Transcription

• Speaker #0

  Hi, Creative Cutie. This is the second week of me sharing some of my favorite and most influential episodes of all time with you. Today, I'm resharing my episode with Sadie Blasucci, where she talks about leaving Mormonism. And here's why I think it's important. It perfectly fits into the series I've been doing about people who are using their creativity to change the world and to change their own lives. Because one of the ways in which we are called to be most creative is when we are asking whether or not the script that has been given to us about life, about God, about our careers, about love, are even actually true for us. And a lot of people go through their whole lives just taking the scripts that were passed down by their parents or society or schooling and going along with them. And there's a real consequence to when you step out of line and choose something different. Not only do you sometimes lose some of your community, but you have to rediscover who you are again. And Sadie talks so brilliantly and openly about the moment when she realized, this doesn't make sense to me anymore. I don't think that Mormonism resonates. The internal battle she went through, the struggle she went through, and how she ultimately ended up leaving the church and rediscovering herself, creating a new life, and all of that. I mean, that's a lot, but it takes an immense amount of creativity to see something different than what you have been told is possible for you. This episode is fascinating. It is inspiring for anybody who's been in a high control system or who was raised in any sort of environment that just doesn't make sense to you anymore. This is a call to you to examine every part of your life and ask what parts are mine because they're actually mine and what parts were given to me and I've just been accepting it as truth. I hope you enjoy this episode. Love ya. Hi, creative. It's Lauren here. I just want to remind you that if you love the podcast, the best way to support the show is by leaving it a rating and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. And another great way to support the show is by sharing it with a friend or posting about it on social media. If you do post it on social media, tag me, at Lauren LaGrasso and at Unleash Your Inner Creative, and I will repost to share my gratitude. And remember to tag the guests too so they can also share. Okay, now let's get to the show. Hey, have you ever been trapped in a system you felt you couldn't question? Maybe it was a toxic job. Maybe it was a controlling relationship. Or maybe it was even a religion you felt trapped in. Today's guest grew up wholeheartedly believing in the Church of Latter-day Saints, a.k.a. Mormonism, until she didn't. You'll learn how she left the church, unraveled her religious trauma, and has begun to rebuild her spirituality, and how you can do the same. Welcome to Unleash Your Inner Creative with Lauren LaGrasso. I'm Lauren LaGrasso. I'm an award-winning podcast host and producer, singer-songwriter, public speaker, actor, and creative coach, and this show is meant to give you tools to claim the word creative, take fear out of the driver's seat, and love yourself enough to pursue whatever it is that's on your heart. On the show, we explore the creative process and journey, mental health, self-development, spirituality, and everything it means to be a human and become more human. And before we get into it today, I'd like to wish a very happy birthday to my best friend, friend of the show, I think probably our most frequent guest, Johnny Manganiello, aka Johnny Cakes. Happy birthday, baby. I love you. And I thank you for introducing me to today's guests. Her name is Sadie Blasucci, and her story is fascinating, courageous, and inspiring. She's a former Mormon who struggled with her identity after deciding to leave the church. It took years, but finally she built herself up to have confidence in her own beliefs, found solace in the unknown, and unwound her childhood traumas. Enough so where she's now a faith transition coach that helps other former members of both Mormonism and any other really intense religion acclimate after leaving the church. She's also the co-author of a faith crisis guided journal titled My Authentic Faith and the co-host of the Missionary Podcast. I want to preface this episode by saying this is not a PSA against any organized religion, including Mormonism. I think and have always thought if something helps you, that's great. But I think it's also important to share the other side. Sadie talks about her own experience and struggles with an intense faith and also just share some really interesting things about Mormonism. I think most people outside the church don't know. And she shares why she left. So whatever your spiritual practice is, I urge you to lean into whatever beliefs align with you and help you become your kindest, truest self. I do think, however, that we should always question any institution that excludes or demeans others because of who they are, how they were born, or who they love. Little caveat. Which brings me to why I wanted Sadie on the show. So as this show has evolved, I'm constantly brought back to the understanding that we cannot unleash our true inner creative if we do not love and trust ourselves. Creativity comes from a place of knowing that you, your thoughts, ideas, and beliefs matter, that they're true, and that you can listen to what's on the inside and then make something that reflects that. So whether you're Mormon, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, agnostic, etc. If your spiritual path has caused any cognitive dissonance between what you're being told is right and what you know inside of you is right, then this episode is for you. Now here she is, Sadie Blasucci. So I'm so happy to be here with my fellow Italian. Yes,

• Speaker #1

  Sadie. Say your last name for me. Well,

• Speaker #0

  like the Italian version is Lograsso, but most people say Lograsso.

• Speaker #1

  But I like hearing it.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. It's nice. It means the fat.

• Speaker #1

  No.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. Interesting. Very offensive.

• Speaker #1

  Okay.

• Speaker #0

  But at least you know that my ancestors were living well. Yeah. You know, they were eating well.

• Speaker #1

  Fat like P-H-A-T.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much for being here. I am so intrigued by what you're doing. I haven't had anyone on the show who is doing what you're doing. And I think that it's so important because a lot of people get lost after they leave their faith of origin. And that doesn't... mean they don't deserve to have some sort of spiritual life. So thank you for what you're doing.

• Speaker #1

  Well, thank you. You're welcome. It's been an interesting trajectory, obviously. I didn't see myself ever leaving Mormonism, nor did I see myself coming back to the community in this way. I'm definitely not back to the church, but I am like very close to the culture still.

• Speaker #0

  Wow. So I want to get into all that. But first, I want to talk about the origins of Mormonism. How did Mormonism come into your family? Because like we're talking about, traditionally, Italians were Catholic. Yeah. And so I'm so curious how Mormonism became the primary faith.

• Speaker #1

  Okay, so my last name comes from my stepfather who adopted me and some of my siblings growing up. So he joined the church when he met my mom, and he got baptized in the church. So all my cousins, everybody on that side, still Italian Catholic, still all traditional. And it was just like my family that was kind of the black sheep on that side. On my mom's side, my mom is one of eight. They are pioneer lineage.

• Speaker #0

  What does that mean?

• Speaker #1

  Polygamy lineage.

• Speaker #0

  Like the pioneers of the United States of America? Yeah,

• Speaker #1

  the pioneers that like, you know, so everyone knows like the Oregon Trail. Yeah,

• Speaker #0

  yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh.

• Speaker #1

  We've all played the video game. We've all gotten dysentery online through Oregon Trail.

• Speaker #0

  That's Sadie's family.

• Speaker #1

  So Oregon Trail is a little bit north. Then there were the Mormons. I'm not sure what they're called in the history books of like that path, but it was the people who went west and stopped in Salt Lake. So in Mormon culture, you just call them pioneers. There's Pioneer Day in the summer. Mormons celebrate Pioneer Day.

• Speaker #0

  What do you do on Pioneer Day?

• Speaker #1

  Well, ex-Mormons call it Pie and Beer Day. Oh,

• Speaker #0

  burn.

• Speaker #1

  Like a way of kind of like reclaiming the day. Yeah. I, growing up, would dress up like a pioneer. And we would walk around in bonnets and tell stories of people dying on the plains for the word of the Lord. And you just kind of reminisce. Reminisce.

