Communicating with Believing Family and Friends

Episode 16

0:20 John Dehlin Today, the topic is probably the biggest topic we ever get. So we're starting with the big stuff. We're starting with the big guns. Honestly, we probably have days worth of content here, but we've put together a list of ideas and suggestions and thoughts and tips for how to communicate with orthodox believing members. Those of us who are questioning or transitioning or transitioned. It may be our spouse, it may be our parents, it may be our children, it may be siblings, it may be loved ones, it may be friends, it may be ward members. But without a doubt, going through the transition from an orthodox believing Mormon to something other than that is going to affect relationships. And when you know, we all know the orthodox mindset because most of us, or many of us had it, which was it's either all true or all false and you're either fully on board or you need to get out of the way. And you're either righteous and moving in the path towards the celestial kingdom or you're wicked and falling away. Now, that's not a fair characterization of what people feel and experience. It's often more nuanced than that. But I think it's sometimes not totally unfair either. So that's going to be what we talk about today. And I'm just going to go ahead and quickly introduce our panel because our panel will be joining us now. This panel won't join us at the very beginning. What we'll do is we'll discuss some ideas and topics, then we'll, then we'll bring it open to the panel, then we'll go back and discuss some more things. And what we hope to end with is a robust discussion. But let me go ahead and introduce our panel. First I'll introduce the one, the only, Amy Grubbs. Amy is the director of Operations for the Open Stories Foundation. Amy, welcome. Is there anything you want to share with us?

2:26 Amy Grubbs To begin, do you want me to do a quick introduction?

2:29 John Dehlin Yeah, please.

2:30 Amy Grubbs Okay. So like John said, I'm the new director of operations. Been doing it for a little over a month. Super excited about that. I'm originally from Colorado, now live in South Jordan, married to Jeff. We've been married for almost 24 years and have a 16 year old daughter.

2:48 John Dehlin All right, we're excited to have you. Thanks for joining us, Amy.

2:51 Amy Grubbs Thank you.

2:53 John Dehlin All right, your right hand, your right hand woman. Shandy, why don't you introduce yourself again and tell us about you and tell us a bit about thoughtful transitions.

3:02 Shandy Hill Hi. Thanks. Yeah. So I'm Shandy Hill. I'm originally from Seattle, moved here to Lehigh a year ago. My transition started around the same time. I'm a moderator over at Thoughtful Transitions. We're a super safe support group for everybody that transitioning out of the church. So if you are interested in joining, go ahead and go to Thoughtful Transition support group on Facebook and we'll chat.

3:33 John Dehlin Beautiful. Great. Great job. Thanks Shandy. Thanks for joining us. Shout out to Thoughtful Transitions. And for those of us we want to make sure everyone knows that this podcast is not just for people leaving the church. It's also for people who are staying in the church, but just more as a liberal or unorthodox or progressive member or even as a non believing member that just feels like they need to stay or have to stay or want to stay. And there is a Facebook group to support people like that. It's called the Thoughtful Faith Facebook group. There's a company podcast, Mormon Matters and the Thoughtful Faith, which are both supported by the Open Stories Foundation. Check those out but also check out Thoughtful Transitions if you're pretty much on your way or out of the church. So thanks Shandy. I'm a little starstruck because we have progressive Mormon royalty with us today. We have the one, the only, Tanner Gilliland joining us. Tanner, why don't you tell us a bit about yourself.

4:33 Tanner Gilliland I'm Tanner. I work with Zelf on the shelf.

4:38 John Dehlin What's the URL for that?

4:40 Tanner Gilliland Zelfontheshelf.com and where did that name come from?

4:43 John Dehlin No, I'm just kidding.

4:44 Tanner Gilliland It came from John Delin.

4:47 John Dehlin Tell us a bit about yourself Tanner. And yourselfies, who are your fellow Zelfies?

4:52 Tanner Gilliland Okay, so I went to school at byu, Idaho, graduated with a degree in communications. So my degree is in talking with TBMs. And after I went through a faith crisis in the tail end of my university experience along with my best friend Samantha who was a British convert. And after graduation we both worked at Deseret book, did internships there and then ended up in Logan where we met John. And there we left the church. She's married to Connor who is another were the three people on Self on the shelf. So we have fun doing it and good to be here.

5:33 John Dehlin So is it my fault you left the church, Tanner?

5:35 Tanner Gilliland It's totally your fault, John. Totally your fault. I don't know if I ever sent you that thing, but I have this like thing in my journal where I was like, I've been listening to John Dehlin and I just don't want to end up like John Dehlin. Now here I am with John De Lin.

5:50 John Dehlin With facial hair.

5:52 Tanner Gilliland With facial hair.

5:53 John Dehlin Mustache. You're even worse.

5:54 Tanner Gilliland I was counseled to get rid of the goatee, so I'm just trying out the creeper stache for a little bit.

6:00 John Dehlin All right, well, thanks for joining us, Tanner.

6:03 Tanner Gilliland You're welcome.

6:04 John Dehlin All right. And I'm super excited to have in our second episode an actual married couple joining us. It's Bryn and Jared Gantt. And I'm just gonna. Bryn, why don't you kick it off and introduce yourself and then. And Jared, you can chime in.

6:22 Bryn Gantt So I'm Bryn. I grew up in Utah. Orem, Utah. Now we live in Colorado, which was, I think, the beginning of the end. We thought, let's get out of Utah. So here we are. I work as a dda. I'm a SVU district attorney, so I do crimes against children, that kind of thing. And probably about a year and a half ago is when I was more concerted, kind of studying things out, and that was the downfall of my Mormonism. So that's me.

6:52 John Dehlin We're thrilled to have you. Thanks for joining us, Bryn.

6:54 Jared Gantt Yeah, yeah. As Bryn said, we moved up from Orem to Colorado. We met in high school and started dating in high school and been a couple since. And when we moved to Colorado, things somewhat changed a little bit, where I felt a little bit more open to question my doubts openly, and at that point, started to study things a little bit more in depth and went down the rabbit hole. So that would have been in 2013. About 2015 is when I decided to quit attending and kind of changing the way that I looked at Mormonism. And then we resigned in earlier this early 2016 is when we decided to

7:38 Bryn Gantt resign our membership and we decided to do a public post. So we did a medium post on my blog, and then we posted that on Facebook as well.

7:48 John Dehlin Brilliant. Well, we're so honored and delighted to have you both, Brennan and Jared. So thank you for joining us.

7:55 Jared Gantt Pleasure.

7:57 John Dehlin All right, so let's dive in. Margie and I are both a little bit curious how this is going to end up because we have so much content and a limited amount of time. So we'll just kind of play it by ear and. And we may break this up into two or three segments, depending on how things go. But what we've done is we sort of have a few sections of tips and tricks. We sort of have things to think about before you try and have the conversation. That's sort of the first section. Then we have a section on actually having the conversation and sort of the meta Some meta thoughts about how to have a conversation and how to think about conversations. And then we have some final points about things to remember. After the conversation and throughout your journey as it relates to this whole transition. So we're going to go ahead and jump in and we're going to kind of take turns. Not every other time, but let's begin. So the first thing that came to my mind when you're thinking about communicating with believing family, friends is to assess your risk. What made me think of this was my. My experience counseling LGBT people. And oftentimes they have to think about when to come out. And some people get really offended when you compare the LGBT experience of coming out with coming out as a orthodox, unorthodox or non believer. We don't mean to trivialize the LGBT experience, and we're not saying it's the same thing or even in the same category. I will say that I've had LGBT transitioning Mormons tell me that coming out as a non believer was actually more traumatic for them and their family than coming out as gay. That's not to justify, that's just to sort of add a thought. But the reason I'm bringing that up at all is because I think maybe the first thing you should ever do, and this will probably be obvious to those of you, is to assess your risk in coming out, assess your financial situation, assess your employment, assess your own physical and mental health, assess your relationships, and if you're in a marriage, the health and the stability of your marriage, the situation of your family. And don't feel like you need to rush and come out if you feel like there are significant things at risk. Margie, do you have any reactions or thoughts to that? Or is that pretty face value?

10:34 Shandy Hill Yep, pretty good.

10:35 John Dehlin Okay, so that's the first thing to think about. So think about that. A second thing to consider is to really think about who the person is that you want to talk to and to think about their actual situation. Now, this is tricky because it can sound a little bit condescending, but things that came to my mind about factors to consider are what is this person's age? What is their emotional maturity? What is their state of mental health? What is their state of physical health? What is their. Where are they on the belief spectrum? Are they more open minded? Are they less? Are they rigid and tough? And I all, you know, the. There's benefits for yourself in taking these factors into consideration, but there's also benefits in the person that you would be speaking to. So I'll give an extreme example imagine a 94 year old woman who is maybe not. Or man. Maybe they're not fully cognitive like they would have been earlier. Maybe they're really sick. Maybe they're just waiting to die to join their loved one in heaven. It's an extreme example, but maybe that's not the best time to be coming out to someone. Maybe focus on things that are more relevant. And of course that's obvious, but I just wanted to say that's important. Even younger people, there's someone close in our family who had a parent die when they were very young and the church was just something that gave them hope and a reason to live. And they probably struggled with depression their whole lives. And that's just a really important factor to consider because not only you don't want to be harming anyone, but you also don't want to be, I'll use the term casting your pearls before swine. That's not to say these people are swine, but it is to say your vulnerability, your intimacy is as valuable as pearls and you don't want necessarily to be sharing that with people who are going to abuse it or not appreciate it or not even be able to understand. What do you think about that, Margie?

12:53 Margi Dehlin I think it's completely important and I love it because it's a mixture of self care as you sort of process your own sort of state and what you want to give and whether it's safe and it's also taking care and, and caring for someone else as well.

13:13 John Dehlin Yeah, and we'll talk about self care in a bit. I think it's also to ask yourself and to assess the extent to which these people want to actually know. You would think that everybody, if someone loves you and they've been intimate with you emotionally and, and they're close to you, that of course they would want to know everything about your intellectual and emotional and spiritual life. And that's not necessarily true. And the truth is, overwhelmingly most people don't want to know. And even if you tell them, they probably don't want to talk about it. And so that's an important thing to consider is just whether they want to have that conversation. And there are some people I know who will go 20, 30, 40 years and never talk about anything serious or significant. They would much rather have healthy, safe conversations about the weather, about sports, about politics. That's sometimes safe. But the last thing they want to do is know your deepest, darkest doubts and concerns. And so I think that's an important thing to consider. I think it's Also important to consider whether you trust the person, whether they're trustworthy, whether they will keep your confidences, whether they'll be kind or safe in what they talk about. And it's important to think about how you think they're gonna handle the information. Are they respectful? Are they antagonistic? Will they just debate with you? Will they shout you down? Will they speak down to you? So those are all important things to say. Now, that's a lot to sort of open with. What I'd like to do is now turn the time over to our panel and just get some reactions and also invite Amy to let us know if there's any comments or questions on the live stream. So I'll just watch for people on the panel to unmute themselves. Tanner, why don't you go ahead?

15:21 Tanner Gilliland Oh, I was just getting ready and testing out the button.

15:24 Bryn Gantt Okay.

15:25 John Dehlin Okay. All right. So any of you who have. Oh, do you want to. Do you want to say something? Tanner, yes or no? Agree, disagree. Shared experience. Go ahead and. Tanner. And then Jared and. Sure.

15:37 Tanner Gilliland I guess when I feel like most people who transition out of the church or orthodoxy, whatever it is, feel a sort of need to just kind of let everyone know. I did. I got tired of kind of feeling like I had to maintain the secret, and I didn't want to. I didn't want to feel like I was deceiving anyone. I wanted people to accept me for me. And so I just kind of did a blanket announcement after talking to my family. And since the. And then. And then at some point, I think there's an angry stage, right? One of the stages of grief where you just kind of want to burn it down and you want to throw the CS letter at everyone, you know, and. And I'm not saying that there's a right or wrong way of handling these situations. You just have to understand what it is, what kind of relationship that you want to have with people. If you're trying to convince them of something and that's going to be a relationship, just know that that's what you're getting into. If you're just wanting to maintain healthy boundaries and a respectful sort of intimate distance, then make sure your communication is planned accordingly. And also realize one of the things, too. I think one of the mistakes I made early on in my commentary about ex Mormonism was trying to get everybody all riled up and trying to burn the church down. And I don't know that that's the best approach. At the end of the day, I think a person's own mental and emotional health is the most important thing and the cause is only secondary to that. So do what you need to do to be healthy and plan your communication strategy accordingly.

17:06 John Dehlin Beautiful.

17:06 Margi Dehlin Love that.

17:07 John Dehlin That's great. We're going to dig into a lot. You gave us a lot of good previews into some of the stuff we're going to go to in depth. So that was brilliant. Thank you, Tanner. All right, Brendan and Jared, I saw you guys on mute.

17:20 Bryn Gantt Yeah. I was thinking about the mixture that Margie was talking about of self love and then also being protective of your loved ones. And I think that is really the crux of it. And Jared did a great job of that with me because his journey started a lot earlier than mine did. And he was very patient with me as I was mourning the loss of what I thought was eternal things. And so I really took. I think it's DNC 1922, you know, the. Some good things that I can take out of the scriptures and still keep is one of those is DNC 1922. And that's the milk before meat idea. And I don't think it's. It doesn't have to be patronizing to say that. It's not that I'm saying I've got meat and my sustenance is better than your sustenance, but I'm saying I have something that's difficult. It was difficult for me. It's going to be difficult for you. I'm going to tell you a little bit at a time. And I think for certain people and certain types of relationships, that's the best way to do it, is just be super patient. Remember that emotionally takes a lot longer to process than logically. And so you've already come those way, those steps, those logical steps, and you're at the end and you want people to be there with you and they're not going to be emotional. You have to give that time.

18:32 John Dehlin Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Bryn. Jerry, did you have anything to add or.

18:40 Jared Gantt No, I mean, I think Bryn covered it. When I had emotionally left the church, before Bryn had even started down her path, you know, I just had to regularly put myself in her shoes and remember how absolutely terrifying in a sense, a lot of learning a lot of these things was for me. And although I felt very isolated while studying these things because I didn't feel like I could really open up like I truly wanted to in the long run. Doing it slowly was what was best for our relationship. And instead of just saying, look at this, this is not true, or this is true or you don't know this and I know this. You know, I tried to approach it in a way where I was just open, asking questions because I was asking questions to myself as well. But then I would include Bryn into those questions and kind of get her viewpoint as someone who maybe has not transitioned quite as far as I had, so that I could still kind of have that understanding of where she was and we could progress together just to some degree.

19:41 John Dehlin Beautiful.

19:42 Margi Dehlin I love that idea. I love that idea too, of when you're having those tough conversations that you're bringing. You may be bringing information, but you're not controlling your partner's conclusion of the information. I think that's super important that they have the freedom to go ahead and use their own minds, hearts in sort of processing what you're giving them.

20:04 Jared Gantt Yeah, I think you're quick. I was oftentimes quick to think that I knew the answers, but I didn't. I still don't know all the answers. You know, there's. The answers are still to be discovered. That's part of, you know, evolving through life. And so having her input on what she thought the answer was really helped evolve me through the process.

20:23 John Dehlin That's beautiful. Thank you. Amy, I noticed you unmuted. Do you have something to share or something to respond?

20:30 Amy Grubbs Yeah, I think, you know, anytime you go through talking to somebody, I think there's no right or wrong way. I think we can all agree on that. And also it depends on who you're talking to. And it's an ever evolving thing. And I think some people think it's going to end or it's going to be the same with everybody. And I think, really keeping in mind that it depends on who you talk to, what you're personally going through at that time, which that's going to change. It's not going to. There's not really an end point. A lot of times and people want there to be an endpoint, but there's not necessarily is an endpoint. I do want to mention one of the questions that was on social media. It's from Rachel. She said, I worry about making some sort of public statement on social media about leaving the church because I don't want to be seen as being dramatic or trying to start drama. What are your thoughts on that? So just wanted to bring that question as well.

21:27 John Dehlin Do you have a response?

21:29 Margi Dehlin Do you want me to go either way?

21:32 John Dehlin Go ahead. That's not your style.

21:35 Margi Dehlin I was gonna say, I think this is the beauty of it is that you're Kind of coming alive with yourself, where you get to navigate this on your own and reflect on what your intention is in doing it. And if it is feeling unsafe to you, if it's feeling like something that, you know you're feeling anxiety about or as you're playing it out in your mind isn't, then it may not be for you. So we have profoundly different, I feel like, styles of living. That's kind of the beauty of it,

22:07 John Dehlin to say the least.

22:08 Margi Dehlin Right. But that's the beauty of it. And I think the goal is finding your way that feels right for you and feeling emboldened in that, you know, beautiful.

22:21 John Dehlin I'll just add, I can see the economy in doing a global Facebook post. And when people do that, oftentimes, like Tanner said, they're feeling so claustrophobic at being inauthentic, they just are bursting with the need to come out. I get that. I also have had people say, I think the Maloof said they just didn't want to have that conversation 50,000 times with everybody. So. So they just felt like a Facebook post would be a way to reach out, just let everybody know, break the intensity, break the anxiety, just get it all out there and then let the chips fall where they may. So that's. I think that's one way to do it. Like Amy said, there's no right or wrong way. I'll tell you some risks of doing that that come to my mind. You know, we talked about pearls before swine. We talked about not being able to control, you know, thinking carefully about who you're telling and how they respond. And when you go public like that, you really are making the decision that you're kind of going to open yourself up to the slings and arrows that can come. And it can be overwhelming, and it can accelerate things, sometimes faster, kind of like a fire hose. Then you're able to actually process. You know, you also have to think about the implications with other people. Your coming out sometimes is going to force other people's coming out, whether it's a partner or children or others connected with you. And sometimes they not be ready. They may not be ready to come out. Or such a public announcement can affect their lives in ways that you might not foresee. So in my case, we had a very public excommunication. Margie talked about this very touchingly in her Mormon transitions interview. We underestimated the impact it would have on our children to have our story be so public. And that's not to say we regret it. That's not to Say that was the wrong decision, but it was a heavy thing for our children in Cache County, Utah to have to endure in public schools with 95% active believing members. It impacted their dating, it impacted their friendships, it impacted their how they saw themselves, how they felt walking around our neighborhood. So I don't say all that to scare you. I say that to give you guys things to think about so that when you do it, you do it carefully and thoughtfully. Those are some things that come to my mind. Go ahead.

