Tips When First Navigating a Mormon Faith Crisis

0:19 John Dehlin Let's actually dive into today's first topic. Today's topic is going to be tips when first navigating a Mormon faith crisis. So this is for people who are brand new to the faith crisis. And let me just add one more thing. I know I'm talking a lot today, but it's just to kind of kick things off. We are naming this intentionally the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis because we want you to understand that even though a faith crisis can feel terrible, it can feel traumatic, it can feel awful, we're a couple decades down the road and we've helped a lot of people. And what we have found is that for so many people, what they end up feeling like if they kind of follow wise paths, seek good support, they end up feeling like this is one of the best gifts that has ever happened to them. And that's why we're calling it the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis. And we want you hopefully to feel that way about it. So that's why the title the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis. Now, normally we start our. We're going to start every episode by sharing our mission. Margie, will you read it one more time?

1:23 Margi Dehlin One more time?

1:23 John Dehlin Yeah.

1:24 Margi Dehlin Okay. We want to offer practical, positive, personal resources for Mormons in a faith crisis or transition.

1:31 John Dehlin So you call that the what, the three Ps? Three Ps. So it's very practical, personal, and positive. Positive, Positive. I can't forget positive. I have to remember positive more than anybody. Normally we're going to have announcements, but I just made a bunch of announcements. So we're going to pass that section for today. And we're going to start with a section called what's Working. And what's Working is just where Margie or I or Natasha each share something in their life that's working. Natasha, why don't you start what's working in your life as you're living a progressive or post Mormon kind of life, I guess for you it'd be a progressive Mormon life, right?

2:13 Natasha Helfer Yeah. So one of the things that I thought about when you asked me this question today, especially with not only Mormon issues, but political issues that are happening in the world, that are always happening in the world, it seems like my Facebook feed is always full of either something to do with Mormon news or something to do with world news. And as we know, news are normatively negative. Unfortunately, there's lots of positive things going out going along the way. But for some reason, we focus in the media a lot on negative things that catch our attention. I just Want to just say that what's working for me is knowing when and how to take a social media break. You know, when something, especially when something's really upsetting, is either just put down my phone and just say, you know what, I'm not going to really go on Facebook again until maybe this evening or tomorrow. And part of that as well is watching my comments. So sometimes I'll write out a comment in the moment of fury, and then I'll kind of copy and paste it and put it aside like I actually won't post it. And if I still want to post it three days later, then that's kind of a good. It's a good measuring stick for me.

3:27 John Dehlin I love it. All right, thank you, Natasha. Margie, what's working?

3:33 Margi Dehlin So I have been meditating for a few years, and I've noticed recently I got into a pattern of I normally do it in the morning when I wake up, and I noticed it really wasn't happening, and I was feeling kind of anxiety about trying to get it done then later in the day. So it was actually adding stress to my life as opposed to really. And that's fine for every once in a while, but I was really falling into a pattern. And so what I ended up doing was identifying what was really blocking me. And for some reason, it was getting out of bed. So I started just meditating. I literally wake up, grab my phone, and meditate in bed. And it allows me to now meditate every morning again. So what's working is I have let go of the expectation that I'm going to get out of bed, sit straight up and have this formal meditation session. Now I sit up in bed under the covers and have a meditation session right there. And for some reason, just making that shortcut has allowed it for me to be successful again at meditating every day.

4:41 John Dehlin And sometimes I cuddle up to you while you're meditating.

4:44 Margi Dehlin Sometimes you do.

4:46 John Dehlin All right, what's working for me right now is daddy child dates. So I was feeling like I was missing my kids because I was too busy. So I went to each of my kids, adult and teen kids, and I said, you get a daddy daughter date once a month. It's your job to plan it.

5:05 Natasha Helfer What?

5:05 Margi Dehlin Or daddy son.

5:06 John Dehlin Daddy son or daddy daughter date? Yes, I do have a son.

5:09 Guest You do?

5:11 Natasha Helfer It's good to remember our children.

5:14 John Dehlin And they get to plan it. They have to cut. They pick the time and date. They schedule it with me. They get to plan it. It can be a movie, it can be dinner, it can be a jazz game, whatever they want, they plan it and we go. And it's been really nice, it's been fun, it's been meaningful and it's. We'll talk a lot about connection over control throughout this podcast series about how, you know, maybe in our orthodox Mormon mindset, we thought of love and parenting as being control and consequence based and what, what we found. And we'll talk about this in its own episode. What we found through learning about Shefali Sabery is it's, it's more about connection with kids than trying to control them. And to have connection, you have to spend time with them and have fun with them and have joy with them. And so that's what I'm doing and it's working and I think my kids are enjoying it. So that's what's working.

6:08 Margi Dehlin Beautiful.

6:09 John Dehlin Does that count? Tim? Just. We're glad Tim commented. Tim, you're our first Facebook Live commenter. Thank you for commenting. You've asked do we feel that this information is something that we'll be able

6:25 Guest to share with our TBM true believing Mormon family and friends? Natasha, why don't you take that.

6:30 Natasha Helfer Yes, yes. That is a, that's a huge, huge part of, well, of my goals anyway. I think that so much of, I mean, you're kind of trying to support people in two different ways. One is individually just kind of with their own angst and their own issues. But secondly, everybody is attached to a bunch of other people and most of the time, especially if you're within a Mormon construct, you're attached to other Mormons. I mean, we're really good at that in the Mormon community, you know, is building community. So you're probably really attached to Mormon friends and wards and family members. And so a huge part of what we're wanting to offer is how do we support you not only in your own individual journey, but in your relational journey with so many other people. And I'll be talking a little bit about this in one of my points is why I actually think that the gift of the faith crisis could be something that maybe members might see as offensive and a good way to reframe that so that it's not.

7:32 John Dehlin I love it.

7:33 Natasha Helfer Yep.

7:33 Margi Dehlin Great.

7:34 John Dehlin Yeah. And I'll just say that that's what the P, the positive in the three P's is all about. This is not about bashing on the church. This is not about, you know, making people uncomfortable. This is about helping people cope, heal and grow with a reality that touches every single Mormon. There probably is no Mormon in the world that isn't touched by either a family member or a friend or themselves or a ward member in faith crisis, every word's hitting it. The church is mentioning it now more often than porn, which says a lot. The church is clearly concerned about people losing their faith because it's happening everywhere. And it's not just a Mormon thing. We know from the Pew foundation that people are leaving religions all over the developed world. The largest and fastest growing religious group are those who no longer affiliate with any religious tradition. So this is something that touches everyone and we want this podcast to be accessible to everyone. So we're going to keep it super positive. So cool. That's what's working. Thank you. Thanks for the question, Tim. And we have one of the next section that we'll always start with is community shout outs. And today we're going to shout out to our two Patreon, our first two Patreon donors. So again, we are only going to be able to do this if people step up and donate because this is going to be kind of community supported. And I just want to give a shout out to Kevin and Mormon Zodiac, who are first two donors. They went to patreon.com mormonfaithcrisis they signed up and every month there'll be a withdrawal and we'll deliver the content. So we promise to deliver the content and you guys help support it financially. We need at least 100, and we put as our goal, I think, 200 donors to be able to continue and pay for all the time and expenses necessary to make this podcast. So thank you, Kevin and Mormon Zodiac. And for those of you who are listening and those of you who like what we're doing, please sign up at our bronze, silver or gold membership levels. Or you can sign up at the dollar level if you just want to kind of follow what we do. But we really need your support. So thanks again to those community members. All right, so that is all of the introduction stuff. Now we are going to dig into the actual substantive content. And one thing that we didn't tell people are the types of topics that we plan to cover. We plan to cover everything again, from mixed faith marriages to healthy sexuality to creating boundaries, grief and loss, parenting, self care, communicating with believing, family and friends, how to deal with your ward, how to have positive mental health. We have hundreds and hundreds of topics that we can cover in this podcast each week and we want you to help us come up with the topics. So if you want a specific topic, if you're in an urgent need you need a topic, email us@mormonfaithcrisismail.com recommend a topic and if we like it and if we see a need for it, we'll slot it in and you can help us create the schedule, the content schedule. All right, so let us jump into. We're going to try and give 10 to 15 suggestions for navigating a faith crisis in one hour.

