Toxic Positivity & Fertility
Hey mama-bear,
“I’m trying to stay positive. But it’s so hard.”
I hear this all the time.
From women TTC who believe that “thinking positive” is their way to happiness and pregnancy.
Conceptually this makes sense. And as a Sagittarius, I am naturally a very optimistic person and I love this about myself.
So, I totally get this desire to be more positive and to FEEL more positive.
BUT… there comes a point when the monkey mind annoyingly persists that if you feel anything other than positive it is: wrong, bad and messing up your fertility.
This is a lot of pressure and I felt this way for years. It only led to a ton of self-blame when any other emotion, besides happiness and excitement, entered my human experience… which was A LOT of the time.
You know what I would do in response to any anger, sadness or grief that I felt?
I wouldn’t feel it. I’d suppress it. I’d shove it deep down and fake/pretend that “everything was fine!”
This is what I would call… Toxic positivity.
So on today’s brand new podcast, we’re gonna chat about:
What is toxic positivity?
Why “negative thoughts” aren’t always bad and can actually be super healthy.
Why I suggest choosing validation over positivity.
Trust me, you will feel SO RELIEVED after this podcast. F*ck perfect thinking.
‘Cause chances are, you have some “negative thoughts” that you need to make some space to feel. Learn exactly how to do this in this week’s Fertile Ground podcast.
Xo Spenser
Listen to the full episode:
Full Episode Transcript:
Welcome to the Fertile Ground podcast with Spenser Brassard. The only podcast that teaches you how to get your mind and body on board so you can get your baby on board. And now, here's your host mind-body fertility expert and certified life coach, Spenser Brassard
Hey mama bear. So I just got off a call with my girls in Fertility Mind-Body Mastery. Honestly, these women are magic. So do you want to know what the collective quote unquote problem is? Everyone is so happy and at peace that they feel like something must be wrong. I'm just like, Oh my gosh, this is, this is what you guys are feeling right now. It just made me feel, first of all, so happy for each and every one of them. I mean, one of them is going through IVF and she's like, you know, I just feel so calm. I'm just so happy. Like this has been so easy. I'm just like, Oh my goodness. Right. It's just, so it just makes me feel so good.
Now today, what I want to talk about is, you know, and what I said to them before we got off the call is, you know, it's not always about being happy and positive. Um, although so many of them were sharing such incredible wins, you know, people that have been in there for three weeks. Versus people that have been in there for five months.
And I said, you know, it's not about being positive and happy all the time. What it is is knowing that you have the tools to come back whenever you are feeling out of sorts. And so if you do feel out of sorts, that's okay too. And so that's kind of what I want to talk about in today's podcast is toxic positivity. To be completely honest, I've been accused of it once or twice on my Instagram account by random strangers.
Um, they obviously don't listen to the podcast and must just see one of my Instagram posts that lean more on the positive perspective and immediately label my work as toxic positivity, you know, and that's especially, probably, the case if they're in deep suffering around the journey. Now here's the thing.
I am naturally very optimistic person. I'm a Sagittarius. And maybe that's why it comes very naturally for me to see the good or the lesson or the higher purpose in circumstances. And sometimes like, even I questioned my positivity because I find that I can see it very often, a lot more clearly than some people do.
But after I questioned that, I really do realize that I believe in my perspectives. And maybe that also comes from, you know, obviously getting training on becoming a life coach and training my brain to view things from a new higher perspective, as opposed to just, you know, unconsciously downloading my old story. Because after practicing this skill for a while, it does eventually become second nature to consciously choose how you want to perceive certain situations in your life, as opposed to just being a victim and saying this sucks, uh, because it's supposed to suck. Right?
So in today's podcast, we're going to talk about toxic positivity. What is it really? How to spot it? You know, when you're doing it, and how to overcome it. Toxic positivity is definitely something that was brought on by books like The Secret or The Law of Attraction. Don't get me wrong, I believe in the law of attraction, but I 100% do not believe that it is all about being positive. I did believe this for years while I was on my fertility journey and it created a lot of anger towards myself. I kept thinking. Awesome. All I have to do is not be sad, angry, upset, and think positive thoughts. Then I'll get pregnant. And I hear a lot of women say, you know, I know I have to stay positive, but it's just so hard. I know I have to be positive, but I'm having a hard day.
So what the result is for them, and what the result was for me, is the belief that in order to get pregnant you can't feel the way you feel; your feelings are wrong and you're fucking this whole thing up. It's all your fault. And this is on top of all the feelings and emotions you've been suppressing in your body, right?
