"Don't get your hopes up." Why I'm choosing to hurt myself on my journey to motherhood.

This week, B opens up about a piece of advice she keeps hearing along her fertility journey: "Just don't get your hopes up." Tune in as she unpacks the reason she's decided to intentionally keep her heart open and why we should all stop protecting ourselves from disappointment or let down. 

Here's what you'll discover in this episode:

• Intimacy Insights: How protecting ourselves from pain can actually harm our relationships.
• B's Personal Journey: What happens when she kept a protective layer over her heart.
• The monthly fertility rollercoaster: Why she chooses to get excited every single month, even if it hurts.
• Putting limits on our joy: How numbing hope and excitement can destroy our most precious moments.

As always, it's thought provoking, raw and honest, and we can't wait to hear your takeaways and insights. 

Share your key insights on your social media stories, capture a screenshot and tag B! @iambreannamay

 Until then, take care and keep your heart open.

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Transcript

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Hello. Welcome back. This episode I think is going to be short and sweet, but a little bit fiery and a little bit of like a Breanna style rant, a passionate rant, which is just something that I've been thinking about and having my own personal journey with recently. And what I've been sitting with is this sense of not a sense this saying Don't get your hopes up. Don't get your hopes up because you just don't know whether it's other people that are saying this to you or you're saying it to yourself. I'm not going to get my hopes up because it might not work out. I'm not going to get my hopes up because it might not happen. I'm not going to get my hopes up. I have recently been hearing this a lot, and I wanted to give a little bit of context so that it makes sense, and then I want to share why I think this is the worst thing that we can say to ourselves. I have obviously a background. I'm a mindset trainer. I train people in mindset. I coach in mindset. So my mindset is pretty damn strong, which often means there's a shadow side to this, right? There's a shadow side to have an extremely strong, willed and optimistic kind of mindset, is that you can reframe things and change the way you perceive things, and ultimately, really could take control of a lot of your emotions. And it's a great thing. It's a great, great thing. However, what I noticed personally was that I'm very, very good at doing this, to the point where sometimes I can actually Rob myself of a human experience. I can rob myself of really feeling things really deeply, because I'm just getting on and getting on, like rubbing my rubbing myself off, dusting myself off. That was a bit of a balls up. But you get what I'm saying. I'm very good at just getting on with things right. And what this can do is make you very good at being a very neutral and a very calm and a very grounded sort of human, which is a beautiful thing. Again, there's nothing wrong with this, but what I could do very, very well was regulate my emotions so that I can be more productive. Regulate my emotions so that not much gets to me, regulate my emotions so that I can keep moving, keep getting on with things, and also not experience too much disappointment, not experience too much heartache, not experience too much pain, but when you do this enough, you also block yourself from experiencing the polar opposite, because we live in a world of polarity, and when you numb or rob yourself of one experience, you also numb and rob yourself of the opposite experience. So let me give you context and how this has happened to me, or how I've noticed that this could be happening to me recently if I wasn't clocking it and aware of it. So I obviously, like everybody else in this on this planet, has have had my share of heartache. And I remember when I first got my heart broken, I was like, that is never happening to me again. Absolutely not. I think I made like a promise to myself. I got cheated on. It was a very emotional time for my poor 16 year old self. It was my first love and, you know, yada yada, got my heart broken. Now I'm like, Thank Thank you universe. Thank you universe for that, because now I am where I am. So it was the best thing ever. But it was like, in that moment I made a mental snapshot. Don't let this happen again. Don't trust anyone this much. Don't let anyone in close enough that they can hurt you this much. Because even though I was 16, and we can say, Oh, cute, Puppy Love, it was real as It was so real. And I always felt, you know, when I was a high school teacher, I really felt for the kids going through heartache, because your first cart really is the deepest. I don't know if anyone else can resonate, but I really was feeling heartbroken, and in that time, I made a promise to myself not to let that happen again. And so I went through my 20s, kind of in relationships, but also kind of keeping people at arm's length. And that robbed me of so much intimacy that robbed me of connection, that robbed me of the closeness and the meaning in a relationship that I really actually wanted. And because I was so scared of ever feeling that depth of pain, I also robbed myself of the experience of depth of love. And because when you rob yourself of one, you rob yourself of the other. And even when I met Paul, who is my now husband, I remember, don't get your don't get too excited. Don't