Making Peace with Mormonism

0:25 John Dehlin Hello everyone and welcome to episode one of a brand new podcast that we're all super excited about. The podcast is called the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis. My name is Dr. John Delin. I am currently accompanied next to me by my brilliant wife Margie.

0:46 Margi Dehlin Hi everyone.

0:48 John Dehlin And we are also joined remotely live from Wichita, Kansas with the amazing Natasha Helfer Parker, sex therapist, marriage and family therapist and all around amazing human being. Natasha. Thanks for joining us.

1:03 Natasha Helfer Thank you, that's awesome. Thanks. Hang out with you guys, get a self esteem boost. That's awesome.

1:10 John Dehlin Yeah. Some of you know I have a PhD in clinical and counseling psychology. I run a podcast called Mormon Stories Podcast and I've been doing faith crisis work for one to two decades, depending how you count. But my psychology PhD is focused on supporting people through a faith transition. Margie, tell us just quickly about yourself.

1:34 Margi Dehlin Sure. So I recently certified as a certified life coach through Life Purpose Institute and I specialize in matters pertaining to life transitions. So how it impacts things like identity or grief or relationships. So that's kind of where I love to sort of talk, plant ideas, talk with coaching clients. That's what I do.

2:04 John Dehlin It's good to have you, sweetie.

2:06 Margi Dehlin Thanks babe.

2:06 John Dehlin I love you. And Natasha, I introduced you but anything else you want to say about you?

2:11 Natasha Helfer Just I have a master's in marriage and family therapy. I've been working for over 20 years primarily with a Mormon clientele all over the spectrum of beliefs. So from traditional believers to post Mormons, love working with faith transitions, love working with issues of sexuality. There's a lot of interplay between those two for sure. And just excited to be here because this is kind of at the crux of all the work that I'm about.

2:38 John Dehlin All right, well, we are always. I'm so excited to kick this guys off, kick this off with you guys.

2:47 John Dehlin And let's go ahead and jump to just a little bit of a description

2:52 John Dehlin of kind of what our mission is. Margie came up with this mission, but I really like it. And basically the way we've narrowed it down is that our mission is to provide positive, practical and personal tips for navigating a Mormon faith crisis or transition. I like all that positive, practical and personal. And our tagline or our message is that a faith crisis is going to be painful, it's going to be difficult, but it can be a huge gift to your life.

3:27 John Dehlin It can be the best thing that ever happened to you, I believe.

3:29 John Dehlin And our goal is to help people through a podcast, a blog, eventually a book to guide people through that.

3:39 John Dehlin Process. And if we do 50 or 100 episodes of the podcast plus a book,

3:45 John Dehlin we really think that we're going to help people.

3:48 John Dehlin Anything you want to add, Margie?

3:50 Margi Dehlin No, you did a great job, Natasha.

3:53 Natasha Helfer I would just say that, you know, for many people, they're in a faith transition while in partnership with somebody who is not so like a mixed faith relationship or marriage. And that our belief is that it can be a gift for both people, even though, again, it may not feel like it to the person who isn't transitioning. And yet the opportunity of growth and vulnerability and intimacy is really there. And we're going to go into a lot of that. So I just want to make sure that that's heard by not just people who are in the middle of the transitions themselves, but those who love and support them.

4:28 Margi Dehlin That's so important.

4:29 John Dehlin I love it. Super good. Okay, so we're always going to start with some announcements, and there are just a couple things we want to make sure people are aware of. The first is that you can expect this podcast to come out weekly, once a week. Usually it will be all three of us. There may be times where one of us or both of us aren't able to make it, but our goal is for all three of us to always record an episode every week. So look for that. We're always going to try and livestream it on Facebook. We, we really want to live stream it on Facebook because we like the interactive element. We like people being able to chime in, add experiences, add questions, and we want it to be interactive, so we will live stream it. We want to let everybody know that in addition to a podcast, each of us, we do have private practices as coaches. So my website's johndelin,

5:33 Margi Dehlin Margie's is beautyinthenow.org

5:37 John Dehlin beautyinthenow.org and Natasha, what is your personal coaching page?

5:43 Natasha Helfer Natashaparker.org is where you can find everything I do and I'm involved with.

5:49 John Dehlin And we want to make sure people know that in addition to our podcast, we are available to support people in their marriages and their faith crisis. You know, as it relates to a faith crisis. We're not talking about a therapeutic context when we talk about the coaching that we do. Even though I have a PhD in psychology, Natasha is a licensed therapist, etcetera, in this context, we're talking about coaching. We want to develop a community, so we want to find a way to help you guys support each other. And we'll be talking about that in the weeks and months ahead. But that's Our goal, we do plan on doing faith crisis workshops and retreats in the coming year, in 2019. So look for us to be advertising that and talking more about that. Our website is mormonfaithcrisis.org, and if you went to mormonfaithcrisis.com events, that's where you'll be able to see our events page. So stay tuned about events. And then ultimately we may develop some web courses that we share with you guys. So look for us to talk about that in the weeks and months ahead. Those will be deep dives into really, really important issues like marriage and sexuality and navigating faith crisis. There'll be more sort of premium content than what you'd get on a weekly blog or podcast. So we'll talk more about that. But then finally, we really want this to be. We really want your support and participation. We want you to email us with ideasormonfaithcrisismail.com we want you to make posts to our blog. We want you to make comments on our Facebook page. We really want this to be user or listener or viewer driven. So if you have topics you want us to cover, if you like or don't like certain elements, if you have ideas for what we can do to help you, we really want your. Your feedback. So that's all the announcements. Let's dive into the segment called what's Working. This segment is an idea of Margie's,

7:56 John Dehlin where each week we just begin by sharing something that's working in our lives that maybe you guys could benefit from as well.

8:04 John Dehlin And Margie, I'd like you to begin with your what's working Moment.

8:08 Margi Dehlin Okay. Well, so sometimes things that are working are large things, and sometimes it's in the little things. And today I'm sharing some seemingly small comforts, but they're making a difference to me lately. I think it's like 20 degrees outside currently. So for real, it's my heating pad.

8:32 John Dehlin Okay.

8:33 Margi Dehlin Warm. And I'm actually going to do this. My cozy socks. I mean, check that out. And I love this because I can write with this. I can record a podcast with this. It's like a little partner in life. A little cozy that comes along and treats me like a human.

8:55 John Dehlin Your cozy socks?

8:56 Margi Dehlin Yeah, my cozy socks make you feel good. And my heating pad. It's really. It's the small things right now for me.

9:03 John Dehlin They just provide you comfort.

9:04 Margi Dehlin Yeah, it's comfort. And it's, in a way, kind of showing up for myself. There are things that need to be done that I can't get away from and that I truly love and enjoy doing. But it also adds just a bit of presence. Like you can tell, like I'm a. I'm a sensing person. Like how things feel and smell. And so there you go. That's my what's working.

9:26 John Dehlin And Natasha's trying to hold back her laughter.

9:30 Margi Dehlin It's appreciation, right?

9:31 John Dehlin Natasha, why are you laughing?

9:33 Natasha Helfer I love Margie's ideas. I love these things that are so important and that people don't think of as I think they are big things, actually. To take care of the little self.

9:45 John Dehlin Care is a big thing. I love it. Natasha, what's working for you this week?

9:50 Natasha Helfer Okay, so what's working for me this week? And I love how this is turning into a show and tell.

9:55 Margi Dehlin Yeah, I'm sitting. Look at you.

9:58 John Dehlin Wait, show us again.

10:00 Natasha Helfer I love to knit. This is a little scarf I'm making. And I have. This is two. Two needs that this comes into. Because on every Monday night, I go to knitting club, which is really just one other friend and myself. It's just we can't find anybody else to knit with us. It's a very exclusive. But it takes care of a social need for me to connect with somebody outside of my family unit. And especially having gone through, you know, also faith stuff, I. You know, sometimes you feel like you lose some of your community that you're used to. So finding new friends or new opportunities or new things like that has been very helpful. And then just the knitting itself is very kind of just mind numbing therapy for me. And so that's very helpful. And it can be really easy to not take the time to prioritize some of that. Like, I could think of 500 other things I should be doing rather than knitting this scarf. And yet the time I do this helps me have more energy and gasoline for other things I need to be doing as well.

11:08 John Dehlin Love it.

11:10 Margi Dehlin Love that.

