Hope in the Waiting with Dr. Amy Balete
Welcome to the Counter Culture Health podcast. I'm doctor Jen McWaters. And I'm coach Kaitlyn Reed. We're here to help high achieving women overcome mental blocks, find freedom from anxiety, create an abundant life, and build the body and life that they deserve and desire. In this weekly podcast, we'll uncover the raw truth about mental health, nutrition, fitness, and beyond.
Jen:Let's get to it. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Counter Culture Health.
Jen:Today, I have with me a friend and fellow coach, Doctor. Amy Vallete. Doctor. Amy is a clinical psychologist, a life coach and the founder of the Brave Hearts Community, where she helps women move from overwhelmed grief and uncertainty into peace, joy, and purpose. With over fifteen years of experience as a therapist, Doctor.
Jen:Amy integrates clinical expertise with faith based wisdom to guide high achieving women who are navigating infertility, delayed motherhood, emotional burnout, and questions of identity. Her mission is simple yet profound, to restore joy and reconnect women with God's presence and design for their lives, whether or not their story includes children. Diagnosed with secondary infertility after her first child, Doctor. Amy went on to welcome three more babies, giving her a unique perspective that bridges both professional insight and lived experience. She knows firsthand the midnight tears, the ache of waiting, and the power of finding hope again.
Jen:Through her one on one coaching, group programs, and online community, Doctor. Amy has supported hundreds of women in releasing self doubt, processing grief without being consumed by it, and cultivating resilience in the face of uncertainty. Her work dismantles harmful cultural narratives around performance, timing, and worth, replacing them with heaven's truth and a renewed sense of identity. Doctor. Amy speaks with the heart of a mother, the wisdom of a therapist, and the boldness of a truth teller, helping women embrace joy not as a fleeting feeling, but as a mantle for every season of life.
Jen:Doctor. Amy, welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yes.
Jen:What a beautiful intro. And I'm so excited to have this conversation with you, partly because, you know, I was that woman. Like, I very much understand that journey, and I'm excited to hear your take on how we can support women in those different seasons and, like you said, whether or not that journey includes children. So this is gonna be a really helpful and heartfelt conversation, I know. So with that, first question is, given that our podcast is named Counterculture Health, what about what you do makes you countercultural or different from the mainstream approach to working with infertility in women?
Dr. Amy Balete:Yeah. It's a good question. I think one of the off the top ways that makes me a little different is my faith and my belief in God and how that gets incorporated into our coaching sessions with the women that I work with. It is, I think, really imperative and integral to in this season when especially when we're trying to have children, we're running into roadblocks too. And it's really easy to get out of faith and hope, or it feels really foolish to be hopeful when things on its face just don't seem like they're working.
Dr. Amy Balete:And that is, I think, one of the main bugs that I I help women with is that come what may, no matter what happens, your life is valuable. You have purpose and meaning, whether that actually actuates into you being a mother or or it doesn't. And so I think that's a little different take than what you often see in the infertility world. And so, yeah, I think it's important.
Jen:Yes. So tell us more about you. And, know, I can tell already just how much this is emanating from your personal journey and experience. So talk to us about your own experience with secondary infertility and professional burnout and how you got to where you are now.
Dr. Amy Balete:Yeah. So I oh, goodness. I've I've been a licensed clinical psychologist since 2012. And in that time, I walked through, you know, as many therapists do, but we don't always talk about, especially not with our clients usually. But, you know, oftentimes, we're kinda going, you know, side by side.
Dr. Amy Balete:In our world, we call it parallel process. There's sometimes parallel process happening with the folks that we're working with and in our own lives. And so I was walking through this infertility journey while I was treating patients in my practice. And so it became very apparent as I was going through this journey, we had multiple miscarriages. We really our first child was spontaneous.
Dr. Amy Balete:We thought, okay. We've got this in the bag. Whenever we wanna have kids, we can have kids. And when we went to go for number two, it did not work that way. There was we had, like, four miscarriages.
Dr. Amy Balete:We ended up eventually going through infertility treatment because of my age, things weren't really happening. They recommend six months start seeing the doctor and talking about things. I had a hard stop at doing IUI. That was all I was willing to do for what I perceived at the time as health reasons, just medically. My mom had a really severe breast cancer in her younger forties.