25:10 Margi Dehlin I was gonna add one more thing, that one thing I might consider if I was gonna do a Facebook post, depending on how. I don't know how much you've communicated with your family or close people beforehand, but I might consider with people who I'm really close to maybe having those conversations first just to honor those relationships before, you know, kind of treating them in the mass way and just to make sure. I find social media to be tricky. It's just sort of a tricky endeavor. So I would make sure that I was up for. I think people become very brave when they're not looking someone in the face.

25:54 John Dehlin That's a nice way to say it. Brave.

25:56 Margi Dehlin Right.

25:57 Amy Grubbs They.

25:57 Margi Dehlin They say things ordinarily they wouldn't say. They become, you know, so I would make sure that I was kind of prepared for that.

26:06 John Dehlin Emotionally excellent.

26:07 Margi Dehlin Psychologically excellent.

26:08 John Dehlin All right, thanks. Thanks to the. Thanks to the listener for sharing that question. We love that. Thanks to the panelists for their great insight. Let's now go. Just for the sake of progressing, let's go to the next topic. And this topic is actually going to be Margie. So Margie wanted to talk a bit about intention.

26:35 Margi Dehlin Yeah. So one thing that I think is just helpful when you're talking about sharing vulnerable things, having a conversation with people who are different than you is to think, you know, what is my intention in revealing this information? Because I think changes, it can change how you approach it. For example, are you trying to give a status update? Is this something where you're communicating with someone, why you're not going, Is it a bishop? Is it someone you work with at church? Is it a neighbor? That's going to be different. How you process that and what you want to say and how you say it is going to be different than say, really wanting to share out of intimacy or connection with someone who safe to you and having that conversation with them. One would rely more on like information that you really want to think about, what you want to include and what you would exclude. I would probably think about boundaries, for example, if it's church people and how I speak, whereas if it's someone you're close to and you're really trying to connect and you have a great relationship with them, boundaries may not be key. And there can be more emotion than that's conveyed versus, like, facts and trying to really think about it in those terms. So a few different ways to think about it, but intention, I think, is worth looking at.

27:59 John Dehlin Beautiful. I'm going to add a few things. I'm going to echo what Tanner said, and I'm going to echo what Bryn said. There's this thing I'm calling the Nephi Complex. I wish the Book of Mormon had more than like, three female characters, so I could give a female analog to the Nephi character by name. But unfortunately, alas, it doesn't. So I'm going to use the Nephi Complex to discuss this scenario. And this is my experience. My experience is many, many, many of the people that I deal with didn't leave the church because they cared too little. These were the orthodox ones. These were the true believers. These were the assistance to the president or leaders on the mission. These were the seminary presidents. These were the hyper, almost hyper orthodox who took it really seriously and believed it all and lived accordingly. Most of the time, people like that, you know, have what I would call the Nephi complex. They're the good one. They're the good child. They love the positive reinforcements of. Of being righteous. They love the affirmation from their parents and from their siblings, from the culture. They just love doing good and being good. They love truth. And that's something that's natural. I think we all can relate to that. And so what's so incredibly painful, I think what's at the core of people's challenge with navigating Mormon transition is they don't want to let that go. They don't want to be looked down on by their spouse, looked down on by their parents, looked down on by their siblings. They don't want to all of a sudden be viewed as evil and dark and loathsome. And so you think logically, you think, oh, these people love me. My mother raised me. My father loves truth. My wife cares about me more than anyone. They want to know how I think and feel because they respect me. But more importantly, I can't abide the idea that they are going to look down upon me. And so I have to just desperately try to help them see my point of view, because if they don't, I'm going to turn to being viewed as evil. As Darth Vader in their eyes. And I can't. My ego, my own personal ego, can't abide that hit. To my reputation, to my self esteem, to those positive kudos and affirmations that I'm so used to. And so I think. And you guys can tell me if I'm wrong on the panel, but I think that's often the psychological motivation that goes into this sort of like, let me tell you why polyandry and peep stones and book of Abraham. And let me. Here's the CES letter. And. And this not only just the factual deluge that we offer, but the emotional like, come on, guys, come on. And the anger that follows, it's like you're not getting it. You're not seeing it. Oh, my gosh, I am that evil, dark person to you. And now our relationship is slipping and it's like, you know, it's like, oh, it's slipping away. No. And it's the most sad, tragic thing people can experience oftentimes. And all I'll say is, Tanner is right. You cannot convince them logically of a position that they arrived at. Fill in the blank panel. Emotionally, you guys are muted. You cannot convince someone of a position they arrived. You cannot convince someone logically of a position they arrived at. Emotionally, you cannot do it. And Bryn talked about that as well. This is an emotional process. The best sort of metaphor I've ever heard for this comes from Jonathan Haidt. That's H A I D T. He's got several TED talks, but he wrote a book called the Righteous Mind. And he talks about the human consciousness being like a writer, like a man riding a big old elephant.

32:27 Shandy Hill Right?

32:28 John Dehlin Think of the elephant as your emotions and as the emotions of the person you're talking to. Think of the rider as your cerebral cortex, as your reason, as your logic, and as theirs. Know that the elephant ultimately is going to go where it wants to go. They are going to process things emotionally. And Jonathan Haidt even says we do not arrive at our positions logically. We arrive at our positions emotionally, and then we use logic to justify those positions so you can't talk them out of their emotional position. And you have to remember that it is throwing money to the wind to try and change their mind or logically persuade them of anything. Now I'm going to pause. Margie, do you have anything you want to add to that?

33:23 Margi Dehlin One thing I was thinking about was just the idea of that structure oftentimes that we have in the church of, like, being right or having the truth can carry into post Mormonism where you're like, no, I'm right though, but I'm right really right now, you know, and also. And so that's a really natural thing. And it can be helpful to sort of see that in yourself too, that you carry a bit of that maybe like post, but also like, can we just validate like the idea of what it takes to read painful things, to put the time in and to really process things that are difficult, that it's completely natural to want to say to someone, wait, but don't you understand, like, what it's taken for me to be here? Like, I've lost things and I'm mourning things. And can't you just. That that is completely understandable. It's just this isn't your crowd. This isn't the place to do that. Hopefully you'll have other relationships where you can have that safety and that validation and that venting that I think is really helpful to the process. It's just not with your orthodox family members, if that makes sense.

34:39 John Dehlin Beautiful. Thank you, sweetie. All right, let me quickly turn some perspective. Let me quickly seek the perspective of our panel who wants to jump in and who has something that they want to share in reaction. Shandy, I see you unmuted.

34:58 Shandy Hill So to Margie's point that you kind of need to know who your audience is, right? Who you're talking to. That was one thing that my husband and I really struggled with. And because a lot of times you're surrounded, especially people I think in Utah, maybe their whole families are orthodox, they're friends. And so a lot of time it's super isolating. And that's why I think it's really good to find, you know, go to Mormon spectrum, find those groups of people who are like minded, tell us what Mormon spectrum is.

35:33 John Dehlin For those who don't know, what's Mormon spectrum?

35:35 Shandy Hill So Mormon spectrum, for those of you that don't know is you can go in and find communities near you of, you know, post Mormon or I mean progressive or, you know, it's the spectrum of Mormonism.

35:53 John Dehlin Good.

35:54 Shandy Hill Yeah.

35:54 John Dehlin And this is true in Houston, in New York, in London. They're everywhere.

35:59 Shandy Hill Yep, yep. You've got to find your in person communities, you've got to find your online communities and just use those safe havens to kind of get you through until you feel like you can talk to people.

36:11 John Dehlin Beautiful. And if there isn't, it's probably worth saying that if there isn't a Mormon spectrum where you live, usually you can email the Mormon spectrum team and they will create a group for you. Or you can create a group and they'll share the. The new group that you've created. I know there's a listener in Reno who wants to start one Mormon spectrum. People, if you're listening, we need to get one going in Reno, and we need to answer the email of the person who's reaching out. But Shandy, that's great. Any other panelists want to jump in with anything? Are you guys. You guys all doing okay? And Amy, if you want to also. Okay, Jared, we'll have you and Bryn talk. And Amy, if you've got any comments from Facebook, we'd love to hear it, but go ahead, Bryn and Jared.

36:57 Bryn Gantt John, I was just thinking about what you said about people making decisions emotionally. And I was reading a book called Trying not to Try by Edward Slingerland, and he talks about a study, and I can't remember who did the study, but of some people who had brain damage on parts of their brain that regulate emotion. And while they could do certain types of logic puzzles that were abstract, the second you gave them a logic puzzle where they had to put themselves into it, they just broke down. They. They cannot figure it out for the life of them. And so when we take a second and we stop and we. You have to give yourself the mental time to think about how these people are going to take something that you say to them that has eternal consequences. You just take those 10 seconds, put yourself in their place, and let it take that time. So for us, when we did our Facebook post, I think we had a little bit of that Nephi complex where we wanted people to know we were reading our scriptures. These are the questions that people have been asking us. You know, here's a list of all the things we were doing, just so you know. But on the other hand, we didn't put any of the evidences against. We put it in a metaphor. So we basically said it's like a riddle. And A plus B did not equal C for us. And so we're not going to tell you what those things are because it's offensive for a lot of people. We're just going to put them in a metaphor, let you know we left for those reasons. And our backlash, I think, was pretty mitigated, don't you think? I don't think we got much backlash.

38:22 Jared Gantt Yeah, for the most part, it was pretty supportive. We had a handful of people that reached out to us negatively. That was just surprising the way that they reached out to us. But I would say the vast majority, 90, 95% were positive. least those who reached out to us. Obviously, there's a lot of silence as well, people not knowing how to respond. But of those who did reach out to us, the vast majority were very kind and very positive.

38:44 John Dehlin Yeah, I'll just echo. We have in our show notes, less is more. And I think that's often the case. Less is more. And we're going to talk about. There's some psychological reasons for that, but. Amy, I saw you unmuted. What do you have to share?

38:59 Amy Grubbs Just really quick. Some people have been asking if they could possibly get an example of your exit post. Jared and Bryn. And maybe we could put that in the show notes.

39:07 Jared Gantt Yeah, we can share the link or we can read part. I mean, what would you like?

39:13 Amy Grubbs Show notes. That would be great.

39:14 John Dehlin Yeah, share it with Amy and. Or Shandy and we'll make sure and get it on the post.

39:18 Bryn Gantt Great.

39:19 Tanner Gilliland Thank you.

39:19 Bryn Gantt I just posted it on.

39:20 Jared Gantt We posted on Facebook on the comments

39:22 Bryn Gantt on the Mormon transitions Facebook page.

39:24 John Dehlin Nice. Social media for the win. We'll post it in the show notes as well. Shandi, did you have something.

39:31 Shandy Hill Yeah, if I can add to that, you know, for anybody who wants kind of a template. I did when I came out to my family. Thoughtful transitions. If you're part of the group. We have saved several of people's letters to their families and you can actually. And they're saved so that you can go in there and get ideas or, you know, make it your own and send it to your family.

39:58 John Dehlin Thanks, Shandy. Tanner, did you unmute for a second? No. You're good? Okay. All right. Okay, good. All right, so let's. Let's keep plugging. But this is great for. I love the participation from our listeners. I want to let you guys know that, you know, our goal is such that you guys can actually call into the show with your telephone or join us through a video and ask your questions and discuss it. But we're getting there. We're not quite there yet. All right, so we've talked about. We've talked about intention. We've talked about the dominant role of emotion versus logic really quickly. One thing that we've already kind of touched on is there's obviously lots of ways to have this conversation. There's writing a written letter. Sometimes people really like the handwritten letter. There's writing emails. There's doing it over the phone if you feel like it's not safe to do it face to face. There's doing it one on one. There's doing it In a group, I think it's important to consider, should you have someone safe with you? Like if you're worried in a one on one situation someone won't treat you respectfully, do you bring a partner? Do you bring a friend? Do you have. Have it be two on two or would that cause more complication? So obviously it's kind of important to talk about ways to have the conversation. We've talked about coming out on social media, Marg, anything you wanted to add to that?

41:31 Margi Dehlin I was just gonna make an observation for people that I know that have written a letter. Oftentimes it's to the church or. And that can be really helpful for someone that's really trying to understand their own story. Kind of. They'll write this sort of detailed account of what it's felt like for them. And that can be tremendously helpful for some as well as, you know, the one on one having the strength where you know the person. You can consider this with each person if they're just. It feels like there are just benefits and drawbacks to kind of anything that you choose. So just consider each carefully and yeah, do as you feel, I guess.

42:17 John Dehlin And I liked what was said earlier that you can start with your loved ones and then maybe go out to some emails. And then if you someday want to do a Facebook post or social media post, it's after you've brought your dearest loved ones in the loop and there aren't any surprises. A couple other points to kind of end this section about preparing for the conversation. I think timing matters. If it's breakfast and your kids are screaming on the way to school, maybe that's not the time to tell your wife you don't believe anymore the setting matters. I had someone tell me that they had this long awaited anniversary where they went to Cabo, Mexico, and it was like a honeymoon anniversary. And that's when they decided and that may have even worked for them. I'm not saying that's a wrong decision, but think about timing, think about the setting, and again, think about the people who might be involved. So that's sort of our discussion about assessing the situation, assessing how to have the conversation, et cetera. Amy, real quick, are there any other comments? Are there anecdotes, anything from the, from the live viewers that we want to share?

43:51 Amy Grubbs Right now, everybody's just agreeing, a lot of thumbs up. There are some questions, but they could take us in a different direction. So wait on those.

43:58 John Dehlin I'll save those. Okay, cool. All right, so I think we're ready to Jump to the next section.

44:03 Margi Dehlin Yeah, we're going to move into having the conversation, so.

44:08 John Dehlin Very good. Okay, so here's a point that I made that Margie actually maybe disagreed with a little bit. And so she was like, well, I won't talk about it. I'm like, no, no, no, I want you to disagree with me. So behold, potential disagreement between me and Margie. The point that I wrote down was, remember your privilege. And what I mean by that is the difference between the questioning or doubting or disaffected Mormon and the orthodox is that we know what it's like to be true believing and orthodox. And so for me, for me that's privilege. That means that you get their point of view and they can't. You know that because you were once like them and you probably shouted down anti Mormons when they confronted you before. You know what it's like to not be open, to not be able to understand. And so I sort of suggested that maybe that gives you an extra burden of privilege or an extra responsibility of compassion, of empathy, of patience, because you know what it's like. Now, I'm not saying you disagree with that, Margie, but why don't you talk quickly about, you know, your caution with that type of language.

45:32 Margi Dehlin Okay, so I do love, I do agree with what the point that you're making. I just, because I'm an English major, so I kind of get nitty gritty with these things. But like if I just view this as very difficult stuff, that's all. And so when you talk about it like you have an extra duty, you have an extra responsibility. I'm just not, I'm not eager you say that to me. And I'm already burdened. You know, I'm more burdened than I started, you know, because it's, it is tough. It's tougher. All of this is tough. So what I would, the way I would word it is just you have a perspective they don't have. You have, you know, versus it being your responsibility now that you're. I just find to be process oriented. I focus on my doing my part and then I really can't control how they process or how they react. And that's really helpful for me to remember in the conversation. So it was just a little, it was a word deal, babe.

46:34 Shandy Hill That's it.

46:34 John Dehlin Okay.

46:35 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

46:35 John Dehlin Does any panelists I want to open give panelists at any point, just unmute if you want to kind of make a comment. Because we want this to be super conversational. So if any of you want to make a quick comment, we'd love to have it as well. So please feel free. As well as listeners or viewers, please feel free to share a question or comment on Facebook, and Amy can share that this time. Okay, so here's a really important point that I found. You're now in the conversation and you're now trying to figure out what to say. And my first tip is to offer reassurance. To begin by making the person you talk to feel as safe as possible. That's super important, because what you don't want to do is trigger their fight or flight response, get their emotional brain overriding their frontal cerebral cortex and dealing with just sort of rage or fear or sobbing or whatever the emotional brain can do. And this is hard because sometimes if you give some big disclaimer, that can make them more worried than if you just got right to the point. But what I like to say to people is start by saying, I've got something that's kind of hard to tell. It may be. It kind of may make you sad. But I want you to know something. My view about the church has changed. And just notice that I said very, very little, but I kind of gave the essential information. My views on the church have changed. It's not what they used to be. But I want you to know something. There's one thing that's important for me in this conversation above everything else, and that's that you know that I love and respect you. And I will never do anything to try and hurt your faith, to challenge your faith, to persuade you, to try and get you to change. I want you to know that you are safe with me. And so I'm just going to give you only that bit of information that my views on the church have changed. I don't see the church like I used to, but I give you my solemn promise that I will never try and dissuade you or others. And I'm going to deal with this on my own. You don't feel like you need to fix it or save me or jump it in any way. I won't share any of the details with you. I'm doing that intentionally. Even if you ask me for the details, I'm going to be hesitant to want to give them. I'm going to be more likely to refer you to a reference, a podcast or a website or a book. I would much rather just let you look up the information or the reasons on your own and have that be between you and your conscience and your God and your family and whoever I just want to let you know that things have changed for me, but I'm okay. And then go into building on commonalities. That's the second point. And the second point is I can almost guarantee you that the moral difference between a post Mormon and an Orthodox Mormon is 98% shared. And so what you should do as a strategy is focus on the similarities. I'm still the same person. I still believe in honesty. I still love my spouse. If you do. I still love family. I still believe in integrity and honor and kindness and love. And I'm 100% still there. We're going to probably see things differently at times, but what I would love to do in this relationship is focus on what unites us and where we're still the same similar people and not allow our relationship to be schismed over the differences. Now I'm going to pause. I see that Bryn has unpaused and Amy. Let's go to Bryn first and then we'll go to Amy.

51:16 Bryn Gantt John, I wish Jared was still here. He had to go get one of our kiddos. But I think he did a letter to his mother and it was exactly what you said. I think it worked out really well and it talked about boundaries on both sides. I'm not going to try to do this to you and please don't do this to me. And I'm really reiterating the relationship part of that. And I think whenever you do that and if a conversation ensues afterward, it's important to remember to be respectful, keep sarcasm out of it, keep it to a minimum. Always remember to use proper titles. I mean, don't, don't go around saying oaks. If you can say Elder Oaks with. And if you can stomach that, then say it that way. It's the same that you would treat anybody in any other religion, right? And one thing that I like to really bring up with a lot of people is Alma, 1832, talks about that we'll be judged by the intentions of our hearts. And Elder Oaks, actually, I think talked about that in 1985 about, you know, God. God looks on your heart. So reiterating that to your loved ones, that I want what's good. You know me, you know that I'm trying to do what's right and I'm trying to have integrity in this. And then like you said, keeping it to a minimum about what actual facts you. You tell them, making sure that they ask for them, not that you're just spewing them out. Remind them of where your intentions lie. I think is really important.

