The Fertility Journey is a Marathon: Wisdom from Dr. Michelle Quirk

Have you ever felt that your fertility journey is longer than you thought it would be? Or like you didn't realize how much inner strength and resilience you would need to keep showing up every day as a physician patient?

My patients and clients know that I mark off the steps of an IVF journey like miles in a race. I see so many parallels between long distance running and the wisdom we need to make it through the fertility journey--loved, supported, and in tact. 

Today Dr. Quirk (a certified running coach) and I discuss the following:

• How to connect with your Deepest Why and revisit it often
• How to find motivation when progress feels slow
• Mantras and mindset shifts to refocus the mind 
• Mindfulness, and finding joy along the way

Don't miss this high yield episode. The fertility journey may feel like a marathon, however it is so much better with your A team. 

To quote my favorite mantra: "We Can Do Hard Things."

As always, please keep in mind that this is my perspective and nothing in this podcast is medical advice.

If you found this conversation valuable, book a consult call with me using this link:

https://calendly.com/loveandsciencefertility/discovery-call

Also, be sure to check out our website: loveandsciencefertility.com

Follow us on social media:

IG: www.instagram.com/loveandsciencefertility

FB: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553692167183

Please don’t let infertility have the final word. We are here to take the burden from you so that you can achieve your goal of building your family with confidence and compassion. I’m rooting for you always.

In Gratitude,

Dr. Erica Bove

Transcript

Hello, my loves, and welcome back to the Love and Science podcast. I am so excited to have

one of my favorite humans on as a guest today. Her name is Dr. Michelle Quirk, and she is a

board certified pediatrician who is also a certified run coach. We talk all the time about

how the fertility journey is one big marathon. And this is actually a marathon coach coming to

talk to us about how there are some parallels between her work in marathon coaching and what

we can glean being fertility patients on this massive fertility journey, which for most of my

listeners is beyond weeks. It's usually into the years at this point. So welcome Dr. Michelle. It's

so great to have you here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here and to

chat with you and your listeners. Absolutely. And before we move on, I just wanted to read a little

bit more of your bio. So basically your company, aside from your already busy clinical practice,

which we all, we're all doing this work, right? We know what it's like. It's called Mindful Marathon,

which I think is such a beautiful name for what you do. And your mission is to help busy

professionals make running easy and fun so they can achieve their fitness goals, improve their

health and embrace mindfulness. You coach athletes, you lead a mindful movement retreat, and you are

also the host of the Mindful Marathon podcast. Is there anything I left out in that?

I don't think so. I think I also, I love run Disney races and Bruce Springsteen. That's about it.

That's super fun. I know. Whenever people say like, what's a fun fact about you,

I usually say I sing on my treadmill and people are like, really? And I'm like,

you can ask my friends. It's actually true. That's amazing. And you're in the Philadelphia area. Is

that right? Yes. Yep. I always like to just say, geographically, where are people? Okay. So,

you know, the fertility journey. So like, if we think about it, you know, somebody's already

tried for like six months to a year, at least usually when they see a fertility doctor, and then

they go and see a fertility doctor and then it's like, okay, we're going to do some tests. And then

people do tests. And then, which are some of the fairly invasive, you know, like

fallopian tube tests and uterine cavity tests and sperm tests, even though that's not invasive,

it's super awkward. Most of the men don't like to do it if there is a man in the equation.

And then there's the waiting for the test results. So then, and this is like very early on the

journey, then you get your test results and hopefully you get a diagnosis like PCOS, endometriosis,

diminished event reserve, male factor. And a third of patients actually get like no diagnosis,

not really no diagnosis, but it's like unexplained. And it's like, well, there's an explanation. We

just don't know what it is. And so that then becomes the springboard for like, okay, then these are

your treatment options. The hard part is like, we are so inefficient as humans, even without,

you know, having infertility diagnosis, even young, healthy, fertile people get pregnant at like 20%

per month at best. And then, you know, people who have infertility, you know, it gets harder.

So oftentimes these fertility treatments don't work in the first month, in the first iteration

chapter, sometimes people then move on to more involved therapies. You know, I say most of my

clients are kind of in the IVF stage of things. And sometimes it even takes multiple IVF cycles

for things to work. And an IVF cycle is, you know, as you know, like two weeks, but then you wait for

the data about the eggs and the fertilization and the embryo growth, and sometimes even genetic data.

