Latest / Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano / Escaping Religion

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Escaping Religion · Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano

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This is Your Pain Game podcast where we talk about the game of living in
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and with chronic pain and trauma get into the heart of how to heal.
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I am your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan on
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discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones, and
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anybody that is interested in having their voice heard in the chronic pain and trauma
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world that we live in. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and my favorite
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people on the planet, my VIPs. One of the two households that I
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was raised in was a religious one, a very religious one, not crazy
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religious, but not like eh, we only go on Christmas and Easter.
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It was a legitimate religious household. We went to church, we did the
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things. Putting together this episode I had to think about like remembering, trying
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to remember what I took positively from my childhood when it came to religion and
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church. I came up with nothing. Unfortunately, I came up with a
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lot of negative things about the church and religion specifically, not God, not
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Jesus, not Buddha, whatever it is. It was religion that ended up
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being my problem from my childhood and my teenagers. My college years and then
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I finally like dropped out of church right after college. I just couldn't do
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it anymore. And a few years ago, actually I finally had to talk
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to my mom about the fact that I didn't necessarily believe in God, and
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she lost it. She was not thrilled about this information. But when I
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talked to her about it, I said, but Mom, I'm agnostic,
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okay, And the reason I am is because I don't know and neither do
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you. But that's where faith comes in, right. Faith comes in where
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we say I'm going to believe in something and I don't necessarily know if it's
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true or not. And I think that's epic. I think that's awesome that
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people can do that. I have faith in my spouse that he's going to
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follow through on the things that he's done, has he done them not necessarily
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and vice versa. So what do we do here with this? Right?
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What do we do Where You've been in a church religious environment like myself and
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really really tried hard to be part of that community. But what I was
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finding at a very young age, and it went all through college, was
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that all the church going folk who were supposed to be protecting me, watching
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after me, watching after the people around me. And I'm going to use
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specifically in terms of young women, how the mountains and mountains of abuse sexually,
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emotionally and physically were happening in the churches that I was involved in.
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So I bounced, as I would think anybody would. But unfortunately we're surrounded
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by people that don't bounce. So what the hell are we gonna do?
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And for those of you that don't necessarily know what being agnostic means, I'm
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gonna tell you what it is. Is it a person who believes that nothing
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is known or can be known, of the existence or nature of God or
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anything beyond material phenomena. A person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God,
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which is totally true. And where I'm coming from, I believe that
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there is a reason we forge friendships with people. There is a reason why
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I am toasting prosecco with my Topachico guests today. We are celebrating our lives,
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we are celebrating all of what quote unquote God is around us. I
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just can't deal with the religion side of it right, So, without further
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ado, I would like to introduce you to my guest today, Emmy Salis
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of the nonprofit Sage Holistic Health and Wellness Center here in southern California. Hello,
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and Salu to you, my love. We decided to do a Friday
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soalu to each other today. Oh my gosh, So let's get Oh my
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gosh, it's so good to have you here. So let's get down.
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I didn't even have a sip of my drink. Let me do you better.
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I deserve it. After this week, let's get down and dirty in
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the world of spiritual health and how we can kind of escape this gas lighting
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that kind of deliberately and systematically occurs in religions around the world. And so
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here you are. I'm rolling out the red carpet for you, babe.
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I'd like to start talking about your religious background and experience and how kind of
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the generations of religion that you've been part of kind of ended up breaking your
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spirit a bit. Let's take it from there. I know that's a lot,
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it's a lot to unpack down. Yeah, let's get to it.
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It's so nice to be here. I love our chats. It is so
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amazing how you bring such a realness to you and to your followers. Hello,
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to everybody. So I was raised in the LDS faith. My personal
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experience, I loved my religion growing up. I had a very very close
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connection to my belief system. My family is seventh generation, so they literally
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like are part of the complete history and making of the LDS faith, which
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is one of the main religions as far as number of people in a religion
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goes today. So yeah, I was raised in that environment, very very
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devout to the t. I mean there's there is somewhat a differentiation of level
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in like how LDS someone is. They don't like to use the term Mormon
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anymore, so I try and be respectful of that. But how Mormon you
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are, Like, there's not too much fluctuation in it. You're either in
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or you're either out. And I think that's one of the one of the
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challenges we Right, you're in the club of the club, right, and
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LDS is Latter day Saints Just for people that may or may not know what
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LDS is. Yeah, I mean I got to help you out here because
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religion has royally screwed you up. Please fill in the gaps. I feel
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like that's been one of my one of my favorite sayings in my adult years
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is when I don't know what the fuck people are talking about. I'm like,
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look, I was raised under a rock. I tu it's Collormonism.
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Look, I'm drinking Topo Chico. Okay, something wrong with Topo Chico.
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Well, there's nothing wrong with it. Another one I know, right,
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But yeah, So that was my my upbringing. As far as the religion
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goes, you know, basically, it's you're you're doing something every day of
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the week. I mean, Monday is family home evening, Wednesday is mutual
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where you kind of get together with all the kids. Sunday is three hours
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of church. You're doing service all the time. It is a big part
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of your life. I mean I had it was our whole community, right,
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It was everyone that was involved in our lives. I did know people
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that were outside of the church, but they don't really courage relationships and friendships
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outside of the church. Like I had friends, but I couldn't play with
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them too much. I had to really stay focused with my friends within the
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church. So it was all of my brain. It was everything of my
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life. It was everything I had committed everything too. And when you're born
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into this religion, there's a trajectory that you're going to go. This is
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what you're going to do. And it's different for men versus women. But
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as a female growing up in this environment, I was going to grow up
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and have six babies and raise them in the church and that's kind of what
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you do. So doesn't that sound fun to some? Maybe? But that
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was that was Yeah. I don't know what else do you want to know?
