When we fill our brain with this word, (and you need to listen to Exmormonology to hear it) we are creating a resistant behavior and this is the exact opposite of what we are wanting to do.

The way you phrase the things you say, even quietly to yourself, is very important.

I want you to make a conscious effort to remove this word from your vocabulary. It is going to take time because you most likely do not realize how often you say it.

This will be helpful for you on the road after mormonism. It is 100% connected to the religious conditioning you have experienced in your life.

Are you pulling back from mormon friends and family activities?

Do you feel your mormon friends and family pulling away from you?

It is a lot like, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Right?

You are most likely feeling a huge disconnect and when you can no longer go through the motions, you start to pull away.

Your friends and family are not quite sure what to say, especially because mormons do not like conflict, extra extra, and so they most likely will not ask what is going on.

You pull back because you need time and space to try and figure out what you believe. You are processing A LOT. Your emotions are most likely all over the place, and if you are like me, you just want to make sense of all of it…

Part of your exmormon journey may include you, cutting potatoes, listening to Andrea Bocelli and crying in the kitchen.

THIS is why it is a painful process to leave the mormon faith. It wasn’t all bad. You most likely have some beautiful memories of your experience in the church. You may have lost friends and or family when you left and those are not the most pleasant feelings to feel.

Sadness and grief are a part of your leaving the mormon faith process. Sometimes it creeps up on you when you least expect and it is what it is. Be with it. This speaks to the tender parts of you that are mourning something that you once held sacred and special.

It is easier to be angry, believe it or not. Anger is coming from a place of pain, trying to protect you from what can be very painful grief.

Is there a good side to when a mormon apostle, Dieter Uchtdorf, casts us apostates in a negative light? I think yes, absolutely. It reconfirms all that I think about the men who run this church. Resorting to name call is quite telling.

I actually laughed out loud when I first heard Uchtdorf speak about us apostates in such a derogatory way. When the church leaders speak about us, in this way, they are really grasping at straws.

Until then, we can speculate and bask in the headstrong and unruly parts of our personality that we needed in order to walk through the painful process of a faith crisis.

Be proud of yourself, beautiful wildflower. Life is just getting started.

Let’s talk about it in this weeks Exmormonology!

I want to talk about few things today, on Exmormonology…

Unorthodox (Netflix)

Mormon General Conference

Mental Health

Viktor Frankl

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ~Viktor Frankl

You are so freaking brave! I love you.

This week, let's get specific on ways to start managing your mind during this pandemic. Showing up for yourself and learning how to do this work will have lasting ripple effects in your life. Also, are you finding your mormon beliefs around life and death and after life creeping into your brain lately? I want to talk about that too. Learning to manage your mind through crisis, is one of the best gifts you can give yourself.

The Human Race has been reminded that life is more uncertain than we wanted to believe.

This week, we are taking a break from all things Exmormon and we are talking about healthy ways for you to process the reality of what we are dealing with on a global scale.

I know you are experiencing stress and anxiety at levels that feel off the charts. I want to help you reframe and lessen the intense real feelings that we are collectively feeling.

Thought work applies to all things, even the confusion and fear of a pandemic.

If you have left the mormon church. You have put in the time to study, “search and ponder.” You have experienced the emotional tole a faith crisis brings.

You have worried about how this effects your family. You think about it all the time. What you have been through takes up all your waking hours and quite frankly, affects your sleeping hours too.

The Jenga puzzle, that was your life just fell down. All over the place. It is all consuming.

And then, you hear, say it with me wildflowers…

"You can leave the church, but you can't leave it alone."

A mormon faith crisis will most likely leave you feeling duped, bamboozled, stunned.

How in the world do you trust yourself again after all of this?

You did trust yourself. Now what?

I am going to tell you exactly what you need to do to rebuild your trusting yourself muscle, in this episode of Exmormonology. It is easier than you think.

The manuals we have for the people in our life and how they should behave is complex. The kicker is, we rarely ever tell them what is in our manual, for them AND THEN expect them to comply AND THEN get upset when they do not.

All humans want to be loved and understood. It is something we all have in common. I am going to flip this a little bit and have a conversation with you about “The Manual” in this episode of Exmormology.