Dr. Amy Balete:I just didn't wanna mess too much with hormones. And now we have wonderful research that is kind of showing there isn't any effect there, but at the time, we didn't. And so I had this goal, and I did eight rounds of IUI to get to baby number two. All several miscarriages happening on that, getting pregnant off the back of a miscarriage with our now baby. And it was just a whirlwind in our marriage, in my life professionally, to kind of have to go and balance this with, you know, experiencing the pain and the hurt of the clients that I was talking about while I was alongside them walking through my own pain and hurt and sometimes happening while I'm in session.
Dr. Amy Balete:Right? It just was really wearing. And it found I, you know, I found in that time that I was having to really kinda check myself on what skills I was actually using. I think as therapists, we can get into this, like, head knowledge of, like, oh, we help people do this and that. But when you really step back and in my time of working with interns, I realized, like, many of us are not even doing the things we ask people to do.
Dr. Amy Balete:And I was having to truly come in with my own grounding, my own meditations and journaling practice to help me in the face of looking at, wow, this dream I had of a family may not actualize and what did that mean for me? And it really caused me to kinda look at everything because here I was, you know, because of my education choices, my career choices, I was in my mid thirties now embarking on motherhood and trying to grow my family, being told by doctors that I was just old and my eggs were probably old. I had unexplained infertility, which is like Right. The trash can of, like, we don't really know what's wrong with you. And you seem healthy enough, but it's just not happening.
Dr. Amy Balete:Right? They just don't really have the answers. And so it really kind of made me challenge a lot of things that I hadn't looked at previous to that because, man, I could make what I wanted to happen. I was growing in my career. Things were happening.
Dr. Amy Balete:And at this point, I could have really overcome anything that was a barrier. And so, you know, we then embarked again after our second child. The our doctor was like, you know, you guys aren't getting any younger. You know, as soon as you're done breastfeeding, if you wanna try for another, I'd say start as soon as you can because we don't know if this can take another two years or what's gonna happen. And we went in.
Dr. Amy Balete:Got pregnant within four rounds. She kind of gave me a gentle threat of, you know, if you this last time I'm gonna do IUI, we need to revisit your your plan. And I was like, I don't want to do IVF. And she's like, well, then you better get pregnant, and I did. So was like, yay.
Dr. Amy Balete:And then we, you know, we thought we were kinda done, and we moved on. And a surprise baby showed up in my early forties at 42. I gave birth to her a month before my 40 no. My 40 birthday, so I was just about 43. Like, it was a very wild whirlwind of an experience, just nothing we had planned for.
Dr. Amy Balete:But in this process, I really was looking career wise, family wise, what is good for us and what we needed for our family to kind of move forward and how I could support other women who had kind of had journeys like me. I could really remember there was a poignant time sitting in a mom's group at my church where I was like, I can read anything. I can do anything, research it, and, like, make it happen, but I can't make myself get pregnant. And it really was like that that grip of control of trying to manage something you have zero control over. And through that kind of birth, my process of what I help women with when I'm coaching them through their fertility or grief, anger struggles.
Jen:Wow. What a beautiful story and what a roller coaster to be on. Yep. I definitely understand too. Just resonate with when you are very high achieving in academics and professionally in career, it's hard not to apply that mindset to things like getting pregnant where you have little to no control over.
Jen:And you can obviously set things up in your favor, but ultimately, you cannot guarantee that just with hard work and even taking supplements and doing all the right things that you're gonna get pregnant. And I found that firsthand as well. So I that you put words on that because that is a hard mindset to get out of and to not apply to all areas of your life.
Dr. Amy Balete:Yeah. Yeah. And I it is an illusion of control. Right? Like, we unfortunately, in our in our efforts and it it's well rewarded.
Dr. Amy Balete:I think that is the hard part about it is most of us, you know, maybe we had stuff in our backgrounds and upbringing that we had already started overcoming. We're athletes. We are, you know, degreed. And, yeah, it's like, oh, no. If I wanna go do something, my hard work and efforts usually pay off.
Dr. Amy Balete:And I it doesn't always go exactly to plan, but I get what I want in the end. Right? Like, some of us, it took a little longer to get to that license. Other people got licensed immediately after school. You know, you just kinda see all these milestones.
