Best Her Yet Podcast

6. Choosing Your Life When It Doesn’t Go As Planned

• Lindsay G. • Season 1 • Episode 6

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0:00 | 53:55

What if the life you didn’t plan is actually the one that changes everything?


In this episode, I’m joined by Katie Bryan, founder of Single Greatest Choice, to talk about what it looks like to choose your life when it doesn’t unfold the way you expected.


Katie shares her journey from feeling like single motherhood was her last resort to realizing it became the doorway into a fuller, more aligned life than she could have imagined. We talk about the tension between grief and possibility, the stories we inherit about relationships and motherhood, and how nervous system safety, self-compassion, and honest self-reflection can completely change the way we move through major life transitions.


In this episode:

  • the shift from “this is happening to me” to “I get to choose my life”
  • how to hold grief and possibility at the same time
  • why honesty about what’s actually available changes everything
  • the role of self-compassion, mindset, and nervous system safety in transformation
  • learning to trust yourself even when the path looks different than expected
  • why the life you build after disappointment can become more abundant than you imagined


This conversation is about recognizing your power in the middle of what is, and choosing your next step from there.


If you’re navigating a path you didn’t expect, questioning what’s next, or learning how to trust yourself in a new season, this episode is for you.

Connect with Katie:

Single Greatest Choice Website
Single Greatest Choice Instagram



Ready to build a life that feels aligned?

Work with me → https://www.bestheryet.com/work-with-me
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/bestheryet
Website → https://www.bestheryet.com

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the Best Her Yet Podcast. I'm your host, Lindsay. This is a space for women navigating change, growth, and next chapters, and learning how to fall in love with what's next. Here we explore real tools that support becoming, from internal healing practices to the external supports that shape everyday life, like nourishment, finances, and the spaces we live in. You'll hear from me and from women who've walked through their own transitions and are now living on the other side of them. I'm so glad you're here. Let's begin. Hi, Katie. Welcome to the Best Hur Yight Podcast. I'm so excited to have you on. Thank you. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I think before we begin, let's just do a quick intro. Who are you? What do you do? Where are you located? Anything like that. And then we can go deeper into your story after that.

SPEAKER_01

Sure. My name is Katie Bryan. I live in Austin, Texas, and I am a single mother by choice and also the founder and facilitator of a community built around single motherhood by choice. Over the years, that has shifted a bit in the beginning. I think I was really just trying to create create community. And more recently, I have really shifted my focus into work that really aligns with the work that you're doing, which is helping women sort of break through that threshold of fear and self-doubt and the stories that they've been telling themselves and maybe even the stories that society tells them around motherhood, but also just identity and sort of potential in general. And so I work with women to pursue motherhood on their own, if that's you know where they are in life, but also just to create a full life of um just things that I always say, like you can blow your own damn mind, you know? You can just like literally like what if the solo motherhood decision is the tip of the iceberg and you actually could just do anything. And that was like the gateway to show you that you can create anything that you want. And so I do feel like my story, as we'll we'll get into, um, is is a living example of that. Um, but I am not unique. There are hundreds of women that I've had the privilege of connecting with who are just doing the most remarkable things, and um I just feel so lucky to be in community with them and um to be living the life that I'm living.