So not only are you sad or angry or upset, but you're also layering and sprinkling a little bit of, you're not allowed to feel this way. So it's just like, Oh, all this resistance in the body. Right? So how this plays out in real life is, I'll give you an example, you know, you get your period immediately, feel your heart sink. At least that's what I felt. And then not allowing yourself to feel this. Slapping on a fake positive perspective. Like this is day one of a new cycle, and then keeping that sad energy stuck in your body and not processing it for potentially months or years. When what we know about energy is that in order for that energy to move out and not constantly be re-triggered is that it needs to be felt. We need to feel to heal. Therefore, toxic positivity is when we subconsciously lie to ourselves about how we're really feeling or fake how we really feel. And, you know, I got so good at this when I was trying to conceive that. Even if you asked how I really felt when I was triggered, I don't know if I could give you an answer.
Cause it was easier for me to just numb out or quickly come back with, "I'm fine." Right? How many times do women say that? So we do this for a number of reasons. The top three, in my experience, working with women, trying to conceive is: One, because it's uncomfortable to feel intense emotions. Two, we label these emotions as quote unquote, bad for fertility and three, because we believe we protect others if we portray, slash, fake positivity, even if we're anxious or sad. So, for example, not showing your partner, you're sad after getting your period. Pretty darn accurate, right? I've been doing this for awhile. So on a side note, you know, I teach you how to overcome these three specific reasons in Fertility Mind-Body Mastery, which is my six month group program, because this is ideal for your mind and body to thrive.
So we do this based on what we've been taught in our culture. We've been conditioned to quote unquote, stay positive, get over it, don't cry. So the reality is that it's not your fault. So many of my clients weren't even allowed to feel anything other than happy growing up because their parents grew uncomfortable when they felt sad or anything, you know, essentially other than perfect.
And this is a great pattern to break now so that when you do have your baby you're able to allow them to feel other things besides happy. What I've noticed for myself when I feel this creeping in is that it is incredibly invalidating - and listen to what the definition of invalidating is: to invalidate means to cancel something or make it void as if it never happened. In invalidate you see the word valid, which means true or correct. When you invalidate something you're making it less true, less official or less. Correct. So what this means is that you say you're triggered by, you know, a pregnancy announcement. You feel an intense emotion and you try your best to not feel it, to make it void if you will, to act as if it never happened.
And this is exactly what I would describe as a mind-body disconnect. This is how we cut our bodies off by feeling something and then trying our best to void it. So we don't know how to feel. We believe we're taking the most productive approach in our attempt to be positive and live most of our lives, living from the neck up, living in our heads, in the logic, in the analytics, the stats.
But in order to dethaw a body and to get the energy moving through it, we need to feel things, we need to process. We need to learn how to decipher what is true, not positive. For each of us individually, we can no longer cover up our truth with positive thoughts to guide our way. And what really stands out in that definition is that when you invalidate something, you are canceling it, you are making it less true.
You are canceling yourself and your feelings, you are making yourself less true. It sounds kind of harsh, right? And sometimes we need that harshness to notice how we've been treating ourselves. Now, here's what I want you to focus on is that feeling of truth. I want you to get to know what this feels like in your body.
What you're going to learn is that it doesn't matter if the thought is positive or negative, truth feels fucking liberating. Here's a couple of examples. Let's say you hate your job, your boss sucks, and it doesn't do anything for you anymore. You dream about taking a new career path, but the thought, "I should be grateful to even have a job," keeps you stuck.
When the truth of just admitting that you hate your job would set you free and it sets you free because finally, all of this pent up energy, the thoughts, feelings, and emotions are allowed to exist. They can move out of your body. You can breathe again. Even with the so-called negative thoughts. I had this come up when I was three months pregnant, going through terrible morning sickness, trying to suppress any thoughts that signal pregnancy was not anything besides absolute bliss after having such a long fertility journey. This caused a lot of guilt. Which is very often a feeling created by invalidating our feelings. Right? So if you're living with guilt, it's a good signal that you're just trying to push through with positivity instead of validating your own unique wants and needs.
So, finally, my husband said, "why don't you just say that pregnancy feels hard right now? Why don't you just let it be hard?" and I just burst out in tears because it felt like truth. It felt like freedom. This negative thought felt so good. Ironic, right?
So it's not whether a thought is negative or positive. It's more about how it rings true in your body. And if it makes you feel free. So I want you to get in touch with what truth feels like in your body. You know, a lot of people would say, I just feel lighter. My shoulders go back. Um, the weight is lifted off my shoulders; gets butterflies in my stomach. Right. Get in touch with that. So that the next time it comes up, you can go, Oh, this is truth. Oh, this is true to me. Maybe you've thought that, you know, working with me would just be me convincing you to think positive. And that's the only way you'll get pregnant. You can't be sad. You have to be happy. Right. But part of what we do inside of Fertility Mind-Body Mastery is to validate how you feel. Part of my role is to facilitate all that old built up energy out of your body. Just last week a client was talking about how her life isn't what she thought it would be like right now. Right. And there is that process on the fertility journey, you know, soon after they start the program, they kind of do have to grieve, you know, the life they thought they would have by now.
