Did you know that March is Endometriosis Awareness Month?

Endometriosis occurs in 1 in every 10 women so the odds are- you know someone who has been impacted by it.

Last week I began the conversation about treating endometriosis. We talked through the physical aspects of the disease but there's actually a LOT more to it than just the physical.

This video is part two of how you can manage endometriosis and we'll be focusing on the emotional piece.

Comment below with your thoughts!

Join Ignite Fertility here: aimeeraupp.com/ignitefertility

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Hello. Hello, hello, hello. How are all of you? How is everyone? I am here again. I get to come to you live every single week and share with you all sorts of information about how to optimize your health, your fertility, your mindset, your life, your nutrition, all of the things. Sorry, this camera is being funky. Let me just adjust it.

I'm Aimee of aimeeraupp.com, and I am known to many as a fertility detective and fertility expert, women's health expert. I've written a handful of books, they're all above me, on all sorts of topics, health-related, and I'm here to always help you and guide you and support you through living your best life, and for many of you, that involves getting and staying pregnant, and so it's become an area of expertise for me, but also, little side angle note is that fertility is just an extension of health, and health is mental, emotional, physical, and nutritional, and that is the bulk of what I teach.

And so last week, I came to you and I talked to you all about endometriosis and the physical, nutritional things to do to treat endometriosis, and this week is the endometriosis talk, part two, and for any of you that are like, “Oh wait, I don't have endometriosis. I don't really need to tune in,” no, you should stay. Stay because I do have something to tell you, but also, stay because there's something like 40 to 50% of women with unexplained infertility actually have some low-lying endometriosis that could be impacting their fertility, so it may apply to you, so I would just stay and also, if you want to just hear me chat about how to manage the emotional aspects of the challenges that you are going through, that's what today is all about.

This part two to endometriosis is a topic that is near and dear to my heart and something that I've been talking about for a long time, and I think I first mentioned in writing in my book, Body Belief, and then have talked about it a lot since but is something called emotional inflammation, and so, many women, especially those dealing with endometriosis or other various fertility challenges that endo may be looped into as well, they're dealing with a lot of inflammation in their body. We know endometriosis to be an inflammatory condition. I also know it to be, from a clinical perspective, a condition that responds really well when treated like an autoimmune condition, and many of you, that might not make a lot of sense, but they are different, but what happens with endo is it's an inflammatory condition that then triggers certain immune-like reactions in the body.

And so treatments are always kind of a lot of what we talked about last week, a lot of physical, nutritional, supplements, things to do, but then there's also this other piece that is not talked about as often as it should be in my 20 years of clinical experience and my humble clinical opinion is, again, this emotional inflammation piece.

So what do I mean by emotional inflammation? I'm sure you can guess, but it basically means living in a state of chronic fight or flight, which, if you are in a state of emotional turmoil of like, “When will I have my baby? Is it time to give up? Is this ever going to work for me? Am I ever going to figure this out? I feel so hopeless. I feel so helpless. I feel so stuck. I feel so angry. I feel so sad. Nothing's working for me. Nothing's ever going to work for me,” right, this loop that we all get on, and please stay tuned because I am not going to be the person that tells you that you can't have negative thoughts because that's bullshit.

You should have negative thoughts. You are human. You are having a human experience that is very fucking challenging and to be positive all the time is toxic and not healthy for you and to force positivity down your throat is the last thing that I'm ever going to do because that's not fair to you and that's actually not seeing you or hearing you, so please know that. I am not going to be here and preach to you that you can't have down days because you can. We all do. We are human. It's a human experience, and you are having a very challenging human experience right now.

So I see you. I hear you. I can't say I 100% feel you because I don't have endometriosis, if you will, but I deal with emotional inflammation, and I am constantly working on that piece and have done a lot of my own spiritual growth and development because of what I do for a living but also, because I'm a human and I've had human experiences, right, and I've been through things, and it's been hard, and I see you, and I hear you, and I feel you from that perspective.