SPEAKER_00

So yes, awesome. You teed me up very well. I was gonna say that Best Hair Yet is all about these like pivotal life moments and taking the opportunity to show up with curiosity, with empowerment, with some space to really stop and reflect and think about um what does feel aligned, what feels good for me, what feels like what I'm stepping into, even if it's not necessarily the quote unquote conventional thing. And I know you say this a lot to the um the people in your community, and I feel the same about you, that they're just like straight up badasses. They like those types of people who make this type of decision just extends beyond motherhood, like you mentioned. Like they're just making some awesome communities, experiences, businesses, whatever, beyond this one particular choice. So I would love to have you dive in a bit to your story of your journey to motherhood. And then I actually know that you're going through another big life transition right now in terms of career, if you want to talk about that a little bit as well. Sure.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Um, I think my story, I mean, you could start a lot of different places, but I usually start around 2018. Um I have always been a very um goal-oriented type A person that was able to really create results in my life in most areas. Um, but relationships had just kind of not worked out the way that I had hoped. And I was married um very young. I got married when I was 23. Um, we got divorced um around right, I think I was 28 when we got divorced. So we were together for 10 years, married for five. And at the time I was heartbroken and I had a lot of like really deep healing to do, but I also was young enough where I just I was hopeful. I was, I just thought I'll move on and relationship or marriage 2.0 will be all of the good stuff from the first one, none of the bad stuff. And thank goodness that I get this redo. Um, and that is not what happened. I dated a lot. I had another relationship, which in many ways was less healthy than my marriage. And um, it's just it's hard to look back and and wonder because I think we have this perception that things will just keep getting better and we'll keep growing and we'll keep leveling up and just watching myself really, really settle, really um lie to myself and just kind of abandon myself in relationship over and over again because of this strong desire to be partnered and my belief that partnership was the prerequisite to motherhood, which I had never even really questioned whether I wanted to be a mom. I just knew, like from the time I was little bitty, that that I would be a mom.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And um, so 2018 was the year that I was turning 38 that year, and I decided this is a numbers game. Like I think that like I believe that my person is out there, and I believe that if I go on enough dates, I will eventually sit across the table from this person. And I think I just have to like buckle down and work this like it's my job. And so I did. I went on so many dates. Um, I mean, and I'm an introvert, but I was going on like multiple first dates a week and I was, I had a spreadsheet and I was like tracking everything. That sounds very exhausting as a fellow introvert. Oh, yeah, it was so exhausting. Um, meanwhile, that year I was facilitating a goals group, and I that was what I called it. I didn't really know what to call it at the time, but this was pre-COVID. So we were still doing everything in person. So it never occurred to me to do this online. Um, I just gathered together some women that I knew who lived in Austin, Texas. And at the beginning of 2018, we each came up with a goal. And it could have been anything from this year I want to learn Spanish to I want to master this fancy new camera that I bought, to one woman was deciding whether to leave her marriage. My goal was to meet my partner. But we all had these life goals that we set in January and we came together in person at a coffee shop once a month and sort of like checked in on how we, you know, we held each other accountable. Um, and so I really truly believed that 2018 would be the year I met my person. And um I did meet someone wonderful. He is still very much a part of my life, but he was not the person I was meant to be partnered with in that way of parenting. But I think I got to the end of that year, having spent six months of it dating and like, you know, first dates and six months of it in this relationship. And we broke up right at New Year's of 2019. And I just thought I am out of runway. Like that was it for me. I really know that I put forth the effort and I just can't keep doing it. And I had frozen eggs while I was in the context of that last relationship. And the process in hindsight actually went very well, but that's not what I was told by my fertility clinic. It was um now I can see very average results, but I got seven eggs that were frozen. And essentially the doctor said that's not enough to be an insurance policy. And I didn't feel like I had the financial means to even consider another round of egg freezing. And so it felt just very hopeless. Like the preservation didn't feel like something I had access to because of biological and financial limitations. And so when the relationship ended, I started trying to conceive. And I chose a donor and I was doing IUIs and I was in no way ready, excited. Like it felt like something was happening to me. And it was really, really hard because I was spending all of my savings on this project that I actually didn't to work. Like every month I was so relieved when it didn't work out, and also that's interesting, so fearful that it would never, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I am curious. So it sounds like at this point of the relationship ending, you were aware of single motherhood by choice. Like that is an option. I'm I'm curious how you came about that, or maybe it was just like a natural, like, oh, that's an option. But for me, I I can't remember if I've spoken about it in a previous episode or not. But I wasn't even aware of that. Like that ended up not being my avenue. But at one point before I got together with my ex-husband, I realized I wanted to be a mom. And I started doing some research and actually somehow came across you. And that was the point where I was like, oh, that's an avenue I didn't even think of. So I'm just curious, like when that became even like a thought of an option for you.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's a great question. And I actually I don't, I don't really know the answer. I will say that I have an aunt. My my mom's sister has two children that she adopted as a single woman in the 90s and or maybe early, I think it was early 2000s. And so I had that example of a single mother by choice. And then also, coincidentally, my job when I was in the last few years of high school and then summers when I came home in college, I was a nanny for a woman who was a single woman who had adopted on her own. So I had those examples of adoption. I don't know that I knew any and and to be honest, like those were not aspirational situations. Yeah, I had a lot of pity and judgment for those women and their children. And I also had a lot of pity and judgment for myself when I started down this path. I do remember when I was in that season of dating and I was meeting monthly with those women in the goals group, and I just knew like this this has to be my year to find my person, or else. Like I was very aware that the or else was um donor conception. And I would talk about it, but never without laughing and just feeling, I mean, it was like, oh my god, well, what if I actually had to like get a sperm donor or something? Like I couldn't even say it with a straight fan. It's like very much the worst case scenario. So I think when I found myself there at the end of that relationship, and honestly, like with full support of this man that I had been dating. And so it was nice because I still had in a lot of ways his like I didn't feel fully alone because he was the person that I was talking to about. I know it sounds very weird. It was very like he's just an incredible person. Um, and I had friends and and people that I was talking to, but it did feel like it was happening to me, and it did feel like something that I wasn't necessarily choosing. I couldn't use the term single mother by choice, which is kind of in the vernacular as like the description of what I've done for probably at least two or three years. Um as I kind of dipped my toe into this community and then ultimately became pregnant and became a mom. It it still didn't feel like a choice. It felt like a necessity. And um yeah, it was I I recognized that it was it was the thing on the menu that made the most sense to order, but I was just really, really mad about all the things the kitchen was out of.