11:06 Margi Dehlin That's right. And it's kind of the beginning. Right. We're trying to kind of target it to the beginning of a faith transition. Things to consider is that right?

11:13 Guest This is for people that are just

11:15 John Dehlin beginning, they're right in it and they're

11:17 Guest like disoriented, scared, overwhelmed, trembling, overwhelmed, angry, frustrate and shock. And we're just going to give you some of our top tips and you can write these down and you can access it on our blog. Some top tips for first navigating the faith crisis. Yeah, Natasha, why don't you go first?

11:36 Natasha Helfer Okay. So the number one tip I came up with was just remembering how normal life transitions are. I think sometimes when we're going through something painful and difficult and especially within a Mormon construction where a transition wasn't really part of the expected plan, we forget that life is full of transitions and that it actually should be full of transitions and that even for people who are very believing and active members of the church, they also go through transitions. I mean, I remember every time, for example, I would go to the temple or I would, you know, attend a really well studied Sunday school lesson, I'd have an aha moment or something that kind of shifted. So, so transitions do not necessarily mean completely away from. And I think it's good to remember that people land all over the Mormon spectrum and that's a normal part of life, especially in the construct of developmental times in your life. So we always laugh that teenagers are kind of going through some weird developmental things and we all kind of have a lot of jokes about teenagers, but we forget that as adults we go through developmental phases and particularly every decade, particularly midlife and other types of times that things come up in your life. So just to kind of try to take a step back and say, okay, not only is this a normal thing that I'm experiencing, it's actually healthy and part of my normal development as an adult that I might be having new constructs, new thoughts, and therefore a new way of looking at my faith and my religion, of my upbringing.

13:20 John Dehlin I love it.

13:20 Margi Dehlin I so love that.

13:22 John Dehlin Yeah, I like to think of it as a maturation process and Everybody's going to go through it. A Catholic, a Buddhist, a Muslim, you know, an orthodox Jew, even an atheist or agnostic. A kid who's raised atheist or agnostic at some point in their life is going to have a crisis where they have to decide if they like how they were raised or if they want to follow a different path. And Mormonism certainly has atheists and agnostics joining Mormonism. And so this really is a human experience of sort of grappling with what you were handed by your parents, if you were raised by parents or whoever raised you, and then deciding what you want to be yours and how you want to live the rest of your life.

14:09 Margi Dehlin Yeah, and I love that you bring up that it extends beyond honestly religion or faith because they're coming for us anyway. Transitions really are. It happens naturally through loss. If you lose someone or empty nesting or they. It seems like it just. It abounds and it abounds and is there. It's present wherever. It's kind of part of being like a breathing human being, honestly, on a path. Wouldn't you agree?

14:38 John Dehlin Absolutely.

14:39 Margi Dehlin I feel like that's kind of what you were saying, Natasha, because we naturally get scared or think something's wrong, I think.

14:46 Natasha Helfer Yeah, well, and to that faith transitions, I think oftentimes partner with a different type of transition because you're trying to make meaning of life. And a lot of times, you know, we look at our religious beliefs or our spiritual beliefs to make meaning. And so that all of a sudden isn't working for some reason. Now we have space for different meaning making.

15:08 John Dehlin So, yeah, quick shout out to Polly and Angie that are both commenting on our live Facebook stream. We're really glad to have you guys joining us along with everyone else who's joined us. We've got about 30 people, so. Hey everybody, thanks for joining us on Facebook Live. Feel free to put your comments or experiences or lessons or questions on the Facebook livestream. All right, Margie, what's your first topic for us after Natasha saying this is normal?

15:35 Margi Dehlin Yeah, so something that came to me when I was looking back and remembering was just the amount of overwhelm that I was feeling. And so my tip comes as sort of a way to respond to that. Trying to calm that fight or flight reaction with an attention to self care.

15:56 John Dehlin So self care is the topic.

15:57 Margi Dehlin Self care is an awareness kind of around your emotional or mental state. Tune into it and just pay attention to things like sleep, those basic kind of things, and that will allow you to sort of be primed, if you will. For your days and for your. So eat regularly. Try to eat whole foods as well. Consider exercise that really feeds you in the moment and what I mean by that is like if you're feeling a lot of anxiety, really think about what exercise would feed that. Is it something slower like yoga or a walk or do you need sort of a burn off of a run or something more high intensity as well as. Another thing that came up was kind of how we can get into negative thought patterns or negative states which is completely like normal for the time. But one thing I really loved was reading a book. I loved some type of. Or setting a meditation for the day that I wanted for the day some way to slightly counter that so that I was feeling a sense of control if you will or intentional living amidst this time. And I was just going to ask really quickly Natasha and John, what are some healthy coping skills that you employ even today when you notice sort of stress getting really high? What are some examples for you? Just because I like the practical of things that you do. Yes. To kind of do that calm the fight or flight reactions for yourself. Natasha, how about you first?

17:32 Natasha Helfer Well, I really took up. Well I've always loved dancing, you know, when I was younger and so I took up Zumba about two years ago now. And it's interesting how many mental blocks you have to get through to go through that.

17:46 Guest Right.

17:47 Natasha Helfer I'm not skinny enough, I'm not young enough, my feet hurt. It's like I don't really have the time. So many things can get in the way of that. Is it even the right type of exercise? Right. Because I'm like I'm supposed to be having this type of exercise. I was like, you know what? It's just, it's the way I love to move and so who cares what I look like and who cares if it's the right type of exercise? It's good for me. It's better than sitting on the couch. Get my. I feel better every single time I do it. It's fun.

18:21 Margi Dehlin That's great. That actually infuses my second one because it seems like it would be pleasurable too. A lot of pleasure in that.

18:27 Natasha Helfer Yes, yes.

18:29 John Dehlin My self care. I think I want to say exercise. I do way better when I exercise. So I wake up in the morning, I go to the club sometimes and do 30 minutes of elliptical and lift some weights and then sometimes I go on walks with Margie and that's how we exercise. Sometimes we run in the canyon. But we have to remind everyone that regular exercise has been shown to be as or more effective than antidepressant medications for people with mild to moderate depression. And so it's super energizing. It gets your mind off things. It helps you be more creative. It helps you sleep better. So for me, exercise is an important form of self care.

19:15 Margi Dehlin Perfect. My last part of kind of the self care is just to adjust your life speed. Sometimes we don't think about that and our expectations for ourselves may stay the same, but this is really a different time. So really feel free to slow your life down a little bit. Shortcut meals, make them really basic. Simplify where you can, and above all, try to be gentle with yourself and those around you.

19:42 John Dehlin Yeah, it's almost. It's almost like, you know how, like when there's a death in the family and everyone brings you casseroles and you have to kind of just slow down and act like something serious has just happened? That's kind of what a faith crisis can be like. Is that fair to say?

19:57 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

19:58 John Dehlin And it requires that level of seriousness sometimes and care. I love it. All right, the first one I'm going to pick is find community. You are, initially, you're not going to feel comfortable maybe speaking to, if you're married, speaking to your spouse because you might be scared that they'll leave you. That's not always the case, but sometimes it's the case. Sometimes you may precede your spouse or partner if you're married, in belief, in questioning your belief. And so you won't want to talk to them at first. You may not want to. If you have kids, you may not want to talk to them. You may not feel comfortable talking to your parents or siblings. I think one of the most prevalent concerns with people in the faith crisis is they feel alone and they feel crazy. And sometimes they start going through the stages of grief, like anger and denial and bargaining, and they do it all alone. And you don't want to navigate this alone. So you want to find community. And there are lots of ways you can find community. We're creating a community. So if you want to join our Facebook community, we'd love to have you. But also, there are lots of online communities. There's the Mormon Stories podcast, Facebook community. If you're trying to make the church work, there's the Thoughtful faith Facebook community. That's a great community. There is a Thoughtful transitions community on Facebook, and there's also the Mormon spectrum page. You can go to mormonspectrum.org map and there are these pushpins in cities all over the world where People have formed these either Facebook groups or meetup groups where they're groups of questioning, transitioning or post Mormons. And these groups can be great places to find community because you're going to

21:52 Guest need a place to venture. You're going to need a place to get advice and feedback and suggestions and support. You're going to feel a loss with your community. You're going to feel out of step with your community at the church, possibly. So you're going to need community Reddit, the ex Mormon community on Reddit can

22:09 John Dehlin be a great community to go through your concerns.

