Latest / The Observatory | Discovery of Consciousness & Awareness / Unshackled Beliefs | The Webb's Inspiring Story of Finding Personal Faith

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Unshackled Beliefs | The Webb's Inspiring Story of Finding Personal Faith · The Observatory | Discovery of Consciousness & Awareness

• 0:03
  Welcome to the Observatory Podcast with your host Scott and Laray Wright. Join us
• 0:08
  each week as we explore living life from the inside out. Welcome back to
• 0:18
  the Observatory Podcast Today. Our guests are our good friends Scott and Anne Webb,
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  join us today as they explore their journeys in life, their experience of
• 0:29
  being together as a couple, their experience and spiritual journey, and their experiences
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  raising family. It's a great conversation and we look forward to having them with
• 0:38
  us. Sit back and enjoy. Welcome back to the Observatory Podcast Today.
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  We have with us our dear friends Scott and Anna Webb, and they've been
• 0:49
  gracious enough to let us come into their beautiful home up here in Camus.
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  You taught us sit and have a conversation, and we're so happy to be
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  here. We are. We love these two. We've had a lot of
• 1:00
  adventures together and learned a lot together, and so this is an especially fun
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  time because we just know what's coming. So welcome guys. Do we really
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  know well, we know that we know a lot about them, a lot
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  of fun side. I'm sure we'll learn more, but us so well for
• 1:18
  the opportunity. We're honored to be able to do it. It's great to
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  see you guys again. It's been a few minutes. Yeah, they just
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  got home last night night before, two nights ago from Mexico. Yes,
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  they have a home in uh San Miguel de at Indy and we we've been
• 1:36
  fortunate enough to be down there with them and adventuring in that culture. And
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  it's such a beautiful place. That's that's amazing. It's incredible. And wahaka
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  for your sixty at birth your birthday, and that's where we went first with
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  that was amazing, Samuel and he took us around. We got to see
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  the monarch, butterflies, migration and all that good stuff we saw there.
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  Beautiful. Yeah. Well, what the way we usually like to start is
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  just kind of a brief introduction about who you are and you you know,
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  you guys can decide who wants to chime in and do it together however you
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  want to do that. But tell us about you. Who are you?
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  Where did you? Who are the webs? Who are the whips? That's
• 2:15
  right, Oh, go ahead. Scott and and I met when I was
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  only home from a mission, an LDS mission for about a month, and
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  she was a lifeguard at a swimming pool and where I was swimming with some
• 2:38
  friends. And do you want to tell him anything about that part? Anne?
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  Really, other than the funny part is when we met, he wrote,
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  I was in the lifeguard chair, he was in the pool. He
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  wrote in this journal, Oh, I met a girl and I asked her
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  on a date, and then afterwards I found out she's taller than me.
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  Oh wow, it's just one date. That is one of the one of
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  the funny stories. It was only one date. Yeah, that's lasted.
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  Now how many years we've celebrated our fortieth year? Well, so, yeah,
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  that's pretty amazing. And it's been it's been just roses for forty years.
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  Then right, oh, absolutely, yeah, we're right. We'll get
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  into that. Yeah, it's because I would like to be able to talk
• 3:30
  about our relationship. But you didn't introduce us that good. I'll just say,
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  yeah, we're parents, have five grandparents to eight. Wow, we've
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  been I would say we've been surreal entrepreneurs until recently, and now we're hitting
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  retirement age and trying to figure out the next chapter. So yeah, and
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  we've got it. We've got to kind of watch that transition and it's been
• 4:00
  amazing to watch both of you transformed together hand in hand through that experience.
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  It's been beautiful. In Mexico has been such a big part of that for
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  both of you. I know it has been well. Travel in general has
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  been a big part of that. That's if you have a few extra dollars
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  to spend, I would always spend him on travel always. Yeah. Yeah,
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  A few things. A little bit just about history is I've had three
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  very different careers. I went to school, have a bachelor's and master's degree
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  in landscape architecture from Utah State, Utah State and then the University of Pennsylvania.
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  And I took a job in the Baltimore area right after I graduated from
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  penn and anticipated that we would I would work for a couple of years and
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  then become a professor. That was kind of what I wanted to do in
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  design. And I took a job in the Baltimore area and in order to
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  pay for college, which we had student debt, and started a little gourmet
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  food business. She started multiple businesses at the time, but we started this
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  little gourmet food business that took off, and I quit my job in this
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  architecture firm that I was working for. After about a year and a half,
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  the business became almost an overnight success, and we from that point lived
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  our dream life. Maybe you'll want to talk about raising our kids and we
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  can be really brief about it. Yeah, well, yeah, so we
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  started a business and then we started homeschooling, and it was a crazy,
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  crazy time with you know, babies and little kids and we're homeschooling and that's
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  a seasonal business and we're traveling a lot. And anyway, it was some
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  pretty good years we lived in the country in Maryland and those were some of
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  I think, some really great times. I don't know what else to say
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  about it, but that was the beginning of when our belief system kind of
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  went from where we thought we would always work for other people and now we're
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  like, why would we ever work for someone else when we've discovered that we're
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  in control a lot more of our time and things when we can work for
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  ourselves. And we never looked back after that, Even after we sold our
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  gourmet food. Scott went on to do the web audio visual that he bought
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  from his brother, and I started doing Ideal Life Vision and then yeah,
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  so in public speaking, Yeah, right, so we have been working basically
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  for ourselves since our mid twenties. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah,
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  thanks for that introduction. And we met initially, we met Scott at
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  a treat in Sedona, m. You showed up there and it was at
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  a Paul Sellig retreat and you were there with your sister, I believe,
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  the two sisters, two sisters, Julie and um and DEPPI and Deppie and
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  we m. They asked where people were from, and they said, and
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  so they said, who's from Utah? And there was a group of us
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  of about six or eight of us, I don't remember, and we raised
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  our head and then back in the back there was you guys raising your hand,
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  and then Jeff recognized you. Jeff Olsen was with us and he recognized
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  you, and then from it just went from there, and we really enjoyed
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  what Paul Selly was all about, and in fact, we're going to be
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  having him on the podcast soon and h So, you know, our friendship
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  kind of started in that conversation that we had about Paul Sellig and just led
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  in so many different beautiful directions. Yeah. I knew Jeff previously, but
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  interestingly I had invited him to my hand house. He Antania came to my
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  house when we lived in Holiday to come and do, for lack of a
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  better word, of fireside for a group of about fifty people were friends of
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  mine, to talk about his near death experience and about his book and so
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  on. And so I knew Jeff a little bit. So we talked there
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  and then he introduced me to you guys, and we and the interesting thing
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  is as we became much better friends. Yeah, that was a fun trip.
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  We spent a lot of time together. Went to Angel Valley, went
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  to Angel Valley, you met Amirah and yeah, Michael friendship there too,
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  and then you and Anne went back to Angel Valley later and yeah, yeah,
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  so yeah, and that's where the Singing Walls came from. Yeah,
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  and ultimately the Singing Ones. We'll get into Angel Valley. We'll get into
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  that war exactly, Yeah, we will. So when did you move back
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  to Utah? At what point in this m early raising children? And that
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  did you then come from the East coast back to Utah July of two thousand,
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  So we've been here quite a while. I think our youngest was for
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  our oldest was fifteen at the time, and Scott had bought Webb. There
• 9:13
  was no intention, Yeah, no intention of going into the family business,
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  the audio visual business at the time when we moved back. Yeah, but
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  eventually it happened within a year or two. Yeah. It's the interesting thing.
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  And I'll just although we lived about forty five minutes from Washington, d
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  c. And about thirty five minutes from Baltimore, we were just south of
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  Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in a little town called Uniontown, Maryland. There was
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  an active KKK roupe three miles from our house. Well, I mean,
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  you're really in the South when you're in western Maryland, and it was incredibly
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  redneck, and I don't want to know. It was incredibly redneck. And
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  one of our motivating things in moving was at the little high school where our
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  oldest daughter was going to high school. I'm going to say twenty five percent
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  of the girls had a baby, probably either junior or sophomore, and there
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  were probably ten percent that had two kids by the time they graduated from high
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  school. It was just so prevalent that it was unbelievable. Lots of drunk
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  driving deaths in a high school of one hundred and fifty kids, you know,
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  it was just it was very backwoods, even though we're that close to
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  the nation's capital, you know. So the decision to come back was more
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  as you looked at the remaining sort of growing up spaces of your children and
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  within one land. Tit you like? I mean, obviously we were superactive
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  Mormon then, and we asked our oldest daughter. She said, well,
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  she said to us, I don't know how much longer I can be good,
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  meaning not have sex, not get pregnant, not drink, can be
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  drunk every weekend, and not die in an auto accident. And when she
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  said that, we were in Utah three months later moved. Yeah, it
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  was time to come back. Well, so then a new chapter starts.
