Introduction and Welcome

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 491

Danny Kofoed [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.

John Dehlin [00:00:07] Mormon Stories Podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@mormonstories.org hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. I'm in Brooklyn, New York City. It's July 2014. I forgot the date. Doesn't matter. But I'm very, very excited to have with us today two semi local guests. Their names are Mara and Danny Kofoed.

Danny Kofoed [00:00:56] Is that right? Nailed it. Yeah, you got it.

John Dehlin [00:00:59] And I'm excited to have them on Mormon Stories for several reasons. Aside from the fact that they're delightful, thoughtful people, I think their story is interesting for a number of reasons and I'm just going to list them as the hook to make you want to keep listening.

John Dehlin [00:01:17] So both of them come from an LDS background in one way or another. We'll learn about that. But where it gets kind of interesting in terms of topics. Both of them experienced divorce in their kind of, let's just say 20s or early 30s. We'll find out the actual ages, but both have been divorced.

John Dehlin [00:01:39] And so they're on their second marriage and that's something that many LDS people and non LDS people face. So we're going to talk about that. They've also had fertility struggles or issues specifically Mara had, and she's blogged about that somewhat and so has Danny. And so we're going to be talking about infertility a little bit, which is an important topic.

John Dehlin [00:02:07] And then, you know, they're bloggers and they're not just sort of Mormon bloggers, but they blog. They have a blog that's kind of widely followed and it's called Blog About Love. I don't know how much we're going to dig into what it's like to blog, but that may come up here and there. But then I think probably one final reason that I think this is going to be a really interesting interview is that they are working really hard to figure out what living a healthy, happy, meaningful life is.

John Dehlin [00:02:42] And they've done some unconventional things to try and pursue that and I think it's quite laudable. Plus my wife Margi loves their blog. So this is for Margi as much as it is for anything. But I had lunch with them yesterday or the day before, found them to be really interesting and I've Been getting a little grief for Mormon's story's turning a little bit angry or negative lately. I take responsibility for that. But today it's going to be uplifting and positive and I'm really excited about that as well. So Mara and Danny, welcome to Mormon Stories.

Mara Kofoed [00:03:18] Thank you so very much.

John Dehlin [00:03:22] So let's just begin by hearing a few minutes about your LDS background. And Danny, I'm going to start with you because I'm going to make an assumption that maybe your background is a little more traditional than Mara's, but I may be wrong. So talk just a few minutes about what the church played in your early to your childhood to early to adolescent.

Danny Kofoed [00:03:46] Right. So you know, both of us grew up in Mormon households, you know, and for me, the church was a fairly active part of my life. And I hesitate to say this because it can come across as the wrong thing. For those who know my parents, they might say what are you talking about? But we were a very active family.

Danny Kofoed [00:04:08] But as far as being extremely spiritual, I don't know how much I would characterize it as seriously spiritual, nightly scripture reading type of thing. And I'm also the youngest, so a lot of the really good habits that can start, fall off. So I know that there's things that happened before I came of age to know what we did, but I grew up in a household that kind of, that did everything that they were supposed to do.

Danny Kofoed [00:04:36] But the spirituality part wasn't 100% this foundational thing. Except for both my parents are remarkable human beings all on their own, have high senses of integrity. And so that makes for my parents hardly ever fought. So that makes for its own spiritual environment that that really helped me. And I at 16, wasn't even I was going to seminary and doing all this stuff.

Danny Kofoed [00:05:07] And I ended up having an experience unrelated to praying about the church or anything like that. But I ended up having an experience where I felt for the first time ever, truly something that was if I were to characterize a baptism of fire type of thing, that's what it was. And I went holy cow, if that's what the Holy Ghost is, and not just warm fuzzies. I'm very interested in what I need to do to fill that more often. And that's actually when I began for the first time reading, praying, doing anything like that. And you know, I served a mission and later and had a spectacular time there and met many wonderful people.

Danny Kofoed [00:05:49] And where was it I served in Brazil, Manaus, and met some of the greatest people. And I know everybody says this, but Met some of the greatest people I ever meet and had spiritual experiences there that continued to kind of fortify that original thing that had happened to me. And, you know, and that's. That's the. There's way more information, but that's the basic background. Did all the stuff.

Danny Kofoed [00:06:17] Even with all that I've learned since then, I've never. I can't say that I would ever qualify myself as having had a faith crisis. It's never been a crisis. I've learned all sorts of stuff, and it's never turned into a crisis.

Danny Kofoed [00:06:33] But I'm also infinitely aware of many of the struggles, and for some reason, they're resolved differently in my mind. And anyways, that's part of it.

Mara and Danny's Mormon Upbringings and Spiritual Awakenings

John Dehlin [00:06:43] So for you, traditional LDS upbringing, but maybe not with an emphasis on what some would call like deep spirituality, but then an awakening that happened to you when you're 16 turned you onto that, turned everything around.

Danny Kofoed [00:06:56] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:06:57] Yeah. And now that's something you're emphasizing in your life that we'll talk about later.

Danny Kofoed [00:07:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:02] Okay. Mara.

Mara Kofoed [00:07:04] Yeah, Same story. No. So I was a very faithful young girl, grew up in a very faithful Mormon in Mesa, Arizona. Wanted to do everything, you know, did my personal progress and did everything, you know, that my leaders taught me in young women's. And I just didn't feel anything. This idea of a testimony was so big. Like, you know, everyone needed a testimony. Everyone should have a testimony. You know, you would hear these people just sobbing in the pulpit about their testimonies. And I didn't feel any of that, even as a young girl. I remember being 12, you know, as a beehive, thinking, I'm not feeling anything.

Mara Kofoed [00:07:48] I don't know what people are talking about. And I would pray my brains out. It got to the point where I would weep in prayer, asking God for a testimony. You know, I was reading the Scriptures and then running to my room to pray.

Mara Kofoed [00:08:06] I thought I would just get this testimony. That was sort of the formula that I was taught. And I tried it over and over and over and over, and nothing happened. I felt inadequate. I felt like maybe I was broken somehow. Just that spiritual thing wasn't working for me. Maybe I just wasn't capable of being spiritual.

Mara Kofoed [00:08:35] And it was difficult. It was really, really difficult. Again, I tried for years and years. When I was 18, I guess I had been sort of faking things really well because they asked me to speak at seminary graduation in Mesa, Arizona. I met this huge, you know, high school with tons of Mormons, like, release time.

John Dehlin [00:09:04] Did they have early morning or was it actually part of school?

Danny Kofoed [00:09:06] It was part of school, so that's a big deal.

Mara Kofoed [00:09:09] And so, you know, there were just a few speakers, I don't know, two, three speakers chosen. And I was chosen to speak at seminary graduation. And I'm going, oh, crap. And I told them no. That was the first time I kind of said no to something.

Mara Kofoed [00:09:29] And they said, oh, why is there, you know, is everything okay? And I just said, I just can't fake it anymore. I just don't feel like I just don't have a testimony. I can't stand at the pulpit and bear a testimony.

Mara Kofoed [00:09:44] And it was actually really liberating. You know, I decided to start this new phase of not faking it anymore. I pretty much stopped going to church. I was still living at home for a little bit, and then I went to a women's college on the east coast in Virginia, and I still went to church, but I decided I just wasn't going to fake anything anymore. Anyway, later I ended up leaving the church for about five years. Didn't go to church at all.

Mara Kofoed [00:10:21] I didn't drink or smoke or anything like that. But I had a boyfriend for five years and did what boyfriends and girlfriends do. And I, at the time, didn't feel like I was really sinning or anything because that's just. I didn't have a testimony of any of these things. And anyway, later I moved.

John Dehlin [00:10:46] Looking back, do you feel shame, no guilt about that?

Mara Kofoed [00:10:49] No, no, no, not at all. For that?

John Dehlin [00:10:51] Not at all.

Mara Kofoed [00:10:52] I don't know. I don't know. I just.

Danny Kofoed [00:10:54] Part of the life.

Mara Kofoed [00:10:55] It's part of life.

Danny Kofoed [00:10:56] Part of life leads to where you are now.

Mara Kofoed [00:10:59] Yeah, it was all a part of my path, part of my experience. And that's where I was at that point in my life, doing. You know, I was doing my best and, you know, just living, trying to live a good life. And, yeah, I have no guilt, no shame, no nothing. Never have. So that's good. And, you know, I hear of other people going off the chosen path for a while, and I just think, ah, it's great. Go experience some life. I don't know. I have very little fear about it because I just feel like, hey, that's all a part of someone's plan. If that's where they're at, then that's great, you know, maybe that will lead to greater things in the future.

John Dehlin [00:11:44] I was talking about that yesterday with my own. I have three teenage daughters, and a father's always just really fearful sometimes about what choices his daughters Might make. And as someone who may be a little bit non conventional LDs, I'm still like, oh, what if they do this or that? And you were like, don't worry. I'm like, what are you talking about? You don't think I should work?

Mara Kofoed [00:12:10] Not so much. Probably not as much as you do.

Danny Kofoed [00:12:13] Well, and not only that, it's like,

Mara Kofoed [00:12:16] I don't know, I look at how I turn out and it's like, hey, listen, there is so much hope for someone, even if they aren't doing exactly what you would want them to do at a certain point in their life. Hey, it's part of the path. They'll figure it out. Give them the confidence to figure it out. And my parents did that. They never doubted me. That's one of the greatest things.

Danny Kofoed [00:12:39] They didn't doubt you.

John Dehlin [00:12:40] They're not like, oh, you're not going to church.

Mara Kofoed [00:12:43] There was very little of that, very little pressure. They allowed me to be completely independent. And they were delighted later when I did begin to participate again with the church. But there was very little pressure. Very little. I mean, zero shame. Zero shame. Just absolute confidence. We love you. You're wonderful. You're doing amazing things in your lives or in your life. And that just. It was a beautiful. Yeah. Beautiful experience. All right. So anyway, but later. Oh.