22:13 Guest Natasha, are there any important communities that I'm missing?

22:18 Natasha Helfer Well, I think there's as I'm thinking of you talking to those going through the faith transition. I'm also thinking of those specifically the spouses. Right. Of somebody who's going through a faith transition and how again, that can be very isolating and lonely because even though you're still a quote unquote believer, a lot of your believing friends and family may have a lot of feelings or thoughts or ideas about how you should be reacting to all of this or you may not feel comfortable sharing what's going on in your marriage with your most trusted people. So there's mixed faith merit Mormon marriage communities as well on Facebook and those have been nothing but really wonderful to see how people interact on those.

23:00 John Dehlin How about you, Margie?

23:01 Margi Dehlin So important.

23:02 John Dehlin Any community tips?

23:03 Margi Dehlin Nope, I think we got it covered.

23:05 John Dehlin Also, don't forget there are non Mormon communities out there. You can join a Unitarian church, a Community of Christ Church. You can join a bike club or a hiking club or a cooking club with meetup with Facebook. There are all sorts of communities out there and you don't have to limit yourself just to Mormon communities.

23:28 Margi Dehlin You know, that's so important. I forgot amidst my process there was a time where I actually wanted space from things branded Mormon Ex, like any type of and my yoga class really kind of stepped up that way. And so sometimes going by interest and they can be really safe kind of, oh, neutral spaces if you will. And those were really helpful to me. So yeah.

23:55 John Dehlin All right, Natasha, what's your next tip?

24:00 Natasha Helfer Okay, so another tip that I think is a very common type of thinking error maybe is what I'll call it to fall into at the beginning of a faith shift is the grass is greener trap is what I call it. And so, you know, the kind of, you know, you're going through this shift and change and you're feeling all this pain, pain. And so it's very natural to your brain to go to. Well, what if I had never been born Mormon? What if I had never converted to the Mormon church? Right. What if my spouse wasn't going through this experience of the faith transition? What if only I had had some type of different upbringing, My life would be so much better. I'd be so much more open minded or I would have had such a better sex life or I would have, you know, had different experiences or I wouldn't have been as rigid or as guilt ridden or blah, you know, blahdy blahdy blahdy blah. And so I just, I just want to remind people that, you know, as a clinician, I work with all kinds of people. I work with Catholics, I work with evangelicals here in Wichita. I work with people who are not religious at all. And people have problems, everybody has problem. So I don't want to minimize the very unique aspects of a Mormon faith transition. I mean, there's definitely quirks about us in Mormonism that make it, I think specifically harder. And we'll talk a lot about that throughout this whole project. But at the same time, I think it's really important that indoctrination, you know, these are kind of words that I hear a lot of people using, depending on how you define that happens in every walk of life. Because you're going to be taught the ways and the meanings of life and the ways that people make sense of life in whatever culture or context you happen to be born in. And so at some point, and that's just part of adulthood, at some point you're going to have to either accept those things for yourself or challenge those things. And you might be doing a little bit of both. And it doesn't mean that everything would have been so much better if Mormonism hadn't ruined your life in some way or another.

26:12 John Dehlin I remember something you said to me, Natasha, you know, for all the Mormons that feel like their sex lives were screwed up, I remember you saying once, lots of non Mormons need help with sex too, that people who are raised secular have sexual problems, that people who were raised in other faith traditions and same with mental health. I guess it goes back to this point that this is a human developmental process. It's easy to sort of say whatever's going wrong in your life once you hit a faith crisis, it's the church's fault. And the truth is it's a human experience to have a lot of these problems. And it's easy to blame the church for just what are normal developmental human problems.

26:54 Natasha Helfer Yeah, yeah, yep.

26:56 John Dehlin Yeah. And I Like it how you say that sometimes? Don't you have clients that did the partying in college and they. Oh yeah, the crazy acting out. And they're coming to you for therapy too, right?

27:07 Natasha Helfer Oh, yeah. They're like, I wish somebody would have told me to make this more special. I wish somebody would have told me that maybe, you know, it wasn't worth having all these experiences, you know, or I feel like now these experiences kind of messed up something that I want to experience over here because again, the reality is that no matter what we do, we're going to have pain. And so then what's the next step is we want to blame, right? We want to blame on the pain. And so it's like, well, why am I feeling this pain? Well, if you grew up more men, it's because I was suppressed and I wasn't allowed to have these experiences. If you didn't grow up more men, it's like, well, it's because nobody taught me and I didn't have enough structure in my life and I did too many things, you know, So I just want to again, not minimize. It's good to have those ideas and thoughts and to validate some of that, but not to give it so much power that then your entire life trajectory is pictured in this one way that if just this one thing would have been different, I would have had something. When we really have no idea what you would have had. And that's really a misnomer and a misunderstanding.

28:16 Guest Love it.

28:17 Margi Dehlin I think so crucial.

28:21 John Dehlin All right, Margie, what's your next one?

28:23 Margi Dehlin So my next one is actually a layer to like beyond self care. And again, this is drawn from my experience and it's adding pleasure to your everyday. And I think this is an important part because in the process of transitioning, many times there is this feeling of overwhelm. Right. Which we want to sort of, on a basic level, do the self care, but oftentimes it can lead to a disconnectedness to yourself, to other people. Because we are feeling feelings of great sadness, oftentimes anger. And so this is a further way to kind of show up for yourself in a really positive, nurturing way. And so if you're drawn to anything, anything, I mean, during the day, that feels good, that feels soothing, that feels comforting, especially in this space and time. But I'll be doing it my whole lifetime, I gotta say. But consider adding it. And that can be a hot drink of some kind, it can be massages, it can be as simple as, like when you're watching a show, adding A hot pad to it or baths or escaping for a few hours in the afternoon and really providing yourself where you escape from time. It's this place where you get to be fully human and to receive something positive that just feels good. And I actually think this is a really key component that feels foreign to many of us because culturally we're not really supported. Oftentimes in our families, we're so driven, we're so accomplishment doing, achieving oriented. But this was something that really allowed me to feel alive again, to feel a sense of a space where it really felt good to be in my skin. And that was a welcome change amidst sort of that overwhelm of the time. So that's something I invite you to consider as well.

30:32 John Dehlin Love it. All right. Pleasure. Pleasure. Don't forget sex and pleasure.

30:36 Guest You forgot sex.

30:37 Margi Dehlin Well, right?

30:37 Natasha Helfer I mean, the fact that it's true.

30:38 Margi Dehlin I forgot that.

30:40 John Dehlin Natasha, do you agree?

30:41 Guest Sex.

30:41 Margi Dehlin Hey, I can ask you too. I can ask you too. And sex is a great intro for what John loves in adding

30:51 John Dehlin sex is good. I love sex with Margie.

30:55 Natasha Helfer So I don't recommend disclaimer.

30:59 John Dehlin I don't recommend sex with Margie. That's what I. That's my domain, everybody. But I recommend sex with your domain. However you'd like to have sex. Have sex.