Dr. Amy Balete:And, you know, I also think that we have this belief often that, like, when we're ready and the time is there, these things happen. Like, we will get pregnant and around people around us are having these experiences. So when you're the one not, wherever you fall in the age group of that, it can be really shocking to your system. And I feel like control, anger, frustration, and the grief are kind of the heightened emotions that happen in this process that a lot of women are going to work, smiling, doing their job successfully with this kind of simmering boiling pot, if you will, on the internal side of things. And but it's also it's not just gone unseen, and it is kind of affecting the goal that we wanna achieve, and it affects our happiness in the long term and often has impacts on our marriage.
Dr. Amy Balete:Right? It's just it's never just living with us.
Jen:Yes.
Dr. Amy Balete:So when we can kind when we can really break through that and ground ourselves in it, I feel like that's when people really see that peace and joy that's authentic in their life that they've really been longing for. And they can release the control and know they're gonna be okay.
Jen:So let's talk more about that. The waiting. I know that we wanted to focus on that today is the season of waiting, which has a lot of things mixed into it and I think has opportunities for growth for us, but also there's a lot of hard things in that. So tell us more about how that season of waiting impacts us mentally, emotionally, spiritually, holistically? Oh my goodness.
Dr. Amy Balete:Yeah. I think waiting seasons really you know, I come from a faith background, so it is it's the seasons of the trials. Right? We can there's many analogies to this in the Bible. And but even if that isn't your belief, many of us have sat through seasons of waiting, and we know where our minds can go in that process, even even the healthiest of us.
Dr. Amy Balete:I think the hardest part with waiting is in long periods of waiting, we really struggle to find hope. And when we can't find hope in what we're doing, we feel very lost. We it's like our compass has gotten off centered and we don't know which way to go. And we'll either begin to rise up bitterness and anger in that because it feels like we have no control or limited to control. We begin to grip on tightly to things to try to create control, and that usually doesn't have a good outcome around with people around us in our relationships, be it marriage partnerships or even at work.
Dr. Amy Balete:And so it's such a it's such a a season that I think a lot of times we brush it off. We're like, well, we're just in this waiting process. There's nothing you know, everybody has this experience. It's not that big of a deal. But as you start to see birth announcements or people moving forward, I don't even think this just resonates with those with infertility.
Dr. Amy Balete:Many of us can look at the waiting season, whether it's buying a house, waiting for your career to pop and move in the direction you want it to go.
Jen:Getting married too. People struggling. Being a partner.
Dr. Amy Balete:Yeah. People is getting married. That was a big waiting season for me as well.
Jen:Me
Dr. Amy Balete:too. You know? So hence this kind of later motherhood experience. Right? Like, we try to go through it graciously, but if we're not attending to those feelings in an authentic way of what's happening within us, it really can leave us in a wounded, bitter, and angry place.
Dr. Amy Balete:And I think that is as I was going through my own journey, I had a I had several clients that were kind of inspiring to me that would never have known it, but they were women that were in their fifties now looking back. And they had felt like they had some really significant regrets around their choices with motherhood, whether they had had a miscarriage and they felt too scared to try again. Like, they kind of perceived that miscarriage as, like, a sign that they shouldn't pursue motherhood. And now here they were really entering into menopause looking back and saying, should I have made that decision? And there was, you know, and they felt too late in the game.
Dr. Amy Balete:And in some ways, maybe for biological purposes, although there are those who have different experiences, they felt like they were too late. And it was this kind of parallel of being on the side of trying to make things happen and looking at that that woman looking back that I really began to see this waiting period of of a period of surrender and not just like, I'm waving my white flag and whatever happens to me happens. I really had purpose. Like, I knew I wanted to keep going at least with the IUI. Didn't feel like that you know, my husband and I were very kind of prayerfully approaching that.
Dr. Amy Balete:We knew we wanted to keep moving towards our goal, but my attachment to what that ending was gonna be, I I was learning to loosen my grip on it. Yes. I was fortunate enough to have one child. Right? And I care if you have one or 10.
Dr. Amy Balete:One is enough. It is is enough to keep you busy and and your heart and your hands full even though my vision had been more. I always dreamed of having three kids. That was kind of my goal. Really settling into, okay, I have this one and she is enough.
Dr. Amy Balete:And I am a good enough mom. Our marriage is good. Like, we are going to be fine. What happens here? I'm gonna keep in this process until I've decided I don't wanna do it anymore or, you know, something comes up.