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That's just kind of where I came from. I lived in Illinois,
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moved to Utah where it's even more kind of intense more, you know,
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densely populated, and then I in my great escape, moved to California in
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my early Yeah, and we're definitely gonna get to the great escape because I
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think you use you using the word escape is a very good word because I
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feel like breaking free, escaping, leaving freedom, like all of those things,
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which is so sad because when you think about religion as a whole,
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every religion has its own rules, it has its own criteria. If you
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don't do this, then you're gonna this. If you don't do that,
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you're gonna this. If you do this, this is gonna happen. Like
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there's always this, Like am I ever going to be able to be who
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I am? Am I ever going to be accepted? Am I ever not
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going to be judged? Am I ever going to truly feel love? Am
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I always going to have to have my hair braided? That's actually the most
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suppressing question that I have. But you know what I mean, when you're
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put into these situations as a young woman, specifically, this is how you're
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going to live your life. This is what you're gonna be. You know
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nothing other than that, So why would it be wrong? So when you
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go through these motions, and I remember I dated I dated a kid that
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was a kid around the corner from me that I grew up with. I
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dated him. He was Mormon LDS and he wanted me to go to church
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with him. And my family was very very Baptist Christians, weird Baptist white
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people. I'm not really sure how that all worked out, but whatever,
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very very Baptist, like couldn't dance, couldn't sing, couldn't do these things,
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what have you. Then I was dating this guy and he was in
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he was Mormon, and it was like, my parents don't like you.
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I'm like, well that's kind of mean because I'm fun. Oh yeah,
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I'm way too fun for them, but it was. It was a whole
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thing. And he was like, can you at least go to church with
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me? And my parents were like, Nope, not a chance are you
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going to that church? And so, hindsight, when I was thinking about
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what we were going to talk about today, I was thinking about him in
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particular because he's still part of my life on daily actually randomly, honestly,
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But it was so weird because my parents asked me to ask him what that
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was going to be like for me as a girl going to the church,
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and it was, well, you're going to show up and you're going to
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be separated from the men. That was the only thing that I remember to
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this day about what that was. So when you're talking about your particular religion,
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it was in LDS as quote unquote Mormon whatever we're going to be calling
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it to make sure everybody's happy. How was that like for you being a
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young girl because you got married in the temple very young and it was very
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bizarre, Yeah, twenty years old, like what but you knew nothing other
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than that. So at that point, is that when that all shift started
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to shift for you? Like what happened there where you started to look at
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your religion and all you were raised and go, huh, I need to
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question this. When did you get curious? Yeah? No, it's so
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funny because it's like we were just talking about the Great Escape, and it's
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like, right, it is a great escape, but it's not this thing
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that you just do out of the blue, right, usually like a divorce
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religious transition. This is like I say that it was a good decade of
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my life where it took me a decade to really be able to stand firmly
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in my choices and my decisions, because you do, you grow up in
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this environment where you're constantly questioning your own thoughts and you're always deferring to another
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power figure, right, an authority figure, whether it's men in the church,
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the bishop, the state president, the prophet, they're all men,
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and so you're either deferring to that or you need to defer to God or
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Jesus, or you're not being this or that enough. So it was I
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mean, it's never just like one moment that is this thing that just like
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kind of ends it. But I do remember, as I've put pieces together
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kind of looking back, that when my mother passed away. So my mom
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passed away when I was thirteen. She had breast cancer. She had been
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sick, and she passed away right after we had moved to Utah. So
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I was twelve when we moved to Utah. My mom passed away a year
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after we moved. It was a really big that's hard of shifting moving parts.
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Yeah, that tender age old girl for little me. Yeah, no,
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kidd you too, And I didn't know. Yeah, Utah's rough as
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a whole. So that in that space, my mom passes, my dad
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goes into major grieving, and then six months later starts dating and then a
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year later gets married and they were, you know, together for like twenty
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five years. So then I'm kind of in this space of like going along
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with it because I kind of need a mom, right Yeah, but way,
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it's like I learned that he was going to be marrying her in the
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temple. So then I was like, I remember asking my dad, well,
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so what about mom then? Because Mormons believe the LDS faith believes that
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when you get married, you're sealed together for time and eternity. Right,
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so my mom and the oldest sealed and that was like first wife spot was
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taken, so this would have been second wife. Right. Yeah, so
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then it just opened that whole thing about polygamy and all of that right of
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course practice today by the LDS faith. There are fundamental LDS members that still
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do practice polygamy and everyone knows about all of that. Yeah, FLDS.
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I'm completely obsessed with watching documentaries about it. I have been for many,
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many, many years because I used to live in Utah. Yeah, oh
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my gosh, that's right. Yeah. I lived in Park City, which
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is you know, kind the where the Heathens were, the Heathens of Utah,
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that's what. That's the other place I was raised. Yeah, that's
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a fun place. Yeah, you go up there, you get drunk on
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your this month. But because everything in Utah is measured, you need this
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much foot to get this. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, that was
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kind of when one of my things where I'm like, wait, what is
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this? It felt like it kind of threw me into a little bit of
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a feminist kind of space where I started really like my inner girls started coming
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out and being like, hey, that is not okay. I am not
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okay with mom being like having to share dad or me thinking about who I
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don't want to have to share. This is not my thing. I'm not.
