DISSIDENT daughters: Recent Episodes
Mormon Discussion Inc
Where did your spirituality end up after your faith crisis? If you are like many of us, we are still trying to figure that out! Today I sit down with Celeste Davis, one of my very favorite ex-mormon content creators! If you don’t already follow Celeste, you should be! She is wise and witty and has officially become a spiritual companion to help those transitioning out of religion to find their own spirituality, even if that means you land on atheism (that’s still a belief)! We talk about her faith transition and her exploring her new beliefs and helping others do the same! You can follow her @celestemdavis on Instagram or go to her website www.celestemdavis.com to learn about what it means to be a spiritual companion and even schedule a session with her to explore your spirituality. She can help guide you towards whatever new spiritual beliefs you want to lean into or no spirituality at all! I love this conversation!
Today we get an inside glimpse into the barbaric practice of excommunication. Sophronia shares her story of being a life long, fully believing member of the church and how that church eventually kicked her out. Sophronia has written a book relating to her excommunication in which she tells the story of a woman named Samantha and through the writing of this book she helps heal herself from the trauma she experienced in being excommunicated from her church. She is looking for a publisher and literary agent to help her get this story published and bring a spotlight to this practice in the church as well as hopefully help others heal from similar trauma.
Do you ever think about whether you could ever go back to the church? What is the thing that keeps you from ever going back? In so many ways, the church is like an abusive spouse who makes you feel like you can never be happy without them. This episode is a light hearted look at all the reasons we will never get back together with the church. Sarah joins me for this fun conversation that you don’t want to miss!
Today I talked about a recent story in the news about a missionary in Colombia who was stabbed. I maybe should have titled this episode “Gross” because I used that word to describe so many stories in this episode. I am troubled by the whole missionary program in the church and the irresponsible behavior by the church in sending missionaries into dangerous situations, and places where they can’t get the medical care they need, they sometimes can’t communicate their needs because of language barriers and the shaming and judging that goes on in relation to things that happen to missionaries. How do we create faith promoting stories around others suffering? Why is this a thing?
This is part 2 of our conversation about the 7 things the church needs to do in order to heal the harm they’ve caused to the Indigenous People of Utah as well as all Native People which they have labeled Lamanite. Sarah helps us to understand the way the church uses its words to skirt their responsibility in the harm they’ve done. Consider the difference between the words denounce and disavow. Disavow is a word that the church often uses to say it’s not responsible for its harmful teachings and doctrines. She is asking for them to denounce their past teachings and change the lesson manuals going forward.
This is part 1 of my second conversation with Sarah Newcomb from Lamanitetruth.com We discuss more in depth about the harms done by the church and it’s teachings about indigenous people and some steps they can take towards healing and repair. I’ve separated this conversation into 2 parts because we went long (we talk a lot lol) In this first part we talk about steps 1-3 and we’ll cover steps 4-7 in the next part so stay tuned for part 2 out next week!
This is Part 2 of my discussion with Nancy about our favorite Dissident Daughters in Mormon History. In this episode we discuss Ann Eliza Young, Juanita Brooks, Fawn Brody, Sandra Tanner and Kate Kelly. Enjoy learning about these fantastic women and let us know if you have any ideas for other women we could spotlight in this series, there’s a lot of amazing stories out there!
Today I got to sit down with my good friend Nancy who loves history and research and we chat about our favorite Dissident Daughters in Mormon history. Women who fought against the status quo, those who stood up to authority when they were being oppressed, women who are bad asses in their own right and helped make history. Some were faithful latter-day saint women, and some were dissenters from the faith. But either way they used their voices for good in the world and we want to recognize them! This is part 1 of 2, women discussed in this part are Mary Fielding Smith, Martha Cannon, Margaret Toscano, Nancy Rigdon, and Sarah Pratt.
Today I got to sit down with a very interesting new friend! Nanette Wride is the widow of Sgt Cory Wride of the Utah County Sheriff’s Office. He was killed in the line of duty in January 2014 and this was the beginning of a roller coaster of grief, trauma and near death experiences for Nanette. She has learned to work with some new gifts she is discovering and is helping people talk to their loved ones on the other side as well as doing energy work and balancing. She has recently started a new podcast entitled The Mormon Medium in which she talks about a lot of paranormal things, spirituality, chakras and energy healing. She is a fascinating person and now someone I call friend. Enjoy our someone chaotic conversation!
Here is Part 2 from this series of stories from my life. This follows my life from marriage at 21 to present day. I share details about marriage, jobs, family, and all the other stuff that goes along with Mormon life. I share a lot of my experiences of being a mother and having no clue what I’m doing! I share how the church doctrine and my understanding of God shaped the way that I parented and how it harmed my kids. I pretty much followed the perfect Mormon path that I was always taught. I share about my faith, my testimony, my service to the church and how I came to know the truth about the church at the age of 44.
