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Escaping the Mormon Church with Lyn Smith Gregory · Reclaiming Consciousness

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm related to the founder of the Mormon church, Joseph Smith.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so in my family, there were four generations of unbroken devotion to the church.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: And at the age of 19, I discovered that the church was a fraud.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: My mother was devastated.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: She felt like I was making eternal decisions that would affect me, that I would be cast into eternal darkness forever.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: But when I discovered that Joseph Smith was a liar, a cheat, a womanizer, a pedophile, if you ask me.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what's a 35-year-old man doing marrying 14-year-old girls?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: He was a con man and no one that I respected or admired by the time I finished my research.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Reclaiming Consciousness.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: My name is Elise Bassine, spiritual mentor, breathwork practitioner, and owner and CEO of Elise Breeds.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: For many years, our consciousness has been hijacked by societal and cultural programming, religion, the media, and familial and ancestral trauma.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Right now, during this epic time in history, people are waking up, realizing who they really are, and reclaiming the pieces of their consciousness that they unknowingly gave away.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: This podcast is an exploration of how so many spectacular humans are leading the way in exiting the matrix and reclaiming who they really are and what they're capable of.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: In this show, you'll meet exceptional people who are paving the way in raising consciousness and creating a new way of living on this earth.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: Get ready to go deep.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: Now let's dive in.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: Hi everyone.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome back to Reclaiming Consciousness.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_03: So this week I'm very excited for you to hear this conversation.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_03: So it's really funny because I'm very interested in all different types of trauma and how they manifest and also how people heal from them.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I have always been very specifically interested in religious trauma, cult trauma, and also specifically around the Mormon church.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I've watched so many documentaries on it, and um, it's just that type of mind control is very interesting to me, just from a psychological and trauma perspective.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_03: Because obviously, as somebody who continues to develop my own methodology around healing trauma, I study this for fun.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: So probably like a month or so ago, or a little more than that, I was thinking how I would really love to have somebody on the show who was either like in a cult or had some kind of deep religious trauma.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: And then Jordan showed up, who you guys already heard her episode.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_03: And this woman, Lynn, who you're gonna hear from today, reached out to me totally randomly and said that she was a part of the Mormon church.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: She was actually a direct descendant of Joseph Smith, who's like the guy who started it.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_03: And she left the Mormon church and she's writing a book and she wanted to be on my podcast.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, oh my God, well, yes, because I literally have been wanting to have a conversation like this on the podcast.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_03: So here we are.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_03: So I had Lynn on the show, and we talked about her story of, you know, growing up in the Mormon church as a direct descendant of Joseph Smith and some of the trauma that she endured, a lot of the programming that she endured, and then how she ultimately left the church and recovered from it.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: So this is a very powerful conversation just from a trauma perspective and just really understanding all the nuances of how our childhood and the programming and beliefs that we grow up with affect your ability to create what you want to create in your life now and how it's incredibly important to acknowledge and look at those things so that you can move forward in the way that you desire.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: So you're really gonna love this conversation.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: And then as far as what's happening right now, so past lives and money started this week.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: However, you can still jump in.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: By the time this comes out, I will have already taught the first module, which is around the fear of being seen, clearing the witch wound, and feeling comfortable showing up and expressing yourself and making money just for being you.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, you don't have to have a business to be in this program because it's literally for any woman who is desiring to show up in her power and truth.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but especially if you have a business, the fear of being seen and the witch wound will show up for every woman.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_03: And what I'm very passionate about is to not only talk about this, but actually give you the tools to shift it permanently moving forward.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what you'll be learning in Past Lives and Money, and specifically what I taught in the first module.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: So if you're still interested in jumping in, you can totally do that.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_03: We will link it below so you can join and you'll automatically have access to the recording of the first week, and then you'll be able to jump on the live calls moving forward.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_03: There's also going to be a live breathwork session.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_03: We also have a telegram chat that I'm going to be opening up for QA at the end of the program.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_03: So you can ask me anything you want, and I'll be responding inside Telegram.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_03: To me, this information is essential if you at some point want to start a business, or if you already have a business and it's not growing in the way that you want, or you struggle to show up consistently, or you struggle with exactly what you're meant to offer, or you're not attracting clients in the way that you know you could.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_03: Most likely there is some element of one of these past life archetypal energies that's surfacing that you just aren't aware of.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I will show you how to become aware of it and how to shift it so that you don't continue to come up against the same experiences, like feeling confused or a lack of motivation, or, you know, feeling like you can't get out of the same income each month.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_03: No matter what you do, there's usually an element of trauma to it.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: And these four things I've literally seen come up for every single woman.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I show you how to shift them inside past lives and money.