• Speaker #0

  You're like channeling.

• Speaker #1

  The pioneer stories, first of all, they lean into like the very American origins of Mormonism. The doctrinal connection is they attach to the New Testament and Old Testament. And so Mormons are like, oh, yeah, we come from Jews. We come kind of claim. All like globally and like a lot of Abrahamic religion, Mormons are kind of like, yeah, we got that. Like that's with us, too. But the roots of the church are extremely American. It's like the revival time period in northern New York is where Joseph Smith started everything when a bunch of religions were getting started. So it's very American. The story is very American. The crossing of the plains, moving west. It's like this very American story. But it was when they got to Salt Lake that they kind of like. put a little spin on it. Polygamy started long before that, but in Salt Lake, the culture was polygamy. Brigham Young, who's a famous Mormon, he's who the school BYU is named after. I tend to talk fast when I'm getting into church stuff. Yeah,

• Speaker #0

  yeah. Why do you think that is?

• Speaker #1

  Because there's so many words that I don't realize make sense to other people until they've come out of my mouth.

• Speaker #0

  Okay.

• Speaker #1

  So I'll be like, Brigham Young, and then I'm like... You might not know who he is. And I'll be like, he's the prophet. And I'm like, you might not know what that word means. He's the president of the church.

• Speaker #0

  Right. So I know he has a university. Yes.

• Speaker #1

  So they named the university after him. He had like 55 wives, I want to say. Wow. Around there.

• Speaker #0

  It's a lot to juggle.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. there's a lot to be said about it all of that. But that whole group, my ancestors come from that lineage.

• Speaker #0

  And so when your dad met your mom, was he strongly Catholic or was he like, I'm open to it?

• Speaker #1

  Eastern Christmas Catholic. And Mormons really do lean into the ideas of the family. And Catholicism as well, culturally is very familial.

• Speaker #0

  As is Italian culture. Yes.

• Speaker #1

  So when my dad, when he was getting the discussions is what they're called. They were like, you know, you can be with your family forever. And family is the most important thing.

• Speaker #0

  And by forever, they mean in the afterlife. Yes.

• Speaker #1

  Okay. And that's a Mormon catchphrase is families are forever. Oh, wow.

• Speaker #0

  That's effective.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. So my dad was like, okay, I really like where this is headed. And there's so much emphasis on Jesus that for any type of Christian background, you're kind of like, okay, I can get on board with the J-man.

• Speaker #0

  So it felt like kind of an easy transition.

• Speaker #1

  lifestyle wise no he had to quit smoking wow you can't you can't drink you can't drink coffee because caffeine is a drug no the word of the word of wisdom which is like the food and drug belief beliefs yeah is based off a revelation that came to joseph smith and it was about like health and wellness but also just about like living well and living different than the people around you. So. So Mormons, you get taught different things when you're young. You're like, well, it's no tobacco because that's really bad for you. And no coffee because God says. And, you know, there's kind of like a few things like don't eat too much meat because, you know, that could be bad for you. And energy drinks are OK because God says. Like there's just certain things that don't line up that everyone's kind of like, I'm just going to we're going to kind of just keep going with that. So Mormons love Diet Coke. Just love all that shit. Culturally, it's like... crack.

• Speaker #0

  Wow.

• Speaker #1

  But there's such a stigma around alcohol, especially, and tobacco, but more so I grew up knowing like you don't want to be in a bar.

• Speaker #0

  Ever.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. And the feeling of this is my experience. All of this is my experience, right? Yes. There are some Mormons who really float along and are kind of like just any other Christian religion. Like, yeah, Jesus loves me and life is fine and I kind of just live clean and whatever. And then there are a lot of Mormons, the ones who I've connected with, especially online and TikTok and clients and people that I've worked with who were like, so I'm undoing a lot of trauma. There's a lot of brainwashing and self-worth and things that have just been drilled into me that I'm undoing. I am in that group. I am definitely someone who's like, I had to unlearn. I had to go through this deep well of emotion to kind of pull myself out of it through the other side. And there are people who don't do that.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. So take me through when you're a little girl sitting. Do you call it temple or what do you call it?

• Speaker #1

  So church is the Sunday meeting. You go to sacrament meeting. OK. Mormon church is three hours long when I grew up.

• Speaker #0

  OK.

• Speaker #1

  They've since adjusted. They have like a different system now in the past couple of years that I'm not aware of. But it was three hours sacrament meeting, which is like mass where you take communion. Mormons call it the sacrament. And then you have two other hours of church.

• Speaker #0

  And were you bought in? As a kid, like, was there any part of you that was like, huh? Or you just like, yeah, this is the way.

• Speaker #1

  You don't have any, huh? Or I didn't have any, huh? Because it's so communal that there's no reason to question when you're like, I love everybody here. Oh, wow. Everyone's having a great time. The adults that you get to spend time with, again, different for everybody. But I loved the adults, like my teachers and leaders and my friends' parents. Everyone who leads in the Mormon church is... ask to volunteer. So all the leadership, no one's paid. Wow. Except for when you get up to the higher levels, then it's very, everyone's very much paid. But on the lower levels, like it was my friend's parents who were my teachers. And you're like, like, you just don't question because you're having so much fun. When I got to be like 12 was when I was like, what's that? What, what actually are you trying to teach me about my plan, my path, my soul's path? Because there is a, In Mormonism, the... plan of salvation, which they actually tell you, this is where you come from, this is why you're here, and this is where you're going. Those huge questions.

• Speaker #0

  Well, I can see why you buy into that because that's what I ask myself every day. I'm like, what the F am I doing? Why am I doing?

• Speaker #1

  Why am I here?

• Speaker #0

  You know that. So I can see if you really felt that you knew that and that was the way, I can see how that would be actually very comforting.

• Speaker #1

  Oh, it's beyond comforting. I felt arrogant about it at times. I definitely had doubts since you know 12 i actually just feel like in life that's a that's an age where you start to go What's happening? Yeah. Childhood is kind of rear view. And so I've had doubts, you know, since that age and they call it your testimony. So sometimes you're working on your testimony in one area, but it's extremely strong in another. And you kind of, you kind of are in that space. But I felt arrogant at times being like, I know where we're going and I know where we came from and I know where we're here. Like, do you, you know, there's a little bit of that. And that's, I think. kind of comes with the territory if you're sending out missionaries to knock on people's door. There's a little bit of like, there's a lot of love, I think, in general, but there's a little bit of, can I give you this goodness that I have that you don't?

• Speaker #0

  Because I'd love to share. I'd love to share my spiritual buffet.

• Speaker #1

  What's so ironic is I feel that way on the other end now. I don't feel arrogant about it, but I do feel like I'm like, oh, wow, it's crazy that you can be so happy and like content. outside of what I had been promised would make me that way. So it's really interesting now where I remember gripping so tightly to the church being like, look how happy I am and everything's totally great. And like, if only people could be as happy as me.