Dr. Amy Balete:But really, really beginning to unattach to that, my life is gonna be better when I can take that vacation when I finally get this. When we get pregnant, we can go here. We can buy my dream car. Like, oh my gosh. No.
Dr. Amy Balete:Like, it really makes those waiting seasons more painful, and we find ourselves in that. And I work with women all the time that are like, well, I'll move states. And it's so tricky, and I I really honor the trickiness of it when you're in an IVF process because a lot of clinics won't transfer embryos. And so you are tied to where you were at often in that season. And so but are there other areas of, like, okay.
Dr. Amy Balete:I hate my job, but my job is the source of my income and funding this endeavor that I'm on. How can I pivot in that? Or what can I do to release some stresses in these other areas while I am waiting? Because I think sometimes we put everything on hold that doesn't necessarily have to go on hold as well.
Jen:Why do you think we psychologically do that? Because I recall looking back on my journey doing some of the same things. The like, even, like, I can't plan a big vacation or things because we're going through IVF cycles, I don't wanna miss a month, an opportunity. So what do you think is the driving force having worked with so many women where we do that, where we put life on hold in that season of waiting? You know,
Dr. Amy Balete:as always, it's nuanced and it's varied for everyone, but I think there is a piece of it's a piece of that internal drive of I want the good outcome. I wanna be the good student. I want to not get in my own way and, like, this is what I'm doing, and a lot of us become very hyper focused on it. And we don't give ourselves the break. Even in times where doctors will be like, you know what?
Dr. Amy Balete:Maybe it's time to set out a month. That's, like, so defeating. Yes. Yes. Is.
Dr. Amy Balete:Pregnant, you're like, what? I've already waited all this. You want me to sit out a month? Right. And, you know, I was faced with that in my own journey.
Dr. Amy Balete:You know, For those who maybe aren't as aware, you know, our ovaries are making cysts constantly. And after you know? And it's happening in our cycle. And as those those cysts don't always go down, well, I didn't wanna go on birth control to get it to try to go down because my body doesn't respond birth control well. It's kinda like your first trimester pregnancy all the time, so I'm not signing up for that if I'm not pregnant.
Dr. Amy Balete:And so I was like, well, I'll just you know, we'll have to wait. And sometimes that's multiple months, or there's other factors I've heard of why people get told to, like, let's sit out a month or two. But it is that I think it's that idea, the pressure we're putting on ourselves of, like, every month is an opportunity, but we come into every month with this energy that then gets shut down with a negative pregnancy test or our period shows up. And it is such a vicious cycle to get on and can create a lot of anger and sadness. So we're always kind of rising in hope and then, oh, shoot.
Dr. Amy Balete:You know, maybe things hope we're a day late. This could be it, and then it's not. And so we're kind of always bracing for that impact. And I think there's also a bit of that that gets a bit of it gets a bit obsessive. Yeah.
Dr. Amy Balete:And it works out in our life often to get obsessive about things. It's what makes us curious researchers, amazing employees because we are solving the problems and running things. You know?
Jen:Right.
Dr. Amy Balete:But it doesn't always work well when it comes to our body and our health and a waiting season. And it's particularly, I think around health. That's where it gets the trickiest because we're just on a mission Yeah.
Jen:For whatever that outcome is we're looking for. So if that's not a good way, what is a better way for us to walk through those seasons of waiting? Like, you mentioned surrender. But tell me more about that. What is the posture that we should have or ideally need to have
Dr. Amy Balete:Yeah. In that? Oh, man. It is gosh. I I can remember in in that season people telling me, like, you just have to let this go.
Dr. Amy Balete:And I'm like, what the hell does that mean? Right. Just relax. What exactly are you stress. Because I need to I need steps.
Dr. Amy Balete:You know? Yes. And I I think, you know, surrender that I you know, that when I've witnessed it in other people, I've even had late people tell me when I'm like, we have to surrender this, and they're like, I'm not ready to stop. And I'm like, no. I'm asking you to stop.
Dr. Amy Balete:I surrendered while I was in the process of doing treatments. Right? But it is a I think the most tangible way I can kinda wrap my brain around the way I explain it is really that unattachment of, you know, if a happens, then b, c, and d can go, or I am good when I receive this. And we really begin to place our worth, our value, our identity in this outcome that is completely out of our control. And our planning all goes around it, and there's a natural tendency to do this.
