Discovering Purpose in the Face of Infertility with Doug Brown

If I don't have a kid, if I don't have a baby, can I ever answer my primal question? And I think that's probably it. Can I ever answer it? We talk about an unmet need, pretty much drives everything. We are our best selves when that need is met. We're an anxious self. We are a scrambling self when there sits that unmet need. I had to relinquish control. This is not the way to answer my primal question. I need to tap into reality in a way that's healthy. Hey, everybody. I'm Mike Foster. Welcome to the primal question podcast, where we just talk about the question that is driving our life that is formed by our deepest emotional need. We love talking about the things that are below the surface and core. And what I would say, we like to talk about the roots, not so much about the branches and getting to really why we do what we do and understand those hidden forces that drive our decisions, our relationships, our mission in life. And today I'm really excited because we're going to be talking about primal question number seven. Do I have purpose? And joining me today is my new friend Doug. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. This is wonderful. I'm so excited to talk about you and your primal question because there's so much connected to it in terms of your story and who you are. And all the incredible things that you're actually doing in the world today. So first on, how did you discover your primal question, by the way? What was kind of, how did you get introduced to it? Through you and me. I mean, understanding what primal questions are. I mean, obviously understanding personality is a huge thing for me. Understanding where I come from. My unique ooze of personality, trauma, experiences that kind of make us who we are. So I think, yeah, through your book and through what you've done figuring out, what is it that how how do I better understand myself and understand the things that I'm so motivated by? And that kind of led me to being a, you know, Q seven. What is my purpose in life? It's something I'm I would say I'm plagued with, you know, which maybe might be true of a lot of people who who really find what that question is that they're searching for. I call it calling angst. Yeah, there's a sure angst of trying to discover our purpose. Yeah. And exactly what that looks like and what that means. Yeah, absolutely. I think when I was younger, there is that sense of angst. You're kind of grinding against something. You don't really know what it is. But you're looking out at the world going, why do I always why am I always bent this way? And then, you know, in adulthood, hopefully you have wise people coaching you towards what that is and how to fulfill that in a meaningful way, you know. So I always love to understand not only what somebody's primal question is, but how it got there. Yeah. And so I talked about in the book quite a bit this whole idea of the early childhood experiences. Yeah. Create the imprint of the question. And it doesn't necessarily associate with necessarily trauma. Yeah. It's really about confusion and a kid trying to figure out what purpose means and what impact actually looks like. Yeah. And somewhere in the messaging in our childhood, it was just a question that never really fully got answered. And so we carry it. Yeah. And purpose just becomes the thing that is the need that we have. Yeah. So talk to me about how do you think this question got there? Yeah. Yeah. That's a great question. First of all, it got there over time, I think. Always been a very imaginative person, a very inquisitive person. And I have always loved studying movements. My background is in philosophy. I don't know if you can call me a philosopher. It's like, oh my degrees are in philosophy. He don't have to. I don't really know what makes someone a philosopher. But so I've always been very interested in that in the academic world and even just movements and big things like that. So I always looked up to pastors and philosophers and thinkers. And it left this question to me of, well, what's my contribution? My grandfather was a scientist worked on the nuclear bomb, which is super cool. Yeah. I've always looked up to my dad. My parents, my dad's an artist. And I just have seen people doing these things. And it made a question arise in me, well, what's my thing? What's my, how am I contributing? What's my purpose? And when I think through adolescence, that just grew. It just grew and grew and grew. And there's a bunch of unique things that happened to me that kind of probably reinforced that. Do you remember one specifically or one perhaps moment where maybe you got to know to that purpose question? Or there's some pain around the idea of purpose. I think it's got to be in my teenage years, wanting to make a contribution and really looking up to people who were making contributions. And maybe when you're a teenager, there's that kind of idling out. What are you supposed to do when you're 16? It's really not much you can do besides go to school, skateboard, things like that. But looking up to people and maybe feeling a, I think maybe want to