When Trying to Conceive Leaves You Feeling Disconnected from Your Body

Three gentle ways to begin reconnecting with yourself.

If you would prefer to watch or listen, visit my YouTube video where is share my thoughts around body disconnection and offer three ways to reconnect.

When you make the decision to try for a baby, you might imagine feeling more connected to your body than ever before.

But for many women, particularly when conception takes longer than hoped, the opposite can begin to happen.

Days can become filled with tracking ovulation, monitoring symptoms, researching fertility and wondering whether there's something more you should be doing.

And somewhere amongst all the hoping, waiting and searching for answers, you can begin to lose that connection with yourself.

Through my work supporting women with fertility and reproductive wellbeing, I've noticed how easily the relationship with our bodies can shift from one of connection to constant observation.

Rather than listening to how our bodies feel, we begin to hyper-focus on how the body is performing, or perhaps what we feel the body is failing to do.

Recognising When You've Become Disconnected

Disconnection looks different for every woman.

Perhaps you find yourself constantly symptom spotting, counting the days until your next pregnancy test or feeling that your life has become centred around trying to conceive.

You may begin withdrawing from friends or avoiding situations that feel emotionally difficult, particularly when others around you are announcing pregnancies or welcoming babies.

And sometimes, you might notice that things you once enjoyed no longer bring you the same happiness or peace.

I often ask the women that I work with:

"What brings you joy? What do you genuinely enjoy doing? What do you do that allows you to feel most like you?"

They often struggle to answer.

Not because joy has disappeared entirely, but because so much of their attention has become focused on trying to conceive. They are no longer experiencing their world, they are surviving each day.

Even self-care can become another task on the fertility checklist.  I would say that it stops becoming self-care, more like tasks on a to do list that feel somewhat nice.

We exercise because we feel we should. We eat certain foods because we're told they're beneficial. We rest because we believe it might improve our chances, and the body is maybe still but do you experience restoration or is the mind still racing around. Is the "rest" including internet searching on your phone?

When was the last time you did something simply because it made you feel good?  You felt uplifted and elevated during and after it?

Three Gentle Ways to Reconnect with Yourself

Reconnecting with your body doesn't have to involve complicated practices or another list of things to achieve.

Sometimes, it's about creating small moments where you can simply be yourself again.

1. Connect With Your Breath

Find a comfortable place to sit quietly.

Place one hand over your heart and the other over your womb space, if that feels comfortable for you.

Take a slow, gentle breath and notice how it feels as it enters your body.

Allow your shoulders to soften as you exhale.

Feel the warmth of your hands resting against you.

Rather than trying to change anything, simply become curious about how your body feels in this moment.

If stilling the mind feels challenging, focus on counting as you inhale and exhale, follow the breath around the body, guiding it to areas that you feel drawn to.

Even five minutes of intentional breathing can create a little space away from the constant thinking and analysing.  Softening the physically body and releasing pockets of stress.

2. Rediscover What Brings You Joy

Give yourself permission to do something purely because you enjoy it.

Perhaps it's listening to music, drawing, dancing, spending time in nature or meeting a friend for coffee.

Not because it's good for fertility.

Not because you should.

But because it helps you feel like you again.

Because, for that time, you are present and connected, to the moment to your spirit, to what’s possible for you.

Your life doesn't have to remain on hold while you're waiting for conception.

You are allowed to experience happiness and pleasure alongside the uncertainty of your fertility journey.

Flowing in the energy of joy and pleasure doesn’t mean that you’re not committed to becoming a mum, or that you’re sabotaging the chances because you have allowed yourself to just "be" for that moment.

3. Move Your Body with Kindness

Movement can be a beautiful way to reconnect with yourself.

Whether that's yoga, walking, dancing, swimming or simply stretching, choose something that feels nourishing rather than something you feel you must do.

Notice how your body feels as you move.

Sometimes, when we are asked to notice how we feel, we instantly try to name a feeling word, encouraging the logic brain to identify and justify why this activity might or might not be beneficial for us. I’m suggesting that you notice your energy, your emotional rhythm, alongside the physical fluidity or rigidity within this activity.

Allow yourself to enjoy the movement without worrying about whether it's improving your fertility.

Give yourself permission to decide if this movement is the right movement for you, for your body, for your spirit. 

Let it become a moment of connection rather than another expectation or instruction.

Finding Your Way Back to Yourself

When you're trying to conceive, it's understandable that so much of your attention becomes focused on the hope of becoming pregnant.

But your relationship with yourself matters too.

Learning to recognise what you need, what brings you joy and what helps you feel supported is valuable, regardless of where your fertility journey takes you.

You don't need to spend every moment trying to fix or improve yourself.

Sometimes, the most compassionate thing you can do is give yourself permission to soften, slow down and listen within.  Listen to your body love language and guidance.

Because reconnecting with yourself isn't about doing more. It's about gently remembering who you are beyond the journey of trying to conceive.

And perhaps that begins with one quiet breath.

A Gentle Invitation

If you would like a little support in creating space for yourself, you're warmly invited to explore my complimentary LOTUS Method™ guided meditation.

A gentle opportunity to pause, soften and reconnect with yourself.

Or deepen your journey with The LOTUS™ Guide a five-day workbook combining reflection, journaling and embodiment practices.

You can download it at LOTUS | My Site

May your journey be held in love, softness and hope,

Bethan xx

When Positive Change Feels Like Trauma — and the Body Waits to Release

There are times in life when we make a choice that is loving, aligned, and deeply intentional - and yet our body reacts as though something dangerous is happening.