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  Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things that we wanted to talk about
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  a little bit, and you can talk about this as much as you want
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  to, but is your transition out of the religion of the belief system of
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  the Mormon Church. If you don't mind going there, we'd love to go
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  there a little bit with you, and I think we all kind of share
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  the same ideas about it, where we don't hold that because Ray and I
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  have both also left that church, we don't hold it in this place where
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  we're we have anything against it or anyone who's in it allowing it to just
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  be the way it is. But you know, at a certain point in
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  life and people's lives, like with with ourselves, we just realized that it
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  was the beliefs were limiting our progression as a human into other things that we
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  wanted to look at that we're looked at us maybe not, you know,
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  like that's not something that you should be looking at, or not anything that
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  you don't explore, don't ask questions, don't don't do this. I'm waving
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  my hand like obi wan kenobi. You know, you know you don't need
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  to know who these people are. You don't need to ask these questions.
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  So that was a little bit of about how how our both of our transition
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  out of that came. So if you guys are willing to go into that
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  a little bit, maybe we can start there and see where it goes.
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  I really would like Anne to tell her story first, but I do want
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  to say right off the bat that I have I hold no ill will towards
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  the church. Yeah, right soever, filled the same apart being a missionary
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  was outstanding UM and the UM I just it was a really good, important
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  piece of my life. And well, I'll get into de Hill about that,
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  but it's okay. Yeah. Mine mine was a little bit before Scots,
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  but it was more in my mind, like I wasn't actively doing anything,
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  but I definitely was really into personal development. Um. I also was
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  doing a lot of humanitarian work in Africa, and I frequently got the question,
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  oh, as soon as I got back, how many people did you
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  are? Are you actively working to convert the Africans into to come into the
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  church? Yeah? And how many you know, like friends and acquaintances,
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  And some of the people were, like in my ward, a lot of
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  them were business friends. And I started thinking about that because of course at
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  first I would I would have to tell them all, that's not what I'm
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  there for. I'm not like a missionary. I'm just doing humanitarian But it
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  always brought that to mind, and so I would start looking around and I
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  remember actually thinking, for the first time, these people are really really happy,
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  and I don't need to give them the church to make them happier.
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  And I honestly kind of felt guilty about thinking that originally because I'm like,
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  oh, should I be? And then it be And so there was a
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  lot of conflict there, but I never really took maybe one time I took
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  a book a more minut and so it just some seeds were planted back then,
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  but also being into personal development, I would it kind of some of
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  it bled into the New Age philosophy or whatever, and so I started getting
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  exposed to that and started forming some beliefs that I had that i would try
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  to explain to friends and family and I'm like to cisco with the church,
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  like could this go with the doctrine? And they would say no, but
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  I would try and make it work somehow, like no, I'm going to
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  make this work, like these new beliefs that I have. And I wish
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  I could think of something specific, and I honestly can't. But it was
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  at least fifteen years ago, maybe even longer, and so I just stayed
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  with that, and pretty soon I for me, between that and Africa,
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  and I just slowly stopped going to church as much. And in the beginning,
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  I will say that was a little bit of a conflict between Scott and
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  I, and maybe you want to pick up there. I mean, I
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  had no intention of leaving the church. I just thought I was just going
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  through a phase like yeah, and I was like, people do this sometimes,
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  you know, And but it started leading to a little bit of a
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  conflict with us, and maybe you want to talk about my business and some
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  interesting things with that. That can be an interesting transition. One of the
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  curious things that I just wanted to bring up is we always thought that it
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  was very strange that people in our ward didn't want to know what Anne was
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  doing humanitarian wise. In Anne made twenty five trips to either Africa or India.
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  I think five of them were into India in about twenty two Africa.
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  I only was able to go on one India trip and probably ten African trips.
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  But there were a couple of people in the ward that said, why
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  doesn't Ann do a fireside or do something, speak in church or something and
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  talk about the work that she's doing in Africa, And it always got squashed
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  by the word leadership. But I even though it wasn't even always the same
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  leadership, and they and nobody ever really wanted to know. But I had
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  people ask, well, when are you going to go and do this with
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  church sanction? What are you going to do a mission? Yeah? I
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  mean, when are you going to go and do this, you know,
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  for the church. And I always thought that was so weird. I but
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  it and we said probably never And because there were I had a co worker
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  whose dad was a missionary and whose mom and dad were missionaries in Africa,
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  and he said, I would never go back and do this for the church.
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  Again, he goes, I'd go back and help doing the same things
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  that was doing. But you're held back by what the church. Well,
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  yeah, too many of her really right clown, And they let me just
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  ask the kind of humanitarian work? Was it like helping with water systems and
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  that kind of thing we did that. We did a lot of different spring
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  purification, purification, we did one or two wells, a lot of that,
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  a lot of water, we did adopt a village where we went into
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  a village and did some help there. A lot of women empowerment, a
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  lot of days for girls which was high school and junior high girls, getting
• 18:36
  them back in school, not just seeing while they were on their period.
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  So there were a lot of different things we did, but all good yea.
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  And primarily Anne was teaching her what she was doing as a career was
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  her ideal life vision, teaching goal setting to Africans, and we saw that
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  make a big difference in a few Africans lives. So still friends with some
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  of those people. Well, so Land slows down going to church, So
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  Scott, you're going by yourself or taking the kids? I guess, well
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  more what it really was was I was going to sacrament meeting and then and
• 19:17
  then slipping out, and it a lot of it was. I mean,
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  I know this is there's some silly things, but I found related society being
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  really boring. Okay, And I had a friend, my best friend in
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  our ward said what are you talking about? You're inactive And I remember literally
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  thinking inactive. Well, I'll show you inactive because in my mind I was
• 19:42
  still active. But I'm like, well if people think I'm inactive, well,
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  so anyway, I was always going to the first meeting, sacrament,
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  but I rarely made it through three hours. That seemed like a really lot
• 19:56
  of church, just to throw in there. In the Mormon Church, there's
• 20:00
  three meetings that you attend and usually Sucro meeting is the first, then what
• 20:04
  they called Sunday School, and then for the men, it's Priesthood meeting.
• 20:07
  For the women, yes, it's Relief Society, Children it's primary whatever it
• 20:14
  is, so just so for the people that don't know what, just let
• 20:18
  them know. I think it's changed since then. I think there's only two
• 20:19
  meetings now. Oh yeah, they took it's been a wild I think it's
• 20:23
  only two meetings now. So well it's only two hours now. What do
• 20:27
  you think we got to call back? So sorry, I'm gonna be I'm
• 20:34
  gonna try and be as brief as possible about mine. Um because Anne,
• 20:41
  in that short amount of time told probably fifteen years, so it's uh in
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  in her it was a span of about fifteen years. And all of that
• 20:51
  happened right um. In two thousand and four, I was called to the
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  High Council in my stake. I didn't even know that state president knew who
• 21:00
  I was. That's like the that's like the board of directors for the state,
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  yeah, exactly. And I came into this room of twelve men,
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  and when I sat down the first week, I thought, all of these
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  guys are so much better than me, Like they have no idea how bad
• 21:22
  I am or whatever. You know. I mean, I don't belong here
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  at all. And I made the determination that I was going to double down,
• 21:32
  and I was going to really devote myself to the church again, which
• 21:37
  I did, and I even got to a psycho point, which I'm embarrassed
• 21:47
  about. But I began only listening to conference talks or a Mormon Tabernacle choir
• 21:53
  in my car. That was the only I didn't listen to any radio.
• 21:56
  I didn't listen to any worldly music. I just listened to General Conference talks
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  and I probably listened to every conference talk five to eight times between conferences.
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  I mean, I just became really devoted and anyway older it was really annoying.
• 22:17
  I'm just gonna say, but I felt so self righteous I did,
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  and that you were I felt like I was really doing the right thing right
• 22:30
  and like you back on your mission and you were elevating. Yes, And
• 22:36
  also part of that um we had always been really good about family Home evening,
• 22:42
  family prayer, but we just we were really good about holding family Home
• 22:48
  evening like every week, and which was a Monday night thing. I think
• 22:55
  it was Monday Monday Night. And I got really into personal UTR study and
• 23:00
  reading the scriptures and attending the temple and and really devoted myself to to being
• 23:07
  a better Mormon. And that just kept to give the quick answer. Becoming
• 23:15
  more devoted over fifteen years made me leave the church. And I had one
• 23:23
  friend of ours that thinks that I got burned out, and that's absolutely not
• 23:27
  true. And I'll just briefly tell this part that I listened to a talk
• 23:37
  by one of the twelve. Um. I don't remember his name, but
• 23:44
  um oh, I thought you were gonna tell about the family proclama. Well
• 23:48
  we'll tell that's okay, Okay, it was Richard G. Scott, touch
• 23:53
  your g Scott. I listened to a talk that said that he attended the
• 23:56
  temple every week for fourteen years, and I really felt inspired by that talk,
• 24:04
  and I decided that I was going to attend the temple every week.
• 24:08
  And I did it for six years, and even when I was traveling out
• 24:12
  of town and everything, i'd go to the temple. And I was really
• 24:17
  interested in what was happening in the temple and saying, why do we do
• 24:22
  this, why do we have this apron and why do we have this these
• 24:26
  robes and why do we have you know, what do they represent? And
• 24:30
  and I was really trying to understand and I would write down, Okay,
• 24:33
  during the creation this happened and then during this happened, and then and this
• 24:37
  happened, And I could go into detail, but I'm not going to right
• 24:41
  now about that. But it just made so many questions in my life.