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_03: Also, the mothership, I'm extending the bonuses right now.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_03: So um there is a bonus, 60-minute private trauma clearing and business coaching call when you sign on for the mothership right now.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: And the mothership is my all access membership where you have access to all of my programs, all of my master classes, plus you get a monthly coaching call with me, plus a live breathwork session with one of my Metamorphosis Methods certified breath workers, plus a telegram chat.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_03: It's basically like being in a mastermind with me, you guys, for a fraction of the price.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's only five, five, five a month, and you get so much support, so much value.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: Plus, there's gonna be some really exciting uh things that I'm doing only inside the membership.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna be doing a mini four-week mastermind inside the membership.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_03: I'm also gonna be doing this confidence training inside the membership.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_03: So there's so much in there.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: Plus, you get the private call when you sign up.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: It is a year commitment, but the only reason why I have it like that is because you need a year to get through all of the content and all the things that I teach.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_03: So that's why it's a year commitment.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_03: But for what you get, it's kind of a no-brainer.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_03: So if you are interested in really learning from me for a long period of time, for getting support from me in growing your business and creating transformation in your life, this is really the place to do it because you get a ton of support.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_03: We'll link that below as well.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_03: But if you sign up before the end of the month, you'll receive the bonus one-on-one call with me, plus all of the great bonuses you receive for being inside the membership.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_03: So if you have any questions about that, please reach out.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_03: I will leave it here.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_03: Enjoy the episode.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_03: Hi everyone, welcome back to the show.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_03: So I am very excited to introduce you to today's guest and dive in with her.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_03: So today I have with me Lynn Smith Gregory, who is an author, and she's going to tell you all about her story.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: So welcome to the show, Lynn.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me, Elise.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: I am excited to be here.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really interested in the topics that you discuss on your podcast because I think they're important healing modalities for trauma.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And in my case, religious trauma is at the heart of my story.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I'd love to just dive in with you.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: So can you tell the audience and me as well, just a little bit of your background and your story and kind of how you got to where you are now?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was raised in a very strict, large Mormon family, and it was very much patriotically run by my father.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And to make it a little bit more intense, it was really like Mormonism on steroids.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also related, my maiden name is Smith, and I'm related to the founder of the Mormon church, Joseph Smith.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so in my family, there were four generations of unbroken devotion to the church.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: When at the age of 19, I discovered that the church was a fraud.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I really had a hard time absorbing that information.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was shattered to learn that what made me special and unique, and also a big component of my identity, was something that I had felt very proud of, and now I was ashamed of it.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't know how to tell my family, knowing their reaction would be severe, which it was.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: My mother was devastated.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I felt like I had ruined her life.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: She felt like I was making eternal decisions that would affect me, that I would be cast into eternal darkness forever.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And my father was very disappointed.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And having been sort of the golden child in my family, they didn't see this coming.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I had gone away to a non-Mormon university for just a year, planning to transfer to BYU, which is a Mormon university.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: But in that first year, I had a professor that I adored who turned out to be an atheist.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And when he found out I was a Mormon and a believer, a true believer, as he put it, he challenged me to defend my faith in his Bible as literature class.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of going home between the semester break, I went to the library and decided to read everything that that professor might have read about the Mormon church so that I could better defend it.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And in the process of doing that, I read books that had been forbidden for me to read because the Mormon Church said they would lead me astray.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, these were scholarly texts by historians, and they were just giving the facts.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: When I was done reading with my research, I couldn't believe the Mormon church's narrative on how the church had come into being and that Joseph Smith was a new prophet of God.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it just rocked my world.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I eventually had to tell my family because when I stopped going to church, the church came looking for me.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the women that checked up on me to see why I wasn't going to church, I told them I wasn't a believer anymore.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: They were appalled because they knew who I was and what my lineage was.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And they alternatively warned me and pleaded with me to return to the fold.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I couldn't.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's like once you see something, you can't unsee it.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I just didn't believe the story and that it was the truth.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I knew there wasn't a place for me in Utah.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: So when I graduated from college, I was going to either embarrass or shame my family with my apostasy.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And also, Utah is a very predominantly Mormon state and run by the Mormon church for all intents and purposes.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I went to New York City, sight unseen, to reinvent myself.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I assumed that the process, once I was anonymous in New York, would be easy.