Bringing the power of brain-based coaching to the fertility process

Thank you Jill for this opportunity to share with the readers of your blog, some thoughts and insights on re-wiring the brain to support the fertility journey.

The brain is designed to help us achieve whatever it focuses on – even pregnancy. By the same token, it can work against us when it perceives a threat. David Rock, author of Your Brain at Work and founder and CEO of Results Coaching Systems, talks about threats vs. rewards in our thinking. Our brain recognizes a threat much faster than a reward. It gives these threats a lot of attention and decreases our ability to have insights. By focusing on the perceived threat it prevents us from thinking, acting, or interacting creatively. We go into reactive mode and lose our ability to deal effectively with our problems, with people and within our community. However, when the brain detects a reward, it triggers our creative thinking and we can feel as though we can achieve our goals, plan our lives in a productive way, stay inspired, be great team players/partners and take action.

Fertility treatments are often emotionally charged and stressful. This triggers the brain’s stress reaction as it perceives “threats”. Negative thoughts can takeover affecting our perceptions, our behavior and our ability to make good decisions. All of this inner turmoil can influence the end result.

By applying science of the brain to the fertility process, a coach helps you become aware of your thought processes and adjust your thinking to ensure that stress does not undermine your efforts. You learn how to stop the reaction to threats, or at least shorten their duration, just as you would apply the brakes in your car.
In our coaching sessions we set inspiring goals and move forward with strategies and actions to ensure we achieve them.

• Seek Simplicity: we learn how to reduce complicated thoughts and simplify them and by that enable ideas to become manageable.
• Prioritize: What is really important? Prioritizing is important for the brain because if as we work on the important tasks first, we won’t become less overwhelmed and panicked on our path to parenthood.
• Keep the Big Picture in Mind: The details of the complex fertility treatments can become overwhelming and prevent us from moving forward efficiently during the process. Taking that into account, we take things in chunks. With fewer details to process, there is less anxiety and we stay goal-oriented.
• Focus is the name of the game: During the fertility process accuracy is key. Following doctors’ instructions precisely is important for success and this demands that we stay extremely focused. We work on concentrating the brain’s attention to prevent a drop in “performance”.

Working with this brain-based approach to coaching and focusing on these elements and others, we help our clients re-wire their thinking and help them create new mental maps that support their efforts today. With that we strengthen their ability to have openness to any thought, which will bring more insights and creative ideas on how to solve problems. Connecting concepts that didn’t make sense until that very moment. We help our clients maximize rewards and minimize threats in your thinking so you can experience yourself achieving your goals and getting rid of patterns that no longer support the new you.

The longer we stay victims of our negative thinking, the longer we will stay in the problem. As a coach I walk hand in hand with my clients on the path of solutions. I have often seen that when we focused on the solution, the problems get minimal.
The more we learn about the brain, the more we realize that it is easier to meet any challenge – mental or physical – when we put ourselves in the frame of mind to succeed. As your fertility coach I will listen to your concerns without judgment and help you to identify and access your inner strengths – strengths you may not realize you have.
If you want to learn more about how fertility coaching can support your process, please contact me at: info@yourfertilitymatters.com