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I have so many questions. I just want to give space to is there anything else related to your story that you want to share before I uh dive into some questions about what what you've just said.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, I I I don't know if you want me to go ahead and tell like what happened next or if you want to ask things first. And um, so ultimately I I did six IUIs and it was a very expensive period of time in my life. But I am so thankful for for that time and that it didn't work out um that I didn't, or it did, I mean, it worked out the way that that I needed it to work out, but I did not get pregnant. Um in that time I moved through three different donors for various reasons. The first donor I chose I loved, but there were limited vials available. Second donor I did not love as much. It was a very like, I had to make a quick decision and I regretted it instantly, but I was like, it's fine, it's not gonna work because I was starting to feel kind of hopeless at that point. And then I did actually get pregnant um with that second donor and immediately regretted the donor decision, the solo mom decision, like all of it. Yeah. Um, and then ended up losing that pregnancy pretty early on, um, which was hard in its own way, but also a relief and a real signal. Because I think the whole time, even though I had so much resistance to this path, I was still taking action. So I wanted it just, I thought I wanted it a tiny bit more than I didn't. And seeing a positive pregnancy test and feeling um just a real mess of emotions that weren't excitement, yeah, um, was a real indicator that it was time to like slow down and just figure out what was going on with me. So at that point, I that was when I started working with a coach myself, which was the first time I had listened to a lot of like personal development, um podcasts and books and things like that. Um, but I really started to address my thoughts in a way that was different than therapy, which I had also done, um, that just was very present, just looking at how my reality was a direct reflection of what was going on in my brain and how the exact same circumstances could feel entirely different if I shifted my perspective. It was just so transformative for me. And for the first time, I felt empowered. And I mean like the first time, like in 38 years. Like I my life had happened to me up until that point. Yeah. And it's just the idea that I had truly autonomy over things that that like circumstantially were out of my control, but the way that I was thinking about them really truly was creating how I felt and how what I did next and how I moved through the world. Yeah. Um, that was just so groundbreaking for me. And so I had planned to start a podcast. I'd bought podcasting equipment and a course on how to start a podcast because I was planning to start a podcast about dyslexia. And as I so random. And like as I was working with this coach and kind of acquiring these new skills, I was like, okay, I think I want to do a podcast for teens and and maybe their parents or caregivers or teachers about how to utilize all of these mindset tools in their academic experience and how to advocate and and like see this as an asset and not a setback and all of that. And so that was my original intent. And I bought all of the podcasting equipment um during Black Friday of 2019 because there was a sale. So I like got all the setups. And I like one thing about me, I do not like to waste money. Um, I'm very frugal and you know, I like to get my money's worth. And so I bought this equipment and I just couldn't get started. And I started to kind of realize like, I think that was a passing idea that like I don't feel any steam. Okay. But then when we got into 2020, and I had already done all of those IUIs and I had already had the miscarriage, and I was on a break. At this point, I had moved forward to IVF, so I had created embryos with donor sperm and I had healthy embryos. So I was feeling really hopeful about my ability to get pregnant and starting to kind of work through my desire to be a solo mom and all of this mindset stuff that I was learning was the key. And so I realized I think I want to do a podcast about that. Okay. And then when COVID hit, I had all the time in the world. So yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So that's what I'm saying. I mean, clearly that coaching space was like the space for you to make that like pivot in your mindset. But I'm curious just to learn more, to hear more about that. I mean, you even said the this is happening to me. Like, this is not what I want. I'm doing everything I can. And this is like the last resort. And just kind of your process of going from like being in that mental state to deciding, yes, this is like after that loss, taking some time and deciding, yes, I do want to move forward. Like you talk about a lot on your podcast of it's not just a decision once. You have to make the decision over and over and over again in this process and just getting to that space of like more confidently, it's a more confident yes for you.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you know, it it's getting hazy, like it's now, you know, six years that I review New York. Um, but I think it was getting really honest about, like I mentioned before, like what what is actually on the menu and allowing the kind of dual experiences of grieving things that weren't available, but also not pretending like they were. And so what I mean by that is at 38 years old, I knew I wanted to be a mom. I knew my fertility window was finite, and I wanted to be having a baby with someone that I had an established relationship with over like a number of years. Yeah. Right. Yep. And I could just see that the math was not mathing. Yep. Yep. So just that that honesty with myself that like even if I met this person today, I'm still in a place where that's not gonna look like we take our time getting to know each other, we travel, we get engaged, we plan a wedding. Like that ship has sailed. And I can hold the duality of grief around what hasn't happened without it stalling out what is on the menu and what is available. And I think it was like building that capacity to let multiple truths live, to really experiment, like how you like press a bruise. How does it feel when I think this version of my story? How does it feel when I think this version of my story? Not lying to myself, but like truly defining the narrative based on the story that gave me the most forward momentum towards the life that I actually wanted and could see was available to me. And so that really became my model. And it's interesting to talk to you right now because I I feel like the way that I'm coaching is very much under construction and shifting. And so I'm just gonna share like how it's been, but this isn't necessarily how I'm I how I'm coaching right now.