• Speaker #0

  And for those that are listening, because I don't know if I'll pull this as a clip. She's literally twitching while saying it. Because it does like sometimes when you're told something over and over and over and over and over again, and you do find solace in it, it becomes like a twitch. Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  untwitch that it's like literally a like you said a trauma but a trauma in your body that you have to unwind a hundred percent that's definitely how i felt and so it's interesting now being on the other side of it and feeling like oh wow i actually feel so much calmer and genuinely myself and comfortable not to say i'm not without like human experiences but the feet the overall feeling of well-being i'm like wow i didn't know this existed on the other side That's one of the biggest takeaways of just like general happiness, because I think when you're in it and when you're in the prospect of leaving, there's this threat of like, am I not only giving up my community, my identity, my family, my future, my prospects of heaven, but I'm also giving up happiness. Like, does happiness only belong in this space where I've been told your talents, they come from the church, like, you know, or they're fostered by your experience in the church. Your happiness, your family, all these things that you want or feel good about are inevitably connected to the church. And so the idea of leaving is like, oh, do I leave these other things too? So anyway, big takeaway, something I'm really happy to share now. Yeah. As a reverse missionary, I'm like, hey, you know, I'm actually pretty happy.

• Speaker #0

  Is that what you call yourself?

• Speaker #1

  No, I don't. I don't. I don't. I'm sometimes wary of being the language I use. trying to sound like I'm pulling people out of the church.

• Speaker #0

  No, you're not. People who've already decided to leave or have actively left, right? You're helping them transition, which is beautiful.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  Because it's an interesting thing that a lot of people do. And I'm going to take this to addiction, which is a totally different thing. But you ever notice how people have an addiction and then they get rid of that addiction, but then they go to something else? It's like we have to be so careful that the things that traumatize us or bring us pain, we don't just do the same action, but in a different mask.

• Speaker #1

  One hundred percent. Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  And I love that you're aware of that.

• Speaker #1

  It's there's a there's a time and place, I think, for habit swapping as a form if it's helping you heal.

• Speaker #0

  Right.

• Speaker #1

  Like there is so much to be said for like I have recently posted online about how when I first left, I didn't know what to do with my energy around prayer. Mormons pray morning and night. So I kind of had this instinct of like my alarm would go off and I'd eyes closed, roll onto the floor on my knees and like, you know, kind of like half awake, mumble a prayer. And then at night, I did the same thing. Sometimes I'd get in bed and I'd be like, oh, I got to, you know, you roll out on your knees, say your prayer, come back to bed. And I didn't know what to do with that kind of habit and energy that I had because I didn't feel comfortable using any of the language that I had once used. And so I just swapped the habit entirely. I'd light Palo Santo, which is like incense. Yes, love it. I didn't know, really, I didn't know nor care what the actual significance or spiritual significance of it might be. I just was looking for something to replace that habit. And so I would light incense and I went from corner to corner in my bedroom, which is, this is adorable to me now. But at the time I was like, I can't tell anyone I'm doing this. But I thought it was really, it's cute looking back. I would go corner to corner and think of a word or quality that I wanted to bring into my life. So I'd go from, I'd go and I'd just be like, you know, friendships or discipline or like love, you know, whatever it was that I wanted to fill my life with. And that was my replacement for prayer at the time. And the response online has been really positive because a lot of people are like, yeah, we just have these habits that like. need somewhere to go. And it is valuable in the process of now I have very different rituals and feelings about prayer and meditation as a whole. But the initial swap is was very valuable.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, no, that is so true. Because it's like, you didn't want to use that same thing. But I think prayer and connection in some way is such an important thing for somebody who does want to have some sort of spirituality. Yeah. I'm so curious during this time when you were like in it, but questioning it. Did you allow yourself to have non-Mormon friends?

• Speaker #1

  So I always had non-Mormon friends. It was kind of my comfort zone. Even in high school, I always had really close Mormon friends. They're kind of the people who spoke your language. And it was, we've known each other since birth. And then there's, I always had really close non-Mormon friends who I would bring to events or, you know, we had an understanding of each other's goals in life and how they were different. And so I never felt uncomfortable being around friends who I thought were living their best lives.

• Speaker #0

  Did you think they were going to hell?

• Speaker #1

  No. So that's actually one of the more positive parts of Mormonism that kind of separates Catholicism and a lot of other Christian religions. Mormons don't believe in hell per se. Oh,

• Speaker #0

  I guess I'm more like a Mormon than I thought.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. There's like there's levels of heaven is really what it is.

• Speaker #0

  Oh, OK.

• Speaker #1

  So there is. there's a considered space called outer darkness but it's like for like 10 people not really 10 people but it really is it's like you know the worst murderers yeah and people who have actually now that we're unpacking the trauma portion of it the outer darkness in Mormon culture is reserved for people who deny Christ once they've already been

• Speaker #0

  his disciple yes so

• Speaker #1

  Judas and anyone who maybe was higher up in the church If you are then excommunicated or if you go against the church once you've been in it, then you're a contender for outer darkness. So it's kind of like the higher.

• Speaker #0

  Outer darkness almost sounds worse than hell. Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Hell sounds like it reminds me of Mr. Toad's Wild Rhymes.

• Speaker #0

  People there. Like you're with the worst people ever to exist. And you're in the fucking dark.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. Yeah. Other than that, like if you're just a bad person or if you've lived a rough life. You're in one of the levels of heaven.

• Speaker #0

  What if you were a person that didn't believe in Jesus? Yeah,

• Speaker #1

  you're in one of the lower. There's only three levels.

• Speaker #0

  You're still in a level of heaven?

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, you're just in a lower level. It feels they've it's structured or the way I was taught about it was structured like an actual city. And so in the center of the city is the Emerald City.

• Speaker #0

  That's where we keep the gems.

• Speaker #1

  There's the Emerald City. That's where God lives and Jesus and Mormons who. are worthy enough to go to the temple and women who have been married to men so you can only go there if there's a bunch of stuff that gets you in there and in that level there's a couple levels but that's the place that's where all mormons are want to be or are going to be plan on being then there's kind of like the concentric circle around that which is like the suburbs and it's like nice but you can't go into the city you gotta stay in the suburbs then there's like the apartments and less desirable area of the city it's another like concentric circle essentially and they can't go into the suburbs nor this the celestial kingdom which is the center anyone from the upper levels can go anywhere they want down but no one can go up and so the idea is like if you're the most naughty person you're gonna be in that in the apartment in the apartments okay and then if you're maybe someone who's a non-believer, but a good person. you might be in the suburbs. Like it's not that.

• Speaker #0

  That's actually really nice. Yeah,

• Speaker #1

  it's not that bad.

• Speaker #0

  I was curious to ask you this question because I have a friend who's an extreme Christian and he like will frequently call people and be like, don't joke about hell. If you joke about hell, like there's people who are burning right now. Like he called me once because I posted that I didn't believe in hell and like to convince me that hell was real. And he also believes that there's like only one way to believe in God and like wanted to like. call me to tell me that my version of God was wrong.

• Speaker #1

  He's asking to be put on the do not disturb list.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, absolutely. Like of my life.

• Speaker #1

  Silenced call.

• Speaker #0

  But like, it's just interesting to me that like, the reason I was curious is if you were friends with him, because like if I'm trying to have a point of compassion with this guy, if he literally believes that if I don't believe in God the same way as him, I'm going to die every day in flames for the rest of eternity. Yeah. I can see how he would want. to try to convince me that his God was real.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, I mean, there's compassion for any side. You can really see how people, I mean, if people leave the church and their family. disavows them. It really comes from a place of pain. People want you to have what they think is the best of the best.

