The holidays are a difficult time when you’re in the midst of dealing with infertility. Everywhere you turn, there are children and families enjoying Santa and gifts and celebrations. If you are longing to be a parent, your grief may be triggered as your inability to do so may become more pronounced. This complicates the grieving process that is already built into infertility and the treatment journey.
Pro Sports Wives: Holiday Expectations
It’s the holiday season and pressure is approaching (if it isn’t already here)! By now you realize that your husband’s financial status brings on a lot of holiday expectations. These expectations can come from your children, family members, and friends, and even family friends, right? This can be an exhausting time for a pro sports wife trying to sort out, cross out, and filter through meaningful people in her family’s life.
Pro Sports Wives: Creating Home for the Holidays
As a former pro sports wife myself, I recall the times when I was away from home for the holidays traveling with my husband abroad. I remember feeling isolated, lonely and very much missing my family members and our family holiday traditions. I remember the importance of embracing relationships with other pro sports wives for a sense of connection and community. Whether you’re temporarily located overseas or even in a new U.S. city, I believe the things I learned from my own experiences can help you.
Friends and Connectedness: How Do I Find a BFF???
“I don’t seem to have any close friends and I’m lonely.”
I seem to hear this a lot from other women, and I’ve felt this way myself. As I have gone through various stages of my life, I’ve noticed that my friendships change: when I moved, when I changed jobs, when I went back to graduate school to change careers, and especially when my marital status changed.
Exploring Gratitude: Gratitude and Sparkle
I was doing some nerdy reading recently and stumbled on a scholarly publication called “The Journal of Happiness Studies.” Yes, please! Basically these scholars review and approve articles all related to Happiness. Turns out study after study has been done to try to break the code on how to make us happier.
Athletic Teams as Families
When tragedy happens, we all react differently. Some become vocal; some become silent; others need a hug or a listening ear. Athletic teams are no different than a traditional family unit. The individuals may cope in various ways, but the team has a choice of leaning on each other or going separate ways.
Be Angry Less Often: Measuring Your Anger
If you struggle with anger, taking the time to measure your angry outbursts can be a helpful tool. Anger has such a negative reputation because of the way people react when this emotion surfaces. I often tell clients that anger is a signal that flashes across our lives to indicate that something is happening which may be very important in that one moment in time.
Challenge Your Pattern: Aggressive Behavior
Aggressive behavior is a style of expressing one’s feelings and needs in a way that violates the rights of others. This pattern of behavior will often generate fear in others and alienate them from the aggressor. An individual with a pattern of aggressive behavior will blame others instead of taking accountability for their actions.
Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO): How is technology affecting us?
FOMO, also known as the “fear of missing out,” has become a common phrase in today’s conversations (or at least for the twenty-something age bracket). For those of you who are not in the loop, FOMO is a term people at times use in reference to their frustration at not being able to be two or three or eighteen different places at once. They even use it in reference to their anger and sadness that they are “missing out” because they were not invited to an event or social gathering of sorts.
Being a Supportive Friend: The DOs and DON’Ts
Regardless of your own experience, you CAN be a supportive friend to someone dealing with the possible end of a relationship. Whether it’s a break-up, separation, or a full-fledged divorce, they need friends to lean on in this difficult time.