say a deficiency. Maybe that there's like this, wow. Am I like that? You know, I want to be at that level and then kind of looking to get that reinforced. But then your buddies are also 16 and how well can they answer that question for you? So you start to create a searching. I think that's probably in there for sure. Yeah, it's almost like there's this aspirational goal that you want to get to. And this pressure to think like, how am I going to get there? Yeah. And then you look at the reality going, I'm just a 16 year old kid. I feel like I'm not having any impact or any significance or I'm not inventing the nuclear bomb. What was it, your grandfather? Yeah, grandfather. And so all of a sudden there is sort of this gap and you start wondering and there's sort of this pressure like, okay, what is my purpose? Yeah, how can I make my dent in the universe? What does that look like? What am I supposed to do? Yeah. And you know what? Okay, I'll add to that. So I grew up in the church, right? It was a Christian church. And there, I think there's a lot of things that are just in the water. If that makes sense about life that you start to assume and you go, okay, we'll all find my purpose in that thing. I became a pastor for a long time. And maybe that's because I looked up to pastors and was like, okay, they have purpose. And they're really searching out their calling. But I'll add to, so like family was a huge one. We'll discover as we keep talking, my wife and I were never able to have kids. We both struggle with profound infertility. And I think we looked at people who were parents, who were parents, and they were fulfilling a certain purpose and being a parent. So just like all these little things started to get added in. Okay, so I got to become a dad. I always really wanted to be a young dad. I was always a, I don't know where that came from, but I just wanted to have this youthful experience of being a dad. That was in there, being a pastor was in there. And all of it started to build. So I would say that there was this desire to have a overall purpose. But then I think I started to find purpose in all sorts of little things that I was assuming we're going to come true in my life. Wow. Okay, so let's talk about that. Yeah. The infertility part. So there's this goal or a vision for our life that says, I'm going to be a young dad. And maybe the equation looks like when I'm a young dad, my life will be purposeful. I'll have impact in my child's life. There's just this, all these details and dynamics attached to being a young father. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, and really that answering your question of, do I have purpose? Well, yes, because I'm no young father. But we're actually getting a pretty strong know there. Yeah. Talk to me about wrestling through that season of life and really just trying to make sense of that. Absolutely. I think I love that in psychology, there's that idea of the ideal self, that version of yourself, that this is who I assume that I'll become or who I want to become. And fatherhood was definitely in there for me. You can almost say it was actually maybe one below the ideal self, just the assumed self. I looked forward and I just assumed. Right. Of course, if I wanted to be a young dad, we would just have that be true. My wife and I both wanted that. So then when we encountered infertility, it takes a while to encounter infertility. They tell you to try to have kids for about a year before you can go see a doctor. So then you're a year into it. And then the first sort of test that I did discovered that I was almost, practically totally infertile. So from the medical side of things, I'm getting this very hard know to something that I feel like would have created a lot of purpose in my life and given me a lot of that sense of meaning. And then discovering my wife equally has infertility issues. Now we're a couple years in. We're saving money to do a treatment. And I would say it's very difficult for us because it wasn't this relational know that we were getting. You know, we were, I was kind of putting out into the universe. I guess this is where it gets probably the most difficult for me is I'm I'm almost asking God God or universe of God. Will you fulfill can I fulfill my primal question? Do I have a purpose? Because if I'm a father, then I have purpose. And then is God saying no to my primal question? What's going on? Like how do I make sense of that? And I think that was the hardest thing to cope with because it sent me into like you say this kind of like frenzy of trying to solve that primal question. That look like for you the scramble. This scramble. Yeah, this scramble is I'm trying to I was trying to identify and find my purpose and have people validate me that no, I do have a purpose, but I'll be honest with you. That's really hard to overcome because as much as I could even come to you as Mike, you know, I have a purpose if I'm not a dad, right? And you could say absolutely, you know, in the most genuine sense of your way, it's just a really big one to agree with that reality. You know, for me to agree with you on that to say, right, yeah, having