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Yeah, like I don't want my potential spouse. I don't want to
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share him either. Yeah, that that is an incredible like question, especially
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like from a religious perspective, we all think about God and the Bible and
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all of that, and like, this is your spouse and this is all
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it is. And that's why LDS gets a bad rap from FLDS And so
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that is definitely a delineation that we need to make that where you came from
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is no from the polygamy side of things, But that doesn't mean that it's
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not part of it. Lie your doctrine, absolutely, but I always had
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from that point forward, always had a hard time. So I felt like
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and again that's also you know, it's very catered to men in that it's
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like, well, how is the women having any rights? Are they okay
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with that? Is mom okay with this? Like how do you know she's
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okay with this? You can't ask her? Did you guys talk about this
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before she died? Like I'm like, guys go together? Like what?
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Absolutely not? But yeah, So I mean there was like these little things
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along the way that would come in and kind of rattle me a bit.
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And like when I when I did end up getting married, so he and
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I have divorced since then, many many moons ago, but I did,
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and I'm grateful for the experience because it's really what brought me to my decision
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ultimately. Like going through the temple is something that you sing songs about when
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you're in Sunday School from when you're a little kid. You're singing these songs
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about I want to see the Temple. I'm going there someday, Like there's
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all these things that they build and build and build, and then you go
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to the temple and it it freaked me out, to be honest, like
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I was ever heard any of this. I've never worn any of these clothes
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that you're asking me now to wear or done any of these rituals. And
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this was just very like and this is what I've been waiting my whole life
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for, like trying to be worthy to go to the temples, I can
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get married and like do all of these things. And I'm like, this
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has felt like it had nothing to do with my spirituality, It had nothing
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to do with anything that I'd been taught. So that was another one of
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those moments where I just I just remember like having that experience and seeing my
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friend who was there she had gone to the with me to go to the
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temple, and just hugging her and just like freaked out and whispering in her
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hair, like what the heck just happened? Like am so? And now
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I have to put a smile on and like act like that was the most
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spiritual experience of my life. But like no, it's like bizarre and ritualistic.
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It's to get I appreciate rituals, I appreciate traditions within families and all
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of that. Like my sweetie is Jewish, so there's a little bit that
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goes on in rituals and culture within within Judaism. But it's it's it's creepy.
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I mean religion as a whole to me, This is Lindsay speaking religion
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as a whole is very creepy to me. And it kind of circles back
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to me being agnostic because I just don't believe that any of us actually fucking
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know what actually is going to happen when we die. And I know all
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these people with end with their near death experiences, they've got their endes and
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they do their thing, and they say everything is just a floating body of
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light and love. I mean, that's all you ever hear. Great,
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I have not heard like you know what you're gonna go over here because you
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were a little bit naughty, Lindsay, because you were drinking topachico on a
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Friday at twelve whatever, like there's and it's such for me. It made
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me feel like I was an awful human from such a young age and I
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was a little girl, Like how could I already feel like everything that was
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in my thoughts or in my body, or in my brain or whatever was
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already tainted. No matter what I was gonna do, it was gonna end
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up being wrong. And so I know that a lot of that drove my
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perfectionism. I know that it drove a lot of people pleasing. I know
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that it drove me to do a lot a lot of sex because I always
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wanted approval. It wasn't even about sex, It wasn't about guys, it
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wasn't about any of that. It was like, I just need to know
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that somebody on this planet is gonna give me some love. And it's not
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because I followed some rule book that you told me I needed to. Yeah,
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So when you decided when you're talking about this ritualistic and this bizarre behavior.
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When you get married in the temple and you're a baby, you're twenty
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years old. We think twenty years old is old. No, no,
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no, not talk to me. Talk to me twenty year old just a
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little bit. Yeah, eighties old, eighties old, eighties old. So
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when you got so, when you got through this whole place in your world
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where you were like, this isn't this isn't adding up because it wasn't one
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defining moment for you. It was just kind of like here and there,
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all of these things were making you doubt. And I know doubt is scary,
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especially when it comes to religion, especially when you were as devout as
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you were as well. So what did what did you do? I mean,
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you finally got like, Okay, I don't want to do this anymore.
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So I did do Yeah? Well, I mean again, I can't
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go through all of it, right, but I do know divorced my my
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ex. Right when I did finally divorce my ex, I was still trying
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to to find community and find connection, and I just really noticed like I
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just like kept feeling like I was faking it. Like I started really feeling
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the dissonance because I'd already been doing some of this work, and so I
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think the hard, the hard step of like really moving away from that,
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it came from so much doubting myself all the time, like Okay, is
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this who I am? Is this not who I am? Like I really
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couldn't even know who I was, and that identity piece being something that had
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always come from the religion, and I didn't know how to do it on
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my own. So I did eventually go to therapy to try and work on
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this, and I'd already been in and had an experience with therapy with this
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relationship, trying to save that marriage, right, So that was my first
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real experience with therapy, and I continued and went to another therapist and when
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I started really dealing with my faith crisis. So that's what I was trying
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to do, is trying to find a safe place to be able to understand
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this because I didn't have a new community. I couldn't go to my old
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community. I didn't divorced now, right, and I was like trying to
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rebuild everything. And I'm here in California now, so thank goodness, right,
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because if I was in Utah, that would have been a whole different
21:12
experience, but yeah, the therapist. So I would go to therapists and
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they would like say, oh, oh, you mean like under the banner
21:22
of Heaven Mormon and I'm like, no, actually, because I'm still in
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it right, I'm not out completely yet, and I'm like that felt very
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offensive to me at that point in my journey. It felt very like invalidating.
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I'm like, you don't get me. I'm not one of these wacky
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Mormons that get such a bad name. And there is a lot of weird
21:45
stuff. But that's where I was in that. But there's weird stuff in
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every single damn religion. Mormonism is just a little wacked, do I mean?