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But I think my previous model kind of felt like dumping everything out of your purse and like getting it all on the table and like sifting through, really deciding what makes sense to keep. And maybe even there's something that you don't have in there that you need to go get. But like really deciding like that, these are the components that fit my life now, that makes sense to tell my story now. And I'm aware that I could tell it a different way, but to what end? Like that's not supporting the direction that I want to go. And then once you've sort of figured out like what all is in there, what what am I choosing to keep? And then there is an element of discipline around, and what am I gonna do when those old thoughts come up? Am I gonna pretend like they're truth that I am a victim of like that I there's nothing I can do about, or am I gonna remember like what's my touchstone? Like, how am I gonna come back and remember that's a thought I'm choosing, and I don't have to choose it. Yeah. Not because I'm lying to myself, but because I can see that there are always multiple conflicting truths, and I get to choose the one that's going to move me in the direction I want to go.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Something I have been leaning on a lot recently is just the concept of neutrality. Like I have found myself in the first, I'm like a little over a year into my solo motherhood experience. And I have found myself in this past year being like like comparing myself to when I was married, or even just like married friends or peers or like a stranger at the park. And a little bit of that, why me? This sucks. This is so much harder. And getting to the point where each version of motherhood is hard. Like it's just different. And like, let's like one is not harder, easier, like they don't stack like rank stack against each other. It's just they're sort of neutral against each other, and they're all a different flavor or version of hard. And that's what you sign up for in motherhood. Exactly. And I've kind of been leaning into that concept or just like mindset of okay, take a step back. Yes, this is hard, but there's other things that are actually really beautiful and joyful in solo parenting that I wouldn't have experienced if I had a partner. And like also acknowledging the good with the hard.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. And what's so interesting about that is like we know when we really think about it that it's it's not even a realistic exercise mentally to try to compare partnership to singleness. Like it's just because every partnership is different. But really, what it comes down to is you're living in your own thoughts wherever you go. And so you have the ability to create ease or drama in any context. And so, like, I now know with certainty that it's my job to create the mental environment, the climate of my life. And I truly believe it, I it's like a hack to to be not have another person in that space. Like it's so much easier for me to stay steady. Like in this context of not having a partner, but it's also available to me to make up stories about how much easier it would be and what would be different and what it would feel like and to only sort of center the upside of having another person, you know, in that space. And I could be miserable. And I know women who are parent, like parenting solo by default, is not easier or better. And it's also not harder or like it all has to do with how we think about it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. So I can't remember where we left off. The okay, IVF. I think we left off at IVF. Yes.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. So I finally I made a switch to a clinic with just the most remarkable doctor. Her name is Dr. Natalie Crawford, and she just wrote a book called The Fertility Formula. She's amazing. Um, I always like to shout her out because she was a game changer for me. And even if you can't see her as a as a client, her content is just really, really helpful. Um, I sat down with her and I've never really been able to tell this story without crying. So just here come the tears, probably. After having gone through months of fertility stuff with a clinic that really just made me feel like we are at the bottom of the barrel and it doesn't like what you want matters very little. It's more about like what can you, what can we scrounge up for you? Right. And so this is how I found myself doing IUI after IUI because it felt like I wasn't a great candidate for IBF. I didn't feel like I had the financial means to pursue IBF. And so we were just trying to get me a baby however we could, right? Yeah. And transitioning to working with Dr. Crawford, she just asked, like, what do you actually want? Because as I'm trying to tell her all of the like medical background, she could hear, like, you sound pretty relieved that you haven't gotten pregnant and yeah, here you are in a fertility clinic. Right. And just really laying out, I want to be a mom, that's tops. And I feel like now it has to be now because that's what I'm hearing from my from my past experience. And then I would love to keep the door open to if I do meet a partner to have a child in the context of that relationship. And I would like to leave the door open to have more than one child. And that just felt insane to to ask, like to lay on the table, like to hear all the things I wanted. When I'd been in a space where it felt like you don't get to want, you just get whatever happens. By insane, you mean just asking too much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, like it was, yeah, it just felt like way too much. And she was like, okay, all right, let's, that's our goal. Like we can, and I was like, wait, which which one? Which part? Like when are we are we? And she's like, no, no, I mean like all of it, all of it is possible, right? Um, and so what we did from there is I did another egg retrieval, and we brought over the frozen eggs from the previous clinic. We fertilized the eggs from the second retrieval and the first retrieval all at the same time. Um, there were only 12 of them total. And I was told, given my age, that it was, you know, we we were hopeful we could get one or two embryos, but it was not a sure thing that that would even happen statistically. And I ended up with five genetically healthy embryos, which was just really exceeded the expectations of any one. Um, and I was relieved and I was excited because there were right. I get to be a mom, it doesn't have to be right now because the uh pressure is really on the the egg, right? Yeah, and so at 38, I could see that like I could do this now. I could also wait a year. Like it's right, that potential is there. And I had five embryos, so I knew if I want more than one child, statistically they're in there, like that's enough. Even if every transfer doesn't work, it still is like about a you know 65% chance per embryo. Right. Um, so I so those two were accomplished, right? And the one that had kind of fallen off at that point was um this leaving the door open for having a child with a future partner, should that be the direction my life went. Right. And I was ready to kind of concede that. I was very sad because I could see I could have maybe only fertilized the first batch of frozen eggs or the second batch of fresh eggs and still ended up with enough embryos and retained one of those cohorts for that option. Right. But we couldn't have known that. Like we could it was that was not a bargain that made sense to like bank on, you know. So made sense what we had done, and I was feeling some grief around it, but also just kind of ready to like be excited about the wins. Yep. And I was still in relationship and friendship with the with this guy that I had been dating. We were not like officially dating, but we were still spending lots of time