What does it mean to face the reality of living a childless life?

Does it mean you must accept you will be sad forever?

Does it mean you must accept being treated as less than because you aren't a mother?

Does it mean you must accept not having holidays off work so your colleagues can spend that time with their children?

Acceptance is an often misunderstood concept as it relates to grief and childlessness. Practicing acceptance doesn't mean that you feel good about being childless. It doesn't mean that the losses along the path to living a childless life don't affect you anymore. It doesn't mean that you will never feel sadness. Acceptance isn't an endorsement of your childlessness. It also isn't a static state which you reach, and the other stations or experiences of grief disappear.

You are undoubtedly familiar with the words and concept of 'being triggered.' It refers to a cue or event that precipitates difficult emotions.

Conversely, glimmers are still a cue, but they help bring you back into feelings of safety and happiness. Recognizing and identifying glimmers can make the childless, not by choice, journey less daunting and more manageable.

No one else will make space for your grief if you don't. It will not go away if unfaced; it will come out in confusing ways. Creating space for your grief can look many different ways. It can be journaling about how you feel; it can be taking time to feel what you feel without shutting it down; it can be done alone; it can be done in a group.

The heartbreak that comes with childlessness is vast. At times it feels impossible to live with and that it will always feel this way. I understand these feelings. I also know that a life without the children I wanted can be happy, fulfilling and purposeful.

Here are seven ways to heal childless grief and open up to the possibilities of life.

My journey to childlessness involved multiple miscarriages, unexplained infertility and a chronic illness that led to a hysterectomy.

This experience left me disconnected and distrustful of my body. I had the profound sense that it had let me down and that I couldn't count on it. It wasn't, and couldn't, do what I witnessed other women's bodies doing all around me, and I felt less than for it.

As a childless woman, I already feel less than in the eyes of the pronatalist culture, so I refuse to participate in the 'New Year, New You' BS!

Removing the possibility of ever having a child by having a hysterectomy would free up the energy that hope was consuming. It would allow me space to fully grieve as I would no longer feel stuck in the liminal space in-between.