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'd just shed my skin like a snake, and I would lose the Mormon part of me and emerge shiny and new and be fine.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that was not what happened.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: I found that it was very difficult to get past the indoctrination, the long-term sense of belief that of who I was in the roots of a Mormon culture.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I did not know what to do.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: I went to therapy.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that was my first stop.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: This was before the internet.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't have a way to go find like-minded people who had experienced some of the same things I had.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I felt very isolated and alone.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: And in New York City, you know, my therapist wasn't really familiar with Mormons and how much of an insular community the Mormons were and how deep it went.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Mormons practice their religion in a way that few other religions do.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Not only do they have unique practices and beliefs, but there's something going on at the church every night.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's a culture, it's not just a religion, and it's very interwoven in the activities of the family and the community.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I started to unpack what the impact of these beliefs were and what they were, and started to get in touch with my uh anger about feeling betrayed and my foolishness of being duped by this story.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And also, you know, having to question every time I had a knee-jerk reaction of guilt or shame to doing something that was outside the Mormon norms, having to take a look at this and say, Do I believe this?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is not what I believe to be true.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not going to allow it to run the show.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: But it was a long process.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And for anyone going through that, I think the biggest suggestion I would have is patience.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: It takes time to get past religious trauma.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it takes support, insightful help.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And luckily, I built a community of friends in New York City and I met my husband, but I was quite estranged from my family.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't really a role for me in my family as a non-Mormon.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: And they sort of kept the relationship with me fairly superficial because I was no longer an authority on anything that mattered.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was had been tempted by the devil and led astray.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it was very painful.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: No one said, gosh, why did you leave?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: There was no curiosity.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: There were assumptions about why I left.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't any possibility for a dialogue, and no one saying, Well, how are you feeling?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And what was your experience like?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that was equally hard.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Losing family, friends, all my friends.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: They reacted as if I'd caught uh something that was contagious and they might catch it if they hung out with me.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I felt contaminated and I didn't retain any friendships from that time period.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: And my family relationships were strained at best.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I feel like there's so many things I want to ask, but one of the things that I think is important that I like to dive into a little more is, you know, when we talk about the idea of religious trauma, right?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like there's multiple components and layers to this.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: One is, you know, more of what you are speaking about now, which is the leaving of it and unpacking of it, right?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: But then also when you were in it, the trauma of that too.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: So can we kind of go back to when you were growing up and some of the things that you were taught or that you thought you had to do, or that you were afraid of based on the religion that were traumatic for you?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_03: What were some of those things that you feel like really impacted you?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that really stands out to me, women are revered as wives, mothers, and having a big family is expected.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really the only available role for you.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: The church is run by old white men.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very hierarchical structure, very, very patriarchal.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I will never forget wanting to go to the temple to perform this ritual baptizing for the dead, which is what Mormons do, so that people who have already died can hear the true gospel and make a decision to accept it.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you're baptizing people who have died by proxy in a baptismal font in a secret ceremony in the temple, and you're allowed to do that as a young person, but you have to pass a personal worthiness interview.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I look back at that personal worthiness interview and see how intrusive and inappropriate and voyeuristic it was.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this was a man who was one of my friend's fathers, and he was asking me very personal questions.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Did I have unclean thoughts?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was 14.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then he said, ask if I debased myself, and I was not even sure what the term meant.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: I knew it was bad, and it might be related to touching myself, and all of a sudden I had this overwhelming sense of shame.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I lied and said, Oh no, you know, no unclean thoughts.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt like I was lying to God because this was God's representative.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I've subsequently heard other stories that are even more extreme and upsetting than my own.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: But for him to get that personal and to feel like he had a right to tell me what was right and wrong about my sense of emerging sexuality, I'm just appalled and very upset now.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And at the time, all it did was fill me with shame.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: But other Mormons who have left the church, Mormon women, we've talked about the fact that when my niece was molested by an older boy, and the bishop wanted to know, did you have an orgasm with him?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what color were your panties?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was just completely inappropriate kinds of questions.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think about the setup of an older man, the age of my father asking me such personal questions was so traumatic.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the examples.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing is what happens when you internalize sexism, and there were no role models of women in leadership positions in the Mormon church, they were all subservient.