• Speaker #0

  Right.

• Speaker #1

  But the approach has nothing to do with love.

• Speaker #0

  No, no.

• Speaker #1

  You're like, you don't actually like me. There's just a bunch of fear around like stuff that might happen or might not.

• Speaker #0

  And control.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. But there's definitely a disconnect in the approach. And I've been really lucky to have people that I love or felt close to. Most of the approach to me has been with kindness and like consideration for my feelings. I really have only had a few people be like, we kind of don't need to be friends anymore. But that was the worst of it. I didn't really have anyone come out and say, like, here, you're going to be out of darkness. Like,

• Speaker #0

  right.

• Speaker #1

  There's none of that.

• Speaker #0

  That's beautiful.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. The control and the intensity, I think, that comes with church stuff is cultural. A lot of the doctrine. Well, OK, I'm going to put my foot in my mouth. A lot of the doctrine is problematic as well. But... Deep doctrine, most Mormons don't know, understand, or preach at all. The culture really does run a lot of stuff. And sometimes the culture is toxic. And sometimes it's actually pretty gentle when it comes to the stuff like hell or having friends who are non-members. A lot of Mormons are like, yeah, come to my house. You can drink wine at my house. I won't be drinking, but you can do whatever you want. And I actually don't think that's a sin in your case because you aren't a member.

• Speaker #0

  Right.

• Speaker #1

  The pressure and the... Oh. The intensity of worthiness comes to those who know better.

• Speaker #0

  Oh, and hence why the higher people, if they were like higher in the church and then excommunicated, would be in the outer circle because they knew much.

• Speaker #1

  Oh, yeah. If you've been, there's certain things about, so I've never went through the.

• Speaker #0

  Or the outer darkness. Yes,

• Speaker #1

  yes, yes, yes. So in Mormon, Mormon practicing. Wow. Some of my words, I. Going in between Mormon language. Christian.

• Speaker #0

  I can see you translate.

• Speaker #1

  And secular.

• Speaker #0

  It's really wild. Like she's like, if you look at her as she's speaking, I can see her brain switch in between each language.

• Speaker #1

  And then I also am rusty on some Mormon words and some secular words. So I'm kind of at a loss sometimes. But there's church which you go to every Sunday. And then there's temples, which are those beautiful buildings that a lot of people recognize as Mormon because they're stunning and typically out of place. It's like on the five in San Diego is just this castle and people are like, what the fuck is that?

• Speaker #0

  You're like, it's a temple.

• Speaker #1

  That's a temple. And then in the temple is where the most sacred and secret ordinances of the church take place. I have only been to the basement of the temple. Again, the temple is also structured where the basement is the lowest. Then as you move up in the actual levels of the temple, the more sacred things happen. So I've done baptisms for the dead, which happens in the basement of a temple. And then I've been sealed to my parents. But I haven't had any of the ordinances or the things that people...

• Speaker #0

  What's a baptism to the dead and a sealing to your parents? Because of me, I feel like we're sealed to our parents because we were literally attached to our moms and lived in them once.

• Speaker #1

  Yes. So actually, if you were born into the covenant, as it's said, then you don't have to be sealed to your parents. But since I was adopted, kids who are adopted, you have to have the ordinance.

• Speaker #0

  It's like a spiritual umbilical cord. Yes.

• Speaker #1

  Okay. Because it allows you to be. in the same neighborhood as your family in the afterlife. You want to be in the same hood.

• Speaker #0

  Okay. Okay. That actually makes sense. Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  So you want to be sealed and attached and all of that. And so I've had that ceremony, but I haven't done what a lot of... Anytime someone's married in the church, they've gone through a bunch of other ordinances in the temple. And they're the ones who wear garments, which is like the special underwear. They have a... different understanding of Mormon doctrine, and they're also held to a higher standard. If you wear garments, you kind of need to be a little bit more careful. And then that's kind of how we have those levels of pressure.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. Now, I'm so curious because, you know, I feel like most people in our culture have some understanding of like basic Christianity, right? Even like basic Catholicism. Yeah. Why is there less knowledge around Mormonism in the general population?

• Speaker #1

  One, I think there is a level of peculiarity that comes from the history of polygamy, as well as our racist history and homophobic history. Those things separate us where a lot of people are like, I don't really need to know that much about you. I know enough. So people who didn't grow up around Mormons and really only know the cliff notes are kind of like, cool, no thanks. other than that i think it's a relatively new religion catholicism has been around and like shaped cultures for a really long time. Mormonism is very new. It was started in the late 1800s and There's the secrecy within the church that even like that's what I'm trying to say is I don't even know exactly what happens in the temple. And I was devout and there is a level of secrecy.

• Speaker #0

  It's on purpose to say, like, you need to earn these secrets. Looking at it from an outside perspective, and I'm not saying this, but you could say.

• Speaker #1

  One could say.

• Speaker #0

  One could say it's, you know, how you effectively brainwash and keep a cult-like structure where people do lose their identity and become extremely loyal to a secret and to a practice that maybe they might not align with outside of the intense pressure and structure. the church has.

• Speaker #1

  How deep was the fear in you by the time you started saying, I don't know if I want to do this anymore? Were you aware of it?

• Speaker #0

  Like too much. One of the things I worked on with a friend of mine who's a therapist, we co-wrote a guided journal for people who were leaving or just questioning. Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  A bit of a plug because this is important.

• Speaker #0

  So the guided journal is called My Authentic Faith. Okay. And we sectioned it out. based on qualitative research we did, reaching out to people and kind of finding out what this similar thread was. One of the chapters we dedicated was about existential dread because there's this feeling that Mormons go through when you hit a certain part of your doubt process, there is a feeling of, because I had this, I know everything. From a young age, you have a feeling of, I know everything. When it starts to crumble, the opposite is just as strong. You're like, I know nothing, and I actually could be doing the most evil right now. And maybe there is a hell that I don't know of, and I'm definitely going. And the overwhelm and the questions that I experienced were equally strong as that same arrogance I had within the church. And I'm sure not everyone had the exact same experience that I had, but it was a very common theme of when you don't have the answers, you have... this void and how scary the void is for people who have spent their whole life going. I could literally answer any question you have about like the afterlife, this life, where we came from.

• Speaker #1

  Got circles, got city.

• Speaker #0

  Talk to me, talk to me. Yeah, I got answers. And so that void is actually, it feels like what you would imagine in a fearful brain of outer darkness. You're like, I'm in this void. Like this is so scary.

• Speaker #1

  Wow.

• Speaker #0

  Where I've talked to some secular people and have since in my own experience of coming back to spirituality, the unanswered questions can actually be very freeing, depending on your perspective and kind of how you're looking at stuff. There's a lot of stuff that you're like, oh, I actually don't know. I can just kind of go off my own feeling, my own assessment, my own judgment with with certain things like there is a there is an unknown. And that's. what we all experience. It kind of unites us all. As a Mormon in that process of leaving, you're like, no, I can't handle this. I don't want this thing. I would rather just know.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. Most people would rather know. And that's why that's such an effective tactic to get people hooked. So what was the breaking point where you're like, I don't care if I am entering whatever this life's version of outer darkness is. I need to do it.