Danny Kofoed [00:13:19] Oh. I was gonna say, you know, the worst part about the worry is. Although entirely justified. Cause I get it. And even though we're not parents, I get it, you know, and we've got nieces and nephews and we hear and we care about people. But the worst part about the worry and the fear is because of that presence of fear, then enters all of the other stuff that creates the dissolution of relationship. The fear itself ends up being the very thing that will come between you and your daughter. Not her actions, your fear and her resistance to that fear. And that is what breaks down families. And it's also what breaks down beautiful institutions. And we have to find a way to do something other than respond in that way. And we have to believe in people and we have to trust that something good can come, even of the worst circumstances.

John Dehlin [00:14:12] I love it. Love it. Okay, keep going.

Danny Kofoed [00:14:14] Yeah, sorry.

Mara Kofoed [00:14:15] So later in life, you know, I moved to New York City, ended up getting married, and ended up facing some of the most difficult. I did marry a Mormon. Yeah, not in the temple, but we did marry in a temple later, so.

Mara Kofoed [00:14:32] But, you know, I began participating in the church, but still, I did not have what I would say is spirituality or a testimony of anything, but I enjoyed the service. I enjoyed being a part of the community. And so that carried me for many years.

Mara Kofoed [00:14:55] And then I found myself facing some of the most difficult things in my life, which I was facing a marriage that was starting to really, really not look good. And I was facing infertility at that point. A year had passed and I wasn't able to get pregnant despite, you know, actively trying to get pregnant.

Mara Kofoed [00:15:19] And I was really at rock bottom at one point. I remember feeling like I was dead. And I was just so distraught about, you know, sort of my life crumbling around me. Everything that I thought was so important, a husband and a baby and, you know, these things were the most important thing to me. This was my life, you know, and it was all just not working out.

Mara Kofoed [00:15:47] And I remember just barely being able to walk to and from work at times. You know, I'd be down in the subway, it would be hot. I really thought. I thought that I just might fall over and die at times, or I thought I might die in my sleep because I was feeling so much grief.

Mara Kofoed [00:16:13] So that went on for a little bit and I somehow started to have the desire to heal. I had tried before. Anything I was doing wasn't really working, but somehow I had it in me to still keep going, to somehow try to heal, to somehow try to cultivate some happiness that was real. And there was a really beautiful turnaround. My ex husband had a turnaround and was able to, for a brief time at the end of our marriage, he was getting some help that he needed in the ways that he needed it and was having sort of a surge of like a renewal. And it was amazing. But that didn't exactly heal me, you know, so that was interesting. I realized, oh, even if.

Danny Kofoed [00:17:19] Even if he's doing it, even if

Mara Kofoed [00:17:21] he improved, I still had to heal. And I even had moments like if I had a baby right now, I would still be in pain. Like, the pain was so deep that I began realizing these things aren't even going to solve. Even if my marriage improved and I had a baby, I don't know that it would just automatically remove the pain. So I had this motivation to try to heal again, like I said. And part of it actually was that my husband was improving. And I was like, okay, I've got to figure this out. And there still could be a chance here. And so I met a woman. She does acupuncture in Manhattan, and she works with infertile women exclusively, exclusively. And her goal is to help women change their lives. She feels like if she can change a Woman, she can change the world. And so she tries.

Danny Kofoed [00:18:18] She feels that she can reach a woman in literally that worst moment of potentially the existence, if she can turn that around everything else.

Mara Kofoed [00:18:28] She feels like. Women in that state are the most open to change because they are desperate. They are so desperate. And I was that. I was desperate for sure and I was willing to change. And she taught me a few things about real love. She taught me about spirituality. It made me believe that I was a spiritual woman.

Mara Kofoed [00:18:54] And that was the first time I'd ever thought of myself as someone who could have that capability. Because all I had been doing before was just a failure. That my spirituality was just like non existent. But this woman made me believe that I was a spiritual woman already. I didn't need to do anything. I already had this potential within me.

Mara Kofoed [00:19:19] She taught me about reactions, about how to react to life in the best way possible. She taught me about happiness, how things around us are not going to fulfill us. They just aren't even married. Our children, our jobs.

Mara Kofoed [00:19:39] The light within us is not dependent on those things. And she helped me. She helped me to learn how to cultivate the light again. And I did that. I was bursting with it. And then I would go home to this failing marriage and a husband that was really struggling at the time, and I was still bursting with the light. I learned how to do it in his presence.

Mara Kofoed [00:20:09] And I learned how to do it through years of continued infertility. It's probably 11 years now, at least, I don't count anymore. But. But I learned how to do it with, you know, in job situations. In every situation of my life, you know, every day there's a challenge. And I just learned how to. How to cultivate the light over and over and over again.

Mara Kofoed [00:20:41] And that has been. That has become my spiritual practice. And I've tried to figure out what it is exactly that I do because it's so freaking effective that I want to help other people. So I write about it and I try to explain it because, you know, this woman, this woman helped me and I'm like, I gotta help other people. I've gotta give back. I've gotta pay it forward. Okay? Because it just literally transformed my life.

John Dehlin [00:21:08] Okay, so we.

Mara Kofoed [00:21:10] Long answer second perfect.

Danny Kofoed [00:21:11] No, that was sort of.

John Dehlin [00:21:13] And we'll. What I want to do is end by thoughts on spirituality. So that brings us to a perfect place. Now we'll go back to. Danny got off his mission.

Life After Missions, Marriage, and Divorce

Danny Kofoed [00:21:23] Yeah, I mean, I got off my mission and I ended up getting married just before I had graduated. You Know, I got a master's at BYU and was finishing up and had met somebody, married and, you know, moved out to Boston.

Danny Kofoed [00:21:41] And for me, you know, up until that point and even over the next three, three years of being married together and everything, you know, from the position of more or less what you think you're supposed to accomplish as a good Mormon human being and as a successful, family oriented whatever, I mean, it felt like that was being accomplished. And despite the fact that the marriage that I had ended in divorce, one remarkable thing to me, and I mean truly remarkable, is my wife and I were not people who fought with each other.

Danny Kofoed [00:22:20] And if there were unkind things said, it was mostly in both of our natures to try to undo the tension that can get created in that very quickly. And so, of course there were problems, of course there were difficulties, of course there were disagreements, but both of us were able to do something where stepping back and knowing that you got all sorts of problems, you'd still say, you know, this is reasonably successful. This is part of what it is. Right?

John Dehlin [00:22:52] Talk about the difficulty of the divorce or the experiences before you talk about how awesome you handled it.

Danny Kofoed [00:23:00] No, take us to the dark place

John Dehlin [00:23:02] before you take us to the light so people can understand and know that you also know what the darkness can feel like.

Danny Kofoed [00:23:11] You know, My wife and I had just purchased a condo in Boston, and it was a two bedroom. And the reason why it was a two bedroom, you're not cheap, right? No. And we were excited about the prospect. I mean, this was like the idea, okay, it's time to start the family, and this is going to be happening within the next year or so.

Danny Kofoed [00:23:34] And unbeknownst to me at the time, you know, a week or two after we'd moved in, an affair began with somebody that she was going to school with. And three months after that, we were having what I would guess is probably a pretty normal conversation and turned into a disagreement about money or something like that and what we were buying.

Danny Kofoed [00:23:59] And it reached enough of a head, more than it normally did for us. And I went out for a walk. I have to go clear my head. And I came back very apologetic. And that's when she comes back to me and says, I was unfaithful.

John Dehlin [00:24:17] What's that like?

Danny Kofoed [00:24:22] Unquestionably, in that moment, there was a couple of things going on. One was pure shock, and to hear it didn't fully register. And it wasn't until the next morning, after going to bed and sleeping and waking up and going, this is my life right now, this is what it is, and there's no escaping. That's when I finally cried and wept in a way that I like. It's one of the kinds of weeping that you can count on your hand how many times you've had that much of a deep soul stirring cry.

Danny Kofoed [00:25:00] And so there was a significant amount of pain associated with that event. And if I look back on it, I mean, it's easy to look back on it now and think about what was going on, but also, just in the moment, there were a lot of things happening. But as I look back on it now, part of what I was weeping about was all the things that you think you're going to be able to do, all the great dreams, all the things that.

Danny Kofoed [00:25:30] All the ways in which you are told to value your life and what matters most. And here I am looking at those things. The idea of family and success in the church and stupid things like being esteemed of your colleagues, being esteemed of your friends. Like, oh, no, I'm now the guy. Actually, you want to know one of the things that crossed my mind? I remember being. And it actually occupied me a lot. I was the only, you know, as one of two members of the church at my place of work, and I was very well respected. And in fact, Mormonism had become. Not because I'd bring it up, but because I was so comfortable discussing it, it become a regular topic.

Danny Kofoed [00:26:11] Two or three times a week at lunch, Mormonism was discussed. This was around prop eight times. So it's in the news a lot. They'd come talk to me and I would answer any question. And I also started, you know, reading things that I probably wouldn't have read as a result of having these honest discussions. And there was so much.

Danny Kofoed [00:26:32] There was a great deal of respect that they had for me. And suddenly I'm going, I'm the Mormon getting divorced. Here's the guy talking about family values here. And at the time, I didn't know divorce was going to happen, but your world and the things that you value comes crashing down and wept, wept, wept.

Danny Kofoed [00:26:55] But the night before, either through spiritual strength of some kind or shock, but it was both. It was a little bit of both. I had previously read and loved the book Man's Search for Meaning, and I had read it once every single year. Viktor Frankl, right, Viktor Frankl. I'd read it once every single year since the time that I'd met my wife.

Danny Kofoed [00:27:23] And I'd read it once every year because she'd had a tragedy in her family and it made that book mean more to me, the idea of, how do we resolve these really unfair things like death in your family and whatnot. I'd read it every year because it was brilliant to me. And when she told me what she told me, the first words, literally the words that popped into my brain were paraphrased from Viktor Frankl. Danny, you don't get to choose your circumstances, but you always get to decide how you're going to respond to them.

Danny Kofoed [00:27:56] And how you respond is going to mean infinitely more and is going to determine your experience more than the actual circumstance. And that light clicked in my brain and it never went out. And from that moment on, I became infinitely more conscious of how unconscious I had previously been towards my wife, how things that I thought were very helpful.