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Magic underwear is really where I kind of start to lose respect for the
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people I used to call Case. I didn't hear them. I called them
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passion killers pea Case. I'm all, no, this is the worst.
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Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Like we stay dropping, you know,
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like I'm gonna drop my panties. Yeah, I don't even know what
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that would be like. You're like, can you wait, hold on,
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hold on one second, wait, hold on, can you get this button?
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There's like seventeen of them back here, and then you can't even do
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anything after that. Anyways, give me a bro Oh my gosh, did
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you know, like back in the olden days, So this is like Mormon
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folklore undercovery thing just had a hole, you know, that's it, because
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that's all we're worse. No, that's all we're worth. It's just this
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hole in the middle of your magic fucking underwear. There's a magic happening.
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Okay, we're even talking about and why and how does any like sane mind
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go? Sure that sounds legit because you're brought up in that ship. Let's
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do that. We have an Etsy store for her that has all of these
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old magics underwear for her. No, no, people don't want they're creepy.
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People don't want it. No, they don't. Oh my god.
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All right, salute to that one. This is a fun episode. It's
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okay. So we've gone to this. We knew this was we knew this
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was gonna get a little squirrely. It's okay. So you're bamboozled by religion.
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I mean, we've we've talked about that. We know about that.
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We're gonna bring us back, We're gonna land this plane here. Okay,
23:42
So when you're talking about, because we have to move on to how you
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how you left, why you left, and what you're doing now to support
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people like you, that's really what we need to get to here. But
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I mean, we're you're talking about, like the transition from leaving that community
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that you knew and only knew and only understood and got bamboozled by that,
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and being so confused at such a young age and having to leave, not
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knowing how to leave, in the middle of having to do a divorce and
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also divorcing your religion. That's no easy feat to do. Everything that you
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knew crumbles but beneath you, and now you have to figure out how I'm
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going to build a foundation? How am I going? Is? Is there
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anything real that I have been brought up in? I mean, that would
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be what I would think you were asking yourself and the rituals of all of
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the religious stuff, like what do I do? How do I take the
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good stuff from it? Because it's not all bad? How do you take
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some of the good stuff from it and bring it into your fold and bring
24:45
it into your new community of people, even if it's two people. How
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do you do that, how do you get out of it? So when
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you're talking about what you do for a living at your business, sage,
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you help a lot of people work through this religious transition, faith crisis.
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You've talked about this, so obviously we know, even through our shenanigans and
25:07
our funniness, at the end of the day, we are talking about something
25:10
serious, which is about we've got to get out of these places that are
25:14
scary and that do not serve us and it only harm us. So you're
25:19
here now to help guide people, not just in this particular in this particular
25:23
realm, but this is where you specialize and helping to not feel so goddamn
25:29
gaslighted and manipulated and the relinquishing that psychological control that comes with something like religion.
25:37
That's where you step in to help people move from that space to a
25:41
new space. So can you talk to us a little bit about how you've
25:45
done that and how you're helping others? Now, yeah, yeah, you
25:48
know, when I just I think about so, I mean, I'm a
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licensed marriage and family therapist. I do mostly individual therapy. Even though the
25:56
title says marriage and family therapists, I do mostly one on one because it
26:02
is a deep dive for an individual to look and see kind of what created
26:06
that that dependence on the religion, and it's really learning how to gain independence
26:11
from that religion. It's almost like a parent child relationship. The religion is
26:17
always going to be the parent. They're always the ones telling you what to
26:19
do, what not to do, how to do it, when to do
26:22
it, and then you are the child, oftentimes feeling like, Okay,
26:26
I better make sure I do everything right so that I'm able to be part
26:30
of this community, right, or so that I, you know, go
26:33
to the different levels of heaven. You're going to go to the celestial and
26:37
you're going to go to all these different places. All you want, right,
26:40
it's all you want. And I think it comes from a good place,
26:44
like I think most religions come from a good place, but it gets
26:48
tweaked in there somehow. Right, So when someone is newly coming out of
26:53
a religion first of all, or a cult, you know there can be
26:57
it doesn't even have to be a religion. I've worked with people that come
27:00
out of cults from any high demand religion, Evangelical, many Christian dominations,
27:06
lots of LDS. People that I've worked with first of all, like I
27:10
have to even have just the conversation of whether it feels safe for them to
27:12
talk with me based on where I'm at. Oftentimes, for any of you
27:17
that have gone to therapy, like you know, therapists don't talk about themselves.
27:21
It's you're not there to hear about the therapist. There's not going to
27:23
be this self disclosure that happens. But when it comes to something like this,
27:27
there's such a trust factor that has to be there. I have to
27:30
tell them like kind of where I am on that line? Am I a
27:36
non believing? Am I true believing Mormon that has the ability to hold space
27:41
for their nuance? Am I completely out of the church? And you know,
27:47
people are going to make their decision based on their comfort level because it
27:49
is very, very challenging for anyone to take that leap because oftentimes this faith
27:55
crisis has been going on even in like their subconscious moments, little things that
28:00
have all belt to this, and it takes so much courage to be able
28:03
to even say anything out loud, and it is so scary and you don't
28:07
know who you can trust. So that's that's really important, and it's you
28:11
know, oftentimes I get clients who want to come to me and say,
28:15
okay, just tell me what to do, right, So that here they
28:18
go trying to give their power away because that's what they're used to doing.
28:22
And a lot of that work is teaching them and giving that back to them
28:26
and saying that's not my role. I'm not your God, your parent,
28:30
like, but I can certainly hold space for you to do that. And
28:33
so that's something that comes up a lot, is being able to give that
28:37
back to them because it feels very scary to not have all the answers anymore,
28:41
right, because religion does that for people. It gives you answers.