11:11 John Dehlin All right, Knitting my. What's working for this week is daddy child dates.

11:17 John Dehlin So.

11:17 John Dehlin So I have four late teenage or early adult children, and I have been listening to Margie and Shefali Seyberry, which is an author we'll talk about a lot when we talk about parenting. And they've made this point that emotional connection is the most important element of parenting. More important than rules of structure, of control, of punishment, all that stuff. It's all about emotional connection. And I tend to be really busy. So I told my kids, each of my four kids, you get one daddy child date a month where you can do whatever you want. We can go to a jazz game, we can go to a theater event, we can go skiing, we can go to a movie. We can just sit home, pop popcorn. We can go on a walk, we can go on a hike. I don't care what it is. And so every, every week, I'm having at least one daddy child date. I've gone snowboarding now with Anna, Winston and Clara. I go to movies with my kids.

12:15 Margi Dehlin You took Maya to a jazz game.

12:17 John Dehlin I took Maya, my daughter Maya, to a jazz game recently. Went on a big walk with Anna on a hike on Sunday, I think it was. And it's helping in my relationship with my kids. It's building a bond, it's making them want to confide in me. It's making us feel better about our relationship and it's helping me be a better parent and a better human because. Because I'm learning a lot from my kids. So that's my moment.

12:43 Margi Dehlin True.

12:44 John Dehlin Really quickly, shout out to Angela, who's joined us, Evan and Lacey. Lacey writes, omg, I need those socks.

12:53 John Dehlin So, Margie, she loves your socks. Thanks, Lacey. Evan writes yay for retreats. So Evan is excited that we're going to be doing our workshops and retreats. So thanks, Evan. We're excited about those as well. And we just shout out to everyone who's joining us on Facebook. Okay, so you know what we're going to do with each podcast episode is we're going to cover a topic and

13:14 John Dehlin that's going to let people just jump

13:16 John Dehlin to the topic that they care about. And I chose kind of an odd one because I could have chose mixed faith marriage or raising kids or whatever for a first topic, but I chose making peace with Mormonism.

13:29 John Dehlin And I think that that may not

13:31 John Dehlin be intuitive for a lot of people, especially if you're angry or frustrated in that phase of anger at the church or turmoil or distress. It probably makes no sense to advance this idea that it's important to make peace with Mormonism.

13:47 John Dehlin And we're going to, number one, make

13:49 John Dehlin the case for why it's important to

13:52 John Dehlin reflect on why we're grateful for our Mormon past and to make peace with it. We're going to talk about that and then we're going to talk about ways that we're grateful for our Mormon past. And that's going to be our first episode. Remember, our motto is positive, practical and personal tips and tools. And so we want to start with the positive. And again, that may be off putting for many people, but if you bear with us and trust us over the Next year or two, I think you'll see why that's wise and important.

14:24 Margi Dehlin Yeah. And just to insert the practical, I was just thinking a couple ways to sort of apply what we're doing today would be if you want to do it kind of on your own, you could do a writing exercise, right. Where you kind of go through the things you're grateful for or. So that's one option you have. And if you kind of wanted to, if you have someone that you trust or who is really kind of there for you, you could do it with a person. You actually could sit down with someone. It could be a spouse or a close friend. And. And you could actually have this kind of exercise in person with someone where you're both sharing and kind of talking about can be really, really helpful.

15:03 John Dehlin So we'll circle back to that at the end once we've kind of taken you through the process. But I really like that.

15:08 Margi Dehlin Okay.

15:09 John Dehlin Okay. So the first part of this, we're going to go in reverse now. We're going to explore the idea of why we believe that it's important to make peace with Mormonism and to even be grateful for it when people are either mad at it and. Or leaving it, potentially leaving it. At a minimum, we're going to be, you know, you're going to be changing your relationship with the church. Worst case, and a very common case, is to leave the church altogether. This podcast is for everyone, both people staying in the church and leaving it. It's for progressive and liberal Mormons as much as it is for post Mormons. But regardless, you know, we're going to make the argument that it's important to make peace with it. And so each of us has a few bullet points for why we think it's important to make peace with Mormonism whether or not you leave it. And so I'll give a few of my points, and then Natasha will have you give some, and then Margie will have you give some, and then we'll actually go through the gratitude exercise. Is that all right? Okay. So my belief of why it's important to make peace with Mormonism is the following. First and foremost, I believe that it's true and accurate that we have so much to be grateful for as Mormons. Now, I'm going to say that from a position of privilege, I know that I'm a white, heterosexual, educated, you know, cisgender, heterosexual, married, you know, middle class or upper middle class male. And so I know that I've got a ton of privilege. And that probably is going to contribute to why I feel so grateful for my Mormonism. But it's still true. So much is good from. So much good for me in my life has come from my associations with Mormonism that I think it's just accurate to say that and to state it and to own it. So what has Mormonism given me? It's given me. Well, I'll talk about that later. But number one, I believe so much good has come from it. Number two is I believe that it's a form of self acceptance and self love. One of the biggest problems I think we're going to face as we're transitioning as Mormons is moving from an external source of authority and comfort to an internal source of acceptance and love. Instead of loving and obeying our leaders, instead of seeing the church as the kingdom of God is the church. I believe what Jesus said, even though I don't even know that I identify as Christian. I believe the kingdom of God is within. I believe the power isn't out external anymore. The power is within. The beauty is within. And so for me, I want to love myself and I want to accept myself, but so much of who I am is Mormon or comes from Mormonism. So if I hate Mormonism and yet so much of myself comes from Mormonism or springs out of Mormonism, then I think that's a form of self hatred. And so I believe it's important to embrace all of me going forward, which includes my Mormon parts. Now, Natasha, does that part resonate with you?

18:32 Natasha Helfer Absolutely. I'm nodding.

18:34 John Dehlin Why? Tell us why. Because this is the concept I've heard you talk about.

18:41 Natasha Helfer I guess I'll talk about it more when you turn the timer to me, but I think that it's. I think a big part of healing from wounds is being able to look at not just the pain or the scar, but also the growth and the capabilities that come from those wounds. And so it's just, I mean, these concepts feel very Mormon to me. That's kind of what's interesting. And I'll even maybe talk a little bit about my perspectives on that. But it's kind of this even not to be triggering, but opposition in all things or we grow from new experiences and part of what we do come from is where we're going and we need to kind of make peace with both the positive and the negative, you know, so. Yeah, I totally agree.

19:35 John Dehlin Anything you want to add?

19:36 Margi Dehlin Yeah, just this idea. I feel like what you're really talking about is integration, right? This idea that we can have different components to our experiences and to ourselves, that we truly are our most empowered when we are integrated, when all of those things. And that can involve reframing. But integration is an important part of this process, for sure.

20:06 John Dehlin I love it. Okay. Another reason that I think everybody's going to resonate with is just the idea that gratitude is an essential component of mental health. And I would even argue of spirituality. And when we define spirituality, we don't mean necessarily a belief in an afterlife or in a supreme being, although you can still believe that. And some of us do and some of us don't. When I say spirituality, I mean mental health and a connection to something greater. And I think all of us would agree that, that the wisest Buddhism leaders, Brene Brown, Oprah, whoever it is that you revere now as a modern day prophet or wise person, they're all going to say gratitude is a core tool for mental health.

20:58 Natasha Helfer Well, it's backed by research.

21:02 John Dehlin There you go, pulling out research again. Natasha.

21:07 Margi Dehlin So true.

21:08 John Dehlin No, it is. And Margie, you're bigger on gratitude, right?

21:11 Margi Dehlin Mm. It's actually part of something we practice.

21:17 John Dehlin So gratitude is the next reason I believe that in a faith crisis, all these holes are going to develop. You're going to lose all these things, you're going to lose a bunch of

21:30 John Dehlin bad things, but you're also going to lose some good things.

21:35 John Dehlin And we'll talk about some of the things that we loved, but we could also talk about, we can do an

21:39 John Dehlin episode on all the things we lost. But going through the exercise of recognizing

21:45 John Dehlin what you loved about Mormonism helps you identify the things that you need to pay attention to and attend to as you're making a transition to something different. So in other words, if you loved community, now you're lonely and sad. Knowing that you loved community about Mormonism can help direct you to focus on building up a community for yourself. You know, once you're transitioning or if you are really grateful for the music of Mormonism and the hymns, and now you don't have that in your life because in your case, maybe you've left the church. It can help you go, whoa, I need music in my life. What are some ways I can get that music in my life? So identifying what you loved helps you, helps point you in the direction of what you need to build into your new life. Does that make sense?