kids is, you know, I can still have a purpose. It took time. And I think there is that the scramble for me was anxiety to try to solve that problem as quickly, maybe or efficiently as possible. So treatment, how can I do treatment to overcome infertility? And then maybe we moved on and did adoption of foster care, which at that point, you know, now I'm sprinting into adoption of foster care to solve that primal question to answer, yes, I do have a purpose. I can be apparent and let me adopt a child as quick as possible. Go through foster care as quick as possible, which led to a lot of difficulty because you can't do those things quickly. Right. So, okay, love love this thing. Just it's just so clear to me, like how intense, yeah, we talk about how an unmet need pretty much drives everything, okay. Yeah. And we we are our best selves when that need is met, but we we are an anxious self. We are a scrambling self. We are not, not our best selves when there sits that unmet need. And clearly, just as you're talking about and describing this, it's like this is a very significant thing that you're wrestling with. How do I get this need for purpose? Met, okay. So you adopt you and again, how long did it take to go through the process of adopt so the needs unmet? Yeah. Even when we kind of have a really positive game plan and solution about being a father and parents, how did that take? Right. That's the difficult part is years. I mean, you're kind of sitting with that question. So we were doing infertility treatments in that world for easily two years. And then we adopted, which took two years. And then we went through two disrupted adoptions, which took another two years. So I mean, you're like nearing a decade. Wow. Of just kind of sitting with that question, um, validating it a little bit kind of having a little bit of movement on it, but it becomes a crisis for people. So my wife and I out of all of this started a nonprofit. Um, and we work with people. It's called uniquely knitted, and uniquely knitted, uniquely knitted. Okay. Tell me about that. Yeah. The whole goal is that people need to process what they've gone through. I mean, they need to find people to validate really their primal questions. So we put together a nonprofit. We do education, research and support. The support is six week process groups. And you would love them. They're really, you know, everything that I think that you're your four is we have to then validate these things that we're doubting, these questions that come up, these needs that we have for us, we put together people who are all struggling with infertility to meet each other's needs. We start with reality and dig into the reality of what's going on. I mean, then share our needs with one another. I need to know that I'm that I'm safe. I need to know that, you know, I'm enough or that I can still be successful in life if I don't have a kid. And I think that's the thing that I was struggling with, you know, my wife and I for sure, for that decade of struggling is if I don't have a kid, if I don't have a baby, will my can I ever answer my primal question? You know, and I think that's probably it. You know, or will it always be of just a smaller version? So if you have someone who's thinking, you know, am I, am I safe or am I secure? And it's you add on if I don't have a baby, if I don't get pregnant, if, you know, we get pregnant, but it's with a donor egg and it's my husband's DNA, but not mine. Can I ever be secure in a situation like that? So we validate those. We come together to just share those needs. Sounds incredible. Like number one, yes, I would totally love to be a part of these, these grades because it is so the all the stuff bubbles up. Yeah. All those things that have been with us, the needs, the needs, the primal questions, it all bubbles up because it I just can imagine the intensity of the process and the wrestling with infertility. Yeah. It's just all laid bare. There's no hiding anymore. It's like front and center for the marriage or your relationship or for you as an individual. Yeah. It's all front and center. Yeah. We talk about there's new issues and there's old issues too when it comes to infertility. For me, I'll just use my own self. There's this idea of do I have a purpose and this new issue is do I have a purpose if I can never become a dad? It's only going to bring up all the old issues of where I got that question of do I have a purpose or am I safe? There's this new question of well, I have to do shots. I have to be exposed. People are going to know about all is that that's way too much attention for me, which is only bringing up then the old issue of well, how come I don't feel safe so that you're going through so much at the same time and it feels relentless because you just don't know how to get out of it. There's no easy way to solve it. Hey, friend, you and I have a hidden force driving our lives. It drives our choices, our behaviors, our triggers, our relationships, and even our strengths and our gifts. And most of us have no idea what it is or how to control it. And this hidden force is an unmet emotional need. There are seven of them and I call