31:11 Natasha Helfer I love it. You know. You know, the word pleasure is. I'm so glad you actually brought this word up, Margie, because the word pleasure is not something that's very used. In fact, at the last sex therapy conference that I went to, somebody got up and called us all out. Like a fellow colleague called us out all out and said the word pleasure doesn't show up once on our program. You know, all. I mean, There was like 500 different sessions and the word pleasure didn't show up once. And here we are all, you know, sex therapists. So the idea of pleasure as part of our lives, whether that's sexual or emotional or spiritual or whatever, is really, really important. So this is where I say to my animals, if they understand me, that this is their job. So it's like, I feed you when I want. I sit on the couch. And your job is to come give me pleasure. So come here, doggy, and come let me look on you. That's my pet therapy.

32:05 Margi Dehlin There you go.

32:06 John Dehlin I love it. Lots of people are making comments. Janine writes, I love this. Margie. Yes. Make. Make time for pleasure. Tammy. Hey, cousin Tammy. She writes, self love is a difficult thing to step out into when being

32:21 Guest taught that it's always about everyone else. Being first that self love is selfishness. And I agree Tammy. Self centered is actually something to reconsider because if we're self centered and we provide self care for ourselves, we have more to give others. Oprah likes to say you can't give what you don't have.

32:42 John Dehlin I hate the giving tree.

32:44 Guest This idea give so much that you become a stump and then you don't grow, you don't have any fruit to give anyone. You are just a dead stump. So thank you cousin Tammy for that. Mandy says love you too. We love you too Mandy. Rachel says she likes to craft for her either self care or sort of pleasure. And that's super nice.

33:08 John Dehlin Anyway, lots of good comments.

33:10 Guest Thanks to everyone who's tuning in. Please continue with those comments.

33:15 Natasha Helfer I want to shout out a comment as well. Thomas talked about being worried that his wife doesn't realize that she can visualize the value in community back when we were talking about that. And it makes it harder when I feel like I have to push to make the push for both of us to find a new community. And so sometimes it's just the education of knowing how important community is for our mental health. We are tribal creatures is what I often say. We're pack animals. So sometimes it can just be helpful to know that there's study, there's research that show that people who are in good communities live longer, deal less with mental health issues, just have healthier, happier lives. So maybe that's a little just informational piece to help motivate that.

34:02 Margi Dehlin Yeah, great.

34:03 John Dehlin Thanks Natasha. And yes, that's actually a great segue into my next point, Thomas, so thanks for that. Very quickly, Mindy, Mandy is asking that we address the topic of singles and sexuality on a future episode. We can't do that today, Mandy, but let's write that down. And Natasha, maybe we'll bring someone else on as well. But we would love to address that topic, Mandy. We know it's important in the post Mormon context. So thank you. And listeners, if any of you have topics you want us to cover in the future, post it here or just email us@mormonfaithcrisismail.com and we will include it. All right, my next topic is tell your partner as soon as you can. Now this is going to be tough because many of our listeners are single and I'm going to just apologize that whenever we talk about a partner or a spouse or significant other, I'm going to apologize to those of you who are single. It's not that we disrespect you it's not that we don't care about you. It's not that the show isn't for you. It is. But a majority of the adults that are going to come to us in a Mormon faith crisis are going to be married. And so we're going to have to be talking about marriage and significant other relationships. You know, as one part of what we do, we hope it doesn't dominate. But one huge mistake that I think people make is they basically say, okay, I'm in a believing orthodox Mormon marriage and my spouse is a believer, so I'm going to go through this faith crisis alone and not going to tell my spouse. And because I'm worried that it'll traumatize them or I'm worried that they'll leave me, or it might upset them, it might lead to divorce. So what they do is they start going through this alone, they suffer alone. Eventually they seek out for friends or community, and they start developing the habit of developing emotional intimacy with people other than their significant spouse. That can become a problem because it can lead to feelings of betrayal, emotional affairs, or even legitimate affairs.

36:14 Guest But also,

36:17 John Dehlin you know, it's often where they'll lose their faith but pretend like they're a believer, but then they'll slowly start drinking without their spouse knowing. They'll slowly maybe stop wearing their garments or stop paying tithing and their spouse doesn't know. Then fast forward six months or a year, two years later, when it does come out, because either the partner or the spouse finds out or they end up coming out. One of the hardest parts at that point is the feeling of betrayal that the believing partner or spouse feels. And that can be much worse and put you in a much worse position than if you had just told them early on, because then you're not only dealing with the shock and the betrayal for them of this change in the paradigm of their now coping with your faith crisis and potentially their own, you're also coping with them feeling like you betrayed them and they can't trust you. You also deprive yourself of potential support. You never know if your partner is going through these same problems, too. I've had partners go years where both were in a faith crisis, but both were scared to tell each other, so they unnecessarily suffered when they could have had each other as a support. But most importantly, emotional intimacy and vulnerability is what drives a healthy relationship. And you want to cultivate that as early as possible because it becomes one of the biggest gifts of a faith crisis. If you can learn to talk to each other, connect with each other, support each other emotionally. You'll actually have a better marriage and a better relationship at the end of the faith crisis potentially than you began. And yes, it's scary and yes, there's risk, I would just say, and you need to know yourself. Don't just take our word for it. You know your situation better than us. Feel free to consult a coach or a therapist, me or Natasha or Margie or others, if you want private support in knowing how to come out to your spouse. So don't just leap into it recklessly and carelessly because we said so. You use your own wisdom, but know that better earlier than later in the sense that you can waste a lot of time, incur a lot of pain and so a lot of distrust and miss out on a lot of an opportunity for growth by waiting too long to tell your partner. Now, Natasha, do you want to give any other responses? Because I know you, you're a marriage and family therapist and you support people in this type of stuff. Is there anything I missed that's really important? No.

38:55 Natasha Helfer The only thoughts I'm having as you're talking is that I think a lot of times the reason for keeping this from your spouse is because it's so distressing to you as an individual. And I think a lot of people legitimately think that it's something that they can work out. Like I'm having these doubts and these ideas and so rather than worry my spouse with those ideas or thoughts, I'll just go and research them and figure out the answers for myself so that I can not even ever have to bring this pain or this discomfort to my partner. Right. So I think a lot of times it kind of comes from this well intentioned space. But then what oftentimes happens is people do more research, do more questioning, then they're going further down this path and now the differences are even bigger and then it can become like, whoa, now I really don't know how to talk to you because I'm in a very different place than I was maybe just a few months ago. Oftentimes the believing spouse is telling, you know, tells me later when they finally make it into my office that I could tell something was wrong, you know, I could tell something was up. I asked questions, you know, I said, what's wrong, honey? Or things like that. And so there's oftentimes a sense that something isn't quite the same anyway. And that of course brings up anxiety for the believing spouse because they are not really understanding what's wrong. I think that one of the things that we. We'll talk often about when we talk about marital relationships, but not even just marriage. I mean, I think just in Mormonism in general, I think the culture of relationship is one of what I call protective intimacy. So in other words, and for us to be close, I need to protect you or you need to protect me. And this is very gender role than priesthood kind of messages and things like that. Especially if you're the woman, I want to be protected. If you're the man, you're the protector. This is not real intimacy, which is a lot of what we'll talk about is where it's really like where you just show up and you are not. So in other words, if you're protecting your spouse from your own ideas and beliefs, you can see how that might really get in the way of emotional intimacy. I think people come at this with good intentions, but it ends up kind of biting them in the butt, unfortunately, because they're not sharing where they're really at with one another.

41:15 Margi Dehlin Yeah. Such key insights. I can't wait to have a deeper discussion around this with you, Natasha, based on some of the things you brought up. Yeah.

41:24 John Dehlin Did you want to add anything?

41:27 Margi Dehlin Nope, I think I'm good.

41:28 John Dehlin Okay. The one thing I just want to say is think about you two as marriage partners being two ships sailing through the sea. And the minute you have a faith crisis, it's as if you're kind of now starting to move in a different direction. And what you don't want to do is go too far in different directions because you add a year or five years or 10 years, you may be too far apart to reconcile. Once you decide that you want to come out to your partner, you want to give each other the best shot at sailing your ships together versus growing apart. And that can happen, and it can wreck what otherwise could be a fixable, sustainable relationship if you get far, too far down that road.

