Latest / MIDDLE GROUND - Real Conversations on Faith, Identity & Becoming — Through Brynne's LDS Lens of Curiosity, Love and Doubt / I Stopped Believing the Same Way — And Stayed: Why I Started Middle Ground
Transcript
- Brynne Erickson (00:01.624) Welcome. Thank you so much for taking some of your time to be here on middle ground with me. I am Brynne Erickson. I just wanted to take a minute to introduce myself, tell you why I'm here, why I'm doing this, a little bit about me. So we will cut straight to the chase. I am a boy mom. I am a stay at home mom. former elementary education teacher. I taught third and fourth grade for seven years. Supported my husband through med school. He's now a family physician. And I am also a lover of books, outdoors, food, big time foodie. Love friends, family. Yeah. I found myself intellectually. stagnant for a while there when I stepped into motherhood. Had to figure out who I was leaving the work field and stepping into full-time motherhood and that was really hard and it kind of perpetuated this journey launched me onto this journey that I've been on of discovering who I am and who I want to be and a big part of that journey was my spirituality and hence I have found myself in what I consider a space of the middle. So not only a space of compromise, which middle ground kind of means, but like the middle of all the options in my life, like the extremes on both ends of being all in or being all out. It kind of stemmed from religion. So I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I came to a point in about 2019 ish that some things just didn't settle well with me, particularly with the, with our brothers and sisters of the LGBTQ plus community. And my church came out with a, what was it? I don't, I can't think of the term, but essentially there was some ideas that they came out with regarding. Brynne Erickson (02:23.192) these brothers and sisters and how things should be done that I just didn't understand. And I didn't understand where they fit in with my community of Latter-day Saints. And so I started reading books and listening to podcasts and it just started a dive of trying to understand and more questions reading. more books and perspectives and of those in and out of my faith and of other faiths. And I realized that I just didn't believe things the same way that I had before. And so I concluded that I either needed to step away because I couldn't stay in my church being the person that I was before that person was gone. I had new beliefs, I had new ways of thinking, and there was no going back to being that same woman. So it was either leaving or figuring out how I could be the new version of me and participate in my faith. And that's where I am today. So I truly found myself in the middle and I'm still navigating it. And I have seen a lot of Brynne Erickson (03:51.822) people maybe disvaluing the experiences of those that have stepped away from the church and explaining their reasoning for stepping away with what makes sense to those who are still actively participating. And there's a lot of hurt there. And I just needed, I just saw a need for a space for people to share their stories. And not only of the Latter-day Saint faith, but I hope to create more unity within. religions and ideals of controversial topics in this space and kind of take you on my journey of becoming and how I grapple with understanding of extremes on both sides for very for or against or very strong opinions towards one way or the other and have conversations with my friends, my family. I maybe will bring on some experts at some point. But for now, it's very much everyday people and giving them time and space to share their thoughts, their stories, their experiences, and maybe create some healing. But you will hear my intro at the beginning of each episode, and that magnifies my mission of being in the middle ground and starting middle ground. And just so you know. Here it is, middle ground encourages curiosity, unity, and love through the sharing of perspective and thought by open-minded and honest conversation without bias and without preconceived outcome. So just trying to create a space where we together can better understand and learn about each other when maybe we don't get to have these kind of conversations on a daily basis. I know. being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints living in the Mecca of these people is wonderful, but also it becomes a little hard to find people with different perspectives and who don't participate in my church or have never participated in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, especially where I don't work anymore. And I am home a lot. It's hard to engage in these conversations. Brynne Erickson (06:17.824) naturally. So I'm just trying to create that. All of us as humans are just trying to figure out this life, right? We have questions. We have so much information, so many perspectives, and it's important to take in the information, but then really sit with it and decide what do I want to believe? And giving ourselves the permission to believe whatever we want and having faith that everything's going to work out okay. And that's essentially what I've concluded. And that's why I'm here and doing this today. So I genuinely appreciate your time and being here and giving my podcast a try. I would really love, for you to share. I am excited to see what this will become. And again, I'm honored that you would take time to be a part of this journey and for your support. So we'll see what comes of this and I'm excited for the conversations I'm going to have and share with you. So again, thank you and have an amazing day.