52:35 John Dehlin Beautiful. I had a. Margie's pointing out I had a point. Let them lead. Once you've sort of dropped that initial bomb, which is. And that's a bomb. Just saying I don't quite believe like I used to. Still a bomb. Once you've dropped that bomb. Let them lead. If you can. Don't get abused, you know, have boundaries, don't allow yourself to be mistreated. But listen, empathize, validate as much as you can. I know that you're the one in pain. You think and you feel like it's your time to vent and emote, but remember that you've had months or years to process what you're going through. This is brand new for them. So let them lead. Okay, Amy, what did you want to add?

53:22 Amy Grubbs Just really quick. I was thinking about when you were talking about how to really try to talk about your similarities and I thought of an example. My nephew just went on a mission and we're really close and he was asking me specifically why we left the church and what I believe in still now. And instead, you know, he's getting ready to leave to Madagascar and so I'm not going to tell him all the reasons that we left. So I talked about all the things that I still believe that I knew were in line with what he still believed and that really helped him and it kind of. We came away with a really good conversation and I think that that is really important. I also wanted to just point out a comment that JP made. He said, a perspective from a believing Mormon. No big deal needs to be made. You need to. You don't need to go out and share your non testimony. One of the biggest concerns I have with Mormons and ex Mormons alike is their certainty of their convictions. And he says a bit more, but I think the key is to remain open minded and to be intellectually humble. And so I just wanted to comment on that because I think that's a

54:27 Tanner Gilliland really good point as well along with

54:29 John Dehlin what you're talking about. Love that. Thank you, Amy. All right, Tanner, I see you unmuted.

54:34 Tanner Gilliland Yeah, I struggle a little bit with this topic because on the one hand I totally agree with what you said as far as methodology of finding common ground and of establishing a safe space. And that's something I think has come a really long way with my family, with my siblings is saying like, listen guys, I love you for who you are and what you are and what you do and even if you want to, like, you don't have to feel like you have to, your faith needs to be a secret from me. It doesn't have to be an awkward thing. I delight that you find joy in what you're doing, but I also don't want to play into the Mormon stereotype. I don't like the tone policing, feeling like I'm not allowed to talk about my experience either. So I think it's establishing that it does go both ways, that I will respect you for your faith. And I may be discussing these things in a public venue, you know, maybe Facebook or in other ways, but that doesn't change my feeling toward you. And I think so. It's important to understand, to try to find that balance of not saying, I'm just, you know, I left the church and I'm just gonna leave it alone and be quiet and never mention it again and keep this part of my life totally hidden. And I'll never post a picture of myself in a, you know, in a two piece swimsuit or having a beer. It's like, yeah, I'm gonna be open with, with my life and because I'm trying to live the best that I can and I want your love and support and I'm gonna, I'm gonna give that same thing to you.

56:00 Margi Dehlin I love that point. Love that point. One of the things that I was thinking of was the idea of modeling unconditional love and also learning to accept differences. Because I think within the church structure, that's something that we really struggle with. We have to be the same, we have to think the same. And the love is completely conditional upon that. Once you start acting out of line, it's cut, it's off. And so it's just like what you're saying that even during the conversation you get to emulate, you know, you're going to be different. Look, you're. That oftentimes is what happens. People have. Well, in our situation, I guess a lot of information was out there. And so we would have a lot of anxiety, fear messages, emoting, people saying, you know, and it was this perfect time to just say, you know, to model the fact that I can see that's causing you a lot of anxiety, a lot of fear. That's really hard. Here's how I am feeling about it right now. And being able to love them, being different than you and giving them opportunities to see that you will love them and you'll be yourself. You can still make decisions that are right for you. And you can also support and sort of offering this new love template of like, no, really, we can do differences. And it doesn't have to affect the love part of our relationship at all.

57:24 John Dehlin Man, I love that there's so much to say. I agree that one of the silver linings in this cloud is that you discover that so many of your relationships are superficial. Your relationships in your ward, your relationships with your spouse, your relationships with family and friends. And if you can weather the trauma of these early difficult discussions, the silver lining on the other side of that cloud is whether it's with your partner, whether it's with your parents, your siblings, friends, whoever, if they're willing to practice true friendship, true intimacy, which is vulnerability, safety, connection, respectful disagreement, healthy boundaries. If you're willing to go through that process, I guarantee you, for healthy people, the outcome on the other side of that, regardless of what people do with the church, is an improved, more intimate, more substantive, deeper, more connected relationship. So I love that. Brilliant. Tanner, I also just want to validate what you said. What I don't like about what I said is it puts all the burden on the non believer of having to say everything right and do everything right. And it's hard enough just to go through this thing, and there's not always one right way. So I guess the advice I offer is sort of talking to a few thousand people, trying to do an average of what tends to work best with the most people. But heaven knows, Tanner, that Mormon missionaries are out preaching the gospel, 80,000 people strong across the world. TBMs, don't you know, true believing Mormons don't mind posting their testimonies on Facebook. Why should the non believer or the doubter feel like they have to hide their light, so to speak, under a bushel? And so if you want to live openly and preferably respectfully, that's totally your right. And if you just want to be direct and candid, do that too. You know, I would actually argue that's

59:42 Margi Dehlin for the good of all, really. I mean, to be able to practice these things and allow our family members that. That is part of, I feel like the beauty of family. Right?

59:52 John Dehlin The optimum situation is that everybody can live their truth with respect for themselves and for others and be respected. Chandi, do you want to jump in real quick? Are you good? You're good? Okay. All right, so, all right, next on the list is what? Margie?

1:00:14 Margi Dehlin Well, one thing I was thinking about is I think we've been in definite situations where the conversation starts to go awry. Have you ever had that, you guys, where you're in a conversation, you can tell, oh, this Is this is not going. Here we go. And so I've noticed for myself when that happens, I have like a fight or flight response. Like, my heart starts to. I can tell I'm starting to, like, have heat. Like my body is actually creating heat for myself. And don't hesitate in a conversation when you start to know I'm getting into fight or flight, I am now getting angry. I'm getting triggered by the conversation to end it, to say something like, you know, maybe it would be better for us to try this another time when it will. It will feel safer for both of us. Do not hesitate to opt out. I think it's one of. It respects the relationship, it leaves the relationship intact versus, you know, holding on for dear life. And then all manner of damage is done, you know, and then you have. I mean, it's that much more complicated because then you have the issue and then you have all the hurt now that has compounded the issue. So don't hesitate to end at a point in the conversation when you can tell the conversation you've lost control or it's gone to a trigger place.

1:01:37 John Dehlin Yeah, agreed. I just want to add in my. I'm not a neurologist. I do have a PhD in psychology. I'll just say the little that I've learned about the fight or flight response, it's evolved in us from millions of years of organic evolution. It's healthy on the savanna. If we think there's something going wrong, to run, to flee. The physiological response that happens is literally the body redirects blood from your brain to your muscles and to your heart. It kicks in hormones that make your heart start pumping so that you can run away from the lion that's trying to eat you. You are dumber. There is evidence that when your fight or flight system triggers in, your IQ literally drops somewhere like 10 or 20 points. That's a rough, you know, referral. But check it out. You are dumber, and they are dumber when you're triggered.

1:02:42 Margi Dehlin Get out.

1:02:44 John Dehlin So the trick is, how do you end it respectfully and just like, I'm done. I'm out of here. This is over. You don't want to just, like, drop the mic and run away. So the question is, how do you. And I'm seeing that Jared's back. Jared and Bryn, you guys unmuted. How do you end respectfully without doing more damage and coming across as a diva?

1:03:08 Bryn Gantt I know. I feel like I'm talking a lot.

1:03:10 John Dehlin No, you're not. You're doing great.

1:03:11 Bryn Gantt I think that you Don't. Sometimes you don't. That's the thing, right? This is all about making mistakes and being able to come back from it honestly. Because every person is different. Every type of relationship is different. What you want out of the relationship is different, and so you stumble through it, and that's just how it's going to be. But the thing is, I think as you go through, to be conscious, as conscious as you can about what you're doing and why you're doing it, and at that point, hopefully, that will counteract some of that fight. Well, fight, flight, or freeze is how we say it. But so counteract some of that so that you can be your smartest self as you go along.

1:03:52 Margi Dehlin Love that.

1:03:53 John Dehlin Beautiful. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you, Bryn. All right.

1:03:58 Margi Dehlin Sometimes I find just acknowledging the tension is a great way to segue, because you can actually acknowledge it and say, I can tell things have heated up some now, actually. I really care about this relationship. I don't want to hurt you. I would rather stop now or ask a question.

1:04:16 John Dehlin Should we. Should we table this for now?

1:04:18 Margi Dehlin You're not, like, controlling and revisit it later?

1:04:21 John Dehlin That work?

1:04:22 Margi Dehlin Good, babe.

1:04:24 John Dehlin Okay, the next. Tanner.

1:04:27 Tanner Gilliland I was just gonna say, you don't. You mean we're not supposed to just bear our testimony and walk away?

1:04:34 John Dehlin Oh, wow. We have. We have ptsd, don't we? And it's hard to shake the Mormon. You can sometimes take the boy out of the Mormon, but it's hard to take the Mormon out of the girl or boy. All right, so I have this next concept called refer, and it's kind of a deeper concept, but we'll dig into it. I once had a podcast listener who lived in another state, and turned out his brother was in my ward. And so he would call me and say, dude, my brother's in your ward. And, oh, my gosh. And, you know, I never breached that confidentiality, and it never came up. And for many years, the member of my ward, you know, we just. We had a relationship, and he had no idea that his brother was even doubting. At some point, this member of my ward found out that his brother had been listening to me all this time and had left the church. And so the neighbor. And I was desperate at the time for to be. To have someone in the ward that kind of understood me. So when this ward member knocks on my door, he's like, I heard that you. I heard that my brother listens to you. I want to hear all about it. Tell me all about Mormon stories and what you do and My reaction was like, come on in. You know, come on in, brother. Have a seat. Took him down to my office, and I went through, like, an hour of, like, every, you know, basically Mormon think and CES letter and every single issue that I've struggled with, knowing for sure that if he was asking me, he wanted to know, and that once he was to the point where he wanted to ask, that, he was going to immediately say, yep, I get it. Either I'm in the same place as you, or, okay, now I get it now. We're eternal brothers, and I've got your back and smooth sailing. You've got a homie in your ward, and we'll be best buds and best neighbors. Smooth sailing. That's not what happened. Fast forward a month. Never heard from him again. And guess who gets up to bear their testimony in sacrament meeting? And guess who had a scorching sermon to preach in sacrament meeting for testimony meeting about the Kori whores and the Nihors who lie in wait to deceive and lead the tender young testimonies out of the church? And this was when I was still a believer and trying to make church work. And I'm not quoting the actual talk. This is a lovely human. This is a beautiful person.

1:07:29 Margi Dehlin He was great around excommunication.

1:07:31 John Dehlin And when I ended up getting excommunicated, he was lovely. He sent me a note

1:07:38 Jared Gantt that was

1:07:38 John Dehlin very personal that said, some of the best people I've ever known have been excommunicated. Beautiful person. But my point is, just because they say they want to know doesn't mean they want to know. And just because they're asking you doesn't mean you should tell them. My recommended tactic, and I've mentioned this before, is give them a book reference they can read. Point them to the church essays, point them to a safe podcast that they can listen to. Give them CES letter or MormonThink. Find someone faithful that they can talk to. Don't feel like it's your job to educate them. Not because you couldn't do a good job, not because you should feel silenced like Tanner says, but instead because it could jeopardize your relationship. It could make you the bearer of bad news. It puts you in the position of doing what you don't want to do, which is disrespect them. And unless they're really insistent, my suggestion is to be very careful before you sort of take that bait. Now, is that controversial to any of our panelists, to any of our listeners, if you're disagreeing, Jared and Bryn, I

1:09:06 Jared Gantt was gonna say with our blog post that we co wrote and posted on Facebook. One aspect of it that I kind of regret is we opened it up. We said, you know, we're not giving you specifics here, but if you have a specific question, we'll be happy to entertain that. And in hindsight, I sometimes regret that, because we did get it just opened it up for people to shoot us. Messages on Facebook tell me the specific thing that convinced you to leave the church or whatever. And of all those people that we chose, we did respond to, you know, I think the vast majority of them, it did nothing. There was no benefit in responding to them. It didn't. They didn't say, oh, aha, you know, here's the light bulb for us. And if anything, it may have tarnished a handful of value, you know, valued relationships because they weren't at the position that they were going to listen sincerely or that they want to investigate it sincerely. All the information is readily available, so if they wanted it, it would have just taken them two seconds to figure it out on their own. And so that I agree completely with what you're saying. I kind of wish we wouldn't have done that because I don't think it was a good move on our behalf.

1:10:17 John Dehlin Beautiful. Thanks, Jared. Something that I have to remind myself is that no Man Knows My History by Fawn Brody was published in the 1940s, and that has everything you need to know, if you want to know. And you don't need the Tanners or Sunstone or Dialogue or CES Letter or Mormon stories or even Zelf on the Shelf to kind of get the picture, if you're open. So beautiful. Okay, I'm still looking. Panelists, if you have anything to add, please unmute. Or Amy, if you want to share any comments or posts, please share them online, and Amy will pass them along. I do. So my next point is something kind of a little bit deeper. And I haven't fully developed it, but I want to float it. Okay. And this is about the power of creating space. Okay. And I'm gonna actually mix the metaphors, so forgive me. Imagine that you and your spouse are in a boat. Okay? You're both in a boat, and your children are sitting between you on opposite ends of the boat. Let's say that one of you sees an alligator in the lake, okay? But no one else sees it. So you see the alligator and you freak out. Your fight or flight system kicks in. You stand up and you start screaming, there's an alligator. There's an Alligator, we're all gonna die. Okay, what do you think your spouse and panel. I'm gonna ask you guys, one of you to unmute and answer this question. What do you think your spouse on the other side of the boat who sees you stand up screaming and shaking the boat, what is their knowing that there are children in the boat? What do you think their response is immediately going to be physiologically, physically? Tanner, you have to unmute. No, Margie, do you want to jump in?

1:12:26 Margi Dehlin I think they're going to try and stabilize at any cost, which probably will mean that they ask you to calm down, sit down, you know, provide an opposite force.

1:12:39 John Dehlin As long as you're rocking the boat, about to tip it over, the spouse is going to hold on to the edges. They're going to hold on stronger than they were before, and they're going to do everything they can to keep the boat from tipping over, to keep it from rocking. And their fight or flight system will be activated too. It'll just be around self preservation instead of sort of freak out and try and kill the crocodile mode. Okay, so with that, I want to offer an alternative metaphor. Okay. And this may not even be a metaphor, but what happens? What happens when something happens to somebody and you say, oh, it's okay, it's fine. Everything's good. Psychologically, what does that do to somebody? Let's just say I had this intense meeting with my father. My wife wasn't present, but then I come home and I'm done with the meeting, and she says, what happened? I'm like, oh, we're good. What's the psychological response of allowing that space? And I'm not saying be manipulative, but this is just a reality of how humans work. When you create that space, what's the reaction?

1:14:05 Margi Dehlin Yeah, normally people will be more open because they won't be in fight or flight. They'll be in a relaxed state, and you're more apt to influence and be able to have to have connection to reach.

1:14:20 John Dehlin Yeah. And I would even say, way to sort of illustrate this further. What happens when you tell a kid not to go in the closet? Right. Don't look in the closet. Don't think about the pink elephant. What's the reaction? Is their interest increase or decrease? Panelists, help me out, somebody. I get the thumbs up from Tanner. Shandy. What happens to the interest?

1:14:45 Shandy Hill It goes way up.

1:14:49 John Dehlin Exactly. And so all I'm trying to suggest is in this discussion that you're having with them, part of the less is more is that you allow them to Be calm, to have their own process. And by you creating that space, you allow them to have interest. You allow them to the emotional security and stability to decide they may want to investigate themselves. And I'll tell you, for so many mixed faith couples, the holdout, the believing spouse has often said to me, the moment I felt comfortable actually considering the issues that my doubting spouse brought up was the moment that they stopped pushing me. The moment that they stopped trying to manipulate and force me and control me. Once they felt unconditionally loved and accepted and like they had the space to have their own process and the respect to have their own process for them, that was the moment where they actually felt the freedom and the dignity to start actually considering the question at hand, that was really sort of over the top dramatic. I'm wondering if panelists or listeners want to comment or have anything. Amy, go ahead.

1:16:21 Amy Grubbs Well, I just want to make sure that, you know, people really like the boat analogy. Jana likes it, Scott likes it, Jeff likes it. And so that resonated with people. So even though you may thought it was dramatic, it resonated with people. So.

1:16:33 Margi Dehlin So good job reinforcement.

1:16:36 John Dehlin Thank you listeners for your positive reinforcement. I'm just some guy coming up with ideas, so it's nice to get some validation. Bryn and Jared, you guys unmuted.

1:16:47 Bryn Gantt Another thing I was thinking along that metaphor is the other thing that they do is they grab the kids, right? And a lot of people are asking about specifics. You know, how do we ask? How do we tell our kids? What if our kids are in, you know, the ones that are in jeopardy. And one of the things that Jared often does in our.

1:17:13 John Dehlin Okay, okay, Brent, I should tell you

1:17:15 Bryn Gantt is to remind against somebody else.

1:17:19 John Dehlin Okay, Bryn, we lost you for a second. Can you repeat what you just said? You were saying something. You say to Jared. Can you just repeat that your connection for a second about.

1:17:29 Bryn Gantt So about kids. You have to remind people verbally that you're on the same team. So whatever words you use to do that, I don't know, but Jared will often say, like, why are, why are we feeling antagonistic right now? Let's stop and remember that we're on the same team. We want the same goal. Remind ourselves of what that goal is. Start over on the conversation.

1:17:50 Margi Dehlin Nice.

