The Descendant of Joseph Smith

Episode 38 • 17th October 2024 • Beyond The Surface • Samantha Sellers

00:18 - Sam (Host)

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work the Gundagara land and people. I pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I also want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which you, our listeners, are joining us from today. I recognise the deep connection that First Nations people have to this land, their enduring culture and their commitment to the preservation and care for their country. This land was never ceded and it always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

00:58

Hey there and welcome to Beyond the Surface, the podcast where we explore the stories of people who have survived religious trauma, left high control or cult communities and are deconstructing their faith. I'm your host, sam, and each week I'll talk with individuals who have taken the brave step to start shifting their beliefs that might have once controlled and defined their lives. Join us as we dig into their experiences, the challenges they've faced and the insights they've gained. Whether you're on a similar journey or you're just curious about these powerful stories, you're in the right place. This is Beyond the Surface. Welcome, lynn. Thanks for joining me.

01:42 - Lyn (Guest)

It's great to be here, Sam. Thanks for having me.

01:46 - Sam (Host)

Amazing. I was just about, we were just about to talk about something and I was like no, I want to hit record first, because I was just saying that I think by the time this episode will come out, you will be the first ex-Mormon that I've had on the podcast, which I am really excited about. And there is certainly a very obviously not quite I feel like every time I speak to an American, I go like everything is just like not quite as intense as what it is in America. Here in Australia, but there is definitely a strong Mormon presence and culture.

02:27

Particularly near the area that I grew up, there was quite a prominent LDS church and so and I remember being the person who, when the Mormon missionaries would come to your door, as a very stereotypical born again Christian, I was like, yeah, come on in, Like I'll have a chat with you, and and I feel like I was trying to sort of convert them as much as as much as they were trying to convert me. But yeah, so I'm really excited about this episode because I think it will. Yeah, so I'm really excited about this episode because I think it's just a little bit different, obviously, and there is a huge ex-Mormon community out there and those who sort of straddle the lines between those two camps, as well, but let's start with you.

03:28 - Lyn (Guest)

Where does your story start?

03:32

Well, I grew up in Utah and obviously, I was a Mormon, but what makes my story a little more unique is that I was descended from Joseph Smith, the founder and original prophet of the religion, and he was my great great uncle and my great great grandfather was his younger brother and the first convert to the Mormon church. There were four generations of unbroken devotion and obedience to the Mormon church until I left the fold at 19 when I saw through the lies. I had been told the narrative I had been told by the church and by my parents and realized that the rest of the world viewed Joseph Smith and Mormons in a distinctly different light. Yeah, yeah, that was more accurate, but Mormons revere blood lineage. You know it's very important who you are related to. So we were treated sort of like royalty in Utah and held up as an example to emulate our family, and we just had to be top performers in everything we did. To be top performers in everything we did, as well as very obedient, devoted and pure, yeah, especially as a woman.

05:17 - Sam (Host)

Yes, yeah, I mean, what was it like for you sort of as a child, essentially being, like you know, part of the poster child family for Mormonism?

05:28 - Lyn (Guest)

Well, I always knew that we were under scrutiny and that the worst thing I could do was to bring shame on my family.

05:37

So I felt a tremendous pressure that I had a legacy and a heritage to live up to. I had a legacy and a heritage to live up to, but I was a smart, curious child and curiosity got me in trouble because I'd ask questions and I would be told sit down, that's not relevant, you don't need to know the answer to that, or you'll know the answer to that in heaven when you need to. And that was always frustrating to me. But ultimately, I think my curiosity is what saved me, because I became curious when a university professor of mine that I adored he was an atheist and he found out who I was and he challenged me to take his religion class the next semester and I knew I would have to defend my faith. So for the very first time, I ordered books that I've been forbidden to read, and they were outsiders accounts, historians, scholars and they provided a completely different narrative. The story they told about Joseph Smith and my great great grandfather was very different than the narrative I grew up listening to.

07:07 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

07:07 - Lyn (Guest)

That Joseph Smith was arrested for gold digging. There were newspaper articles, eyewitness accounts, that he was a practicing polygamist, which at the time the church denied. But in fact he was married between 30 and 40 times it's hard to keep track, sometimes two young girls as young as 14. And the more I found out about who he was and the problems of the Mormon church in its early days, the story, the narrative kept shifting and I realized that he had fabricated the book of mormon, which mormons revere as the next to the bible.

08:01 - Sam (Host)

You know, another witness for christ to the Bible you know another witness for Christ. Yeah, I think one of the things that is a common thread, regardless of what denomination of faith or religious background, is that you know churches teach you what to think, not how to think. So once you step outside of that and you start being able to read other things and actually lean into that curiosity and, you know, actually get a much more you know. The more you know, I find, the less people are connected to religious spaces. Religious spaces because the breadth of knowledge often starts to widen that connection sometimes, and it sounds like that's what happened for you once you started to read some of those other books and other texts.