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: You were supposed to be happy.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a culture of toxic positivity.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sit down, be quiet, be small, don't rock the boat.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Put a happy smile on your face.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Come on.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And there's also one that doesn't get talked about a lot, but there is a real, I don't know if you're aware of it or have noticed it, but there's a a lot of Mormon moms blogging.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: They even call it the Mormon blogosphere.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: And these are women who are always made up, perfectly feminine, manage to have their five kids in matching outfits that they've sewn themselves.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just this culture of happy valley.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, non-Mormons refer to Salt Lake City as happy valley, when in fact the antidepressant rate in Utah is the highest in the country among women.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I would imagine because if you're just expected to be happy, just having a bunch of kids and making sure that they're all perfect and you're perfect, like it's really leaving no room for you to be who you are.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_03: And then you probably feel guilty that you don't feel happy when you're supposed to feel happy.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what happens.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: As a psychotherapist was quoted in an article that works in Utah, and she said, we call it the mother of Zion syndrome, where if Mrs.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Smith across the street has two more kids than I do, and she manages to do it perfectly and she's happy, what's wrong with me?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what is so damaging is that what's wrong with me, the internalizing of an expectation that is not only unrealistic, but very, very limited, best case scenario.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there are women who are happy in that role, but that's the only role that's available.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: And women in Utah still have to work outside the home because they have the current economy, etc., requires two incomes, but they tend to dismiss it or downplay it, and it leaves them right for exploitation by the companies because they don't ask for positions of leadership to rise in the organization.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And sexism is alive and well in Utah.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's very much a sense a woman's place is in the home, preferably barefoot and pregnant.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: And yet that's not the reality, but you almost downplay the job you have.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm primarily a wife and mother.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: I make a little income on the side with a full-time job, but I'm really mostly a wife and mother.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that means shouldering that role and that responsibility is not divided up between a husband and wife.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I can imagine just how many women would like break under that.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_03: I'm wondering too, just like kind of based on where we're at in the world.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_03: I would imagine there are more and more women who are leaving or breaking down.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_03: Like, have you seen that there's a lot of women who are leaving or wanting to get out in some way?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I'm guessing it's harder if you already have a bunch of kids, but well, it is.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I have had family members years, I mean decades after I left the church, leave for issues.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Millennials are in particular fed up with the narrative, particularly about women's position in the world and in the family and leadership roles that are non existent, but also about other issues.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: The whole LBGTQ thing is huge, and there's so little acceptance of homosexuality.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's still considered a venial sin right next to murder.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: But when my little sister's son, she had nine children and absolute true blue Mormon.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: But when one of her sons came out as gay, that just was a turning point for her.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: She could not accept the position of the Mormon church that this child that everyone in the family loved and adored was not acceptable in God's eyes.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: And she left the church, as did almost all of her children.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, I could imagine because if you were faced with the decision of ostracizing your own child, like that's a wake-up call of like, this isn't gonna work for me.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: I wish it was more than it is.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: I am so saddened by you know, LTG rates of suicide is very high in Utah.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's because they don't see themselves as having a place, so much of it is the internalized shame.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: But also there's the ostracism or the absolute estrangement due to their belief systems or who they are with their parents.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Their parents have not been able to widen their view to accept their child for who they are.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_03: And you mentioned, you know, obviously, with the inappropriate way of men treating, you know, young girls and all of that.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I imagine that whole thing, like molestation and all of that, is prevalent as well.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the actual statistics are, but child abuse is a factor in Utah.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's not well documented, but we know that it's higher than the average.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, there's a correlation between high control religions and oppressive religions and sexual abuse with children.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: With that repression, you know, comes hiding out, but it seems to increase the rate of incidents.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: And often the trajectory for getting help is you go to your bishop, and for example, an abused wife might go to her bishop, and the bishop might counsel her to stay with him because you're gonna ruin this man's life if you uh report him or leave him.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: So the very nature of a patriarchal society is very, very damaging.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: But also the avenues for support are so limited, and I was lucky enough to leave Utah.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: That helped my anger.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: I got angry every time I came home for a visit, just noticing the things that I saw.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: For example, the airports filled with returning Mormon missionaries, and you see these Hallmark commercial white wonderbred families, all squeaky clean.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm saying, yeah, where are your transgender kids?
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: Where are the families of color?
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: Where are the oddballs, the people who don't fit in?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: The people who like me who are considered heretics or apostates in this family, where are they?