them the seven primal questions. And when you don't know your primal question, it can wreak havoc on your life. Because people will do whatever it takes to meet this need. And we can even try to meet that need in some pretty unhealthy ways. But when you identify your core emotional need, a lot of things begin to make sense. And you'll have the clarity to meet emotional needs for yourself and others. And in much healthier ways that have far reaching effects on your life and your relationships. Take five minutes to discover your primal question today at primalquestion.com. So, talk to me. Do you know your wife's primal question? We were, we've been talking, you know, we talked about last night. Yeah. You know, we go back and forth to, am I loved? Am I enough? That kind of in that, in that world? Yeah. Yeah. So both those questions are often people wrestle between those two because their value-based questions is about your value. And so I would imagine as you're doing this together, obviously, there's stuff being brought up within her about value, stuff being brought up in you about purpose. How did you guys get through those questions together? Yeah, that's great. You know, I think it comes down to being vulnerable, to expose what this deep, vulnerable question is. You know, to me, the primal questions are so vulnerable, you know, because they're rooted in such tenderness. Absolutely. That's a great way to summarize. Absolutely. And feeling safe enough to say, at the end of the day, yes, I want to know that I'm safe. I really want to know if I'm still going to have purpose. That's such a, there's a way to expose that where you're transparent, you know, but to be vulnerable about it, you know, to share it in a way that's kind of risky to say, I really need you, I really need you to see me that I want to feel like I have a purpose. I think vulnerability for us was the key. And I would say it's the key for our groups too as well. The process groups we lead, you know, creating an environment where we can be vulnerable about the one thing that really is vulnerable with this whole process. I think that's what's been so interesting for me and leading, we've led just hundreds, it's so amazing to and honoring to hear so many stories, also heartbreaking too as well. But the thing that's interesting is you can have like what you're saying, maybe a couple's going through this. And for one person, there's one thing that they're really wanting to seek validation for. And for another person, it can be a totally different thing. And they kind of go, yeah, I feel safe for this and this, but I just don't feel successful if I'm, you know, or whatever it is, those questions, there's usually a specific one that comes up. So what would you say to someone who is right now listening to this in the throws of infertility and maybe losing hope here. - Yeah. I think finding people, I think finding people where you can do, even what we're doing here, what you talk about doing, showing them who you really are in a vulnerable way. I think that's really hard is, I'd love to know actually your thoughts on this is, it feels like you go through something like infertility, and maybe the person who you used to go to who validated a lot of your, you know, primal question becomes triggering. You know, maybe it is your mom or sister or something like that, and anytime you feel your thing come up, you kind of go to them and they're your, your rock sort of, your grounding. But maybe like your sister is also pregnant, and you want to be pregnant, so then you're going to her. Does that make sense? And you're like, you're used to be the thing that grounded me. Now you're actually the thing that triggers me, so then you get isolated. That's probably one of the biggest issues with infertility is isolation. I just just feel kind of alone, you know, who to go to. My encouragement would be to find a group of people where you feel safe, I mean, you can talk to, 'cause what do you do with that? When all of a sudden your person becomes unavailable, I guess. Yeah, well, that's such a great question, and what I would say is number one, have the awareness just because a person was such a great source of yeses for you. And now you're in a season or experiencing a particular dynamic in life, where that person is now a no or a maybe. Yeah. It's okay for us to understand that this relationship is impacting us in a different way. I think sometimes we get committed to relationships or friendships or structures that perhaps we're positive for us in certain times of our life that are no longer serving us. And it's okay for us to just have a check in with that and say it's got to change and usually what needs to change is some boundaries. Yeah, absolutely. And being okay with those boundaries, because when you're in a battle, you have to be in that, you're getting a lot of no to that primal question and a lot of emotional dysregulation around it. Yeah. It's okay to be honest with that. Yeah, I would imagine you probably felt through this journey that you had to sort of keep us strong, hopeful, happy demeanor. And you're the purpose guy and God's faith guy and pastor guy. And