42:15 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

42:15 Natasha Helfer And I also want to be clear that we're not saying that every marriage should stay together, but we are going to try to have the faith crisis not be the main reason why a marriage would fall apart. Right. So sometimes a faith crisis exacerbates 500 other marital issues that. That have been happening and makes it just kind of like the last straw, you know, but other what we're trying to avoid is that, you know, a fairly healthy relationship, fairly loving relationship, ends in divorce because of this one big particular issue that we want to help you avoid.

42:50 John Dehlin I like to say that a faith crisis doesn't ruin a marriage. It reveals a marriage. And if the marriage is healthy and solid and based on mutual love and respect, if you follow wise principles and get support, usually you can make it through it with a healthier and a better marriage. But if the marriage was never based on true friendship or true connection compatibilities, you know, you'll have to do a lot more work and it's going to be a lot tougher. But you can still do it. But not like I agree with you, Natasha, not all marriages should survive.

43:22 Margi Dehlin Yeah, and I would even say too along with reveals, it wakes up a marriage, if you will, where you have this sense of coming to and it becomes an opportunity then with what you choose to do with it in that moment. But it can also serve as kind of a waking up where you realize on some level, maybe in different areas, you've been asleep at the wheel.

43:48 John Dehlin Love it. Okay, this is great. So now, Natasha, it's back to you. What's your next point?

43:56 Natasha Helfer Okay, so I just try to always talk about faith transitions and crises in the sense of that they're not emergencies. You don't need to call the ambulance and you don't need to do anything rashly. You don't have to make any, like, super rash decisions. It may not feel that way because again, we call it a crisis for a reason. It is like deep, profound pain and discomfort that people are usually in. But at the same time, whether or not you continue to go to church or allow your children to go to church, or whether you kind of stay the course for a while while your spouse kind of has time to adapt, these are all things that can be done as long as you have support and kind of an understanding of what are some typical ways people handle these things. I just like to remind people, mental health, faith transition or crisis is not an emergency. You can take it slow and you want to really avoid rash, unilateral decisions. And a lot of times that's done in the name of authenticity, which is a whole nother point I'll make late, you know, not even on this podcast, on this episode. But you can be authentic in ways that take into account your spouse, your children, your family, your, your friends, your community. So slow down.

45:17 John Dehlin Yeah, slow down. Don't burn bridges. Don't burn the town down. Don't rush to write your exit letter and send it. Don't yage on Facebook and write this huge screed. Don't attack everybody. Just go slowly. Go calmly. Don't rush to resign your membership. Take it slowly. You're allowed to have. It took you years to get to the point of belief and commitment. You take a couple months or even a couple years if you need to, to. To take it slowly and not to burn everything down and burn all your bridges and destroy all your relationships and wreck your relationships, your marriage even, and unravel, take it slow.

46:03 Margi Dehlin So important. I love that too, because I think in you can feel a sense of a loss of control in this process. And I think sometimes people want to make a decision, any decision, as a way to sort of a grasping to say, well, here I'm going to do this. And it feels empowering for the moment, but you can regret it in the long term. And so what I love about this is be intentional and use that proactivity and that empowerment for the process itself versus sort of rushing to get to the end. A decision which you feel like in the moment is going to give you this sense of closure and empowerment and restore that loss of control. But it can come back to bite you.

46:50 John Dehlin I don't even say don't rush to rush into alcohol. It's like, oh, I didn't drink as a Mormon. Now I'm going to rush into heavily drinking or rush to experimenting with drugs or rushing to sexual experimentation. It's not that we're against responsible alcohol or even recreational, responsible drug use. I don't drink or use drugs. And that's going to be something that the believers are very sensitive about. And that's my point. Especially if you're in a family where people are still believers, you want to minimize traumatizing them and you want to take things slowly because believe it or not, there's actually some wisdom in Mormonism and so you don't need to rush to that stuff. Take it responsibly and slowly.

47:38 Natasha Helfer Yeah, I think it's really important. I mean, just, you know, makes me think of boundaries. It takes a minute to come up with good boundaries. Even the coming out process can be too hasty, too fast with too many people that maybe haven't garnered your trust yet, you know. So even though we're saying be open with a spouse, there are certain relationships where you want to maybe take it a little slower. You're not sure yet what the implications will be. So I think it's just good to kind of put on the brakes a little. Take some time to think through your options. Yep.

48:09 John Dehlin Love it.

48:10 Margi Dehlin All right, Margie, so my next one has to do with kind of a reframing and an invitation to consider differentiation. So oftentimes amidst transitioning we are. It's our. It may be one of our first experiences with this feeling of differentness from our partner. And when you look at us kind of culturally in our families as actually the wider culture as well, and particularly with our religious frame of reference, I feel like the idea of being the same is something that is reinforced and like it's really the vision, right? Is that like, well, we all believe the same and we want the same things, and we. And it gives us this false sense of control. And on some level, we view our partner in that way. Oh, we're the same. And so. But that's really limiting. And in the end, it's quite false at best. And so this is an opportunity, actually. You see your partner and yourself that maybe you've moved from black and white, where no, in fact, we are different to color. They become real. They become. And all of a sudden these differences, like they're pumping oxygen into a relationship. And we have this opportunity in that moment to realize we are different people. And we may have common values, but they may look different, we may live them differently in our day to day. But to really consider the idea that differentiation is in fact healthy. It allows us to build a life where we are considering our own values and everyone is working on honoring their own voices. And you move. The big thing is you move out of that conditional love path paradigm into an unconditional love paradigm, and you release control and you start truly connecting.

50:15 John Dehlin I just love this idea that differences don't need to be threatening. Differences can be assets. One might be aggressive, one might be calm, one may be extroverted, one may be introverted, one may be logical, another one may be more emotional, those are all important things to balance. And so instead of feeling like everybody's got to be the same, which makes people feel alienated and isolated and ultimately not a part of the family, a new family value can be differentiation, where differences are celebrated instead of feared. And it can actually strengthen your family

50:50 Guest and make people feel safe, safe, emotionally safe.

50:53 Margi Dehlin You're modeling emotional safety.

50:57 Natasha Helfer And this is at the crux, I think, of why I'm comfortable with the title the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis. Whether you're the trans or the believer. Because although it's very painful to be in either of those positions, and it doesn't even have to be in marriage, it can be in parenting relationships, it can be in a best friend relationship. But when you are forced to have to look at a relationship differently and choose that relationship in spite of your differences because you want to, there is an increased intimacy that you can't help but attain. And so I think a lot of times people even believing people, you know, when I ask them, well, do you wish that your partner or your child had never gone through this particular, you know, struggle or trial or whatever the language is that we use in Mormonism? And they'll be like, you know, no, I have learned so much about them that I would have not known otherwise. I've created a relationship with them that I wouldn't have had otherwise. And, you know, this is kind of a very Mormon concept, is that. And it's not just Mormon. I mean, most religions have some type of making meaning of life that even though we don't necessarily want our trials or we don't, you know, they're hard, we do end up learning from them. We do end up growing from them. And it's hard to imagine ourselves without having gone through some of the things we've gone through.

52:20 Guest Yep.

52:21 John Dehlin I love it. All right. Thanks, Margie. All right, my next one is. Kindness wins. Give the respect you seek. So here's the problem. When you go through a faith crisis, it's very common to feel cheated, to feel angry, to feel betrayed. Those are common feelings you feel. And you also can feel desperate, like you've discovered this stuff and now you want everybody to know. And you oftentimes will lose a bit of status, because if you were the righteous priesthood holder or you were the faithful wife and spouse, or even the noble youth, who was the zone leader, the ap, wherever you were in life, you were probably amongst the most faithful, and you probably had a lot of respect. Well, you're going to probably lose the respect of believers when you go through a faith crisis, at least for a time. And what all these elements make you do is they make you feel angry, desperate. And so what you want to do is you want to immediately start cramming what you know down people's throats, forcing your new discoveries. It's like, the church hurts gay people. The church is bad for women. The church is racist. The church is homophobic. It's a cult. It's terrible. Joseph Smith was a pedophile. And you start going crazy, being mean, being angry. You start insulting other family members. You tell believers you're dumb. You're like an ostrich with your head in the sand.