Today I do a deep dive into all the stories of my life. This is part 1 so it’s of my growing up years, family life, friends, dating, figuring myself out etc. I had kind of 2 parts of my life, first 10 years which consisted of moving at least 6 times to 3 different states, my family growing and growing (to 9 children) and all the turmoil of that. And then I have the next 10 years which became more stable, we lived in one house, I was better able to stabilize myself, friends, interests etc. I had some struggles with mental health. And I also had really great times with good friends and a solid foundation of testimony in the gospel. I hope you find it interesting, it was fun to kind of put it all out there but also very vulnerable for me so be gentle
You know that little teaching in the Book of Mormon that says that Lehi’s family came over here from Jerusalem and the wicked brothers Laman and Lemuel ended up being cursed with a skin of blackness because of their wickedness? And then Joseph Smith taught that the Native Americans were the decedents of the Lamanites? Well, that’s all a crock of shit and we’re here to talk about it. Today I sit down with Sarah Newcomb and talk about her work in trying to educate people about how harmful the Lamanite narrative is for indigenous people and how they were taught to reject their real heritage, their customs and their culture in order to become more “white and delightsome”. Sarah Newcomb is a researcher and blogger at www.lamanitetruth.com and she’s my new best friend.
This is my first episode of the new year and I wanted to talk about my feelings about new years resolutions as well as reflect on the past year. If you feel icky about new years resolutions and the idea of always striving to be perfect this is your episode! Let’s just keep learning to love ourselves more, find joy in good enough and just being kind to ourselves. This journey is hard enough, we don’t need more pressure to keep striving to be worthy and better, just being instead of always doing.
This is my uncensored thoughts when thinking about what I want to say to my Mormon family and friends. In the last episode number 32 I tried to create a safe episode to be able to be shared with Mormon family and friends but I finished that project and felt frustrated with needing to censor myself and edit the crap out of what I really want to say. So sometimes you have to just be able to say the things and ask the questions of your believing family and friends and make them think about why they believe the way they do, point out the problems, and make them think about the harm that the church does and how much it contradicts Jesus’ actual teaching. If you were frustrated by the last episode, me too! This one felt a lot more authentic, but I don’t necessarily recommend sharing it with your believing family and friends haha!
Today I recorded an episode that hopefully you can feel safe sharing with your believing family and friends or at least take away some thoughts or ideas about how you could approach the subject of your changing beliefs if you need to have those conversations. So much of the heartache of leaving the church is how it affects our closest relationships and I wanted to find a way to share some heart felt emotions about needing to be heard and validated and also learning through this process and working through the hard topics. Check it out and let me know if it’s something you can share with your believing family and friends, I hope it is!
Today I got to sit down with Rachel from Post Mormon Parenting and talk about all things parenting and how to navigate this space after leaving the church. Rachel is so wise and knowledgeable about this topic and really helped me to learn some new ways of going about this […]
Today I just jumped on totally unplanned to talk through a wave of emotions I had come up for me. This happens from time to time and I feel a bunch of grief for everything I lost in my faith crisis, mostly relationships that have changed and will never be […]
Today I had the amazing opportunity to interview the wonderful Kattie Mount from Marriage on a Tightrope! I think she is doing just incredible work and I really wanted her to be able to share her thoughts and experiences with us about navigating a mixed-faith marriage. Come listen to our […]
Today I share some of the top news stories involving Mormonism from this week. It’s a deep dive into The Church’s deceptive financial dealings in Australia as well as good news from David Archuleta! No he’s not on my podcast, I wish! But he shared some news this week about […]
Today I sit down with “Nancy” and confess our worst regrets in the church. We had a great time just talking and laughing about all the stupid things we said and did in the church. Laughter is the best medicine. Sometimes if I don’t laugh about something I’ll cry and […]
Just an update on life and some of my random ramblings. Life is good. The podcast is good. Just took a few weeks off and starting back feels good! Looking for feedback, ideas, questions, concerns, opinions and more. And sending love to all of my listeners, thank you for listening!