• Speaker #0

  For me, it was a knocking that just got louder and louder. coming from what I identified as my conscience. So I told people at the time, the same feelings that kept me in the church, that same voice that was like, oh, like God loves you. And like, you can do good in this world was that same voice that was like, you don't belong here. Like there's something else that's happening and this doesn't feel right with you.

• Speaker #1

  And at what age was this?

• Speaker #0

  So I was mid twenties and I had struggled So when I was 18, the church was extremely vocal about Prop 8 in California. And I grew up in California. They asked me to donate. They asked. I was a teenager. They asked us to donate. They asked my parents to donate. They asked my whole community to put signs in our yard.

• Speaker #1

  And Prop 8, just for anyone that doesn't know, that was the marriage equality bill here in California? Yes.

• Speaker #0

  So yes on Prop 8 at the time was to make sure that no one else besides a man and a woman could get married. Very ironic coming from the group famous for polygamy, but whatever. And so people put out these signs. We kind of had like this target on my family's front yard of just saying pretty boldly there's this rhetoric of homophobia. And I had a really, really hard time with it. In high school, I didn't know how to grapple with it. I didn't know too many people who were out.

• Speaker #1

  Were you in theater at the time?

• Speaker #0

  I did like improv.

• Speaker #1

  Okay.

• Speaker #0

  And I had friends who were out and I had family who were out. Right. But not a close number that I was like, oh, this one person I really struggled with. It was a general feeling of like, this doesn't feel right. And I don't know how to answer this question. It wasn't like I had one friend come to me and say, what about me? I genuinely was like, I don't know how this works. And it was one of the few things that I had felt when people talked to me about it. I didn't have an answer. And like I had said, that quickness to answer, I had felt really confident with up until that point. And so the Prop 8 really threw me. I was like, I don't know how to talk about this. It ended up becoming something I was involved in from inside the church until I left, up until I left. And even after a little bit, I kind of would go to these Mormon, basically like the gay straight alliance within a Mormon community. I would go to those events and try to like support their existence. Because I'm not sure if you know this, and on a very serious note, the suicide rates for LGBTQ teens in Utah are like through the roof. It's a doctrine, culture, everything is extremely dark in that arena. And so that was my initial tipping point to be extremely critical in the church. Up until then, I had questions about my beliefs, but I never was critical of the leaders or the structure at all. Like anything misogynistic, I was like, yeah, serve that to me.

• Speaker #1

  Because I wanted to know about that, too. And I want to get back. Thank you so much for sharing that. And it is so important. And I think that like the lack of support for LGBTQ people. is what brings a lot of people out of any religion. Yeah. You know, I know it's like definitely was a sever between me and Catholicism, whereas like I never was like, oh, why aren't there any female priests? Yeah. Like the largest I could ever grow is to a nun. And I basically just like do nothing and pray silently all day. That's my one opportunity for spiritual advancement. Yeah. You know, but I was like, oh, whatever. We got Mother Mary. We're cool.

• Speaker #0

  It's it's interesting how the empathy is the thing that really pokes at you. Yeah. There's a lot of misogyny things that I just swallowed. I was like, I would never want to be a feminist. Yuck. Right. And then I was like, but don't wait. My friends who are queer, like what? Like, yeah, it's so much easier to stick up for a group that you feel compassion for by being on the outside. It's really interesting. From the inside, I was like, women should never have the priesthood. I like was so... Not cool about it.

• Speaker #1

  But I totally get that and understand it. It wasn't until I was like in high school or maybe college. I was like, this is fucked up. Yeah. But I do wonder like how being around that level of misogyny. By the way, I do actually I don't appreciate it. I don't agree with it. But I understand, again, that level of misogyny. If you thought that God was a man and that God is the best thing in the fucking universe.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  How on earth would you ever think that a woman could be anywhere near to that?

• Speaker #0

  There's a movement in Mormonism right now that I'm so horny for. And it's people talking about heavenly mother. Mormons refer to God as heavenly father. That's the fastest term to refer to God. So people are talking about heavenly mother more and more. And I'm loving it because it's a lot of people in the church going like, wait, where's our female deity? Like, where's our divine feminine? Because we don't pray to Mary. We don't have a ton of emphasis on her. There's Very few women mentioned Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon. Very, very few. And it's now this movement, now that I'm not there, that women are kind of like, hey, I think I might pray to Heavenly Mother today. You know, there's a little bit of that that's happening. And all my friends who have talked about it or dabbled in it, I'm like stoking that fire from the outside.

• Speaker #1

  Let me know what she says.

• Speaker #0

  I should tell you too, though, because while the treatment of the queer community was my early catalyst, I was pushed out. Mormons like to say the thing that broke their shelf, because anything that you have doubts on, you kind of put on a shelf. And eventually, you might have so many doubts that it breaks the shelf. That's the common ex-Mormon phrase. So the thing that broke my shelf was these things called gospel topics essays. And it was the church came out and kind of said, not in these terms, but I'll say it like this. They were like, okay, too many of you have the internet. Too many of you have been Googling stuff. You know too much. You know too much. And we'd like to get in front of some of this now, even though it's weird. definitely behind it so is the church going all right you googled some stuff about joseph smith that we kind of didn't think you'd ever find out so here's here's an essay about it uh especially with racism in the church something that i was taught one story all growing up just apologist apologist apologist and then they came out with this essay and was kind of like all right uh full disclosure we were just fully racist at the time and all of those essays put together i was like you guys just admitted to lying to me.

• Speaker #1

  And what else are you lying about?

• Speaker #0

  And it was the thing of I'd been carrying the burden of these conflicted feelings about gays in the church and things that I had known maybe a little bit more about. I was like, oh, I have these conflicted feelings, but I know that the leaders aren't going to lie to us. Then there was this thing where I was like, OK, so they're super lying. And all of this is really hateful. Like it was like, oh, it's not coming from a good place. There's something dark here. And I had the question of myself was. Do I want to stay and fix it from the inside? Or do I just need to leave?

• Speaker #1

  So how did you get to the point where you left? And what did that look like?

• Speaker #0

  So I spent like a year, I just fully reclused, which is why I, my process of leaving is the reason I work with people transitioning now. And the reason I co-wrote that guided journal, the reason I co-host the podcast. Yeah. My experience in leaving was so isolating and scary and dark and depressing. I feel like I got to just the lowest point and I had such fear talking to anyone because I was like, if I talk to someone who's Mormon, then I got to deal with them trying to convince me to stay. Can't do that. If I talk to someone who's not Mormon, then I want to defend this thing that I have known and loved my whole life. So I can't talk to them. So it was just this lonely path of going like... All I knew was I felt uncomfortable in church. And then that was the spiral that I was like, I can't believe it's been four weeks since I haven't been in church. I can't believe it's been six. I can't believe it's been three months since I stepped foot in church. And it was that distance from church that actually allowed me to go like, oh, I have other thoughts and feelings about this doctrine. The practice and the habits of church and prayer and community make it really easy to not double click on thoughts that might be itching at you. because you're like, you see the faces of the people you love and you're like, I love you. I don't want to leave here. Like, I don't. I don't. You know,

• Speaker #1

  that's the people, not the fate.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. And that's why I don't judge my friends who stay because there is a feeling of they're like, my kids love this and I love it. And, you know, I remember being like, should I rejoin the church when I had to move once? Because I was like moving as a Mormon. The easiest thing in the world.