So it's like this like massive, like hurry up and wait years of your life process. And that takes

endurance, right? That takes a lot of endurance. So can you tell me sort of like from that, like

sort of overview, what are your thoughts about the similarities between training for and running a

marathon and a fertility journey? Yeah, yeah. As you were talking, I just kept thinking like, wow,

this is a lot of time. And I think that's right. A lot of it has to do with how you approach it

with your mindset. So running a marathon, really, you know, very rewarding experience, but quite a

challenge. And I would say just, you know, to hear you talk about the math of it and like how long

the fertility journey may take. Training for a marathon at the very least is going to be about

half a year. I mean, a training cycle is five or six months, and that's assuming that you're,

you know, you have a base built already. So some people train for years to get to the point where

they want to run their first marathon. And so I think it's important to remember your why that

might be the first pointer, like why you set out on this journey in the first place and keep that

close to your heart and close at hand. What I usually have my athletes do is write that down

somewhere, a journal, an index card that you put on the mirror that you can see every day. But

remember what it is that you're shooting for, because on the day-to-day, so many things are

going to come up, right? And you have, like you said, you have this hurry up and wait. And I think

that's the same in marathon training. Like we're doing, you know, all of these runs for specific

purposes, but it is a lot of hurry up and wait. Like we're hurrying up while we're running, and

then we're waiting for our body to adapt to these changes. And so remembering your why is probably

probably the first thing I would say. Yeah, I, so, you know, full disclosure, I went to your webinar

the other night because I'm training for a half marathon right now. So all of these concepts are

very fresh in my mind in terms of, and I know a half is not the same as a full, but I think a lot

of the concepts apply. And when you said that the other night about think about your deepest why,

I thought I have that conversation with every single person who enters my universe thinking

about working together. We talk, we say, what is your deepest why? Because when the times get tough,

that becomes the motivation and everyone's deepest why is different. And that might even change over

a time too. Like maybe the deepest why for one chapter or one marathon is going to be different

than another, right? Like things can change. But you know, for my clients, like sometimes it's like,

because I have so much love to give, and I, you know, want nothing more than to be a parent,

right? Like I hear that or, you know, sometimes people look at their spouse and they say like,

they just are like the most incredible human and I, and they really want to have children and I

really want to have that experience with them. So it's like this sort of communal thing. I've

even heard people say like, I had a miscarriage and I'm so devastated from that miscarriage that

I need to be whole again. And I believe that going through this process and having a child

is going to make me whole. So everyone's deepest why is different. You know, I think about my own

marathon training journey. Like I used to be a competitive runner, so there was all of that. And

it used to be like to be super fast and motivated and accomplish things and prove myself. Now I just

run half marathons to keep in touch with my friends and to keep me honest with my workouts.

Those are very different goals. I would say at this point in my life, much more satisfying,

you know, but that then influences all my choices. Like, am I going to go crazy with the speed

workouts? Am I going to like, you know, like all those things matter. And so I think you're right.

To, we do identify the deepest why in the beginning, but writing it down in a visible place,

even like notes on our phones, we are always with our phones and we can open up, pin it to the top,

a Google, Google keep is my favorite app. So you can just pin it to the top and then read it.

I think that can be really helpful to just start with that perspective because then that

becomes the springboard for all the decisions. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it helps to figure out,

you know, if you haven't considered it before, like what is it that is motivating you? And I

think sometimes people really need to sit with that before they may have an answer. And like you said,

over, over time, right? You're, what motivates you and what your why is it may change and probably

will change depending on what stage of life you're in. But the other, one of the other things I was

going to share with your listeners, perhaps like thinking about like, I think in training cycles or

training blocks, but break the bigger goal into smaller parts along the way. And so, you know,

we're, we're both a part of this wonderful business group with Dr. Una and she always has us celebrate

our wins. And that is something I have taken with me in all of my coaching calls with my athletes and

in our training discussions, but really from the day to day and week to week to celebrate the small

wins along the way, even if it seems like, Oh, that, that wasn't a big thing or that was something

insignificant. Really the small wins add up over time. And eventually you, when you see it, when

you look over the last six months or the last year, you see how far you came in your thinking.

And so breaking, breaking a bigger goal into smaller parts is sometimes helpful.

And we talk about that all the time, you know, especially if somebody is like in an IVF cycle

and like, Hey, your goal is just to get through your egg retrieval. That's like, all you gotta do

is focus on Monday. And then once you're through that, then your goal is to focus on getting through

Tuesday, which is when you're going to hear about the embryo, you know, fertilization. Then your

goal is, is the, is the blastest report. So like that sort of, and I tell them, I'm like, I'm a

runner. I'm like literally looking to the next mile marker. Like that's as far as we're going to see.

And I think it just becomes a lot more manageable because otherwise the algorithms are just too

overwhelming, but breaking it up into the small parts. And I also heard you say something that

I think my audience will find valuable is that you recommend keeping a journal of not just like

writing down the deepest why, but also of the wins. And I love that idea because I think it's one

thing, you know, we always start our support groups on Friday nights, but like, what's your

one of the week does not have to be fertility specific. It can be like, I set a boundary at

work or I, you know, like said no to my mother-in-law when she filled my food, fall a fridge, or I,

like, I mean, seriously, and I know it sounds funny, but like, like these are the things that

like, you know, this with your athletes, like when you, when you coach and you, you like really look

at mindset and like, why do I do the things I do? How do I want to be? It up-levels every other

aspect of life. Right. So, so it doesn't have to be fertility specific, but, but people have wins.