Dr. Amy Balete:We are doing IVF, IUI. Man, they I mean, there's times where they're like, you don't have your trigger shot with you. You need to do it now. And I'm like, oh, I didn't think I need it today. Like, it's in the refrigerator at home.
Dr. Amy Balete:I'll run home as quick as I can. You know? Like, you are on a clock that is not in your favor. And I know many who have been on that process, you have to rearrange your schedules often because they're like, you gotta come in at this time.
Jen:Mhmm.
Dr. Amy Balete:K. Well, my day is booked, but okay. Fine. So we've been rearranging our lives and doing this to kind of have control over an outcome that we're looking towards. Right?
Dr. Amy Balete:We're doing this treatment for this outcome. But to be able to mentally step back and not allow ourselves to be so attached to it, put so much meaning on it just helps us. It helps our cortisol levels come down. It helps us not ride the emotional roller coaster so hard. I don't think you can ever get off that roller coaster when you're in this process, but it doesn't have to be so grand and loopy and sudden drops that has your, you know, your stomach and your your guts and your throat.
Dr. Amy Balete:Right? Like, if we're thinking about actual roller coaster rides because it can feel like that some days. Yeah. It just feels like the bottom was left out. And so when we can anchor in on what are the good things that are happening here and now, who am I?
Dr. Amy Balete:Whether I have you know, in the case of infertility, whether I have this baby or not. My whole life work was not gonna be null and invalid because I went I wasn't able to achieve something. And that's hard to hear sitting, I'm sure, watching somebody sitting in my seat who was went on to have the three babies after the process. Right? And get I get told that sometimes.
Dr. Amy Balete:Like, it's hard to hear it when other women have sat now and they have had the child. Yeah. But it also helps, I think, if we can allow that to give some hope to us that good things do happen. And even in the event, you know, sometimes the women I'm working with, it is to help them say I'm done because they're exhausted. They're tired.
Dr. Amy Balete:They're tired of being poked and prodded. And maybe their husband's been driving more of the desire because he you know, they both want it. And she's just done, and she doesn't feel, like, the courage to say I'm done and to say I'm gonna let it be what it is. And that it's so courageous to go in that path. And sometimes we need somebody in our corner to support us to help be okay with that.
Dr. Amy Balete:And then you're gonna grieve. I I think that's the other shocking part is people are like, well, I made this decision. Why am I feeling sad? Well, yeah, you you stopped a process that is now shifting our journey. It's shifting our identity, our hopes, goals, and outcomes, and we're still maybe reaching for a goal.
Dr. Amy Balete:But the goal is broader than just I become a mom. If it happens, we're open and receptive of it. If it doesn't, we know our our life is still good and meaningful. And we can look at other ways of, like, what does my leg what does legacy mean? How do I leave legacy?
Dr. Amy Balete:What does my community support mean to me? And I think all these things are even good when you're still in the process. But when you're on that side, that has that's another side of infertility that people don't like to focus on or wanna talk about as much. But it's something I've walked a couple women through that sometimes we're on this side of it too. And if we've held on so tightly to this outcome of what we want and what it meant for us to achieve it, we miss out on so many good things that are there for us or opportunities that we get to have joy and meaningfulness in our life outside of a title of motherhood and an experience.
Jen:Yeah. I like thinking about trials as opportunities rather than just a test. You know? And, I mean, there's a test aspect to it. I believe that God's giving us an opportunity to grow and learn something.
Jen:But oftentimes, those are very, very painful tests and painful seasons of waiting. I love that you talked about surrender because I agree. I think no matter whoever's listening, whether it's infertility or a business goal or a relationship desire, the surrender piece is the hardest thing to do and the most important thing to do.
Dr. Amy Balete:Yeah. Yeah. And the beauty of it is is it's I find when that surrender happens man, I I love when we can when we can branch this out even past just infertility because you see it in women in business. I'm a woman in business. I'm around a lot of other women in business.
Dr. Amy Balete:And when that when we stop holding on so tightly to the outcome we're wanting in the exact way we want it to look, it always seems to be once it gives way for something else to happen. You know, in the infertility journey, sometimes that means you have the baby. And if it's because we relaxed, well, man, it there's sometimes an experience of that of, like, really? Like, It wasn't like I was not trying to relax. It's so painful to hear that sometimes.