22:33 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

22:34 John Dehlin Any comments on that? Okay, and then the final one I have is I met Margie.

22:42 Margi Dehlin I mean, right? I mean, I hear that. I hear that.

22:48 Natasha Helfer That's a good one.

22:51 John Dehlin Yeah.

22:52 John Dehlin Okay, so those are some of the reasons why I think it's important to make peace with your past and to

22:58 John Dehlin make peace with Mormonism. Even if you hate it, even if you're mad at it, I still think it's important to make peace with it.

23:04 John Dehlin Now we have a. We have a quick comment from Allison, a family member who we love.

23:10 John Dehlin Shout out to Allison.

23:12 John Dehlin Hi, Allison. Allison writes before we transition fully. I made a list of everything that I wanted to look for in a different faith. Alison, you're a genius. You're brilliant. She did that without us even telling her to do it, which is what

23:28 Margi Dehlin we like because that's internal.

23:30 John Dehlin We love that. So, Alison, we love you. Thank you for sharing that. Any other viewers or listeners want to share tips and tricks or perspectives, we welcome it. So thank you, Allison, for sharing that. Okay, Natasha, what do you want to add to the conversation about why it's important to make peace with and be grateful for your Mormonism?

23:53 Natasha Helfer So my thoughts on this didn't really start with transition, Mormon transitions. My thoughts around this idea of gratitude really started working with families that were dealing with whatever type of traumatic family backgrounds, you know, so lots and lots of people come from less than ideal situations, you know, abusive situations, chronic issues that they dealt with in their childhood and therefore show up to therapy practice wounded, legitimately upset, you know, very, very sad and wondering how these things have impacted their whole life. And so, you know, it starts mirroring some of the things I started hearing. People and how they talked about the church as they're transitioning. It almost became like this abusive parent or entity that they were having all these difficult feelings towards. So my framing comes from that perspective and I really believe through my work with people and also the literature that's out there, that we can't really transition from entities successfully, whether they're our cultures, our families. On the what I call full. This is kind of a development, the life example. So can jump on you, Natasha.

25:22 John Dehlin Sorry, you were breaking up. Can you try that again?

25:25 Natasha Helfer Okay, Can I start with the life? Is that where you heard me? Okay, so we start off, no matter. We start off completely dependent. We're in our surrounding area. We have to, we have to look up to conform in order to like that's not three and five and years old. You have to do that, otherwise you're not going to be able to survive. So that's a correct thing for all of us to be doing. And then of course, as into pre adolescence start noticing some cracks. Maybe mom and dad aren't all that they say they are maybe we start disagreeing, especially when you start going into full adolescence. And these people and these entities and these authority figures don't seem as ideal as they once did. And so they're lacking and they disappoint us, and we find them hypocritical, and sometimes they actually cause harm. And so we become angry and rebellious, and again, our survival is at stake. So we break out on our own, right? We start breaking out and deciding how we're going to live our own lives. And that's very developmentally appropriate. And we, at that point of time, in our early 20s, oftentimes are highly confident that we know a better way. We have very idealistic kind of black and white thinking, and we're going to build our own new organizing structures. And then the next phase of life is recognizing the many ways we are also faltering and may don't have all the answers we thought we had. And so we have to come back to a more humble space, face our own failures, realize that we have our own unanswered questions. And even if we decide that we're better off than where we started, it's usually at this point the gratitude and the willingness to look at the complexity of our narrative that gets us to more intellectually mature positions. You know, emotionally. Intellectually, emotionally mature positions, so that we are not necessarily stuck in this very black and white world.

27:41 John Dehlin And we. I think we've lost Natasha for a second, but I. Yeah, she says not stuck in a black and white world. So it sounds like what Natasha is

27:50 John Dehlin saying is that it's developmentally healthy to

27:55 John Dehlin go through these stages of disillusionment and anger and bitterness and frustration. But it ends up in maturity where you kind of realize that all institutions are imperfect, all people are imperfect. Everyone's going to disappoint you. And it's sort of nuanced.

28:14 Margi Dehlin Thank you.

28:15 John Dehlin Nuanced, mature, healthy development. I see your back, Natasha. You cut out.

28:20 Natasha Helfer I'm so sorry. The Internet is really acting up today.

28:25 John Dehlin It's okay. We'll call your Cox cable and we'll get them to move your router upstairs.

28:32 Natasha Helfer Yes.

28:33 Margi Dehlin Look at him.

28:35 Natasha Helfer We will do that. Yeah. So just to finish my point, though, people who do best, even when they come from abusive backgrounds, are people that can either feel gratitude for the imperfect parts of their backgrounds that led them to understand themselves or have experiences they wouldn't have otherwise had, or actually develop empathy and gratitude for imperfect people who helped raise them and more than likely did the best that they knew how to do, given their circumstances. So those are the people that tend to have more complex narratives, able to get past the anger phase, which is a very normal part of the grief phase. So you do want to be angry, because that can be very helpful. But you don't want to stay angry. Right?

29:21 John Dehlin That's right.

29:21 Natasha Helfer That's, I think, where gratitude can really make a difference.

29:24 John Dehlin I love it. Anger is a tool, not a destination.

29:28 Natasha Helfer Yeah, I love that.

29:29 John Dehlin Yeah, love it. All right, Margie, why do you think it's important to be grateful for and make peace with your Mormon past?

29:37 Margi Dehlin So one thing that I really think is unique to gratitude is it tends to be very present. So we're kind of in where we're looking at ourselves now and as opposed to. And part of this process can be grappling with the past quite a bit. And so that's something that's a strength. I see. So I look at gratitude sometimes. An analogy, because English lit, you know, can't leave me, is that it's much like a suitcase. And what you're doing is you're kind of going over. It can be beliefs, experiences, relationships. And what you're really doing is you're packing, you're deciding what you want to put in this suitcase for the journey ahead. And I love it because it is internal. It's very much a reflective experience for you. And it's also this shift away from where we've been with a focus more on where we wish to go. And I think that's important because, again, we are considering who we are presently as opposed to who we were in the past, what we care about, what we value. And then this shift as we make it, as we make this shift toward gratitude, I find it can really make the difference between feeling disempowered, empowered. Right. And I think that's something that's kind of crucial to this journey, is a feeling of empowerment. So. And I think this is especially important, too, because we'll be sifting through emotions that are difficult. Right. To process. I think there's pain there. There can be loss there. And as our. I find in my experiences, and I think it's quite common to the human experience, the things that are sad and painful, we tend to view as negative. We tend to view that which hurts us as a bad thing. Now, I know we know cognitively, of course, we can have painful experiences that are, in fact, really good for us. Right. We have insights, we grow. But gratitude is kind of this reminder, and I think that's true for me. You'll see in one of the Things that I'm grateful for actually was a wound. It was actually started as something that was a wound within or a loss within my experience of Mormonism that has now turned into something that I am deeply, deeply grateful for. And it is a value moving forward.

32:09 John Dehlin So I've created a lot of wounds that have given you opportunities for growth, haven't I? You're just all about growth.

32:18 John Dehlin Why is Maggie so awesome? Because she's married to me. I've caused so many wounds that she's grown phenomenally by being married to me.

32:27 Margi Dehlin Now you're being funny.

32:28 John Dehlin It's true.

32:31 Margi Dehlin Anyway, to kind of just build on that too. Just my last thought is gratitude isn't glib. It's not shallow and it's not forced. It is a deep and I feel like transformative, potentially transformative practice right when we exercise it. Because to go back to what you were saying, I included in mine. So this idea that we have all these components and we all these parts to ourselves that I think some of those shame parts or those things that maybe things we've experienced that we would disown, bringing them into the light and really integrating them is crucial. And we can do this within the realm, I feel like, of being grateful. And this may feel hard, I just want to put that out there. In the beginning, I think it's normal to feel like a reckoning and that anger and that pain and that loss. And I want to say that is fully like. I acknowledge that and it is okay if it is to be expected, right. That it's difficult. But just know that as you look at those different experiences and parts of yourself and you start to process those, you will grow in self awareness. You will become more aware of who you are and also have an acceptance that allows you to grow beyond that fear and loss and anger. And that is important because that's how you will begin to create a new life. Out of that a seed is born.