Danny Kofoed [00:28:27] You know, she was beginning to struggle with her own faith in God, whether it was a result of some of the stuff with what the church was doing or just her own life struggles and really simple things. Like, I used to think that I was being encouraging on our Sundays before, you know, when she would say that she's got a migraine again, and migraines happen a lot on Sundays.

Danny Kofoed [00:28:55] And, you know, so in my mind, I'm like, why would you not want to be there? I love this place, and it makes me feel really good. But for her, it was a place that was so difficult because people would get up and talk about miracles, like finding your keys or being prompted to walk into the next room while your baby's choking. And she's hearing about these miracles and then comparing it against her sister being taken at an unfortunate time. And where was the friend to walk into the room at the right time and spare that life?

Danny Kofoed [00:29:27] And where was that prompting? And I didn't truly understand before she confessed to me what. How much pressure had been building and how I had been thinking that the solution is just come to church. You need to go there and you need to feel good about it.

Danny Kofoed [00:29:52] And for some reason, the second that she told me, that was one of the things that immediately, instead of a lot of anger, and don't get me wrong, I am no saint, and there was anger and there was total disappointment, but coupled with that was this immediate overwhelming of compassion that said she never would have done this if she was, well, you don't need to do anything. You don't need to say anything that will add to that burden. No unkind words, no hanging it over her head is going to ever make anything better. And if you do manage to keep this marriage together, it will only make it worse in the long run.

Danny Kofoed [00:30:38] You're going to say right now you have the choice to say words that will forever harm the two of you, whether you stay together or not. And though I do know that I absolutely was not perfect, I would say for the most part those kinds of words rarely escaped my lips.

Danny Kofoed [00:30:55] And compassion was the opposite part of that, filled with compassion and knowledge that this person needs help and you're uniquely poised to try to offer that. And it involved coming out of my own self and the things that I thought were helpful in terms of we just need to follow the program more and if we follow the program more, you'll be okay.

Danny Kofoed [00:31:21] And it involved getting rid of a lot of the subtle forms of manipulation that I previously didn't even realize that I was doing. And I was. Because that's what we do when we're afraid, like I said earlier. And there was a good deal of pain. But the thing that I began to learn, which was similar to what Mara's experience was, is if I focused less on what was happening around me and the more I focused on making sure that what I was doing was responding in a manner consistent. And I boil it down to three simple things, even though it's a million or it's one, but I boil it down to faith, hope and love.

Danny Kofoed [00:32:04] I knew that if I was in a state of being that was not one of those three, that I was going to suffer and that I was going to cause suffering. And if I was angry for a moment, then I'd find a reason to be loving and compassionate and I would remember somebody else is in pain and that's the reason why they're doing this. And I'd always try and give the benefit of the doubt if I was in a moment of major self doubt doubt.

Danny Kofoed [00:32:28] This infidelity means you're not a good husband, you're not a good provider, you're not a good lover, you're not whatever all the self doubts that can come up with such a technically vicious attack on your self identity, if those things would raise their head and it was self doubt, then it would return to hope and faith. And it's not over. Everything's you're okay, you can come out of this, your marriage can come out of this.

John Dehlin [00:32:57] It's possible.

Danny Kofoed [00:32:58] And so anytime I felt the if I felt bitterness, I would find gratitude. And it was such a deliberate practice that I would continually engage in. And over time I found this uncanny peace that didn't match a single thing that I was experiencing beginning to happen. And I also witnessed between me and my waifu, decided eventually to move out and needed to figure things out on her own.

Danny Kofoed [00:33:29] Didn't feel like staying in the home was the right thing. I witnessed this beautiful friendship being created and an incredible amount of respect and openness because she finally knew that I wasn't going to judge her because I was getting rid of my judgments little bit by little bit, and I was no longer trying to manipulate in any way, shape or form. Kind of like Mara said when she said her parents would just go, yeah, you know that personally, deep down, they're going, I don't, I don't want you to follow that path in some way or another. But I believe in you. You're a good human being and I believe in you.

Danny Kofoed [00:34:11] And I tried to embody that with her. And I'd be frank about things that I disagreed about, lifestyle choices that were being made and how that would affect our ability to be a marriage partner. And I'd be frank about that, but never with the intent to say, you need to change. You're not good enough. This isn't right. It was just a simple, frank assessment of this isn't good for a marriage partnership, that you are my friend, I do love and care for you, I want the best for you, and whatever your course looks like, I believe in you.

Danny Kofoed [00:34:48] I believe in you. And honestly, I wish I was closer to those days now. I wish I was closer to those conversations in my mind because in that state of love, some of the most beautiful things I've ever uttered came out.

Danny Kofoed [00:35:09] And you can't recreate it. You can't go back when you're not struggling with the very bitterness that you were. And you can't come up with those same words that come as a balm of healing for yourself because you're trying to be love and for the person that you are loving. And they in turn, you can't just come up with that and go, yeah, this is what I said and make it right.

Danny Kofoed [00:35:30] So I can't do that. But that was one of the most beautiful things I've ever experienced in my entire life. And the two of us became better friends than any time in our marriage, despite a dissolution that came from lifestyle choices that really mean this is not how marriage partners go forward. Not even from a Mormon, non Mormon perspective. One person that it wasn't that this is.

Danny Kofoed [00:35:59] This is not how two people, committed and married, carry on. And that informed and has informed everything else since then. And it's been a point of serious reflection as I've tried to figure out, like Mara, what on earth did I do that caused that healing to be so consistent? Despite constant reasons for pain, constant reasons for self doubt, constant reasons for fear for my future, fear for another person that I care about.

Danny Kofoed [00:36:36] You know, the number of times that I thought about how long am I going to be alone? I was ready for being a father. So am I going to be 35 before I get married again? And when I get married, is this, am I going to have to go through the three years again before we even start a family? Like, those kinds of things would creep up and they would almost choke you sometimes.

Danny Kofoed [00:36:59] And yet every time I'd feel that, I'd go right back to, wait, which one am I feeling? Fear, doubt or anger? And then I would try and understand carefully how to cultivate with God the opposite faith, hope, or love.

Danny Kofoed [00:37:18] And every single time, without fail, when I would do that, my world would change all over again. All over again. And, you know, so Mara and I met each other after both having done this kind of thing where we were following such a similar life path, totally in different ways and different trials, but following a similar response pattern.

Danny Kofoed [00:37:49] And so when Mara and I met and we realized in just a single email that we spoke the exact same language. And I'm talking like we met through a mutual friend who. You're in New York or. Yeah, my friends from Boston moved to New York, met Mara, then moved back to Boston right when my divorce was wrapping up. And they had me over saying, are you okay? What's going on? And I proceed to tell them I am better than I've ever been in my whole life.

Danny Kofoed [00:38:20] And when I explained why, my friend goes, I got this woman that I think you should meet. And I actually turned her down because I was like, I haven't, you know, I haven't dated yet. And when I date, I don't need to go 208, you know, 220 miles to go meet a woman. There's plenty of great people in Boston. And she insisted and wrote Mara. And Mara ended up writing me an email.

Danny Kofoed [00:38:46] And literally, I read that email and my jaw dropped because it was three simple paragraphs and if you read them, you wouldn't, like, you might not see anything special. I knew this woman. I could tell she knows all the things that I've learned. And I wrote back to her. And I guess her jaw dropped as well.

Mara Kofoed [00:39:07] Yes, it did.

Danny Kofoed [00:39:08] And literally at the end of three emails, I wrote three, she wrote three. On that first day, I sat back in my office, I totally Remember the feeling after that third one came in, I sat back in my office and I go, I'm probably gonna marry this woman. That obvious, that easy. And it was because we shared such a similar. I couldn't care less about bonding over divorce. It was not about bonding over pain. In fact, our emails rarely contain anything about, oh, this is what happened. And can you believe they did this? It is all about. And can you believe that despite what was going on, I felt this. And can you. And it was just a celebration. It was a celebration over healing. That's what those emails were. And that's why it was like the easiest thing in the world.

Finding Each Other and Falling in Love

John Dehlin [00:40:00] How was it for you?

Mara Kofoed [00:40:02] Amazing. I got Danny's first email, immediately thought, this guy, this guy, yeah, definitely speaks my language. Definitely is living the kind of life that I'm trying to live. You know, the friend that set us up told me basically three things about Danny before we speak, started emailing. She said. She said he's a really great guy.

Mara Kofoed [00:40:28] And everybody. Everybody that she knows is trying to set him up. And she's in. Or he's in her ward. And, you know, by this time in my life, I was on a spiritual path, so I wanted someone else who also was on a spiritual path.

Mara Kofoed [00:40:47] And so, anyway, so that was great. But I knew how ugly divorce could be. And the fact that she was praising him after going through what could be like the ugliest, nastiest, most negative experience of someone's life, the fact that she was praising him in that moment and also that everybody she knew want wanted to set him up with somebody. And he was still, you know, on a spiritual path in my mind, going, you know, going to church. He was still, you know, sort of like carrying forward with something in that regard like that that meant the world. I could read between those lines, and I knew that this was somebody incredible just from those three things.

Danny Kofoed [00:41:37] And despite her cousin, roommate at the time saying, no, you're not going to write him the first email. No, no, no, she went through with it.

Mara Kofoed [00:41:44] Anyways, I still wrote him. And so, yeah, I wrote Danny the first email. And the reason is because I just. I don't know, I, for some reason thought he wouldn't email me. He was just, you know, finishing things up and he wouldn't email me, probably.

Mara Kofoed [00:42:00] So I reached out to him as a friend, just as a friend. But we could just tell right away that we. We wanted to spend as much time together as possible. So we emailed each other for three weeks.

Mara Kofoed [00:42:13] We didn't exchange anything. We didn't speak on the phone. We didn't exchange photos. We didn't. I saw a couple little, little things on Facebook with his face, but it was like, so tiny, I couldn't even make him out, barely.

Mara Kofoed [00:42:28] And we just. We poured our hearts and souls out to each other by email for three weeks. We had hundreds, hundreds of pages by the end of it. I mean, it was just the joy of our lives to read and write these emails to each other.