Like one of the wins this week was that somebody had bad news and everybody rallied around that

person and like cookies were sent across the country. And like, I just was like, this is so

beautiful to me, you know? But I think that, that sometimes it's very subtle. And unless we

document those things, our monkey mind, our brain is going to try to get the better of us. So like,

you know, sometimes for me, like we have these watershed moments where you're like, oh,

I handled that situation a lot better than I would have six months ago. Guess what? We frame it as a

win. We call it a win. We write it down. Right. So then we can look at the progress over time.

Maybe we see themes, maybe we, you know, have a same win over and over again, because that really

is something that is part of our growth edge and what we're here to learn. Like, you know, but,

but that, that next step, it does not take that much time or effort. It can even be on a notes

app on the phone, but like really documenting the win. And we even do this, like, you know,

for my people who are in my program, like, you know, it would be super easy on a Friday night,

just like open up the app, open up the journal to be like, my win is this. And then it would be done.

But I think we really do have to celebrate the progress because otherwise, you know,

the negative news, the negative thought patterns, they persist and they can destroy us if we don't

have more things to counter them. Right. Yeah. No, it's definitely true. And I think in my,

in our training journals with my athletes, people tend to report the negative things after a run.

So we use an app called final surgeon people, right? We can talk back and forth in there,

but usually people are telling me like, Oh, you know, that effort level didn't feel good or my

shins hurt or my, you know, feeling was not on point. And, and we tend to, the mind goes to what

was not good about the run. But when we start changing that and saying, okay, what went well

about this or like, well, I hit my paces or, you know, I ran in the heat, but I felt really good

or whatever it is. But our, our mind starts to pick those wins out instead of always focusing on

perhaps what didn't go perfectly because it never does. It never, it never goes. When I meet somebody

for the first time in my doctor role, I say, Hey, like I need to get to know you and your values and

your goals and what you do for fun and all that stuff. And this is going to be a journey together.

There's going to be some good news. There's going to be some bad news. We're going to navigate it

all together. So like, let's get ready to do it. You're right. Like it's never going to be a perfect

journey. And so, but the cool thing, it's kind of like the gratitude practice. It's rewiring the

brain. Like once we start noticing the things that are actually going well, our brains, then it's

almost like we scan and we filter and we're more likely to notice more good things. So it's, I think

it's like a beautiful, a beautiful practice of rewiring our brains. I always say if our brains

are going to work against us, why don't we make them work for us? And this is part of that process.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think one of the other things we kind of alluded to it, but I'll give it as maybe

a third point to focus on. So to bring in a little bit of mindfulness practice to all of this,

I use both like visualization and mantras with my athletes. And I think those could be helpful

for, for those of us on the fertility journey as well. Because these kind of like a mantra is

just a short phrase or a sentence that helps to kind of refocus your mind. And so if you're

in this moment of feeling overwhelmed and there's lots of different variables and your mind is going

further and further down the road and kind of spiraling a little bit, you can center yourself

and say, okay, like I love that. Run the mile you're in, run the race, run your own race.

Just have a short phrase that kind of centers yourself like, okay, I'm going to focus on the

next mile marker. I'm going to focus on what we're doing today, what we're doing this hour,

this moment, and then kind of open it back up. Because otherwise we really try to skip ahead

20 steps down the road and who knows where we'll be 20 steps from now.

That's so on point. And we do mantras in my program as well. And so this is really fabulous.

How do you help your athletes choose their mantras? Because that's like a question I get

all the time is like, how do I know what mantras for me and what's going to actually work?

I try to have them think about what they already think about on a run. So of course, I have like

a couple that I can suggest if someone is stuck and say, just try these out and see if you like

them and you can borrow them. But I tried to get people to think about what's going on in their

mind when they're already running. So a lot of people don't know, or they tell me like, well,

I run to try to like tune out what I'm thinking about. And so I usually have people try to like,

if you already run with headphones and music, maybe try running without them once or twice and

just see like what you're noticing and what thoughts are in your head and focus on the good ones,

right? Because a lot of us have a negative narrative of, again, like I'm not hitting these

paces or like, what is this workout that coach Michelle gave me? And I am very mad at her.

And so I tried to have people think like, okay, like, you know, focus on your breathing,

focus on your heart rate, focus on nature when you're out there and see what words or phrases

may come up for you. And as soon as you get back home from your run or off your treadmill, write

those down in your journal, and then we can come up with a mantra based on those things.

It's so interesting, because I think what I'm hearing you say is you need to create space for

the mantras to emerge really. And if we're always, you know, listening to a podcast or, you know,

a book on audiobook, I say book on tape because I'm older. I used to have a book on tape, you know,

an audiobook or if we're just constantly listening to the news like that, that it is helpful in one

sense, because it kind of does keep the focus, but it really does prevent us from understanding the

deeper layers. And so the first step is creating space to say, okay, what emerges? And then of what

emerges, then what can I choose to direct myself in the direction that I want to go, right? We do

this, you know, in our practice, too, we actually actually out of bad news is where I kind of do

because I think that's one of the hardest things that my people experience is like a negative

pregnancy test, or, you know, this test result, your journey just got a little bit longer, like

whatever that is. And so I asked my people, I say, like, what do you need to hear? Like, what in that

self-compassion, you know, we've talked about self-compassion, we share that too, like, what do you

really need to know? What do you need to hear? And a lot of times what emerges is like, I'm doing my

best. And, you know, I think that there's, if we're doing our best, then like, what else is there?