Dr. Amy Balete:I've heard it. I didn't even like hearing about surrender when I was in the process, but it was also something I was having to sit with and learn what that meant. But it is the time when when something else can arise that maybe looks a little different than what we initially thought that can be just as joyful and meaningful.
Jen:I find too that I think surrender allows us if we have to go through a grieving season, it makes the grieving grieving season a little bit easier. I don't even like that term because grieving is not easy. It's always hard. But there's something about if you have surrendered and then you need to grieve a loss, somehow, it it just is easier. Like, it's the only word I can think of.
Jen:Maybe you can think of a better word, but that was my own experience with it too.
Dr. Amy Balete:It's the vulnerability and the authenticity. Right? We're no longer bracing. Yeah. No longer kinda restricted and constricted in our body, bracing for this impact trying to be, I'm not gonna cry.
Dr. Amy Balete:I'm not gonna do this. Yeah. Where we become cold and kind of robotic. Right? That pendulum gets to swing, and it gets to land in the middle, you know, for those who I love the idea of wise mind.
Dr. Amy Balete:We're not completely emotional. We're not so logical that we're like, it's 03:00. We need to have sex right now because I'm ovulating. Right? And people get yeah.
Dr. Amy Balete:Fights happen because then nobody wants to have sex under duress. It's like, we missed an opportunity. And, oh, I mean, we can laugh about it, but we've all had those experiences with our spouses and partners of, gosh, we got a little crazy, didn't we? Right? And it can have grace for ourself.
Dr. Amy Balete:And I think that's a piece of it. With the surrender, I can look back at myself in those moments and have grace for the woman who was, like, being a little psycho, like, a little controlling and who was really just afraid. Yeah. Right? When we're in those moments, this is a product of generally fear.
Dr. Amy Balete:Yeah. And sometimes fear that is stemming back so far that we didn't even realize that thing had triggered it. Right? But it just allows us to be more open and vulnerable for a place where those emotions to land on us. We don't get stuck in trying to resist them.
Dr. Amy Balete:They get to flow like they naturally need to. And, you know, we you see people who find that challenge of getting stuck in grief. And it there is a bit of that surrendering piece that has to happen. Yeah. And grief comes and goes.
Dr. Amy Balete:And I think the shocking part sometimes is we're like, man, we surrendered and we felt a peace about the decision we're making. We felt good And grief showed up. And it's like, wait. But I I thought I did the right thing. But we get to grieve what has happened.
Dr. Amy Balete:And the dream and the goal, I think that's the other thing. We don't wanna be vulnerable to the dream that we had because that's like that hope deferred makes the heart sick. Right? Like, really hope for something. And if you're like me, hope generally comes with dreams and aspirations.
Dr. Amy Balete:Like, I've even envisioned it sometimes. I could see the goal and the outcome of what I wanted. And so there is a grieving to that dream that didn't happen in that way even in the midst of good things happening. But when we're in that surrendered kinda open space, we're just authentic and vulnerable to letting those things come and go, And it doesn't give meaning. Yes.
Dr. Amy Balete:I'm really shameful for this or whatever.
Jen:You mentioned how fear is the driver behind that control. Tell us more about anger because that is an emotion that most people, women are more uncomfortable with, and anger often comes up in the journey of infertility and in any season of waiting. So tell us about anger and what can we do to, in a healthy way, experience and express our anger in these seasons? Yeah. You know,
Dr. Amy Balete:I think I think with ladies, anger is not an emotion that we're as comfortable with as our male counterparts. Right? They're a little more open to it, and they don't they don't have so many hang ups about it. But many of us have had things spoken to us. There's been ideas about what being angry means, what it looks like for a woman to be angry, and how we should control that.
Dr. Amy Balete:Right? Even if you're in a faith community, there's even other aspects that kinda idioms and things that get said and brought into this that really make us uncomfortable with it. But what I find in this process, when we look at you know, when people are angry, we know underneath anger is fear. That is primarily what makes us anger. Right?
Dr. Amy Balete:What happens when we see a predator? Fight, flight, or freeze. Mhmm. Right? And all of us can be inclined to fight.
Dr. Amy Balete:And the controlling piece of it is sometimes us trying to quell that anger that's already in us. So we try to take control of the things around us. If we've had trauma already in our background, we're more prone to these things because we've had the rug ripped out underneath us before. And so our body's already bracing like, oh, no. I've been here.