Mara Kofoed [00:42:44] And Danny came to see me on the third week, met me on a corner in New York City, and it was like meeting my spouse. I felt like I was going to meet my spouse. We had already just used the word marriage and I love you to death.

Mara Kofoed [00:42:59] We had been saying these things to each other by email and planning on a life together if we were, you know, if everything was going to be good in person. And it was. It was really good. So, yeah, I met Danny and it was just like the heavens opened up and there he was.

Danny Kofoed [00:43:18] And I think, you know, one of the most fascinating things for me, both of us, first time around, you have a whole different list of things that you think, think are necessary and desirable in a companion. And it's gonna be things like, do they like the same music as you? Because that, you know, I love my music and I really want to be able to share my music with somebody. And you're also, you know, and it's how much chemistry is there when you kiss. And the kiss is very important to Mormons because there's no sex involved. So that kiss is going to tell me everything about our sex life in the future.

Danny Kofoed [00:43:55] Right. And there's all sorts of things that you base something on. And having gone through the marriage and divorce and the trials and coming away in such a healthy, healed state, I remember my list was pretty short. And it was more or less along the lines of, does she know that her.

Danny Kofoed [00:44:20] Does she know that I am not responsible for her happiness? And is she also going to know that I'm not going to place that burden on her?

Mara Kofoed [00:44:27] I was looking for the same thing in him.

Danny Kofoed [00:44:30] I had very few qualifications. And that's one of the reasons why when I say she spoke my language, she told me instantly that she knew her well being is her charge, and my well being is my charge. And two people working on that together and taking ownership and responsibility, certainly I can contribute to her wellness or lack of wellness, but ultimately we were both taking responsibility. Not for a circumstance, not for a behavior from another person. We were taking responsibility for how we reacted. And I knew that if I had that, literally the rest of the, like, all hell could rage against you as a couple, as a family. And if you're gonna try and conduct your life in that manner, then you'll probably come out of it.

Mara Kofoed [00:45:24] Danny and I both learned this independently. And that's what he just said was on, like, that's exactly what we wanted in a partner. And when two people who know this, this little bit about happiness, the fact that your happiness can't be based on your spouse, you're separate, you have to own it for yourself. The mood of your spouse, that's his, whatever. Anyway, we can get into a little more later, too. But basically, we both knew that that's what we wanted. That's what we learned coming out of our divorces. That was the number one thing that we were responsible. We had to take ownership for our own wholeness. Our wholeness could not be based on our spouse. It could not be based on the mood of our spouse or the treatment of our spouse, or the criticism of our spouse, or the mistreatment of our spouse or whatever. Whatever it may be.

Danny Kofoed [00:46:27] And not only that, the fact that when some of those, or even all of those, depending on the situation of our combined situations or the many that I've heard, even when all those things are going wrong, the possibility of truly cultivating. It's in those moments that sometimes the best form of wholeness is created because you stop looking outside and you start looking within and above.

Danny Kofoed [00:46:59] And if you can understand how to form that kind of connection, I mean, you know, I've said this many times, but to me, that's exactly what seek ye first, the kingdom of God means. Yes, it can certainly mean stuff related to the Mormon Church and activity in the Mormon Church. Sure, there's context to that. But to me, the more and more I study Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount and I think about what he says. That idea of seek ye first, the kingdom is figure out how and what it means to obtain wholeness in and through God.

Danny Kofoed [00:47:37] Not connected to other things, not connected to another person, not connected to circumstances in life. Figure out what it means to seek that kingdom which is within you. And all other things that are needful will be added. And that's what happens in a marriage where you're doing that.

Mara Kofoed [00:47:57] It's an amazing opportunity to put all of that into practice within a marriage. The marriage itself is an opportunity because it's so easy to want your wholeness and your worth to come from your spouse, to come from what he says or does.

Danny Kofoed [00:48:16] And to be justified, the easiest trap.

Mara Kofoed [00:48:18] And so to be able to separate yourself from that is powerful.

Danny Kofoed [00:48:24] And it's the best gift you can give your partner.

Mara Kofoed [00:48:26] It is the best gift. It's the most beautiful gift of love. True, like, true love that I could ever imagine. Because when you own your wholeness, you're able, you know, if your spouse does come to you in a bad mood, if they are having a weak moment, which they will, and you will too, because that's just life.

Danny Kofoed [00:48:52] And I do.

Mara Kofoed [00:48:53] But when that happens, you know, ideally, you're able to stay stable in that moment. You're able to truly love them in that moment, in their moment of weakness, you're able to say, hey, I love you. What can I do for you? And guess what? I'm good. I'm not offended. I'm not taking this personally. I'm not going to go into the room and cry. I'm good. My wholeness comes from somewhere else that never came from you anyway, so I can be stable right now. What do you need? Let's, you know. Or whatever. Whatever is needed in that moment. Maybe it's just a tone of voice.

Mara Kofoed [00:49:34] Maybe it's just a tiny bit of kindness. Maybe it's just a little bit of compassion. Maybe it's a little bit of space or patience. Maybe it's just silence. I'm not even gonna respond, because that's okay. Or whatever it is. But those moments are powerful. If you could remain whole and not react.

Danny Kofoed [00:50:11] Come, come, you saints. No toil nor labor fear.

Mara Kofoed [00:50:18] But with Jo.

Part Two Begins and Dark Times Revisited

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 492

Danny Kofoed [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.

John Dehlin [00:00:07] Mormon Stories podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@mormonstories.org hello and welcome to part two of my interview with famous Mormon bloggers, Mara and Danny Kofoed.

John Dehlin [00:00:41] In our first episode, for those just joining us, we talked about their upbringing in the church. Danny's being a little bit more traditional, Mara's being a little bit less traditional, talked about their marriage and subsequent divorces and their sort of spiritual renewals and lessons about life. It was a beautiful hour. I loved every minute of it. It's already made my marriage better and I haven't even seen my wife yet, but I will tomorrow.

John Dehlin [00:01:11] And in addition, now we're going to be talking a little bit more. I think the emphasis is going to be on three things. It's going to be on dealing with infertility, and that's an issue that's really important to people. I'm going to challenge them a little bit on sort of being gurus or blogging and what it's like to have had challenges, but then sort of be in the position of trying to help others and the challenges and the criticisms that may come in that effort. And then we're going to end by talking about their approaches to spirituality. I think it's interesting because, you know, there's sort of orthodox spirituality, Mormonism, and then there's kind of the 21st century where ways that we've approached things before just aren't working for people today.

John Dehlin [00:02:05] And both Mara and Danny approach, I think, religion, Mormonism, spirituality in non traditional ways. And I think we need to model non traditional approaches to religion and spirituality so that those of us who want to proceed forward in some type of less than fully orthodox or traditional Mormonism or those who are post Mormonism, we've all got to figure out spirituality and happiness and health. And we need models, role models, or at least guides or fellow travelers to give us their perspective.

Danny Kofoed [00:02:38] Fellow travelers?

John Dehlin [00:02:39] You like fellow travelers? Yeah, they're not loving the guru thing. So I throw that as a straw man because I don't think they would put themselves up as a group. So infertility. So, Mara, I assume this is going to be beginning your story. I just want to spend like 15 minutes talking about what it was like, what you went through. Take us to the darkest times, Danny. I Know that I'm sure that at some point your story comes in where you're like, hey, man, I. Having children was part of this deal.

Danny Kofoed [00:03:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:03:13] So we'll talk about that, and then we'll talk about how you resolved it, and then we're gonna talk about the other stuff. So.

Mara Kofoed [00:03:19] Sure. Okay. So infertility has been going on for about 11 years now. And in the beginning, it was so difficult for me.

Years of Struggling to Conceive

John Dehlin [00:03:30] So you were with your first husband?

Mara Kofoed [00:03:31] I was with my first husband.

John Dehlin [00:03:32] Spent a year trying to get pregnant.

Mara Kofoed [00:03:34] Right.

John Dehlin [00:03:35] That's not so bad, right?

Danny Kofoed [00:03:36] Trying to get pregnant, interestingly. Anybody? Yeah, anybody who spends a year. Usually the pain already begins. Like, we hear from a lot of readers.

John Dehlin [00:03:44] I was joking.

Mara Kofoed [00:03:44] I'm just like, hey, you're having some

John Dehlin [00:03:47] of the things you need to do to get pregnant.

Danny Kofoed [00:03:48] There you go.

John Dehlin [00:03:49] It's all good, right? Or is it not? Or is that not the story?

Mara Kofoed [00:03:52] Yeah, that wasn't a story. So in the beginning, you know, when you first realize you can't get pregnant, I think it's a complete shock. You're completely full of fear. Your entire world starts to, you know, you start to question your. Your future.

John Dehlin [00:04:09] Is that like three months in, four months?

Mara Kofoed [00:04:12] In, like, I would say even after six months, people are starting to get nervous if it's not happening. That's my guess. I don't know. I mean, you know, and definitely after a year, I think people are definitely starting to freak out a little bit again. Could be different for other people.

John Dehlin [00:04:33] So for you?

Mara Kofoed [00:04:33] Yeah, I was freaking out. And, you know, it just. Having a child, being a mother, it was so much a part of my identity or my life plan. And when that wasn't working out, it was just like, what in the heck am I going to. You know, what am I going to do? Like, I even had thoughts like, oh, like, what's the point of even living if I can't have a family, can't be a mother?

Mara Kofoed [00:05:02] I mean, it was such a great, great part of what I thought my life was going to be about. So, yeah, when that didn't work out, I remember being very silent about it in the beginning. And I remember sitting at church, just looking at other mothers, looking at my friends who had children, and just longing, Longing for their life, longing to have what they had and feeling like this was really unfair.

Mara Kofoed [00:05:43] How is it that everyone around me can just get pregnant and here nothing's happening on my end? And, you know, and then there are all these tender moments, too, that you're a part of, like baby showers and, you know, Mother's Day celebrations at church. And, you know, I certainly remember being tearful at some of those events and maybe needing to leave early.