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: The Mormon Church has spent millions of dollars on a narrative and an advertising campaign to present themselves as so family focused and happy, healthy families who are so wholesome because they don't drink, they don't smoke, they don't swear, they don't gamble, they don't have sex before marriage.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what you don't see is just how unhappy.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you're marrying and there's an urgency to get married at a young age because they don't want you to mess around and have premarital sex.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: So the average age in Utah for getting married is way below the average 20, 21, 22, 23.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Not like it has as the age rises in the rest of the country.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's like 33 or 34 in New York City, for example.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's often a huge wake-up call in these marriages.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're marrying the first person that you've kind of fallen in love with or have a crush on.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have a lot of experience with the relationships and what you need and want in a relationship, and yet you're married for time and all eternity, and you're going and getting unmarried.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can get a civil divorce, but a temple divorce is very difficult.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if you get divorced, you're free to marry again in the outside world, but you're still considered married to that person in heaven, and you can't marry another Mormon without a temple divorce.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_03: So okay, there's so many things.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_03: First, I kind of want to go into like when you talk about, you know, how you left and then you started like doing all this research and stuff.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_03: First of all, why did your parents allow you to leave at that time?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_03: Because I would think they might have been scared of something like this happening.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_03: So were they okay with you leaving, or why was that okay?
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first it was temporary.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: And second, they thought I was the last person.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was a true believer.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: They had no reason to think I would ever leave the church.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we have four generations with an unbroken record.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: What were the chances it was going to start with me?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't think they expected it at all.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't expect it.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know where the research was going to lead me.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was reading to be better prepared to defend my faith.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: But when I discovered that Joseph Smith was a liar, a cheat, a womanizer, a pedophile, if you ask me.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what's a 35-year-old man doing marrying 14-year-old girls, you know, with his polygamy?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: He was a, as far as I'm concerned, a con man and no one that I respected or admired by the time I finished my research.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_03: Was it finding out about him specifically that turned the tide for you?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_03: Or was there anything else that you found out about that really made it, cemented it for you?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was just layering fact upon fact upon fact.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Book of Mormon, in which supposedly Joseph Smith found these gold plates conveniently located in a hillside near his home in New York.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: And these were supposedly the ancient buried records of a civilization that came before our current Native Americans.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it was supposedly the true story of several of the lost tribes of Israel who had sailed to the Americas.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: And in it, the Book of Mormon, they talk about these massive civilizations and their wars, and they talk about chariots and horses and elephants and things that did not exist on this continent.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I found out that the Joseph Smith had become a Mason, and the temple ceremonies that are supposedly so sacred and special, I found out were copied almost verbatim from Masonic rituals.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what next?
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think that was the nail in the coffin.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I was so disturbed that I became an atheist.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, if the Mormon church is afraid, maybe this whole idea of God is a myth anyway.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that led to a very dark period for me because all of a sudden, not only was there not the certainty of Mormon answers, but there were no answers.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: And there were no rules and there was no playbook.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I was lost and I did not know what to do.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: And luckily, I had a spiritual experience that woke me up to the idea that there was something bigger than myself in this world.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so grateful for that because that led me to be open to a new idea of what the divine or source or creator could be.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I started to meditate, I did breath work, I did interfamily systems intro, where you're looking at, it's a modality where you look at the parts of yourself.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: And all of these things were healing for me, particularly meditation.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've been meditating now for decades, and I feel a sense of connection to, I can't use the word God.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: I know some people are comfortable, but that word has connotations for me that are too limiting to define what I think of as this incredible energy creator source, the divine.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: But so I use the word divine, but I love the connection I can achieve in meditation of realizing we are all so connected, we are all so much more alike than we are different.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: Our needs and our wants and our desires are really fairly identical.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: We want to be seen, we want to be loved, we want to feel worthy, we want to belong.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: And those are things that I now feel I have in my life, but took the work of unpacking what I had been handed and letting go of what didn't serve me and experiencing little by little what I now believe to be true for me.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm sure there's so many layers of like just things, like ideas and beliefs that you took on from growing up that have to, you know, be unpacked when they come up at different times.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm sure that it's like just an ongoing process.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: For example, years and years later, I went to see with a friend the play, The Book of Mormons story, which is a parody about Mormons, and they're they're gently poking fun at the Mormons.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: And all around me, the audience was laughing uproariously, and I was not.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I suddenly realized that even though it had been years since I'd left the Mormon church, on some level I felt they were laughing at me, that some part of me still identified with being a Mormon.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that shocked me.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I had peeled the onion to the core, and I didn't have this thought or belief still inside me.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, it it made me realize I still had work to do.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly, as you say, how it happens.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: You're triggered by something, you look at it, you unpack it, you pull it out, you unravel the source, and you see, oh, there's this little thing that hasn't been put to bed or let go of.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm wondering too, like just as I think about the nature of the Mormon church.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I've always been fascinated, by the way.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_03: I'm fascinated by like very religions that are like that, like more cult-like or fundamentalist type of religions.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think it's about control?