• 24:48
  But um that ultimately the temple closed for Christmas in and reopen until January.
• 25:00
  And my full intention was to start going back to the Temple again. And
• 25:03
  I knelt down and prayed about it, and I had learned so much.
• 25:10
  I learned so much, and I said, should I start going back to
• 25:14
  the Temple again? And I felt really inspired that the answer was, you've
• 25:18
  learned there what I wanted you to learn, and you don't need to keep
• 25:22
  going back, at least on a weekly basis. And that was probably in
• 25:26
  twenty fifteen that that happened. But I want to quickly go to the to
• 25:33
  the Family Proclamation, So for those who don't know, that's a proclamation that
• 25:37
  was made by the church years ago that's been a little bit controversial, but
• 25:45
  it's it's pretty much treated by the membership of the church just a scripture because
• 25:49
  it came down through the first presidency of the Church. So after two thousand
• 25:56
  and four and I was in the High councilman, I really started we had.
• 26:04
  First of all, we had a couple of kids that were our boys
• 26:08
  that were beginning to struggle. And because of the Family Proclamation and the information
• 26:15
  that I was learning at church, I felt like, and I truly believed
• 26:21
  this, that because Anne had started a business and had started our ideal life
• 26:27
  vision and she was devoting a lot of time to it at the time,
• 26:32
  that if because of the Family Proclamation and the things that it exclaims in there,
• 26:37
  that a woman's places in the home essentially, and then a man's job
• 26:40
  is to go and earn the money. And I thought, if Anne was
• 26:45
  doing her job of being in the home and taking care of the kids,
• 26:52
  then we wouldn't be having this trouble with our boys that they were that they
• 26:56
  were having. And I truly believed that, and it festered for a long
• 27:03
  time during you know, that these beliefs, and was really beginning to have
• 27:10
  success in her business and making a difference in the world of entrepreneurs and helping
• 27:15
  people earn money, and our boys were just continuing to go down this path.
• 27:22
  And a couple of times I said, and why does the Family Proclamation
• 27:27
  apply to every other family in the church and not to us? You know
• 27:33
  this is and that attitude. It wasn't just that statement, but that attitude
• 27:41
  caused so many problems in our marriage that I didn't feel like I could support
• 27:48
  her in her business. I didn't feel because I felt I felt bitterness about
• 27:53
  it at every level. Really, you know, and and undoubtedly you have,
• 28:03
  oh well, just I mean these who are part of I mean really
• 28:07
  really hard years because you know, I hear all kinds of people talking about,
• 28:14
  oh, I couldn't have done it without my husband, and I had
• 28:15
  to do it without my husband. And I would come back typically with as
• 28:22
  strongly as you feel that I shouldn't do this, and he would kind of
• 28:26
  bring God into it, like God doesn't want you to do this business,
• 28:30
  your places in the home, blah blah blah, and I would be like,
• 28:34
  so weird, Scott, because God told me to do this business,
• 28:38
  like to help people, you know, have a vision for their lives.
• 28:44
  And I feel like i'm and people have told me that it's been life changing,
• 28:48
  and so it caused, I mean, to be honest, not only
• 28:53
  marriage problems, but this also started digging at my book how I felt the
• 29:00
  church. I don't know if it was really beliefs, but part of this.
• 29:04
  I know, I'm supposed to do this, and now my husband's telling
• 29:08
  me God doesn't want me to. But I'm pretty sure I had a pretty
• 29:11
  strong impression. Now, I'm like, I don't know if it was really
• 29:15
  God that told me that I should do this business, but I felt very
• 29:18
  strongly about it, and so we had some Yeah, it kind of eroded
• 29:23
  how I felt about revelation or whatever, because we were in exact opposite how
• 29:32
  we felt about this. I mean, I'm like, I was born to
• 29:36
  be an entrepreneur. I was bored to train idealifision, and you are telling
• 29:41
  me that it's my fault that our boys are falling off the narrow path,
• 29:48
  if you will, so they're struggling. I mean, yeah, you know,
• 29:52
  I believe so strongly that the prophets and the apostles were men of God
• 29:59
  and that this was revelation and that this was what needed to happen, and
• 30:04
  and I was so into supporting it, you know, and really really believing
• 30:11
  it deep down in my heart, and it was absolutely destroying her marriage,
• 30:17
  absolutely destroying it. Yeah, because we would fight about this, but it
• 30:22
  also was there was a lot of stuff where I wanted to, like rebel
• 30:27
  to a little bit like he's acting like he owns me and is bussing me
• 30:33
  around and telling me how to live my life. That's what it felt like
• 30:37
  on my end, where he's going, you have to obey the prophet and
• 30:40
  blah blah blah, and man, it was making it there. I had
• 30:45
  there was a little bit of humor in it for me because one particular fight,
• 30:49
  he goes, Okay, well, fine, if you're just going to
• 30:52
  do this, then I'm going to divorce you, okay, like he threw
• 30:56
  out there about something divorce, and I go, wait a minute, that's
• 31:00
  against the church's going to Like you can't go be talking out of both sides
• 31:07
  of your mouth here, like oh, you need to follow the prophet and
• 31:10
  now you're going to divorce me. And at that point I had like almost
• 31:15
  gave up. I'm like, yeah, whatever, you just live your life
• 31:17
  and I'm going to do mine. And our boys definitely were a handful and
• 31:23
  challenging us and falling off the path of the church. But I don't know
• 31:30
  so anyway that this will all cause started and kind of the hypocrisy of it.
• 31:36
  I mean, this is where I some big doubts. Of course,
• 31:41
  I'm still trying to be active, but this is where my mind from being.
• 31:45
  I was extremely devout, but this was the time where I'm like,
• 31:48
  no, there's something wrong with all of this. So well, and I
• 31:55
  have to ask because it's coming up as a question during this time with the
• 31:57
  boys, did you ever did it ever feel that what they needed was more
• 32:02
  of your time? Scott? Were they a mirror for you in terms of,
• 32:07
  you know, not only and being the mother being home with them more,
• 32:10
  but like the where your level of activity was, because it sounds like
• 32:15
  you were very busy with a business as well and very busy with church,
• 32:21
  and so did that did you ever feel that or was that like no,
• 32:24
  because I'm I am doing all these other right things based on the belief system.
• 32:30
  That's a really interesting question and it's um, I did feel like I
• 32:37
  was. Well, I don't want to be hypocrite in any way, and
• 32:43
  and so it's a lot of what was happening with our boys is they were
• 32:49
  being them. They were being their true selves right right, and it reflected
• 32:53
  poorly on me. They were exploring, okay, and they were discovering who
• 32:59
  they are. They were discovering who they were and because Unfortunately, in the
• 33:04
  LDS faith parents are judged by how well their kids conform to Mormonism, how
• 33:13
  obedient. If your kids are really good kids and they go on missions,
• 33:16
  and they do and they have all the positions in the church and in the
• 33:21
  deacon's Quorum and teacher's Korum and elder's Chorum or priest chorum and all that kind
• 33:24
  of stuff growing up and then go on missions, people just genuinely think,
• 33:30
  such good parents, Look what good parents they are. And our next door
• 33:37
  neighbors in our in our word there they had these amazing kids and the husbands
• 33:42
  in the state presidency, and he'd say, I owe my kids goodness to
• 33:47
  my wife one hundred percent, you know. And so there were so many
• 33:52
  things in this that unfortunately, all of this that I'm saying right now is
• 33:59
  super embarrassing for me. It's it's a thing that I'm truly ashamed of that
• 34:06
  I was so influenced by how my kids actions reflected on me, and so
• 34:19
  and I did feel truly like it was my wife's responsibility. And so I
• 34:28
  didn't do a good job of spending more time because I was really busy at
• 34:31
  work, and I was busy at my church callings, and I'd read so
• 34:35
  many biographies of Ezra Taft Benson, one of the prophets that went away.
• 34:39
  You know, he was in Europe for two years while his wife stayed home
• 34:44
  and took care of their kids and all that kind of stuff. And I
• 34:45
  said, that's what Mormon people do. Yeah, here's the model. The
• 34:49
  dad's work and do the church stuff. And I'm stay home and take care
• 34:52
  of the kids. And I'm truly embarrassed. And I could get emotional about
• 34:59
  this right now that that was who I was. Let me let me say
• 35:04
  this, this is what's coming up for me. Is I listened to both
• 35:07
  of you share that. We've interviewed number of people, and we have lots
• 35:12
  of friends who have talked about their own experiences and everyone's just completely unique.