yet there's was probably many days where you just felt like I'm giving up. I'm in despair around this question. Right. Absolutely. I think you remember your lowest moment in the story. I think I absolutely do. It was in the middle of adoption in foster care, just having so many adoptions fall through because my vision of getting this done was in a way forcing it, you know, the scramble for sure. I love how you say you force, you'll find a way to force the yes. That my lowest point is the moments where I'm forcing those yeses and then they fall through. It's a kind of a free falling, very ungrounding, you know, the ground sort of disappears and you don't know where to put your feet because how do I get this question answered? There is a sense of I had to relinquish control and say, okay, this is not the way to answer my primal question to force this. I need to go about it a different way. I need to tap into reality in a way that's healthy and realize that my reality can exist with kids or without kids and both can be good. I only viewed it one way and I was forcing that. We're very lucky to have adopted twice. I forced that to happen. I'm so glad I did. It's such an amazing experience. But my experience of going through that process was kind of like a bulldozer. Like I was forcing those things to happen. Not in any unethical way, but like I was on it. Paperwork was, they gave it to me and I returned it the same day. You know, I mean, I was as much as I could using my skills to get that stuff done. And when things would fall through, I would be my lowest point of just feeling like, I don't even have a purpose in this, you know? I'm trying to solve this question and I'm finding a purpose in solving this question and I can't even do that. So what, like where am I in this whole process? You start to lose yourself. - And I could see that so clearly, 'cause part of the question of do I have purpose really the outcome of that is having impact, right? - Yeah. - 'Cause it isn't just about being a father, it's about what you'll do as a father and the influence of father and the experiences of father. Like it's beyond just like a label or something that a singular event, it's this. And so here you are not having impact in the process. In fact, feeling like you're going backwards. - Yeah. - I get so waste what you're doing. And Q7's, the idea of meaninglessness is a huge trigger. And so I use to imagine you doing all the work, none of it working and just that despair around, just this is why what am I doing? Is my, does any of this matter? - Yeah, absolutely. And Q7's, if I can speak, if you're a Q7, I'll speak for you. - Please. - Please. - You'll find out that. You'll find purpose in anything. Even overcoming the fact that you don't have purpose is like, oh, I don't have purpose, watch this. I'm gonna show you purpose, you know? So when you lose even that, it's really hard and you'll generate it again, but you're generating it from a much more, it gets more frantic each time. - That's the greatest. - You have this vision of yourself that I'm gonna be whatever, you know? I'm gonna do really good in school or I'm gonna be this kind of person in my friend group and you find a lot of fulfillment in that, but then you lose maybe something, like I said, this ideal self had a child and was an early dad and I lost that. So now I'm frantically trying to solve that, but now I'm finding purpose in the fact that I've lost that. So then I lose it again through infertility and I go, well, watch how I dominate the adoption world. I'm just gonna figure this out. And then I lose that and I go, okay, well, I lost that. I'm gonna figure out the foster care world. And then I lose that and each time it multiplies the franticness, leaving me with unhealthy anxiety and going, this isn't working, because I'm backing myself into a corner and I'm becoming rabbit almost, you know? And now it's not as fun to be around me. I'm driving too fast, I'm a little too loud. I'm always a little on, I'm kind of a more high strung person, but at that point I'm like a, I'm really high strung, you know? And I needed to take a step back and say, okay, this rhythm of losing purpose and then forcing purpose is not sustainable in the long run. I have to find a more, I have to live in an ecosystem that allows me to find purpose in ways that are healthier. And that took a long time to find. - Well, it's interesting what you're describing there is you, that need that you have for purpose. Well, you don't have an option. - Yeah. - Yeah. - It must be wrestled with. And if it's unmet the franticness, how many nose do you get? Nose after nose after nose? You become more frantic, more frantic. And because it's just that need sits unmet. And so kind of the goal of all of this is understanding and having a healthy understanding of how we actually meet that need. - Yes. - So it really basically why I would say is not living in the question anymore but living in the statement I do have purpose. Okay, so talk to me about, by the way, love the work that you do. And I can just, you talk about having a purpose, the work that you're doing with couples and infertility and helping