• Speaker #1

  I think I remember you making this joke maybe on the podcast.

• Speaker #0

  Yes. People just show up and they bring food and they help and it's free and it's delightful. And moving as a non-Mormon is expensive and horrendous.

• Speaker #1

  And like no one wants to help you. They're not bringing food.

• Speaker #0

  You better greet them. Not only do they not want to help you, they want to like avoid the week of your moving. People are like, call me later.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. Don't talk to me. I don't want to leave any openings.

• Speaker #0

  It was something that I was like, shit, I think I might need to go back. because that was really convenient. So for those reasons, I understand why people have a hard time cutting ties. For me, it was once I got to a certain point and my feelings were so clear, like once I got through some of the fog of other people's opinions and other people's voices and habits, I had this like, what I would like to say is like my own internal compass that was like, so this actually isn't working for you right now. And like it maybe has in the past, it's not working right now.

• Speaker #1

  So what age were you when that was happening?

• Speaker #0

  I was like 25.

• Speaker #1

  25. So not that long ago.

• Speaker #0

  Oh, no. Not that long ago at all. But it probably took like a year and a half. So I would say I was like 23 to 25.

• Speaker #1

  Okay.

• Speaker #0

  Of kind of where I would meet people and didn't know how to identify. People would go, where did you go to school? I'd say Utah. And they'd be like, are you Mormon? And I'd go, what? Is my phone ringing? You know, like I didn't know how to answer the question, which really freaked me out. I also, I tell people this all the time because it blows my mind. I wrote tithing checks long after I stopped going to church because there's something, the things that you're taught. It's hard to break. Parts of you that you're like, yeah, I have to give 10% of my income to the church. Like, it's so weird. It was so weird. I remember looking at my checks being like, what am I doing? Like, yeah.

• Speaker #1

  For how long would you say you did that? Like a year?

• Speaker #0

  No. So you write tithing checks monthly. So I probably did it for like four months.

• Speaker #1

  Oh. um that i knew i was like i'm not in this but i was like but here's here's my money take some money yeah here's some money take all i um it's very weird wow so okay you're 25 you you're officially out you you are paulo santo in your corners what else are you doing during this time and then like how did you finally get to a place where you're like yes i'm okay so mostly what i'm doing during this time is trying

• Speaker #0

  to live another person's life. Like I really did kind of go again. This is why I like working with people is because it doesn't have to look like this. Like the way that I went inward and felt super alone and then kind of came out and tried to imitate a non-Mormon person for a little. It's really great to know that you can just kind of step into yourself. So I had a moment where I imitated a non-Mormon person. I kind of was like, yeah, I bought a wine glass. Like. one.

• Speaker #1

  You're like, I don't want to get too crazy.

• Speaker #0

  I just want one.

• Speaker #1

  That seems safe.

• Speaker #0

  I tried to learn how to appreciate alcohol.

• Speaker #1

  Were you terrible? Like, what was it like taking your first sip of alcohol?

• Speaker #0

  So I actually tried alcohol in high school for science purposes. I had friends who were like, listen, we won't tell anyone. And I was like, I just need to know what being drunk feels like. And so I secretly got drunk. But I didn't want to tell anyone because I didn't want any of the other youth to know. I've considered myself again, like I was like, I don't want one of the younger girls or my friend's little sister to know and don't want to affect her, you know? I love that. So I like. got drunk once so I and I had friends who who drank uh casually and right wasn't wasn't too foreign to me but I didn't know how to appreciate it or use it like I had roommates at the time who would come home from work and like have a glass of wine and I was always like oh I forget that it's there so that time period was mostly me being like yeah I'll have wine with dinner but when I really didn't want it maybe right I wasn't I wasn't rumspringa Which I think a lot of people are like, did you just go ham? And I was like, not at all. Right. I just tried to step into this mid-20s life of somebody else.

• Speaker #1

  So when you were doing it, you were literally like, I saw this on TV once. Let me try it. I saw a friend who's not a Mormon do this. Rather than being like, I want to try these things because I want to try it.

• Speaker #0

  Well, I lived with two really good friends who were not Mormon. Okay. And so they both, I just kind of jumped into their social circle and jumped into kind of how they... And I still wasn't 100% on board. I still was myself, but it was more just kind of feeling things out. It did take me a minute to go like, actually what I align with and what feels good. And you do have to experiment a tiny bit. I have had a client ask me about like, how important is it to experiment with drugs? And I am very adamant that it's not. Right. There is no importance to anything that doesn't call to you. There are people who will never drink alcohol and live a fine life. I really don't feel passionate or proselytizing about any substances besides mushrooms. I really do tell a lot of people to do mushrooms.

• Speaker #1

  I haven't done mushrooms. I'm scared of drugs. I wasn't Mormon, but the war on drugs worked on me.

• Speaker #0

  You got to get into some microdosing of mushrooms. Okay. You don't have to fully trip, but that's one that we've been blessed to have. Okay.

• Speaker #1

  Because I know that that helps people work through trauma.

• Speaker #0

  It can, which I've done, by the way, this is a whole other podcast, but Mormons are gobbling up these things called plant journeys, which is drug-assisted therapy. Yeah. A lot of it includes psilocybin. I have done it four times now with mostly Mormon groups. Like I'm one of four or five people who aren't practicing. And it's wild. These people who... I know their code of living. And they're like, no, this is extremely spiritual and extremely helpful therapy. And people are just like hanging it up on a shelf going like, I really don't care about the word of wisdom. Mushrooms have changed my life. Also,

• Speaker #1

  mushrooms are a plant. How could they be bad?

• Speaker #0

  Exactly. Exactly.

• Speaker #1

  So now, like, what was your family's reaction? Because are your parents still Mormon?

• Speaker #0

  My mom still is. My dad has since left.

• Speaker #1

  OK. Did you inspire him?

• Speaker #0

  We had like a crossover where I think both of us were, there was some drama in the ward.

• Speaker #1

  Okay.

• Speaker #0

  Someone in my home ward.

• Speaker #1

  Okay.

• Speaker #0

  Is legal counsel for a group known as the KKK. And they had publicly said some outrageous stuff at the pulpit. And my whole ward, there were a lot of different races represented in my home ward. Right. And they. called for his removal and like excommunication because people have been excommunicated for cheating on their spouse someone else in my ward cheated on her husband she got excommunicated this man goes up and he's spouting hateful hateful awful white supremacy nonsense and the whole ward was like so he needs to be excommunicated and they had to hold a public forum which by the way i hadn't gone to church in a couple months and i was like i'm going to the forum like i like i'll be at the forum Had to see this situation. And so at that time, my dad and I both were like really comfortable taking space from the church, too. I think both of us were like, yeah, we don't need to be here right now because they did not excommunicate him. And then they also said, mind your own business, everybody. Like, we'll handle this the way we want to handle it. This is an internal church matter. It has nothing to do with you. And all of us were like,

• Speaker #1

  yeah, it doesn't. It has something to do with the safety of your people.