34:03 John Dehlin I love it. And you can. You can simultaneously feel anger, but you can also. And you can recognize all the problems and all the bad things that had happened to you. In other words, being grateful isn't mutually exclusive with also seeing the problems and even feeling feelings of anger.

34:24 Margi Dehlin That's right. You can do it at the same

34:25 John Dehlin time or at least have parallel processes. You can have a process of gratitude, but also a process of anger or of criticism or frustration. Those don't have to be mutually exclusive. We are capable of having multiple processes as humans and feeling different emotions or even conflicting emotions.

34:44 Margi Dehlin That's right.

34:45 John Dehlin Yeah. All Right.

34:47 John Dehlin So that's kind of each of our best case for why we feel like it's important to make peace with Mormonism and why we think it's healthy. A couple comments from our listeners. Angela writes, anger is exhausting. That's true, Angela. Anger can be exhausting and it's also unavoidable. And the more you try to suppress and avoid your anger, the more you limit your ability to process it and move beyond it. So it is exhausting, it is enraging, and it's a super important tool that this podcast is not seeking to minimize.

35:28 Margi Dehlin Right, True. And we're not suggesting you pitch a tent and live there either. We want, like, fluidity. Right. The idea is just kind of allowing things to flow and that leads you.

35:39 John Dehlin Rachel's asking an important question. Hey, Rachel. So, Angela, thanks for sharing, Rachel. Rachel's also sharing. She has a question. Natasha, I'm going to throw it to you. What is a healthy amount of time to stay angry? That's a great question from Rachel.

35:54 Natasha Helfer Yeah, that is a great question. And I wish I could say so. 2 days, 40 hours and 5 minutes. And put your timer on. Make sure you keep it to that.

36:05 Margi Dehlin Not a minute more.

36:07 Natasha Helfer Yeah, not a minute more. I think that anger is part of the grief cycle and the cycle is true. It's not linear. So it's not, you know, I wish again, it was a checkbox, like, oh, I'm done with my anger phase. You know, check it off. And coming from Mormonism, we like to check off things. So anger doesn't really work that way. It's more of a cyclical thing that you may have to revisit over time. I think from a diagnostic perspective, I put faith transitions more in a bereavement category. It's a grief work. And so anytime that you're dealing with symptoms that may last six months or longer, as far as like my therapist self diagnosing somebody with maybe something that would be expected to hopefully be somewhat resolved to get back to normal in your life within six months. If you're having problems, post that. You may want to, you know, seek out some more, like professional help to help you overcome things like that. So.

37:05 John Dehlin Yeah.

37:05 Natasha Helfer But again, it's not to say that after six months you're never going to be angry again. Right. And it can be triggered by certain, you know, like, oh, all of a sudden I was fine, but then a baptism came up and now I'm angry again. Or something happened in the news. Right. That reminded me of something that general conference accomplish. This happened Right, right, right. Things like that. So it's a feeling we'll probably revisit. I do have just a little trick that, for some people, can work. Instead of trying to push it aside, sometimes I do actually give a timer idea where it's like, you know what, for the next 15 minutes, I'm going to put on a timer, and I'm going to give myself permission to be, like, ragey angry in a way that's really helpful to me, whether I journal or whether I punch a pillow or whether I. Whatever. And then when the timer goes off, I'm gonna, you know, say, okay. It's almost like a ritual that you create for yourself. And it's like, okay, I gave myself the permission and the time to feel the anger and to maybe have a good cry or whatever I decided to do. And now I'm gonna do something else. I'm gonna go wash my face and start something anew.

38:14 John Dehlin Love it.

38:15 Margi Dehlin I love that idea. Yeah. I love the idea of providing some type of structure to hold it, to allow for it to kind of show up. I also think, too, something that's been helpful at times is to realize it's a secondary emotion. And something that helps sometimes is to ask yourself or to, you know, someone you love about the pain beneath it.

38:41 Natasha Helfer What.

38:42 Margi Dehlin What is going on beneath the anger. And sometimes that can help kind of loosen the process a little bit and get you tapped into the vulnerability or the. Those deeper things that are going on inside you that can help. I find, sometimes process or shift things in a different way, because anger does have an energy to it, and I think it helps sometimes to drop down a bit. Yeah.

39:06 John Dehlin And it's usually either fear or sadness that are under or that are under the anger. But we need to do a full episode on dealing with anger and grieving. So let's leave some. Let's leave some of that for that episode. But this is great stuff. Lee writes. I'm trying to let go of the idea of turning it off and feeling all emotions instead. That's great feedback. We need to feel our feelings. That was the message from inside out. When we try and suppress and oppress our feelings, it just leads to bad things. So thank you, Lee, and thanks to you guys. And also I should say thanks so much to Rachel asking the question about being angry. We will do an episode on dealing with anger and grieving. Is that cool?

39:53 Margi Dehlin Yep.

39:54 John Dehlin Natasha?

39:54 Natasha Helfer Yeah, absolutely.

39:56 John Dehlin Okay, so let's jump to going around. Let's practice it. And what I want to do, I want to ask listeners right now there's 38 people online watching. I want to ask you guys to type into the Facebook box, the little chat box, things you're grateful for with Mormonism. Grateful Things. We're going to do a global exercise in gratitude right now. If you're listening, after this has been recorded, I want you to go to the post for the podcast. So go to mormonfaithcrisis.com Episode 1. Whatever it is, find it and go into the comments and just share the things you're grateful for. And in that way, we can all do kind of a community experience where we're all sharing things we're grateful for and people five years from now can come back and see all the different things we all listed that we're grateful for, and it can help other people process their own gratitude. Does that make sense? And right now, during this live episode, we'll be sharing some of the items that people post as comments on Facebook. Is that okay?

41:04 Margi Dehlin Good idea.

41:05 John Dehlin All right, so we're going to begin. We're going to start. Natasha, Margie, and I and our listeners

41:09 John Dehlin are all going to share things we're grateful about about Mormonism.

41:12 John Dehlin And I'm going to begin. I'll do the first one. I am grateful for community. Many of you know that my parents died. Sorry, my parents didn't die. My parents got divorced. My parents are not dead yet. My parents got divorced when I was in middle school. And it was really hard on our family. It was not good. And I feel like the church rose up as almost a replacement parent in some ways for the times when my

41:52 John Dehlin parents weren't able to be parents.

41:54 John Dehlin I had leaders who cared about me, leaders who loved me. I had friends. I had fun activities to do. And we weren't this upper class, elite, healthy family. We were in many ways a broken, dysfunctional family where everybody was just struggling to survive individually. And so for me, I'm super grateful that throughout my life, Mormonism has served as this community that was always there. Even when we were living in Cache Valley or Seattle with children, we had friends and ward members that cared about our children, cared about us, who were willing to support and provide things for us. And there's just always been a community so that I didn't feel alone and isolated. And I truly value community. So that's going to be my first thing.

42:48 Margi Dehlin Brilliant.

42:49 John Dehlin All right, Margie, what's one thing for you?

42:52 Margi Dehlin So my first thing, and I kind of did it on this pretense of, like, Mormonism brought me. And I talked about this a bit in my Mormon transitions interview, but it literally brought me four additional siblings. So as part of my story, my parents, we lived in the D.C. area and it was my brother and I and they, my parents ended up joining the church, had four other children six years. Like so there's kind of that break in our family. So I mean literally I have Catherine, Elizabeth, Jonathan and Timothy. And to me they wouldn't exist if

43:35 John Dehlin your parents hadn't joined the church. Yeah, yeah.

43:38 Margi Dehlin And so those people in my life, I can't imagine my life without as well as I believe it gave that my family at that time a focus that was positive.

43:52 John Dehlin I love it and I'll piggyback on that. We can do me toos. I'm grateful I found you, Margie. And I said this earlier, I would not have, I've met you at byu. I would not have found Margie if it weren't for Mormonism. So that's true.

44:09 Natasha Helfer Yeah. And as I get started, I would just like to preface this by it's perfectly okay things that certain people are grateful for are not things that you're grateful for.

44:21 John Dehlin Right, that's right, that's right. That's right.