1:17:52 John Dehlin Brilliant. So many people allow their children to become the footballs in the football game of the faith crisis. And I strongly recommend you and your spouse have a firm commitment to never letting that happen. We will have an entire episode on how to come out to children and how to deal with spouses. That may be on this different page, but I'll say this. If you're a believer or a non believer, if you're a believer and you're worried that your kids will be sucked down to hell by your non believing spouse, and if you're a non believing spouse and you believe that your kids will become racist, sexist homophobes if they're raised in the church or whatever it is, I'm going to tell you something I've learned and that's that the damage the kids will experience by having their parents treat them as footballs in a game of, of their faith crisis battle will likely do 20 times more damage than either them being raised active in the church or leaving the church. Trust me on that. So whatever it is, don't allow the children to become footballs in the faith crisis. Stay tuned for more on that topic in a future episode. But that's Amy, that's my quick answer to that question. And we'll talk more about that later. Thanks again, Bryn. All right, we're pretty much at the end of this section. I think listening is good, reflective listening, showing lots of empathy if you can. And again, boundaries. Margie, do you want to talk about boundaries?

1:19:40 Margi Dehlin So just quickly, there is a place for boundaries in this discussion. And normally I found the need to boundary around if for some reason there's disrespect or attack mode comes about. Or I did sometimes boundary when we were, we were going to church, but we were in that different realm of maybe going with our kids or John and I would sometimes take turns. So I thought I would illustrate different types of boundarying as well as refocusing. There's a time for refocusing too, when someone's really hostile and just some examples of that. So when we were going to church, it was common for church members, even though they could see sort of one of us sometimes wouldn't go, the other one would not go. So whoever went would get the question, well, where's John? Where's John? And it was so the intention wasn't necessarily, I didn't feel like, to understand like really concern like is John okay? How is John doing? But more like a call out like, where's John today? Everyone else is here, Where's John? And that I boundaried. I'd say John could make it today. And they'd be like, oh, is he sick? What happened to him? Is he just not. He couldn't make it today. That was a boundary. I would just repeat it over and over again. With zero, I decided the information I wanted to give and that was all I gave, basically.

1:21:09 John Dehlin And so you'd repeat that multiple times.

1:21:11 Margi Dehlin Right. And oftentimes it would become increasingly insistent or more nosy in nature. And I just repeated and they got it pretty quickly. And normally I'd follow it up with a goodwill question, how's your family? Like, how are you doing? Or nice to see you today or whatever. But that was a way of sort of communicating. Your access is denied in this area because it wasn't safe and the intention really wasn't about truly understanding what was going on. Does that make sense? So that, that's an example of one type of boundary. Another type of boundarying would be like we had some situations of emoting, especially amidst the excommunication, was really hard on people. And so this would be after a process, let's say, of talking about it. So really good faith efforts with people hearing them out. But this constant emoting of negativity about John, so it's just like, what is he doing? Like, he's gonna ruin your family. He's like, has he not caused enough pain and suffering? Those types of things. Right. Highly volatile, highly emotional, divisive comments that. That was another time where I would choose to boundary, where initially I would try and actually talk about why, like, it's not really helpful. Like, mom, you know, I'm married to him, like, I love him, we're all on the same team. But when that was, you know, it came up again and again I would say this is something I'm not really going to talk about anymore with you. I'm so sorry you're in pain. You're going to have to find someone else to talk to. That type of boundary where I can't discuss it with you, I don't have the energy and it's just not productive conversation. So the need to boundary is there. And I would look at it like it is.

1:22:55 John Dehlin Talk about Brene Brown and boundaries, how boundaries don't create distance.

1:22:59 Margi Dehlin So it's self protective. It is true boundaries are self protective, but they are also for the other

1:23:05 John Dehlin person and for the relationship.

1:23:07 Margi Dehlin That's right. Because what happens is if you don't and you sit there and you, you do engage in those you feel, over time, the relationship is disrespected, resentment builds, you feel hurt and what ends up happening, you lose empathy, you lose crucial elements of the relationship being good. Good boundaries should build empathy. It should actually create greater space for empathy. They are for the good of the relationship with the people. So it is self care, but it is also for people, if that makes sense. The last type of boundarying, which is tricky. Like if I did have some situations where someone's really antagonistic, so the question itself is fueled. It's like, so like, what, you don't believe in God anymore? You just don't believe anything anymore? Like a question like that.

1:23:55 Shandy Hill Right.

1:23:56 Margi Dehlin Had that. In that case, like, it can be really hard, especially if it's a family member. You're like, so in that case, what I have tried to do, because boundary can feel really severe if the person's super sensitive but highly offensive is I refocus. I'll be like, you know, well, I can tell. What do you want to tell me about? Like, I can tell God means a lot to you. So what does it mean to you? And in this case, the person really loved to talk. So that was just enough to like get a different topic. But try to refocus in some way, you know, that is legitimate. Not like, this meal's delicious. I mean, I wouldn't do something like that where it's like overtly ridiculous, but trying to sort of like turn the conversation to, you know, another point. But these are all sort of ways to keep a relationship a healthy place so that you're engaging and connecting in positive ways.

1:24:59 John Dehlin Jared and Brynn, a really good way,

1:25:01 Bryn Gantt I've found it, that works with my relationships. To do that is to ask why. So any question you get from somebody, you say, why do you want to know that? Until they're actually internalizing their own thought process for why? And at some point, sometimes they'll even get to enough honesty to say, I want to persuade you back in, you know, and that's fine. And then you can talk about that. And why does that work? That's the easiest way I found. Just ask.

1:25:27 Margi Dehlin I love that. Beautiful.

1:25:30 John Dehlin Love that. Thank you. Thank you, Bryn. All right, it's time to wrap up. Do you want to talk about self care really quick? You talked about it a bit, but why don't you talk about self care? And panelists, if it's okay, I want you all to prepare a closing statement. So listen to Margie and prepare a closing statement. Final words of wisdom from each of you to share with our audience before we have some closing comments.

1:25:55 Margi Dehlin Margie, he just puts you on the spot like that. No warning.

1:25:59 John Dehlin I warned.

1:26:01 Margi Dehlin That's right. Okay, just a quick thought about self care. You know, there's been a lot of talk about things to think about, where it can feel. And I would just say, remember when you're communicating with loved ones, the way. The best way that it will go well is if your expectation isn't that they're taking care of you. So hopefully in your life, amidst transitioning or amidst this process that you're going through, you can find safe people, great people that you can talk regularly with, you can feel and communicate in safe ways without this constant filtering and effort that you oftentimes have to have to do amidst transitioning and to amidst the conversation. Practice self care. Like, try deep breathing, try after. Try to get out for a walk. Or if you can, listen to soft. Like, try to just be present to your emotional state and take care of yourself honestly. And even amidst the process, you know, just pay attention to your physical health, your psychological health, and take care of, good care of yourself. And ultimately, like, above all, be gentle, be gentle with the process. It is messy. There is no perfect conversation you're going to have that's going to wrap it up, package it up neatly, and tie it with a bow. That's just not what it's about anymore. You know, that's not how relationships work. And so the best you have is the best you have in the moment. And learn to just be gentle and let the rest go. Begin again.

1:27:35 John Dehlin Wise words. Beautiful. All right, so let's have our. Let's have our panelists, one by one, share. Shandy, you've been quiet, so I'm gonna. I'm gonna call on you to go first.

1:27:51 Shandy Hill Closing statement, right?

1:27:54 John Dehlin Yep.

1:27:56 Shandy Hill So I just would want to kind of echo what Margie said. Just remember that. I know it's cliche, but time heals all wounds. You know, this is a process. I remember when I first started going through this, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. I was obsessed with all my research, and it completely took over my life. So you need to remember, like Margie said, gentle with yourself. You need to sleep, you need to eat and know that it's not going to be the same today, next year, or it's not going to be the same next year. What it is today, it's not going to. You're not going to keep feeling the same level of pain and angst. It gets better. And look for your community, reach out. And I'm going to plug for Thoughtful Transitions again. Come to Thoughtful Transitions. We provide such a great place, a safe space for you. So thanks for listening.

1:29:00 John Dehlin Thank you, Shandy. And thanks for joining us and for helping us arrange today's panel along with Amy's great work. All right, Tanner, you ready?

1:29:10 Tanner Gilliland Ready as they'll ever be, I suppose.

1:29:12 John Dehlin All right, bring it.

1:29:15 Tanner Gilliland So it looks like I have a roommate coming home. Maybe I'll skip this one and then come back to it, if that's all right.

1:29:21 John Dehlin Okay, no worries. All right, Jared and Bryn, that means that your guys are up. Do you have anything you want to share?

1:29:33 Bryn Gantt Closing statement. Well, when you said that, the first thing that popped into my mind, well, honestly, it was Gilmore Girls, but we're not going to go there. So I was thinking of a concept in the law called restorative justice. And what restorative justice does is it gives several different mechanisms for helping an offender and a victim heal all the way. And the offender is the part that's really interesting to me. There's different ways of doing it. Sometimes they'll have an offender and the actual victim meet together and they mediate and they talk about their feelings and they get space to say whatever they want. Sometimes they'll have a panel or they'll have a proxy. A victim of a different crime meet with an offender of a different crime. Obviously, each one of those is different. You're not going to put a rapist in the room with the person they raped, but you might put a thief in the room with a person they stole from. And it's the same with this. Every relationship is different. Every thing that you want to get out of is different. There's certain levels of toxicity, certain people you know of that are just going to be antagonistic, and you treat that differently. But the beauty of restorative justice is the same beauty that we have when those relationships work out. You talked about the silver lining on the other side. It is so much more than silver because the beauty is only as beautiful as the depth of the pain. So the harder it was to get over it, the better it is on the other side. You measure how toxic that person is for you or how much you love them, and you decide how much to give them based on that. And once you do, assuming you come out on the other side, it's going to be so much better.

1:31:12 John Dehlin Beautiful. That reminds me of Nelson Mandel and the truth and reconciliation stuff that went on in South Africa. But that's beautiful, Bryn. Thank you so much, Jared. I think you guys are freezing up for a second.

1:31:27 Jared Gantt Yeah. Is our Internet connection coming through? We just got a. That popped up. Can you hear us now?

1:31:32 John Dehlin You're good?

1:31:32 Jared Gantt Okay. Now. Okay, cool. Awesome. You know, final thoughts, final advice maybe, is just to take things slowly. I think when you first introduced to things that are new and they're very intriguing nature. I think it's natural to want to

1:31:51 John Dehlin just

1:31:55 Jared Gantt throw it all out there. And for me and for our process, it was a very long session. And so, you know, just advice is there's no reason to push it all out there super fast and sever these relationships. Take your time with them, think them through, think your own emotions and thoughts through. These relationships typically are, in my view, so much more valuable than. Any. Anything else than your relationship with the relationships, especially a husband and wife relationship, is incredibly valuable. And so just take things slowly and no need to rush through your transition.

1:32:48 John Dehlin Right at the end you broke up and I'm just going to repeat something I think I heard you say, which was that the relationships are far more valuable than anything else you could talk about. Is that right?

1:32:57 Jared Gantt Yes, exactly.

1:32:59 John Dehlin Beautiful. Thank you, Jared. You're right. Take it slowly. Take your time. Take months and years if you need to. Don't feel like you need to rush it. Tanner, are you good? You want to come back on? All right, Tanner?

1:33:10 Shandy Hill Sure.

1:33:11 Tanner Gilliland I feel like I can only echo what everyone else has already said. Margie, what you said was just perfect and spot on and shandy. I really like your advice as well, Jared. I didn't get to hear everything you said because you're cutting out written also really good. I think for me, what I would say is that there's just. There's no right way to be an ex Mormon. And it's kind of the mindset we have to get out of is because we've. Our whole life we've been programmed to act in a certain way and we feel like when we leave, like we want that same sort of like easy life path with all these simple answers and we feel all this pressure to the Nephi complex to be the best ex Mormon that there ever was. And. And that's just not always the case. We're replacing the wheels of the train as it's going and it's not going to be easy and it's not going to always be perfect. It's not always going to be ideal. But I think if we can maintain a valuable perspective on the future, that'll help kind of guide our actions where we want them to go, rather than just being a total bloodbath at every turn. And sometimes it's hard to imagine a better horizon because the narrative of believing Mormons is that once you leave the church, your life is empty and dark and there's no reason to live, there's no happiness. And sometimes your closest relationships will try to Impose that on you because that's the narrative they're living with. And so you'll even find the people who you thought should care most about you, dealing with you in ways that are really, really hurtful. And that is difficult. And I think if we recognize that and also recognize that there are alternatives. And for me, one thing that's been really hard for me is that I have a good relationship with my family, but it's not what it used to be because we used to be very, very intimate. We talk about all our deepest thoughts and desires and things and now we talk about the weather. And that's not always easy and I miss that and I crave it. But I think community, maybe it was Shandy who mentioned that is so important, the relations. And that's why things like this, the Mormon transitions, all these things that we have going on right now are so important because it helps you to find those same sorts of support systems and that intimacy that we all crave because the Mormon community is really good at providing a sense of intimacy and vulnerability and community. And to those of us who have grown up with that, we kind of, we do want that. And so you can tap into these resources that are available on social media and in person gatherings because they can really make all the difference in the world. The relationships that I formed with ex Mormons have just been totally life changing, life affirming, and have given me just a new zest and zeal for living. And so as you go through this, be gentle with yourself, be patient, have that positive vision of the future, know that it's not always going to be ideal, but if you can think of what you want and try to visualize that, I suppose it'll make your day to day interactions that are sometimes a little more difficult, a little easier. So that's my amen.

1:36:26 John Dehlin Beautiful. Thank you, Tanner. I'll just do a quick shout out to Oasis. There are secular communities set up in Utah that function a lot like churches where you go on Sunday, you hear an inspiring talk, you have coffee, you meet friends, you connect. There's one in Cache Valley, there's one in Ogden area, Layton, one in Salt Lake, one in Utah county, and there's one in Park City. And you can just Google Utah, Oasis, Park City, Oasis, whatever. And you can connect with those communities. So check them out if you're interested in that. There's also Sunday assembly in Salt Lake City and also Mormon spectrum is a great way to find community. Amy, I want to give you the final word, either for those commenting on Facebook and for your own insider perspective, both.

1:37:13 Amy Grubbs Okay, well, first of all, I think ditto what everybody has said on this whole call the panelists and you and Margie. So thank you for that. And just I'm going to be brief in the interest of time, but I think at the end of the day, you really just need to be pay attention to what works for you. I think we get a lot of advice on social media from friends and family, people who have left, and I think you just really need to pay attention to what works for you and what feels good. And that's going to change, you know, hour by the day, by the month, and that's okay. And just make sure you really pay attention to that and. And pay attention to what works for you and make sure you're always coming at every situation with love and respect. And I think you can never go wrong if you do that. So that's my two cents.

1:37:58 John Dehlin Beautiful feedback. And it's so hard as Mormons to say, wait, what I matter is important. What I think is actually something I should pay attention to. How I feel matters. Since when did how I feel matters? And that's not everyone, but that can be. So that's, that's wise and difficult advice.

1:38:23 Shandy Hill Sa.

Episode 17

0:20 John Dehlin Okay, now we are going to introduce more of our panelists, and we want to begin with with Jenny Morrow. Looks like Jenny has just joined us. Jenny Morrow is a therapist in Salt Lake City, and I don't think we've had our Mormon Stories podcast yet, which is a shame. We need to fix that. Jenny Morrow. But Jenny does run a cool. She's not only a therapist. So if you need a therapist in the Salt Lake area or a coach or whatever, Jenny can tell you her website. But she also runs a cool podcast called Ask an Ex Mormon Therapist. So we're going to give that a shout out. But, Jenny, why don't you introduce yourself just a tiny bit to our audience?

1:01 Jenny Morrow Awesome. Thanks for having me on. I'm super excited. And can you guys hear me?

1:05 John Dehlin Okay, Sounds great.

1:06 Jenny Morrow Okay, awesome. So, yeah, my name is Jenny Morrow, and this is my first time on Mormon Stories. I'm actually feeling really excited to be here and connect with everyone. So I am currently a therapist and relationship coach, and I'm trying to remember some of the other things that you guys wanted us to share. I am.

1:31 John Dehlin Oh, keep going, keep going.

1:32 Jenny Morrow Okay. I'm resigned from the LDS Church. I am currently partnered up with a lovely boyfriend who we're actually in the process of moving in together before February 1st. So we've got that going on. And so navigating my own relationship in life and working with other people and working on religious transition work with a lot of clients, which I love. And the podcast. I started the Ask an Ex Mormon Therapist Podcast about a year ago, and just as a chance for people to write in questions and letters. And so I get on maybe once a month or so, answer a question or two. And it's not a super regular project right now, but I do love answering questions. So feel free to check it out on iTunes or at www.askanexmormontherapist.com. and if people do have, you know, questions, feel free to reach out to me. I think you can contact me through there or through my website at www.advancedrelationships.org or jennymarrowhealing.com so few options.

2:42 John Dehlin Beautiful. Well, Jenny, we're so glad you joined us today. Thanks for coming. Thanks for coming.

2:45 Jenny Morrow Thanks. I'm excited.

2:47 John Dehlin All right, our next guest is someone who's been making a lot of news in the past, I don't know, six to 12 to 18 months. He's perhaps best known on the Ex Mormon Reddit, which is an amazing support group for, let's just say, questioning, transitioning, and post Mormons. But this gentleman is named Ryan McKnight. He lives in Las Vegas and on Ex Mormon Reddit, he's known as Fearless Fixer. And I know him because when that really gnarly November 2015 policy came down from the LDS Church, it was Ryan, I think, who first broke that news on Ex Mormon Reddit and shared it with me, which allowed me to share it with a lot of people. But he's gone on to form Mormon Leaks, I think an amazing new project to share sort of to encourage transparency within the church. But Ryan McKnight, tell us a bit about yourself and welcome to our show.

3:47 Ryan McKnight Hey, thanks for having me on. Well, yeah, Mormon Leaks, I guess that's what people know me for publicly. I live in Las Vegas. I was born in the church. I left the church.

4:02 Guest Coming up on,

4:05 Ryan McKnight let's see, three and a half years ago, I believe. I guess my resignation was about April of 2013, 2014, and then I left. I stopped going to church in, in the fall of 2013. So I haven't been out of the church that long. But you know, like you mentioned, I had a small role in the November policy leak that kind of associated my name with leaking and, and that kind of led into people contacting me, which led to me seeing a need for a website, which led to, I suppose, where we're at today.