53:53 Margi Dehlin You're a fool.

53:54 John Dehlin You're betrayed. You're. You're brainwashed.

53:57 Margi Dehlin Not in that voice, however.

53:59 Natasha Helfer I think that we're laughing because, well, first of all, John's kind of funny. And second of All. I think we've done a lot of these things ourselves.

54:08 Margi Dehlin We can normalize that urge or desire totally.

54:13 Natasha Helfer Yes.

54:13 John Dehlin But what we forget is that we want people to be respectful of us, and yet we offer disrespect to others. And so if you want to be empathized with, if you want to be respected, if you want to be loved, if you wanted to be treated kind, you need to be kind and you need to show respect, and you need to give the respect that you seek. And so resist that impulse to be a missionary. Resist that. It's a very Mormon impulse, but resist it. Be kind. Kindness wins. And give the respect that you're seeking. Margie, do you want to add anything to that?

54:52 Margi Dehlin No, I think you did a fabulous job, Natasha.

54:55 Natasha Helfer I don't know how I would add to that. All right.

55:01 John Dehlin And I didn't even have coffee this morning.

55:04 Margi Dehlin You didn't?

55:06 John Dehlin All right, Natasha, what's next for you?

55:08 Natasha Helfer All right, let's see. My next point is the yes and approach. So, you know, I think that we tend to be a very black and white culture in general. In general, people tend to be black and white because we like certainty, because we like things making sense. Well, in Mormonism, this is kind of one of those quirks where we take that to another level. Like, we're really good at this. We're really, really good at the black and white approach. And so it's either this or it's that. And so, you know, either the church is completely true or it's completely false. For example, I've heard that in General Conference many times, and every time I hear that, I'm like, oh, that's a little bit of a problematic statement, because nothing is most anything isn't everything one way or the other. And so I think that it's important to have the yes and approach because it'll be highly beneficial. Beneficial to your own mental health and to your own relationships. Space at the table. This is kind of how I talk about it. It makes space at the table for different things. For example, I mean, just something that comes to mind. There's people that are like, you know, I've had a lot of spiritual experiences in Mormonism, but now, because I'm going through this faith transition, they can mean nothing to me. I've got to abandon them all, or I've got to find a totally, completely new construct. Because, you know, it couldn't have been possible for me to have spiritual experiences in Mormonism or the other way around. But you had spiritual experiences in Mormonism, so How can now say that it's not true? Right. Because it's. Again, this is either or. Instead of like, huh, maybe I did have spiritual experiences in Mormonism, and maybe right now my spirituality is constructed in a different way than it was 10 years ago. And maybe those things can sit at the table at the same time. It's the same thing. Like with relationships. Maybe I can love you and hurt you, which is actually the reality of all of our relationships, but we don't like to sit in that discomfort of the. Yes. And so I think it's just a much kinder approach. It's a much more realistic approach, and it's much more. It's very helpful in staying away from what I call so much of our Mormon DNA, which is that certainty. And just because you're leaving your beliefs doesn't mean that you're leaving your Mormon processing behind. Right? So people go from the church is the one and only true thing to the church is the one and only true disaster. Right. And I'm just saying, is there some space in between for the. Yes.

57:38 Margi Dehlin And love that. Love that.

57:42 John Dehlin And yeah, I love it. All right, Margie, what's your next one?

57:48 Margi Dehlin So the last one that I thought of was in this idea of kind of, oh, feeling insulated, feeling alone, and also having a workup of so many thoughts, feelings and emotions. And that is to find a person, a coach, a therapist that you can talk to, where you're able to drop a filter. So drop the filter of like, oh, this person feels this way. So I can only talk about. And the reason why I put this down is I think it is often so healthy and comforting to have some space where you're able to be fully authentic, where you can speak your feelings and know that you're safe and know that. And it allows for this kind of offloading principle. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but it's the idea that when you go through something that's quite challenging, or in this case, religious transition would be that it touches a lot of different areas in your life, or you get this buildup of thoughts and feelings and emotions that if you don't release, oftentimes you'll offload it in anger at your spouse, for example, about really arbitrary or smaller things. So I love it as an idea that you're actually intentional about who you're choosing and you're creating a space for you where amidst this process, you can talk freely, express yourself, receive support, be heard. So that's my suggestion, to find a friend who is either on this journey or. And I would talk really openly with that friend. Here's something that I'm going through. A friend or a coach or a therapist.

59:43 John Dehlin I just want to make sure you stated it. So a friend, a mentor, a coach or a therapist.

59:49 Margi Dehlin Yep. Another human being. And where you can create this space of sharing what you're going through, where you can drop the filter and really be your whole self for a span of time.

1:00:00 John Dehlin Now you are offering coaching services, is that right?

1:00:03 Margi Dehlin I am. And you are offering coaching services.

1:00:05 John Dehlin And Natasha's if someone wants to reach out to you, Margie, how do they

1:00:09 Guest reach out to you?

1:00:10 Natasha Helfer You.

1:00:10 Margi Dehlin So they can go to.

1:00:12 Guest What's your website? Beauty in the now.org beautyinthenow.org they can

1:00:17 Margi Dehlin also reach out to me because my information's on there. And then at my email margiedelinmail.com Natasha,

1:00:27 Guest if someone wants to seek you out as a therapist or coach, how do they contact you?

1:00:31 Natasha Helfer Go to Symmetry Souls s o l s.com or natashaparker.org either one.

1:00:39 John Dehlin Okay. And I can be reached at johndelin.com or drjohndelinmail.com is my email.

1:00:46 Natasha Helfer I really, I just want to say I really love what you're saying, Margie, as far as having a space where you don't have to be anything to anyone. And this is why I'm so, so, so adamant about professionals watching their own bias. I'm very, very concerned and do a lot of training professionally for therapists or coaches on both sides of the spectrum, whether they're LDS therapists or coaches or whether they're secular therapists or coaches where, because if you show up in a place where you want to do exactly what you're talking about, just unload. And my journey is not going to be put on some type of a measurement scale with this person where I feel like now I'm disappointing my therapist or my therapist doesn't quite understand what I'm going through or my, my coach is like somewhat pushing me to go a certain direction. I just want people to know that the minute you feel that in a professional setting lets you know that that's not a good space for you because you really want to be able to. And it can be tricky, especially for a mixed faith couple to find a coach or therapist where they both feel like their journeys are going to be validated and respected. But it's definitely possible and there's lots of great professionals out there that know how to do this well.

1:02:04 John Dehlin And I'm just going to add it can save your marriage. I know personally, I've had many, many mixed faith couple clients who told me, coming to me, save their marriage. And I'm just going to be honest and direct and frank about that. You can hear some of those stories on Mormon Stories podcast. Natasha, I imagine you've had many, many couples, even mixed faith couples, tell you you've saved theirs. True?

1:02:30 Natasha Helfer Yes, I have. And it's maybe a little, I mean, I want, I don't want to be unhumble, but I even had my bishop tell me that he knows of several people who have said that, you know, so I think, I mean, it's just, there's, it is, it's, I don't like to be like, oh, I'm here to, you know, save marriages. But we do, we do save marriages. Marital therapy works.

