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The Longing Lab
Do you ever find yourself so fixated on longing that you can’t enjoy the present? Longing for a lover, an exotic destination, a lost loved one, or a past time in your life? The Longing Lab takes a deeper look at the science of longing and the culture that drives us to long for what we don’t have. You can expect insightful conversations with individuals uniquely qualified to talk about longing. Host, Amanda McCracken, has written or spoken about her own addiction to longing in national publications like the New York Times, Washington Post, & the BBC. The goal of the Longing Lab is to inspire individuals to make positive changes in their lives. Look for her book, When Longing Becomes Your Lover (Hachette), in fall of 2025!
The Longing Lab
Infertility advocate Lana Manikowski on finding purpose beyond motherhood
Episode 37: Lana Manikowski (a certified life coach, infertility advocate, and the author of So Now What?) shares her personal journey navigating infertility, how it shaped her life, and practical strategies for reconnecting with one's body and finding purpose beyond motherhood. She highlights the importance of creating a new narrative regardless of societal expectations.
Lana Manikowski is a certified life coach, author, and infertility advocate who helps women thrive after infertility. After a seven-year fertility journey that ended without children, she created the support she yearned for but was never offered. She went on to write the bestselling book So Now What?, founded The Other’s Day Brunch, an annual event honoring women without children, and hosts The "So Now What?" Podcast. Through her coaching and community, Lana guides women to release shame, heal their relationship with their bodies, strengthen their marriages or partnerships, and reconnect in meaningful relationships with friends and family who have children. She helps childless women create purposeful, joyful lives beyond motherhood. She holds advanced certifications in grief and post-traumatic growth and is a proud member of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) and an active volunteer with the National Infertility Association, RESOLVE
To learn more about Lana visit her website: https://lanamanikowski.com
In this episode, (in order) we talked about:
- Longing as a guiding beacon
- How infertility can lead to feelings of failure & why self-compassion is essential
- How reconnecting with the body involves appreciation beyond reproduction
- Why purpose can be found in how we show up in the world (not just through motherhood)
- How friendships may evolve during one's journey of fertility
- Practical strategies to help in healing and self-acceptance
- How to better show up for ourselves on a daily basis
- Why she didn't want her book cover to look like a sympathy card
- The top 27 things people say when you're childless and how to respond
Quotes
"Here I was (an) unexplained and failed patient. That really got into my psyche. Like, did I do something wrong? Did I not pay attention enough? Did I not take my medications at the right time? Did I do something in my past that I am being punished for?"
"I had an animosity towards my body that it didn't show up for me. So, I sort of gave up on my body and felt like it was broken and failed anyway. And I started working with a weight loss coach, and turns out she was a life coach, and that was what exposed me to the principles of life coaching."
"I think it's really important to allow ourselves to show up for ourselves first, and we're not often given that opportunity by society."
"There are so many things that our body does and so many new challenges that we can offer our body if we can let go of parenthood or motherhood or caring a child or conceiving as being the only thing that we see our body useful for."
"Why are we, as childless women, looking at ourselves without purpose? What if I'm not the person that needs to declare my purpose, but people take the beautiful pieces of me and, through that, my purpose is created. What if we just show up in our life and feel connected to who we are? Your purpose is super easy because you are impacting the people around you and giving them gifts because of who you are."
"There are moments where I see a mother baby interaction, and I still get sad. But getting sad doesn't mean that I'm still not growing."