• Speaker #0

  So many. So, so, so, so, so many things. So. We could talk about that endlessly. But at that time, my dad was like, yeah, I think I'm comfortable taking some space, which was lucky for me. At the same time, I was like, yeah, me too. But again, didn't really talk to anyone about it. The most dramatic confrontation I probably had was with my younger brother who was serving a mission at the time. And I was a big catalyst in him going on his mission. By a big catalyst, I mean like I drove him to his doctor's appointments and haircut appointments. And like I basically was like, right, you go and serve your mission. Like, I'm going to make sure you get on this plane. And so when we've you get to FaceTime them twice a year over the course of the two years that they serve. So you do not text, call. Nothing. You can write letters and emails and then you get those two FaceTimes. And one of the FaceTimes was me telling him, I'm no longer attending. And we both cried. It was like this very uncomfortable, to say the least, moment of him being like, wait, you like helped me find this intense belief that I now have. What's happening? And I was like, yeah, I'm not attending right now. And I think I said something to him like, but I'm sure I'll come back. Like I said something along the lines of like, I just need a little break. I kind of promised that I would be back because I was like, I don't want to talk about it. And he has since left. He did a different version than me. He kind of expanded. He was like, I'm not Mormon. I'm kind of everything. And kind of just like, kind of like spread his wings in a very chill way. I know he had his own internal battles, but kind of had his own experience with it. And then I had another older sibling. who left at the same time I did, but we did not talk about it because both of us did the same thing of like, who do we talk to? We can't talk to anybody. So he also left. And so now my biggest tie is my oldest sibling, who's kind of like a father figure to me. He helped kind of raise me. And so I still, I went to a baptism a month ago from one of my nephews and will be attending church stuff probably forever in some capacity. But there's no... No, no tension.

• Speaker #1

  OK, so they're not like you need to come back.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. My mom at one point was like, I just want you to be happy. And then my mom saw one of my TikToks and was like, wow, I actually think I'm glad that you left. Like,

• Speaker #1

  I didn't know how miserable it was making. Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  How much it affected you, because she's one of those people who's like, I didn't have a problem with any of that, you know,

• Speaker #1

  so good for mom.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, I guess I was like,

• Speaker #1

  love that for you.

• Speaker #0

  Some of us have been traumatized, but apparently. Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  And your TikTok is amazing. and tell me what the handle is.

• Speaker #0

  Sadie Lane.

• Speaker #1

  At Sadie Lane. Yeah. Your TikTok is amazing because it's really helping people from the Mormon faith, but anybody who's left of faith to transition. And I love this part that you have because I have this in me too. Like, I kind of feel like your brother where I'm like, I think everything is kind of true and whatever somebody believes could be true. Yeah. Like, why not? I don't know. I don't know enough about the world and the universe to know. It probably is.

• Speaker #0

  People have probably a chunk of something. Everybody's got something. Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  So, but there's a part of me and I like, don't believe God has a gender and all that stuff. But there's a part of me that's like, but what if God is a man? What if God's a big white man in the sky and he's going to strike you down? Cause you don't think God's a man, but he is a man. Like, what do you do about that part of your brain? You did a tick talk about this where that's saying like all the things that you've believed since you've left the church aren't really true. And that the church is actually going to like be right in the end. And you're wrong.

• Speaker #0

  First of all, Ariana Grande cleared this up for us. God is a woman.

• Speaker #1

  So true.

• Speaker #0

  Secondly, it's just a lot of late nights. Yeah. No, but there's like a feeling of those things come, they pop up. And I think they naturally pop up. And I can only speak for myself again. And it feels like it's a part of the grief process, which everyone goes through. Grief is no one escapes this life without it, honey. Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  And there's grief from unexpected.

• Speaker #0

  sources like i'm so happy we're finally starting to name that oh i think covid everyone was like so i'm grieving a lot of stuff yeah there's like is it can i grieve a vacation that never happened and we've kind of as a society been like yeah like yeah yeah i guess you can you can grieve anything yeah yeah anything that kind of like spiritually dies or like is taken away yeah i totally i love that you're naming it that though because it is so it's a long period of grief and And that feeling of like... Did I do something wrong? I think those things will always kind of pop up, but they pop up in different forms. And the more that I've kind of grown into myself, they don't pop up in the same way. It is very random. I will find myself being my worst Mormon self randomly.

• Speaker #1

  What does that mean, worst Mormon self?

• Speaker #0

  Like my worst Mormon self, because I would describe her, which is kind of what some of my TikToks are. It's like me talking to her. And she's... The language around worthiness in the church is super. There is a hard line, which very much separates it from Catholicism and a lot of other religions. In other religions, you do not get regular interviews for someone to actually hand you a card that says you're worthy or not. In Mormonism, you do. So you are regularly... discussing your worthiness of blessings and what feel like oh my gosh love right so that internalized feeling of like i am not worthy is extremely prevalent and that i would personify that as my worst mormon self is someone who just is like so preoccupied with their own worthiness that like everything else is kind of colored weird it's like your shadow yeah yeah and so a lot of actually did a lot of therapy on this in the plant journeys. Because it is really easy to look at and process what you could describe as like just any kind of negative self-talk. You can really like look at that stuff and you can over time swap it out. There are ways to kind of come back to a neutral of feeling like, oh, I actually do want the best for myself in a very chill way. Yeah. The way that you see a random child and you're like, hope you have a nice life. Like, you know, there's not anything really charged. about seeing somebody else in that light. And yet it's really hard, not just for Mormons, but for just people in general to kind of look at themselves and be like, well, I like them and I hope they do well.

• Speaker #1

  Do you feel it's easier when you acknowledge your quote unquote worst Mormon self or shadow self? Like if you acknowledge it, does it quiet down? Or if you ignore it, does it stay quieter?

• Speaker #0

  I always think it's worth acknowledging. I mean, separate from my worst Mormon self. We all have negative self-talk and I've heard different people say, name her or him or it, name the voice and have them be a person you can say, thank you for showing up, Marguerite, I do not need your opinion. So I do think acknowledging it is always helpful. It's just not dwelling in it. I think ignoring it actually can make it linger in a different way, which a lot of shadow work is about like, the more you resist it, the more it persists.

• Speaker #1

  And the bigger they get, that shadow grows large, honeybugs. Yeah,

• Speaker #0

  yeah.

• Speaker #1

  So now that you're counseling people, tell me what this looks like. What are some of the tactics you're using to help them, etc.?

• Speaker #0

  So a lot of what I use is along the lines of the program that I developed with my friend who's a therapist. And so I follow a general structure of a program, but it is very custom to the person. And. Usually what we work with are tools that everyone has access to. It's journaling, meditation, affirmations, things that we have been doing as Mormons reaffirming a different life that you can still use to reaffirm the life that's actually authentic to you. So affirmations are a thing I avoided like the plague. I judged the shit out of anyone who used that word. I was like, fuck off. So now it's really ironic that I am here going. These can change your life. Because it took me a while to realize the prayers that I was doing morning and night, these very crucial times, right? Because when you wake up and before you go to bed, your subconscious is kind of in this malleable state. Yeah. Those are the times that I was using this language about my worthiness and just doubling down on this repentance theme of like, I am not worthy. And that's what I got out of that. So affirmations, I realized, were just a tool to replace that. to kind of with feeling be like, oh, I actually, things are always working out and I can trust myself. That one affirmation is one that I pretty much start with and lead throughout when working with a client because the idea of self-trust evaporates when you have constantly been looking to another person to tell you how to live and why and where and what. Like, especially for women, knowing that your access to anything in the church is through a man. there is endless looking to a man or a person to go like, what's next? What do I need? What's good for me? So that feeling like I can trust myself is pretty much a thing I use universally with each client, even though it depends on what they're working on.

