Infertility - Coping with the Stress

Infertility - Coping with the Stress : "Almost every minute of conscious life you are engaging in self-talk (conversations in your head); if the self talk is accurate and realistic then you are able to function well, if it is irrational and untrue then you may experience stress and emotional upset. Consider your feelings and self talk regarding your partner if you both discover that the infertility problem lies with them and not you. Do you blame them? do you let it ruin your relationship? Do you feel victimised? Do you have a lot of self talk beginning with “If only…” or “What If…”. Consider your feelings and thoughts if you are told that you can never have a natural child of your own? The chances of your own thoughts becoming negative, irrational and destructive are very high. How do you control these thoughts and your own negative self talk? A practical and effective stress management exercise is controlling self talk. Research shows that a large part of our daily thoughts are negative thoughts whether the situation is a real one or an imagined one. Albert Ellis developed a system to attack irrational ideas and replace them with realistic statements. Ellis’s “Rational Emotive Therapy” is based on the idea that emotions have nothing to do with actual events. In between the event and the emotion is realistic or unrealistic self talk. It is the self talk that produces the emotions. Your own thoughts, directed and controlled by you are what create anxiety, anger, frustration, depression."