4:46 John Dehlin What made you want to come on Mormon Transitions, Ryan?

4:50 Ryan McKnight Well, Shandy contacted me, asked if I would like to help contribute to the conversation. I guess we're going to be talking about relationships between the orthodox members and ex Mormons, I believe is the topic, which is something that interests me. I've actually talked about that on some other podcasts. I think it's an interesting subject to explore and especially in light of what I'm doing, I think that the knee jerk reaction from the orthodox Mormon is to see what I'm doing and see it as sort of, you know, the work of the devil or some sort of apostate thing and immediately have sort of a turnoff. And I would kind of like to dispel some of that myth and I think help talk about how something like Mormon Leaks does not have to be seen as negative towards the church.

5:44 John Dehlin All right, well, thanks for joining us, Ryan. We're glad to have you on and a shout out to all our buddies at the Ex Mormon Reddit.

5:51 Ryan McKnight Yeah.

5:52 John Dehlin All right. Royleen Ottison, we're really excited to have you tell us a bit about yourself.

6:00 Raelynn Ottison Hi John, thank you so much for the opportunity to be on Mormon Transitions. I'M excited. My name is Raelynn Ottison. I'm married to Steve Ottison and we live in the Seattle area. We've been here since 1998. I currently am still attending my ward occasionally with my husband. We go to other different faiths and other churches as well. We're kind of enjoying a beautiful interfaith Jo. We. I still hold a calling. I'm on the compassionate service board in my ward and specifically outreaching, doing community service projects and reward. So I'm grateful for the opportunity to do that. And, and I'm just starting. I was telling Steve Holbrook that my kids are teens and I'm just. I graduated with a degree in special ed from BYU and I'm just starting a job as a behavior technician. So working with kids with autism. And I'm also keep myself busy. I'm the president of the African Promise foundation. On the board. The president of the board. And so I work with Susie Benson Gillies, who's the founder of that, who was recently interviewed on Unthoughtful Faith about her work with that we raise money for children's education in Uganda.

7:16 John Dehlin We love Susie.

7:18 Raelynn Ottison She's awesome.

7:18 John Dehlin Tell her hi for us.

7:20 Margi Dehlin I will.

7:21 John Dehlin All right, well, how do you feel about holding down the believer attending wing of the panel?

7:26 Raelynn Ottison Sure, yeah, I'll try. My faith is I can understand both sides, so I'm happy to do that.

7:31 John Dehlin That's great. All right, well, it's glad to have you here. Thanks. Thanks for lead. All right, our last guest is none other than a dear friend, Steve Holbrook. As Steve's unmuting his microphone, I will just say that Steve is the leader of the Utah Valley Post Mormon community, which is this amazing like 2000 person support group for transitioning and post Mormons in Utah Valley. But Steve and his wife Chris are dear friends. Steve, tell us a bit about yourself. Steve, we can't hear you. So for some reason your microphone isn't quite connected. Are you on mute? You're not on mute. So try and figure out your microphone and as soon as you come on, give us a verbal cue and we'll come back to you. All right? All right, so we're super excited to begin today's discussion and there are a lot of questions. We have no questions yet from our listening audience. So listening audience, get going with the questions. But that's okay because a lot of people have sent us questions. So to begin, we are going to begin with a question that's asked by Jason if just as a segue if you guys remember, last week we did a pretty in depth, maybe hour and a half discussion on tips and tricks for speaking with believing family and friends. And so that was so good. But we didn't have time to really take questions and answers. So here we go. First question is from Jason and Jason writes, do you avoid the subject and act like everything is great or talk about it? That is. That is a great question. So just to put it in context, imagine that you're really, really struggling and you're kind of scared about whether to come out or not. Or let's just say that you have come out but like many Mormon families do, they just don't want to talk about it. So what I'm going to do is ask my panel whenever somebody has an answer they're ready to give to unmute their microphone and I'll be able to see them and know that they're ready to give a response. So having said that, Margie, why don't you take the first question? Let's just say that you're out to your family as a non believer, but you've never really talked about it. Let's say that the tension is as thick as butter. What do you do? Do you just avoid talking about it or do you address it?

10:07 Margi Dehlin Well, this is difficult, I would probably say so there's tension around it with. So for me, I would probably gauge the quality of the relationships and again, maybe my intention in sharing and what type of setting it is. Is it a birthday party? Is it a. You know, I think all those things kind of will come into play as to. But I don't love the idea of the act like everything's great as like one part versus talking about it. And I do feel like there's some middle ground there. But that assessing, I think is super important. Where you are, what's the setting, what are the quality of the relationships with, you know, that you have in that setting and what's your intention in really talking about it at that point?

10:58 John Dehlin What's your intention? So those are some of the things we talked about last week.

11:01 Margi Dehlin That's what I would consider before.

11:03 John Dehlin Yeah, very sort of engaging. Royleen, you're unmuted. Do you have something, do you have something to add?

11:09 Raelynn Ottison Yeah, I was just gonna say I think Margie's points are really good to what's the intention and the setting. But I think there definitely comes a point when their tension is there that it starts to ruin or starts to take a toll on the relationship and that conversation needs to be had and I think if both parties can, like, especially when you first come out to them, at least this is the case in our family. When my husband first came out to his family, it was very hard. Right? It's pulling the rug out from underneath them. It's devastating. And I understand it was. It was hard for me to hear when he first told me, but you have to have that conversation with them for the relationship to continue to be strong. So at some point when the dust settles, think it's really good to sit down and be really respectful and use respectful language to one another, you know, not point the finger at them. How can you still stay in as they're saying to you? How can you leave? That's not productive. So just from. For us, trying to explain to my husband's trying to explain to his family kind of about faith journeys and stuff like that, and just respecting each other's journeys was really. He and his dad had a fabulous conversation and they're much, much better place now. But it took a three hour conversation late at night for them to come to a good place again.

12:28 John Dehlin Got it. So it sounds like you're saying that for a relationship to stay strong and to mature, you can't just hide and avoid stuff. You got to kind of get into it.

12:40 Jenny Morrow Right.

12:40 John Dehlin And just do it respectfully.

12:42 Raelynn Ottison Yes. And I talked with my therapists as well. Like we talk about if you're not willing to have that conversation with them, then you start disconnecting because the tension is uncomfortable. So you start disconnecting. And so it's like, is this relationship important to you? Because if it is, then you have to dive deep into the pain and heal it and have that conversation start and start healing and growing again.

13:05 John Dehlin Beautiful. Beautiful. All right, thanks, Raylene. All right, Steve, unmute for a second. Let's see if we can hear you now.

13:11 Guest 2 Yeah. Can you hear me?

13:12 John Dehlin I can hear you, Steve. All right, introduce yourself quickly. Just super quickly. Jump into the jump really quick.

13:18 Guest 2 But I wanted to comment on what current conversation is as well. I think it's really, really important. So I'm Steve Holbrook. I live in Orem, Utah. As John said, I think I was cutting out with my audio. I run a group or I help run a group of about 2,000 post Mormons in Utah Valley. And we are growing. We're approving like three at least a day. And my forecast is this year more and more people will be coming out of the church and needing a sense of I'm not alone. And so I'm predicting that this year in particular, with the curriculum that we'll be getting quite a few more people. So it's a delight to be here. A lot of people say, what, you live in Utah Valley? How can you say that? But I really feel it's a delight to be here. It's my home. So. To the conversation. So I'm married, by the way, and we have five sons and seven grandkids. I love them all. To the conversation about kind of using your own kind of awareness to tune in to if the conversation is impacting the relationship at hand. And I would add to that that you. It may look like they're tuning out. It may be you. So you have to kind of check yourself to see if it's you who's putting in thoughts of like, oh, my gosh, I can't. I can't be here anymore, this driving crazy or whatever. And instead of going there, go in a direction that fosters the relationship and put the brakes on if the relationship is impacted by whatever's being communicated. It's as simple as that. It's just being tuned in and being aware.

15:10 John Dehlin Yeah, beautiful. So just kind of stay. Stay connected and centered. All right, Ryan, you got your mic unmuted. You got a. You got something to add. And Jenny, you're next. Go ahead, Ryan.

15:24 Ryan McKnight Yeah, I agree with everything that was said. That was all good. One thing I want to piggyback on to theirs. One of the biggest mistakes that I see ex Mormons make, or especially people who are just beginning to go through what is often referred to as their faith crisis, is they get it built up in their head that they're going to be able to convince whoever it is they're going to talk to about this newfound paradigm that they've discovered. And, I mean, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but my, My view of it is that often ends up doing more harm than good, because as we all know, it's very hard to convince somebody that the church is not true. For example, if we're going to use a sort of a generic phrase, and if we think.

16:14 John Dehlin Or to flip it or to flip it, it's probably hard for a believer to convince someone who's lost their faith that the church is true. So it goes both ways. Just convincing doesn't work, right?

16:24 Ryan McKnight Exactly. And I think most ex Mormons would jump on that statement and say yes. So we also need to remember that it works both ways. Yeah. And, yeah, if you're going to sit down and think that you're going to go through a bunch of bullet points and what you see as being sort of a logical construct of why we can't accept the truth claims of the Church. It's probably going to increase whatever tension is there or create tension where maybe it wasn't. And so I think that we need to be. We need to be mindful of that approach and we do need to talk about it like everybody's saying, but we need to realize that talking about it is different from proselyting about it.

17:06 John Dehlin Got it. Love it.

17:08 Margi Dehlin So important. I do feel like people can smell an agenda from miles away. There's something really different about a connecting conversation where the person purpose is to connect and communicate in a very free way that's respectful and one with an agenda where you're actually trying to push something. Don't you agree?

17:29 John Dehlin Yeah. And those of us who no longer necessarily believe in the church, we know what it's like to be felt like we're a project. Right. So why would we ever want to turn someone else into a project? One of the, one of the mottos I have is don't ever become the monster you're running from. And so that's, that's, that's really good thoughts, Ryan. Thank you. Really quickly, Jenny, before we get to you, Bryce Thomas is saying that it takes too long to get to the subject matter, that our intros were too long. We want your feedback. We love it. So I'm not embarrassed to shout that on the rooftops. If listeners want to tell us whether they agree or disagree with Bryce, we'll take that feedback into consideration. We also had Marianne say that she appreciates the bio. So if listeners want to weigh in, we'd love to hear your feedback because we want to make this good. Also just really quickly, Steve, before we jump to Jenny, Taryn asks what is the curriculum? Curriculum this year. So you mentioned a curriculum. If you don't mind, unmute your mic and tell us what that curriculum is of which you speak.

18:34 Guest 2 Yes. So as you know, the correlated Sunday lessons are rotate through the scriptures and this year they're studying the DNC is my understanding and it will be. It will mark the first time that auxiliary material has been made available including the essays and some other kind of historical background kinds of pieces from largely the history department is what I understand and teachers are being asked to integrate the new information. The new findings is kind of how it's being pitched from my perspective anyway and so it's kind of optional. The first lessons already taken place about the first vision this past Sunday and there were various Reports on the Internet about how that went. There were a number of teachers who absolutely went into the new material and those who didn't mention it at all. But this will be kind of the way it's going for this year. I think that a lot of believing members will encounter information for the first time, and the word will start to spread about that kind of online as people are dealing with this.

19:51 John Dehlin Got it. Okay. And Steve, is your prediction that the new curriculum is going to lead to more disaffection? Because my theory is that inoculation works and that by people introducing in a gentle, elegant way the issues, people will encode them as no longer an issue and kind of keep moving right along. Do you have a prediction or have you seen any anecdotal evidence either way?

20:20 Guest 2 Well, all I can say is when there have been any kind of disruptions in the church, like the November policy, there was an outflux or an influx, from my perspective, and I. And I think there will just be increased numbers. I agree with you that there's a certain percentage of the church for whom the inoculation strategy is meant, and it will work. And I think it has to do with the amount of free will that one actually experiences in life. If you've given that over to the church, then you're likely to hear it exactly as they hear it. And so all this new information will be integrated, the new narrative, and you move forward and you can still proselytize your friends even with this new information, because it's just so wonderful. I think there are a set of people who are like that, and I think it's great. Good. They are so loyal, and I appreciate that loyalty. I respect that amount of loyalty.

21:19 John Dehlin Excellent.

21:20 Guest 2 Yeah.

21:21 John Dehlin All right. Well, thanks to Taryn for that question. Please keep the questions coming. All right, Jenny, you've been patient. Tell us what you want to add to the conversation so far.

21:32 Jenny Morrow When I heard the question, I was thinking it sounds like it's a question about. Yeah. Discussing any hard topic. So when a topic comes up that brings up a sort of intensity where there can be that fear, you know, And I think for those of us who've left Mormonism, we get this experience of suddenly there's this really huge, intense topic that's just like, there. And, you know, this could happen in other areas of life as well, other than just religious perspective conversations. But I think the question is, you know, when we feel this sort of intensity in a relational moment, do we. Do we talk about it, do we share it? Or do we just avoid the topic.

22:17 Guest 3 So.

22:18 Jenny Morrow Because, yeah, I think kind of like Ryan was saying, trying to convince each other and use facts and data is rarely helpful in relational emotional moments. And so I think the thought that popped up for me was, you know, what most of us will do is we'll tend to follow our normal pattern around hard topics. So people who are used to avoiding things when it gets intense will often continue to avoid. And then those who try to use intense moments as a way to convince others to see what they're seeing will probably do that. So what I find is a lot of people end up. End up following a certain pattern of communication that they've actually had for a really long time. So I think this is where it can actually be kind of cool to go through an experience like this as you get a chance to see what are my patterns when things get intense, what are my relational abilities in terms of communication? And if you find yourself constantly avoiding, then I would start with noticing that and starting to look at, do I feel like I have the skills for bringing up something hard? Do I feel like I have the skills within me for how to manage if someone doesn't understand what I'm saying or if someone do I feel like I have the skills for how to say what I'm experiencing. So if you're avoiding, it might be interesting to look at why. And if that's been kind of a common way, you've dealt with intense, hard situations in the past. And then if you find yourself as one that's trying to proselytize or get in and explain why your way is the right way, you, you know, it might be interesting to look at. Is that one of my patterns? And then for some of us, it's a little bit of both. So that was my experience. I tend to. When things get hard, I tend to avoid or I tend to get intense, but I'll, like, flip back and forth. So if the proselytizing is not working, then I'll avoid and withdraw. And so it was really interesting to notice how both of those are really two sides of one coin. They're both. They're both an avoidance of the deeper intimacy, the deeper connection that's available in that moment. And I think for most of us, we just haven't been taught those relational skills. And so what I would say for people as well is to know that there are so many resources. If you don't know how to talk about something or if you try and it doesn't work, then know that there's a lot of resources out there for how to talk about hard and intense things in relationships and even in, you know, even for me. So I've been doing therapy and coaching now for 10 years. And I've just started doing therapy in the last year with my own mom. Not me doing therapy on her, the two of us going into a therapist together. Because one of the things I started to notice was when I tried to talk about things, I felt so afraid and so shaky inside that when it didn't go well, I would just withdraw again. And so for me, even though I have the skills and I could help other people, for me to show up that vulnerably and to show what I was really experiencing in these hard conversations was so scary that I felt like I wanted some outside support to help me do that. And so it's been a really, really cool and powerful experience for the two of us in being able to. And we've shared almost nothing about our beliefs on the church in terms of history and data and things like that. It's been so much more about our relationship and how the two of us communicate and just the patterns we've had over the years. And it's just. It's been awesome.

25:57 John Dehlin Yeah, I love that.

25:59 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

25:59 Jenny Morrow Super empowering.

26:01 John Dehlin Jenny, what I love about what you're saying is, you know, it's so easy for us to kind of think about this faith transition is just a disaster because our worldview changes. All the security that we had evaporates. Sometimes we lose friends and community. It's easy to just focus on the loss. But what I hear in all your comments, Jenny, number one, I heard you say that a faith transition is this wonderful opportunity to develop self awareness and to do self development and it can actually improve your relationships even with believers.

26:37 Jenny Morrow Yes.

26:38 John Dehlin I love that. It's beautiful. And the panel's nodding their heads. Everyone but Ryan. Everybody else is raising their nodding their heads. I love it. Thank you, Jenny. That was really good.

26:48 Jenny Morrow You're welcome.

26:50 John Dehlin A couple quick comments from our listeners. I think this is kind of interesting. Mitzi writes, Steve, going back to the curriculum, a lot of people are interested in this curriculum. Mitzi writes that she thinks that it'll be bishops roulette with the curriculum because at least one bishop she knows refused to let their teacher teach the essays. So I think that's interesting. Steve writes, the new curriculum doesn't explicitly bring out the essays enough for the essays to be mentioned in church. The teacher already knows about it and has to have dug in and then be willing to talk about it in class. That's not totally on topic, but I like to bring in and reinforce positively listeners with their questions. So in their comments. Now I'm gonna go to a question by Matt. That's a question I really, really like. And I want to thank Shandy for moderating these questions. Matt wrote, how do we help our disbelieving siblings in hiding come out? So you, you have a sibling. You're not, you're transitioning or transitioned. You have a disbelieving sibling and you want to help them and they're in hiding, they're not out. The listener want. Matt wants to know how to help them come out. Now my alarm bell is ringing. Is your alarm bell ringing with that question, Margie?

28:15 Margi Dehlin A bit.

28:16 Guest 2 All right.

28:16 Jenny Morrow Margie wants it.

28:18 John Dehlin Okay. Okay. Well, I'll give this a first stab and then Margie or the panel can jump in. Matt, my first question to you is why are you wanting to help your disbelieving sibling come out? Reflecting back to what Jenny just said, that's an opportunity for you to look inside and ask why you're uncomfortable with your sibling being in hiding. Is it because you feel insecure about your position? Is it because you feel alone? Is it because you're envious that you're taking all the heat and your sibling is sort of getting off scot free and all Those are totally normal emotional reactions. But I would just say, is it, you know, does your sibling even want to come out and is it your job to want your sibling to come out? Does your sibling have good reasons for not being out? And most importantly, Matt, I would want to ask you, if I were working with you, what self development might we do such that you're feeling great no matter what your sibling does? Now, those are the questions that came up for me. I don't mean to psychoanalyze you. I don't mean to be insulting. If you want to ask a follow up question or comment, I'd love to see it. But I also want to just ask. Do you have a thought, Margie?