together. He was still very much like present in the process with me. And he is someone who has created like substantial wealth for himself and is very much like set, like he does he does not worry about money. Yeah. Um, I was an educator, I very much worried about money. And essentially he said, I have never wanted anything as much as you want this. The only thing between you and another round of egg retrieval is money. I have that. It's no big deal to me. I I want to gift you however much it costs. You do this again, no strings attached. It was so beautiful. And, you know, the money, of course, was was amazing because it's not money that I had or could have generated in that season, but also just the reflection of like how legitimate that desire was for me and how he could see. I mean, he was probably the closest person in my life at the time. And yeah, um, just the validation of like, you get to want this, right? You're allowed to want this. And it was so cool because what he was doing was creating an avenue for me to have another child in the context of relationship, knowing that that probably wasn't him, you know. It didn't at all feel like he was like he had any ownership over those eggs or that he was doing it for a future relationship with me. Um, it truly was like very generous and no strings attached, and it didn't feel loaded in any way. And yeah, what I of course I declined at first because you know, I was not great at receiving at the time. It's something that I've worked on, but ultimately I I called him back and I was like, you know, if if if you're sure, like I just can't think of a better gift. And it has been, continues to be such a gift. Um, I'm gonna kind of skip forward in my story, but my son just turned five and I have been on very few dates since he was born and just very little interest in being partnered at this point in my life, which feels so good to really like live in. And it's so great that like there's been no mind drama around like I can't meet someone because I don't know if my family's complete. And if I do meet them, I wouldn't be able to have a child biologically and blah blah blah. Like having those eggs has helped me find clarity on what is and isn't important to me. Yeah. Um, because there's the option is there, and that helps me see that I don't want it. Like I don't want to have a kid with another child, with another person. Yeah. But I could if I wanted to. Yeah. Yeah.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So it's just, I think any any way that we can create those kinds of like biological possibilities for ourselves along the way. And of course it costs money and it's hard on our bodies and all of that. But I'm so glad that I have frozen eggs and frozen embryos because I get to decide from a place of abundance and not fear around what is or isn't possible.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that. I'm curious. You kind of touched on this, but I'm curious to hear more about kind of these moments of doubt or even grief and just how you processed and went through that during this time.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, I think that grief was very present and is for many, many women. And as I said before, it's this is an interesting time for me to talk about it because how I moved through it and how I've coached women through it for the last handful of years is really shifting right now. Um, I don't know that I was like the example of how to move through it. I think at first it was a lot of just like overriding. I don't think I knew how to hold the physical experience of grief. So anytime I would start to truly feel grief, I would instead sort of go back into my brain and think, think about grief, but also think about, you know, here's what's actually available and here's what's actually true. Like I just very much relied on like neck up processing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And it's how I've coached too. And and I'm not saying like I think thought work is really helpful and I wouldn't be where I am without it. But more recently I've been shifting more into rather than trying to eliminate negative thoughts and negative emotions, like like creating space to really hold them and feel them. And I'm just very aware that the majority of what we think is feeling something like grief or disappointment or betrayal or whatever is actually our resistance to feeling it, not not the actual experience of feeling it. Because when we actually feel it, it moves through and there is like catharsis, right? Yeah. Um, and when it just keeps living in there, it's because we're not actually feeling it. Yeah. So I did a lot of like distracting sort of spiritual bypass that like held things up for a number of years. Yeah. Um, but I do think that the work of um Dr. Kristen Neff around self-compassion, I I don't know how I could have gotten through the last five years without it. And it is a big part of the work that I do with clients as well. Her framework, um, are you familiar with Dr. Neff? Um, her framework is the way that she defines self-compassion is loving connected presence. And the loving piece is self-kindness. It's like if you're thinking it to or about yourself, like would you say that to your best friend's face? Like, would you say it to your own child? And it's crazy how often we think things about ourselves that we would just never about people we love. Um, so it truly is just that like loving ourselves, like self-kindness. And then the connected piece is the common humanity piece of just acknowledging that even though we might think that our circumstances are so unique, the emotional experience is universal. And most people have experienced some version of what we're feeling. And so just finding that connection to gosh, it's so hard to be in uncertainty. It's so hard to be in heartbreak, and just naming the emotions, but also feeling the connection to like the universal experience of that. And then the last piece of love and connected presence, the presence piece is just mindfulness. The way I always explain it is being where your feet are, and just how when we're in suffering, so often it's because we're thinking about a past that we can't change or projecting into a future that we can't know. And when we're able to just be in, I mean, even like with singleness, like singleness is actually delightful in the moment. Like I love being by myself, you know. When I make up a story about how I got here or how it's gonna be you know, decades from now that I start to be in suffering. And so that loving connected presence, just having that sort of framework to come back to. And um, Dr. Neff has some really beautiful active practices. Okay. So she is a researcher at the University of Texas, very like academic minded, but she's also um a practicing Buddhist and does a lot of like meditation retreats and stuff like that. So yeah, it's a great, it's like the perfect mashup for me. Yeah. Because I like I live in both of those spaces. And so um I think that that is a big way that I was able to kind of move through, is just with with self-compassion. Yeah. Um, and um, and even as I started coaching and I was given through my training some frameworks that really operated in the cognitive realm. The framework that I worked from most was very linear, like a it's like your thoughts, create your feelings, create your actions, create your results. And it was a list. Yeah. And I sort of intuitively turned it into a circle, but also placed self-compassion in the middle of this. And that was not part of my training, but I was like, I don't know how any of this works if we don't have this in the middle. And so anytime I've like presented it in any kind of visual way, it's just that's I have had to integrate those practices together. And I would say the piece that is now kind of coming online is the somatic piece of like that all works and it's all still neck up.

