It’s gonna be a year where you take care of yourself and your own mental health, your healing, and your hope for the future. You need a life coach, and I would love to be that for you. I know the holidays are busy. I don’t wanna put one more thing on your list, but I really want you to sign up for a consult call so that we can talk about starting off the new year coaching with me.

In my program, I teach you all the tools you need to find joy in your life after loss. I also love coaching women who are pregnant after loss or who are thinking about it and getting ready for it and a little bit afraid of how it’s gonna go. Let me help you get ready now so you are so, so ready. When you see those two pink lines, go to the link in my show notes or go to smooth stones coaching.com.

Sign up for a consult call. You just ask me everything you need to know about coaching. I will answer your questions and we will find a spot that works for you. I cannot wait to meet you. Do this for yourself. It’s the best thing you can do. Today’s episode is gonna be short and sweet, but packed with powerful information.

I was noticing this pattern with a lot of people I talked to, and I wanted to address it here on the podcast. After your baby dies, it’s easy to notice the hole in your life that your baby would fill if you had an early loss. It’s all the pregnancy things like iho, a big belly. I should be going to into the anatomy scan.

I should be feeling kicks and not be able to tie my own shoes. If it was a bit later, you might be thinking about how old your baby would be or what milestones they would be hitting, how many weeks or months old they would be. And no matter when your loss was, you probably can imagine how old your child would be now and what they’re missing out on.

No one is tearing ornaments off the tree. Their eyes aren’t lighting up with the glow of holiday lights. You aren’t biting them Presents like we talked about last week, they are not in your pictures. This is your brain on default. It’s looking for problems always, and your baby not being here is a huge gaping hole in how you thought your life would go.

It’s normal to be obsessed with your child. Your baby, a piece of you, but they are not here. So it can look like a whole lot of grief and wishing things were different. The story you’re telling is that they should be here. I don’t have any problem with grief and missing your child. Of course you miss them, but I wanna offer to you one small shift that can make all the difference as you process through these feelings.

Because anytime we find ourselves using the word should, it’s a red flag that we are fighting reality. We are wishing things were different than they are, and that almost always causes us pain. And that pain is layered on top of what you are already dealing with. So your baby is not here. That’s sad. And now you’re mad because you think they should be.

I instead of just feeling sad. You have that extra pain on top of it, and the worst part is there’s no way to fix it. You are completely stuck. Your life is all wrong and there’s nothing you can do. It’s a very powerless place to be. Instead of saying they should be nine months, they should be at the Christmas recital.

They should be at the dinner table. Change it to if they were alive. See, I don’t think you need to stop yourself from thinking about your baby or what they would be doing, but you can frame it in a way that isn’t so heavy. It’s more like you are just thinking about them and imagining a little bit. I recently found a dress.

My youngest li living daughter has outgrown. Because we had four girls in a row. There were a lot of dresses being handed down and matching dresses. It was a whole thing we did. As I saw that dress, I had a choice of what to think. If Lauren was alive, we’d be getting her a Costco holiday dress. She would probably be wearing her sister’s hand-me-down ones as well.

I would be saving this stress for her to grow into, but she’s not alive, so I will be giving this stress to someone else. Seeing this dress isn’t emotionally devastating. The dress is just a circumstance If I choose to think that she should be wearing it. I create a lot of pain for myself. If I choose to think that if she was alive, she might be.

It’s not. I may have some sadness and some moments of grief, but it’s not that hot ball of frustration with nowhere to go. Now I have had a lot of practice with this and it is a skill that you can learn. That’s what I want you to know. If it’s really hard to do right now, that’s okay. I want you to start with little ladder thoughts.

Like it’s possible that someday I could stop thinking she should be here. It’s possible I could change my should to an if or I am becoming a person who believes it’s okay to stop fighting my reality. Do some journaling and figure out some thoughts that feel right to you. Try them on, which simply means you practice thinking something and see how it feels.

Take a walk around the store and check if it rubs you wrong or feels comfortable. See what feelings come up when you try on these thoughts, and especially see what results you get. If they were alive, keeps things hypothetical and much lighter. It keeps your brain from sensing a problem and reacting. It allows you to just deal with grief without any extra pain, and whatever feelings do come up will float away much easier.

You can still think about your child in the present while accepting that they are not here in their body. It’s very subtle, but a powerful tool to add to your grief tool belt. The less energy we use fighting the truth of our lives, the more we have to put towards our healing. I’m sending you big hugs and much love.

I’ll see you next time.