You know, that's nice and short and sweet, it kind of refocuses. You know, other times for my people,

it's like, I trust the process. And so maybe like this particular cycle, like, you know, we put so

much pressure on this cycle has to be the one that gets the pregnancy test or the embryos or whatever

it is. But like, for many that, you know, this is a journey, right? Mile eight is not the same as mile

16, you know, and like, eventually this is going to work, like, you know, so I'm going to hope for

the best in this cycle, release the outcome. And I trust that eventually this is going to be successful.

I trust my, I got my A team, I got my REI, I got my coach, I got all the things. I'm like, this is,

this is going to work eventually. I just need to, to trust the process, trust that I'm resourceful.

I love that one. I'm resourceful. Because trust the process. Love it. Yeah. And trust the training.

That's what we always say. Trust the training. Which is so funny because it works for, for medicine.

Like that's what I tell my fellows when they're like nervous about being new attending soon. And

then I'm like, trust your training, trust your training. You've got this. And it works for the

marathon training too, because if you've put in the work and the effort, but I would say by analogy,

it also works for the emotional tools. Like if you've been doing the work of like,

feeling the feelings, which is a discipline of processing the emotions of figuring out which

we know what your values are and how you make values based decisions, that sort of emotional

rigor, that emotional training, if you can trust that, then you know that whatever news you're

going to get, you're going to have the tools to be able to navigate that with grace and ease.

Like when you have a coach, right? Your athletes have you as a resource, as your coach to troubleshoot

stuff. My people have me that they can, so trust your training, trust your team. Then, you know,

not that we, we never absolve ourselves with a personal responsibility, but I think most of us

in medicine take on too much responsibility. Right. And then we blame ourselves. We blame ourselves

solely when things don't go well. And so we really need to share this, right? And then it's a shared

experience. So the challenges are shared and then the victories are shared too. Yeah. Yeah. And if

you want, I'll share one more mantra that came up on our workshop, but a friend of mine, Jen,

I've stolen this one from her, but she has one that is strong legs, strong mind, strong heart.

So think about that one, but you can adapt that, you know, adapt it for you.

We'd have to add uterus in there somewhere. There you go. Yeah. Instead of legs, maybe

I have a beautiful, beautiful receptive uterus. Yes. Something like that. Yeah. And I, you know,

there also reminds me like strong back open heart is one that I really love to think about emotional

like openness and readiness. Cause it's so easy to close ourselves off to the pain, you know,

it's like, Oh, there's possibly a negative pregnancy test. This one might work and might

not work. Excuse me. I've had so much bad news, but if we can keep that strong back open heart,

which is the same thing as like strong legs, strong, say it again, strong, strong legs,

strong mind, strong heart, strong legs, which is the body, strong mind, strong heart.

And that's so beautiful. I just, I love that so much. Um, these mantras, I mean, mine, when I'm

running and I don't know where this came from, because it was even before Glenn and Doyle,

but like we can do hard things. And for some reason, like that works with the pace of it. And

I mean, the fertility journey is definitely a hard thing. So, and it's we, you know, notice

it's not, I can do hard things. It's a, we can do hard things because I think about like,

this is a collective experience. We, we turn it from being the solitary painful thing to being

one that is, is actually in community, which I think is so powerful. Yeah. I also love pace of

grace. Pace of grace. That's right. And so one thing that you had, there's so much I want to

ask you about. So we had talked a little bit about like those, those times, like when the progress

feels slower. And so for my, for my people, my patients and my clients, like, you know,

maybe they have a endometrial biopsy that shows that they have inflammation and they need to get

that cleared before they move forward. Maybe somebody finds out that all their embryos are

aneuploid and that they have to go back to the drawing board and make new embryos. Like there's

so, maybe somebody's period doesn't come. They've already canceled their whole schedule for the next

two weeks for, you know, retrieval. And because their period doesn't come, they're delayed by two

weeks. And then, you know, they have to like scramble to fill their clinic and then request more

time off. Like there's so many places in this process where the journey becomes a little bit

longer, the progress feels slow. What do you tell your athletes in those situations when it's like,