How do you want people to behave in life, so you feel better? I drop several realistic truth bombs here in this episode of Exmormonology that you should not miss. This one tool can change your whole life, for the better. Let's go there!

Growing up in a high demand religion, like The Church of Jesus Christ of Ladder Day Saints, has long lasting effects. I am about 10 years old in this photo. My mom took me and my little sister up to the Los Angeles Temple for an afternoon trip. It was lovely from what I can remember. We toured the temple grounds, watched a few movies in the Visitor’s Center and took lots of pictures in front of all the statues. This is one of them.

The conditioning starts young. We are so impressionable when we are young. It was during this time in my life that I learned, to become a mother, was the most important calling in my life.

I am a mother and I love being a mother, but I often wonder what it would be like to grow up feeling like deciding to have children is one option for me.

Something we face as post mormons, is deciding what mormon themed family events to do to. For some it is not triggering, for others it is VERY triggering. As you ebb and flow out of your faith crisis, this may not always seem like a big deal for you, but, if you are fresh and raw, it may feel overwhelming.

A few weeks ago, I attended my nephew’s missionary farewell and setting apart. This meant I had some decisions to make as to how I wanted to show up, if I wanted to show up, to this “important” mormon ritual.

Deciding to tell friends and family about leaving the mormon church can really feel uncomfortable. VERY uncomfortable.

I know this is a huge piece of your mormon faith crisis process. This is why we stay in the closet for so long. We are afraid of hurting, disappointing, and upsetting our loved ones. Especially mom and grandma. We put this off part of our journey off, for a long as we can. At least most of us…

Do you feel like you have to keep your mormon faith crisis a secret?

You have spent your life working towards being the most authentic you you can be. But, now that your whole world changed, you don’t know what that means anymore.

Yes, people are going to have lots of thoughts and opinions about you leaving the church. Let’s get that out in the open. Even if they do not tell you what they are thinking, they are thinking.

Experiencing a mormon faith crisis and all the aftermath feels like you just etch a sketched your life and all you want to do is hide out for a while, until it feels safe to come out.

Seriously. WTF?! You are or were most likely thinking “how is this happening in my life?” I was cruising along, just fine for the most part and then BAM! A tornado just came through your life like a bat out of hell.

When you are ready to begin your healing from your mormon faith crisis, taking your power back is the most liberating thing you can do for yourself. It all starts with your thoughts and for most of us.

In this episode of Exmormonology I will be teaching you “The Model.” This is a tool I used with my clients. It takes practice. Let’s get busy! Post mormon life.

Feeling stuck? It can be a frustrating feeling to spin in limbo land after your mormon faith crisis. Should you just fake it? Should you get out of dodge? Should you tell someone?

All of those questions feel very overwhelming during the early days of seeing the world differently. Early days of your paradigm shift. Post Mormon Life.

There will be pain during your mormon faith crisis. It hurts like nothing else you have experienced.

The hardest part of your faith crisis is processing it all. We are human and the last thing we want to do is FEEL our pain. We will find a million ways to ignore the pain. But, the truth is, the pain from your faith crisis is like a big beach ball you try to push down under the water. The problem is that it will not stay down. It will keep popping back up until you look at it square in the eye and deal with it.

Giving yourself permission to begin a journey that you have no idea where you are going or where you will end up can feel very daunting. Many of us spin in the space right before the beginning, for awhile.

Let's talk about a few things you can do to change your thinking that will help you make the decision to begin. It all begins in your brain, with a thought.

Through all the paths in life, we meet here, at the intersection of your mormon faith crisis and the rest of your life. This is most likely not the path you were planning on. As a matter of fact, you had your whole life planned out, perfectly. You knew where you came from, why you are here and where you are going. And then……then, things changed. You looked behind the curtain and it all came tumbling down.

I am here to help guide you along the way. It is my goal to help get you to the point where you FREAKING LOVE YOUR LIFE and your faith crisis is just a blip on your life path. Is your life going to change? YES! Yes it is. You are feeling all the range of emotions, right? Scared, Angry, Depressed, Excited, Guilt, Disappointment, Betrayal, Happiness, Autonomy and on and on and on.