Today I sit down with Jezebel again and discuss our patriarchal blessings. Are they inspired words from God? Do they tell us the future? Do they help us know what God wants for us? Or are they just a weird tradition that sets us up for anxiety and despair? Do […]
Today I talk about reflecting on past harms that we may have caused as Mormons (for me that means evaluating my parenting and mistakes I made in that realm). But also learning how to give and receive apologies when that was never modeled to us in a healthy way. The […]
Today’s episode is all about change, the good, the bad and the ugly. The fact that we’ve gone through such a significant change in our beliefs also means that our very lives change significantly. And if you’re anything like me, those changes have been hard but good. And when you […]
I’m talking today about the church’s attempts at distracting us when we find out negative information about them. They love to pretend to be something they are not. They are actually quite good at deception. They have no actual revelation to speak of so they make stupid changes to things […]
Today I sit down with Rhoda again and we talk about the Associated Press article that came out recently about a sexual abuse case that the Mormon church did not respond to appropriately which caused incredible suffering to multiple children. This case in horrendous and inexcusable in my opinion and […]
Today I got the opportunity to interview my very favorite ex-mormon life coach! Amy Logan is the creator of the podcast Exmormonology and a Life Coach here to talk to us about how to rewire our brains after a faith crisis! She has personally coached me in my deconstructing mormonism […]
In this episode you get to meet my new friend Nancy. Nancy has a beautiful Mormon story that I think so many of us can relate to. We’re diving into temple trauma, addiction, the patriarchy, LGBTQ issues and faith crisis. AND, we’re talking about how she found light and source […]
Imagine finding out as a thirty something adult that your parent was gay and your whole world comes crashing down. That’s what happened to my guest “Rhoda” and she tells her story of growing up in a strict Mormon household where she got all her validation from living the gospel […]
Today we talk about our bodies and how we learn to feel and think about them. I’ve done a lot of thought work around my body and how I feel about it. The church taught us that our bodies were for the purpose of bringing other bodies to earth and […]
There are so many issues and problems in the world today. There are so many reasons to feel lots of big feelings and want to do something about it. In this episode you’ll see I’m verbally flushing out some of my big feelings and trying to make sense of a […]
Today I sat down with my oldest daughter “Korihor” and talk about her experiences with purity culture and the shame that accompanies the teachings of modesty. All of these teachings stem from patriarchy and it’s harming girls and boys from young ages and we need to do better!
Today I sit down with my daughter Jezabel again and talk about attending pride in Salt Lake City for the first time! We talk about the struggles of coming out as gay in Utah and as a Mormon. We talk about the harm the LDS church causes our LGBTQ brothers […]
Today I’m flying solo and sharing some of my thoughts about discussing faith crisis with family and friends. Do you need help figuring out how to walk this tightrope? Do you want to feel validated and heard instead of dismissed and blown off? This is a really difficult part of […]
In this episode Ada sits down with her son “Adam” and he gets the chance to tell his story of growing up in the church, recognizing the social toxicity, separating from the church and the strain that put on his relationship with parents and siblings. We talk about pornography and […]
In this episode “Ada” interviews her daughter “Jezebel” to find out more about her faith journey and her experience coming out as gay while being a believing mormon. This is a great conversation between mother and daughter on finding ourselves, traversing a faith crisis and finding joy and love in […]
This is the last of our 10 part series and we talk about the top 10 things wrong in the church and have some thank you notes for the church as well. We are so grateful for this opportunity to do this series and hope to be able to make […]
In this episode Esther shares her struggles with addiction brought on by the need to be perfect. After hitting rock bottom she was finally able to untangle how the church had contributed to her obsession to be perfect and how detrimental that was to her physical and mental health. TW: […]
The church taught us not to listen to our own knowing but to trust the leaders, follow their directions. So when we left the church we had to learn how to listen to our own knowing instead of subverting our power to the patriarchy of the church. It’s difficult but […]
In Mormon theology Heavenly Mother exists, but like the LDS women whose destiny she represents, she has no authority. We are told that we shouldn’t pray to her or put too much emphasis on her. She is hidden from us. But we need our Mother God! In this episode we […]
The church has fought against LGBTQ rights for at least the last 30 years. Getting involved in legislation in many states and at the federal level to make sure that they can continue to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation and gender identity. They were successful in many […]
In this episode we discuss how the church engages in cult like behavior, even exhibiting all 9 of the main themes of cult membership as described by Steven Hassan in his book “Combating Cult Mind Control”. Steve Hassan is a cult researcher and the leading expert on cult mind control […]
Temples are the churches way of keeping us busy doing meaningless work. It’s also how they keep us paying our tithing. We are literally buying our way into heaven. That doesn’t seem like Christ’s church to us. We share our personal experiences with the temple, some the history of temples […]
Content Warning! This episode is not appropriate for children’s ears! We were not taught healthy sexuality in the church. The shame and fear surrounding sex is taught to us by the church and it’s leaders and it is passed down generation to generation. We are breaking out of that and […]
Leaving a high demand religion leaves you to figure out life on your own. But it’s not all bad! We tell about our experiences of being parented in Mormonism as well as being Mormon parents. And then compare that with parenting post Mormonism. Listen to find out how it’s going. […]
Our very first episode we thought it important to introduce ourselves and tell a little bit about our stories. We are 2 best friends deconstructing Mormonism and re-learning how to live life with a new world view and no more high demand religion telling us how to do it.