• 35:17
  But I just want to tell you both that what you're sharing here is so
• 35:22
  powerful because I can guarantee you right now there are people listening to this who
• 35:28
  are in that exact situation where one is transitioning out and the other one is
• 35:34
  still in. We see these and talk to people about this all the time,
• 35:39
  and it's it's the dynamic of navigating that can destroy relationships, can destroy
• 35:46
  the divorce becomes like this is the only option we really have, and I
• 35:53
  want to honor both of you. Yeah, because that's not where you went
• 35:59
  no matter what went you went through, And especially over the last couple of
• 36:04
  years, as we've gotten to interact with you more closely, get to know
• 36:07
  you better and be with you that we've we've seen you your your individual growth
• 36:15
  expand and stepping into lots of other really, really beautiful things. So I
• 36:21
  think it's okay and absolutely okay for you to feel that way, Scott,
• 36:24
  but I want to emphasize that you're way past that now and my view,
• 36:30
  our view, I think of that and many of the conversations that we've all
• 36:35
  been lucky enough to have together, it's you're you're beyond that now and and
• 36:42
  I know you don't hold that in any negative space, but being embarrassed about
• 36:45
  it, I think is fine. Yeah, Yeah, it was a learning
• 36:50
  ground, right, and I think you know what's coming up now for me
• 36:53
  is like, wow, how wise of you. It's for at some point
• 36:58
  to recognize that all of this that was going on was prompting you to the
• 37:04
  path that you then chose, because when one can you imagine if you wouldn't
• 37:08
  have chosen. One thing really stands out for me because this is because I
• 37:14
  was hopeless during this time. And again this is at one point Scott would
• 37:21
  say to me every Sunday, are you going to go home? Like really
• 37:25
  with an attitude, like are you leaving right after sacrament because I'm teaching gospel
• 37:30
  doctrine or whatever? With an attitude. And then but we were starting to
• 37:37
  do some therapy and some self work and some things, and I got hope
• 37:42
  back when I remember a very I mean, I'll never forget this, like
• 37:46
  a time when Scott goes, oh, are you going to stay shy?
• 37:51
  Save your seat in Sunday school? Are you going home? And it was
• 37:53
  no judgment, he didn't care, And I was like, what just happened?
• 37:59
  Like I very much noticed that, And he's like, no, I
• 38:01
  don't carry either way. Just just let me know and I'll turn my coat
• 38:05
  on a chair of savior set or whatever. And from for several months that
• 38:10
  happened, like he would keep going, but he didn't care what I did.
• 38:15
  And I remember walking home from church got going. Something's changed, Something's
• 38:22
  changed. I have hope again, thinking before that this isn't going good.
• 38:28
  I mean We still had some different issues and problems after that, but I
• 38:31
  did have hope that he changed. I feel hope again, Well, what
• 38:39
  had changed, Scott? I mean, was there anything specific? Multiple things
• 38:44
  happened. But you know, our youngest son started smoking weed at age eleven
• 38:52
  every day. He was in sixth grade in elementary school, and we later
• 38:57
  learned that it was self medicating for a lot of stress and anxiety and everything
• 39:01
  that was going on in his life. But when you start smoking weed when
• 39:07
  you're in sixth grade, you start hanging around with the wrong crowd, sure,
• 39:09
  I mean, and it just led down a path. By the time
• 39:15
  he was fifteen, we ended up putting him in a residential treatment program for
• 39:21
  troubled teens, so to speak. And part of that was going to parenting
• 39:30
  classes once a week. And we're like, here, we're on our fifth
• 39:34
  and final kid and we're going to parenting classes, now, you know,
• 39:38
  I mean, that seemed really odd, But at the same time, it
• 39:42
  was the therapy and everything that we were going to was self reflection and looking
• 39:49
  at yourself and how we contributed to this. That's not an easy mirror to
• 39:55
  look into. No, it wasn't an easy mirror to look into and and
• 40:00
  it. I don't know exactly what to say about it other than that if
• 40:08
  you ask me now about my children, as we said, you know,
• 40:14
  we had three daughters, all married in the temple, doing everything right,
• 40:17
  and our two sons never wanted anything to do with the church. And the
• 40:22
  guilt that I felt, and I've dealt with all of this now, but
• 40:28
  the guilt that I felt for you know, my son was a deacon and
• 40:34
  my son, my youngest son, was a deacon and probably passed the sacrament
• 40:38
  twice in the two years that he was a deacon because he was constantly unworthy,
• 40:45
  and every time I would catch him smoking weed, I would say,
• 40:50
  okay, you need to go talk to the bishop now, you know.
• 40:52
  I mean it was just like this, you know, and they would take
• 40:54
  away his worthiness for passing the sacrament, and every one of the other deacons
• 41:00
  would come up and ask our said, hey, will you come and we
• 41:02
  need you to help us pass the sacrament? Will you And he'd say,
• 41:09
  I can't, you know. And it was just like this, And finally
• 41:14
  I got to the point where I was saying, just leave him alone.
• 41:19
  Okay, this is already hard enough. Just leave him alone, and stop
• 41:22
  making him feel guilty, no matter, no wonder he didn't want to come
• 41:25
  to church anymore. You know, it's the punishment or whatever of the whole
• 41:32
  thing was so hard that if I look at our kids now, all five
• 41:38
  of our kids are out of the church, and too well, I'm not
• 41:45
  going to go went down there. All five of our kids are out of
• 41:47
  the church, and I couldn't be more proud of all of them where they
• 41:53
  are, who they are, and having them as adults and knowing who they
• 42:00
  are as adults makes me extremely proud as a father of who they become,
• 42:06
  because they become amazing, incredible adults, and we love hanging out with them
• 42:14
  more as adults than we ever liked having them as kids. We spend so
• 42:16
  much time with I don't know I liked them bolth ages, but especially now
• 42:25
  as adults, having them in your lives and having a common you know,
• 42:30
  just how much you enjoy one another is so important. And we have such
• 42:35
  a good relationship with our boys that could have been destroyed during all of those
• 42:38
  years, you know, and if we were all if we were in the
• 42:43
  church and our boys were out, I can only imagine that there would still
• 42:47
  be a weird, you know, us trying to get them to come back.
• 42:52
  I have one little teeny story that I think about. This is one
• 42:55
  of our sons. But when another was struggling with this whole rehab and pot
• 43:05
  and he came home. Our other son was still smoking weight a little bit,
• 43:08
  and so we kicked him out of the house because we can't have a
• 43:13
  kid just coming home from rehab. And now his brother is still doing it.
• 43:17
  And I overheard him talking to his friend, and his friend goes,
• 43:22
  I, Pitt, you're so mad at your parents that you hate him for
• 43:27
  kicking you out. And my son said to him, and I heard him
• 43:30
  say this, They didn't kick me out of the family. They just kicked
• 43:35
  me out of the house. I get a come home and eat, I
• 43:37
  get a raid the pantry. They'll give me anything I want. It's just
• 43:44
  I don't blame him because I'm not doing what I should be doing to help
• 43:47
  my brother. And I was really happy about that that our kids knew that
• 43:53
  we loved them. It's just we had to set a boundary with them there.
• 43:58
  Sure, yeah, right, I mean it. Ray tells a story
• 44:02
  about an experience that she had when she was at BYU about obedience, a
• 44:09
  conversation they're having about obedience. And I think that's a dynamic within it's not
• 44:16
  just the Mormon Church. I think in religion in general, and there's a
• 44:21
  lot of rule based things that if you don't do this, you're not going
• 44:24
  to be worthy or you're not going to be able to be part of something.
• 44:30
  And especially in the world that we're in today, parents are in this
• 44:35
  place of fear. Inside the church especially, they're in this place of fear
• 44:38
  that their children are going to get taken away by the devil. And whatever
• 44:43
  the way the devil shows up, it's going to be in weed, or
• 44:46
  it's going to be in pornography, or it's going to be in you know,
• 44:51
  drinking. A myriad of the things that are out there and available.
• 44:54
  Those things have always been out there and available. They've always been part of
• 45:00
  the human experience. And I think us holding those things in fear and darkness
• 45:04
  and as this place of who don't do that? That's that brings that curiosity
• 45:12
  in some kids, not all, but it brings that curiosity up in some
• 45:15
  kids where they're like, well, Mom and Dad say I shouldn't be doing
• 45:19
  this. I'll be damned if I'm not going to go do that. I'm
• 45:21
  gonna go try it. There must be a reason. And then they go
• 45:24
  find out that some of this stuff is really fun and it's a party and
• 45:28
  it's great, and my parents have been lying to me. What else have
• 45:30
  they been lying about? So now I'm going to go do something else and
• 45:34
  it just becomes this. Whereas if we talked about it, and actually my
• 45:37
  father is an example. I'm not throwing him under the bus by this,
• 45:43
  but he would if we wanted to drink, he would go buy us some
• 45:46
  beer. Here you go, give it a try. You want to smoke,
• 45:50
  here you go. Here's a pack of cigarettes. Let's sit down here
• 45:52
  and smoke the whole thing. So it helped us to get a little bit
• 45:58
  of a place where you could see that and maybe this doesn't hold all that
• 46:04
  wonderfulness that maybe it gets put out there as being Whereas I noticed a lot
• 46:10
  of kids who were from very religious parts of the of the stake or ward
• 46:15
  or whatever in their families were that, and they were in that repressed atmosphere.