28:45
It gives that brain of yours that wants all the answers, It gives it
28:48
something to chew on. It tells you like, here's how you do it,
28:51
and this is how you get to the end level, and here's how
28:53
you up level, and here's how you do all this. All the game
28:56
cheats, right, Yeah, But what you need to do is into that
29:00
uncertainty and the trueness of how life is, which is all gray area.
29:03
None of us fucking know. I don't think what the hell is going on?
29:07
Like, sure as hell, I sure as I'll know I can help
29:11
you figure it out, Like I believe I can help you figure it out.
29:14
But I don't have any of my ship figured out. Okay, well
29:15
I go to my therapy to figure my shit out. I do that too,
29:18
right, Yeah, So it is a process for all and it is
29:26
a beautiful, transformational, like amazing thing to watch clients go through. I
29:32
mean the clients that I work with. I typically do work more long term
29:36
because we're talking about like unprogramming ways of thinking and being and responding and and
29:42
you know, a big part of it that is so challenging is that loss
29:45
of community. So even after someone has gotten over the whole like loss of
29:51
what I believe in, there's this loss of faith even in humanity that happens.
29:56
And it feels so scary to believe that you can make friends and create
30:00
a community that are not in the same faith as you. Right that there's
30:06
right, Yeah, they're not in the club, and you're like, wait
30:08
a second, I can actually like chit chat with her over there and like,
30:12
you know, hang out. I I never experienced from me from a
30:18
religious perspective, I did not have any sense of community whatsoever. So for
30:23
me, I was always always felt like an outcast no matter what I still
30:30
do. Quite frankly, it's I'm kind of like an outlier kind of a
30:33
person. I'm just this weirdo alien that was placed on this planet where not
30:37
one hundred percent sure what she's up to, but she's doing something grand.
30:41
God bless America because something's happening over here. But no, I never I
30:47
never really had any true direction. I always say I was never given a
30:51
map at birth. I kind of felt like I was always thrown into the
30:55
wolves, and I didn't know. I do know that there is a movie
31:00
that we had to watch. I went to private Christian school through the middle
31:06
of eighth grade and from preschool through the middle of eighth grade, and there
31:10
was a movie that was shown that was Fuck. I wish I remember the
31:14
name of it, but it was basically the scariest movie you could possibly show
31:19
a child about what will happen to you if you do not believe in God
31:22
and follow his rules. It's the end of times, right. So it's
31:27
like these like scorpian flying like coarse things that are spitting fire out and all
31:34
these cars are like to this day, I'm not even kidding when COVID happened
31:40
in my my sweetie and I. We were living in Burbank. We were
31:42
up there for a million years, but anyways, we were living in Burbank
31:45
and it was COVID and we had fire season in southern California simultaneously to COVID,
31:51
so it was empty on the freeways and it looked like Armageddon. The
31:56
first thing that came to my brain was that movie when I was driving down
32:04
the four h five or the one oh one or whatever I was on and
32:07
it was like, oh my god, I made it. I was like,
32:13
I'm either in hell or I'm in heaven. I'm not sure. But
32:15
it was so weird that it took me back to that scary movie when I
32:19
was in I don't know, second or third grade, and so that kind
32:23
of yeah, it is because it was yeah, of everything. Mm hmmm.
32:30
Yeah. It's basically, what's the what's the last book of the Bible?
32:34
What is it? I'm terrible at this. No, Genesis is the
32:37
first one I'm going through in my head. I'm like, I guess started.
32:43
There's like one hundred and forty two books. All right, everybody start
32:45
drinking right now. Matthew Mark Luke and John d Da Dada. The other
32:52
isn't a Lindsay or an Emily book, which there should be, but anyways,
32:57
revelation. So at the end of it, it's like the end of
33:00
the world. And that is what we were taught, at least I was
33:02
taught in my schooling and my churches, was that it's the end of the
33:07
world. This is what's gonna happen. And if you don't jump on this
33:09
bandwagon and you don't believe what we're telling you to believe the way we want
33:14
you to believe it, you're gonna behave the way you're gonna behave, you
33:17
are going to hell. And my mother and she doesn't listen to the show,
33:23
but if you're listening right now Thanksgiving a couple of years ago, she
33:27
said, in front of my entire family, matter of factly, you are
33:31
going to hell, Lindsay, Oh my god, I know. I've got
33:35
a really great support team on that whole side of things. So everything about
33:40
everything, everything and also knows that foresure I know, like where is it
33:46
am I gonna be? What can I wear? It's the clothes? Are
33:52
they gonna be ragged? Do I get like a window? I mean like
34:02
in the movie. I don't know if any of you have watched Lucifer on
34:06
Netflix, but if you haven't, this is the most amazing show to masturbate
34:10
too. So I had to get you while you were drinking. No,
34:16
God damn it, lindsay I'm going to hell in a handbasket. They say,
34:22
so, okay, so we're so you bring these people in and they
34:25
come to where they've lost this feeling of community, they've lost their faith,
34:29
they've lost like faith in humanity, everything they knew, and you're here to
34:32
help guide them and be like, dude, you're gonna be okay? How
34:38
do you do that? How do you how do you compartmentalize your own experiences?
34:43
Do you use those to like do you say like, hey, I've
34:46
been there, I've done that, I understand. How do you do that?
34:49
Because I'm not a therapist, God bless America, I shouldn't be.