Mara Kofoed [00:06:11] Even Father's Day was difficult, you know, because that was just another day to celebrate being a parent. And, you know, so, you know, there was just a lot of, like, self pity, I think. And so after that first year, I met this spiritual healer, and what a blessing that I was able to start readjusting the way I was living my life. So early on, she started teaching me that the baby. Having a baby could not fulfill me. It could not bring me real wholeness. It could not bring me real happiness. Real happiness and parents. The thing is, I think that's really hard for a lot of people to understand.

Mara Kofoed [00:07:07] It was hard for me to understand at the time. She told me a story about a woman, a very wise woman. It was kind of like one of her spiritual mentors. And this woman said to her one time, you know, I have. I have four kids and I love them all. I'd be okay. I'd be okay if I never had them.

Mara Kofoed [00:07:28] This was how. This was. This was how much she knew that her kids were not her everything in this world, that her connection to God was all that mattered. And I was blown away by that when I first heard that. But now I'm the same. I could say the same, but I was blown away by this woman that said she'd be okay if she never had kids.

Mara Kofoed [00:08:03] I thought, how could, you know, in the beginning, I thought, how could that be possible? And I kept learning more and more from this woman, from my mentor. She started teaching me that if I continue to react to this trial in this way, just by resisting it, hating it, hating my life, being so upset by my lot in life, if I continue to react to my life in that way, that if I ever had kids, I would be teaching those kids how to react to life in that way, too. If that's how mom does it when bad things happen, if that's how mom reacts when trials come her way, then guess what?

Mara Kofoed [00:08:54] That is exactly the kind of woman and the kind of mother that I was setting myself up to be. And the thought of it was disgusting.

Danny Kofoed [00:09:03] And, you know, I mean, it's kind of interesting. And I don't mean to butt in on Mara's side of the story, but just I've heard this story often enough to remember. One of the things that always strikes me hard is the woman essentially said, you think that it's that all this pain that you're Feeling comes because of the intense amount of love you have for your unborn children. You're identifying that if I didn't love and want and desire so much, I wouldn't be full of so much sorrow.

Mara Kofoed [00:09:36] Yeah.

Danny Kofoed [00:09:37] And then she hit her with a frying pan over the head and said, that's not love. That's dysfunction.

Mara Kofoed [00:09:43] So this is where it gets tricky, because you would think a lot of times people connect pain to love, and they say, I am in so much pain because I cannot have this baby. I want so much to be a mother. I love the idea of being a mother. I want love for these kids. I want this experience out of love.

Mara Kofoed [00:10:06] And she taught me, like Danny just said, that that kind of reaction is actually more out of dysfunction. And that love would be to maintain your wholeness. To maintain your wholeness. To say, even though my life is not turning out the way that I want, I will live in the honor of my children.

Mara Kofoed [00:10:32] I will. I will surrender things that I want in order to be better for them or for anyone. I will. I will go through this step for myself. I will go through those steps. I will go through that spiritual. Spiritual practice. I will do the work.

Mara Kofoed [00:10:53] I will do the work to heal in honor of this world, in honor of every person around me out of love. Because you know what? When you're in that state of suffering and pain, it is so awful and ugly, you send poison into the world.

Mara Kofoed [00:11:16] And I was doing that. Everyone around me could feel it, or if they couldn't feel it, it was because I was just numb in the corner or something. But truly, we have such an influence on every person who crosses our path, and especially within our families and our spouses, people you see all the time. I.

Mara Kofoed [00:11:47] I started to redefine what my life plan was. It used to be marriage and family and children. And my life plan started to then become. I want to be whole. I want to be a good influence on people around me. And I have to be whole in order to do that, or I have to at least be on the pursuit. You know, it's not like we have wholeness every single moment.

Mara Kofoed [00:12:23] We all have weakness. We all have bad days. That's fine. That's not what I'm saying. A lot of people misunderstand me when I speak this way. But in order to exude love and good energy and the best of yourself, and in order to exude light, you have to be. You have to be on that pursuit to pursuit of having wholeness, you have to have. You know, you have to have some wholeness.

Mara Kofoed [00:12:59] Because if you don't have that, you're actually looking for the wholeness all around you. You're looking for your religion to fulfill you. You're looking to your spouse to fulfill you. You're looking to your children to fulfill you. And you know what? That's a lot of pressure to put on somebody.

Mara Kofoed [00:13:27] That is a lot of pressure to put on somebody's heads. On someone's head. Sorry. And I see this all the time. We've had the opportunity to be in touch with thousands of people because we started this blog, and so we're in touch with people there and then just in touch with people in daily life.

Mara Kofoed [00:13:53] And you see this pressure all the time, this pressure that people try, you know, that people try to put on someone else's head. You see it in adult children who still are receiving that pressure from their parents. That's so common. You see it in spouses who put this pressure on each other. You see it in mothers who have this pressure on their kids, who are in a panic if their kids don't get into the right school, who are in a panic if their kids maybe stray from the path that they're wanting them so badly to be on.

John Dehlin [00:14:37] Fathers, too.

Mara Kofoed [00:14:39] Fathers too, I guess. Yeah. Sorry. It's fathers too.

Danny Kofoed [00:14:44] From the woman's perspective.

Mara Kofoed [00:14:45] Yeah, I guess I'm. I hear the perspective of women probably more often.

John Dehlin [00:14:50] I'm a good parent. I am a good parent.

Mara Kofoed [00:14:52] Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:14:54] Okay. I have a question.

Mara Kofoed [00:14:55] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:14:55] Yes. So I guess I have two questions. Number one is I can see some woman or man out there who's struggling with infertility, fertility, saying, this is glib. Like, you don't understand the pain feeling.

Mara Kofoed [00:15:18] Right.

John Dehlin [00:15:19] And that's number one. So, Mara, can you. Can you do something then? Danny, I want to come to you, but, like, can you communicate to the listener that this isn't just. I mean, it sounded like, oh, you just, like, went to a spiritual healer,

Danny Kofoed [00:15:33] and then all of a sudden it was all done.

John Dehlin [00:15:34] Happy. And. And you must not have really felt the pain that these women are feeling.

Mara Kofoed [00:15:40] That's where I know. I did. I did.

John Dehlin [00:15:42] And then. And then I guess. And maybe we'll save this till the end, but, you know, it's like, okay, great, become whole. But how do you become whole now? Maybe we'll save that question later. Sure. But please talk about someone who's saying to you, this sounds glib, so you don't understand. You don't understand the pain that they're feeling.

Mara Kofoed [00:16:05] Yeah. So I My heart goes out so much to any woman or man who is going through this experience. I know how painful it is. I do know that I did experience that unbelievable pain. As I mentioned earlier, when I was experiencing that kind of pain, I felt dead. That's how much pain I was in.

John Dehlin [00:16:38] And you tried for how many years to have a child?

Mara Kofoed [00:16:42] So we're on about 11 years at this point.

John Dehlin [00:16:46] And did you do some of the things that people do to try?

Danny Kofoed [00:16:49] Yeah, we even went as far as two IVFs, two in vitro fertilizations. Yeah. And that was after years of doing, exhausting every other resource and health. I mean, Mara's entire life. I mean, put it this way, nearly every health and food decision for the last seven years or something has been 100% geared towards the idea of, can we make this happen?

John Dehlin [00:17:23] So, Mara, for fun, list off the things you've tried. Just, you know, I mean, just go for 20.

Danny Kofoed [00:17:29] It's good. See if you can go for 20.

Mara Kofoed [00:17:30] Oh, okay. Well, I'll start with some crazy ones. We were in Brazil. Someone told us to go see Dr. Roots in the Amazon. So we went to find Dr. Roots.

Danny Kofoed [00:17:41] It happened to be in my old zone, like, my old area.

Mara Kofoed [00:17:44] Turns out he lived in a. He lived in a. But, like, you know, this. This man told us, you absolutely have to go to Dr. Roots. So we went to the favela, and

Danny Kofoed [00:17:54] it turns out he was too sick and doesn't practice anymore.

Mara Kofoed [00:17:58] So another. Another woman, a very kind and lovely, wonderful woman. Woman who just lives in the light. She said to me, I know a. Sorry, what is it called?

John Dehlin [00:18:12] Shaman.

Danny Kofoed [00:18:13] No, more like a psychic. Psychic of some sort.

Mara Kofoed [00:18:18] And she just said, you know what? This psychic is beautiful and full of light and uses her gift for good, and you should call her and just see to see. I was like, why not? You know?

Danny Kofoed [00:18:31] Yeah.

Mara Kofoed [00:18:31] I don't know. Just for fun. So we, you know, so that didn't work out.

John Dehlin [00:18:35] Doctor.

Mara Kofoed [00:18:37] Doctor Roots.

Danny Kofoed [00:18:37] Doctor Roots.

John Dehlin [00:18:38] And then the psychic. What else have you tried? Just go through the list.

Danny Kofoed [00:18:41] Body, you know, body talk therapies, acupuncture,

Mara Kofoed [00:18:45] Chinese herbal teas from Chinatown, holistic medicine

Danny Kofoed [00:18:49] from some guy up in New York, Allergies, homeopathic drops, extreme levels of allergy testing related to. Are there random things in your blood that are caused? Like, we're talking. The blood sample alone just to do that is thousands.

Mara Kofoed [00:19:07] Oh, man. And then, of course, the, you know, all the Clomid and the IVF and some intense treatments for autoimmune disease that I.

Danny Kofoed [00:19:19] She went off gluten and dairy. So that New York pizza's out. So if that's not enough of a sacrifice, I'm sorry, I'm getting emotional.

John Dehlin [00:19:31] Giving up pizza. Like, sorry.

Danny Kofoed [00:19:33] I think that anybody should understand that pain level.

Navigating Infertility Together as a Couple

John Dehlin [00:19:37] So what about, like, we, you know, like, weird things about when you have sex and how you.

Danny Kofoed [00:19:42] Oh, sure, yeah. Timing.

John Dehlin [00:19:43] Talk about that.

Mara Kofoed [00:19:45] So I. No, no, no.

John Dehlin [00:19:49] I would say to give a sense for.