44:24 Natasha Helfer Yeah. This is a very personal exercises. There's no wrong or right things that happen. Like for example, when you brought up the community, I have like a mixed kind of relationship with that. On the one hand I never felt like I fit into my Mormon family, you know, my Mormon ward. And then on the other hand, as a military family growing up, it was a structure that was there for us. Right. So it's kind of like a yes and type of thing that I'm grateful for but then also was wounded by. So I just want to just place it that it's perfectly okay to say oh, I'm so glad you're grateful for that and that that was your experience, that was not mine. And my list is going to look very different than that.

45:03 John Dehlin Absolutely.

45:07 John Dehlin What's the first item on your list? Natasha?

45:09 Natasha Helfer So mine, it's so funny that when you ask me this question, mine are very kind of perspective and even doctrinal things. So everybody's just going to have to bear with my weird Mormon self as far as what I'm grateful for that I feel like Mormonism offered me as far as perspectives in life. You have to remember that I come from convert families. From a convert family. My mother grew up Catholic with some very kind of rigid ideas around religion. And then I grew up in the military where I dealt mostly with evangelical Christians that again had very rigid ideas about Religion in ways that I didn't resonate with. So for me, the invitation to consider the feminine divine was amazing. It was amazing. And I recognize that we're not the only religion that has a feminine divine by any means. Even though I thought that for many years.

46:04 John Dehlin I mean, mother in heaven.

46:05 Natasha Helfer Mother in heaven, the idea that there's a feminine component to God, you know, and these are not necessarily things I necessarily carry literal belief on, like I believe in this white mother in heaven, like a white father in heaven. But just the concept of feminine divines, feminine spirituality, feminine ritual in conjunction with male spirituality and all of that, especially looking at historicity of religion in general, has been very empowering to me. And I carry that with me in more abstract and symbolic ways now. But it still carry much meaning and have been very empowering for me.

46:42 John Dehlin Love it. All right, thank you, Natasha. I love that idea, too. Okay, I'll go next and I'm going to piggyback. Ruth writes, never have gotten drunk. And so she's never drunk dialed anyone and has never had to throw up for being drunk.

47:02 John Dehlin And I think she's very real.

47:04 John Dehlin Maybe kind of kidding, but also kind of serious. But that, thank you, Ruth, for sharing. And that piggybacks on one of mine, which is a set of standards or morals. Now, I'll admit that my standards and morals are somewhat different now. I used to judge the world by the Mormon word of wisdom or the Mormon law of chastity, and I no longer judge the world that way. And I no longer have the exact same moral standards that I did when I was orthodox Mormon. Having said that, I am glad that as a youth and as a teenager and even as an adult, I had some standards that were given to me because I think standards matter, and I call them values now. And I look at them very differently. But I think I'm glad I never got addicted to alcohol or drugs. I'm glad that I never contracted an STI personally or that I never had an unwanted pregnancy. I'm glad that I learned to serve others and try and be honest in all my dealings. I'm just saying there are all sorts of problems with the way Mormons do morality, but I'm still glad that I inherited a set of standards and values to guide my life until I could upgrade to a better set.

48:22 Margi Dehlin Yep.

48:24 John Dehlin So that's. That's my next one. And thanks to Ruth for sharing that idea. Okay, Margie, what's next?

48:32 Margi Dehlin So for me, Mormonism brought me to byu. So at the time in high school, I was thinking about a few different universities and had gone on some trips for running, recruiting trips. And there, without a doubt, I would not have gone to BYU without Mormonism. And if I had not gone to byu, I would not have met you for sure. So right back at you. Alright, Number two is Mormonism brought me to byu. I ran for byu. I got to meet you.

49:06 John Dehlin Oh, thank you, sweetie. Hey, I just noticed Mindy Gledhill has joined us and I can't help but

49:13 John Dehlin make a shout out to Mindy. Tell everybody that Mindy's got a fantastic

49:17 John Dehlin new album coming out called Rabbit Hole

49:21 John Dehlin I Believe, or at least that's the first single.

49:24 John Dehlin And everybody should check out Mindy Gledhill's

49:27 John Dehlin website and the song Rabbit Hole and support her on her release of her new album and her new song.

49:33 John Dehlin So I hope Mindy heard that but

49:35 John Dehlin had to make that shout out. Thanks for joining us, Mindy. We love you. Mindygledhill.com okay, Natasha, what's next for you?

49:42 Natasha Helfer All right, so again, in a world where I grew up with Eve being a representation of womankind and primarily being seen as this awful creature who, you know, was the down, the down world spiral of all mankind, Mormonism invited me to consider her as an independent agent who used the concept of personal revelation in order to leap beyond what I think is the founding principle of obedience. You know, like that's what the three year olds do, is obey. But when you're 15, you're supposed to do something different. So it went from protection through another in order to seek the more complex principle of knowledge which is experienced through yourself. And that has resulted in great comfort that innocence is not a desired state. Now, I know culturally we suck at this, but I have found great profound value in seeing my possibility to have a relationship with the divine on my own, that I have the right to personal revelation, that when I seek knowledge and truth, that that is not contrary to the plan and that sin and all the things that I was made to feel so ashamed of and guilt ridden were actually part and meant to be part of my journey of an experience as a human being growing into some, you know, potential thing that will never stop growing again. I have no idea how literal any of these beliefs are for me, but they offer great, beautiful, symbolic, abstract meaning to me in my life.

51:22 John Dehlin I love it. Yeah, I love it. Add a couple comments. Ruth writes, I love the Mormon concept of Eve. Eve writes, she is a badass in my Mormon view. Yeah, it's true in other religious traditions. Eve, it was bad that she tempted Adam and she's considered that's kind of original sin. And that's actually a cool doctrinal innovation that Joseph Smith introduced, that it was actually an act of courage and of strength for Eve to partake of the tree of knowledge, the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And that's cool.

52:04 Natasha Helfer And it's so much about what transition work is about. Right. Because we're seeking and we're questioning, we're wanting to know things. And it's just for me, it's beautiful that that's a path of goodness and meant to be path.

52:19 John Dehlin Sherry writes, Mindy Gledhill's music is awesome.

52:21 John Dehlin So Sherry's agreeing that Mindy Gledhill is awesome.

52:24 John Dehlin I think we all agree with that. Angela says, I agree with community. I loved having the friends I had

52:31 John Dehlin in primary and young women's also. I think I'm much more open minded now than I would have been without

52:36 John Dehlin having grown up in the church in

52:38 John Dehlin such a closed minded theology. So she's learned to be more open minded sometimes by the closed mindedness of the church. And that's fine. That's a great thing. Ruth also loves the idea of a heavenly mother.

52:50 John Dehlin And Allison writes, I am grateful for

52:54 John Dehlin the community, the introduction and basis for me to find a religion that is best for my family. Also the young women's values she grew up with and introducing her to her husband Arthur, who we also love and know very well.

53:07 John Dehlin Thank you for that, Alison. Okay, who's next? Am I next?

53:13 Natasha Helfer Yeah.

53:13 Margi Dehlin Yes.

53:14 John Dehlin All right. I'm gonna say identity. You know, that's tricky because I think not only do I no longer identify as necessarily an orthodox Mormon, but Russell M. Nelson recently has said that the Mormonite Satan rejoices when Mormons refer to each other as Mormons. So I know the term of the Mormon identity is complicated in 2018, but as a youth, well, number one, as a psychologist, as a mental health professional, I believe identity is a crucial component to health and well being. And even though my identity has changed, having some identity growing up, and I grew up as a Mormon kid in Texas where everybody else was evangelical or, you know, Christian or a lot of people were, I felt a sense of strength and fortitude by having an identity. Something that I was proud of, where I knew who I am, I knew what I stood for and I knew what I wanted to be. So identity was important.

54:16 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

54:17 John Dehlin And I'm glad I had it. Any thoughts there?

54:22 Margi Dehlin Support for you? All right, we can validate that.

54:25 John Dehlin Thank you. I sense you never really fully grabbed the Mormon Identity. Is that true, Margie?

54:33 Margi Dehlin I think that's difficult to parse apart. I would probably say I took parts of the identity that I valued.

54:43 John Dehlin Right, but you never fully submitted to the identity.

54:48 Margi Dehlin Probably not.

54:48 John Dehlin Yeah. How about you, Natasha?

54:51 Natasha Helfer I felt like the adopted child. I wanted the identity desperately and yet never felt quite accepted. So I wanted to be Mormon and everything that came along with that, but always second guessed myself because I didn't have the typical Mormon upbringing.