34:52
Can you imagine me as a therapist? Hey, you would probably be an
34:58
amazing therapist to get people, you really get people. Now, the training
35:02
as a therapist is, you know, really not to self disclose. So,
35:06
like I said, the beginning part, like I will mention kind of
35:08
where I'm at because they need to know if I'm safe, like and not
35:12
to step in and unveil everything. But no, it's really a journey for
35:15
them to uncover and unfold. It's a space where I mean, there's so
35:20
many different types of therapy and ways to do therapy. I come from the
35:23
mind frame of psychodynamic, So we are kind of unfolding some of the things
35:29
from their past, but it's really informing like, well, what's happening today,
35:32
Like how is that impacting you today? So we're not like spending all
35:36
this time trumping around in the past. We're looking at how that past is
35:39
informing what's going on today. So sometimes I will incorporate a little bit of
35:45
EMDR. I'm not sure if you're familiar. Oh yeah, and our listeners
35:50
are as well. Yeah. Processing so because sometimes these there are specific traumas
35:54
that have to do with religion or things in life can happen that are traumatic
36:00
and then you have like a big, a big upset and you're like,
36:04
why am I having a big upset? This wasn't that big of a deal.
36:07
But it's like, oh, actually that was like this other trauma that's
36:09
now coming forward, and like it's tiving to make its big debut, fun
36:14
time, so surprise, surprise them having a nervous breakdown today. Right,
36:17
You're like, that's what's supposed to happen. What is happening. I'm just
36:22
gonna go to Oh. I mean, but a lot of it really is
36:25
just being patient and holding that sacred space is what I call it. Just
36:31
really a space for them to be themselves, to show up and bring in
36:36
what's happening for them. So we're talking about whatever the client is dealing with
36:40
presently, like what is troubling them, what's happening. A lot of times
36:44
it's relational. People are having difficulty with the maybe members of the church that
36:50
are still active and now they're not, and how they're being treated and these
36:52
sorts of things. But it's a slow but sure process that happens. It's
36:58
a transformation that you can like, you can't put a finger on it,
37:01
you can't really explain it. But when you have a space that is safe
37:06
enough for you to just bring in what's happening, slowly by little by little,
37:09
you really rebuild that identity and start to have a self esteem and a
37:14
self confidence that is based on what you want to base it on. You
37:19
get to redefine the rules. You get to recreate and and have your freak
37:23
out moments when it feels too scary to keep going, and then come back
37:28
and just kind of keep reminding yourself that you you get to be in the
37:31
driver's seat, because most people don't want to be in the driver's seat,
37:35
to be honest, like people want other people to tell them what to do,
37:37
right, That's hard. I don't know. I don't know how to
37:40
feel that control. Yeah, it's I'm always the driver, just do that
37:45
right. No, I'm not that, So I don't identify with that at
37:50
all at all. Like literally, those of you are listening, some of
37:54
you might be watching. I don't know why you're watching a podcast instead of
37:58
listening to it, but that's on you. I jumped on the bandwagon in
38:01
January, so here I am doing it. But I am like such a
38:07
control freak. So that to me, like you saw my eyes kind of
38:12
like rolled back for a second and I almost blacked out. I'm like,
38:15
what do you mean? I don't want control. I want so much control
38:17
that is to my detriment. So that's something that I'm working with within myself.
38:22
And that's for a whole different show. Well, and I do think
38:27
it's not I'm not saying that all people coming in from this experience want to
38:30
I think sometimes it's subliminal though in oh for sure, like wanting to be
38:37
in control all the time and not being able to give that control over.
38:42
But there's this like desire to keep getting it right and keep like that perfectionism.
38:46
I think you'll be the thing and that's and that's Yeah, you're in
38:51
charge and you're doing that. So yeah, it is. It is a
38:53
nuanced thing. Yeah, it is nuanced. And that's a good word choice.
38:58
Yeah, yeah, I get it. So like when we talk about
39:01
controlling, and that's something that I do struggle with from OCD, and I'm
39:05
controlling. But when you say that in that way, you're right, it's
39:08
it's not necessarily that I want like control over things. I just want to
39:14
feel like I'm under control, you know, like I've got I've figured it
39:22
out. None of us have anything figured out, guys, none of us
39:25
do. All right, we're doing the best that we can. And when
39:29
you come from religious trauma, you come from any kind of trauma whatsoever,
39:34
your trust, your truth, and your safety are on the line and so
39:37
we're always going to be a little bit apprehensive to anything that we walk into,
39:42
no matter what you come from, whether it's a religious something or other,
39:45
whether it's a physical abaust, whatever it might be. Anything that's scary
39:49
is scary. So leaving something that all you've known in your life is this
39:55
and then you walked out like you did, and then you've got people that
39:59
come in and work with you to help them do the same thing. That's
40:04
pretty awesome that you're able to create that space for people because it's not easy
40:08
to do, because trusting people and feeling safe is probably one of the hardest
40:15
jobs that we all have to do. It's my personal opinion. I know
40:17
safety is a big issue for me, so it's very hard for me to
40:22
feel safe all the time. And so that's something that with this show has
40:28
made me feel more safe because I've found people like you that actually make me
40:31
feel more space, make me feel more safe and give me the space right
40:36
now while we're talking to help others feel safe in what they might be going
40:40
through. So that's why you're here. You're here to really help me.
40:44
This is really just all about me here. I love to create that safety
40:50
and I already like completely identified all of my religious issues and with a bummer
40:55
about it is, I actually don't think it's all that terrible. Like you
41:02
had mentioned about how like there there are things within religion that come from a
41:07
good place. I think that that initially is where it all kind of comes
41:12
from. But I don't understand like putting you know, explosives on my chest
41:17
and blowing my body up because of it, you know, like so there,
41:21
so when we go down the road of like religion versus belief systems and
41:25
and how we treat other people and how good we can be to this world,
41:30
I think at the end of the day, that's really what religion kind
41:34
of started from. But it got all t wirked, you know, over
41:40
all of these years to make it not be what it was originally meant to
41:45
be. And I'm I'm not a theologist, nor do I want to know,
41:47
but I think that that's also part of that healing process I think for
41:52
you know, you kind of think about there's a variety of ways to divorce
41:57
something or someone, and like one of the ways would be we're not going
42:00
to have any contact at all, Like I don't have anything to do with
42:04
you and then maybe later on maybe we can be friends kind of a thing.