SPEAKER_00

And so like we get in our bodies a little bit more for sure. It's interesting that you bring this up, and it's funny that you say the linear because I literally in my coaching container, I have a slide where it is literally those things that are linear of these experiences, create memories, and those create beliefs, which over time create your identity. And I have them linear, but it's interesting what you're saying because I was essentially explaining the same thing to a client that, like, yes, this is true. And without self-love, self-respect, self-compassion, like you're talking about, it's almost impossible to interrupt this. Like my work is about pausing and interrupting some of these things that are automatic, some of these beliefs and experiences that aren't serving you anymore. And I'm not, you know, I'm definitely not saying you need like fully to be in self-love and compassion, all that, because it's really hard, but there needs to be a bit of it there in order to be able to be in the headspace to be able to interrupt some of these and choose differently and choose yourself again and have that self-respect for your future self. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And I think I think we have to incorporate like our whole selves and our bodies into that. And the example that I've been thinking about recently is if someone has been attacked by a dog in the past or had like a really scary, painful run-in with a dog, they can know in their minds, and you can tell them my dog is very sweet, he's never bit anyone. He and and they can know that and they can believe and they can be in this space with the dog, and their body is probably still going to be sending messages of fear. Freak it out. Yeah. Because it's not about how you're thinking, right? I love that, yes. And so um, it's so funny. I just led a retreat last week, and I have been I ended up on on night one deciding to throw out the entire curriculum that I had written for five days, the same one that I've used for every retreat in this location, and rewrite the whole thing. I mean, I literally was waking up in the morning, taking a watch walk on the beach, asking Spirit to like give me a download, yeah, coming back, and literally like I feel like I missed the retreat in a lot of ways because I spent hours a day just recording and then teaching that night. And then the next same thing, I was like getting downloaded. But so much of it was about how we have to, the word that I used on the retreat was microdose. Like we have to like microdose safety with totally those feelings in in our in our bodies for our brain to really feel safe. Because otherwise, I just feel like so much of it sounds great. And on a coaching call, I would see the buy-in and I would see women like really truly believing whatever this shift was that we were talking about. And then we would touch base three weeks down the road, and it's like they went right back to where they were for the call.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I I talk about that same exact concept, but in a slightly different way. Of let's say you want to call in a million dollars. Does that actually feel realistic to you in your body? If it's a no, it's not happening. So maybe start with a hundred thousand. How does that feel? Does that actually feel like you yeah, or a hundred, like wherever feels actually believable, and exactly that, like micro-dose your way up? I love that term. Micro dose your way up to whatever that big goal is, because if it's too daunting and doesn't actually feel like it could actually happen, it's it's not going to. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

It's like you, you get you don't get what you want, you get what you believe.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Exactly. Yes, yes, yes. Um, is there anything just through your motherhood journey, just anything that you've learned about yourself that maybe has surprised you through these big life transitions that you've gone through?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, gosh, so so much, so much. I think most recently the way I've been putting words to it kind of comes from a coaching experience I had as a as a recipient of coaching. I was in a program called The Upgrade. And the idea behind it was that the this was a group of women who were looking to kind of up-level in various, like for some it was business, it you know, it might be health, it could be like in any area of life. And one of the key takeaways was that we talk about growth and we imagine like it's the straight up, like the arrow pointing up, right? Like the little green frig of you know, something growing from the earth. And in reality, that's not how growth happens. It's expansion, and expansion goes in all directions. So when we say we want to be able to hold more, we are gonna have to be ready to hold more. And some of what we have to hold more of is like really shitty stuff that the previous version of us could never, you know, like really couldn't. But but in order to say yes to more, we have to be willing to receive the risks that are involved in in creating that next version are terrifying. And if we don't know how to like just for example, like the more I put myself out there, tell my story, you know, talk about the work that I'm doing, the more people are gonna run across my work and it's not gonna resonate with them and they're gonna have judgments about me and they're gonna make comments on the internet or whatever. And so I could keep myself small and expose my story less. Yep, and that would keep me safe from those comments, but it also would keep me small. And so any decision to expand is expansion in in all the directions. And so I think that that's what I've been working with the most over the last few years is like how how willing am I to create that space for the unknown? And some of it's gonna be great, and some of it's gonna be not so great.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah. Which is, I mean, I feel like you've been doing amazing and it's not easy. I just want to call out like so many people would not make that choice to put themselves out there because it is so uncomfortable. So the fact that you're doing that, like that's huge that you're in that growth mindset and really willing to put yourself out there in that way. I'm curious. I want to talk a little bit, just like what life looks like now. Um, is there anything that turned out differently than you expected being a solo mom? Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01