Dr. Amy Balete:Like, this is danger. Bad things happen when we enter the zone. And so it's the one thing that people don't want to talk about the most, though. And it gets wrapped up with jealousy, so it comes to us as, well, I'm triggered because I saw another birth announcement. And that is a real trigger.
Dr. Amy Balete:I'm not suggesting it's not. It's a real experience and a real feeling. But if we're getting triggered by every birth announcement and every baby we see, every pregnant woman that walks past us, we might wanna look at why where triggers are so sensitive. And, generally, that anger is what I find what blooms for women, particularly when other people around them are having an easy enough time. I remember working with an anesthesiologist who was struggling with infertility, and she's like, my sister is three years older than me and has had two babies in this process of me trying to get pregnant.
Dr. Amy Balete:And I'm the younger one. You know? And it was just felt like a kick to the gut. And those realities are happening. We can't deny them.
Dr. Amy Balete:But I find with anger, when we can give air to that, we just allow the feeling to be and we don't shut it down, shame it, you know, with our should, woulds, and coulds. I feel like when when we get into a season where we're experiencing that anger, shame and guilt and grief are really tightly wound in it. It's like this fear, shame, and grief ball because we may be lashing out our partner behind closed doors in ways that we would never want anybody to see. And we walk into our lives looking healthy and whole, and we're very ashamed of how we're behaving or how we're feeling and what rage is actually happening within us. And we don't know what to do with that sometimes because we were never taught how to process the anger, let it go, or we were shamed for having it.
Dr. Amy Balete:Right? So that kind of combination came from our family. And so, you know, I find in the work I'm often doing with people is just helping them through identifying, I am jealous. I am angry. I feel angry.
Dr. Amy Balete:And I always use that the analogy of, like, the ocean. Right? We don't we can't harness a wave and hold it with us. Right. And even if we did, it's like sitting in a wave pool just getting beat constantly.
Dr. Amy Balete:It's not really a fun experience of the ocean. But if we really can release it and let that wave you know, sometimes the wave is gonna stop four feet in front of you. Sometimes it'll hit your ankle. Sometimes it'll get to your knees. Sometimes it takes you down, and a lot of times it will creep up right to your toes and come back out.
Dr. Amy Balete:Right? That is how we get to if we can follow our feelings in that way, we're able to release them and let them let them be. We don't have to attach to all of them and be like, well, I'm just I must be angry. Just an angry person. Maybe.
Dr. Amy Balete:And we can work on that too. But I think a lot of it is the season that we're in and the trials that we're experiencing. Anger is a natural emotion. And I'm of the belief that God gave us the full range of emotions, so he didn't want us to, like you know, self control wasn't only for when you're having anger. You know?
Dr. Amy Balete:I think sometimes the fruits of the spirits get kinda shoved at us when we're in an unpeaceful place, but it's for that season Now we get to remember, like, there are good things happening around me even though this one thing that I really want so badly isn't happening. And we get to kind of acknowledge those too. Because we can have tunnel vision of only seeing the one thing. And anytime we're laser focused, we're only gonna experience negative. And it just it heightens that emotion and keeps it going and makes it bigger.
Dr. Amy Balete:So I think it and then by, you know, neuro it's doing all these things to us in our bodies internally too, which high cortisol levels aren't helping us. It's not telling our bodies we're safe to conceive or, you know, to really do anything. And so when we can calm the system down, it really does help. It may not be the key that's actually going to unlock people's, you know, fertility. We just don't really know.
Dr. Amy Balete:If we had that key, we would be using it. Right. But it is one piece of it that can help the wholeness of your life not feel like this this blip of, man, all this negative happened during the season when I was trying to get pregnant. And now maybe I did get pregnant and my marriage just feels on the rocks and my relationships, my community is torn because I've been so angry that I've been lashing out or pulling back from everyone. And that's when you need it the most.
Dr. Amy Balete:And so Right. We wanna be healthy going in, and we wanna be healthy coming out, and
Jen:that gets all you know, it looks many different ways. I like that you put words to the tension between holding two realities at the same time. Like, that you could, in fertility, still do the fertility work and get yourself healthy and go to your doctor and go to your acupuncturist, whatever you're gonna do, and you can surrender. Yeah. The both and.