42:08
So I feel like that kind of happens with the religion is like I
42:13
need to not have anything to do with you. I don't think you gave
42:15
me anything good. You've only hurt me, You've only caused pain and grief
42:19
in my life. Right, So I think it took a long time to
42:22
be able to start going back and integrating for me personally. And this is
42:25
what I see with my clients too, like to start integrating like, Okay,
42:30
there are some good values that I still hold dear to me that I
42:36
the religion gave me. I feel like that religion taught me, you know
42:40
some things about good good work ethic for example, or integrity or honesty.
42:45
You know things like this that I mean a little bit overkill, a little
42:50
bit on the on the over the bell curve side of things. Yeah,
42:52
certainly. Loyalty Yeah yeah, huge, too much loyalty. How do you
43:00
like, how do you balancing that? Balance it out and start to feel
43:04
for yourself like kind of where you want to have that? But that takes
43:07
some time. It takes some time to be able to look back and staying
43:10
with like an X or something. It's like when you're so angry and so
43:15
hurt and all of this, like you don't even want to think about them.
43:16
You want to pretend like that relationship never happened, right, like me,
43:21
that whole thing. Yeah, but it's like, no, that that
43:22
relationship taught me and I did love that person once, and I feel that
43:27
way now I can look back and say, I really loved my religion and
43:31
it was like losing a relationship really and truly because I really loved being LDS
43:38
when I was LDS and I didn't know how it was hurting me. And
43:43
there's still people in my family who are very devout and very involved, and
43:49
to be able to get to the place where I can be okay with that
43:52
and not need them to come to the other side either, in order for
43:54
me to feel okay, to be able to separate that and say this is
44:00
good for you, because you say it's good for you, even though I
44:02
look in and I might see some ways that I don't think it's good for
44:06
you, but I'm not sure that's not my life, right. So that
44:08
takes some work as well, because sometimes you come to the other side and
44:13
you want to just do the same thing, but over on the dark side,
44:15
you want to like, I'm going to deconvert everyone, and I'm going
44:17
to make sure they know the truth and they know the lies and they know
44:20
all the pain. And that's not helpful either. That's part of that grief
44:23
process that comes up. Yeah, and I would think that you would get
44:29
probably a fairly negative response from people if you were immediately going out, like
44:34
you got to get out of this, you got to leave this. Everything
44:37
you've known is now dead to you. Like that's scary and of itself.
44:39
I don't care how old you are or how indoctrinated you are into your faith
44:45
or your belief system, whatever it might be. It's a scary place to
44:50
navigate, and it definitely is. It's tough during the holidays when we're all
44:53
around family and we're all so divided, especially here in the United States from
44:58
a political perspective, but then you add religion on top of it, which
45:01
also feeds into our politics as well, unfortunately. And so it's like,
45:07
well, shit, like, I am not a bad person. I am
45:10
so proud of who I am. Have I made some really bad mistakes,
45:15
absol fucking lutely, and I'm so glad I did, because they've made me
45:21
who I am, good, bad, and ugly. But I don't have
45:24
many regrets in my life. I would say maybe two or three. That's
45:30
not too bad. That doesn't mean that there aren't things that are regrettable.
45:35
Let's put that on the record. But do I regret them? Not necessarily,
45:39
because I took them all as learning opportunities to make me be a better
45:44
human, to make me love harder, to make me cry harder. I
45:47
cry all of the time, like it's just what I do. I weep
45:52
for everyone. I'm Jesus, guys, I'm just yours so righteous. You
46:01
are so righteous? Do you know that you just aged us? Thank you.
46:10
I'm shaking my head and she's laughing at me. Don't make me bust
46:15
out the tampon. Only she and I know this. I knew it.
46:24
You give this girl a topo Chico. Everything's flying all over the place.
46:30
Oh my god. Okay, so before because you know you and I can
46:34
talk forever, so when we're talking about leaving our religion, so let's just
46:38
say we've got somebody that's listening right now that is like on the fence.
46:42
They're going, oh my god, my whole life. And this isn't just
46:45
you don't just do this for people that are leaving LDS. You're talking about
46:50
faith as a whole, you're talking about religion as a whole. You just
46:52
happen to have been through the LDS side of it exactly. So when you've
46:58
got these people that are like, well, you had mentioned like, well,
47:00
that's not a cult, but that's just a religion. I think that
47:02
people have a different viewpoint on religion versus cult because in my brain, a
47:07
lot of times religion is cult. So like a differentiation between those. But
47:13
when you've got somebody that's listening, they're in their car, they're like,
47:15
I got to pull over right now because I don't know what the hell I
47:19
need to do with my life right now. Because they're in the middle of
47:21
a religious identity crisis. What can we say to them right now? Like,
47:25
what can they do right now in this moment if they're feeling this way,
47:31
they're feeling like they're uncertain, they're feeling like they might need to get
47:35
out, they might What what do we say to these people right now?