1:02:52 John Dehlin Margie, too. And then finally, I just want to say in this topic that, you know, I have a PhD in psychology, and even so, if somebody came to me with an eating disorder, I wouldn't treat them. I would refer them to an expert on eating disorders. If somebody was addicted to cocaine, I wouldn't treat them. I would refer them to a drug addiction specialist. If somebody had, you know, some other, you know, ptsd, if they had trauma, I would not try and treat them. I would refer them to a trauma specialist. It is the same with a faith crisis. You do not want a general coach or therapist coaching or giving you therapy for your Mormon faith crisis or for your mixed faith marriage. You want an expert. These are highly technical, highly sophisticated, highly difficult interventions because you need someone who understands what it's like to be an orthodox believer. You need someone who also understands what it's like to go through a faith crisis and have doubts. But you want someone who can validate the believer and make them feel safe and validate the non believer and help them feel safe and put the couple's values above their own. And regardless of whether the therapist is a believer or not a believer or somewhere in the middle, they're able to

1:04:20 Guest put their own biases and values aside

1:04:23 John Dehlin and give you and your partner or

1:04:26 Guest yourself or your family what they need to be most successful based on your

1:04:31 John Dehlin values, not the values of the therapist.

1:04:34 Guest It's highly experienced and technical. Somebody knows the language, the cultural references, the complexities of being an orthodox person. You don't want to give this to just some generalist. You certainly don't want to give it to a Mormon. And I hate to say this, but the LDS Family Services sort of type therapist usually just sides with the believer and recommends these tropes of like, pray, read your scriptures, go to church, and

1:05:02 John Dehlin everything will be okay.

1:05:04 Guest You do not want a therapist that deals with things that way. You also don't want a secular therapist who's never been Mormon who's like, get over your Mormonism. Mormonism, stupid. Just move on to a happy and healthy post Mormon life. I can't believe this is so hard for you.

1:05:19 John Dehlin You don't want any of that.

1:05:20 Guest You want someone that can be neutral, that can be focused on your values, not theirs, and that knows the ins and outs of both sides and can handle believers and non believers with equal validation and supporting care.

1:05:34 Natasha Helfer Rachel asks, what if you can't afford therapy? And I know that's a real reality for a lot of people. I think that obviously this is a big part of why we're creating something like this. This is much more affordable than therapy. And in fact, being a subscriber for our, for, you know, for this program will get you at least some group sessions with all three of us. So that's a more affordable way. Some people will have insurance that will cover different types of therapies. What you need to remember about that is that insurance requires a diagnosis. So you can't just go get insurance to cover faith transition therapy or marital therapy. The insurance would be covering depression or anxiety, which may be related to your faith transition. But you just need to understand that there is a diagnosis attached to that. And then there's many therapists. I know people, there's providers on my network that offers certain types of discounts. We do payment plans, things like that. And you might find people in your community or people that you want to go with that might offer things like that as well. I do want to just acknowledge that cost is a roadblock for a lot of people.

1:06:43 John Dehlin And, Natasha, I just want to add what you've already said, which is that's why we've created this podcast. So think about it. If you're just willing to pay $25 a month, go to patreon.com mormonfaithcrisis right now, sign up at the bronze level. For $25 a month, you get this podcast, you'll get six to eight hours a month of specialized feedback and support that's specialized for people in the Mormon faith crisis. If you could pay a little bit more, which is $50 a month, you will be able to join this Facebook group where you're going to get peers who can support you. And you'll get me, Natasha and Margie providing you with some direct support through the Facebook group. And if you can pay $100 a month, you will get access to these group therapy sessions, at least one or two a month and they will be invaluable to you. Or you can attend one of these workshops or retreats. Therapy or coaching on average is between 150 and 200 bucks an hour. And we're trying to provide a more cost affordable solution through this podcast. But please don't be a free rider. Please don't consume this for free. You can afford, most of you can afford 25 bucks a month or 50 bucks a month or 100 bucks a month. Especially when you think about how much tithing you used to pay or fast offerings. If you stop that, we will not only help you, we'll help others and we'll help future generations. So please support us.

1:08:11 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

1:08:11 Natasha Helfer And going back to that, if, even if you can't afford it, you know, there's, if you can afford it, you're helping others who can't, you know. So this is kind of like a support community in that regard.

1:08:22 John Dehlin Love it.

1:08:22 Margi Dehlin Great point.

1:08:23 John Dehlin Now, Natasha, how hard is your stop at 10:00'?

1:08:25 Natasha Helfer Clock? Okay, so I already, this is. So my clients are going to kill me, but I already emailed them and said I'm running 10 minutes late. Okay.

1:08:33 John Dehlin All right, we've got a couple more to go. We'll rush through it. My next one is make them feel safe. So if you are the non believer, if you're doubting, if you're struggling but you've got believing family and friends, the most important thing you want to do is make them feel safe. We're going to talk about this much more when we do the episode on communicating with believing family and friends. But what that means is you say something to the effect of I'm going through something hard. I'm not going to talk to you about the details. I'm never going to try and hurt your faith and I'm not going to rush into alcohol and drugs and sexual experimentation. I'm not going to burn my garments and throw them away right now. I'm not going to stop paying tithing and alienate everybody and resign my membership. I'm going to be calm, I'm going to be respectful, and I'm going to be respectful of your faith and belief. We'll talk in more details later about why that's important. But when they feel safe, they'll be able to be more supportive for you and they'll actually be more willing to understand and empathize and learn about what you've gone through when they don't feel triggered and threatened, like you're out to attack them and change their beliefs. But we're going to go way more into detail on this topic. But just trust me with your believing family and friends, make them feel safe at every turn and you're going to get way more benefits than if you're pushing, causing resistance, creating the backfire effect, making them feel scared and protective and alienated and attacked. You're going to turn them into animals that have been cornered, where they're going to get angry and fierce and protective and even retrenched and hold tighter to their positions versus feeling safe and curious and open because you've made them feel safe.

1:10:25 Margi Dehlin I love that point too, because in doing that, it actually allows you to feel safe because if you were to act out in that way, oftentimes, that is, they're reacting to you and you create this dynamic, then. So I love that. And it kind of ties back, I feel like, Natasha, to your mentioning of boundaries too. I feel like boundaries, we always think of sort of keeping people out, but it actually is a way to feel closeness and empathy for those in your life. And there may be family members, the minute they find out or know something's going on with you, they think they're ready. They think they want to ask you about it. They think that you. And so part of making people feel free, safe sometimes is knowing when to have that conversation and who is really ready for that conversation. And so safety can be having a conversation, but safety can also be, I love you too much to have this conversation right now. I value you too much right now. And I know that it would be deeply upsetting, you know, and that's a great thing at a family gathering, let's say, or in those other types of things. So boundaries come up for me a little bit in the safety, but I love it because by making other people feel safe, you also, you know, up your odds a bit that you're creating safety for yourself.

1:11:43 Guest Yeah.

1:11:44 John Dehlin You don't want them to perceive you as a threat in the ward, in your marriage, in your home, in your extended family. Don't have them make, don't make them feel like you're a threat. Make them feel like you're safe even if you're struggling. If you make them feel empathy for you and sympathy, you're going to be in a much stronger position than if you make them feel safe, fear and anger at you. So it's actually self preservation to make them Feel safe. I love that point. Natasha, do you want to add anything really quickly?

1:12:13 Natasha Helfer I would just add from the perspective of a believer who might be listening to this, that, you know, I think a lot of times when I speak to believers, they really want honesty. Honesty. If you want honesty, you need to be able to create a space of safety. So if you're like, I want you to be honest with me, and then I tell you I'm struggling with my faith, and. And then I'm going to have a fit on you, you're probably not going to get a lot of honesty. So it's really in either direction. I think this idea of, can I sit with my anxiety? Can I sit with my discomfort to the point that I can create a space of safety for this person to really open up.

1:12:49 Margi Dehlin I love that.

1:12:51 Natasha Helfer To have them open up to me on.

1:12:53 John Dehlin I love it.

1:12:54 Margi Dehlin So crucial.

1:12:56 John Dehlin All right, Natasha, for the sake of your clients that are waiting, what's your.