get too excited. That was almost like this thing in my head. And I remember the very first time I matched with him on Tinder, because I am just a modern day Tinder roller, and I swiped left or whatever it was, right? I swiped yes or whatever. And I was like, holy moly, I did a bit of a stalk. And I was like, holy And I remember showing his Instagram to my bestie, and I hadn't, I don't even know if I'd met him at this stage. And she was like, Oh my God, you're gonna marry this guy. And it was just so, so like, that is you're gonna marry him. And I was like, Oh, stop it. Don't be silly. Yeah, and I remember for the whole first year, I was so excited, but I also had this underlying like, don't get too excited, don't get your hopes up. Don't get too excited, don't get your hopes up. And I always felt like, looking back, I probably robbed myself of that real first, you know, excitement and puppy love and like, you know, when you're just in that real honeymoon phase, and we still had our version of that, but I think it was, there was an undertone of fear from Me, and that was really a protective mechanism of like, well, don't get your hopes up. Don't get your hopes up, because then you could fall harder, and then you could hurt harder, and then, etc, etc. Obviously I started noticing that. And over time, I was like, actually, this I can let my guard down. I can trust, I can surrender, I can lean in. I can fully go into this relationship. And you know, the rest is, the rest is history. Up to this point, we've got eight years in, and I've let that person in, but I always think, wow, for that first year, it's kind of sad, like I sort of robbed myself of that because I was protecting myself. And so I've been aware of this mechanism, which, again, it's a mechanism, it's a survival strategy. We love that. Thank you. But we can also clock where it's no longer helpful. And this has come up again recently in my life, where I have been intentionally, intentionally keeping my heart wide open on my fertility journey. And this has been a choice because, because of this understanding of what can happen with the brain and the mind and our emotions and protecting ourselves. And because I know how good I can be at, not, you know, at protecting myself from these feelings and from just neutralizing things and all of that. And I've noticed, like I said, how that can be quite detrimental. I have been going through my fertility journey and actively choosing to keep my heart open and allow myself to feel a roller coaster every month, and what this has looked like is for the last few months, and this has been really hard. I know this has been really hard for the people closest to me to watch. And so often, the people who I love the most and are the closest to me, they'll say things with the best intentions, and they say it with so much love and so much care, and it's coming from, you know, the people who just just hurt when I hurt, and they'll say, Oh, please don't do this. Don't get your hopes up, because then it's further for me to fall. Essentially, it's more of a heartache when it doesn't happen. And so people will hear me, or I'll share with friends or my husband, with Paul, or my mum, and I'll do this thing each month where it's like, Oh, and if I am pregnant now, I'd be due then, and if I'm pregnant now, I'd find out on this date, and we'd be here. And I could do it this way, and this is how I could tell, you know, and I've been doing this every month, but trust me, when I say it's been intentional, and every time I do this, you know, the last couple months, I was like, Oh, if we're pregnant this month, I would find out here, and we'd be in Albany, and we could maybe surprise the family this way. And oh, I would find out in this place. And maybe, you know, I remember doing this the first round of the mind school method. I was running it, and I knew it'll be on day three or four of the mind school method that I might find out I'm pregnant. And, oh, my God, this would be so exciting, because I've birthed my baby, which is the mind school. And then I'll find out that I'm pregnant, I'm birthing my real baby, and it'll be so amazing, and I might even be able to tell my my founding students, you know, who were there with me, because so many of them have, I've worked with for years, and I'd get excited and I'd visualize it, and so often people say, Oh, please don't get your hopes up. Don't get your hopes up. Don't do this to yourself. The people who love me, like Brianna, please don't do this to yourself. And I've had to lovingly say to these people, I understand where you're coming from, and I get what you're saying, but I'm making the intentional choice to keep my heart wide open and to not rob myself of this excitement, to not rub Rob myself of this really exciting time. And yes, it does mean that it's it's more heartbreaking and it's more disappointing every month that it hasn't happened. And it is a process every month where I have to be like, Oh, damn. So that's not happening how I was seeing it, and that's a disappointment because it hasn't happened this month again, and it is a lot harder to experience, but I want to experience that. I want to experience it. I really want to experience the depth of it. I want to experience the pain. I want to experience the loss. I want to experience the sadness, because I have lived on the other side where I can do a really good job of protecting myself from that, but then I don't really feel the heartache and the disappointment and the sadness, and I don't