Danny Kofoed [00:19:50] Yeah.

Mara Kofoed [00:19:51] In my first marriage, that did that get. That did get a little awkward because I think I was more committed to the process. My husband was probably more thinking, like, I gotta get out of this, instead of, you know, I could be wrong on that. But that's what it felt like. And so there was more like, oh, you know, like, it was more like I was saying, oh, you okay coming to this blood test? And it was more like me kind of tugging him along, opposed to like, oh, yeah, let's do this, you know, And. And so what does it do?

John Dehlin [00:20:27] And again, I'm not asking you to be graphic, but what does it do to a sex life to be trying to get pregnant?

Mara Kofoed [00:20:33] So at that time. Yeah, yeah, at that time, I would say it wasn't good. It didn't have a good effect because you have to time everything. And this is just going on and on every month. And like, oh, especially if only one partner is committed to it, then the one partner is sort of like, okay, you know, are you gonna get. Get ready to have sex? Like, we gotta do it, you know? Or like.

John Dehlin [00:21:01] Or the other partner's, like, what?

Mara Kofoed [00:21:05] I mean, I don't know. I would say he was actually really good, but he was. He was good about it. But. But I. But I felt more of a strain, I would say, trying to, you know, initiate things, because, again, he was less interested in making things happen.

John Dehlin [00:21:23] Right.

Mara Kofoed [00:21:25] And. Let's see. But, yeah, I would say it did take the fun out of it for sure, because it has to be very

Danny Kofoed [00:21:37] scheduled for the two of us. I feel like that ended up. Even at that point, there was so much acceptance of the fact that we were still willing to try any and all sorts of things. But the anxiety behind getting pregnant at this point for Mara, it was now, you know, five years in or six or seven years into that process of infertility. And for me, it was.

Mara Kofoed [00:22:04] We were newlyweds. We were having sex all the time anyway.

Danny Kofoed [00:22:09] How's that for graphic?

Mara Kofoed [00:22:11] I mean, we started, you know, we basically were like 20, trying to have a baby on our honeymoon practically.

Danny Kofoed [00:22:17] So we just said no birth control whatsoever.

Mara Kofoed [00:22:21] It Wasn't a strain to, like, have sex at the right time.

Danny Kofoed [00:22:24] We've never not tried to have a child. And so. And we've never really allowed the. It just hasn't been part of it. And I get that. That I get to the person who says that it's glib, or they, you know, even if they go, no, your pain isn't real. You haven't felt it enough. Mara's most certainly felt it enough. And a lot of our posts on the blog are dedicated to that. And if it's something that you're going through, by all means, go check it out and go to the infertility tab, because there is loads about the pain and what happened.

John Dehlin [00:22:58] What website?

Danny Kofoed [00:22:59] Yeah, the blog is called the blogaboutlove.com.

John Dehlin [00:23:03] oh, there's a tab on your blog?

Danny Kofoed [00:23:05] Yeah, a tab on our. All the things that Mara's written. Okay. And, you know, but for us, I

John Dehlin [00:23:16] was gonna ask you, Danny, like, did

Danny Kofoed [00:23:17] you know there were infertility problems from the very beginning?

John Dehlin [00:23:21] What about every man's desire to, you know, to spread the DNA? Right.

Danny Kofoed [00:23:26] I mean, interestingly, both of us kind of thought Mara had felt like, due to some previous stuff with Dr. Tess before in the first marriage, that they'd figured it out. And it just. It turns out that there was a moment of hope.

Mara Kofoed [00:23:42] I had some hope. Yeah. Because I had a bunch of blood tests right before my divorce, and they said, oh, we know exactly what needs to be done. And then, like, we know exactly what needs to be done. And actually, my husband basically ended the marriage five minutes later on the sidewalk on Park Avenue.

Danny Kofoed [00:24:01] Yeah.

Mara Kofoed [00:24:01] Park Ave. Outside the doctor's door.

John Dehlin [00:24:03] Oh, he's like, yeah, I'm not into this.

Mara Kofoed [00:24:05] So I think it freaked him out that we got that close. And it was literally, like, over and never returned. And that was five minutes after hearing that news.

John Dehlin [00:24:14] So entering the marriage, you were thinking, there's hope.

Mara Kofoed [00:24:16] So we had a little bit of hope.

Danny Kofoed [00:24:17] Yeah, we definitely entered in having hope, but also with the very real reality this might not ever happen. And it was. And that was real from the beginning. And I remember even in our emails, what. What could have been a burden for Mara when she kind of offers up, by the way, infertility might not have kids. You never know.

Danny Kofoed [00:24:42] My immediate response was, that's okay. Adopting works for me. Like, that's. I don't. Of course. Would I be lying if I said in the back of my mind, it wouldn't be amazing to have a little portion of yourself and to see those characteristics and all those funny family traits that you. The stories that you hear about yourself and the curiosity that comes from seeing that take place in a child. I mean, yes, yes, all there. All desires that I think Mara and I have both shared. But from the very beginning, there was a clear awareness that it might not ever yield anything and that we didn't start doing anything more active with other than just a normal sex life.

Danny Kofoed [00:25:38] We didn't do anything different for maybe the first year of our marriage. And then once one year had passed, we said, okay, let's go to that other homeopathic guy and let's test this thing. Because we already knew that some autoimmune things were. Were going on. That was one of the things that they discovered that gave hope, was. So that's when we began doing the autoimmune tests, and that's when we started doing the most basic types of infertility treatments that you'll get at any place.

Mara Kofoed [00:26:05] But I would say the key thing is I had already surrendered to the idea that it may never happen. I was already in a place where I was going to be okay if it didn't happen. Danny also was in that place.

Danny Kofoed [00:26:23] I'd reached that place because of the ending of my marriage.

Mara Kofoed [00:26:26] So he learned to just surrender to things in life that don't turn out the way you want.

Danny Kofoed [00:26:31] In addition to that, I mean, it's not just that, but I'd actually had to make the consideration. All right, you're 28 and divorced, which, by the way, I realize is very young. Right? So I was Mormonism. Yeah, Exactly.

Doubts, Divorce, and the Question of Remarriage

Danny Kofoed [00:26:45] So you're 28 and divorced. And before Mara ever comes into the picture, I'm asking myself questions like, is somebody even going to want to get married? To me, is somebody's parents, even if I might be a great person and I find somebody, are parents going to be disappointed that their daughter is going to be getting married to a divorced guy? Are there going to be barriers? And I'm creating all these things in my mind. I'm beginning to get worried about them. And.

Danny Kofoed [00:27:14] And how long is that going to take? And again, and I mentioned this in the first hour, but when will children make a part of that? How long will it take to get married? Or are you going to be 35 before you get married? And are you going to get married to somebody who's ready to have children right away? Are they going to want a career? I was in Boston, land of the super educated on both sides of the equation.

Danny Kofoed [00:27:35] When is it going to happen? And I'd Kind of already resigned myself to the idea, hey, that whole thing that you thought you had going on, it's over. It's all over. All of those expectations are out the window. And I had accepted that before Mara came into the picture. So then when Mara comes into the picture and she says, I might not be able to have kids, I kind of just sat back and I go, I guess it's good. I already dealt with that. I already dealt mentally and spiritually with the toll. I worried about it enough for a while. And I.

Danny Kofoed [00:28:14] And I, like I said before, where those doubts came in and where that fear came in and where all the anxiety of not having a life circumstance came in. I previously, to meeting Mara, learned how to express a level of confidence and security and trust, absolute trust. Not that things would work out how I wanted them to, and not that my life would look a dang thing like anybody says it's supposed to look, but that it would be beautiful, that life would be beautiful. And I had come to complete terms with that. And so meeting Mara and finding that limitation was not even a limitation at all. It really wasn't from the beginning.

Mara Kofoed [00:28:56] And so, yeah, I would say Danny and I both individually had done the work to try to heal and surrender to that experience of infertility or childlessness. So it's like every move, it's like our worth and our life plan was no longer dependent on it.

Mara Kofoed [00:29:19] You know, it's like every little move of the experience, you know, what, did we have sex at the right time? Oh, shoot. Did I ovulate? Oh, did you know? Is the cycle screwed up this month? Did we take the right meds? Did we eat the right foods? We were no longer obsessed.

Mara Kofoed [00:29:40] I mean, Danny never was, but I used to be obsessed with all those things way back. But after going through the healing process, it's like you're no longer obsessed. Your worth is not on the line. Your happiness is not on the line with every move of the process. So it's like, hey, let's get it on.

Mara Kofoed [00:30:01] It's fun again. You don't have that stress cloud hanging over you. And I think that really does affect a couple's sex life. It affects everything. That pain is so poisonous. That's what I'm talking about. The pain just exudes from you. It affects everything around you. It affects you. Your.

Mara Kofoed [00:30:24] The joy you have in your home, the fun you have with your spouse in and out of the bedroom. Like, it affects your, you know, just your. Your entire world.

Danny Kofoed [00:30:37] The. The one thing that's been Coming to my mind as we've been talking about this is I'm also remembering how coming to that place beforehand allowed every part of, of the process, even all of the disappointing parts, because really it's just been one disappointment after another. I mean, it hasn't happened. There's been no success. There hasn't even been. There hasn't even been like it implanted for two days. Yay. You know nothing. The beauty of that, the mindset that Mara's been describing is I can recall instead of pain, I can recall so many times when a disappointment or a frustrating process or something turned into a beautiful bonding moment for the two of us. The night that we completely romantic.

Mara Kofoed [00:31:36] The IVFs for the most part were beautiful.

Danny Kofoed [00:31:40] And I get that's not normal.

Mara Kofoed [00:31:41] I mean there were some difficult ones, difficult parts of the second one. But the two of us, we had complete romance through the whole thing.

John Dehlin [00:31:51] Normally going through an IVF procedure, intervening

Danny Kofoed [00:31:54] ninja fertilization, you can tell the pressure and the hell that's created. And because.

John Dehlin [00:32:01] Why is it so hard?

Danny Kofoed [00:32:02] Because your identity is so wrapped up in something happening. Your wholeness is so tired.