I'm putting in the work, I'm not seeing the results. Like I'm starting to be not just physically

fatigued, but like emotionally fatigued. Yeah. Yeah. And I think a big, a big feeling is usually

just like, yeah, feeling discouraged. Like it says you're putting in all this time and effort and

you're not seeing the fruits of your labor. And I think going back to just trusting, like trusting

the process, knowing that I want to say this comes up a lot with my runners with injuries because

they're never, never planned and never really wanted. And you know, they take you out of the

thing that you love doing and the thing that you have been working so hard toward. And so I think

the runners out there would really understand this with the injuries perspective. But I think it's

important to remember that it's just a small piece in the puzzle. Like it's a small period of time,

even though in the moment it does not feel like that. And you feel like you're being derailed for

weeks, months, years, who knows if you need a surgery, for example, you may have had a goal,

a marathon goal or a speed goal or whatever the goal is that, you know, you've signed up for the

race, you have a whole trip planned around, like a one comes to mind is really like a, you know,

a world major marathon that they're really, they're hard to get into, or maybe you're raising money

for a charity, like, and then all of a sudden you get this injury and then you, everything gets

derailed and you have to figure out new plans. But worse than not being able to run the race is just,

yeah, just feeling discouraged about the whole process and not being able to do the thing you

love to do. So I think trying to reframe and say like, okay, this, this is a bump in the road.

This is a hill, a mountain that we're at right now. But after every, you know, every challenge

comes some smoother, some smoother water ahead. So I think, you know, looking back on your journey,

you know that whether it's running or it's fertility, you know that there are many bumps in

the road, but usually there are periods of time after that where things settle up, settle out.

So just trying to reframe and even though it feels like this huge mountain in the moment,

know that this too shall pass. And there are ways that you can kind of keep, keep the vision alive

for the future without totally, you know, just forgetting everything, right? Like I have a lot

of people who are saying, well, why did I do this in the first place? Like, why did I put in all this

time and effort in the first place? So that's a time to really pull out your, remember your Y card

and figure out the motivations and lean on, you know, lean on your team, lean on your family,

your support system, lean on the things that have kept you going so far. And just know that,

that this is just a small bump in the road, like in the scheme of life, we have, we have time. But

it's, it's really hard in the moment as a person. Yeah, it is so hard in the moment. It really is.

And I love that like this too shall pass, like everything in life, like I said, say to my new

patients, like there's going to be good news along the way. There's going to be bad news along the

way. There's like a whole mix. And so like whether, you know, if somebody does experience like a setback

or, you know, something, they lose their insurance or like, whatever it is, like, this is a time for

radical self-care. Like, what do you need to get through this process? You know, I have a lot of

surgeons in my group. If you're a patient, we're having surgery, what would you tell them they

needed to do to get back to baseline, radical self-care, more sleep, good nutrition, all those

things, because this is a healing journey, right? We need to heal before we can truly move forward

to the next chapter. Otherwise, we're probably going to have another injury, you know, like it's,

it's like, uh, we gotta make sure that we're really being like totally mindful of the fact that we need

to heal. And, you know, sometimes even other aspects of life open up that we didn't even anticipate to.

You were reading my mind there, but yeah. Yeah. Tell me what were you gonna say? I was going to say

that the first time I had an injury that was, it had nothing to do with running. I like twisted my

ankle gardening. It's just a ridiculous thing, but it took me out for quite a while. But while I was

not allowed to run because I was wearing this lovely boot, um, I found my way into swimming and

I was never a swimmer and I never, you know, I mean, I, I knew how to swim, but I did not do any

form of organized swimming, but I found my way into swimming and I had been kind of on and off with

it over the years since that, that injury when I found my way to the pool. But now I, swimming is

a regular part of my routine. It's sort of my, like on my nonrunning days, I like to swim. So I,

I think had I not had that experience, I don't know how long it would have taken me to find my way to

swimming. Yeah. That's so interesting. And you know, I think, okay, what are the parallels for

the fertility? Like, um, you know, my yoga instructor, remember she said like, I hurt my shoulder one

year, but then that was the year and she couldn't do yoga for an entire year and she loved yoga,

but she's like, that is the year I learned how to breathe and connect with my breath.

And that has completely informed everything else. And I think one of the hardest parts about

fertility care is that time really does matter for many people. You know, if you're 39, 41, 43,

like whatever it is, like there really is a time sensitive component that can feel very anxiety

provoking, especially when these setbacks happen and birthdays are very traumatic and we work

through them and you know, it's, there is that time time piece, but I think, you know, sometimes

there are, you know, I always say you don't have to like it, but accepting it helps a lot. So if

you could accept what is and then say, okay, how can I make the most use of my time? Maybe somebody

has a clinic that closes and then they find their way to a new REI who's even like better for them

and their experience is better. So it's not always like the worst case scenario. Sometimes these

things do give way to things that are, you know, sort of blessings. And I'm not saying that every

cloud is a silver lining. I'm not, I'm not, that's not my perspective, but I'm saying that we don't

always get to choose the things that happen, but we choose how we respond. And so that mindset piece,

I think really makes a difference as we have these setbacks to say like times need to keep passing

what's in my control, what's out of my control. How can I make the most of this experience and this

time and keep on moving forward, even if you feel slow. And how can I be open to it? Maybe, because