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what is the ultimate reason why there are all these things in place to make everybody so controlled and so having to be a certain way?
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what is behind that in your eyes?
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: I know this is going to sound really jaded.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: Money.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: It makes sense.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: The Mormon Church is the second wealthiest Christian religion in the world after the Catholic Church, and there's 18 million members worldwide.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: People think of Mormons as being this little group in Utah, but it's really a global thing.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you cannot go to the temple unless you're paying 10% of your tithing.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: 10% of your income needs to go to tithing.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of money, especially when you look at some of the wealthy Mormon families like the Marriott's Huntsman, you know, etc.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: A whistleblower came forward a couple of years ago and shocked Wall Street when he let the cat out of the bag and said the Mormon church had a$100 billion private equity fund, the second largest private equity fund in the world.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this was from tithing.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason he came forward was he said it's not being spent on charitable things, it's being spent to prop up LDS-based companies, such as the Zion, City Creek Mall, et cetera, et cetera.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why he came forward.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it's supposedly, you know, a tax-free thing if it's being used for charity, but it is not.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: They haven't spent most of the money, they just keep making more of it.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_03: And then it's like who benefits?
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_03: Because that's my question.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_03: Because I feel like I agree with you.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I feel like the Catholic Church, and like I feel like they're all incredibly corrupt.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_03: And that's from doing my own research, but also just the vibe I can feel from it.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_03: So then it's like, who is benefiting?
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_03: I would imagine it's all the people at the top.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: And they don't pay clergy in the Mormon church, they're all in volunteer positions.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like your local pastor, which is called a bishop in the Mormon church, is an unpaid clergyman.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: They don't get a salary until they're several levels up the hierarchy at the apostle level and the prophet level.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's a six-figure salary, but the money isn't in the salary, you know, it's in ownership and equity and stuff like that.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: I have often wondered what they tell themselves, you know, how they justify misleading millions of people.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: And because there's no way, in my mind, you can be at the top of that organization and not know the truth.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know the truth.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's just too many, especially nowadays.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the facts are out there, they're easily available on the internet.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody who is interested in doing research on the Mormon church, it wasn't like when I was doing the research where I had to send away for books that weren't in my library to read them.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's super accessible, and there are a lot of voices out there debunking the Mormon church and what it said and what the truth is.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think they probably say, hey, all churches are like this, and we're better than a lot.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're no worse than the Catholic Church, you know.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I think they must do some sort of justification for it.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what's gonna happen.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, evolution or evolving uh has proved to be very slow going in the Mormon church.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have ordained women priests, we have not welcomed the gay and lesbian community or transgender or Any of people on the fringes.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is not an inclusive religion.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: And its history with race is very disturbing.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: Wasn't really until quite recently, I think 1978, that African Americans or blacks could hold the priesthood.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: And why would you want to come into a church that is predominantly white and it has discriminated against you forever?
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I they do have their very, very minority population of people.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that was when the civil rights movement was really strong.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: But that wasn't really the reason they were having a problem.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: The reason they changed their revelation was because of the fact it limited their proselytizing.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how do you decide?
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: They were in countries like South America or Brazil or something, you just say, well, they're half black or they're a quarter black.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: How do you resolve all those questions?
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: So they had to change the policy, just like they changed the policy on polygamy because it was convenient.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: And they change revelations as it suits them.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_03: So when you say revelations, is that just like their rules or something?
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what does that mean?
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, a revelation is something that the prophet says they got directly from God.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's a commandment from God.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's beyond just a rule.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just laughing because like I don't think these guys get anything from God.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_03: Not to be rude, but these old men say, like, just in stuff that I've watched about, I've watched a ton of documentaries and stuff around this, and how they say, like, oh, I got this thing from God.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like looking at this guy and I'm like, you're not getting anything from God.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_03: You're literally saying that you got it from God so it can like benefit your own agenda and people will listen to you, but it's definitely not from God.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_03: And that's where I feel like it's really messed up in so many ways.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's because they're manipulating people, saying it's from God and then getting them to do what they want them to do when it really has nothing to do with God.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I want to say, hey, there's a lot of people in Bellevue who claim they're talking to God too in the hospital.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's what was so disturbing about Joseph Smith using the weight of his supposed relationship with God to be a womanizer.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's amazing in the few short years or the decade that he practiced polygamy before he was killed.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: He married 41 women.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of women.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's a lot.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's insane, honestly.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I would consider him a sex addict.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and just somebody who was abusing his power.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the first thing I just want to say is I feel like if you're truly talking to God, why do you then need to get everyone on board with what you're what God is telling you, right?