and guide them and giving them the safe place to process this. - I can't be giving more than that. Okay, so incredible. If Mike Foster says it's a, I have purpose then I believe it or I said it. It doesn't matter what I say, there's just this thing called truth. And that is so purposeful and so helpful. But talk to me about your daily, kind of term I use a self-leadership around, staying in my primal truth of knowing my life has purpose that I don't have to live in this franticness, this unmet need when I get those nose or those maybes. - Yeah. - How has your definition or version of purpose come to a healthier place? - Yeah, I think my emotion, I think it's come to a healthy place through emotional connection. And, you know, not needing as much external, validation in the outcome of facts that, oh, it's a fact that this has happened, this has happened. We've adopted, we've done foster care. We've got the nonprofit, this X amount of people have gone through a process group. Those are great, but saying, I think this issue of needing a purpose is less about facts and more about emotions. And there's a relational connection that I need to meet within myself that regardless of facts, I could be the most purposeful person ever. But there's an emotional component to it that if that's not getting met, this will never meet the emotional need. So I think for me, it was building a building a team, I guess you could say, of emotional connections that I meet with all the time. I meet with people and emotionally validate my primal question multiple times a week. How would they do that? I'm so vulnerable with it. I have to tell them, like, you know, I struggle with feeling like I'm out of place in the world. I look at other people and see what they're doing. And I think that's more purposeful. And I doubt myself. And I need you to just like center me. You know, I trust you as a person. Can you meet me in that emotional need? And I, I let it in. I let it in and I allow them to do that. I get, I will spin off in an unhealthy direction if I go weeks and I haven't met with anyone. I haven't been vulnerable like that. So I need to, I come back to that. And it's the same. That's exactly what we help people do in our process groups is find a moment of vulnerability to communicate what your need is, what your primal need is to say, this is what I need. I'm going to be vulnerable with it. I trust you. Can you guys just give me feedback? You know, just tell me, tell me anything. And I think that to me has been the key way. And it's shocking. I'm really thinking about it again, a fresh now. There's probably no amount of facts that could happen that would externally validate my emotional need to feel like I'm living a purposeful life. And that's over. You know, that's a good reminder because it's overwhelming. It almost is a little sad to think, great. You know, I could be 10 times bigger. You know, I could be this. I could do this and that could be the most, I could win an award or something like that. But if I'm not going to some of my best friends or my wife and saying, this is vulnerable where I'm at, can you just see me in that? The external wouldn't mean anything. That's a powerful dog. I thank you for just, just opening up this question and helping us just see it so much more clearly. Before we close, I'd love for you just again, the organization that you're doing is uniquely knitted. You can go, okay, what would it be the next steps if I want to learn more? Absolutely. Uniquelyknitted.org. We have a podcast actually. We talk about infertility and feelings. It's called the infertility feelings podcast. Awesome. It's really a great place to start. If you're like, I want to talk about how this is making me feel. Check that out. We have groups that are always open that you can join the virtual six weeks long. And what we really think is that we can change the experience of infertility right now. It's such an isolating, overwhelming, painful experience. And it will always start like that. But I think for many people, they're like, okay, let me just grit and bear it. And then I'll make it to the end. Hopefully I'll like my outcome. And then I'll just forget about this whole season. But this is an impactful time. So it doesn't have to feel like that forever. You can join a group. You can be vulnerable like what we're talking about and get some of those needs met along the way. So we encourage you to do that. Yeah. Thank you. We'll get all those the website and the podcast and the show notes. Encourage everyone to check that out. Thank you for sharing today. Thank you for the work that you're doing and really the incredible impact that you're having in so many people's lives. And thank you so much to you too for giving us such an invaluable tool to analyze what that deep need is. It's so hard to find. It truly is. And you've done a wonderful job. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks so much for tuning in to today's episode of the Primal Question Podcast. I hope you've learned something new about your Primal question or maybe the Primal question of someone you know. 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