• 46:20
  It created a lot of dysfunction, a lot of not being able to
• 46:25
  function in school because they were you know, they were seen as the purtish
• 46:30
  ones and that kind of thing, and that creates just as much problem as
• 46:36
  the participating in those things themselves. And I think his parents and human beings,
• 46:43
  it's it would behoove us all kind to use the word behoove. Behoove
• 46:46
  us all too, to be a little bit more open to allowing our children
• 46:52
  to explore, because that's exactly what you said. Agree, that's what your
• 46:55
  kids were doing. They were exploring and finding and being there for them and
• 47:00
  not letting them jump off the cliff and helping guide. But you know,
• 47:06
  um, I look at my children and the exploring that they've all done.
• 47:10
  They're also they've all left the church as well, and then none of them
• 47:15
  were really ever very active when my former wife and I went through our divorce.
• 47:21
  But they've all now they're they're finding their way in their own way.
• 47:25
  It doesn't mean it's always been easy, and they've all had their own mistakes
• 47:29
  and difficulties and hard times, but they're at this point in their lives.
• 47:32
  They're all gainfully employed, they're doing things that they need to be doing,
• 47:37
  trying to make their lives better. And I know this is your podcast,
• 47:44
  but I think it's important for me to share. One other thing. We
• 47:46
  went to a mission reunion yesterday when I was a missionary. And when we
• 47:52
  were in the mission reunion, I was having some conversations with a couple of
• 47:55
  people and one of the former missionary friends of mine came over and we were
• 48:00
  having a chat and he looked over at Ray and she was across the way,
• 48:04
  and he said, no, now, she's not a member. Issue.
• 48:06
  I said, no, I must have that air and she's not a
• 48:09
  member. And you know I'm here in my long hair and all that,
• 48:13
  and and I said, yeah, and I left the church in nineteen ninety
• 48:17
  eight and I haven't I haven't been back since. And he goes, oh,
• 48:21
  well, that's too bad. Yeah, And I said, you know,
• 48:24
  it's really not too bad. I said, because it's not about being
• 48:29
  right or wrong or you know. I said, I understand that you're in
• 48:32
  that space, and I honor that. But for me and where I'm at,
• 48:37
  I may not be part of a religion. I may not be part
• 48:39
  of some structured belief system, but I said, my relationship with what I
• 48:44
  consider to be God or my creator or whatever word we want to use,
• 48:49
  is at a place where it's it's more profound and deeper than it's ever been
• 48:52
  in my life. And it continues to unfold and myriad different ways, and
• 48:58
  it's not restricted. So when we're talking about, you know, these dynamics
• 49:04
  that have come within a family, when we get stuck in the belief systems,
• 49:07
  sometimes it creates these things, and I think there has to be a
• 49:13
  I don't want to use the word culpability, but there has to be a
• 49:15
  responsibility taken by those who are in that to realize that it would be a
• 49:22
  little bit better to allow some of those things to happen and have conversations around
• 49:28
  them rather than just you know, going to that place of shunning and fear
• 49:31
  and oh my god, you smoked weed. Holy go now what you know
• 49:37
  that kind of thing, that that kind of energy tends to create more of
• 49:40
  it, and especially in the world that we're right now. I think now
• 49:45
  I have a couple of quick things to say. Our son, our youngest
• 49:51
  son, has thanked us actually for putting him in that treatment program that he
• 49:57
  was in. He probably would be dead now, yeah, And he realizes
• 50:02
  that his best friend that he was hanging out with at the time, or
• 50:07
  our son was thirteen when he went into treatment, got out when he was
• 50:12
  fifteen, and his best friend became a heroin addict, and it just was
• 50:20
  going down a bad path. Yea at that age, Yeah, it was,
• 50:22
  really it was. It would have been hard. But you know,
• 50:27
  I want to talk briefly about the church and where we are now, and
• 50:34
  I want to be brief about this, but the I come to the belief
• 50:38
  now that God is bigger than Mormonism, will let him be, let him
• 50:46
  her. It be okay that there is such a limited belief of who or
• 50:59
  what God is that has expanded so much now, and I think it should
• 51:05
  be. I need to note that since leaving the church, I've had very,
• 51:13
  very profound spiritual experiences that have involved having conversations with ancestors. I've had
• 51:25
  an interaction with Jesus himself. And I know that that seems impossible for people
• 51:35
  to believe people that are still in the church that I should say the person
• 51:42
  who was Jesus. Okay, I'm going to go back to say that I've
• 51:45
  had an interaction with the person who was Jesus and it's different than who I
• 51:52
  thought he was. He's been very misunderstood and teachings been very skewed. I
• 52:04
  have a closeness with the universe and with God and with Jesus himself, you
• 52:09
  know, and feel very blessed to be in the place that I am right
• 52:15
  now, and that it's very limiting to be stuck in any organized religion.
• 52:23
  And do you want to add anything and to our current I don't know.
• 52:31
  Mine's a little bit different than yours. I just would say, I just
• 52:37
  feel free now and I don't feel guilty for me between Scott and some sister
• 52:45
  in laws and some friends who always would say the Lord told me, and
• 52:51
  I was like, holy crap, the Lord's not telling me anything like when
• 52:54
  I was in the religion, And so then it would translate to what's wrong
• 52:59
  with me? The lorst I'm telling me anything? Should I start making crap
• 53:02
  up? Like the looked? I mean literally, it was almost like that.
• 53:07
  And now I'm like, I can just be free and I don't have
• 53:12
  to feel guilty about not being on my knees praying. I can just pray
• 53:15
  while I'm having a walking meditation, I can talk to God. I just
• 53:22
  for me, it's just been freedom to be who I am and express that
• 53:29
  in whatever way. I didn't leave the church because I wanted to try drugs
• 53:32
  and try all these crazy things. I just wanted to believe what I wanted
• 53:37
  to believe without being told what to believe. That's been the biggest grateful thing
• 53:43
  for me is just I get to believe what I want, and when I
• 53:45
  don't like that anymore, I can just go switch and try something melts on
• 53:50
  and move to that the next one and go and no one's there condemning me
• 53:53
  or judging me or telling me we don't believe that. It's been amazing.
• 54:00
  You know. I love that. I love as both of you are speaking.
• 54:04
  It just I feel so strongly that it's it's about you come to a
• 54:09
  place to know that it isn't at all about worthiness. It's about one You're
• 54:15
  already worthy, You're worthy of this life experience. And so then it's like,
• 54:20
  now, now what do I as I'm worthy to have this life experience?
• 54:24
  What is the experience that I want to have? What do I want
• 54:28
  to create? What do I want to learn? And and some of the
• 54:31
  boxes that we found ourselves in become too small or limiting, or your curiosity
• 54:39
  starts to flow over the sides, and it's like, but I want to
• 54:43
  know about that and about this, and I want to be able to ask
• 54:45
  the question. I want to be able to choose. And so through all
• 54:51
  of that, whether it's faith or you know, what we do for work,
• 54:54
  or where we choose to live, you know, all of that starts
• 54:59
  to be come. I think the place that you are as you're now a
• 55:02
  play in a place of choice, and it's as you step into choice.
• 55:07
  It's no one is ever wanting to say, oh, don't let me have
• 55:10
  choice without accountability. So let me have choice and find my accountabilities. I
• 55:16
  go through that process. Yeah, I love that, and you know,
• 55:22
  you just feel free. It's that as an opportunity to do that. And
• 55:28
  we're unbelievably already almost an hour, but we can't stop yet because because there's
• 55:36
  the place that I would like to go, and I think we're a will
• 55:39
  agree with this is as you've transitioned to out and you've you know, Scott
• 55:46
  created an opportunity for the employees of his business to own the business so that
• 55:51
  he could step away and retire, and Anne stepped away from her business that
• 55:57
  she was in, and then they they've started to create something else different and
• 56:01
  both of them have stepped into this space of creativity that's been just amazing to
• 56:08
  watch, and it's it's in various different ways. It's art, it's the
• 56:16
  singing wands, which we need to touch on just a little bit, and
• 56:21
  it's life and just light. You're creating this whole new way life looks.
• 56:25
  For this for the chapter that you're in. Yeah. Yeah. To make
• 56:30
  a quick transition into that, Scott our marriage going back, our marriage got
• 56:38
  to the point where we separated, and we were separated for two or three
• 56:45
  months, and it was really good for me at that point because I detached
• 56:55
  and I don't have a better way of saying that, but I truly believed
• 57:00
  that we were going to end up being divorced and I detached from Ann and
• 57:06
  what that means is I learned that I could be alone by myself and still
• 57:12
  be okay, and that life would go on and I could be happy again.