29:50 Margi Dehlin Well, one thing that comes to mind is this can be a very caring, a caring intention that I see. So if I had like a dear sister and I was out and I knew that she was struggling, and if our family culture perhaps was insensitive or a little bit more aligned in a way that didn't feel safe to me, I could take it as a safety question trying to allow for that sibling to feel safer being, you know, an advocate in conversations in a loving way for a different perspective or, and I Think this sort of introduction of differences in a loving way, that we can love people and be different from people can be really healthy. So that type of advocacy for me can see an intention there. Let's just assume that, you know, that's what the intention is. It's sort of more of a safety intention. How do I help, you know, my sibling feel safe? Those are some things that I would think about. I do think that it's a lovely thought. It's a lovely thought that you're looking out for. And in a culture that may feel unsafe, you can maybe bring in some differing points of opinion in gentle, really expansive, sensitive ways that add to your family culture and allow for people, you know, depending to maybe think about things in a, in a different way without an agenda, without sort of this, this. And that's really tricky, peeps. It really is a tricky thing, you know, because I think it's so natural to want to be validated. It's so natural to want to. This idea of bringing your family with you. We come from a church culture where your family, it's all about the family together. And so we still, I think sometimes bring that with us, that when we're on our way out, we want to bring everyone with us, you know, as we go. So anyway, that's my two cents.

31:54 John Dehlin I'll invite any panelists that want to chime in to unmute. And while I'm doing that, Matt follows up with a clarification. He says that the sibling in hiding is not experiencing an authentic relationship with the believers in the family. And what I'll say to that, Matt, and I think that's really cool that you care about your sibling in theory, if it's yours or if it's someone else's and that. And by the way, talking about your sibling on Mormon transitions is one way to help your sibling come out. I just thought I'd mention that. Sorry, I'm just kidding.

32:30 Ryan McKnight Anyway,

32:32 John Dehlin what I will just say in your response that your sibling is not having authentic relationships is to just remember something that I've learned as a therapist. I went and got a six year PhD. I've spent thousands of hours counseling people and rule number one of being a therapist is I can't change anybody. Like, I cannot change anybody. And I think I can be persuasive. I think I've been to a pretty good school, I've read a few books and I can't change anybody. So rule number one as a therapist, and I see Jenny nodding her head, is that people have to figure it out for themselves. They just do. And it's so Mormon to want to change and fix people. But one of the great lessons that we can learn in this transition is it doesn't work and that's their journey. So the work that we have to do is to be at peace with the fact that our sibling may not want authentic relationships right now. I'll just add, and Jenny, I want to bring you in, but I'll just add. Bryce says, personally, I would feel more validated if someone else in the family thought the same way I did. It would be really comforting. And that's absolutely legitimate and natural. Who wants to feel like they're the only one taking the heat? It's just not fun. And that can even build up resentment because if you're taking the heat and you've got a non believing sibling that isn't out, then you can develop resentment for them because they're not only not catching the heat, but they're not supporting you and letting you suffer. And that's totally natural. But again, that's your journey. So that's work for you to do. That's what I think. Jenny, disagree with me if you want.

34:24 Jenny Morrow No, I actually, I pretty much agree with everything you just said. The one thought I thought that could be helpful would be if that is the case and that's what's going on and that that member of the family doesn't want to come out, they're not asking for help on how to do it, things like that. And in therapy school, one of the things that our professors would often remind us is, you know, are you working harder than the client to get the outcome? They yes, yes. You know, if you're working harder than someone else to try to get them this thing that you think they should have or they should want and it's just helpful to check in with that. And then what you could do is practice vulnerability with that person. So if you're feeling anxiety about watching their lack of authenticity or if you are starting to feel resentment that you're taking all the slack, it might be helpful to, you know, at some point kind of go inside and look at what that's about for you. And then to own up to it, you know, in front of that other person to let them know, you know, I'm noticing, I'm starting to feel some resentment about this or it's hard for me to watch. You have to hold back so much and I give you permission to do that as long as you need to. And I want you to know I'M here for you. If ever you feel ready to share more, love that.

35:44 John Dehlin Now I'll ask you a question about that, Jenny. What if someone were to ask, well, why put that burden on them? Why not just let them? Why tell them that you're feeling that resentment that just makes them feel sad and awkward, that puts a lot of pressure on them. Some could say that's manipulative. What do you see as the benefit of bringing it up and then saying, but I give you permission. How can that actually lead to a positive outcome instead of just guilt and shame and pressure and manipulation?

36:16 Jenny Morrow So I think the benefit is that you're taking ownership for authenticity in your own relationships. And so, you know, we never know how someone is going to experience our sharing, our unveiling of what we are and who we are. And so it is always a risk to share parts of ourselves in terms of just how other people will experience it. Now, if we are sharing it with an agenda, kind of like Margie said, I liked earlier when she said people can smell an agenda. And that's so true. If we're sharing it with the agenda of getting them to fix it so that we don't have to feel uncomfortable or resentful anymore, then they'll pick that up. I've been amazed at how much when we can really share things honestly without trying to coerce or change someone. But just to share what we're experiencing, it opens up a door for connection. And they may not take it in that moment, but basically you're mirroring to them what it is you're even wanting them to do. So I think that is really important is that ultimately we're modeling the thing that it is we think we want everyone else to do. Because if we're thinking we want someone else to be more authentic, it's always. I believe it's always a mirror that that's what really what we're wanting in our own lives is more authenticity. We just don't know how to do it.

37:29 John Dehlin Isn't that, Marg, you tell me that a lot from shefali saberry, that whenever we sort of don't like something about someone else, what that most often is is a reflection of something we don't like about ourselves. Does that sound too pop psychology?

37:44 Margi Dehlin Well, I think it's worth being aware of. How about that? I think it's worth, you know, it's. It's worth asking oneself and starting there for sure. And I do love the idea of, you know, it's so natural in transition that it's it's such a self involved, you know, process. But I also love, and I mean, we can make it about other people, but it actually begins with us. You know, oftentimes our focus quite naturally is who we're talking to, our families, how they're not supportive, how we are, you know, but in truth, it's really this excavation of ourselves. That's really what it is.

38:23 John Dehlin Love that. Jenny, Steve, I noticed you unmuted. I'll remind any panelists if they want to chime in to unmute. Loving the feedback so far. Rick, Gemma, Libby, and Seth have joined us. Welcome, guys. Steve, what do you want to add?

38:37 Guest 2 So I was just, I was just gonna say that that kind of catching yourself in action and kind of what your intention is, what you're putting into it, kind of the way you perceive has a huge, huge impact. But I was just gonna, I was just thinking to myself, if I were a believing member listening to this right now, I'd be, this feels perfect to me. I love this because this is using human brain to figure out how to communicate better with other humans. Is there anything more important than that? I mean, it speaks to me, but others would say, well, this is just a bunch of philosophies of men. Right, right, right, right.

39:22 John Dehlin That's great, Steve. So, Royleen, since you're representing the believing active contingency, what are you thinking about what Steve said?

39:31 Margi Dehlin Hold us accountable.

39:31 John Dehlin Yeah,

39:36 Raelynn Ottison I think you guys are doing a great job. I really like how you pointed out that once again, my therapist talks to me about this all the time. I'm a people pleaser. And I also want to try and fix everybody's problems. Right. We do. That is also. So not only my personality, but also as Mormons do that. And I think that's kind of what it does it. Just because you don't believe anymore, that doesn't necessarily go away. And so I think that your advice is really good, that his, this sibling and his family is on their own journey as well. And it's a great philosopher that said the only constant in life is change. And on our faith journeys, we are constantly changing. So this person is having their own faith journey and their sibling is having their own faith journey. But that does not mean that they are in exactly the same places. And that doesn't mean that they feel they have to do exactly the same, the same things about it. And so I think this person needs to give their sibling space. They can be authentic with their sibling. But if this person is willing to put themselves out there and take the heat for it. That's the personality and that's what they're doing. And they need to let go of resentment for their sibling for doing it a different way. And my husband, I talk about this all the time. I've gone through my own faith journey as well, along with him, and can agree with him on many different truth claims and stuff. But at the same time, our belief and faith is also very different. And I also choose to continue to be in my community. And, you know, just in a. So we are choosing different things. Even though there's some things we're the same and our personalities are different in the way that we've handled it.

41:14 John Dehlin Love it, Roma. I love this idea that we're all on a faith journey. Even if you're an orthodox Mormon, you're still on a faith journey or a transition.

41:26 Margi Dehlin Yes.

41:27 John Dehlin And any of us who feel like we've moved on or transitioning at one point, we were earlier in the process, you know, slowly figuring things out or trying to make things work. And so I love that idea of sort of like not putting everyone into a camp of either true believing Mormon or transitioning, but realizing that. That we're all on a journey.

41:51 Jenny Morrow It's our commonality.

41:53 Margi Dehlin Right?

41:54 Raelynn Ottison Yeah. And not a single. Not a single one of us on this earth having the exact same journey. We are all having a very different journey. And, you know, we can have similarities, but not. None of us are having the exact same journey, especially not in any of these communities. We, my husband and I, run a group here called the east side Pilgrim Society. And the reason we started it was to be able to have people to come together who are in mixed faith marriages, people are still going to church who are still believing, and people who don't believe in people who are all the way out to all get together and listen to one another's face and perspectives. And it's been really healing and helpful, I think, for everybody in the group to understand that we're all on our own journeys.

42:36 John Dehlin So what's this group called again?

42:37 Raelynn Ottison It's called Eastside Pilgrim Society, and it's

42:41 John Dehlin a Mormon themed group.

42:43 Margi Dehlin Yes.

42:43 Raelynn Ottison And we're on Mormon spectrum.

42:45 John Dehlin That's what I was about to ask.

42:47 Raelynn Ottison Yes, we are on Mormon spectrum. Yeah. And we get together, just developing friendships and reading really great books. We just finished reading the Alchemist and Richard Rohr's Falling Upward, and we're having a great time getting to know one another and being real with one another.

43:03 John Dehlin Beautiful. All right, Steve gave you the thumbs up for being on Mormonspectrum. That's Mormonspectrum.org if you're looking for a community, check out Mormonspectrum.org Alright, Christopher brought up a good point and Ryan, feel free to unmute if you want to get in on any of this. Christopher wrote and Royleen, this may start with you, but others can join in. Christopher wrote so to define the term living authentically, is that living what you believe? So if a true believing Mormon or orthodox Mormon says they truly believe, then are they living true to themselves as well? So if a true believing Mormon is sort of following the orthodox line, hook, line and sinker, can you say that they're living authentically? There's a little bit of a dig in that that I'm reading that basically you can't be a true believing orthodox Mormon and be living authentically. Royleen, what would you say to that?

44:00 Raelynn Ottison Well I think of a true believing Mormon, I just think the important thing is all of us are living in our integrity and he's saying are you living in your authenticity? The only person who knows if you're living in your integrity or your authenticity is yourself. You're the only person who knows that. And I still believe in God so I would say God, you know, so God knows my heart and I know what's inside me and in my heart and I'm just doing the best I can. So yeah, if a true believing Mormon says they believe all of it and they read the essays and they go through everything and they still believe all of that and they're living by that, then I respect that.

44:35 John Dehlin Isn't that the hardest thing? And it's so Mormon in a sense to say everybody should be seeing the world world like I do. I remember as a missionary knocking on doors saying what is wrong with these people that they don't see the truth, there must be sinning or evil or something because anyone with a brain and who's tuned in to goodness would know that they should join this church. And don't we do that as transitioning Mormons? We look at everyone and say the church is obviously not what it claims to be be. And anyone who has a conscience who's halfway intelligent with half a brain is going to question it and probably leave it. And isn't that totally, completely insulting?

45:20 Ryan McKnight Ryan.

45:21 John Dehlin I see Ryan, you've unmuted. So finish Orlean and then we're coming to Ryan.

45:24 Raelynn Ottison No, I was just going to say I had an experience in Sunday school class this last week where it was the first vision lesson. Nothing was brought up, no essays Nothing was brought up. It was reading the Joseph Smith history, going along with everything. And I had a difficult time in that lesson, but there were so many people around me who were crying, who were feeling the spirit, who, for them, for their experience. They were really uplifted that day. And I, you know, wanted to say a remark about the different versions or something, but I thought, okay, where is that coming from? In my heart, where is that coming from? Do I have an agenda? And so I waited to see if the teacher was gonna bring up and she didn't. And we just went. And the lesson, you know, for a lot of people was really, really touching. And so, you know, when I watch that and I see that their experience is that they, they are loving it and they are feeling the spirit and is working for them. And that's what I say to people. It used to work for me. You know, this part of it isn't working for me anymore, but this part works for a lot of people and I respect that.

46:31 John Dehlin Beautiful. All right, Ryan, you've been silently wise.

46:34 Guest 2 Share with us this wisdom.

46:36 John Dehlin We know it's boiling.

46:38 Guest I don't know if I have any major wisdom here, but I'll make a couple of quick observations and then share an actual personal experience of how I deal with this with somebody. But you know, this conundrum that we have of, you know, how can I respect somebody that I think is totally wrong? I mean, it's just, this is like a real problem. And to me it's, it's, it ends up being a two way street. But it's really hard for us to divorce ourselves from thinking that somebody is completely wrong and then respecting their right to think that or sort of like respecting their right to be wrong. And a lot of times, you know, this is manifested in, well, we see Joseph Smith, he had teenage brides and he appears to have coerced them into these marriages. And then a believing Mormon, or a TBM, as you call, as it's called, will either dismiss it or they will come up with a justification or something. And then the ex Mormon will say, how could you justify such behavior? And without really sort of making much of an attempt to see the other side. And to me, it can end up being like an endless cycle. Right. I would just say that in my personal life, I have, I do have one particular friend. I basically when I left the church, I lost all of my Mormon friends, basically. And just for those that would know, I was not a vocal ex Mormon when I left the church, you know, I didn't go around telling people that they shouldn't believe or announcing my. My lack of belief or anything like that. But for whatever reason, a lot of my friends, which I guess maybe they weren't actually my friends, just kind of like cut off contact. But there is one particular friend who's probably my best friend, and we've maintained our friendship through this whole time, and. And our friendship has probably even grown stronger. And I don't know if he would fall in the category of, you know, orthodox tbm, but. Because, I mean, I don't know if anybody would really fall into that category, but he's definitely more TBM than he's not. And I think the key to our relationship is that there is a mutual respect. And it is important to talk about the responsibility for ex Mormons to respect the believers. Let's not forget that the believers need to also respect the ex Mormon. And in the case of my friend and I, there's a true and real respect from me to him and from him to me. And there are certain issues, theological issues, even, like, political issues that we talk about that we're on completely opposite sides of, but never once, even though we may debate a point or even, I don't know if argues are a word, but even come close, let's say, to an argument, it's never done in a way where the other one thinks that they're being disrespected. And, you know, as far as, like, maybe we got lucky, the two of us, and, you know, we're a match made in heaven or something, I don't know. I don't know the trick to make that work, but. But I do know, I do strongly feel that. That it doesn't work unless it goes both ways. It just can't happen. Because as much as we want to respect somebody, if they're not going to respect us back, it's almost impossible.

50:13 John Dehlin Absolutely brilliant. Thanks, Ryan. I see, really, you've unmuted just one quick second something that comes to me. If your friend. If your friends and close people to you have to be like you for you to really like and value your relationship with them, that's not a real friendship. That's kind of narcissism. It's kind of just saying it's conditional love. I'll love you, but only if you're like me. And I only like you because you are a reflection of me. So the flip of that is, what's a real relationship? A real genuine relationship is one where you guys are different, and that's awesome and beautiful and you value the other's perspective and you value hearing different perspectives. And you almost rejoice in the variety and the diversity of the points of view. That's actually the only real kind of relationship that I'm aware of.

51:23 Margi Dehlin I love that it reminds me of the oasis part of the oasis kind of breakdown of what they is that people are more important than beliefs. And I just love that as a centering point is just when we get into these sort of. I don't agree with your structure or your. That in the end the person always comes first. Right. That that's what's most important. So you can debate people points. But I love what Ryan was saying. It doesn't touch the personal, though. It's. You're just talking about ideas, you know.

51:54 Ryan McKnight Love that.

51:54 John Dehlin Love that. Royleen.

51:57 Raelynn Ottison Just a strategy. While Ryan was talking, I thought of something that has worked for me and my husband as well, you know, as Mormons. The main. One of the main stories I grew up listening to was the first vision story, which to me I got out of that was that Joseph Smith went to a grove of trees to talk to God. He has his own personal revelation and you all can too. And so that actually when I talk to my friends who are very believing or like my husband as well, that's really helped is that I am following my spirit. I'm following my intuition. I'm following the spirit inside. I am following what I believe is my personal revelation on this path. And so I feel like when I, you know, when you use those words in those terms, that that speaks to them. They understand that and they do respect that, usually.

52:45 John Dehlin Love that. Love that. Thanks, Raylene. Okay, we have another question that's come in, and it's a really good one. And we've got this big list of questions people mailing in, but this one's so good I have to add it. So Margie's saying, wait, what about the questions we prepared?

53:06 Margi Dehlin No, I'm gently preparing.

53:09 John Dehlin Will you forgive me? Okay, so first of all, Brett Nord joined us. I just want to give a shout out to Brett and Carmen and my old friend from Microsoft, Linda Stevens, who's not Mormon as far as I know, joined us. So.

53:24 Guest Hey, Linda.

53:25 John Dehlin All right, so Heather asks a great question, and she reminds me of this really fabulous TV series I'm watching by ex scientologist named Leah Remini. I don't know how to pronounce her last name, but it's basically taking a deep look at Scientology. And every episode she says the same thing, which is if I can just help one person see the truth and escape from this organization that harms people, It'll be worth it. And that's sort of the same sentiment that Heather is asking. And so I'm going to throw this to the panel. Would it be wrong to enlighten in that moment? Wanting to spread truth is a good thing, isn't it? So what if I'll just. I'm going to rephrase for Heather. And Heather, you tell me if I've got this wrong. Gabe is saying yes, what's wrong with basically saying I'm 99.9 if not 100% sure the church isn't what it claims to be. I know that my loved ones are paying a ton of money, giving a ton of time, and are under this complete misperception about what the church is. And if they really knew the truth, they would make a whole lot of different decisions in their lives. And so what's wrong with trying to educate or enlighten them? You know, many of us who have left might have said, why didn't someone tell us? If we had known, we could have saved ourselves a lot of time and money and heartache. So with that same logic, what's wrong with having the desire to educate or even quote, enlighten our loved ones? Ryan. Oh, Steve, you go first and then Ryan's next and then Jenny and Roylene. You guys have something prepared? You too, Margie. Just tap me when you're ready. Go ahead. And Steve.