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_03: Like, where is that?
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_03: That whole thing is ridiculous to me.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: Coercion.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_03: I consider myself communing with the divine all the time.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_03: I might share because I think it might be helpful to people, but I don't need other people to like believe me or agree with me if it doesn't resonate for them.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's where I feel like the problem is and where it takes the actual like spirituality out of it and just makes it into manipulation or control, yeah, a cult.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_03: And then it's like benefiting someone else.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_03: So that's one piece.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_03: And then the other piece I like your perspective on too is like the polygamy piece.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_03: Do certain people still practice that?
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_03: And then also like, why did polygamy stop?
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: Was it just because they were kind of forced to or yes, Utah for economic and for a voice in uh the US wanted was a territory.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: They wanted to become a state, but they were not going to allow Utah into the Union if the majority of its residents, Mormons, were practicing polygamy.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_00: So conveniently, the prophet then got a revelation that polygamy didn't need to be practiced at this time.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's still a doctrine, and this leads me to the other part two of your question.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's still a doctrine, it's going to be happening in heaven, according to Mormons.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: So polygamy is not like something they disavowed forever.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: They just said, for right now, we don't believe in polygamy.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to practice it.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not that we don't need to believe in it.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: At that point, there were a lot of splinter groups, fundamentalists that broke off and went to Mexico or Canada or different parts of the West.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: And they felt like they were holding on to the original words of Joseph Smith.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: So they see themselves as the true Mormons and the Mormon Church as the apostates.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's also one of the reasons the Mormon Church has such a hard time distancing themselves from these polygamous splinter groups, is because they're quoting Joseph Smith back to them.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: What do you do?
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, it's not like they came up with some new rules.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: They're quoting the original words of Joseph Smith.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_03: Initially, like, what was their reasoning on why polygamy, why is it good?
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_03: And obviously, we know with polygamy, it's only men who are allowed to have multiple wives, right?
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_03: So what is like the reason for that?
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_03: Is it just to have as many kids as possible or something?
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's uh a lot of speculation on that.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I think polygamy was an outgrowth of Joseph Smith's womanizing, and he used religion as a way to justify it and to coerce the women that he approached into practicing it.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: He told many of them they would be damned to hell if they didn't participate, so they didn't often have a a lot of leeway, but I think there was a little bit of an imbalance between the number of converts that were coming in church that were women, and they polimi was a way of having one man take care of multiple women, be responsible for them, et cetera, et cetera.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's the justification I've heard the most that it's that it was a positive thing.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so I want to hear also a little bit about your book.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_03: And like, is there anything that you because I know the book is kind of your story, and is there anything in the book that we didn't kind of touch on in this conversation yet?
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_03: Because I'd love to know if there's any other like important things that you feel like you want to say about this.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the book is called We Were Smith's Escaping the Shadow of Joseph Smith's Mormon Legacy is the subtitle.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: And we've really just touched on the story because it really is the whole evolution of me out of the church, but what it was like in the church, what it was like growing up as a Mormon with being a blood descendant of Joseph Smith, what I found out, what I discovered that led me to leave, my journey out, and my spiritual experience and what evolved out of that.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: And also it covers the story of my family because things evolved in my family.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, there was a tragic secret revealed that created a crisis in the family.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: And out of that, we decided we needed to get help.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: And my family decided to get into family therapy, and that is an anomaly in these kinds of situations.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel fortunate that we were all willing because we were geographically dispersed, but we got together once a year for three or four days, and had a one day with a family therapist who taught us some communication skills, ways to talk to each other that weren't triggering.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: And also we learned that we had an issue of semantics.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: We both meant the same things.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: Our values were very similar, even though there were those of us now out of the church and those of us that were still in it.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: My family right now is about half and half, half in, half out.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've got eight brothers and sisters, and I'd say it's about half and half.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_03: And are your parents still alive?
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: My parents are both deceased.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: My mother died a year ago.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: My father two years before that.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: He was 92, she was 89.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: They were still in the church.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna leave that question for the book.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_03: I'm guessing you're gonna leave the secret for the book too, because I really want to know what that is.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_03: Or can you like tell us any more without maybe telling it?