This is something that I’ve been living.

A life shaped by adaptation - moving through illness, early experiences that required me to adjust and stay steady, and many years of holding things together - has shaped how my body meets change. Recently, I made a choice that felt deeply aligned, rooted in care, values, and presence for my child and my family. And still, my nervous system responded with anxiety and overwhelm. Tightness instead of relief. Vigilance instead of calm.

When the nervous system hasn’t caught up yet

Our nervous systems don’t respond to intention or logic. They respond to pattern, familiarity, and perceived safety.

When you’ve lived much of your life adapting - coping, managing, staying strong - the body learns that safety lives in holding it all together. Even when it’s exhausting. So when life begins to soften, expand, or slow…the nervous system can react as if something essential is being lost. Not because the change is wrong. But because it’s unfamiliar. To a survival-shaped body, choice can feel like a threat . Freedom can feel like free-fall.

When the body reflects what hasn’t been spoken

During this time, I noticed something else.

As I sat holding this decision - knowing it internally, but not yet fully voicing it - my cycle seemed to pause. It was only after I had spoken my choice out loud, naming it clearly and honestly, that my body softened. Soon after, my cycle moved again.

I don’t experience this as coincidence.

The menstrual cycle is deeply responsive to safety, clarity, and truth. When we are holding something in - especially something life-shaping - the body often holds too. When the choice was finally voiced, my nervous system settled. And my womb responded.

Our cycles are not just hormonal events. They are relational. They listen. They respond.

Trauma isn’t only what happened

Trauma isn’t only about past events. It's about how the body learned to survive. It’s the vigilance that once kept us safe. The identities that we built to cope. The roles that we held for so long...too long.

As those patterns begin to loosen, the body may hesitate. It may pause. It may wait for reassurance that this new way of living is safe. This doesn’t mean that something has gone wrong. It means that the body is asking for gentleness.

When movement returns

For me, the return of my cycle felt like a quiet confirmation - not of readiness, but of permission. Permission to stop holding. Permission to let the body move again. Permission to trust that the choice had landed. This season of my life isn’t asking me to be braver. It’s asking me to be slower, kinder, and more attuned.

For the women who feel this too

I work with women whose lives often look capable and functional on the outside, yet their bodies are carrying years of unacknowledged strain. Women who are expanding into something new. Women whose cycles shift during transitions. Women whose bodies respond before their minds can explain why.

If this resonates, please know this:

You are not broken. You are not failing. Your body is learning a new definition of safety.

And that learning deserves care.

May your journey be held in softness and hope,

Bethan xx

Finding Myself Again

A journey through illness, womanhood, and becoming.

I’ve carried this story quietly for a long time. Not because I wanted to hide it, but because I wasn’t ready to give it words. Healing has a way of revealing who we are beneath everything we do — and this chapter of my life taught me more about womanhood, resilience, and self-connection than I ever knew before. Today, I’m finally ready to share it.

My Story

Seven years ago, life cracked open in a way I never expected. I was 38 — a mum to a baby, a teenager, and a young adult — holding our family together while my husband served in the navy. Though he wasn’t away at sea at that time, the rhythm of military life meant years of finding balance while he was gone for long stretches, then finding it again when he returned.

When breast cancer arrived, that old strength — the one built from years of “keep calm and carry on” — came out in full force. Between hospital corridors and bedtime stories, I learned to live one breath at a time. I went through surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and hormone therapy, all while maintaining a sense of normality for my children and trying to be the anchor of our home.

When your main support is away for months at a time, you learn how to hold life with both hands — the love, the responsibility, the rhythm of home. Being that grounding presence for my family felt natural to me, something I genuinely cherished. And yet, even with all the love woven through it, there was a lot I carried quietly. Those tender; resilient coping patterns became the ones that I leaned on when illness came.

Two years after finishing hormone therapy, my body spoke again. I’d been asking for help for months as strange, frightening symptoms appeared, but I was told it was nothing. Eventually, an emergency MRI revealed a benign tumour and a sack of fluid the size of a lemon pressing on my brain. Within days, I was in surgery. Then another hospital stay. Then recovery — again.

But this time, those old coping strategies didn’t work. “Head down and carry on” had no place in brain surgery recovery. I had to surrender. To stop surviving and start listening. Healing became an invitation to presence — to feel, to rest, to soften, to receive.

Now, at 45, I look back and see a woman who has walked through fire and learned to find stillness within it. This journey has been lonely, humbling, and sacred all at once. But through it, I’ve learned that healing isn’t about returning to who you were before — it’s about becoming the woman your soul always knew you could be.

I’m still finding my way, still learning to hear my body’s whispers before they become screams. But I’m here — present, softer, wiser, and deeply grateful.

To any woman walking through her own storm — please know this: You are not broken. You are becoming.

Thank you for holding space for my words. This journey has shaped every part of who I am today — as a woman, a mother, and a practitioner. It taught me to listen deeply, to soften where I once braced, and to honour the quiet wisdom within my own body. If any part of my story touches something inside you, please know you don’t have to walk your path alone. You are welcome here, just as you are.

Why I’m Sharing This Now

I’m sharing this now because my work is evolving, and I want women to understand the heart that guides it. My lived experience — the illness, the surrender, the rebuilding — is the foundation of the space I now hold for others. As my business grows into deeper embodiment coaching, energy healing, counselling, and mind–body connection work, it feels important to share where that passion was born. This story is how I found my way home to myself, and that journey is woven into the heart of the work I share with others.