May 24, 2023
I hope you're having a beautiful week. Things are just plugging away. There's so much good stuff I wanna tell you about this week, I think I'll start with how exorbitantly appreciative I feel of everybody who has reached out about The Other's Day about how they resonated with the message. People that maybe didn't hear about it before and were just hearing about it for the first time. People who maybe heard about it and weren't able to attend, people who attended in person or at an ambassador event, and I wanna let you know that I am creating an info list. So when we start to publish info on The Other's Day for next year, which we already know the date, mark your calendars. It is May 11th of 2024. It's always gonna be the Saturday before Mother's Day. So if you were thinking about joining next year and you want to put your name on the waitlist, send me a dm, message me, and that way I can make sure that I let you know about all the happenings going on for next year.
Second thing, I have a handful of leftover The Other's Day tank tops. They are so flipping cute. They're this like lavender color with a cute little rainbow that says The Other's Day and everyone who was at the in-person event in Chicago got an amazing swag bag with glorious donated goods from different vendors who donated for the swag bags, and everyone got one of these cute t-shirts and some people even got a cute branded tote bag.
So I have a handful of T-shirts left over. And so what I'm gonna do is if you write a review of the podcast, And you send a screenshot, you can message it to me on Instagram @lana.mankowski, or you can send it to me at hi@lanamankowski.com. Send me a screenshot of your podcast review and whatever you feel about the podcast, I encourage you to just maybe share what called you to the podcast, what you get out of listening to the podcast, anything that you wanna put. Please be honest and open with what you wanna hear more of. Send me that screenshot, along with your address, and I will send you one of our tank tops from The Other's Day the other's day in-person event in Chicago.
Keep in mind, I only have medium and large sizes left, and they are just gonna be first come, first serve. So get your podcast review written, send me a dm. I'll get you the cutest tank top you've ever had. And what else? Oh, this is the other thing I got invited to be on this amazing platform called Stigma.
If you haven't heard about the Stigma app, I encourage you to download it. I'll tell you more about it when it airs, it was just such an amazing opportunity for me to be the voice of infertility and that's going to be coming live within the next couple months. There's just so much going on.
And of course, the National News Media interview, being on national news, talking about the others' day brunch was. Beyond glorious, I feel so proud of the work that I've done and the community that has been created through little old me, a failed infertility patient telling her story. On this week's episode of the podcast, I wanna talk about something that held me back for a long time.
Something that really had me feeling as though I wasn't somebody who. Was fully connected to people and I oftentimes felt invisible. You might find yourself showing up to work after a weekend and everyone's hanging out, maybe getting coffee in the morning and talking about how busy their weekends were, how they had to run here and run there and this, and this was going on with their kids.
And you just sort of feel like you just don't fit in. Maybe you've noticed yourself being in a situation where somebody in your office has recently become pregnant, or maybe your best friend recently has become pregnant and you're out on a girl's night, and all of a sudden all your friends start talking about their pregnancy journeys.
Just actually this morning, somebody that I know from work. His wife is pregnant and I was listening to he and his counterpart talk about the morning sickness and how you're gonna look back at how quickly they grow and remember these cute little outfits you brought 'em home from the hospital in. I'll never know what that's like. And I'm also okay with not having to be part of the conversation. The old me before coaching would've felt really invisible. Kind of like, Hey guys, like, does anyone know I'm here? Does anyone know my story?
Does anyone know what I have been through? Does anyone know the heartache that you've been carrying around because you couldn't become a mom? And the truth of the matter is most people probably don't really know how much it affects you. So when you feel invisible, It's oftentimes because our story is really invisible.
We don't go out and talk about it. We don't let people know what we're comfortable and uncomfortable with, our feelings become invisible because we aren't a voice to ourselves. And that doesn't mean that you have to go up on a soapbox like I do every day telling my story, but you could start with just understanding what your story is to you. I know that you may wanna forget about that heartache.
You might want to feel like pushing those feelings away and never opening up that Pandora's box of feelings and heartache. That you went through during your journey. I encourage you to start to understand why your story is important. And although it didn't end up in this dream of motherhood that you always wished it would have, start to understand why you are worth celebrating, why you shouldn't be invisible.
So when you get upset listening or maybe hurt or heartbroken, when somebody's telling these stories about morning sickness or the drive home from the hospital, or the first night that they were a mom and they didn't know what to do with their baby, I want you to think about why you're not invisible, why your story is important to you.
And you don't have to tell it to anyone. You don't have to share it with anyone. But if you get really good at understanding, when those things come up for you and they're upsetting to you, what's coming up? Write that down, do some paper thinking. We haven't talked about the paper thinking in a while, but I really want you to start getting that stuff out on paper and these feelings that.