47:37
What can we do? Yeah, I mean the hardest thing is the way
47:43
forward and trusting yourself right, And so it's trusting that little nudge that you're
47:46
getting that's saying, hey, look at this a little bit more, or
47:51
that's making you feel a little bit uncomfortable when you're having, you know,
47:54
a conversation with someone in the church or having you know, some piece of
48:00
doctrine that's coming at you, and just allow that discomfort to come forward,
48:05
allow that in, and allow yourself to feel that. I think that's really
48:09
important is to build that is to start to build that trust with yourself if
48:14
you don't feel like you have it. It begins by just little moments like
48:17
that where you say to yourself, Okay, I hear you, I'm listening
48:22
right, or I'm going to take that and I'm going to I'm not just
48:27
going to ignore that. I'm going to allow space for that. And so
48:30
that's what I would say is to really start to build that trust within yourself,
48:34
because I really believe that you will guide yourself where you need to be.
48:38
And if where you need to be is still in that church and still
48:42
dealing with cognitive dissonance and feeling that that's okay, that's where you're going to
48:46
be and it's is it painful? Absolutely, it's much easier to be on
48:51
the other side of anything, whether you're all in the church or whether you're
48:54
all out of the church. The ambivalence in between, that gray area is
48:59
so much more painful and uncomfortable. But there is a way to the other
49:04
side of that, and it is really going to be by knowing yourself.
49:07
That's going to be the way. It's not by talking to this person,
49:09
talking to that person, trying to read your scriptures more, trying to pray
49:13
harder like you are the one ultimately that makes the decision to stay in the
49:17
church, to get out of the church, to be out of religion completely,
49:22
to be atheist, to be whatever it is that you want to be.
49:24
But it is that relationship with yourself. I think that comes first.
49:31
I'm at a loss for words, which is the first time, So let's
49:36
calendar that. You just made me feel safe to come and talk to you,
49:39
even though I already felt that way. But I feel safe to talk
49:45
about my issues with that. And I love that you use the word ambivalence.
49:49
It's one of my favorite words on the planet because I've lived in as
49:53
an ambivalent person for a lot of my life, and it came to the
50:00
point of actually me starting this show where I actually stepped into my truth,
50:06
and by doing so, I empowered myself and I gave myself a voice that
50:10
I have muted for well do the mouth carry the one to the two.
50:15
I'm not going to do my age here nor math, but it took me
50:20
a really long time to get to a place where I was like, fuck
50:24
it, I've got to share my story and I don't care what it does.
50:29
And I don't know how far up on the mountain my shit's going to
50:32
roll down, but I will take responsibility for it. In the meantime.
50:37
I'm this is such a wonderful place, and I'm so happy that you joined
50:40
this space with us, because it is a place where we are giving the
50:45
opportunity for people to feel safe and to be expressive and to be vulnerable and
50:50
to be raw and to be who they are and not be scared about it.
50:54
I mean, because I think the fear of religion is so real.
51:00
It's real for us when we're not even I'm not a religious person. Religion
51:02
is freaking scarying the shit out of me. All over the world think about
51:07
it like it is scary, and so when people are thinking, you know
51:09
what, I've got to jam out of this that fear is where you can
51:14
cut you come in and make people feel safe. And that's that's just it's
51:17
just wonderful. Well, thank you. You're so sweet and I appreciate what
51:22
you're doing. This whole thing about creating safe spaces is like what I'm just
51:27
hearing today, And that's exactly what you do. I mean, with all
51:30
of these different interviews that you have around helping people feel more safe so that
51:35
they can understand what's going on for them with their pain or with whatever else
51:38
is going on, and all the different facets that you cover, I mean,
51:42
that is the journey is for us to know ourselves so that we can
51:45
we can feel better, so that we can allow that in a little bit
51:49
more, because like religion doesn't really do a great job of allowing it in
51:52
even though that's the goal. Like be up there and be super righteous and
51:57
be super spiritual, but while you're like in lost in like control land of
52:02
like trying. Yeah, but also don't be you in any way shape of
52:07
yees, be what I want you to be. I'd love for you to
52:09
be in a pink long sleeved dress with a braid. I mean, this
52:13
is the goal for me, for all women across the world. Don't even
52:19
get me started, all right, my little Sage soul, I know,
52:23
and we are out of time, and I am so bummed that we are.
52:27
But salou to you, my darling, my little Tobo Chico and too.
52:32
Yes, life soon, I know. And we live like seven seconds
52:36
away from each other. We've never even met in personist Rudickie. But anyways,
52:42
thank you again so much for your time with us. I really appreciate
52:45
your time and you doing you. That's all. That's all, that's all
52:51
that matters is uspen you. You can find our beautiful Emily on SAGE Wellness
52:59
Center. It's not spelled out. It is Sage s A G E W
53:04
E L l N E S s C t R dot org, stage Oneness
53:07
center dot org and stage Onllness Center, on Insta and Facebook. You can
53:12
find her all over the place. If you need to find her and you
53:15
can't, please reach out to me. I am super helpful here. That's
53:19
what we do here. You are exclusively invited to share this safe space to
53:24
be you, to end, to trust yourself, VIP pain journey together.
53:30
Let's get to the heart of how to heal with you by my side.
53:34
Do you know someone who needs to hear this conversation today? Did you need
53:37
to hear this? Do you live in chronic pain or know somebody who does.
53:42
Do you know somebody that's dealing with religious trauma they're scared to hop out?
53:47
Send them our way. Welcome to the Pain Game Podcast. Let's connect
53:52
and here stories of strength and grit. I am here to help provide a
53:55
safe place to be vulnerable and honest while sharing you're powerfully amaze stories. Please
54:00
follow the Pain Game Podcast wherever you digest your podcast content, we will be
54:06
here. Visit us at the Pain gamepodcast dot com, and follow us on
54:09
all the socials. Thanks for listening, my little VIPs. Catch you on
54:14
the other side.