But emotional inflammation is that state of living in, “Oh my God, oh my God, is this ever going to work out? Can I figure this out? Am I going to figure it out,” waiting for the next shoe to drop, repeating the trauma, trauma on the loop in your brain, getting triggered constantly, right? That is emotional inflammation and that does trigger its own set of cascades, of physiological cascades in the body, so it'll trigger the immune system. It'll trigger hormones. It'll trigger cortisol, cortisone. Your body, when it's in that state of being emotionally inflamed, of being in fight or flight is not in the state it needs to be in to get pregnant, plain and simple.

To get pregnant, we need to be in what we call the relax and rest and reproduce state, which is more in the parasympathetic, right? We need our nervous system calm, but again, toxic positivity… people over there would be like, “You can only be calm. You can only practice your mantras all day long and then you will have your baby.” Bullshit. Bullshit. As my spiritual teacher would say, “The universe here is how you feel, not what you say,” so I am not going to be shoving mantras down your throat every day.

They do help. A mantra that helps me a lot is I say, “I'm exactly where supposed to be. Even if I don't like it right now, I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.”

But what the goal is then to managing emotional inflammation, which is very much, and we now know from a scientific perspective, very much impacts our neurochemistry. It very much impacts our physiology, very much impacts our hormones in our body, and so when people say, ‘Oh, stress impacts fertility,” I know that most of you want to just shoot that person when they say that, but there is a lot of data that suggests when we manage emotions better, we do become more fertile and that is just because we get out of the fight or flight response more.

So my goal for all of you, and I think a good takeaway here is, “How often am I in that revved up state versus the relaxed state?” I think there should be a 60-40, 70-30 rule. You are totally allowed to go down that rabbit hole and be stressed and worry and feel all the feels, all the anger, all the sadness, all the despair, all the hopelessness because I just got off my weekly Q&A and my secret community, my private community, my Yes, You Can Get Pregnant e-Course students, and I go live in there every single week and answer questions every single week without fail.

And there was a question today of just, “I had another IVF cycle. It didn't work. Didn't run to the results I want. How do I work myself out of feeling this level of despair and hopelessness? Is this ever going to work for me?” And my answer to her was, “Right now, I think you're human and you have every right to feel defeated and to feel sad because you're really showing up for yourself. You're really doing all the things that I say to do, that other experts say to do. You're doing the things. So let yourself feel the pain.”

I do think… and this is my spiritual work and my spiritual teachers who are very, very enlightened, if you will. They always say you have to accept what is in order to move to the next step and so, by forcing positivity down our throats, we're not accepting. We're actually pushing it. We're suppressing. Suppressing is the worst thing you can do, especially from a Chinese medicine perspective and especially if we're dealing with something like endometriosis where there's already inflammatory condition. When you suppress those emotions, it becomes a compost pile inside your body. It just festers and festers and festers and then eventually erupts.

So that's not what we are meant to do here. What we are meant to do here is acknowledge, “This sucks. This is hard. This is upsetting. This is not the news I wanted. This is not where I wanted to be. This is not how I wanted my life to look at this phase of my life. I am very disappointed.” Acknowledge it, own it, say it out loud, write it in a journal. It is not going to give more energy to negative things coming to you. I know the law of attraction, and I'm very deep into law attraction studies. That is not what law attraction says. If you stay there too long, if you just choose to make that the reality and aren't willing to change your story or shift your story, yes, then you would call in more negativity.

But if you acknowledge it in a way that is releasing it, in a way that is honoring it, seeing you, hearing you honoring how you feel, and then you say, “Okay and now what? Okay, now that I've gotten all that gunk out, I am pissed. I am angry. I am hurt. Now what? Do I want to quit? Do I want to give up? Am I willing to look at other things? Am I going down a path of discovery, or am I just going to keep trying the same thing over and over again and expect different results and blame everyone else?”