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_03: Or if you want to tell it, it's up to you.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think what I can share is that something happened that we weren't aware of when we were children that led to events that suddenly made sense that fell into place.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think the book kind of goes into a lot more detail about what it's like to be a Mormon and have that kind of legacy experience, but also what it's like trying to fight for an identity to reinvent yourself.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope the book offers hope that despite how estranged you may feel from your family, sometimes with the right attitude and skill set, you can approach something approaching reconciliation, which I think is hopeful because today I was shocked.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: I read a statistic that said 27% of young people 30 and younger are estranged from a family member.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it could be political.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we've never been so polarized as a nation.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: It could be religious, it could be belief systems, lifestyle, trauma.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think part of the reason that there's this disconnect is that how we define trauma has changed.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so kids are telling their parents, look, this was traumatizing for me.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_00: And their parents are going, What are you talking about?
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know what trauma is.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: Trauma, you you had a roof over your head, you had food, you you had clothes, I never hit you.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the kid is saying, Yeah, but you didn't see me and I you neglected me, or I didn't feel ever feel worthy.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you were emotionally abusive.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the older generation is saying, My dad beat me, you know, that's trauma.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't do that to you.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you have a disconnect because more young people are in therapy now and better understand what is trauma.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_03: I totally agree.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_03: I think about this all the time because of the nature of the work that I do, and also just from a generational perspective, because I do feel that my parents' generation, their parents would have been more along the lines of, okay, well, we put a roof over your head, we fed you, and like, what do you want?
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_03: You weren't on the street, you had your needs met, you know, your basic needs met.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_03: And then our parents like parented us that way.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_03: But then there was all of these like emotional needs that we had as a generation that weren't met.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_03: I felt emotionally neglected in a lot of ways and emotionally abused in many ways and responsible for my parents in many ways.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_03: That led to a lot of deficits and trauma that had to be reconciled.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_03: I could never like say that to my parents because they were just be like, it can't even compute.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't even compute.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they don't understand.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_03: They think like, we love you so much and we like care about you and we were there for you.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_03: But it's like, yeah, you were.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_03: And there is also this other thing.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_03: So I do think that that is very important right now for so many people to understand because it's a different way our generation is able to see a deeper layer of what's going on and why we might be experiencing difficulties in many different ways.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_00: How it shaped us and how it created roadblocks to achieving your goals.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the generational definition of trauma is a huge part of this.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_00: The disconnect and the lack of understanding, which leads to further estrangement.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_03: So I know I probably could have a whole another conversation about this, but I know we're coming up on the time here.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_03: So, first of all, I just want to thank you for sharing all of this.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_03: And also, I actually have a question.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_03: Is the book on audio books yet?
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_00: No, and in fact, the book is not out yet, it's not available.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really important for me to mention that if you want to follow my path to publication, I have an agent who's just sent the book to publishing companies.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_00: We've heard back from eight saying they're interested and they're reading the manuscript now.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, cool.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_00: So we're hoping that it's going to find a home and it'll be published this year.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_00: But my website is lyn smithgregory.com.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it also has my blog posts, and I talk about different things tangential to this issue, whether it's family estrangement or depression rates in Utah women or what Mormons get wrong about why we leave.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you can read my blogs there.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_00: You can follow me on Instagram and social media to keep up with where I'm at in the process, too.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_03: Amazing.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_03: Well, we'll link all of that below.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm excited to read it.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I listen to a lot of stuff on audio, which is why I asked about the audiobook.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: I hope it does.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_01: If it gets published, I hope it goes to audio.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_03: That's how I read is on audio.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_00: You are not alone.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_00: Your whole generation movie audio is very popular and growing.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_03: It is, and it's like I just love it because I can listen to it while I'm doing something else.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_03: Even though reading is great and I want to like read on the beach this summer, like for sure.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_03: But I really enjoy audio because I feel like there's something about how like our generation is like ADHD and being able to listen while I'm doing something else makes me absorb the information a lot easier and I can take more in.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_03: So anyway, thank you so much for being here.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_03: It was a pleasure getting to know you, and I really appreciate everything you shared.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_03: Likewise, you're doing great work.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for being here.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_03: Don't forget to subscribe to the show, leave a review, and share the show with your friends who you know are yearning for this type of content.
• 1:00:24
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• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_03: You can stay connected with me by following me on Instagram at elise underscore breeds and by joining my Facebook group, Financial Freedom for Spiritual Entrepreneurs, where I share all of my most fun and potent content.
• 1:00:43
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• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_03: See you next time.