I um I think it's so sweet to think back to my mindset when I finally decided that I was ready. There was a real transformation that happened between all of those IUIs that didn't work and switching clinics, um, creating embryos and really feeling like I had some choice. I think having embryos helped me to choose when I was ready instead of to feel like I have to try even if I'm not ready. I had a really profound solo hiking trip right at New Year's of 2020, just not knowing that the world was about to shut down. I spent like the, you know, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day hiking in Big Bend by myself and had like truly like a mountaintop experience where I was like, I feel a shift. Like I feel hopeful and excited. And I I had my embryos at that point a couple weeks prior, I had received the genetic information and I knew how many embryos I had, and that two were male and three were female. And I just felt a real connection to my son at that point and also to this choice that I was making. And it felt like a choice for the first time. And it's a bit woo-woo, but I do feel like I had a conversation with my son. I have a very like clear memory of exactly where I was and where I was sitting and what the view was. And I knew that he was telling me he was ready. But if I needed time, you're making me tear up. Okay, I can feel it. I know, you know. Um, and I told him, like, I think I'm gonna be ready soon. I'm not not gonna be right when I get to the bottom of this mountain and home. Like I had a six-hour drive ahead of me and months, and then you know, Q global pandemic that was like very like, okay, I was just starting to feel ready because all the clinics are shut down. But I got to move into my transfer. My my first transfer worked and I knew that it would. I just felt the certainty around the embryo, which embryo was my son. And yeah, um my gosh. Just it was just a very like embodied, just peaceful, but but like it right. It was just so right when I finally moved forward. It was seven months into 2020 that I it was July of 2020 when I did the embryo transfer that led to my son. And I think about that sweet girl who went in and like did that transfer. And like I got so dressed up, I had on like red lips like curl my hair. Like, I was so excited, even though you like like a you know, paper gown as soon as you get there. But I thought at that time, okay, I'm never gonna have five minutes or five dollars to myself ever again. And I'm willing to do that because of how badly I wanted motherhood. And it's just so sweet. So, like, oh my God, she gave up everything with this. And that isn't how it's turned out at all. I have far more financial freedom and stability. I have more time, freedom, and choice, I have more joy, I have more relationships. I have literally made hundreds of friendships with women all over the world that I would never have met any other way.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