And what she needed in that moment was not someone to say, find the good in the fertility journey. Cause that's incredibly invalidating and leads to more suppression. Instead, I walked her through her grief. I held that space because we can't see situations from a different perspective, believe in, in new things, believe in new possibilities and change our thoughts about circumstances untill we move that old energy out. We have to make way for the new. And this comes from validating feeling and processing. It's fascinating, right? Our suffering doesn't come from thinking, quote, unquote, negative thoughts. It very often comes from the thought "I shouldn't be feeling this way." The validation is what transforms the energy within your mind and body.
Trying to believe things that aren't true for us, trying to push truth down with gratitude and positivity is how the mind and body disconnects from each other. Because when we believe things aren't true, right, we believe things that aren't true, suffering arises. That is where suffering begins to come in.
For example, you hate your job, think you should be grateful, never admit the dissatisfaction and suffer through a job, you know, how many days out of the year that you do not like. It's so easy to believe that suffering is a punishment, but my life coach mentor Martha Beck states in her new book, The Way of Integrity, that the purpose of suffering is to help us locate our internal divisions, reclaim our reality and heal these inner riffs. So good. Right. For example, a client of mine who is a doctor was so busy and stressed at work. She just had a miscarriage and dealing with family, you know, relationship drama, and on our first call, I mean, poor thing was just crying and just couldn't hold on anymore. Right. And when she came to me she didn't feel like it was even possible to find a way out of this. She had a high paying job. She was doing well for herself on paper, but inside, you know, she couldn't hold it together. During our time working together, I validated her feelings. I reassured her that not being happy at her job was not a her problem.
It was a matter of being with this truth and gaining the confidence to take the action needed to either ask for less hours or get a job at another hospital. She eventually found another job at another hospital, worked less hours and a few months later she was pregnant and now has a happy, healthy baby boy.
Pretending that all is well when you're not feeling it is serving no one. I know that there's maybe a thought you have like oh, if I just keep going, if I just keep pretending and faking and going with positivity a little bit longer, then something will change and it's pretending and faking it is just, it's not serving you. It's not serving your mind and body and it's not serving your happiness.
Now, I know that maybe you have this fear that if you let yourself be sad or angry, that it will never leave you. Right. I had one of my clients say that I don't want to be one of those people that always complains or bitches about their lives. Firstly, if you're listening to this podcast, you're not that person. You probably never will be! People who are conscious; are awake, listen to this podcast. You will not be a negative Nancy if you allow yourself to feel your feelings. Secondly, that's just all or nothing thinking, right. That either you're Positive Polly or Debbie Downer, but let's aim for compassionate human, right. Gosh, I had Debbie Downer, Negative Nancy, Positive Polly. Gosh, I don't even know where I... I've heard of Debbie Downer before, but I don't even know where I got all those other ridiculous names. Um, now of course the irony in all of this is that as we learn how to validate our feelings, we naturally feel better. We feel good. Ironically we're positive, which is wonderful. The biggest shift that needs to occur is allowing yourself to state and feel the truth and liberation, even when it's quote unquote negative too often. Us women have it ingrained within us that we need to sacrifice our needs too, for others that we are strong enough.
To take the hit right? While others can't do it like we can, but this is just more control. Let it all break down. Let the fake positivity, drip away. What do I love about this is that you're getting to know your own compass and beginning to trust yourself. For example, I really do believe that the fertility journey is the best thing that ever happened to me.
I said this years before I conceived, it was my alarm clock, wake up call out of living in autopilot, right, out of living on the surface of life. This was both confusing to me and a lot of people around me, and probably still is to some people. I remember walking into my OB GYN appointment, telling that to my doctor who had gone through a fertility journey herself and she honest to God looked at me like I was a lunatic, right? Like she could not believe that those words came out of my mouth. And, you know, from another perspective, I remember seeing online that infertility struggles have been compared to the emotions that come from having cancer, which was so not my reality.
But circumstances don't come from automatic feelings attached to them, right. We all love, appreciate and find value and comfort in different things. We get caught up when we think we are supposed to or should be grateful or should all like and do the same things. Or we get caught up when we think we are supposed to, or should hate, certain things.
For example, my sister claims that she enjoys loading the dishwasher! You know, like, who can say that! But maybe you love something that most people hate - start owning it. Start allowing it, start taking the baby steps to feeling the fucking freedom pulse through your veins.
So mama bear to sum up this podcast, it's not about thinking positive. It's about thinking truthful and honoring and admitting your wants your needs, your dissatisfaction, right. Your satisfaction, it's all in the validation. So if you want to know exactly how to do this, then you can apply to work with me in Fertility Mind-Body Mastery. After you apply, and if you are accepted, you'll be invited to watch my three part training. This training will include my step-by-step process on how I work, what the process is like, and you'll get a really good idea if this work is for you. So if you apply, you're not at all obligated to join, you're just saying, "Hey, you know what? This sounds interesting. I want to learn more." All right. So that is all for today. Lots of love.