55:16 Guest 2 So I'll try to keep it short. I think it's good to have that desire for them if you really think it's going to be a match for them rather than kind of force feeding it to them. Open doors or nudge on doors with them, ask certain questions, kind of like, well, how do you feel about that? You know, that kind of thing. And then they'll walk down that path themselves. It's. If you're pushing them, there will be resistance.

55:45 John Dehlin So don't push. You can nudge, you can hint, you can plant a little seed. But it's done with the spirit of hey, listen. And we talked about this last week. Hey, listen, I've got some stuff to share with you that I think could really help you, but it's totally up to you. If you want it, that's great. If you don't, I'll never push you or try and force you. I just, I would want you to do this for me. So I want to make that offer. But if you don't want to accept it, we're Totally good. Is that kind of what you're saying, Steve? All right, Steve gives a thumbs up. Ryan, what do you want to add?

56:22 Guest Yeah, well, I agree with what Steve said, and, yeah, more than a proclamation, it needs to be more of just letting people be aware of things and having all of the information on the table, or at least as much information as we can have on the table. And I think this ties in nicely to, you know, one of the criticisms that I receive working with Mormon leaks and what our team, you know, we are constantly accused of only wanting to try to tear the church down or convince people to leave the church. And I mean, I can understand why people would say that. And I can also understand why as many times as I say that's not our mission, why it will fall on deaf ears, because that's just not what most active Mormons want to believe, that that's not our mission. But. But really what Our mission is to do exactly what you guys are talking about, and that is just to simply get information out there that we believe that the public deserves to know. And then Mormons or perspective Mormons or whatever can make their own decision, whatever it is. We don't care. I don't care as to what their level of activity continues to be or whatever. And as an example, if you look at, you know, the biggest leak that has gotten the most attention regarding this, the pay of general authorities and what they get paid or whatever, and everybody wants to know what I think about it. Right. Well, my answer basically is, to me, I don't care what they get paid. It doesn't matter. To me, the reason why we released that those figures was not to hurt the church or to help the Church. It was just simply because we believe that people should know that so that they can put that in their list of things where they're considering whether or not to support the Church. And there's no reason why somebody can't look at what the general authorities make and say, that seems perfectly fine to me. I'm going to continue to support the Mormon Church. That's a perfectly acceptable conclusion. And if, if I had received those pay stubs and they had said $30,000 a year, I would have still released them. Because the point is, is just knowing, putting the information out there, whether it be bad or whether it be problems with the Book of Abraham or inconsistencies in the first vision, and then just letting people decide on their own.

58:47 John Dehlin Love it. Amy, so glad you chimed in. Why don't you tell us what you've been thinking?

58:55 Guest 3 I really like this question from Heather, and it just is making me think that, you know, we all want to tell each other what we believe and what we're thinking at the time, but you just need to make sure, kind of going back with some of the things that other people said that it's. It doesn't go back to. It's all about you. And I think as long as you check yourself, that you're not trying to enlighten people or give too much information and make it again all about you making the other person believe what you want to believe. And I love how Margie said at the beginning to always validate that person wherever they are. You know, I was in a mixed faith marriage for years and it worked because we always validated each other where we were. And I think that that's just so important. And I felt kind of went in line with what Heather's question was. I just wanted to get back to love that.

59:44 John Dehlin Thanks for. Thanks for jumping in, Amy. Charles writes, and this sets off my nerves a little bit, not in a bad way. He says you need to be shocked or jolted in just the right way to remove the, quote, mormon goggles and allow you to begin looking at things objectively. Does that. Jenny, you're smiling. Royleen, what's your response to Charles's comment?

1:00:11 Raelynn Ottison So I'm assuming that was. Was that kind of go along with the other question that we had?

1:00:17 John Dehlin Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

1:00:18 Raelynn Ottison Okay, so these are the thoughts I had on this. So all of us are. All of us, like I was talking before about our intuition. All of us kind of feel called to do different things with information and with how we're going and once again that we need to. We need to be true to ourselves and true to our authenticity and true to our integrity. So I was going to say to this listener, if they feel like that's what they need to do is to put information out there, then go ahead and put information out there. But they. And so they're living true to themselves and what they feel like they do. Just like Leah Remini is for Scientology. But. But Leah Romini can't control how many Scientologists will look at it and what they will do with it. Just like this person can't control what people do. That. So don't be disappointed if you do it. Do it. Do it because you're living true to yourself, not because you're expecting anything from it.

1:01:06 Guest 2 Yeah.

1:01:07 Raelynn Ottison And then also I wanted to say that I kind of felt God kind of working on me through years kind of Helping me see things in a different way. But I was Relief Society president and I had a good friend leave the church, and she offered to show me information. And I have apologized to her since then. I told her, no, I didn't want to see it, right? So here's a good friend of mine who is leaving the church, and I didn't want to see. I didn't want to look. And I was there for her and I was loving to her. And we continued to serve her and hugged her and talked to her. But this person, I didn't want to know about Joseph Smith's polygamy. I didn't want to hear more information about that. Now, to my husband, when I talked about that story, he's like, that's crazy. If someone told me they had information, he'd want to know. But I was afraid I didn't want to know. And so then a year later, when my husband came to me and said, hey, I have some information, like that kind of blew up because this is my husband, my best friend, the love of my left. His other friend was a good friend as well. But my husband and I still didn't look for a few months. And then I watched your video, John, about all the things are you doing, you know, all these things to help support your loved ones? And I was doing every single thing except I hadn't looked and researched on my own. So I started researching on my own at that point through sources that I felt okay with and trusted and stuff like that. But I had to choose to do it on my own. So just so this listener knows, don't expect anything out of it. People have to choose on their own to do it.

1:02:41 John Dehlin What's your response? And Jenny, I see that you're unmuted, so we're gonna come right to you. But Royleen Charles says that believers have Mormon goggles on. They keep them from seeing things objectively. In a way, if I'm trying to be objective, that seems like a bit of an offensive comment. On the other hand, do you resonate with that as someone who used to be more orthodox, but who decided at some point to read up, did you have Mormon goggles on?

1:03:08 Raelynn Ottison Well, I would say I had the Mormon goggles on that John has on now through the goggles and the paradigm he has on a goggles and a paradigm and a lens that he is seeing the world through. And I had on my lenses and goggles of the way I was seeing the world.

1:03:22 John Dehlin So yes, so we all that that's the rub is that Charles has goggles, too.

1:03:28 Raelynn Ottison Yes, we all do.

1:03:29 John Dehlin Charles thinks he's not wearing goggles. That's. That's part of the problem.

1:03:36 Raelynn Ottison Yes.

1:03:37 John Dehlin All right, all right.

1:03:39 Margi Dehlin There's so much of this where I think it really does start with us. Yeah, really does.

1:03:44 John Dehlin Jenny, let's get you in. What do you got?

1:03:47 Jenny Morrow Yeah. So when you were talking about that idea of Mormons need to be shocked, was that the word he used?

1:03:52 John Dehlin Yeah, Shocked or jolted? I don't mean to pick on you, Charles.

1:03:57 Jenny Morrow Yeah, no, and I mean. And I also. And I, you know, I resonated with that in the sense that for me, it took seeing some things that kind of shocked or jolted me, and that was done, you know, when I left Mormonism, I hadn't yet studied any of the history, and I was a very tbm, you know, taught seminary, kind of a Mormon. But watching gay and lesbian clients struggle and be suicidal behind closed doors over and over and over, and to start to say, wait a minute, something that I've been believing about this struggle is not correct. It can't be correct because it's just not lining up with what I'm seeing in my therapy room. And so that was kind of the shock or the jolt to me, and that's what created that desire for me to step back and take a break and then assess and get information. And. And then, thankfully, I found Mormon stories where I could get information. And so I think, you know, that's a reality. But. And maybe not for everyone. It was my experience, and it may have been Charles experience, but again, one of the things that I've found, you know, is that there are moments where I feel tempted to try to shock or jolt someone else. So I remember having a family member tell me about a book she'd been reading about a politician, a past president, his affairs, and she was just talking about how shocked she was. And I remember thinking, well, I oughta send you Lindsay Hansen's park episodes on year Polygamy. You'll be shocked. You know, I'm thinking. And then I just checked in like, well, Jenny, you know, what do you think you're gonna get out of that? Are you really going to get, you know, even if. Even if this family member that you care about were to listen to that and feel shocked, are you going to, you know, what are you going to get out of it? And so think, you know, coming back to. And both of the question on that and then also the previous question on enlightening people, you know, checking in with, well, what am I afraid of? If I. If the person that I want to be enlightened or be shocked or be jolted out of this thing, you know, if they are or aren't, what. Well, what am I afraid is going to happen? If they aren't, Am I afraid we're not going to be as close? Am I afraid that I'm going to be on my own still? So I think checking in with that and seeing what is it I think I want out of this. And if it's connection, if it's that I want to be able to connect, I want to be able to feel closer, then you may not need to shock or jolt someone or to get more of that.

1:06:28 John Dehlin That may actually keep you from what your ultimate goal is.

1:06:31 Jenny Morrow Right, Exactly. Yeah. Because even if they get the information and even if they decide to step back, I don't know. And I've seen this actually in my. In my therapy room also, where, you know, I've had clients come in and say, my spouse, you know, shocked me out of this, out of this religion and I'm no longer going, but I can't forgive my spouse. You know, it's been two years and I'm still angry and resentful that they forced this information on me. So it creates actually a lack of safety in the attachment, which can be really damaging to the relationship. And until it's sorted out and resolved.

1:07:06 John Dehlin Beautiful. Thank you, Jenny.

1:07:08 Margi Dehlin Yeah. I love the idea of information getting information out there. Being an information provider, I'm a little more uncomfortable myself being an information carrier, wanting to be the deliverer. Just because I find something happens in my mind as I'm thinking about that person, thinking it's not an agenda necessarily, but it feels like I'm judging some lack or something they could. And I feel uncomfortable being there. I just feel uncomfortable. I don't know their life. I don't know what the church is providing or giving to them in that moment that I feel so sure this piece of information is really going to be the best thing. So I love the idea of information. For me, I just, I stop at. And I also feel like it does something to the relationship by nature. And I do think sometimes we walk out of these structures like the church, but we keep the structure of like, I'm enlightened, I'm right, I'm, you know, I know more and therefore I should share it. I would like now for all of you to benefit from, you know, this journey that. And it's natural to do that because it's painstaking, you know, and it isn't It. I do feel like it's an achievement to come into your own and to really, really do this thing for yourself and for people you love. But at the same time, I really love the humility and the seeing people and seeing, you know, the. That people are on their own journeys and they are in different places. And what do we know in the end about what they really need or what's really working or what they're really. And that gentleness and that respect think is felt in relationships, and it allows relationships to thrive and that unconditional love to be in just rich soil.

1:08:56 John Dehlin Love that. Thank you, Jenny. That was great. I'll just add, you know, some of you who followed Mormon stories from the very beginning will know that I probably stopped Mormon stories three different times between 2004 and 2009, and each time, a good chunk of that was me getting freaked out about the influence I was having, because in my mind, I was, like, giving people truth and saving marriages and helping people get their lives back. And I think Mormon stories, you know, did that. But sometimes, you know, I would notice that somebody who used to totally live the word of wisdom, for example, would start drinking or, you know, using drugs, which, you know, there are people who use alcohol and drugs in healthy ways. But I would sometimes see people get to an unhealthy place, or I would see two people who were relatively happy in their marriage end up divorced after one of them or both of them left the church or kids not do so well or whatever. People who were relatively happy all of a sudden become overwhelmed and maybe even a little bit depressed. And I realized, man, I need to have humility. Just like Margie is kind of saying, I need to have humility, that people know themselves best and have their own journey. And, yeah, the most I can do is just say, hey, if you ever want to talk about this, I'd love to talk to you. But to do anything more than that, you may regret what you push someone into if you're. If you're too forceful. So let it be something they drive. And that's what I like about the podcast model. You have to download it and click it and listen. And as long as I'm doing that, then if people choose it, they're choosing it. It's not something I'm forcing on them really, really quickly. I have to sort of speak up for Charles. We kind of gave Charles a bit of a hard time, but we left out the second part of his question. In addition to Charles talking about the Mormon goggles and people needing to Take them off to see things objectively. Charles added that people removing their goggles is rarely a result of the proselytizing efforts of ex Mormons. And so his port point was let people have their natural process. So Charles, I hope you feel like we corrected the record there. But then we had a couple people respond and say that for them it wasn't a jolt. We were under this impression, we've been talking about this idea that it takes some jolt. And often a jolt is what leads someone to question the church. But Christopher says not always. His transition took years. He slowly evolved mostly through his own musings. And there were other people as well who seconded that and said that for them their faith journey was something that took a long time, that took multiple years. And that's something we need to keep in mind. So anyway, that's a little bit of clarification. Okay, Margie, why don't you read the next question. We need to go back to some of our, our listeners emails. So which one do you want to read?

1:12:21 Margi Dehlin Should we go into boundaries?

1:12:22 John Dehlin Let's do it. Boundaries. This is a really good one. This will be the last one we covered today. We need to end in about 10 minutes. So let's talk some boundaries.

1:12:30 Margi Dehlin So maybe what I'll do is I'll just read off a few questions. But it's all around the subject is all around boundaries. How do you respond to a well meaning outreach from a family or friend who is trying to save you or how to deal with parents, families and siblings when they send you faith promoting articles or book suggestions? And then the last one is, Wendy, what do you do when people make sincere requests that you read, pray and keep covenants? So thoughts on that?

1:13:02 Jenny Morrow Anyone?

1:13:03 John Dehlin Do you want to give your first thoughts on that or do you want to wait?

1:13:06 Margi Dehlin I'd rather put it out, actually.

1:13:08 John Dehlin Okay. All right. While our panelists are deciding if you they want to unmute, Mindy writes, margie, you have a beautiful soul. And Randy writes, I want to join the church of Margie of Latter Day Delin. So thank you. I'm sure Margie loves that. I'm sure that's exactly what she's going for here. So Randy, send us. No, I'm just kidding. Once they send us your money, that's not what Margie's going for. All right, so which Royleen and then Jenny, what's your response to this question of boundaries?

1:13:48 Raelynn Ottison Okay, just real quick. I think this is probably a really hard one for a lot of people and once again it's living in your own integrity. When people, when I like, I have great conversations with my father, and he sent me some books and stuff like that, and I just tell him I really appreciate him and I. And sometimes I'll even look at him and read it and try and have a discussion with him, but try and let him know where I'm at. So I don't. I understand. Sometimes, especially if you're farther along in your faith journey, like, this is not going to do any good, you know, you sending me these things. And I once again, I think you just have to have that hard discussion with them where they know all you need from them is love and understanding and building a relationship. Let's, you know, quit with the Ensign articles.

1:14:36 John Dehlin So you're saying sometimes just be graceful and accepted and thank them.

1:14:41 Raelynn Ottison Understand their heart is coming from a place. They love you. And in their mind, it's, you know, I love this person so much, I want to be with them in heaven, you know, in my mind, of course we're going to be in heaven. Right? It's all good. It's going to be okay. Right. But their mind, they're thinking it's more only going to be heaven if these certain things are lined up in the happen this way. So I just always try to keep that in mind when I'm given something.

1:15:07 John Dehlin Love it. Thanks, Raylene. Jenny, what do you want to add?

1:15:10 Jenny Morrow Well, there are two different things that popped up. One is just the idea that we have permission to respond in multiple ways. So when we're talking about boundaries, you know, boundaries can look like so many things, and it's going to depend on. Going to really ultimately depend on what we want. And so, for example, somebody sends us something and we feel like maybe it's someone we feel kind of neutral about or someone we don't want to put a lot of attention and time into developing a relationship or with or we just don't really feel any desire to respond. I mean, it really is okay to just not respond to someone so that that could be a boundary. And I think for a lot of us, we feel like we have to engage, and that's not necessarily true. So I think just knowing the boundary could be anything from. From we have a right to not respond and, you know, they may or may not reach out again in some other way to, wow, I got this thing from someone and I'm noticing I want to engage. And what does that mean? And so I remember at one point I had a family member send me an NSIGN article or like a conference Talk or something over the email. I think I've had that happen a couple of times. And both times I just tried to be really honest with myself. The first time, I was like, okay, I'm gonna get in. I'm gonna read it, and I'm gonna. I'm gonna write down what I like about it, and I'm gonna write down what I don't like about it. And that's what I did. I started to do that with the first couple of pages, and then I realized this talk. If we have a conversation about this, it's just gonna be. It's just gonna be a lot of stuff. And so I ended up, you know, emailing back and saying, you know, here's. Here's what I did. I got into the article and decided I'd be really honest with myself as I read it. I acknowledge what I liked. I would acknowledge what I. What I don't like about it. And that's, you know, what I started to do. And then I realized, I don't know if it'll be helpful for us to talk about this. What do you think? And she responded back and said, yeah, probably it won't be helpful then. And so I think just being really honest with ourselves and then again, being honest with others. And boundaries. There's no right or wrong. Boundaries are a container in which we're choosing to take risks. That's how I often think of boundaries. And so we get to determine what kind of a container we want to take risks within and then get the information from that, and then the boundaries may be adjusted over time.

1:17:32 John Dehlin Love that. Boundaries are containers within which we choose to take risks. Jenny Morrow.

1:17:39 Guest 2 Love it.

1:17:42 John Dehlin Really quickly, Amy, why don't you jump in?

1:17:46 Guest 3 Yeah, I love what Jenny said. That's great. And I resonate with this. This first question was actually from my husband because all my family and all of his family are very active in the church, and we do get this all the time. And this may not work for everybody, but this has really worked for me, is just really expressing. Thank you so much for sharing this. You know, I always try to respond instead of ignore it. So it's. So I show them that I really appreciate that they've taken the time to send this to me. And I always try to find a little something that I relate to and that I know is gonna go in line with their beliefs. And again, that's just worked for me. And because we do have very believing members on both sides, and so it may not work for everybody, but I found it to Be very helpful with my family.