• 57:17
  I truly believe. I truly learned that during that time, and I
• 57:22
  do think that that was one of the things that was needed in our marriage,
• 57:25
  because I felt so driven to stay together because it was commandment, or
• 57:35
  it was eternal marriage or whatever it was, or this is what you're supposed
• 57:39
  to do or we're staying together for the kids or whatever it should be,
• 57:43
  which none of that's really a choice, right, it's a it's a it's
• 57:45
  a duty. And so well, and you were probably at that point putting
• 57:52
  more pressure on An to like conform. Yeah, absolutely, And it it
• 58:00
  wasn't until we got back together and I and I An actually moved to Oregon
• 58:07
  during that time and went to Bali for a month. Yeah, And it
• 58:13
  was at that point that I finally just said, it was before you went
• 58:16
  to Bali. I said, Anne, why don't you just come home,
• 58:22
  Why don't you just come home and let's I'm not the same person, just
• 58:28
  come home and let's figure this out. And so she came home for a
• 58:35
  couple of weeks and then and then did leave and go to Bally by herself
• 58:37
  for a month. I went and met her there for a week. But
• 58:44
  that was the beginning of a new life. And this actually wasn't that long
• 58:50
  ago. So this was when we met at the Paul Selling event. We
• 58:54
  were separated and Anne and I were That's why I was there with my sisters.
• 59:00
  And then we made a conscious choice to come back together again that now
• 59:06
  we're together because we want to be together and we like we like being together,
• 59:09
  We love each other. We have so much in common. And now
• 59:15
  it's a choice that we're together and not an obligation at least that's how it
• 59:21
  felt from my yeah grade, Yeah, the same. I feel the same.
• 59:23
  And our relationship has blossomed since then, because this is so Anne was
• 59:32
  in Bali in the beginning of twenty twenty and COVID happened in March. Wow,
• 59:42
  okay, and now you get to be sequestered together. And but but
• 59:46
  we had drastically changed. And it also helps that in March of that year
• 59:54
  was our first sitting with ayahuasca and we we had three nights, you know,
• 1:00:01
  three episodes of ayahuasca and I don't want to go down that path a
• 1:00:06
  long time, but that was the cracking open of me. I had had
• 1:00:16
  one hundred hours of therapy with a therapist, but that cracked me open to
• 1:00:24
  begin a true healing process. And we were then all of a sudden,
• 1:00:30
  we were in the same room, you know, we were in the same
• 1:00:34
  house and the same Interestingly, that's at that same time we bought us our
• 1:00:38
  sprinter van that's really small, and we started camping together in this tiny,
• 1:00:45
  little space, you know, and everything changed at that point in our relationship
• 1:00:55
  between COVID the Van. We learned how to rill be together again in such
• 1:01:01
  a different way. Yeah. Yeah, And shortly after that, I must
• 1:01:06
  say, I don't know with it. Within a year or so, Scott
• 1:01:10
  sold the business, retired, and yeah, that just led us down a
• 1:01:15
  whole different path and we did have some discussions. Yeah. So now we're
• 1:01:22
  in a new place with our relationship. You know, we'd done plan medicine,
• 1:01:29
  we'd done a lot of therapy, we had had this separation, chose
• 1:01:32
  to be together. So we're in a new space, I would say,
• 1:01:37
  mentally and spiritually. And now it feels like there's a ton of different possibilities.
• 1:01:45
  So, of course, being the life coach that I am, like,
• 1:01:47
  I'm asking Scott, okay, so if you could do anything, what
• 1:01:52
  would you do? You know? And so we started and I told him
• 1:01:57
  what I wanted to do, which is I really and you retire. And
• 1:02:00
  I had kind of had knew that I needed to warm them up to ideas
• 1:02:05
  a little bit before. But I want to travel, and so I see
• 1:02:08
  us in a year, maybe going to a country for two months. Okay,
• 1:02:15
  this is me, like trying to warm them up two months and then
• 1:02:17
  we'll come home. Then you can get back in your comfort zone. And
• 1:02:22
  then maybe six months later, for anywhere from one to two months, we'll
• 1:02:24
  go again. And obviously when he was working, he did not like that
• 1:02:30
  idea. But then when we're getting closer to retirement, we went to Guatemala
• 1:02:36
  and that changed how we felt about international travel, and I was so happy
• 1:02:43
  because before that he's like, I just don't care about it, and I'm
• 1:02:45
  sure that was all based on Africa over and over and over. We never
• 1:02:50
  went anywhere differently. We just went to the same place over and over.
• 1:02:53
  And so now we're doing something different, and so I don't know, like
• 1:02:59
  I absolutely believe that we're just hitting the best years of our lives because and
• 1:03:06
  I don't know, I feel like I want to kind of share the story
• 1:03:08
  that happened with you guys when we were in San Miguel on vacation together and
• 1:03:15
  got you guys knew we were looking at houses, but I had a very
• 1:03:21
  strong intuition that we were going to live there and Scott was quite resistant to
• 1:03:27
  it. And we had looked at a house and now we're like thinking about
• 1:03:30
  making an offer and we were sharing this Airbnb and you guys will remember,
• 1:03:36
  like I had a meltdown, I mean total meltdown, and I'm like,
• 1:03:42
  I need coaching, Laray, I need you to coach me, because I
• 1:03:45
  was having in the shower and was sobbing and I was just like, this
• 1:03:51
  is something I want, but I have to be a different person to actually
• 1:03:57
  transition move to another country. I mean, who do I have to be
• 1:04:01
  to do this? And I realized I couldn't be the person I was and
• 1:04:06
  do what because I wasn't as outgoing. I wanted to build a community there,
• 1:04:14
  but maybe I wasn't outgoing enough to do that and certainly wasn't creative.
• 1:04:18
  You and I took our first art class to get and I were like,
• 1:04:24
  what the hour are we doing? We don't even know what we're doing.
• 1:04:27
  I was being so encouraging and we were like, yes, it's because it
• 1:04:30
  comes easy for you stuff. And you and I were like, can we
• 1:04:33
  paint this a color? Like we didn't even know what we were doing,
• 1:04:38
  and I was like, I want to be creative. Wow, I had
• 1:04:41
  my first art class there, and I just really want to shout out to
• 1:04:45
  you guys because I don't know if I would have moved there without you're coaching
• 1:04:49
  and support about oh, you should do it. I honestly expected. I
• 1:04:56
  kind of feel like anyone else would have said, yeah, you really should
• 1:05:00
  think about this, like this is a big decision, and you were like,
• 1:05:02
  you should do it, just go for it. I remember that I
• 1:05:08
  blame her. It really was mostly Ray because I remember I think it was
• 1:05:14
  when I had gotten the Yeah okay, I got sick. Yeah, I
• 1:05:17
  was in bed, and you guys were having a discussion about finalizing that,
• 1:05:21
  and I remember you coming and just asking Ray if she had a minute.
• 1:05:25
  Yeah, And then you guys went up on the right terrorists and had that
• 1:05:28
  conversation, right, yeah, yeah, Well it was really powerful for me
• 1:05:31
  because we talked about patterns, and it was it was like, if you
• 1:05:36
  could just step out of a pattern that you were comfortable with, why not.
• 1:05:41
  And this is just about stepping out of what was a familiar pattern,
• 1:05:45
  like Mexico can become a new familiar pattern, you know. And yeah,
• 1:05:49
  it's interesting that. I mean, I take no credit in that, because
• 1:05:55
  I think we were both learning from each other. In that conversation. There
• 1:05:58
  was an exchange of g and ideas that were just propelling us to new possibilities
• 1:06:03
  because that whole trip had been all about new possibilities. Ray is fearless,
• 1:06:09
  but you know, and she's a prophet us too, because you know what
• 1:06:13
  she told me, Yes, I did tell her. She did say,
• 1:06:15
  and I see you having just an international friend base, like it's gonna expand
• 1:06:25
  everything for you. And just today, you know, I was telling you,
• 1:06:29
  I go, I went to lunch with this Mexican girl, Brazilian Venezuelan
• 1:06:36
  and a woman from Peru and me, and it was like, wow,
• 1:06:42
  what in our international line. I consider all of them great friends now.
• 1:06:46
  And that was just last week in Mexico. So I really think it's a
• 1:06:50
  great example of the of stepping into a much bigger box. Because you say
• 1:06:57
  that we had our first art class, but man, and I have watched
• 1:07:00
  and it's hard for me to imagine that you were never an artist. I
• 1:07:04
  wasn't though, because the art both of you do is is such energy that
• 1:07:11
  flows through the creativity of expression is just it's just really inspiring. Yeah,
• 1:07:19
  I mean for both of you. It blows my mind that Anne is who
• 1:07:26
  she is artistically because and she doesn't want to believe. She doesn't want to
• 1:07:30
  believe this, but it is the amount of creativity that I see come out
• 1:07:38
  of her far exceeds mine. It. I mean, just nope, Harry,
• 1:07:44
  I have to disagree it. I mean, you both are very talented.
• 1:07:47
  It's just different. It's different. It is different. But she is
• 1:07:50
  so prolific. She is a wonderful artist, is incredible so well. I
• 1:07:58
  think one of the things is that that I've watched that just keeps prompting me
• 1:08:03
  to keep looking deeper for myself is just where where you find art. Like
• 1:08:09
  if someone were to say, are you an artist? A lot of people
• 1:08:13
  say, well, I'm an artist because I was trained to be one or
• 1:08:15
  whatever. And I see Anne's artwork and it's made from different elements, it's
• 1:08:20
  made from different subjects. It's you know, there's like really nothing that she
• 1:08:26
  can't become artistic with. And you know, and Scott, you the fact
• 1:08:30
  that you look at something and can bring it into form without a pattern,
• 1:08:35
  you free draw, and the idea of the singing ones, the musical wands
• 1:08:42
  that you've created. I think the tar View sunflower he knew freehearmed in that
• 1:08:46
  beautiful stand that you gave us and you know, I just think you were.