Jen:And that is the tension that is just hard with being a human. Like you said, you could have anger and sadness and grief, and you can still experience joy and gratitude. It takes work to do that. You have to be intentional about that, but those things can coexist in our life. And if we don't create that space, like you said, our brains will just naturally wanna just focus on the negative and the hardship, and that will be how we remember that season.
Jen:Right? It's like it was all bad versus being able to say, at space war, there was a lot of hardship and hurt, and there were these things that were also in my life at that time that were wonderful and beautiful if we create space for them.
Dr. Amy Balete:Yeah. Yeah. I think often, like, sometimes I hear, like, I don't wanna manifest these things into happening. Right? I don't I'm not sure how much of that, you know, really is happening in the background, but I do know that when we are lashing out, we don't have to call it manifestation.
Dr. Amy Balete:Right? It is it is sometimes the wake of what we have done in that season that we also you know, we we are accountable to that happens. Like, sometimes it's like, man, I've been so angry with myself and everyone around me, and then my community started to pull back from me. Did you manifest that? I don't know.
Dr. Amy Balete:Or you were just angry. And and if they're good community, they're gonna understand pieces that we may have to say we're sorry in some of that places in those places that it needs to be said. But I think having that solid community that can understand that grieving process that you're in and really to have grace for each other, and that's what we're that's when we're, you know, the healthiest in our in our community, I feel like, a whole is when we can go in there and have those people that, like, I am scared. Underneath all of this, I'm terrified. The one thing I always wanted to do isn't gonna happen.
Dr. Amy Balete:Right. Yeah. And that's hard to admit and to sit with. That's very vulnerable. Mhmm.
Dr. Amy Balete:Yes. 100%. But I find that it's so releasing. Like, we we get really fearful and and avoidant of vulnerability because we feel like we're gonna bleed everywhere. And and there's people who kind of use it in that way.
Dr. Amy Balete:Right? The good old memes on Instagram of like, oh, do I trauma dump with this friend or give them this answer? I always think that's kind of hilarious because you know the people who are gonna give it to you, all of it. Yeah. But even in that, we're not necessarily giving air and noticing the good things that are happening around us too.
Dr. Amy Balete:And so when we hold that tension of both is when we can feel the most grounded to make the decisions that are gonna be really authentic and good for what we are trying to achieve, whether it's our infertility journey or education, moving states, change. I mean, there's so many things that career wise things that happen that we have these crossroads that we're feeling burnt out because we're emotionally avoiding making a decision or doing some of the things we need to do to help our system have a place to be calm and to come back to baseline and rest. Mhmm. Well, I
Jen:think that's a beautiful way to end our conversation. And my last question for you is just how can people get ahold of you if they wanna learn more about your work or sign up for coaching or just kind of spy on you online?
Dr. Amy Balete:How do
Jen:how do they do that?
Dr. Amy Balete:I am active on Instagram doc at doctor Amy Boliday. Know that is in the notes. And I do have a free PDF that if people wanna grab, then that just helps them. They can utilize the resource for themselves. It helps them get into my community.
Dr. Amy Balete:I do not spam email people, but it's when waiting feels like breaking the five soul practices.
Jen:For when hope feels heavy.
Dr. Amy Balete:Yes. When hope feels heavy. I know I started as I started to talk about it, my mind was starting to block what the title was.
Jen:That's okay. Yeah. Right there. It's a long title. So but yes.
Jen:So that free PDF will be available. It'll be linked in the show notes as well, and that's a way for you guys to get into Amy's community and connect with her. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Doctor.
Jen:Amy, thank you for today, giving up your time and just so much knowledge and personal experience. And I can see heart behind what you do and why you do it. And so thank you for sharing that with us and with the community here, and thank you, and I look forward to connecting with you again soon too.
Dr. Amy Balete:Yeah. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Thanks
Jen:for joining us on the Counter Culture Health podcast. To support this show, please rate, review, and share with your friends and family. If you wanna be reminded of new episodes, click the subscribe button on your preferred podcast player.
Jen:You can find me, Jen, at awaken dot holistic dot health and at awakeningholistichealth.com. And me, Caitlin, at Caitlin Reed Wellness and kaitlynreedwellness.com. The content of the show is for educational and informational purposes only. As always, talk to your doctor and health team. See you next time.