1:18:34 John Dehlin Love that, Amy. And tell Jeff thanks. We had an interesting comment which was. And this is from Randy, he says the approach he likes to take is do one for one, which is, I'll read this Ensign article if you read the first 10 pages of the CES letter and then we'll talk about it. Now, Ryan or Steve, you guys are both smiling. Why don't one or both of you unmute and tell us if you think that's wise? If it's not, if it depends, Ryan, you unmuted first. Steve, we're gonna, we're gonna expect you to have an answer, too. But Ryan, what do you think about that article?

1:19:16 Guest Yeah, I mean, I'm probably not the best example of how to deal with these situations myself.

1:19:22 John Dehlin Why is that? Why is that?

1:19:23 Guest Yeah, I. Well, because I tend to ignore most of the time, but I do think that it depends on who it's coming from and the frequency with which they're sending you material. I mean, I've got people that, it seems like almost on a weekly basis are sending me something, and these are people that would not be willing to do a one for one. So I just ignore those. I don't know if that's the right thing to do or not, but there's

1:19:50 John Dehlin good science behind ignoring being the most effective way to change behavior. So that's.

1:19:55 Guest Yeah.

1:19:55 Guest 2 And.

1:19:56 Guest Well, it hasn't worked yet, but. But yeah, because to me, it's kind of like one of those things where you have to like, pick your battles, you know, and if you're going to try to like, read an end sign article or some apologist article and spend the time to offer some, like, thoughtful reply, ultimately it comes back to what we talked about before, where you can't convince anybody. So in the end, I mean, are you wasting your time or not? And I suppose, you know, to a certain extent you're not wasting your time, but I don't know. I tend to fall on the side of ignoring. But I do think that it is totally reasonable to do the whole one for one offer, because if they were to reject such an offer, then that tells you right there, you know, their mindset. I mean, if you're willing to read something and, and they're not, which happens, and this happened to me before, which may be one of the reasons why I just tend to ignore nowadays. So for me it's, it's kind of like, and maybe I'll be accused of being closed minded or not, I'll accept that criticism. But to me, unless it's gonna be presenting like a new. A new piece of information or. Or like a breakthrough sort of unexpressed position than before. Then I'm really just not interested anymore in listening to it. If it's just gonna be the whole same, you know, give Brother Joseph a break or, you know, doubt your doubts. Try. Yeah, maybe you just have the wrong. Maybe you're just not thinking about in the right frame of mind or whatever the variation on the apologetic article would be. I've gotten to the point where I'm just not interested anymore.

1:21:41 Guest 2 Right.

1:21:42 John Dehlin That's fair. Steve, what do you want to add?

1:21:44 Guest 2 So I agree with most of what Ryan was saying. I think one for one does make sense in certain situations, and it really depends on who it is. And if they're really willing, if they want you to read something and then you, in equal sincerity were to say, I will if you'll read this. And then really what happens next is, I think what will be telling about the conversation. If. If it's about intellectual kinds of things and really kind of like being objective, that's great. If it goes emotional, if one's feeling shut off or hurt or it goes into. This is affecting my faith. I can't read this further or what have you. I think you should respect that. I think it's not going to be. They're not going to be open to reading the things that you're putting in front of them. But, yeah, I think it makes sense. I think the onus is more on non believers, frankly, on how these conversations go. We have all been believers to varying degrees, and so we understand that the set of goggles, and it shouldn't be too hard to remember what the world looked like through those goggles, whereas they have. It's really hard for them to look at the world through our eyes. For those who have eyes to see, I welcome them to open them and really take a look and really be here on this earth while we're here.

1:23:21 John Dehlin Yeah. Love it. Beautiful. Beautiful. Charlotte writes, this is great. Charlotte, a family member was unable to discuss beliefs, respectfully, crossed tons of boundaries, and was very hurtful. I had to set the boundary for now that I will not discuss the issue. And it is not okay with me for her to send me any religious materials. That isn't how I would prefer it, but I think it's what I need to do for now to preserve the relationship. Now, Margie, we talked about this last week. Mormons are so awful at boundaries sometimes that seems like the most awful thing to do is to Say, stop sending me this, please. But talk about how that might not be the worst thing for the relationship.

1:24:10 Guest Margie.

1:24:11 Margi Dehlin Yeah, well, I have had to do that as well. So I feel you, and I do think a very boundaries set with love and also with intention and with an energy of sort of. I mean, this, like, can be a beautiful thing because what it does is it sort of protects this space where you can feel connection and empathy with the person, whereas if you didn't set that up, the resentment would grow and the relationship would suffer. So I have done that as well. I was going to say, there have been times that, for me, when I speak up around this topic is if I'm getting numerous, if I'm getting enough, and then I'm being called on it. So there's an expectation, and then I'm going to call you on. I'm going to ask you about it in public or at a. And that is when I'm more apt to say, you know, thank you. I really appreciate you thinking of me in this way. And I know you love me and I probably should just kind of tell you that I'm not looking at the Ensign in the same way so much anymore. And I don't. I don't really, you know, I'm just not in the same place with it anymore. But I appreciate you sharing, you know, and. And I put it out there and then I stick to it. And if they, if they do it again and ask me again, I say the exact same thing. Shorter version. I give them no more of me. It's like, yeah, I don't, you know, I really don't look to those materials anymore to really read in my free time. Thanks for thinking of me. You know, and it's.

1:25:49 Jenny Morrow It.

1:25:49 Margi Dehlin There's connection, there can be warmth, but there is a boundary where I'm being clear. I'm not really going to read it. I'm not. This is where I am. And so I completely relate to that statement. And I do think it's important oftentimes to preserve a relationship and where it is to see set up a loving and also really definitive boundary.

1:26:12 John Dehlin Yeah, it's sometimes the best way to preserve a relationship. It seems counterintuitive, but sometimes it's our best hope because otherwise we get so frustrated, we just shut them out.

1:26:20 Margi Dehlin We feel used. You start feeling like a doormat, you start feeling not seen, and all of those feelings just, yeah, they snowball fast.

1:26:28 John Dehlin So you either end up avoiding the relationship or blowing up and destroying the relationship. And neither one is going to be Useful. So what's the best option? It's a good boundary. All right, it's time to be wrapping up. We're an hour and a half in, man. I just want to say. Well, first of all, panelists, I'm going to have each of you give your closing statement. If you want to plug something, I imagine each of you might have something to plug. So please prepare a brief closing argument with something to plug if you want. But while I'm giving you that, I want to just really thank. I want to thank Amy Grubbs. She makes all of this possible. She's fabulous. So, Amy, thank you so much for all you do. You're fantastic.

1:27:14 Guest 3 Thanks.

1:27:16 John Dehlin And I'll give you time for a closing statement. But I also want to thank Shandy Hill, who's not with us today, but she's moderating the comments. She helps us organized stuff. She's fabulous. So, Shandy, shout out to you. I want to thank our listeners because I love that we have people write in questions, but I really love this live dynamic of a conversation. And yesterday we did a Mormon Stories interview live and we were talking about church statistics and sort of activity rates and the health of, of the church overall. It was so beautiful to have listeners actually saying, well, this is what we're experiencing in Canada and this is what it's like in Scotland, and this is what I experienced over in Bountiful. It made the conversation really rich. So I think I'm always going to want to favor the live comments, but I don't want to disincentivize people to email us or voicemail us. So we'll try and find a good mix. But I just want to thank our listeners for their comments. They made a really rich discussion today. So thank you. Those of you who are listening to the recorded episode, please do try and join us live if you can. If you can't, no problem. Email us your questions or thoughts. Other than that, I just want to say this has been really fun and now we're going to go around the horn. So, Amy, why don't we start with you? What, what's a closing statement or word of wisdom you want to share with us?

1:28:45 Guest 3 Great. Thank you. This is one little plug because you said to plug something. If anybody wants to be on this panel, we want to bring in leading members, people who have left. We love to have people from all sorts of the gamut. And I really like the panel that we found today and want to continue to have that diversity. And so please email us@moreintransitions.org if you're interested in that. And we would love to have you because. Because we'll have people on every single week. And just closing thoughts. I loved everybody's comments today. I think just kind of what I said last week is just really trying to find what works for you and your stage of life and always be respectful and validating whoever you are talking to. And I think you'll always win out at the end of the day.

1:29:28 Ryan McKnight Love that.

1:29:29 John Dehlin Thanks, Amy. All right, Steve, what do you got for us?

1:29:35 Guest 2 So my plug, Amy, just use the word gamut to describe the spectrum of Mormonism. So my plug is mormonspectrum.org, my good friend Alison Udall assembled a compendium that is unbelievable of resources on the web dealing with anywhere in the spectrum. We didn't focus a lot in orthodoxy because, you know, lds.org pretty much handles that. But there's resources like books, websites, websites, online groups, support groups, podcasts, blogs. The whole gamut. I'll use Amy's word again, is found in Mormon spectrum. The part of the spectrum that I'm mostly responsible for is in person communities and a map of in person communities. And so that's another plug is if you need community and you're anywhere in that spectrum, kind of outside of you may be still attending church, but you want to find people you can be authentic with and who can accept you. There are places like that near you, and if there isn't, you can create a group. The social web is just amazing. As far as my last comments for today, I think this is the crux of why we're human. We can communicate with each other using language. And our worlds in here, inside of ourselves are very complicated. But we have to have a connection to the world out there. And so part of understanding how to communicate with other people who are just as complex as you is granting them a space in that sphere of their world in here. They may be scrunched up in the middle of it, fearful and tiny, or they may be pushing out against that sphere to the fullness of their creation, to use the term. And I think that that's. I wish that for any living human, any living being is that they can live to the fullness of their existence. So communication is the path to do that with each other. So thanks, beautiful.

1:32:03 John Dehlin Thank you, Steve. Thanks so much. It's been so great to have you on the show. Please come back and join us. All right, Roylene, we'd love to hear your parting thoughts. What do you got for.

1:32:16 Raelynn Ottison Okay, I just Want to thank you so much for allowing me to come on and just to tell everybody, you be you, everybody, just do your journey the way that you feel that you need to do it and respect others to do theirs as well. And I wanted to read this little quote. The very least you can do in this life is hope for something. And the most you can do is live in that hope. And so all of us, I hope that we can live in our hope and in our integrity far as plugging something. Oh, my gosh. I just want to say thank you so much to you, John. The Mormon stories for the podcast for the online communities. So many online communities that helped me so much. When my husband first told me I needed somebody to talk to, I was very believing still. And I found this great website called Another Testament of Marriage, and that's on Facebook group. So if you're in a mixed faith marriage and you're believing, leaving and you need somebody to talk to, go there also. A thoughtful faith online, thoughtful transitions. And of course, if you're in the Seattle area, come and join our group, east side Pilgrims Society. We'd love to have your voice.

1:33:25 John Dehlin Beautiful. Royleen. It was so. It was so nice to have you join us. Thanks for holding down the faithful believer perspective, even if progressive.

1:33:34 Guest 2 That's great.

1:33:35 Raelynn Ottison Yeah, I'm progressive.

1:33:36 John Dehlin You were great. You were great. And we want to invite listeners to join us to be in that seat as well, because that keeps an important perspective. So, Royleen, you were fabulous. Say hi to your husband.

1:33:48 Raelynn Ottison Thanks. I will.

1:33:49 John Dehlin All right, Ryan, what do you got for us? Unmute. Sorry, Ryan.

1:33:55 Guest Yeah, okay. They're sorry about that. I actually, just as you were saying that I got a submission here from Mormon Leaks and it popped up on my phone.

1:34:05 John Dehlin Nice.

1:34:06 Guest The website is working, guys. The website is working. Okay. Yeah, I wanted to thank you guys too, for the opportunity to be here. You know, with all the media that I've been doing over the last couple of months, it's actually kind of refreshing to be able to have a discussion like this about something that's not directly related to the website and what we're doing. Because not that I don't like talking about it, but it's. It's nice to kind of have something

1:34:32 Ryan McKnight a little bit of variety there.

1:34:33 Guest But I'm gonna give two really quick plugs. I'm gonna give a plug for the believing members that may be watching this, and that would be to Visit us at MormonLeaks IO or visit our Facebook page or our Twitter and follow what we're doing. And the plug is to them to not be afraid of information, because there is no reason why anything that we release through this project has to be inherently negative about the church. And information is power. So you should want to know these things and don't be afraid of learning new things, things that might be uncomfortable. And if there is anything that ends up happening to be explosive or makes you super uncomfortable, that's. That's not our fault. We're just simply putting the information out there. So, so that's my plug to the, to the active believer is don't be afraid of our website. My plug to the, to the ex Mormons that are watching this. If you're not already participating on Reddit in the ex Mormon subreddit, I would encourage you to, especially in light of this conversation, because what we're talking about here today, about how to properly deal with your friends and loved ones and acquaintances when it comes to these topics. This is an almost daily topic that gets discussed there. And you can go to Reddit. If you Google Reddit, ex Mormon, you'll probably find it very easily. And you will read not only stories from people who are just like you that have gone through this and they share the reaction that they got from their family and things like this. You can also, before you're ready to make a move, maybe you don't know how to approach a family member or you don't know how to react to something they sent you, go to Reddit. It's fairly easy to maintain your anonymity, give a little brief summary of what's going on, and believe me, the advice will flow and it will be a wide spectrum of advice, and I think it will be helpful. And Reddit is one of those great places where you can just kind of go, speak freely, and for the most part be free of harsh judgments. And it can sort of cultivate your ideas and your feelings as you're transitioning through leaving the church. So those are my two plugs.

1:36:58 John Dehlin All right, Ryan, it's been great having you on. Really respect the work you're doing, and I think we're having you on Mormon story soon. Is that right?

1:37:06 Guest Yeah, probably.

1:37:08 John Dehlin All right, well, thanks, Ryan, for joining us. It's been great. Come on again soon. And I want to meet your friend when I come to Vegas next. Is that all right?

1:37:15 Guest Okay.

1:37:16 John Dehlin All right, Jenny, you get the last word. Well, Margie gets the last word, but Jenny, you get the penultimate word. What do you got for us?

1:37:24 Jenny Morrow I was just, you know, sitting here thinking it really was nice to be on the panel today, it felt fun to connect and converse with everyone here and just think about listening out there who are listening as well. And the thing that was popping up for me was, you know, if I could say anything, it would be to really trust your passion and your compassion. Trust those parts of yourself. So trust your passion for connection, for truth, for honesty. Trust those things in yourself. And then also trust your ability to be compassionate to yourself and others and really, you know, practice living from that space and let it unfold as it will. I think, you know, one of the things that I have been working with in my own mind because I tend to be a little bit right brained and how I process is the metaphor of I've been thinking lately about raw milk and it's something that I sometimes will go buy and use instead of store bought milk because I actually can't drink store bought milk anymore due to lactose intolerance stuff. And one of the things that's interesting about raw milk is because it maintains the good bacteria, it's more digestible for people. And so it's interesting how sometimes we sterilize things so much thinking we want to make it safe, we want to make it safe that it's almost hard to digest. And so I've been thinking about this in terms of my own relationships lately. Like, you know, I tend to want so much safety that sometimes I over sterilize everything and try to predict what could happen and make it all perfect. And one of the things I've been trying to do is just relax into life. Let it be raw, let it bring what's there. Trust your passion, your connection, compassion, you know, feed yourself with things that are uplifting that connect you to those things that matter in your life. And then, you know, let things unfold and see what pops up. Sometimes strange and interesting things do, but it seems like that can be, that can be a helpful way to connect ourselves to life and to others.

1:39:18 John Dehlin Beautiful. Well, Jenny, it's been great having you on. If people want to seek out your services. What's the website again?

1:39:25 Jenny Morrow So if they want to seek out my services, you can find my phone number and email@www.jennymarrowhealing.com and then you can also check out. I've got a few great free webinars on advanced relationships.org if you go under the romantic relationship and the business relationship tabs, there's some a few fun webinars right now and then ask an ex Mormon therapist podcast. Check that out on itunes and feel free to write in A question. If you want me to spend, you know, 30 to 60 minutes kind of diving deep into something.

1:40:01 John Dehlin Love it. Well, Jenny, you're delightful to have on, so thanks for coming, and please join us again.

1:40:06 Jenny Morrow Thank you. I would love to.

1:40:07 John Dehlin All right. All right. Margie, are you giving comments, too? Maybe at the end?

1:40:14 Jenny Morrow Okay.

1:40:16 Margi Dehlin What would I say in closing? Loved all of the insights from you all, so thank you. What would I leave with? I would probably leave with the idea that relationships are sort of the working ground where we, I feel like, practice. Right. Our values and our own sort of spirituality. And so within that, it's tricky and it's impossible. Perfect. And at times it's messy. So I just wanted to say, you know, with these difficult conversations, things will go wrong. They will. Things will blow up. Things will not be ideal. There is no. I think I said this last time, there is no way to package it up with the pretty ribbon. And that is just reality. But there's great news with that, too, because it can also take the pressure off you somewhat that there's an art to it, that there's a learning to it. So. So that would be definitely one of my final thoughts. And then maybe just to end with. Really, what we're talking about in these conversations around such vulnerable topics is that really there's this opportunity to model unconditional love, this love that we're trying to move toward, to grow into and to just be aware of that. That that is an opportunity that you have and to sort of emulate this idea. The differences don't mean this cutoff from intimacy. They're not required. Being the same is not required. Differences can be something that, like, allow for oxygen. They feed relationships, they make us accountable. They allow us to sort of grow and be. And mature and so to sort of. I don't know, like, look at it as an opportunity to sort of practice embracing some of those qualities.

1:42:07 John Dehlin I love it. All right. Thanks for coming on.

1:42:11 Margi Dehlin Thank you.

1:42:13 John Dehlin Yeah. I'll just echo what my sweet wife Margie just said. If you want to be listened to, then listen and don't listen because you should expect that someday you'll be listened to. Listen because it's the right thing to do, and that's your best shot at being listened to. But most importantly, it's just the right thing to do. Don't try and force or push because you don't want to be forced or pushed. Be empathetic, partly because you want to model the empathy that you seek, but also because it's the right way to live. And to develop and become a better human. So my summation is, don't become the monster that you ran from and instead be the person. Model the love and the empathy and support, support that you're seeking. And, you know, worst case, you'll become a better human. Best case, the person will open up and feel safe enough to then want to listen and understand your perspective, and they maybe even join you. And there's good to that, and there may be bad. So enjoy the ride no matter what.