• 1:08:53
  This is part of who you. The agreement that you had, whether
• 1:08:57
  you were consciously aware of it or not, the green meant that you had
• 1:09:00
  as a couple that this chapter would really help others. You'd you'd become way
• 1:09:04
  showers to show others that when you retire, it's not about growing old inside
• 1:09:09
  a house. It is watching teams and Sunday dinners, and you can still
• 1:09:14
  have those things, but there's so much more you can experience at this stage
• 1:09:18
  in your life. It isn't about looking back at younger years with fondness.
• 1:09:24
  It's about still looking forward and what you can create and do. So yeah,
• 1:09:29
  it's it's interesting, you know. To give a tiny amount of backstory
• 1:09:35
  is when COVID happened, and for some people that don't know, I was
• 1:09:41
  in the live event business right. I had been wanting to get out of
• 1:09:45
  my business for five years. I was so over it and had looked at
• 1:09:50
  different prospects about getting out, and then when COVID happened and live events stopped,
• 1:09:57
  I literally thought that my chances of selling the business were put on hold
• 1:10:01
  indefinitely. And it truly is divine intervention or the universe looking out for us,
• 1:10:10
  whatever it might be, that we were able to sell business. I
• 1:10:15
  did what I had wanted to do for years, and that is sell my
• 1:10:18
  business to Mike, to the employees, and we're paid over time and that
• 1:10:25
  it gives us enough money to live and will for the rest of our lives
• 1:10:29
  as long as everything keeps going well. But it allowed us to go to
• 1:10:35
  Guatemala. And Guatemala was a place that wasn't even on our radar. It
• 1:10:42
  was not on any bucket list of any place I ever wanted to go in
• 1:10:45
  my life. And during COVID and BE decided to become a facilitator of breath
• 1:10:50
  work. And part of the training to be for this breathwork was doing a
• 1:11:00
  week live with the instructors and everything. It was all over Zoom based in
• 1:11:04
  Italy, and Italy was shut down during COVID and and so one of the
• 1:11:09
  instructors was in Guatemala and said, why doesn't everyone just come to Guatemala,
• 1:11:14
  And so we went and I felt like I went home. Wow. It
• 1:11:21
  was like I this is this is where I am at peace here. And
• 1:11:27
  I don't know if you do you have anything you want to add to that.
• 1:11:30
  So it was in May of twenty twenty one. All right, and
• 1:11:33
  that was at Lake Gustus Long. There's a picture of you at this lake.
• 1:11:38
  That is one of my favorites. It's just such a magnificent place.
• 1:11:43
  And the volcano was erupting. Yes, it was so called, and that's
• 1:11:49
  real it. Well, the only thing I am going to say about it
• 1:11:51
  is that that was the question that I asked Scott when we got home the
• 1:12:00
  first time, because he loved it so much. I said, okay,
• 1:12:03
  so we're home. We did our first little month five weeks. We did
• 1:12:08
  five weeks, So if you could do anything, this was in January twenty
• 1:12:13
  twenty two, what would you do? And he said, maybe I'd buy
• 1:12:15
  a house in Guatemala. Now, ultimately we bought a house in Mexico,
• 1:12:21
  not after me researching Guatemalan houses, which were few and far between and very
• 1:12:29
  difficult to buy so and quite a bit more expensive. They say in Guatemala
• 1:12:35
  that house price is based on whatever the owner needs at the moment. So
• 1:12:41
  that was it was. It was like the seed got planted, especially for
• 1:12:45
  Scott, right, and the guys started doing exploring and then we went to
• 1:12:48
  Mexico together in two thousand Yeah, twenty one was I for Scott's birthday,
• 1:12:57
  and then we went into and then we went in twenty two to San Miguel.
• 1:13:00
  You met us there and Saguel And just so people know. San Miguel
• 1:13:03
  day End is a very It's in the middle of nowhere. It's in the
• 1:13:11
  center of the country. They call it the Naval of Mexico. It's at
• 1:13:15
  sixty five hundred feet. It's high desert, so we're not near a beach.
• 1:13:21
  There's a definite dry season, had grippen it rainy season. But for
• 1:13:28
  whatever reason, it's attracted x pads or people from Europe and Europe, Canada
• 1:13:36
  and the US for retirement and there's it's a city of about one hundred and
• 1:13:43
  fifty thousand people and I would say twenty or thirty thousand of them are x
• 1:13:48
  Pads and other nationals. Yeah, just and so there is a huge international
• 1:13:56
  community there. And it has a thing that you may not know is it's
• 1:14:01
  on a giant rose quartz bed. Well. San Miguel is so it is
• 1:14:10
  just the earth energy there. It just is a different kind of It's like
• 1:14:15
  it's a place like Sedona, you know, that is one of those places
• 1:14:18
  where there's just good energy there, hot springs all around. Yeah, people
• 1:14:23
  drive, people are really polite. Yeah, and there's a it's a big
• 1:14:27
  art community too, which is why it's like you can go there and be
• 1:14:31
  inspired all day long with different art things because people do art all everywhere there.
• 1:14:36
  It's like a Santa Fe kind of artistic Canary Santa Fe And anyway,
• 1:14:45
  you know, interestingly is Anne asked what do you want to do and I
• 1:14:48
  and I kind of was like, I've there's a couple of things that I
• 1:14:53
  want to do. I want to learn to would carve. I've never carved
• 1:14:56
  in my life, but it's always intrigued me. I'd liked oil paint,
• 1:15:00
  never oil painted anything in my life, and I like metal art. And
• 1:15:06
  I had been a welder in high school and different times in my life.
• 1:15:13
  And so I took my first art class in Guatemala in the fall of twenty
• 1:15:20
  twenty one. I just went and literally found an art gallery, went to
• 1:15:27
  the owner of it and said, will you teach me how to paint?
• 1:15:30
  And I did one painting and I've probably only done ten since then. But
• 1:15:35
  it's become a passion something that I really love. At the same time,
• 1:15:40
  I wanted a woodcarve. First wood carving I ever did is the one I
• 1:15:44
  did for you, Scott at Christmas of this past year, a sunflower,
• 1:15:48
  and it's so beautiful, and since then I've done two more. They do
• 1:15:55
  take quite a bit of time, but it's something I feel really passionate about
• 1:15:59
  doing. And then I bought a welder down there in Mexico, and and
• 1:16:03
  just I feel proud of myself for being able to learn Spanish well enough to
• 1:16:10
  go to a place and say, this is the kind of steel that I
• 1:16:13
  want, This is what I want to be able to do. Can you
• 1:16:15
  cut it for me? Sticking it in my little car that I have down
• 1:16:18
  there, and coming home and making and literally making something. And I made
• 1:16:25
  one of those another singing one stand And so just the the whole art side
• 1:16:33
  of just being able to express myself artistically is really important to me. I
• 1:16:41
  mean, I I and I don't know what how else to add that.
• 1:16:45
  And I just feel so fortunate that Anne jumped on board too, you know,
• 1:16:51
  and that we spend so much of our time doing art. And you
• 1:16:58
  have a space in your home that's really well lit and for the art right
• 1:17:02
  where we do relicate we do have a voice there an art studio. It
• 1:17:09
  kind of is a second guest room too. We have a Murphy bed in
• 1:17:12
  there, but that we can turn it into a bedroom too if we have
• 1:17:15
  guests. So let's talk a minute. As we wrapped us up, let's
• 1:17:18
  talk a little minute about what comes next for you, because I love what
• 1:17:21
  you've been sharing, the community that you're getting involved with down there, some
• 1:17:26
  of the things that they're doing part Eco Village spiritual community, as well as
• 1:17:30
  potentially the retreats that you may do, the artistic retreats that you may do.
• 1:17:35
  So where is that in coming next for you guys? And do you
• 1:17:41
  want to talk about HOLPORI a little bit or do you Yeah? I don't
• 1:17:45
  know. Maybe are you well because I could be so fast about it?