1:13:01 Natasha Helfer Yeah, so. So my last point, which is we've kind of touched on a little bit, is this idea of the pendulum swing is real. Right. So trying to avoid extreme shifts. What I have found working with a variety of Mormons is that it seems. And this is sweeping with a very wide brush. I don't want to offend anybody, but it seems to me like the couples that grow up or the people who grow up in Mormon environments where they're kind of like, we were somewhat active. I had a parent who was an alcoholic. Maybe we were kind of hippie, like, in our approach to Mormonism. Maybe we didn't go all the time. Yep, we drank Coca Cola. You know, on the pendulum of rigidity in the Mormon sphere, they're kind of here. So if they go through a faith transition, they end up kind of over here, where they're like, well, we still go to church. We still kind of raise our kids, but, you know, twice a month we do something else. So they're kind of more relaxed, whereas they. The people who are like, we never had Coca Cola. We went every single time. Masturbation was like next to murder, et cetera. All of a sudden, I'm noticing that the pendulum is over here, where every Mormonism is a cult. We're opening up our marriage. It's not that opening up your marriage is bad, or alcohol or three weeks of a faith transition. I'm just saying the pendulum has swung way too fast and way too hard. Right. And so I just want to just, again, help us understand that some of these dynamics are not so much about our belief but our process, and we take our process with us, whether it's black and white thinking, whether it's group think. You can be over here with all your Mormon friends, like, oh yeah, over there. The world is such an evil place. Well, you can be over here with all your new Facebook friends saying, oh yeah, over here. So you're doing the same stuff. You're doing the same process just in a different belief system and it can be just as damaging to you. So I just, you know, I just want us to be careful to not take that type of process with us and to really, that really requires self awareness and it also requires really getting comfortable with ambiguity instead of certainty because again, Mormonism is very certain. We know everything. We don't. We're not, we're not a religion that's very comfortable with mystery. And so then all of a sudden when you shift, you want certainty over here too. I know it's not true. I know it's not useful. I know it's harmful. I know it's bad for everybody. Right. We want to avoid that.

1:15:34 Margi Dehlin Yeah, absolutely. I feel like also there's a desire to regain stability in that pendulum swing. You know, you're kind of reeling and.

1:15:45 Natasha Helfer Yeah, anyway, yeah, we want to end that with you.

1:15:48 Margi Dehlin Yeah. The surety and the. Yeah.

1:15:51 John Dehlin Another way I like to think about that, Natasha, is to say keep the good. We sometimes make a mistake going through a faith crisis. Well, if, if, if the church isn't what I thought it was and thus I'm mad at the church, then anything that I believed or did as a Mormon is now bad.

1:16:09 Guest And like you said, I'm going to swing to the other extreme. But the truth is there's a lot of good things that we learned from Mormonism. That marriage is important, that relationships are important, that kindness is important, that service is important, that families are important, that

1:16:24 John Dehlin being a good mom or dad is important, that being healthy in your body, that you know, even that sexual intimacy can, you know, is important or is something to be thoughtful about or they're not irresponsible with. Those are all have important true principles to it. And so I like to just say keep the good. Right. Don't just throw all Mormonism out, as sometimes people say, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Even spirituality is super important. And if you don't pray, then meditate. If you don't go to church, then go to nature, but keep the good because they're actually the reason why religion is so resilient and pervasive, is because it actually offers things that are healthy and good for people. So, you know, don't just throw it all away. Don't just become the opposite of whatever you were as a religious person. And if you do that, you're just, you're still being controlled by the religion. If you're doing everything the religion says, you're being controlled by the religion. If you do the opposite of everything the religion says, you just have become the inflection and you're still being controlled by that religion. Be wise and keep the good. And that's another way of saying avoid the extremes. Okay, And I have one final point, and this will be the last one for today. You know, be careful who you give information to. It's easy to want to go to your bishop and tell your bishop all the reasons why you don't believe anymore, to tell, you know, your extended family, your in laws, et cetera. And the problem. You know, authenticity is an important value, but also self care and self preservation is an important value. And the truth is, you know, you don't want to give your power away. So be careful who you talk to. Not everybody. Natasha, you make reference to these sorts

1:18:17 Guest of things a lot in our retreats and workshops together. Some people are tens in terms of safety. They're safe, they're loyal, they're compassionate and loving.

1:18:27 John Dehlin Other people are ones, they're violent and

1:18:30 Guest unsafe and completely unsafe. And then some people are fives or sevens or fours. Do an assessment of how safe the person is before you. Share with them everything that you think and feel.

1:18:43 John Dehlin Because there are people that end up regretting that they weren't able to attend a wedding, or regretting that they had

1:18:49 Guest a disciplinary council called on them, or regretting that they can't baptize their kid or confirm their kid during this transition time.

1:18:57 John Dehlin They regret that their temple recommend was

1:18:58 Guest pulled and they're not able to attend this or that.

1:19:01 John Dehlin And because there's a wide variety of

1:19:03 Guest bishops, a wide variety of leniency, a wide variety of self interpretation on these rules, and the Church intends it to be that way.

1:19:12 John Dehlin Don't cut your power out. Give them the rope to hang you and have diarrhea of the mouth and tell everyone everything about all your doubts and all your problems and all your stuff because it may come back to bite you. So do an assessment of each person. If they're one, give them a tiny bit of information which is, hey, we're great, thank you for asking, everything's good. If there are five, maybe you say, hey, we're struggling with A few things right now. We don't want to go into details, but we're okay. Thank you for the concern, and we'll come back to you when we need help. But if it's someone close to you, someone really safe, someone you really trust, then you can tell them everything. And so be careful who you give information to. Match the amount of information with the level of trust you have for that person. Don't give your power away. Don't give them the chance to hang you. Especially with a bishop or a ward member or priesthood leader who can very much determine whether you go to the temple, whether you do ordinances, whether you get to attend things, whether or not a disciplinary council is called.

1:20:20 Margi Dehlin I love that idea. Yeah. And I also think it's great to be intentional about what your purpose is. Do they need to know? Because you could have a really safe person, but is it really necessary that they know? Do you want, like, for someone who's more private, like me? Those are things that I ask is what's my purpose in sharing the information? What's my intention in sharing it along with how safe they are?

1:20:47 Guest Yeah.

1:20:47 Natasha Helfer And the only thing I would add to that is, again, we come from a culture where we've been asked questions from a very young age and then expected to answer those questions. And so we're not naturally good at creating these boundaries, you know, And I think because most of us value honesty, we forget that there's also this principle called privacy. And even in the scriptures it says, do not cast your pearls in front of swine. Well, it's not that your bishop is swine, it's that the principle there is, be careful what you share that is precious to you, that some other person may not understand or may not respect at the level that you need respected in that moment. So along with your intimacy, measurement of how safe they are, I would also include in that measurement what type of consequence could come with telling this particular person what type of power do they have. I know even grandparents who have shared with their children and now their children are not letting them see their grandchildren, you know, or things of that nature. So I really need to share. So, you know, as long as I keep. Obviously you don't want to be the type of grandparent that's going behind a parent and telling your grandkids stuff that you shouldn't be doing. But at the same time, do I really need to share some of these things at this level where something that's really dear to me could be taken away because there's misunderstanding I love it.

1:22:09 Guest All right.

1:22:09 John Dehlin Well, Natasha, we know you have to go.

1:22:12 Natasha Helfer Yes.

1:22:14 John Dehlin So we are going to keep people on just to do some final housekeeping things.

1:22:19 Natasha Helfer Sounds good.

1:22:19 John Dehlin We want to thank you for joining us. We want to celebrate you and tell you how thrilled we are that you are a partner in this endeavor, at least as long as you want to be our partner. We would love to have you.

1:22:34 Natasha Helfer I love it.

1:22:35 John Dehlin And the website's natashaparker.org if you want to reach out to Natasha. Is that right?

1:22:40 Natasha Helfer That's correct. That's correct. Yes. So no. And I feel. I feel very similarly. So thank you very much. Take care. And I will be back next week with y'.

1:22:51 Guest All.

1:22:51 John Dehlin All right.

1:22:52 Margi Dehlin Great discussion.

1:22:53 John Dehlin Love you, Natasha.