• Speaker #1

  How do you learn self-trust? Because I think that's something, that's one thing that's like a hallmark of this show now, because it started out as like, I want to teach people that they're creative. And then I'm like, I can't really do that if they don't love themselves and trust themselves. So now the whole show is about giving tools to develop those things. Yeah. Besides affirmations, what is a tool to start to know you can trust yourself?

• Speaker #0

  Tools that you can use to just trust yourself, honestly, you start with small things like anything else. So you can trust yourself when you make a promise to yourself and you fulfill it, which you can do daily and you can make it as small as drinking a glass of water. And those things actually do add up over time because it is in these ways that we go like, oh, I didn't do what I said I was going to do. I don't know who I am. It really quickly devolves into a spiral. But when you slowly start to just deliver on one or two things a day and put some intention behind it, then you can slowly go inch closer to the child inside of you that's a little bit scared. Right. You can look at it as a child. You can look. I have used the metaphor. I'm big into the metaphor life. I've used the metaphor of like an abused dog, which I think we used in the guided journal. But an abused animal. Animals live to love us. They want to be there. but an abused animal. takes a long time to warm up to. When we have betrayed ourselves, which the holistic psychologist on Instagram does a great job of talking about self-betrayal. But when you betray yourself by pretending to be somebody else or ignoring your own intuition or ignoring your own feelings or ignoring your own creativity, there's a part of you that becomes this like scared animal that's like, oh, I'm you. I can't trust you. You have let me down. You've forced me. You know, you've done this. You've betrayed me in so many ways. So that's that. reigniting of a relationship has to start slow. I don't think you just jump right into the driver's seat and go, I am now confident and full of self-trust.

• Speaker #1

  There's three things you have to know in life.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. I think you have to warm up to it. And you also have to practice listening to yourself. It's different for everybody, but that listening can be creative. What I work with people is meditation is the easiest way to like practice stuff like that. But

• Speaker #1

  And small attainable goals, it seems like also, you know, like a glass of water, like we can commit to that.

• Speaker #0

  Oh, totally. And when you do it, you have to acknowledge it. Yeah. It's really just about getting your feelings to match what you what you think. Right. Because we all think of a person we want to be. We want to like feel that person and get there. So it's slowly actually feeling that, which is why affirmations are involved in this is because it is a portion of the feeling of going like, oh, I. things are working out. I am supported. I can trust myself. Kind of rebuilding that feeling inside of you and in your body. And then with these little things of like when you get the glass of water going like, I told myself I would and I did. And I've used that language now a lot with clients and in my relationship. My boyfriend will be like, hey, what are your plans or what are you doing for this next hour? And I'll be like, I am writing this because I told myself I would. And it's like you start to get into this habit of like, I can't lie to her. Like she's listening. And I told her I would take time to do this. And so I have to. And he's kind of like, OK, cool. See ya. Yeah. But you can use in a bunch of different ways.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. That's so beautiful. I could talk to you for hours. You just like have so much wisdom to offer. So I guess I want to end it with this. If you could go back to that 12-year-old who had the first huh, or at least like a little murmur of a huh in her head, what would you say to her and why?

• Speaker #0

  Oh, it's so hard because I really don't have any regrets about my decisions. So I think a message I would give would be to keep relying on yourself.

• Speaker #1

  Trust yourself. You know.

• Speaker #0

  I think that would probably be it. Yeah. There is a message about trusting yourself. I think I was a little hesitant because I was like, I don't want her to make any different decisions. It all really did kind of work the way it was meant to work. And I learned so much and my relationships meant so much at the time.

• Speaker #1

  Right.

• Speaker #0

  So I would just, it would be something about staying close to yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Staying close to yourself, trusting yourself. There's a quote. The book Educated by Tara Westover, which really impacted me. It's about a woman, a Mormon woman who left the church. But that's the shortest synopsis I could give you. It's a wild story. Highly recommend. But one of her quotes is, you know, how much do we owe to where we came from to where we're going or like who we're meant to be. butchered that quote. But the idea is...

• Speaker #1

  It was a great cut of meat phone.

• Speaker #0

  What do we owe to basically where we came from to who we are and where we're going?

• Speaker #1

  It's true. It's like, it's hard. Like, yeah, there's things I would have done differently if I knew then what I know now, but I didn't know. I didn't. And I wasn't supposed to. And I think we also really have to forgive ourselves for what we didn't know or weren't ready to know.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. And I really would emphasize to everybody that just because you started someplace, that's not your permanent trajectory. You can honor a lot of your past and your present. Like whatever you want to evolve into doesn't have to be hindered because of where you came from. And I think there's a lot of depending on the culture you come from, you feel.

• Speaker #1

  duty to your elders or your ancestors or your family or your parents even a lot of people like my mom always wanted me to blank um but what do you you know one what is where are you actually going yeah who are you without doing an impression of somebody else or parroting what another person said like sadie said you know building the self-trust learning who you are trying things and i think you're a beautiful example of that and i'm so happy you're helping other people reclaim their spirituality because It is all of our, to use a word, God, God-given right to have some sort of spiritual connection if we want it.

• Speaker #0

  Listen, I will say we are made of the same stuff that this thing is made of, that that thing is made of, the planet. We are made of this crazy stuff. And we have to just acknowledge at least that. Like we are.

• Speaker #1

  We're magic.

• Speaker #0

  We are kind of, we're kind of cool. We're kind of magical. And I've never been one to. uh, for spirituality on anyone since leaving the church. Um, but I do think it's a good reminder that we, we all have love in us.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that. And thank you for being on the show. You're the best.

• Speaker #0

  Well, thank you.

• Speaker #1

  Thank you for listening. And thanks to my guest, Sadie. For more info on Sadie, follow her at Sadie lane on Instagram, and also check out her tick tock at underscore. Sadie Lane. If you're interested in faith transition coaching, you can check out her website, sadielane.kodia.com. You can also find her faith crisis guided journal titled My Authentic Faith on Amazon. Thanks so much to Unleashed producer, Emily Shulmanovich. You can follow her at We Can't Find Emily. Thank you to Liz Full for the show. See music, follow her at Liz Full. And again, thank you. If you like what you heard today, remember to rate, review, follow the show on Apple Podcasts and wherever you get your podcasts. Share the show with a friend and post about it on social media. Tag me at Lauren LaGrasso and at Unleash Your Inner Creative, and I will reshare to show my gratitude. Also tag Sadie at Sadie Lane so she can share too. My wish for you this week is you start building self-trust by making and fulfilling small promises to yourself every day. It's this trust that will be the foundation to guiding you through life, spirituality, and love. Knowing that no matter what the world throws at you, No matter what an institution or a person says, you can always come back to yourself and know yourself and know that you will take yourself through and survive and even thrive. I love you and I believe in you. Talk with you next week.