Have you ever felt conflicted about using a Fertility Awareness Method (FAM)? Do you find yourself loving or hating your FAM on any given day, but you feel guilty for not loving it all the time because you think you need to be a FAM cheerleader? Or, do you carry around feelings of disappointment related to your birth experience, but shove them aside because you feel guilty for not being satisfied with having a healthy baby?
In each of these scenarios, you can see how we tend to want to squash emotions that are perceived to be “negative” or “bad,” because we believe that we should be feeling a different (read: more positive) way about the situation. The problem is, when you pressure yourself to never feel frustrated with your chosen fertility awareness method (for example), or push down feelings of possible trauma from your birth, you miss out on valuable information that could actually help you heal or find a solution to the struggles you are facing.
Emotional awareness is a skill that isn’t commonly taught at home or in schools, and consequently many of us are lacking this crucial skill. Growing in emotional awareness can help you notice what your emotions are telling you about how you are experiencing a particular situation. With emotional awareness, you begin to see your emotions as clues—and like any good clue, it should inspire curiosity!
Emotional awareness and fertility awareness
If you are feeling frustrated about charting your cycle, it’s important to notice that, and to be curious about the reasons for why you might feel that way.
For example, if you are feeling frustrated because the method isn’t a good match for your lifestyle, you could explore switching to a different method. Or, maybe you are feeling frustrated because you don’t know how to interpret the data you are collecting. If that is the case, you might want to schedule a meeting with your instructor (or find one if you’ve been winging it).
Perhaps you are feeling frustrated because your partner isn’t as supportive as you’d hoped he’d be with charting. You might want to have a conversation with him about it, or even explore setting up a couples’ therapy session or a group meeting with your instructor to talk through the issue.
Can you see how if you pushed away any of those feelings of frustration (i.e., those clues!), you’d miss out on all of this important information that could point you towards a solution?
Emotional awareness and acknowledging complex feelings about birth
Many women also find value in using emotional awareness to process their birth experiences. There are so many expectations (spoken and unspoken, internal and external) that are placed on pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum. If your experience doesn’t match those expectations, you can feel like you are a failure. Taking the time to process your individual birth experience in a safe and supportive environment can be incredibly beneficial for healing from any birth trauma that you may have experienced, as well as any general disappointment or stress you may not even be aware of. Shoving those emotions aside only lets them fester under the surface doesn’t actually promote healing or problem solving.
For example, in my work with my therapy clients, I’ve helped clients develop emotional awareness around why they feel anger when they think about their birth experience (because they didn’t feel like their needs were being accommodated while they were laboring) as well as why they may feel shame about struggling with postpartum recovery and with caring for themselves and their newborn (because they believed they shouldn’t struggle or feel stressed, but instead should have recovered quickly and with ease). By exploring these emotions, my clients were able to process and find a healthy way to respond to their experiences.
How to grow in emotional awareness
If you are interested in cultivating and applying the skill of emotional awareness, therapy can be a powerful tool. Therapy provides a safe, confidential, and judgment-free structure for uncovering and processing negative or traumatic experiences. Your therapist will be able to offer an objective perspective and will help guide the conversation by asking questions, making connections, and offering strategies. And they will be able to help you name relevant emotions and unpack what those emotions are trying to tell you about your experiences. (Note that not every client and therapist are a great fit, so be open to the possibility of trialing working with a therapist to ensure you two can establish rapport that will help you unleash the full potential of emotional awareness.)
The bottom line
Despite what you may have learned, emotions are far from black-and-white or good-versus-bad. Instead, they are valuable clues to how we are being affected by what’s happening in our lives, and they can point us towards solutions. They are an integral part of understanding any challenges or struggles you are facing in your fertility, pregnancy, pregnancy loss, childbirth, or postpartum journey.
Additional Reading:
Traumatic Birth Experiences are More Common Than You Might Think: A Mental Health Perspective
Tokophobia: The Pathological Fear of Pregnancy or Childbirth