• 1:17:47
  But what's next? I went to This kind of says everything. I went
• 1:17:57
  to a women's networking group because a friend wanted me to go. And this
• 1:18:00
  is in Mexico, San Miguel, and they asked me what I did,
• 1:18:04
  and I said, I'm retired, I don't do anything. I'm kind of
• 1:18:08
  looking for something. And then I went three weeks later and in the meantime,
• 1:18:14
  I so when I went the second time, I'm like, oh,
• 1:18:16
  I'm doing retreats. I help people that are entering retirement create their ideal life
• 1:18:24
  retirement. I'm going to be teaching make your own freda or pet portrait,
• 1:18:30
  and I do breathwork. And I was like, oh my gosh, look
• 1:18:35
  how that the people are like I thought. I said, you didn't do
• 1:18:39
  anything that you were retired, and now I'm like, okay. And then
• 1:18:43
  after I announced all that, I got a little bit stressed a little bit,
• 1:18:45
  and then I was like, we'll just let it flow and see how
• 1:18:49
  it pans out. So anyway, I think all of those things kind of
• 1:18:54
  my little mantra has been creativity and community building, both of those and here
• 1:19:01
  in Utah as well as in Mexico. And then Scott and I are involved
• 1:19:08
  in a community called Pori, which means community in Maori. I guess or
• 1:19:14
  guys, yeah, they're they're from New Zealand. And so we're building this
• 1:19:17
  a very very small house out in a spiritual community about twenty minutes outside of
• 1:19:23
  San Miguel. That and they do the sweat Lodge and they do a lot
• 1:19:28
  of yoga and breadth work and different things, and there really are people and
• 1:19:32
  so we're excited to have a very small tiny house out in that area and
• 1:19:38
  build community with them, so all as other people. So anyway, that's
• 1:19:42
  also an international community that oh yeah, yeah, they're from everywhere out there
• 1:19:46
  as well. If I can do my tiny sales pitch for Hapori. It
• 1:19:51
  is a co housing community, and if you don't know what co housing is,
• 1:19:58
  everybody owns their own house and their own lot, but there's also a
• 1:20:01
  community house and there is a guesthouse, and it's an intentional community, very
• 1:20:12
  eco friendly. All of the water is reused, like gray water is saved
• 1:20:16
  for irrigation, and everything goes through all these different filters. It's one hundred
• 1:20:21
  percent off grid, so it's rainwater and solar powered and it is a really
• 1:20:31
  incredible community that we're so happy to be part of. And you can buy
• 1:20:35
  a house there. The lowest price one is about one hundred and sixty thousand
• 1:20:43
  and US dollars and the well one thing that's a two bedroom and then a
• 1:20:48
  three bedroom is like one hundred eighty or two hundred thousand, so maybe two
• 1:20:54
  hundred. But one of the things you got sidetracked on a little bit is
• 1:20:57
  that they eat meals together, cohousing. Even though you own your they have
• 1:21:01
  a common house. They eat together. They want like want the people that
• 1:21:06
  started it. She's pregnant, They're like, you get to be the grandma
• 1:21:10
  to my baby because we're in community. Right, this isn't like a retirement
• 1:21:15
  center now, like it's not all older people. It's like this long generation.
• 1:21:19
  They're like, we eat together, we have gardens together. Like there's
• 1:21:24
  a lot of common things and we I've always been interested in that after watching
• 1:21:29
  a happiness documentary about people that they they're the happiest people because they have community
• 1:21:36
  started. It's a concept that started in Denmark and has been really successful in
• 1:21:42
  places anyway. So that's really how I see our future, bouncing between our
• 1:21:47
  grandkids in Oregon and our daughters Utah. You see to see you guys,
• 1:21:54
  our best friends and our family and our sons, and then Mexico. So
• 1:22:00
  we're kiddy. Yeah, a very varied interesting. Yeah. One of the
• 1:22:06
  things that Anne is wanting to do is we have room for four guests,
• 1:22:13
  so either two couples or four women or what you know, men are were
• 1:22:17
  sketched out about sleeping in the same bed than women are. But anyway of
• 1:22:24
  having people come down for an art and healing week. You know that.
• 1:22:30
  It's I would highly recommend that. Yeah, going for a week where we'll
• 1:22:34
  do some a few art projects led by Anne and or or me. I
• 1:22:39
  don't know, we'll we'll figure that out. But going out to Harpori and
• 1:22:43
  doing breathwork and a sound bath and temiskull, which is a sweat lodge and
• 1:22:51
  cold plunge. There's a pool go into the hot springs as well. It'll
• 1:22:56
  be fine. So it'll be That's so we're going to do that. That's
• 1:22:59
  our future in the mountains of Mexico. Yeah, well that's lovely. Having
• 1:23:03
  experienced all that pretty much with you, I can't recommend that. Yeah enough,
• 1:23:09
  Yeah, and quickly before we go, I want to just say the
• 1:23:14
  sound Ones is something that Scott created. It's not really an original thing,
• 1:23:19
  but it's something that he saw someone else doing. And if you know Scott,
• 1:23:26
  he's very meticulous and very very focused on detail, and he created some
• 1:23:33
  sound ones, which is basically just a metal pipe perfectly tuned to each of
• 1:23:39
  the notes and then also perfectly tuned to sophagio frequencies and also tuned to the
• 1:23:47
  thirty two frequency. What is it? We call the four thirty two hurts
• 1:23:51
  rather than the four forty, which all reggae notes are tuned too. And
• 1:23:57
  they're like a singing bowl, only they're used in a similar fashion. And
• 1:24:02
  Ray and I use them constantly. I use them in my sound work,
• 1:24:06
  I use them in my I've used them in both of the albums that I've
• 1:24:11
  released, and they're magical. And you know when it. Scott allowed me
• 1:24:18
  to come in with him and work side by side with him when create the
• 1:24:20
  ones that I did. And then the carving that he did was for a
• 1:24:25
  wand stand that he made me and gifted me for Christmas, which is amazing.
• 1:24:30
  The wood is juniper wood, I think right, yes it is cedar
• 1:24:33
  sediar word slash juniper same thing and um, just amazing. But um,
• 1:24:40
  do you have an active website for the sound ones where they can go look
• 1:24:44
  at that? I do? I do. UM, It's it hasn't been
• 1:24:48
  modified since I originally made it. It's true nature reading in sound all one
• 1:24:57
  word, true nature, breathing in sound dot com and um, you know
• 1:25:03
  the I will just say seeing wands were a COVID, COVID COVID creation.
• 1:25:15
  We heard them in something similar in Sidona. All the details I won't go
• 1:25:21
  into about how I felt it was divine intervention that I learned about them in
• 1:25:26
  Sedona and then came back and did what I say, I perfected them.
• 1:25:31
  I agree with you, it's they are incredible. I don't take a lot
• 1:25:36
  of credit for it. I don't even love the creation of the wands themselves
• 1:25:44
  anymore. I've actually turned that over to to add them to somebody else.
• 1:25:48
  But the artistic side of them, we still use them pretty much every day
• 1:25:55
  in our private meditation, you know, in our personal meditations and work in
• 1:26:00
  Mexico. But um, and here in Utah, I can't see enough good
• 1:26:05
  about him. I've been sold on them from the moment you pained one in
• 1:26:12
  front of me the first time. Yeah, it's incredible, this is awesome.
• 1:26:15
  And um, let's let's mention Adam, because Adam was making it.
• 1:26:21
  Adam Heaps, he was making a transition out of a job that he was
• 1:26:26
  in and then he was kind of looking for some stuff to do, and
• 1:26:29
  so I connected him with Scott and they've just partnered and run with the ball
• 1:26:33
  and Adam is now working with him and creating those And on Instagram there's a
• 1:26:39
  website sorry a profile there called the Energy Stack the Energy Stack, and you
• 1:26:45
  can see some of the way we've been using those in that modalium Adam and
• 1:26:51
  Mike and in the healing work that we've been doing with music and the sound
• 1:26:56
  ones are a significant part of that, and they're a significant part of this
• 1:27:00
  sound work that we've been doing. I do feel like they were that the
• 1:27:02
  singing ones were something that I was compelled to do and that I was inspired
• 1:27:08
  to do because I could. Yeah, I had the time, the money,
• 1:27:12
  the resources, everything and created the singing ones. But I don't want
• 1:27:17
  to make them anymore. And I've turned that over to Adam Heaps and he
• 1:27:21
  is doing an incredible job. I literally spent hundreds of hours and thousands of
• 1:27:26
  perfecting that, perfecting him. Yeah, and they're in a place now where
• 1:27:30
  I think they're amazing. Yeah, and he's been doing a lot of them,
• 1:27:32
  I know, for people. So you get ahold of Adam and find
• 1:27:36
  him on the Energy Stack. There you can get hold of him, go
• 1:27:40
  to Mexico and experience them with Annam absolutely, Scott, Well, thank you
• 1:27:45
  so much for doing this, you guys. I've just treasured the time together
• 1:27:48
  and I honor both of you for just being who you are, being way
• 1:27:54
  showers, being creative, and being such good friends. So thank you so
• 1:27:59
  much, Siam, and thank you for being vulnerable and willing to share,
• 1:28:02
  because, like I was saying earlier on it, it opens up that space
• 1:28:06
  for people who are having the same kinds of transitional experiences in their lives to
• 1:28:14
  know that they're what can be on the other side, and you guys are
• 1:28:16
  perfect examples of that. Thank you, thank you, thanks for having us.
• 1:28:20
  Thank love you guys. All right bye. We would like to extend
• 1:28:25
  our gratitude to our group of advocates for being early sponsors of the Observatory podcast.
• 1:28:30
  A big thank you to JP Electrical, Maven District, Pop Art Snacks
• 1:28:33
  Team, and Power Hour and Tipplefok Advisors. You've been listening to the Observatory
• 1:28:42
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