Where are you then, right? And so for this one client in particular, she knows she's not done trying. Maybe she's just going to go back to trying naturally. Maybe she's going to find another doctor. So I reminded her. I said, “Listen, you're here. You're asking questions. You're showing up. You're expressing how you feel. That, to me alone, shows that there's still hope in you. You don't have to be overly hopeful and optimistic, but what you need to do to manage that emotional information is acknowledge it and then see what comes up next.”

It's not about going from this end of the spectrum to this end like, “There's no hope why bother” to, “Oh my God, I'm totally going to be pregnant this month.” No, it's not about that, and it's not forcing yourself into this positive attitude. It's literally going from here to here to here, and maybe this is where you hover the rest of your life. Maybe sometimes you go here and maybe sometimes you go back here. So it's about forgiveness of yourself for when you go back here or when you're not here. It's about compassion for being human, having a human experience, for it being hard. It's about grace, seeing how you show up for you, pride, being proud of how you show up for yourself and knowing that you can be here, but you can get here, and that there's going to be good days and bad days. I don't love that terminology necessarily, but that it's okay. It's okay to be where you're at. And then it's more about how long do you stay there? I think that's the part that will start to determine how quickly you can shift out, right?

So my one good friend, Leah Abelina, who is an amazing female powerhouse, psychotherapist, trauma therapist, she says that every day, and she recommends this to all her clients, she lets herself have 15 minutes of worry time and 15 minutes of dream time. So to think about that, get them out, but then also, get out the other side.

And another thing I say a lot and it really applies to this emotional inflammation conversation and in any inflammatory condition you're dealing with and an inflammatory condition alone could just be diminished ovarian reserve, poor egg quality, right, that we know oxidation is causing those issues in our body. And so we know diet and lifestyle impact those, and there's data out there, tons of data, and we also know there's tons of data out there saying, “Guess what? Your emotional state totally impacts those as well,” so this applies to any emotional inflammation category.

But one thing I say a lot is hope and fear can coexist. Hope and fear can coexist. You can be scared that this is never going to work for you. You can be scared that you're trying something new and it's not going to give you the results you want. You can be scared to have another miscarriage. You can be scared to be in this another year. You can be scared to spend tens of thousands more dollars, but you can also still have hope.

And I think just being here, listening, reading books, being open to discovery, open to trying a new supplement, open to changing your diet, open to hearing this conversation is hope enough. I don't think hope has to be sunshine and rainbows. I think that's too much pressure.

So managing the emotional inflammation helps us feel more peace, no matter what comes our way. That's what you deserve. That's what's going to put you into that rest, relax, reproduce aspect of your nervous system. Shoving positive affirmations down your throat, not necessarily going to do that because again, do you believe them? If you believe them, by all means, those are your affirmations. So for me, my affirmation often is, “I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. Not totally how I saw it all going down. Would've preferred to not have had that miscarriage two years ago. Not totally, exactly where I want to be. It's upsetting, but I do also know that I've been in hard places before and things can work out and I do have the right resources and I do have the right support and something in my heart tells me to continue on, that my life will work out for me, that I will have all my dreams met, that I am worthy of all I desire,” right?

So acknowledging, “Yeah, this isn't…” and even someone said to me years ago, “Grieving the life you thought you would have.” So to take time and honor that grief, honor that trauma, look at it, get comfortable with it, get honest with yourself, “That happened and that was shitty. This is happening now, and it sucks. It does not feel good.”

But… and I do this all the time with my coaching clients and so do my coaches that work under me. It's something I really encourage in all of our conversations is, “But here, you have a choice.” I'm not saying you chose to be here and have these fertility challenges. Just hear me out. But while you're in this space of these fertility challenges, you do have a choice. Are you going to continue on, or are you moving on to something else? Have you closed this door, or do you want to keep it open? And just answer me that. “Yeah, this sucks, and I'm ready to close the door,” or “Yeah, this sucks. Door's still open. I'm still in it. I'm still riding this wave. Let see where it goes,” right?