08:59 - Lyn (Guest)

Yes, it's very true. And not only do they not teach you how to think, they don't want you to think. And I felt like my curiosity was suppressed and discouraged. And really I was not supposed to be thinking for myself, I just needed to follow the prophet so that I could return to heaven with my family and, of course, when I left the church shattered, I felt very alone.

09:35

And this was before the internet, so I didn't. I couldn't look up a ex-Mormon support group. Look up, uh, ex-mormon support group. I felt like I was the only one that had left, and my parents were devastated, um, and so I moved 2 000 miles away because there was no place for me in Utah anymore as a non-Mormon. You're a non-entity, especially as a woman yeah.

10:06 - Sam (Host)

I didn't want to get married in the church and I didn't want to live in a place that had that kind of sexist, patriarchal society operate because the Mormon runs utah yeah, no question about it yeah, I'm curious, uh, what it was like for you as a teenager, particularly as a female teenager, because you know, we obviously know that, um, you know well, I, I know that, you know as well, I know that you know, as part of the Mormon church, women don't enter what you would call the celestial kingdom unless you're married because, right, that comes through, you know your husband and things like that, and so it is an extremely patriarchal and misogynistic faith. And so what was it like as a young woman, as a young teenager, growing up in that environment?

11:18 - Lyn (Guest)

well, I overwhelmingly felt like the most important bit of anger when I see the kind of scrutiny and the intrusiveness of the questions wanted to do some rituals in the Mormon temple and I needed a permit. No one besides worthy Mormons who pay their tithing, all 10% of their income, are allowed in the temple. And so this man who was a friend of my father's, who was the bishop or pastor of the congregation, was asking me really personal questions. Um, did I have unclean thoughts? Have I thought about a boy touching me and then did I debase myself? I didn't even know what he meant, yeah, but I look back now and I see the kind of inappropriate and voyeuristic quality.

12:34

And I was in this room all by myself, without a parent or another female, and all I remember was being washed in shame and thinking something's wrong with me. And it was up to the woman not the man, but up to the woman to prevent anything impure from happening. And it's why Mormons get married so very, very young, why Mormons get married so very, very young. My mother was 19. Many of my brothers and sisters were about the same age when they got married. Yeah, and because they are so afraid of premarital sex.

13:18

And I felt, like you know, I couldn't wear some of the clothes that were popular because they were immodest, and even though I wasn't wearing temple garments yet, there were modesty standards about your skirts coming to your knee and not wearing sleeveless things. Once again, the responsibility was on me, so that a boy would not have unclean thoughts like men can't be controlled, it's up to you. Yeah, it's such a misogynistic way of looking at things. And there were no women in leadership positions at all. They can't hold the priesthood, which is the power to act in God's name in the Mormon church, and they, they didn't open meetings by saying the prayers, they didn't talk. I mean, the message overwhelmingly was be quiet, be small, put a smile on your face, um, and and be small really and have babies, right like get get married and have babies that was your, the only role of honor.

14:39

The only place mormon women get respect is based on the number of children they have. Yeah, and it's no surprise to me that utah has one of the highest rates of antidepressant antidepressant use in the country. Yeah, there are no role models or ability to follow your interests or your passions. Your only role, the only role available, is wife and mother.

15:12 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, yeah. What was that like for you when you decided that you wanted to leave the church. What was it like for you to have to communicate that to your family.

15:26 - Lyn (Guest)

That was one of the toughest things I think I've ever done. I felt very brave leaving the church because I thought it would be so much easier just not to say anything and go along. I was afraid my family might disown me, throw me out of the house. Instead, my mother was devastated. I was the last person they expected to become a heretic or an apostate, and so part of it was the shock, and my father and I were very close and he was just so deeply disappointed in me and both of them encouraged me to reconsider. My mother begged me to let the bishop pray for me and and she would pray for me that I would not be led astray and um and that kind of pressure made it very difficult to be around my family and I lost any kind of respect or confidence from my brothers and sisters. They viewed me almost as if I was contagious and kept me at arm's length and it hurt a lot.

16:55

I didn't go to my brothers and sisters' Mormon weddings. I couldn't go in the temple and they didn't understand why that hurt my feelings. They were like, well, why would you want to go? You're not a Mormon. But everything they did, the celebrations, from birthdays to weddings to funerals all revolve around Mormon rituals and traditions, and I just wasn't a part of it. So I left and went to New York City sight unseen and decided to try to reinvent myself in the anonymity of a big city like New York. I thought I would just shed my skin and like a snake and emerge shiny and fresh, but that's not what happened. And that's not what happens with religious trauma.