Somehow have been trained to just be nodded up inside of you. Let them out just for yourself, just for your own sense of relief, for moments in time as you're writing them on paper, start to understand why your story does not have to be invisible to you. You don't have to forget what you went through.
You don't have to forget how much you wanted to be a mom. You don't have to forget how flipp and strong you were. To go through all those rounds of fertility treatments or that you don't have to forget and feel invisible for the woman that you were and the strength that you showed throughout your fertility journey and the years that have come beyond it.
There's something inside of us that silences us and then we become in our minds. Invisible to others, I know that people don't mean to hurt us, and people might not know that it bothers you as much as it does, and people might not understand when they tell you that you can always adopt that.
You thought about that. You may feel very invisible because they don't know all these things that you looked into and the research that you did and the questions that you had, and the tears you spent trying to figure out some sort of understanding with what was the right move for you.
So if you're finding yourself feeling invisible, I want you to know that your story is never invisible to me, I'd love for you to call me and write me or email me, or even set up a free zoom call and tell me your story. If I'm the only other person in this world that you're comfortable sharing it with, I would so welcome that opportunity and love to be that person for you.
But you first must understand. Why it's important for you not to be invisible to you, and that's gonna start with understanding what's coming up for you, why you're feeling invisible, what things are coming at you that you feel you need to squish away and not allow yourself to open up. And then from there, start to decide.
That they're allowed to have their story. And when I told you earlier today, I had someone talking about their wife being pregnant and you know, listening to all these experiences that people have gone through, that I never will. I wanted to be angry. There was part of me that was wanted to be like, gosh, like these people know what I've been through.
Why are they continuing to talk about this? And then I sat there for a minute and I just fermented in it. And I decided, you know what? That's their story. I don't wanna take that away from them. Just like, I don't want someone to take away my story for me. So I allowed them to talk and not to judge them.
And it took a lot of energy for me to do. But at the, at the end of the conversation, they don't know that I was going through this, but for me, I knew that I wasn't invisible to me because I was reminding myself of all that I did and the strength that I showed. And I want you to remember all that you did and all that you continue to do by waking up every day and searching for a life that feels whopping in full and free again.
I know that you're doing that cuz you're listening to this podcast. Because if you're not out there searching for something, then I would say that you're not trying. But if you're sitting here listening to my voice, whether it's every week or every once in a while, that's your sign that you're trying to get to this different place.
And that's exactly why I created the Thrive After Infertility Mastermind, because I didn't hear anyone. Talking about wanting to get somewhere else. And I knew that the type of person that I was, I wasn't gonna be comfortable feeling isolated and lonely the rest of my life. So when I created the Thrive After Infertility Mastermind, it was a place for women not to only show up for themselves, but to show up for each other.
And that's the beauty of the Mastermind. We go through 12 weeks together, you'll be with women. Just like you who wanted to be moms and didn't become moms, we grow together in 12 weeks, you create friendships and bonds with women who you may for the first time hear, say things that you thought you were the only one to ever think.
The thrive after infertility Mastermind is such a beautiful opportunity to create connection in your life. And to not be invisible to people and to practice deciding how you wanna say things and feel things and do things, knowing that you're gonna be somebody without children. The Thrive After Infertility Mastermind applications are open now.
So if you're thinking about applying, go to lana mankowski.com/thrive. And the only reason I have an application process is because it's really important for me. To bring students into the container that are ready to create this life that they love again. For me, it means women who are ready for that journey because I personally know that I wasn't ready for that at two months after my last round of I V F ended and I didn't become a mom.
I truly felt like I needed some time to just. Figure out what it was that was coming up for me and what was going on for me. I have an application process that it's not long and rigorous, but it just asks some pointed questions that will help me become more aligned because the people that I bring into the Thrive After Infertility Mastermind, they're making an investment with me, that I'm able to return on that investment if I said yes to everyone and people
maybe weren't the right fit at this point in their journey. I feel like I wouldn't be showing up being the true, honest version of the life coach that I am and the teacher that I am. So if you apply for the Mastermind and you aren't accepted, know that it's not because you're not good as a person, you're not, you're not doing things right.
It just means that you might not be ready yet. And I'll still help you figure out how to get to that point where you're ready when we have the Mastermind open again. But if you're listening to yourself in yearning for this life that seems easier and freer and lighter, I want you to listen to that voice and not think that time is just gonna take away all this pain for you.
Your voice is telling you that you're desiring more and. There's ability to get to this place where you can thrive and feel fulfilled even though you didn't have the children that you wanted. So don't shut that voice off. Don't let that voice be invisible in you. And I want you to really think about why you're not worth this loss of your story.
And even though it may feel like you don't wanna think about your fertility journey again, I can promise you that there is so much you can create. Beyond just being infertile and that you'll never be invisible to me. So have a beautiful week. I love you. And remember, it's never too late to discover your meaning.
I'll talk to you next week.