John Dehlin [00:32:09] Is there like a time where you have to be do it by. Or is there some.

Danny Kofoed [00:32:12] Again, I, I can't.

John Dehlin [00:32:13] I don't know anything about the IVF process.

Danny Kofoed [00:32:14] Well, that's the thing. Like I would have a hard time identifying. Oh, this is when it would be hard because of that. Because that didn't enter into our situation. So I can't.

John Dehlin [00:32:23] But there's an expectation, there's a. There's a realization that it was better for you than it's been for others.

Danny Kofoed [00:32:29] Yes. And, and how's it been for others?

Mara Kofoed [00:32:33] Well, I mean, I would say people. I mean the process is very treacherous. Many appointments, many needles, lots of hormones and drugs. And then you've got this intense hope and desire that this works. Like if your whole world is planning on this working, end of money.

Danny Kofoed [00:32:53] Lots of money. Lots of insane amounts of money. And I don't think, I think a lot of people who've never dealt with it can't even begin to understand the amount of time that goes into trying to have a baby if you can't. Between the doctor's appointments and the medical research and like Mara often jokes and goes, trying to have a baby when you can't is a full time job.

Danny Kofoed [00:33:19] And so we're talking trying to go out to some fertility center out in Long Island, New York. And it was because of traffic through three hours each way. And this would happen a few times A week. The sacrifices that you put into making something happen, what happens is every time that you do something like. And this is true of everything, not just infertility, but this is for the infertility in particular.

Danny Kofoed [00:33:50] Everything that you give up in order to pursue that is an act of vulnerability. And this happens in relationships all the time. But every time you decide to try again, every time that you decide to try a different route, every time a different medication, there's an active vulnerability that says, I hope that this offering of everything that I've got left in me can be accepted and maybe a child will come.

Danny Kofoed [00:34:19] And those offerings of vulnerability are. And they take place in many forms in our lives. It's not just related to infertility. It's certainly not just related to husbands and wives or parents and children or any of that. Like, there's all these forms of vulnerability where we totally put ourselves out there. We put our hopes and dreams on the line.

Danny Kofoed [00:34:41] And in the case of infertility, chances are nine times out of 10, that vulnerability, that offering is going to get crushed. Those are the statistics for a lot of people. Some people are gonna go and like their very first, hey, put it go on this medicine, and boom, it's over.

Danny Kofoed [00:34:59] For the people that are gonna go to the IVF, nine times out of 10, and including when they even get to the IVF station, it's gonna be rejected over and over again. And that is a lot of pain.

John Dehlin [00:35:13] And you're. But you were saying, Mara, that for you guys, what for many is a painful experience was what I remember when

Danny Kofoed [00:35:19] the first one, the first IVF didn't work, and we heard the doctor on the phone call, and we put him on speaker, and we were both so confident that it was going to happen. We really were totally confident. Well, yeah, you're right. But there was this underlying hope that said, this is possible. We have perfect eggs, he says, and all the circumstance we've figured out, we've solved what's wrong with you? Have faith. And we got it on speaker, and we were even recording it, expecting it to be like, and now we'll get to play it again, and it's gonna be the news. And he goes. And you can just hear the second that he picks up. I don't know what happened. I've got some thinking to do. It didn't work. And that night we went out to dinner, and we celebrated gratitude and we celebrated love.

John Dehlin [00:36:16] That sounds like.

Danny Kofoed [00:36:17] It sounds crazy.

John Dehlin [00:36:18] I know it sounds hokey. It's like these people are in touch with their Emotions. These people are in denial. Give me a break.

Danny Kofoed [00:36:24] Yeah, I know.

John Dehlin [00:36:26] And your response to that is, Mara, we.

Mara Kofoed [00:36:30] Yeah, like Danny said, we. We had some beautiful experiences. And, you know, it goes back to making the choice to live in a certain way. So this is something else that I would say to people who are just in intense pain right now. Going through this experience, I realized that there's this expectation that you would be in pain if you were told as a young woman or a young man that one day you would not be able to have a child. There's this great expectation that you would be in pain. And then that pain may last for years and years. Will you ever heal from that pain? You know, anyway, there's just like this cultural idea that of course you would be in pain. And so you just. I feel like sometimes we go to that place just because

Danny Kofoed [00:37:36] that too is what is expected of us.

Mara Kofoed [00:37:38] That's almost like the expectation. You don't know any different. Every person that you've ever talked to who has dealt with infertility was just so sad about it. You don't know that there's another option, that there's another way to live. And anyway, that's kind of what, you know. The way I was able to get out of that was realizing that I had an option. I had the option to choose a different path, to choose to react to this experience in a different way. It was all up to me. No one was making me being up that place of pain. No one was making me react in that way. I was choosing to react in that way. And so I started to learn that I could choose anything I wanted. Now choosing now that might be confusing. It might seem fake well, oh, I'm

Danny Kofoed [00:38:47] inside of you and it also might seem like you're hiding.

Mara Kofoed [00:38:49] Now I'm just going to choose to be okay with this. I'm going to choose to have a romantic experience through the ivf. I'm going to choose to celebrate gratitude on the day that we find out we don't. You know, the IVF didn't work. It may sound fake. It may sound just ridiculous, but here. Here's what makes it real. You. It. It is the. The. So it is. What? Okay, sorry. Sometimes it's hard to explain this stuff. I'll try. The choice can't just be, oh, I'm going to choose to put a smile on my face. It's more like I'm going to choose to do the work. And to me, the work is pursuing a virtue of some kind. This is the best. This Is. I know it sounds so corny, but this is the only way that I've been able to describe this to people

Danny Kofoed [00:39:58] and to consistently experience it.

Mara Kofoed [00:40:00] If you are completely unhappy and completely sad and jealous about your situation, you know, not being able to have kids. Well. Or anything about your spouse, your job or your spouse.

Danny Kofoed [00:40:17] Exactly.

Mara Kofoed [00:40:18] Let's choose anger. Let's choose anger. You are so angry about something in your life. Well, if you decided, deliberately decided to find a way to cultivate some love for someone and you wanted to let go of the anger in order to.

Mara Kofoed [00:40:46] So that you could have room to love someone, or to me, I just love. Try to love the world, or I try to love Danny, or I try to love my unborn kids or my ex husband. As you make room for that love in your head, the anger starts to lessen. The anger starts to go away. As you think of reasons why you would want to feel love. As you think of reasons why you would want to have love for this person or why you would want to exude love, guess what? As you pursue that, the love starts to become who you are. You start to embody it.

Mara Kofoed [00:41:37] You vibrate at a different frequency. No longer does the anger even fit into your vibration. No longer does the anger even work its magic or its darkness in you. It's ugly to you. You're trying to remove it from your life. You know what I mean?

Mara Kofoed [00:41:58] The love is so powerful, it can begin to dominate you. It just pulses through your veins. And it's the hardest thing we ever do in this life. When I as we're talking about this

Danny Kofoed [00:42:13] stuff, it's not easy.

Mara Kofoed [00:42:14] I don't say any of this lightly. When I say pursue a virtue, it's not like, oh, yay, check.

Danny Kofoed [00:42:22] Turn on a happy face.

John Dehlin [00:42:24] Pursuit of virtue. Can you give me an example?

Mara Kofoed [00:42:27] Okay. So your life sucks. Your husband just left you and just cheated on you. And you are left.

John Dehlin [00:42:35] You know you're about to be excommunicated.

Mara Kofoed [00:42:38] You're about to be. Okay, John. We'll do you. Okay? You pursue gratitude for your life, for your amazing life, and gratitude for the opportunity that you have had to change lives. Gratitude to God and honestly giving you the voice for giving you the opportunity to help people heal. We're giving the voice to other people who are trying to heal and trying to even find their voice and compassion

Danny Kofoed [00:43:20] for those who, for whatever reason, don't understand what you're doing, question your motives. I mean, the idea honestly. And again, this will sound trite as well, but after having experienced what I did, I finally feel like I understand what was going on in the Sermon on the Mount. I finally feel like I get it.

Danny Kofoed [00:43:44] Jesus is saying, you've heard of old times, that, you know, thou shalt not kill. I don't want you to even be angry. I don't want you to even go to a place of anger. You've heard that it's eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. I say, turn that other cheek and pray for those who despitefully use you.

Choosing Love, Prayer, and Moving Forward

Danny Kofoed [00:44:05] And one of the things that Mara and I have done, and we did this, some of the best nights that we had is when we would be feeling all of the pain that does come because we were not immune, are not immune in any way, shape or form. One thing we say a lot of times or try to is the message is greater than we are. I'm an advocate for the message. I do not propone. You know, I don't propose that I am a perfect liver of it, okay?

Danny Kofoed [00:44:35] But one of the. Some of the most beautiful nights that Mara and I had were when the pain was real, that all of that stuff had crept in again, despite all the previous work that had ever been done in a moment of, you know, learning about infertility and one more trial and another $10,000 that needs to be spent and the frustrations and all that. And Mara and I learned a long time ago to quit using prayer to ask for what we need and say, hey, come in here and rip this anger out of me and give me that baby and whatever. And to be honest, I know that people aren't actually saying that either.

Danny Kofoed [00:45:15] So I don't mean to paint a straw man of somebody else's suffering, but just the idea that oftentimes we go into prayer thinking I just need to ask more patiently or more faithfully or whatever. And what we decided instead is our prayers should be an opportunity for us to practice the very virtue that seems to be missing.

Danny Kofoed [00:45:37] So in a night of hopelessness, in a night of real frustration with doctors and procedures and policies and everything, we'd get down on our knees and we would begin to pray in words of hope and try to mean them and actually express. I'm bitter and I'm angry. And you know what, God?

Danny Kofoed [00:46:03] I mean it when I tell you I am grateful for what is happening. I am grateful for this moment. I am grateful for every pain that I'm suffering. Because if nothing else, this is teaching me what it means to rely on trust if that's all you're doing right now. And maybe he and by the way, I don't even want to get into the idea of whether or not he purposefully caused it so that you could. You have the unique strength to handle it.