I think sometimes it's easy. It's very easy to be closed off to what else might be out there,

whatever that is. But in the moment, if you can try to just open up a little bit and see it, you

might, you never know what might open. That's so true. Like I have a client right now who,

you know, part of her journey is she's going to have surgery before another transfer. And,

you know, her surgery, she can have surgery until July. And so she told me the other day,

she's going to do this beautiful trip in June for something that she's always wanted to do

because she can't do anything else. Like if she was just moving forward with a fertility journey,

then maybe that trip would not be available to her. But she's like, well, I have this time. How am

I going to make the most of it? This is an opportunity that I can create and I'm going to

go for it. So like, like things like that, I always say, what else? What, even if you wouldn't

choose this experience, what could you do that might enrich your life? And then sometimes things

come up that, that are unexpected surprises. So yeah, yeah, no, it's true. So yes, a lot of

parallels. I also wanted to come back to the mindfulness piece. So, you know, like I said,

a lot of people run with headphones that, you know, it's amazing though, like how much we miss

when we have headphones in or when we're just constantly like, how do you help your athletes

when they are not used to that? How do you, how do you help them get in touch with mindfulness and

sort of show that their experience of life of thinking about the future, thinking about the

past, all those things is so much better when you can incorporate mindfulness in this process.

Yeah, I think it's, you know, it depends where someone is starting on that journey. And I've

had athletes even tell me that they, they're sort of like a little bit afraid that it's that the

name of my company is mindful marathon. And they're like, what is, what does that mean? I don't really

know anything about mindfulness. And so I think just starting with a couple of simple things,

I always try to get people if they do run with headphones to take them off, or if you run on a

treadmill, even to just not watch anything while you're on the treadmill, which is tough. I'm not

a treadmill person myself, but to just unplug right from the things that were plugged into and plug

into yourself and how your body is feeling in that moment, even if you do it for five minutes of the

whole run, just to have that experience and take note, like it's, I think it's easier if you're

outside to tune into nature, like what, you know, you might notice some flowers or trees,

like it's spring here in the Northeast. So lots of things are blooming now. And I don't know, I,

I feel like a lot of things open up when you tap into nature and you start to notice all the little

animals and things that are in your neighborhood that when I used to run with headphones, I never

noticed like the crazy squirrels and all these birds and owls and woodpeckers and deer. And I

don't know. I feel like I talked to the birds in my head a little bit. So that's, that's what I do.

Now I have names for everybody out on the trail, but, but yes, if you unplug, you, you have more

of a chance of tapping into nature. And I think besides tapping into nature, when you think about

yourself and how you're feeling on the run, I have people do like a, basically a body scan,

like a very basic body scan, just trying to go head to toe and tap into how they're feeling at

that pace. So it's, I think easiest to do if you're jogging or you're running easy. Like, I wouldn't

say try this on a speed workout because you have too much that you're already thinking about and

trying to hit the pace. But if you're on a nice, easy jog or a walk, just start at your head and

kind of go down. Like how, how is my face? Is it relaxed? Am I smiling? Where is my attention?

Where am I looking? Are my shoulders relaxed or am I hunched up all the way over here?

And just kind of go down. How's the belly feeling? How is the heart? How's my heart rate? How's my

breathing rate? And you just kind of go head to toe and that could take, you know, one minute or

20 minutes, depending on how fast you can go through it. But I think it's a nice exercise to

really figure out like, am I running easy? Like, does this feel easy to the body? Does this feel

like a pleasant thing that I'm doing right now? But it's really hard to do that if you're listening

to music. So I think that that's the first step is to try to unplug yourself if possible and just

experiment with it and see how you feel. I think that's like the first way to dip your toe in.

I think that's so smart. And, you know, we do similar things, body scans to feel the feelings

because there's a lot that goes on in the landscape that we're just not aware of. I think

sometimes we are afraid of what might come up in that silence, which is, I think, why we have the

resources to help people work through those things. Right. But even just yesterday, I was like, I

love podcasts, but sometimes time is short. So I was like, okay, I'm going to listen to this podcast.

And it kind of ended in the middle of my run. And so there was like this natural break from when I

had something in my ears, which I very much enjoyed. Right. But I was running outside 30 degrees in

upstate New York and blue skies. And then I all of a sudden like took out my earbuds and truly

listened. And like you said, I heard, you know, flowing water, which is so calming and restorative.

Like just there's reasons that there's like fountains and just that that sound of water just

flowing and like replenishing itself. Like all of that just is so calming. And I saw squirrels and

heard woodpeckers like you said, and like geese and birds. And I even like I thought I just saw

like three deer and I was like, oh, great, I'm going to like take a picture. And it was six

and it was six deer by the side of the road, just like all just like just doing their deer thing,

you know. And so I do find that whenever I feel like I'm trying to force something or on this

journey that feels very steep. When I look at nature doing what it does, I do find there's

something deeply calming about just sort of tuning in to that moment, the sensory aspect of it.

You know, it's tricky if we're not used to doing that. So I guess by analogy, I'm thinking like,

what does a jog or a walk look like for my patients and my clients? Like, probably in between

things, you know, probably during like, okay, you just had this thing, you've gotten all the data.