My life is like so much more abundant. And I just think how sweet it is that I I would have chosen it even if it meant the opposite of all of that. But like so that's my like unexpected thing is that it has been nothing but like upward trajectory. Um pregnancy was wonderful, birth was wonderful, and it just has only gotten better since then. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That also shows just when you do make these like really aligned, heart-led choices, like the beauty that you can't even fathom that like in the moment that you're making that choice, what can lie ahead for you when you really let your heart lead the way? On that note, I'm curious how you take care of yourself. It's it is a lot. I mean, you're working, you have your business, you have a five-year-old. How do you take care of yourself?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I mean, it's it's well, I played around for a couple of years with not taking care of myself. Do not recommend that that did not go very well. Um, it did, it took me a long time to kind of find my groove, and I'm still still working on it. But you know, I talk with women who are in the first year of motherhood, and and you know, you've been there, and I'm like, yeah, it's now is not the time to establish new like you're just you're in survival and that's okay. Like it will get better. It took me a very long time to get back to things like going to the gym and you know, taking care of my body and yeah, still a work in progress. But I think one of the things that has been key in the kind of more recent months and maybe like the last year or so is really, really working on a belief. And this is where like I still really rely on all of the mindset tools. I'm not throwing those out, I'm just like bringing in more somatics, but I have practiced the thought my most valuable asset is myself. And it's true, like that all of this falls apart without me. Yeah, my business, my household, my parenting, like all of it relies on me getting sleep, like having nutrients in my body, moving my body. And it's so easy to like say that and then skip the walk or skip the phone call with a friend, or skip the, you know. And so I think it is, I mean, it's so like unsexy, but it's like calendaring in those things and then sticking with it. And I am so used to building for the future and like delaying self-care or like any kind of like thing that feels good in the current moment because I'm like storing up my nuts for for the winter. Yeah. Um, and I'm just I'm not doing that anymore. I'm I'm trying to be where my feet are. I'm trying to like take the walk today instead of coming up with the plan that I'm gonna follow starting on the first of the month where I do Tuesdays, Thursdays, whatever. Like I'm so good at like planning to take care of myself later. Yeah. And instead, it's like, what am I doing today? Yeah. And just really believing that that is productive and that that is worthwhile. And even as soon as I mean, I'm I'm in a I'm working part-time right now and I've been like coming up on the end of this contract, and I have resigned and you know, won't be returning to this part-time job, but I've been with the same employer for 19 years, and I've had this rhythm. And so all of this building of my business has happened while still going into an office 20 hours a week to do something completely unrelated to any. So I feel that time of opening. Yeah, it's a lot. And so I'm about to open up 20 hours a week, and with that goes a chunk of like the income that I was making from those 20 hours. And so the temptation would be to just immediately fill that with more and more more doing, doing, doing. And I'm really, really trying not to do that. And my son starts kindergarten in the fall, and my vision for my life as soon as August is that I work three days a week because I've built a really successful business on two and a half days a week. Yeah. And so I have three days a week where I take calls and I do coaching and I have, you know, things going on that tie me to um, you know, a schedule. Yep. And then I have two days a week that are mine to decide. And I might decide, I mean, I suspect that quite a bit of time I will decide to work. That I could go work at a coffee shop or I could not work and just to have that time to go have lunch with a friend, but also get my oil changed, get my hair cut, like do those kinds of life maintenance things. I really look forward to being able to truly be present on the weekends with my son. And it's really a goal of mine to get all of the life admin stuff as much as possible into, you know, at least one weekday and have really time. I feel like that's the payoff from, you know, haven't been as present as I would have liked to have been in his first five years because I've been building this. And there have definitely been times where he I've been playing with him, but also like answering a DM at the same time. And it's interesting how that gets coded in our nervous system to where like now I actually have built the space where I don't have to be working every minute of every day. And yet when I stop, my nervous system doesn't know what to do with that. Yeah. And now I'm not resting, not because I don't have the time, but because I don't feel safe.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you're making space in order to do so coming up. Yeah. I mean, I will need all kinds of accountability. This much, much deserved. And yes, I'm proud, even the fact that you're thinking of it and like setting that intention of the three days. Like I am intentionally setting those boundaries up for myself, my life, my future, my family, um, going into this next chapter. And I think that's beautiful. I know we're just at about time. So where can people find you? Yeah, plug away.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. My website is single greatest choice.com. It's the same all the places. So Instagram, single underscore greatest underscore score choice. Um, I have a membership program that is for women who are anywhere from maybe someday I will do this on my own to currently parenting. We've got a couple women in the membership who are have just had baby number two as a as a single mother by choice. So we really like run the gamut of stages. And I do a lot of the coaching. Um, I have a monthly podcast in there where I'm bringing in like all of these things that I'm learning around like nervous system and you know, all of that. Um, so I really share, I think that that's the place where I really bring together what I consider the pillars of my work, which is community and the coaching piece. Yeah. Um, so love my membership. That's probably the thing I'm like most excited about and most um proud of right now. Uh, I also do one-on-one coaching, and community groups have been super impactful. So they're outside of the membership, it's a group of 10 women who come together for six weeks at a time and just support one another with this process. So there are groups for women who are early in the process of like thinking, trying, planning, and then there are groups that are due date specific. So once a woman and/or like in an adoption process where the got an idea of like baby is coming at this time, yeah. Um, then then they can come together and that's more specific around like baby registries and birth plans and those types of things. And it's really beautiful because those groups tend to stay in touch and support one another far beyond the kind of official container. Yeah. And it's it's just it's so nice. I've had so many women say that they just know that they are more supported than their friends who go through this with a partner because they have each other.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yes, yeah. I know I mentioned before we started recording that I have a friend who did that, I think it was pretty like maybe a good six months ago. And yeah, I know maybe even more, honestly. Um, and I know that particular group has continued to meet well after that six months.

SPEAKER_01

I'm laughing because they're one of the groups that I have to mute sometimes because they are very they're very active.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yeah. So I know, I know she would reiterate that feedback of it's just a really supportive, amazing space for her in this time.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And you know, I mean, I feel so proud of the work that I've done to create and facilitate that. And I also just know that it is that way because of the women who find themselves in this place. And I just I think all the time about how there are hundreds of thousands of women who are in the same situation of like being of a certain age and worrying about fertility and knowing that they want to be moms. And and I would say probably the majority are more passive or kind of in a victim mentality. And then sometimes, like, I really think it's important to name the actual privilege that goes into like being able to pursue this, that some just truly don't have the means to make this happen. But I just I think that the funnel into solo motherhood is very narrow, but it takes a very specific type of woman who is willing to say, I see the doors and they are like settle or miss out, and I choose neither, and I'm willing to like walk through this really unknown and societally confusing option. And so just kind of by default, the women that I get to work with are so remarkable, and so it really makes it easy for me to curate these spaces because I'm like, I already know they're gonna be incredible.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yes, definitely. Oh, I love that you're doing amazing things, it's exciting to watch it. Thank you so much for your time. I'm so grateful and appreciative for this conversation. Yeah, thank you for having me.