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Have you ever heard the belief that souls choose their parents?

The thought of a soul waiting to materialise into a foetus inside your uterus and choose you as its home can be a beautiful idea to hold on to while trying to conceive. 

It is said that the soul decides first of all on what kind of life it wants and what lessons it wants to learn in that life. Based on the soul’s purpose in this next life, it chooses who are to be its parents.

So, while trying to conceive we may be called to talking to this soul, inviting them to come to us. This is a spiritual practice that can help us connect to our future children even before we are pregnant.

But what happens when fertility struggles knock on the door? What happens after years of trying to conceive? After multiple In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) rounds and numerous heartbreaks? 

The belief that the right soul will find its ways to us can keep us hopeful for a while, but what if that never happens? What if after years of trying to get pregnant, “no soul has chosen us”?

This becomes dangerous when the belief starts to turn into thoughts such as, “no soul wants me as their home” or, “no baby thinks I will be the right mother for them.”

As a client confessed to me that she had started having these thoughts, I realised how, in some circumstances, some spiritual beliefs can become dangerous, and even toxic.

The inability to conceive and give birth to a baby is already such a hard fact to be confronted with for a woman. Fertility struggles are often accompanied by a whole range of emotions and self-criticism, a lack of self-worth, a feeling of being “less of a woman,” and the idea that something is wrong with us.

If we add to that the belief that no soul thinks we are a good enough home for them, then we might fall into a spiral of negativity.

This spiritual belief can keep us wondering why we are not being chosen and foster comparison with other parents, making us drown into the spiral of, “why them and not me?”

At the same time, I know that it is natural to have these thoughts and we should not be feeling any shame or guilt for having them. However, we do have the power to change them. 

As Brooke Castillo, founder of The Life Coach School says, we may not be able to change the circumstances right now, but we always have the power to change our thoughts over them, and thoughts create feelings.

So, if this belief and the consequential thoughts it generates do not serve us and cause us to feel worthless and sad, then we need to drop the belief and reframe the thoughts.

Maybe instead of thinking, “no soul wants to be my child,” we can think, “I am meant to serve a higher purpose,” or, “I am worthy of love.” Replace the negative thought with a positive one that we believe in and see what feelings arise from that instead. I know this can be hard, but it’s a practice that gets easier with time.

So, find ways to ground yourself in the knowledge that you are enough, because your self-worth is not dependent on your fertility or lack thereof.