Now you're sort of gearing up to do another thing because that's a relatively quiet time.

It's not the it's not the hurry up, it's the weight. And so if we can learn how to do these

things in those calmer times, then we build those muscles literally. And then we can actually use

them during the tougher times, like maybe the pregnancy weight, or maybe waiting to find out

about embryo data or all those things, because we've built, we've learned how to access those

things during the calm, then it's more available for us during the hard times, which is amazing.

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's the same in running too, like trying to do these on your

easier days or in between training cycles when you have either some time off or just a longer

period of time where you're doing mostly easy paced runs in the rest and recovery period is the time

to try to hone these skills a little bit so that you take them into the bigger, the bigger training

cycle. So I think it's a great parallel. Yeah, no, that's so amazing. What about

mindset shifts? Let's talk about that. So I think the mantras kind of do naturally lead into that.

What do you find is helpful to your athletes that might also translate into people who are on this

long fertility journey? Yeah, I think one of the things that comes up a lot is just having

patience with yourself. So I've coached a lot of athletes. So over the years, right, I started

this about five years ago. And at the beginning, I coached a lot of newer runners and like beginner

runners. And to see the evolution of all of this, like to run your first 5k and then okay, now I

have, I have pace goals or I have distance goals, like things open up so much more after that first

step where at the time that felt like a huge thing, like to get into a consistent running routine and

run a first 5k felt like a huge, huge hurdle. And then after that, like, wow, everything opened up.

So just knowing that the process can take a long time. So I've been at this five years and I have

seen people grow over that time. And even for myself, like I ran a 5k, I'm trying to think it

was probably about seven, no, five years after the first 5k that I ran a marathon. So it didn't

happen overnight. Like some people do go from couch to 5k to half marathon to full marathon,

but a lot of people take a lot of time to get there. So remembering that, yeah, it's not a sprint,

if you will. And having the patience to, you know, to know that this is a journey and we want to have

the goals really, right. Have a good time on the journey and do the things that you love along the

way. So I think just having some grace and realizing that this isn't going to be an overnight thing.

I always say like, it's not something you can cram for. Like a lot of people will say, oh, like,

you know, coach Michelle, I did a thing, like my friends wanted to sign up for this half marathon

and I signed up, but I only have, you know, it's two months from now and I don't have any time to

train. And so I always say like, you can't, you can't cram for it. You really have to give yourself

the time and do it the right way and prepare so that you don't end up like hating the entire

experience or having an injury along the way. So if you're, if you're taking care of yourself and

you're giving yourself the appropriate time and team and resources and coaching and all of those

things, you're setting yourself up for success. And also, you know, like a long time, a great time in

the sport and in life really, because that's the goal. I know I say like, this is not the last

hard thing that's going to happen. So let's make these, these tools are going to be translatable

to other hard things, you know? So what I'm hearing you say about the mindset is pace of grace,

right? So this is, this is a process. This is a journey. This is not just like a, you know,

this is going to happen tomorrow. We prepare ourselves that it is going to be a marathon.

And so we get ready to weather the storm. We get our resources. We get our A-team. We,

in our minds, we trust it's going to take the time it needs to take, but that there is no

rushing the process. And we remind ourselves that we actually deserve joy and we deserve to have

fun on, you know, yes, but like training for a marathon is hard work. Like there's sacrifice,

there's early mornings, there's dehydration, physiological perturbances, like all the different

things. But, but there's, you see the flowers, you see the buds on the trees. It gives us hope that

new life is coming. Like there's, you know, maybe you make a new friend. You might not have,

like I have friends in the fertility world who, sorry, like patients and clients who now become

friends with each other because they are shared in this way. They feel like they're not judged.

It's a safe space. And then those become lifelong friendships. Like you never knew that that was

going to happen, but that's a gift along the way of this like overall hard experience. And so,

you know, it doesn't all have to be hard. There can be lightness. There can be joy. There can be

wins. There can be, you know, celebrations. And then, you know, we move on forward, right?

Which brings me to another question, which is how do you celebrate with your athletes and how do you

recommend that they celebrate once they finally sort of achieve what they set out to achieve?

Yeah, I think it's important to remember that the race is really like in the scheme of time,

right? The race is like such a short amount in the scheme of the whole training. And so, you know,

my run coach, coach Billy, shout out to him. He always says, you know, just remember that

the race day is really a celebration of your training because we have worked and put in so

many hours and weeks and months toward this. And sometimes it can feel like you just, you know,

you put so much toward this goal and it's over so quickly, especially if it's, you know, if it's a

short distance race, it might be over in a half hour or an hour, a marathon a little longer. But

I think what I try to do with my athletes is have them celebrate the wins along the way. We talked

about that, like really focusing mindset on the wins from day to day and week to week. And then

also setting some, maybe sometimes to celebrate, like leading up to the big, the big goal. So maybe

the A goal is the marathon in six months from now, but in three months from now we have a half marathon

and we have a fun race with friends that we're doing. So we want to celebrate all of those little

goals along the way to, on the way to the A goal. Yeah. That's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I was

thinking about, you know, sometimes even getting to a number of transfer cycles is a win and of

itself because there've been so many delays and so many, like, we're going to do surgery, we're going

to do suppression, we're going to generate more embryos and like, you know, getting to even, even

though we don't know what the outcome of that cycle is going to be at, like just celebrating.