17:54

Yeah, you can't get over it that easily.

17:59 - Sam (Host)

No, like I'm thinking you know what was it like to go into a. You know thinking you know what was it like to go into a. You know we probably can't get more polar opposite to Utah than New York City, and so that I guess reintegration into mainstream society, because what I know about Mormonism is that it often feels a little bit like a bubble. Is that it?

18:25 - Lyn (Guest)

often feels a little bit like a bubble. Right, it is a bubble.

18:30 - Sam (Host)

Once you're out of that bubble. Yeah, what was that like for you? Sort of going out on your own and trying to sort of find your place in the world and your identity and who you were?

18:41 - Lyn (Guest)

Well, I no longer understood the social norms or mores, or what the rules were. So I felt like a fish out of water and for a long time I felt like I didn't belong anywhere. I was not a New Yorker and I was not a Mormon, and I felt very lost and unmoored and I wondered you know what is the point? Uh, is God just a myth? You know, I, I I felt very, um, I had a lot of existential angst really, because I didn't know what was the point of being on the. I struggled to find out who I was, with dismantling the armor of Mormonism, the certainty of Mormon answers all the time, and being in that place of just being all about the questions and not having answers anymore. And that was really uncomfortable for me. Because one thing that I think high demand, high control religions, organizations, cults have in common is the community creates a sense of safety. They have all the answers for everything, and it was really uncomfortable trying to get comfortable with not knowing anything.

20:39 - Sam (Host)

Yeah for sure, Absolutely. I remember one of the most powerful and most healing phrases, which can seem really strange for me, was the words I don't know right, Because there is such binary black and white thinking that comes with fundamental spaces that actually the freedom to say I don't know is actually really liberating, rather than always feeling like you have to have an answer or have that certainty that those that sort of fundamental thinking brings you.

21:23 - Lyn (Guest)

Right, exactly, and the right answer. You know? Um, yeah, so uh, luckily I I chose to go into therapy and I would recommend that as probably the first stop, yeah, in getting support to deconstruct what this means and starting to get to know yourself. I had to figure out who I was all over again, what I liked, what I didn't like, what my beliefs were, what my values were, and it took some time, and for anyone going through the process, I'd just say patience and compassion for yourself.

22:19 - Sam (Host)

This is a lot to unpack and it's going to take some time, yeah, and support to do it absolutely I'm curious, um and and I guess there's probably like a twofold to this question which was uh, what was? Because obviously you were raised in this environment, so it was your family beliefs also, but what was your relationship with God like while you were in the church versus what happened to that when you left the church?

22:56 - Lyn (Guest)

I never felt like I had a personal relationship with God. God was kind of a scary figure to me. He was evaluating all my behaviors and making check marks where I had messed up and that I would be held accountable for, and so it wasn't someone I trusted. And, in fact, when I decided the Mormon church was a fraud, I really became an atheist for a time and I thought I'm not going to be duped again, I'm not going to be made a fool of, I'm not going to believe in anything I can't see, feel, touch. But I had an awakening where I realized life was just bigger than that. Life had more mystery, more beauty, more love, more uncertainty. And I still hesitate to call my spirituality you know this source God, because it has negative connotations for me. But I'm a very spiritual person today, just not religion, religious yeah, and I think it's really.

24:21 - Sam (Host)

uh, it can be really difficult, when you leave a fundamental space, to not get into fundamental thinking just of a different kind, and that's like a real dangerous space, because we can see fundamentalism in a lot of different spaces, not just religious, and so it's trying to find something that's authentic. Yeah, absolutely. So what was it like for you to explore that sense of spirituality? Because, um, you know something I guess I, you know, can see about fundamental spaces in general, but the mormon church very much have the, the idea that, um, they have the truth and that they are, they are the only ones.

25:07 - Lyn (Guest)

so there's like a sense of superiority almost, um, and so what was it like to go from, um, I'm part of the one true church to I don't have a freaking clue about anything, and and explore it was a real uh step out of the bubble and off the pedestal, because not only was I um the mormons do believe in the absolute fact that they are the only one true church but it was my heritage.

25:46

It's what was what made me special and set me apart. I felt, you know, so um unique and um envied because of my bloodline connection to Joseph Smith, and suddenly that was not something I was proud of anymore, but it left a big hole in my identity and I, when I left, uh I I really felt lost for quite some time. But I did find myself drawn to things like I felt disconnected from my body, which often happens in high control, high demand, patriarchal relationships where your body is the enemy with its impurity, and etc. And so going to yoga, yoga and learning to meditate these were things that were very helpful for me to reconnect and to ground myself and to really kind of pick apart my thoughts in meditations by just watching the thoughts as they come up and realizing that unless I attach to them, they didn't have any power over me.