That right there, there's freedom in that for you versus feeling like you been pushed into a corner with no choices. And on some level, sure, you're in a position that you never wanted to be in, and I remember when my dad got cancer and you guys maybe have heard me say this before. I said to him, “Yeah, this sucks. We now belong to a club that we never wanted to belong to.” I'm not saying I'm excited about belonging to the club, but we make lemonade from lemons. Is that what it is? You take lemons and make lemonade, right? I think that's it.

What can we do while we're here? How can we find peace and joy? Maybe not joy, but peace and ease, peace and acceptance along the way. How can we find some good in this? How can we take ourselves from being here, which is completely in the dark, to maybe here, which is half in the dark and half in the light or to even here or to be okay if we go like this? Every day is different because I'm human.

So as you can tell, I spend a lot of time in this space with my coaching clients, with my acupuncture clients, with my coaches, with myself, with my life. And I don't have a psychology degree. That is why I now have a team psychologist that we do offer fertility trauma coaching because some of this is beyond the scope of what I am licensed to do. But what I'm trained to do, however, 20 years of clinical experience, I do feel like I have… and prior to that, I was a waitress for 11 years, so a server for 11 years, so I got a lot of psychology experience, I think.

But I spend a lot of time helping my clients unpack their fears versus their hope and finding peace within that and finding peace of, “Okay, yeah, I got my period, but this was better and this was better and this was better” or, “Yes, I may still have endometriosis, but I did get the surgery, and I understand now this is a clean slate and now, understanding that diet impacts me as much as mental, emotional health,” so choosing, “Yes, I can go down that rabbit hole and I can stay there if I want to. I can go on Dr. Google. I can go on all the forums, and I can read about all the bad things that could happen.” How does that serve my heart, and what am I choosing because I'm still in this.

So if I'm still in this, why would I choose to hurt myself more and make myself suffer more? Acknowledge? Yeah. Well aware of my age, well aware of my AMH, well aware of my FSH, well aware of my pregnancy history or well aware, well aware, doc. I always say call it the elephant in the room.

They're like, “I'm afraid to go to the doctor because he is going to point out this, this, and this.” I'm like, “So you go in the room and you point it out.” “I'm very aware of the elephant in the room. This is how old I am. This is what my AMH is. But something in me, I still have hope. So are you on my team or you not?” And I think you should have that conversation with yourself, “Somewhere in me, I still have hope, so are you on my team, or are you not” because this bullshit doesn't serve us when we go down that rabbit hole for too long when we sabotage ourselves, when we belittle ourselves, when we judge ourselves does not serve us, worsens emotional inflammation, for certain, the science is showing us, worsens your physiological state, worsens your inflammatory conditions, worsens your egg quality, worsens your hormones.

So we acknowledge, “Yeah, not a good moment, not a good test result, not what I wanted to see. Okay, so what now? Am I closing the door? Is the door still open? Am I still here? Is there a little light that can come in? How can I find peace with this? Where can I reach out for support?”

And so I have a program that's open. The doors are open right now for it. The cart's going to close tomorrow at midnight Eastern time, so Friday, midnight, April 1st Eastern time. It's called Ignite your Fertility. It's a four-week program to support you in shifting your mindset and allowing you to release your fertility fears so that your fertility can thrive. It's, I think, very reasonably priced for all that you get. It's $172 for a four-week program where you get daily emails from me. You get weekly teachings. You get incredible secret support group in my new network because it's is not on Facebook, and you get weekly group coaching calls from me that are live, that are in our secret community, and just so much more. You're going to get a ton of resources and support.

And so if you want to go check it out, it's aimeeraupp.com/ignite, as in ignite, light up, reawaken, come back to life. Ignite your fertility. This used to be called my Yes program, and it's a highly popular program that I offer usually once or twice every year. People love it. They come back for more every freaking time because we go deep on the emotional space, and I really help you acknowledge and then reform and then transform those beliefs so that you can shift your mindset or at the very least, you can go from here to here.