I got to this point, like I have worked so hard to even have the opportunity to have an embryo

transfer. So we're going to celebrate that, you know, like, I think that you're right. I think it

really helps to have these surrogate, um, celebrations along the way, you know, somebody has a good cycle

and they generate, you know, a lot of good embryos. That's fantastic. We need to honor that. So yeah,

it's not just about like the final destination, you know, in people, like people who are successful,

they're like, okay, so I got a positive pregnancy test and then my beta rose. And then I had my

ultrasound and all of a sudden I was like a regular OB patient. Like, and then I started freaking out

about what it was going to be like to be a parent. Like, like that train just really took off. And

I'm like, I know because good news begets more anxieties and fears. And then we got to use those

tools to help. So I think you're right. Really like sort of looking at the milestones along the

process and honoring each of those and the growth that happens along the way, keeping a record of

those things. I think I'm definitely, uh, I was guilty of this, especially early on in my own

running journey where I would run a race, for example. And yeah, like get a personal record

and celebrate that, but only for like a few hours. And then all of a sudden I was like, well, I really

want to beat that time. And I'm already looking at races three months from now to sign up for.

And I was always a person who had races on the calendar. And I don't think I fully like

celebrated all of the progress up until that point. And so for me, sometimes like not having a race on

the calendar is actually the win and something to celebrate because I'm running because I love to

run and not just attached to a time goal. So remembering when there's a big milestone or a

small milestone, really sit with that and celebrate however it is feels right for you,

but give yourself the time to celebrate that before you move on to the next thing.

Yeah, that's super amazing. And, um, I think there's so many sort of pearls of wisdom in our

conversation. I can't wait to re-listen because I just think, you know, you're right. Like fertility

journey marathon, you know, but then also life. Like if we apply what we've talked about today to

the broader situations, the challenges, like come back to that mindfulness, come back to all the

things we talked about, I just think it's going to help us just live fuller, richer, more connected

lives and appreciate the beauty along the way. So I am so encouraged by this conversation. I

think that, you know, the listeners are going to hear a lot in your experience, you know, helping

these athletes, um, you know, basically train and get to the race day because there's so many

parallels. I think it's just amazing. And I mean, medicine, if you think about medicine, I always

say, okay, what did you tell yourself right before you were, you know, applying to medical school?

Like, you know, you had some belief in yourself that it was going to work, even though it was

against the odds. Right. And so then it has, so like, you know, training is another marathon too.

So I think if we think about sometimes when I'm thinking about, okay, what data do I have that I

have what it takes to do this thing? I look at other experiences where I've, you know, been persistent

or had resilience or endurance and all those things. I'm like, okay, well I handled that hard

thing. Like I'm going to, you know, just translate this into this next thing that maybe I've not done

yet. So I think all these things are translatable. Um, and you know, it's just a beautiful thing. So

thank you so much for your wisdom today. I've learned a lot and I can't wait for to hear the

feedback because I know that the listeners are going to learn a lot too. Yeah. No, thank you so

much for having me. And I, yeah, at first when we had talked about doing some collaboration, I was

like, I'm not sure how this is all related. And then now we, we really, yeah, after several

conversations, there are many, many, many parallels. So thank you. Yeah. So tell me, so where can my

listeners find you if they want to like listen to your content or understand more about maybe they're

even doing some running themselves. And like, I don't know, like I said to you, I'm like the gear

the stuff like, um, where can people find you to, to learn more? Yeah. Probably the best place is

the website that has all the links for everything. It's mindful, a little hyphen marathon.com. And if

you're already listening to the podcast and you're a podcast person, um, you can find the mindful

marathon podcast on all the major platforms that that's right. And you also said you have something

on your website about intuition, which I know we didn't call it specifically, but I want to read

that too. So can you point us to that resource too? Cause I think there's so much of this fertility

journey where we have to really tune into our intuition. Um, and you do that with your athletes.

So what is that? And where can we find that? Yeah. There, um, there are several, uh, blog posts that

have some mindfulness techniques. Um, there's one on the body scan specifically, and there's one on

running by feel or, um, I think it's called intuitive pacing, but on the website there's,

um, at the top, if you click the blog and scroll down, you'll see it there. It's a few entries down,

but yeah, lots of reading material. If you want to read that, if you're up at night, um, and

struggling to sleep, go, go to the body scan. Yay. Oh, I love it. Thank you, Dr. Michelle. I am just

so, so thrilled for our friendship, our collaboration, and I can't wait for all the conversations that

are yet to happen. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me and thank you everyone for listening.

Absolutely. Until the next time. Bye.