get to feel the joy and the excitement and the connection and the love that comes from allowing both sides and what this really comes down to, it's such a lesson in emotional intelligence and us being. Able to trust that we can hold lots of emotions. You know, I've been holding some really emotions, and they're beautiful, and I love them, and it's going to make it even sweeter when it is, when it does happen, it's going to be even more beautiful. And I refuse to guard my heart and keep a layer over my heart because I'm too afraid of feeling certain feelings. And this is something I just wanted to share, because I think that we do this, we do this a lot. I'm not gonna, and I hear it with clients a lot. We're not gonna, I'm not gonna get my hopes up. You know, maybe it's a client who's gone to check out a venue for this dream location that they want. I'm not gonna get my hopes up, or somebody's inquired to come and work with them, but they're not going to get their hopes up. Or I might have got this new promotion, but I'm not going to get my hopes up. I think I've met someone amazing, but I'm not going to get my hopes up. And I think, why do we say this to ourselves? Is it because we're so afraid of feeling? And if we're afraid of feeling, what the are we doing? Isn't life for feeling, isn't life for experiencing, and isn't this really a conversation about emotional intelligence and a conversation about it? Shouldn't we actually just have the tools to hold ourselves in the feeling and to experience all emotions as beautiful, and to have the ability to be holding something big and still move? I think what's really happening, and this was probably a reflection of where I was at back in the past, when I did have to protect myself and create a layer of protection around my heart. The truth was I couldn't function. Oftentimes in the mess, I couldn't function when my heart was breaking. It consumed me, and I didn't really have a grasp on my emotions. I didn't have high levels of emotional intelligence. When things hurt me in the past, they flawed me. When things hurt me in the past, it was like I can't operate. It was like I'm an anxious mess. My heart is breaking. I am crying. I can't move on. And so really the protection was I have to do this, otherwise I can't function. The older I've gotten, the more I've realized I can hold a lot and it's not going to destroy me. I can hold a lot and still hold my day to day life, you know, and creating evidence for myself that I can be a mess in the morning and be crying that my period came and feeling really off that like, why is it so easy for other people that treat themselves like, you know, treat their bodies terribly and they're you know? And I have these real human emotions and these experiences where I'll see someone you know at the shops who is clearly on drugs with a pram in tow and five kids and and I think, Oh, And I'm like feeling all the feelings, and I'm sad and all of this, and I can still show up and be who I want to be in my business and run a mastermind call, or run a training or be there for my team or create content, or whatever. And I can be consumed to a point and then keep moving. Do you know what I mean? So I actually think that this is a protection mechanism that we put in place when we know we don't yet have the ability to hold our emotions, because it consumes us, and that's something that maybe comes with age and learning more skills in regulating our regulating our emotions and all of that. But really the takeaway for this, or something that I just want to invite you to think about, is, where are you robbing yourself of joy because you're afraid of feeling pain? Where are you robbing yourself of connection because you're afraid of letting people in? Where are you robbing yourself of intimacy because you're afraid of being vulnerable. Where are you robbing yourself of excitement because you're afraid it won't work out? Where are you saying to yourself, I'm not going to get my hopes up. What if you did allow yourself to get your hopes up? Yes, it might not work out, but you can hold that. Yes, it might not work out, but if you mute your excitement, you also mute the other the other side. If you don't get too excited, yeah, you're not going to feel as bad when when you fall but if you don't experience that, you don't also experience the elation when things do work out for you. And so we want to just be conscious of where we've created a guard for ourselves, and we're robbing ourselves of those experiences, and that's just something that I have noticed recently. I am getting a lot of people saying to me, please don't, please don't do this to yourself. Please don't get your heart, you know, please don't, please don't put yourself through this. And like I said, I've had to actively, intentionally choose this last six to 12 months. I'm choosing to keep my heart open, and with that comes everything that you know is part of that, and I'm okay with that, but I don't want to rob myself of this experience. I think it's a really beautiful experience, all of it, so that's what I'm leaving you with. It's short, it's sharp. I'd love to hear of your two cents. I'd. Love to hear your takeaways. I'd love to hear from you if this landed, if you feel you needed to hear this. If you feel there's somebody else who could experience this or it would help, please share it with them. Please tag me on your on your stories and share this episode. It means the absolute world that is all for today. I will see you back here next week. Bye. You.