55:10 John Dehlin Yeah, well, that goes back to the idea that we all don't have to be grateful for the same things, Right?

55:15 Natasha Helfer Yeah.

55:18 John Dehlin Letty writes identity Mormonism taught me that I will one day blossom as a rose and that one day I will be white and beautiful. Because she's a Lamanite. Oh, my gosh. So Leti is sharing that identity for her was a complex thing. As somebody who is a person of color and as a Native American or a Hispanic person, whatever your identity is or your nationality or ethnicity, Leti is talking about some of the darker things around Mormonism, and we validate and honor that. Leti, thank you for sharing. Okay, Margie, what's next?

55:56 Margi Dehlin So for this gratitude, you know, kind of process, I'm looking at my life now, and one thing I have in my life now that I really, really treasure, that goes back to my decision to attend to BYU is I still have a friend that I made my freshman year at byu, and that is something for me right now. So we are good friends. We've known each other for 30 years now, gone through, you know, births, deaths, jobs, moves, faith transitions, and that's something that I deeply value. I deeply value the fact that my Mormonism brought me a relationship with someone that's that dear to me.

56:44 John Dehlin I love it.

56:47 John Dehlin She's great.

56:49 John Dehlin That's Kate, right? Yeah, yeah, Kate. Shout out to Kate.

56:52 Margi Dehlin Shout out to Kate.

56:53 John Dehlin Kate's awesome. All right, Natasha, you're next.

56:56 Natasha Helfer All right, my number three is again, coming from some of my Catholic family members and things of that nature. The invitation to consider the idea that there was something more than just heaven or hell with no ramifications, you know, nothing. You know, like these babies that didn't get baptized, and so therefore they were in hell because they died unbaptized. There was something very, very healing and wonderful to consider eternal progression outside of the typical heaven, hell paradigm. And it opened up these possibilities that are never ending, including, you know, even deity being able to progress. For me, it was very helpful to think of an afterlife, not sitting around on a cloud strumming a harp the rest of my life or eternity, it's like there's still room for growth. This is just one part of our eternal journey. This helped me adapt to physical evolution, ideas in biology and science, which I studied, to spiritual evolution. And again, even though I'm not literal in those beliefs, they cause a lot of just meaning and value to this idea of we can always be learning, always progressing, always shifting and changing. And I see that as a beautiful thing that Mormonism at least introduced to me. Again, I'm not saying that that's unique to Mormonism.

58:22 John Dehlin I love it. Very, very good. I'll piggyback on that. I am going to say Mormonism taught me a love for truth. My favorite hymn in Mormonism was, oh, say what is Truth? Tis the fairest gem that the riches of men can produce, and priceless the value of truth will be when the proud monarch's costliest diadem is counted, but not and refuse. In other words, I believed, you know, the values that I learned in Mormonism about truth and courage and integrity

59:00 John Dehlin were

59:01 John Dehlin what fueled me to learn more about it and to become an activist and to care about social justice and people of color and women and sexual minorities, LGBT people, etc. And those values of compassion and love and honor and integrity and honesty are very much at the core of who I am. And I have to admit, I learned those from the church. And so, yeah, my love for truth and social justice, I gotta give some credit to Mormonism for teaching me that beautiful.

59:34 Natasha Helfer Love it, Margie.

59:37 Margi Dehlin So my fourth kind of gratitude on my gratitude list would be born out of a wound of sorts, and that would be my current of empowerment. So this is an example of something that we can reckon with amidst transitioning. And one thing I reckoned with was this idea of how I had turned over, turned over certain decisions or parts of my life for someone else to kind of decide or tell me how to live. And I did reckon with that for a time, and now it has turned into something I'm really grateful for. I'm really grateful in this moment that I will never hand over the reins to my own life again. That's just something that is a very strong value of mine. Currently, I am the captain of my soul. I take responsibility for my own development and growth, and I happily do that. I am thrilled beyond all measure to do that in my own life. And when I need help, I seek people I trust, I go to sources I choose. And I'm just thrilled to death to, like, be on a journey of, with my own growth and experiences where I'm constantly reflecting and I think listening to my own voice, paying attention and trying, trying new things and seeing how it works and having it be less about perfection and more about this idea of testing out and seeing how things work for me and what I like and what feels, you know, like growth and evolution for me.

1:01:26 John Dehlin So I think that's so wise because no matter what tradition you're raised in, you can be raised Scientologist, Jehovah's Witness, Catholic, atheist, agnostic. You very well could learn to outsource your sense of moral authority to someone else. And so in that sense, Mormonism helped you learn to never do that again. And that's a universal lesson that we all need. It's so important. I think that is the lesson of the faith crisis. Never give away your power and your authority again to anyone. That the kingdom of God is within you.

1:02:06 John Dehlin I love it.

1:02:08 Natasha Helfer All right, Natasha, is it my turn or yours? Are we on number four? Okay. So my fourth idea that I came up with was this idea that we have in Mormonism that's very family centric. So that obviously brought a lot of importance to my family relationships and how I saw myself in all the different roles within my family. But it really, I think, tapped into my sense of social justice, because I think it was kind of the larger picture, right? So that you saw deity organized in a very similar way that you saw your own family structure. So that we are all children of God, right? That he. That God cares about all of us and whether we live, you know, in New Zealand or Kansas or Africa or Europe or whatever, like, we're all

1:03:08 Margi Dehlin very

1:03:08 Natasha Helfer much, from a very early age, tapped into this empathy I had for other peoples, other cultures, the pain and suffering that other people were going through. And so it really helped me tap into that. And then also kind of with your idea of authority. I do believe that the ultimate invitation in Mormonism is to become a peer of the divine. So it's not. It's not. I mean, that's kind of why a lot of people thought we were blasphemous back in the day. Right? And so it's kind of this idea of, again, with that eternal progression and an invitation to grow so that the family system, you know, like, I have a very different relationship with my mother now as an adult daughter than I did when I was 10 or 12. Right. And so to see myself progressing kind of in a bigger way spiritually, that was similar to a family structure was very interesting. Plus, it also helped me deal with great wounds within my family. I mean we had a very loving dysfunctional family where there were, you know, so there were, there was a lot of complication with people who were very righteous and yet very non righteous. Right. So people who were doing things that were wonderful for. So interplay and what that means.

1:04:28 John Dehlin Natasha, you're breaking up a bit. So we lost those last few words. Do you mind trying it again and

1:04:34 Natasha Helfer repeating them, you hear me?

1:04:36 John Dehlin Yeah, just those last few.

1:04:37 Natasha Helfer Okay. So just the idea that, you know, the personal small unit that looks like for you, implications for your face in a family of the world and then also what means just in a universal sense as well.

1:04:54 John Dehlin Love it. Let's check out with our listeners. Christopher writes, I too have a best

1:04:59 John Dehlin friend that was the first person I met at byu. We feel like brothers and have followed similar life paths, including leaving the church. And that's no small thing. Christopher, to find a best friend no

1:05:11 John Dehlin matter where you are, it's hard to find a best friend. And so I think it's great that he's acknowledging that and that's piggybacking you talking about Kate. Jamie writes, I appreciate exploring the spiritual side of life for discussions on the basic principles of bearing one another's burdens, being strengthened through trials. She loved testimony meetings. She loved discussions on the purpose and meaning of life and the value of character and integrity. So Jamie's got a big old list.

1:05:43 John Dehlin Thank you, Jamie. You deserve a silver gold star for all the cool things you mentioned. And that's true for everybody.