Danny Kofoed [00:46:32] I have a whole list of arguments against the idea that he specifically gives you things. I think he does sometimes. But that is the most inaccurate and inadequate way to discuss healing in a really healthy context for somebody that's going through something awful.

Danny Kofoed [00:46:52] I guess the point is we would use prayer to kneel down and actually express the hope that was missing. And we would find something that we could focus hope on in a legitimate manner. And we'd find something that actually could sincerely not making up words and brain it, faking it, to make it something that is worthy of placing hope in, something that is worthy of expressing love towards. And get in that mode until that virtue possesses you.

Danny Kofoed [00:47:24] And I can't even. That is work, by the way. That's hard. It doesn't happen in an instant. It is work. But those nights we'd weep for joy, for joy. And there would be an overwhelming love between us and between God. There was no bitterness. It's all, you haven't done this to me, you haven't cursed me. I haven't found favor in your sight yet.

Danny Kofoed [00:47:57] All that washes away. And when you Aristotle says, oh, I hope I can remember it exactly as it is. Happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue. I really believe that you're not choosing to be happy.

Danny Kofoed [00:48:23] What you're choosing is to respond to a nasty thing with virtue. Or for that matter, choosing to respond to a good thing. Whereas you could be prideful, let's say you get a job, let's say the best things happen to you.

Danny Kofoed [00:48:41] You have a choice to respond with pride and arrogance and dismissiveness towards others who are not as fortunate as you. Or you have an opportunity to fall on your knees in gratitude and express virtues. And your happiness will be found to the degree that you do one or the other.

Danny Kofoed [00:48:59] And the same thing happens with the awful stuff. When it happens, you have the opportunity to be bitter, to be unkind, to have it cause your heart turn in anger towards other human beings and towards God.

Mara Kofoed [00:49:13] And obviously, that process of going from the bitterness to the love, that process can take a little while, depending on what the situation is or depending on how well trained you are at making that switch or making that shift. So obviously, you know, these things can take years. Sometimes they can take days, months. It's all up to us. And it's all up to our individual training and our Abilities.

Danny Kofoed [00:49:46] Mara's teacher would often say practice.

Mara Kofoed [00:49:49] The idea is to practice. The idea. Yeah, Is to make this a spiritual practice.

Danny Kofoed [00:49:55] Everything.

Mara Kofoed [00:49:56] Make this what you. Yeah. Make this a part of your daily life with everything that you come in contact with. If something rubs you the wrong way, even a minor thing like a parking ticket in New York City, try to practice pursuing a virtue in that moment. Try to practice your reaction to things that happen to you. And as you do that, you begin to change. You literally begin to change your brain. There's scientific evidence that you literally can't rewire your brain, and I totally believe that, because I did that.

Mara Kofoed [00:50:35] But you begin to form different pathways in your brain, and your responses to things can become easier and easier the more you do this. And it's like your muscle memory starts to take effect. So in the beginning, it might feel a little rough. When you're going from one very common way of reacting to things and you're trying to shift and react in a different way, that transition may feel difficult, but the more you do it, the

Danny Kofoed [00:51:10] more natural it becomes.

Mara Kofoed [00:51:11] Natural it becomes with a lot of things, it can actually become your natural way of being. And that is, to me, the heart of transformation is it requires practice. It requires dedication to doing it deliberately, over and over. And that is what happened with me as well. I had an opportunity. My mentor, she told me to ask for an experience. Just ask the world, the universe, God. Ask for an experience. To. To try to react in a different way, to be an agent instead of. What's the word? Instead of. Instead of a victim or. Yeah.

Danny Kofoed [00:51:58] And the way the Book of Mormon places in Second Nephi Lehi says, to

Mara Kofoed [00:52:04] act instead of to be acted upon.

Danny Kofoed [00:52:06] Basically, God has given you that power.

Mara Kofoed [00:52:08] So the idea was to, you know, to be an agent, to be. To choose how you would want to react to a situation. React in a way that maybe you wouldn't have reacted in otherwise. Just. So ask for this experience. Ask for an experience so that you can put this into practice. And there is power in asking. It may sound dumb, but there is power in asking for the experience. Because you are saying, I'm ready. Bring it, bring it. I'm ready.

Danny Kofoed [00:52:42] You automatically transform the next thing into an opportunity.

Mara Kofoed [00:52:46] There is power in that. And you're also thinking in advance how you want to react to a situation. And there is amazing power in that. You need that power and that fuel to get you through that transition. So I did this way back. This was the first time that I ever put this in a practice, and it was A big experience. Something big happened to me. This was in my first marriage. And it was not a fun experience. I probably won't go into details with that here, unfortunately, but it was one of the most empowering experiences of my life. I will never forget it because I was able to cultivate love for him in a moment when I normally would have been very angry.

Danny Kofoed [00:53:38] And it was a deliberate decision.

Mara Kofoed [00:53:40] And it was a deliberate decision anyway.

John Dehlin [00:53:43] Okay, so love this. I think our time's running out, but I think I'm gonna want to try and have you guys back on, maybe even if it's just an audio. But I'm gonna end with two quick questions.

Danny Kofoed [00:53:56] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:53:56] Try and keep them as tight as you can.

Danny Kofoed [00:53:58] We're terrible at that.

John Dehlin [00:54:00] So, you know, there are some who would look at your blog and say, you've only been married a couple years, you don't have kids, you're so young. Who in the heck are you to be giving anybody advice? You're just, like, giddy, happy, romantic, naive, who really haven't experienced a lot of the challenges, including having children. Why should anybody listen to you now? I don't feel that way, but I'm just saying, if somebody were to say that to you. Danny, what's your quick answer? And then, Mario, what's your quick answer?

Danny Kofoed [00:54:34] Good question.

John Dehlin [00:54:35] You don't have four kids.

Danny Kofoed [00:54:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:54:37] You're not 44. You know, you're not midlife crisis. It's just this sweet, sticky love thing, and it's. It's not grounded in anyone's reality that could actually be meaningful.

Danny Kofoed [00:54:49] Yeah. My quick reaction is, anything good that I have learned and that I apply that makes anything appear to be sticky, sweet, and delicious. Anything worth its salt has always been born in the most difficult moments of my life. Anything that I say that is worthwhile, I say it because it rocked me to the core at some point in some place, and this is how I've come back from it. And I would also say I totally respect that your experience and your way of healing might be different than mine. However, as Mara said, I'm a massive reader. I've yet to find a story where the basic principles that Mara and I focus on is not also the key driving forces of healing in every single story, authentic ones, not fairy tale that I've ever heard.

John Dehlin [00:55:54] So you're saying don't believe me? Try it out and see.

Danny Kofoed [00:55:58] Yeah. And try it for yourself.

Mara Kofoed [00:56:00] I love that.

Danny Kofoed [00:56:01] Exactly. And it's so much bigger than any of my ideas, and it's so much bigger than the Mormon Church. But I could quote 15 different religious teachings that support the exact same path to healing, though they're going to use a different God and they're all going to go back to that same thing.

Mara Kofoed [00:56:24] So I would say that there's no good that comes from comparing trials like the battle of the trial. And so I think every person has their own cross or their own crosses to bear. And I would say that Jesus Christ had his own cross to bear as well, and he showed us all how to do it. And I think no matter what our trials are, we can all glean from his message. What we've shared with you today is not our message. It's his message. And it's the message of many great spiritual leaders of the world. And this, this is a message that's, you know, older than time. And. And what if you don't believe in Jesus? Well, there's.

Danny Kofoed [00:57:13] That's great. That's why you got somebody like Aristotle talking about a similar path.

Mara Kofoed [00:57:16] Other spiritual leaders. And if you don't believe in any of them, I would just. What I would say is that deliverance is possible. And I would say love is the greatest fuel in the world that helps us transform our lives. I think they were all sharing the message of love.

Mara Kofoed [00:57:40] It doesn't matter who's sharing it. They're all trying to share about love and the power that we all have within us. And I would say to anyone to just give it a try. I love that. Try it. That's how I learned. I tried it. And so I believe in that. I believe that if people are willing, if they have a desire to transform their lives, they can do it. But they do have to put it into practice.

Mara Kofoed [00:58:12] We believe that transformation is so possible. For me, it is through to me, this whole process, everything that we've shared, is kind of like the way I view the atonement. I know other people may view it in many different ways, but that process of realigning with these virtues possessed by God, trying to possess them myself, trying to align with him by doing so and realigning as many times, times as I need to, that, to me, that realignment is at one minute is at one minute. And it has been the most beautiful thing I've ever learned.

John Dehlin [00:58:54] And anyway, and Danny, I usually never give the male a final word, but

Danny Kofoed [00:59:00] final word, my one from being a Mormon all my life and from hearing over and over how we talk about deliverance and miracles and things. My one other suggestion, and not just to Mormons, to anybody, quit thinking that deliverance is a physical, tangible thing. I know that we hear those stories about finding keys and guess what? I actually believe sometimes God totally helps you find them. I'm not devaluing diminishing those at all. What I would suggest to anybody is spiritual deliverance can happen whether or not physical deliverance ever happens.

Danny Kofoed [00:59:40] And contrary to what you might think when you read scriptures, it is the message of spiritual deliverance that is one of the predominant themes. We get really good at focusing on something turning out our way. And in interpreting, I mean heck, when the Book of Mormon says keep the commandments and you shall prosper in the land, we automatically tie things physical prosperity and physical occurrence. And I would just urge you, anybody, get spiritual focus on the spiritual deliverance and seek ye first the kingdom and let the rest take care of itself.

John Dehlin [01:00:17] So I want to have you guys back on to talk about spirituality and even Mormonism.

Danny Kofoed [01:00:22] But the blog is a blogaboutlove.com and Mara and Danny Kofoed, you nailed it three times.

John Dehlin [01:00:33] Thank you so much. It's been a complete pleasure and delight.

Danny Kofoed [01:00:37] Thank you, John. Thank you.

Mara Kofoed [01:00:39] Thank you, John.

Danny Kofoed [01:00:59] Come, come you saints. No toil nor labor fear,

John Dehlin [01:01:06] but with joy when you're with.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.