really ripples into every area of life and this is why our program members say that the BFP has changed so much in their lives. It's not just because they get pregnant Not everyone does, no one can make that guarantee but if they show up, if they use the practices, if they communicate, if they use me and the group as a way to learn and grow and find connection and community and healing, then stuff changes, lives transform and it opens up a lot in terms of what's possible on the fertility journey too, which is why I think our results are so incredible. So anyway, before I ramble off too far because I want to respect the fact that we are all living full lives I do just again want to thank you so much for being here and listening over this last year with me.

I want to open up the possibility for you guys to actually send in your podcast requests. What do you want to hear more of? What do you have questions about. You can send us an email at info at brilliantfertilitycom. Info at brilliantfertilitycom. Just put subject line podcast and let me know, let my assistant know, what we can support you in learning. Next, and yeah, and if you are sitting there wondering if the Brilliant Fertility Program is right for you, we will be starting our summer cohort on July 7th. So we actually are in open enrollment at this moment and really looking forward to inviting in some more souls who are ready to transform, ready to think about things differently, ready to not just be a number at a fertility clinic but to really feel nurtured and believe in your life and your path and what is possible for you. That's what I am here for. As always, I'm sending you so much love Until next time. Thank you for being here.