Practicing Self-Compassion After a Pregnancy Loss

After a pregnancy loss, our focus, hopefully, is on ourselves: our healing, our mental health, and our physical health. Let’s be honest: it’s really hard to prioritize ourselves. First of all, we live in a culture that prioritizes productivity and busy-ness. We are expected to give “deliverables,” or concrete results of the work that we do. But, when we focus on ourselves, often there isn’t a direct or even immediate output. Secondly, our own mindsets have shifted: we went from putting all of our attention to the growing baby we were carrying, to instantaneously no longer having that baby to care for. Starting from the moment we tried to conceive, everything we ate and drank, every workout and prenatal yoga class, every hour of sleep, every meditation to reduce stress, was less for ourselves, and 100% for the unborn baby. How are we expected to shift from giving everything we have to this baby, to now focusing on ourselves? How selfish of us!

But, it isn’t selfish. In fact, it’s crucial to our healing after a pregnancy loss. And the best way we can start caring for ourselves is practicing self-compassion. When we start to try to care for ourselves, it can feel hard, overwhelming even. We sometimes don’t know where to begin. And while feeling pain, loss, grief, even trauma, are all part of the human experience, it feels uniquely intense to us. It can feel like we are the only people in the entire world who have experienced this level of pain. By practicing self-compassion, we allow ourselves to connect with others feeling our pain, be mindful of what we are feeling, and give ourselves concrete tools to support ourselves. Self-compassion allows us to feel safe within ourselves as we approach these heartbreaking losses.