1:05:52 John Dehlin Angela writes, she forgot cookbooks. So Angela got a lot of cookbooks for Mormonism. Amelia writes, I always appreciated the community shared with Mormonism. Some aspects made life harder, but she was grateful that she had a group of friends and leaders that she felt like she belonged to. Teresa and Mindy really liked Margie, how you expressed what you expressed. So again, shout out to Teresa and Mindy, thanks for that. And KJC writes, I am thankful for the word of wisdom in the law of chastity. Having somewhat of an obsessive compulsive personality, I'm glad I was introduced to the church at an early age. I think I could have gotten into some difficult positions otherwise. I'm glad you're discussing this. As I'm in the midst of my faith transition, I have the tendency to only look at the things I'm angry about. Thank you, kjc. And that kind of shadows some of the things I was trying to say. Sherry writes, love the quote, I am the captain of my soul from Invictus. Thank you, Margie. For reminding me of that. All right, we're loving the comments. We're getting great comments from our listeners. All right, it's time for my fifth. My fifth point. My fifth and final point is Mormonism gave me a sense of meaning and purpose in my life. And I realized that in addition to owning your own power, which we just talked about, probably the most important advice I could ever give someone in a faith crisis is to find a new sense of mission and purpose. And even though now my purpose and mission isn't to spread Mormonism, to convert all my friends and family, you know, to arrive in the celestial kingdom with my eternal family and to obey whatever the church tells me to do, that's no longer my mission and purpose. But I did learn that it's important to have a sense of mission and purpose from. And I learned that from Mormonism. And so now I've converted that now my sense of mission and purpose is to promote healing and growth and to alleviate suffering in the world. And the particular way I'm doing that right now is through my work with transitioning Mormons who are in faith crisis. But it excites me every day. I wake up every day excited for my job. I have a job that I love. I get paid for a job that I love. And I have people telling me all the time I've been able to help. Help them positively. And that just. It makes me excited to live every day. And I feel like I'm the luckiest

1:08:23 John Dehlin person in the world.

1:08:23 John Dehlin And I think everybody deserves to feel like the luckiest person in the world. And I think you get that when you figure out your life's mission and your life's purpose and your life's passion, and you start living towards that. And so I'm just grateful for the Mormonism, for teaching me the importance of having a sense of mission and purpose.

1:08:43 Margi Dehlin Beautiful.

1:08:44 Natasha Helfer Love it.

1:08:46 John Dehlin Yeah.

1:08:46 John Dehlin All right, what's your last one, Margie?

1:08:48 Margi Dehlin So my last one is Mormonism brought me, and then I wrote here to this space with all of you, and that sounds sort of cheesy.

1:09:00 John Dehlin It's not cheesy. It's beautiful.

1:09:01 Margi Dehlin But I like this idea. But I do like this idea, right, that we have those experiences. Experiences that in the time when you're grappling or reckoning with them, it can feel like a weight, it can feel like a burden. And there is something to that transition or that shift where all of a sudden you realize it's a gift. It's become this gift. And now I have this connection to all of You. I have had this experience and things that, you know, I find oftentimes the things that have touched me or hurt me or inspired me are the things that I feel most connected to others about. And so it gives this wonderful space where we're connecting right now. And that has been a tremendous, tremendous gift to me in my life.

1:09:55 John Dehlin Beautiful. Love it. Thank you. Natasha, what's your last one?

1:10:01 John Dehlin Oh, go ahead.

1:10:02 Natasha Helfer Yeah, I just think that's very profound actually for us to be. To recognize that wherever we are is a big part of where we come from, even the hard parts. So I think that's really good. Alright, so my last one is a weird one, I guess because I, you know, if anybody's listened to my, I guess, interview with John on Mormon stories, I suffered greatly through sexual shaming, you know, in our church. And, and yet at some level, I guess the other side of that coin for me is that I do believe Mormonism was the first place where I was invited to consider sex positivity. Yeah. And there's, there's some significant ways that that happened first was with my relationship with my body, you know, this idea that in a world where I did not fit the typical, you know, like size that I was supposed to look or I wasn't, you know, whatever I thought I should be, you know, blonde, straight hair, tiny figure, I was none of those things growing up. So feeling a lot of body shame. Even in my adolescence years, Mormonism was one of the places where, you know, I had, I was able to learn that maybe my body was a gift and that it was acceptable and lovely and beautiful and something I could take care of, of and feel ownership about. So those kinds of ideas were very helpful for me. As I've, you know, reframed some of my sexual shame from Mormonism, I really do think that there's something very profound that you can find there that is much more than procreation. You know, we do have a lot of room in Mormonism for sexuality to be intensely spiritual, bonding experience. And not that every sexual experience has to be those things, but the potential for something kind of out of this world in our sexual sphere, I think was introduced to me through a Mormon perspective. And even the idea of being created in a way that I can find pleasure within my own body that I can't, I do not, I'm not dependent on another person. I know it's not what we teach and preach over the pulpit, but again, these things kind of came from these ideas of created a certain way where I can touch myself, placing Myself have the capacity for self pleasure that then I can actually share with another person of my choosing. So it's a mixed bag for me, but I feel like Mormonism complicated sexuality for me, shamed me, and also offered me some positive things that make my world today very meaningful as far as how I think about sexuality.

1:12:44 John Dehlin Love it. Yeah, love it. Love positive sexual messages. And I'm so glad Mormonism created you, Natasha, because you've helped us all have healthier relationships with sexuality. And I'm grateful that Mormonism helped create you.

1:13:01 Natasha Helfer Aw, I feel that way about you guys.

1:13:07 John Dehlin A couple more awesome comments from our listeners, dear friends. What's that?

1:13:13 Natasha Helfer No awesome relationships that we have with each other, with so many people, you know? Yes.

1:13:19 John Dehlin Okay. A couple other awesome comments from our listeners. We're so grateful for the. For the wonderful comments we've had so far. Amelia writes, I am honestly grateful to have had the opportunity to go through a faith crisis resulting in a paradigm shift. It has given me a very unique perspective that I would not have otherwise, as hard as it was. Amelia, that's brilliant. I remember one wise person once saying they had the blessing of being profoundly wrong about something and that you learn a lot from being profoundly wrong about something. And that can be a huge gift. It can teach you humility, it can teach you compassion. And I think that's a really cool. I got that from John Larson, who used to have a podcast called Mormon Expression, but that's a cool thing, so thanks, Amelia. KJC writes, yes, John, that's so true.

1:14:10 John Dehlin I felt such a sense of purpose in my life.

1:14:12 John Dehlin That has been a hard thing for me. Now that I no longer believe, I

1:14:16 John Dehlin have to direct my purpose myself.

1:14:18 John Dehlin Time to grow up, I guess.

1:14:19 John Dehlin Yes, kjc, time for all of us to grow up.

1:14:22 John Dehlin And thank you for writing in.

1:14:24 John Dehlin We really appreciate that comment and your vulnerability.

1:14:28 John Dehlin That's awesome. Andrea writes, recently, I've been finding a deeper meaning of peace and respect, showing that example to friends and family. So for her, she's learning more peace and respect. Andrea writes, rather than having a chip on my shoulder about church and showing them that we can be happy. Yes, that is very important. Leti also writes, roadshows taught me to sing and dance. She says, enjoy life. It's a carnival. And then Ruth is piggybacking what you said, Natasha. The healthy and unhealthy ways that the church teaches members about sexuality has been a really important thing of learning for hers. All right, well, we have completed the substance of this episode. One of the Gift of the Mormon faith crisis. Great job, Margie.

1:15:19 Margi Dehlin Nice job, John. Nice job, Natasha.

1:15:21 John Dehlin Good job, Natasha.

1:15:22 Natasha Helfer Good job.

1:15:23 Margi Dehlin Not that we need it because we're so internal.

1:15:29 Natasha Helfer We are pack animals to the core.

1:15:33 John Dehlin Just all reassuring each other, you're great, I'm great. Are you great?

1:15:36 Margi Dehlin That was a great idea.

1:15:37 John Dehlin Are you great? You're great.

1:15:39 John Dehlin Are we great? We want to.

1:15:45 John Dehlin Yeah. So I want to thank you, Margie, Natasha, for being on this episode. I'm really excited to do this with you. I want to thank all our listeners for tuning in and making wonderful comments and perspective.

1:15:58 Margi Dehlin We can end with the idea of how they can do this practice. Practice, too.

1:16:02 John Dehlin Yeah, yeah.

1:16:03 Margi Dehlin Which would be brilliant.

1:16:04 John Dehlin Oh, go ahead. So why don't you just.

1:16:06 Margi Dehlin Well, I said it in the beginning, but the idea that if you like the idea of this and if you love this kind of got you thinking, feel free, you could do a writing practice on your own and try and maybe jot down some things that you want to pack in your suitcase for, you know, from now on, or things that you're really grateful for, or if you have a person in your life that you want to. You think this conversation could be enriching and, you know, really a lovely thing to have. You can grab a person and have a conversation about the things that Mormonism has brought to you in your life. So just a couple ideas there. And remember, like, part of this conversation, what was so lovely about it was hearing all the differences. Right. The idea that. How unique people's perspectives are.

