This is an overview of the mind-body practice I used twice to get pregnant against the odds. Read how I integrate these practices throughout a typical day here!
Read all my posts on Mind-Body healing for Fertility here!
Cleansing your home of toxins, and eating a clean, organic whole foods diet are both critically important to reclaiming your fertility and getting pregnant. There are many stories of women who became pregnant simply by following these first two life changing practices. However, the To Make A Mommy Fertility Plan isn’t just about getting healthy and pregnant. It’s also about getting HAPPY … and pregnant. If you are like me, then after struggling with “infertility” for years you are stressed out and maybe a bit depressed. Does any of this sound familiar?
- People just keep telling you to “relax” or maybe to “take a vacation” and it will just happen.
- Your helpful grandmother keeps saying, “Honey, it’s not that big a deal, you can always adopt.”
- Your in-laws keep pressuring you to do one more IVF treatment.
- Your husband doesn’t know what to do when you cry every time you get your period.
In other words, you are in desperate need of some serious self-care and your spirit needs a boost. Further, if your spirit, your soul, your true-self isn’t ready to become pregnant (for any number of reasons), then your body isn’t going to become pregnant.
- Maybe you have some serious issues from your past that you haven’t really dealt with.
- Maybe you are secretly terrified of being a mother.
- Maybe you are just secretly terrified of being pregnant.
- Maybe you secretly aren’t sure your relationship is strong enough for the long haul.
- Or, maybe, you are just so damn tired and exhausted and stressed from trying to get pregnant that you can’t see straight!
It is important that you take the time to care for your spirit as well as your body. There are many ways to do this, but I recommend working out your fertility related emotional issues through special fertility psychotherapy work, practicing daily fertility meditation, finding a really great acupuncturist, and practicing daily visualizations and body work that support fertility.
The To Make A Mommy Mind-Body Fertility Plan only includes the mind-body practices that I used to successfully get pregnant. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t other practices out there that can help you nourish your soul. For example, I didn’t do any of those cool adult coloring book things, but I bet they would help. I am only recommending what I actually did and what I actually believe got me pregnant. There are plenty of other things I did in the mind-body realm that I don’t believe helped. I won’t mention them here.
*This post contains affiliate links which at no cost to you provide me with some small change to help keep this blog running! If you decide to buy something I recommend, please consider clicking through one of my links to help support this blog and my family! Thank you!
A word of clarification-
I do not recommend these mind-body practices because I think you need to “just relax.” In fact, I think that “relaxation” is overrated. ALL of your emotions are ENERGY and ALL of your ENERGY is your fertility. Don’t do these things to relax; do these things to nourish your whole self- body and soul. When you nourish your whole self you become healthy and happy; fertility follows naturally.
- Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Acupuncture. You absolutely need to get yourself an amazing TCM acupuncturist. This is science. TCM is an evidence based practice to increase successful conception. A good acupuncturist treats your whole self- your body and your soul. Find a practitioner who 1) tells you your diagnosis, 2) gives you diet and lifestyle advice, and 3) gives you different Chinese herbs for each part of your cycle. Click here for easy steps on identifying a great acupuncturist for fertility!
- Acknowledge your emotional stuff. If you have some underpinning fear (like those mentioned above) about pregnancy or being a mom, your mind and body might be working together to prevent you from getting pregnant. Similarly, if you have trauma you haven’t fully processed, now is the time to do so. Just like you don’t want to be reliving a sexual assault trauma when you are giving birth, you don’t want to be dealing with childhood abuse trauma when you have your own children. The time to heal is NOW- before you conceive. Here’s the great news- healing can come from simply acknowledging your issues and loving yourself anyway. You don’t actually have to do 10 years of therapy to completely eradicate it from your system. I had to deal with some serious fears of pregnancy. The methods I used were hypnotherapy, dream journaling, and the Fertile Heart Program, which I highly recommend. Read my full review of the Fertile Heart Program Here!
- Fertility-Focused Meditation + Full Body Relaxation. I used Circle + Bloom’s Natural Cycle program the month I became pregnant. It was an incredible tool to both visualize what was happening with my ovaries, eggs, and the little embryo each day, and to unwind and fully relax my body. It was only 15-20 minutes each day. I also used Fertile Heart’s guided relaxation, and a fertility yoga nidra from from Kat Anderson’s Yoga & Meditation for Fertility DVD (which doesn’t seem to be available any more on Amazon). The idea is that you want to completely relax every muscle in your body for at least 15 minutes each day. Any kind of progressive body relaxation will work, but why wouldn’t you use one tailored specifically for fertility? Read my full post here on the power of meditation & visualization for fertility.