I am not promising anything more than that, and all I ask of you is to come in with an open heart and an open mind. Are you open to discovering, to looking at parts of yourself that are painful? Are you open to releasing the old stories? Are you open to telling a new story? Are you open to seeing how emotional inflammation is actually impacting your egg quality? And are you open to giving yourself a chance to feel more peace and ease, or are you addicted to the suffering?

A lot of us get in the loop, and it's not by choice. And the suffering feeds us. The drama feeds us. How can we pull ourselves out of that? How can we come back home to here, not to here, and be connected to our heart, to our hope, to our intuition, to our knowing? How can we come back and be on the same team as ourselves?

The other thing I will promise you in this program is there is not a lick of nutrition or supplements discussed. And in fact, if a question comes up about the supplements or nutrition, I don't answer it because that's not what this program's about. We only talk about emotions and how to shift them. And you get daily emails from me with homework in each email. You get weekly video lessons and then you get weekly live group coaching with me. You'll get a support group with other like-minded women, and it's awesome.

I love the word ignite, when we changed the name, because to me, it's like, I really thought about what does happen to women who do this program? They come back to life. They start to like themselves more. They find more peace in their daily life, and it's not about… I think there's a big thing, and I talk about this in all my books. It's like, “I don't want you to just find happiness when you get the baby. I want you to find happiness and joy now,” and I also want you to discover that there's so many ways to be mindful. There's so many ways to connect to yourself. There's so many ways to love and like yourself, even on your path to motherhood, on your path to having this child and yeah, it's about you and coming back to you in life.

Jamie, I'm so sorry, my love. I know haven't heard from you in a while. I'm so sorry. Let's see. Thanks for that clarification. I've heard that I'm only beginning learning about it. I missed that. There's another question here. Okay. So I have [inaudible 00:25:21] autoimmune condition. I also have… yeah, they're really common.

And I think, too, it's unpacking not just the physical manifestations of those inflammatory/ autoimmune conditions but the emotional ones, and I've never seen in my clinical experience and I'm generalizing, I suppose, but 20 years of clinical experience and I don't mean to sound judgemental, but I've never seen an inflammatory condition like endometriosis not have or not be coupled with deep emotional inflammation, deep self-judgment, deep self-criticism. And also, this fertility journey really generates that.

And so if you want support in unpacking that from someone who's really helped, honestly, thousands of women unpack it, join the program. 172 bucks for four weeks. You get a shit ton of everything and support and all the things. And I think it's a really nice way to support yourself, to show up for yourself, and to dig deeper on the emotional front in a way that feels really digestible and manageable. So I welcome you to go check out.

There's a nice video of on the website. Even if you just want to watch that, you'll get a lot of information from it and tools and tips. It's a 15-minute video that I created for all of you, so whether or not you purchase the course, go watch the video because I do think you'll get even more. If you like this conversation and you want more of it, go to aimeeraupp.com/ignitefertility and take a moment and watch the video, and then if you decide to join us or not, that's up to you.

I really only want people to join who have an open heart, who are ready for more discovery of themselves and ready to take a deeper look at the emotional piece and how it is impacting their inflammation and their fertility and their egg quality and really seeing this as a holistic approach to optimal health, which will lead to optimal fertility.

So I welcome you all. Go check out the video no matter what. Extra 10 to 15 minutes of your time where I think you'll get some more key nuggets to take away, and then if you want to join the group, you got to do it by tomorrow night, midnight Eastern time. Well, 11:59 PM Eastern time. So I hope to see you there, and yeah, you guys know, I also always continue these conversations, so we'll be talking about emotional inflammation more and more as the days come.

Sending love. Bye. Okay.

Sending love to all of you guys too. Jamie, I'm so sorry to hear about the loss.

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