1:16:57 John Dehlin Yeah.

1:16:57 John Dehlin So you just introduced the.

1:16:59 John Dehlin We're going to add this segment to

1:17:01 John Dehlin all our future episodes. Every segment's going to end with homework, and this is homework that we want to challenge our listeners to do to get better.

1:17:09 John Dehlin Because you're not going to get better

1:17:11 John Dehlin just by listening to a podcast.

1:17:12 Margi Dehlin You must be a coach or something.

1:17:14 John Dehlin I know we're going to get better

1:17:16 John Dehlin by acting on the things that we learned today. And so you're suggesting for homework that

1:17:22 John Dehlin people blog or journal about things they're grateful for.

1:17:27 John Dehlin Is that right? Talk to someone if you want to about all the things. If you have a significant other, a parent, a sibling, a friend, pull someone

1:17:36 John Dehlin over to talk to about what you're grateful about. You can blog about it. And I would say go to mormonfaithcrisis.com go to this episode and share in the comments the things you're grateful for. And over time, that'll stand as a history and as a record for a bunch of people in our community that have shared what they're grateful for. So in whatever way you can and want to go through this week, a gratitude exercise. And if you want to share with us, email us@mormonfaithcrisismail.com and let us know whether that was positive for you and what positive things came out of that homework of gratitude. Good idea, Markie.

1:18:19 Natasha Helfer One way that I might recommend. So if you get a journal and you kind of start in the middle and on one side you put gratitude and on the other side you put wounds or whatever you think you can write kind of both types of things. Sometimes it's easier to come up with what we're angry about, sometimes not those. And sometimes people have a hard time tapping into their anger. So what I like to do with people is see if their lists are like way imbalanced. Like is one list, you know, super long and the other one is not as long as plus also as kind of like I did and things I was gratitude.

1:19:02 John Dehlin Absolutely. Yeah, those are great. And Natasha, you may be breaking up a little bit, so if I cut you off, it's just because you broke up for a second. But that's a great idea.

1:19:14 Margi Dehlin We love the idea and we love the visual on that. The idea of. And even looking at the wounds and seeing if from the wounds there are things that then become a value moving forward that you're grateful for the insight about. So great. Yeah.

1:19:31 John Dehlin So having a place in your journal for both positive things, gratitude and frustrations. I love it.

1:19:37 Natasha Helfer Do you want to talk about events coming up before we take off or.

1:19:43 John Dehlin Yeah, yeah, for sure. Go ahead. Natasha, is there an event coming up that our listeners should know about?

1:19:49 Natasha Helfer Well, there's two events that I think that they should know about. So December 28th, I will actually be in Salt Lake City area and we'll be doing a mixed faith evening, just 7 to 10pm so it'll be kind of a short workshop for those in mixed faith marriages. That's December 28th from 7 to 10pm and then coming in, Sandy.

1:20:14 John Dehlin Okay, so we'll have to. A mixed faith thing. We'll have to get. Get information about that on the website. Okay, what else?

1:20:27 Natasha Helfer Feb in.

1:20:30 John Dehlin Wait, you're breaking up. Natasha, can you start over?

1:20:34 Natasha Helfer Can you?

1:20:36 John Dehlin No, you're still breaking up.

1:20:38 Margi Dehlin I think she's referring to ours.

1:20:40 John Dehlin Yeah, but I don't have information about that retreat. Go ahead, try to get your text.

1:20:45 Natasha Helfer Can you hear me now?

1:20:46 John Dehlin Okay, try it. Try it again.

1:20:48 Natasha Helfer Feel like a commercial. Try it again.

1:20:51 John Dehlin Try it again.

1:20:52 Natasha Helfer All right, so February 15 through 17, we are doing an intensive retreat. So Margie and John and I have been doing retreat for years now where, you know, 40, 50 people show up and there's generalized information. But we've gotten requests, actually held a few my own practice where just a few couples want pensive work dealing with their issues with a faith transition. So this one that we're going to be doing in February are for couples that are in essence transitioning together in some way or form or another. We will be offering one that's similar in the fall for mixed faith couples, but this will be capped at six couples only. So it'll be a much more dive into these types of things and very personalized to your situation. So if you're interested in either one of those events, you can get more information on, I think on the webpage and also on our individual pages.

1:21:56 John Dehlin So we'll add these events to our events page at mormonfaithcrisis.com events and yeah, we would love to fill that intensive couples retreat with five or six couples who really want to spend a weekend doing intensive work with me, Margie, Natasha. That'll be super cool.

1:22:15 Natasha Helfer And that will be held in the Salt Lake City area as well. We don't have a venue yet, but it'll be in the Salt Lake City area.

1:22:22 John Dehlin Yeah.

1:22:22 John Dehlin And I'll just add that very soon we'll be announcing events. We'll probably visit Chicago. We'll probably visit another city in Colorado. We're going to be doing some things in Salt Lake. I want to have a mixed faith marriage retreat where it's just like 20 couples all in mixed faith marriages. We have. Oh, we want to go back to Europe and do a retreat in Europe. So there are lots of workshops and retreats that we're going to be announcing soon. We want to do something also in the Ogden Davis county area and we want to do something in South Jordan Harriman kind of area along with Utah county and Provo. So we have lots of cool workshops and retreats coming up. Look for us to be announcing those very soon.

1:23:12 Margi Dehlin Perfect.

1:23:13 John Dehlin Okay.

1:23:13 John Dehlin I want to end with some things listeners can do. So for those of you who stuck with us, we need your support. We can't do this just in isolation. We need your support to make this podcast continue. And so I'm just going to tell people ways they can support this podcast.

1:23:32 John Dehlin Is that.

1:23:32 John Dehlin Okay, the first is the like our Facebook page. So just go to the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis Facebook page and like it. The more likes we have, the more people are gonna know about it.

1:23:44 John Dehlin Why are you laughing?

1:23:44 John Dehlin No, okay.

1:23:46 Margi Dehlin I'm just enjoying.

1:23:47 John Dehlin Okay. The second thing you can do is donate financially to support this podcast. So if you go to mormonfaithcrisis.com that's it. Up in the top, right, there'll be a button where you can donate and you can pick $10 a month for a bronze level subscriber. I think it's $25 a month for a bra of silver, $50 a month for gold, and $100 a month for platinum. What we would love is have this audience of donors that just basically donate once a month to this podcast. We're giving the podcast away for free. We believe that the stuff we're sharing has value, but we think it'll be able to help more people if we give it away for free. But we need donors and supporters to make that possible. So please consider donating to mormonfaithcrisis.com if you want to see these episodes continue. This is not part of the Open Stories Foundation. This is a private thing that Margie, Natasha and I are doing. So I will just make that clear. But we really need your financial support to be able to pay for our time and our efforts. So please donate to the podcast. We would really appreciate that. Please share these episodes with your friends and family and loved ones. Share it on Facebook, share it on Instagram, share it on Twitter, share it in groups, on email, whatever you can. Please let people know about this podcast. Please comment on our page at mormonfaithcrisis.com we would really appreciate those comments. Please email us@mormonfaithcrisismail.com with any suggestions, feedback, criticisms, compliments, whatever you have. And then if you have needs in your personal life, your marriage, your individual life, please consider us as coaches again. You can reach out to natasha natashaparker.org you can reach out to margieautyinthenow.org and you can reach out to me@johndelin.com we make a living by our faith crisis coaching practices and we want to make sure you reach out to us if you need help. And those are all ways you can support this episode and this project. So without any further ado, thanks so much to our listeners. We want you to know that we've loved your participation. We look forward to doing this once a week. Tune in again next week. We hope it to be around noon or 12:30 every Tuesday morning, Utah time. Sometimes we'll get delayed or there'll be problems, but look for this live episode once a week on Tuesdays, and we hope to join you. Join we hope to see you guys again soon and to join with you again soon on our next episode of the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis.

1:26:43 Natasha Helfer Yes. Sounds good to me.

1:26:45 John Dehlin Thanks, Margie.

1:26:46 Margi Dehlin Thanks, everyone.

1:26:48 John Dehlin Love you, Natasha, you're awesome.

1:26:49 Natasha Helfer Love you guys.

1:26:50 Margi Dehlin Have a good day.

1:26:51 Natasha Helfer Bye.

1:26:52 John Dehlin Thanks. Thanks, listeners. Appreciate all the support. We'll see you guys soon.