Redefining Success

As I sat in spin class the other morning, attempting to huff and puff up a hill, the instructor said, "Nothing and no one is standing in the way of your success. Only you can create that success for yourself." That's when it hit me, I've been defining success all wrong.

Ever since I was little I defined success as accomplishing a goal where time, hard work and determination (mixed with stubbornness) helped me achieve things like graduating UCLA with honors, getting into NYU for grad school and achieving not 1, but 2, dream jobs in my career. As I've gotten older I find it harder to find satisfaction in moments of unsuccessfulness. The disappointment is more grand, the sense of defeat more deflating.

So there I was in spin class having an ah-ha moment realizing I've been handling my unsuccessful moments ALL WRONG!  Only I can create success for myself. Only I can determine what is successful and what is not. Only I have the strength and ability to decide if my successes are only successful when meeting certain criteria or if the lesson learned along the journey is enough.

The thing is, I'm quick to see the failure and the disappointment. I'm even quicker to feel the defeat, and I allow that defeat to become negative self talk.

As I apply this shift of thought to my infertility circumstance I feel a sense of weight lifted off my shoulders. I can choose to see each month that I'm not pregnant as a failure or I can reflect and find the pockets, the small moments, that taught me something - therefore, finding success within that.

So while I'm not pregnant this month, I'm choosing to look at this month through a different lens. I'm not pregnant, but I can successfully list an abundance of joyful things in my life with whole hearted appreciation - which is not normally something that comes easy to me. In addition, I'm not angry at my body for forsaking me once again this month. While these two things might seem small to some, they are huge successes for me.

My hope is by redefining success I can start to see and believe that I AM ENOUGH.

I'm Back!

Why haven’t I written a new post in the last few months? Honestly? I thought I had come to an acceptance with my infertility. (The key word– thought.) I’m no longer allowing my diagnosis to define who I am so why should I keep blogging? I’m not allowing infertility to strip the joy from my life, so why do I need to keep journaling my process?

After a 4-year battle with cancer, my dad passed away right before Easter. I was flooded with emotions, obviously grieving the loss of an important, steadfast, person in my life. More so, it took this life event to show me I had become really good at shoving down and masking my real and raw emotions in life. I had created scabs over wounds of loss (loss of babies, loss of a dream, loss of a working female body) and allowed myself to think I was “okay”.  

If I’m being honest, I had stopped blogging because I thought I had it all together – which is far from the truth. In hopes of not letting my infertility define me, I had allowed myself to live in this false reality where my infertility wasn’t part of me. Infertility may not define me, but it is part of my story and has woven who I am today. The experiences I have lived have shaped my heart and given me wisdom about my faith. It’s given a voice to a topic that is not talked about much and created dialogue amongst an on-line community that I didn’t know existed. While my journey has evolved, shifted and changed in the last few months, there is still a ton of work to be done. I don’t define myself by infertility, nor do I let it strip me of joy, but I am committing myself to the healing process, allowing the wounds to be exposed and mended.