- Visualization. Every morning and every evening I would do an “imagery” or visualization from the Fertile Heart Program. This was about 2 minutes when I woke up and two minutes when I went to sleep. I would also try to incorporate my own visualizations into my everyday life. For example, every time I showered, I would place my hands on my belly and imagine it swelling round and full with a healthy baby growing inside it. I know this seems silly, but the month I got pregnant I was also obsessively watching The Miracle of Life on youtube. In fact, my husband and I watched it about ten minutes before we conceived our baby! We also listened to one of Fertile Heart imageries immediately before our successful baby dance. You can read my full review of the Fertile Heart Program here. You can buy the Fertile Heart Imagery CDs here.
- Prayer. Prayer is an incredibly powerful mind-body tool for healing and fertility. I believe strongly that prayer is most effective when we ask for exactly what we want and need! I am Catholic so I have found great solace in praying to saints that are known to be champions of all things fertility. Click here for my overview on praying for fertility and here for all my blog posts on prayer and fertility. You can also visit my Pinterest Board on Fertility Prayers for ideas!
- Yoga. While I don’t think yoga is necessary for fertility, it was already a daily practice of mine. I am not a big exerciser – I mostly walk and do gentle yoga. I practiced a few key fertility-enhancing yoga positions each day for months. However, the month I conceived I also religiously did the practices in the Restoring Fertility DVD. While I recommend yoga as a fertility mind-body practice I do so with one reservation: don’t do yoga just to relax. Do yoga to energize your eggs, your ovaries, and your womb! This is why I love the Restoring Fertility DVD- it incorporates self-acupressure to bring energy and blood flow to your reproductive organs at just the right time in your monthly cycle.
Fertility Mind-Body Work
Get your free fertility mind-body checklist! This daily checklist is printable and includes the prayer, visualization, and meditation, that I used to beat the odds and overcome infertility and get pregnant naturally. Print and use daily to make sure you are doing everything you can to prepare your spirit for motherhood!
Shuliloo says
Hi Anna- I wanted to thank you for your site. Your suggestions are excellent and have inspired me to make healthy changes. I did want to mention that I had a negative experience with the Fertile Heart phone session program. Julia spoke to the other callers in ways that I felt crossed a line, doling out medical insight that she is not qualified to give nor I felt was accurate. She also subtly implied that due to my age (45) that she felt there was little hope. Given that her program is not cheap ($300) and the experience was upsetting and a bit humiliating (she said this on the line with many other callers,) so I opted out. I feel this warning is worth sharing with your blog readers, because we are all so vulnerable in this process! However the other mind body stuff (Circle and Bloom) has been really solid and I’m doing that!
Anna says
Shuliloo,
Ugh, I am so sorry. I have had one or two other readers report negative experiences with her, but many others report positive experiences. I’m not sure if its that she changes, or just that she is a good fit for some and not for others. But what you are talking about is problematic for everyone- especially doling out medical advice. Eeek.
It was such a life-changing experience for me, but I suppose when you are working with humans (as opposed to recordings) things are always changing. Thank you so much for the feedback and I’m so sorry you didn’t enjoy it!!! Did you ask for your money back?
Anna
Shuliloo says
Yes she did give me a full refund to her credit. Before signing up I read about your experience with her and it sounded very different than mine! Anyway onward and upwards-I’m still Following your other recommendations as much as I can. Best of luck and here’s to a fertile year to all your readers!
Sammi K says
Hi Anna,
I wanted to thank you for this website. It’s been a long journey to getting and staying pregnant, and I’m still not there yet, but one thing I’m grateful for is being able to do the mind-body work. I have a background in developmental psychology and I have also experienced a lot of anxiety through my life. TTC has definitely been a source of anxiety for me, and the mind-body work has helped to reduce some of that. While my husband and I are going to start seeing a reproductive endocrinologist in January, it is still my prayer to conceive naturally. You give me hope that it’s possible. Thanks so much!