27:14 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, what was it like for you? You know I'm obviously sitting here as a therapist who works in the religious trauma space and so I always love when people, without me even prompting going, go to therapy. It's like a nice little plug for the industry. But I'm wondering whether you're open to share a little bit about what it was like for you to unravel some of that religious trauma and work through some of the shame that comes from those spaces.

27:47 - Lyn (Guest)

For you, yes, I think that at the time that I got therapy there really wasn't a branding of religious trauma. Therapists tried to find one, but my therapist did help me understand how unrealistic some of the beliefs I held, and also to understand brainwashing group think and just how we are hostage to those early ways, through the lens through which we view the world and without really unpacking it, they don't change. Fully recovered from religious trauma because, for example, decades after I left the church, I was living in New York City and I went to see the Book of Mormon play on Broadway and it's a good natured poking fun at the Mormons comedy and the audience was laughing uproariously and I was not.

29:16

Yeah, and I realized that part of me was identifying that these are people who are laughing at Mormons, at me, and that what they were laughing at were beliefs that were at one point sacred to me yeah and so, years later, it's like peeling an onion I get triggered by something and realize there's another piece I've got to take a look at and that I'm I'm never not going to be interested in Mormons and religion in general because of my upbringing, and I'm always going to be following this and what's happening in the field. And it's so wonderful to see therapists who have been specifically trained in religious trauma, because it's so helpful, especially for women with the purity, culture and the shame attached to sex and and being in their bodies.

30:27 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

30:28 - Lyn (Guest)

I had a. A teacher was a they call it MIA, um, it's for the teenagers in um Mormon communities and we would go one night a week, in addition to church on Sunday and service work on Saturday and, you know, family night on Monday. I mean, it was not a go to church on Sunday, religion, it was all week long and she was trying to teach us. We knew we were going to have a special lesson on keeping ourselves pure before marriage and she brought in these two beautiful white layer cakes and she set them on the on the table in front of her and and she said, you see these two beautiful cakes, and I was thinking, oh, that's what we're going to get as a treat after the lesson.

31:29

And then she brought out a hammer and she smashed one of the cakes and she said now, which cake would you like to eat, the intact one or the smashed one? And that I mean no boy, no good boy is going to want you if you let someone else violate your body. Are you going to be a pure white cake when you're married? And you know, I mean the sad thing was is I was thinking, of course it'll be a pure white cake. You know, it's not until later that the anger comes. And you think, why are we talking about cake in the first place?

32:16 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, I mean, let's not. I mean I've heard so many analogies when it comes to, you know, don't have sex before you get married because it defiles you and makes you, you know, dirty and unclean and you know, there's the chewed up piece of gum. Yeah, yeah, it's so ironic Like I feel like there's so much irony around purity culture because for churches that are so against sex outside of marriage, they're also so equally obsessed with sex.

32:50 - Lyn (Guest)

Like it's just like don't talk about it, but actually we're going to talk about it all the time so and in fact the rates in fundamentalist organizations rates of sexual abuse are much higher than the average population. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, can you, can you read one story where some you know in the paper today without finding a story about some defrocked priest or pastor of an organization who's been caught either cheating or sexually abusing children?

33:28 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

33:29 - Lyn (Guest)

I mean, there's something about the repression that doesn't number on, and in Utah it's the same. And what really, really bothers me is how much cover up the Mormon church has been complicit with and you're going to ruin this good man's life. You know they're never speaking up for the victims, just the ones accused.

33:54 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

33:55 - Lyn (Guest)

And trying to have the courts go easy on him because he's such a good upstanding Mormon in the community. And the same thing with spousal abuse. The bishop will tell the woman too, he's a good man, don't go to the police, she'll ruin this man's life. You know you work it out at home and you know women just really are dealt a very bad hand in the Mormon church.

34:28 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, yeah, I think. Uh, whenever I hear, I hear fundamental spaces saying essentially putting the blame on the victim because we don't want to ruin the man's reputation, all I hear is that actually it's probably not about the man's reputation at all, it's just about the reputation of the church and the way that the outside community particularly, you know, fundamental spaces that are based on either evangelising or mission work or conversion, is that we can't bring the church into disrepute, because then how are we going to get people to join the church, right? So, yes, it's probably about the man's reputation, but the man is the extension of the church, and so it's probably about the man's reputation, but the man is the extension of the church, and so it's really about protection at all costs.

35:19

Absolutely, yeah, and. And it's protection irrespective of of who gets hurt in the process and who gets damaged in the process, and women and children tend to be the victims. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. What was it like for your like in terms of your relationships with your family, whilst you were sort of figuring out who you were in the world?

35:46 - Lyn (Guest)

Well, I left home right away and went to New York. So I was very young and I basically came home once a year. There was no, there was no room for me and my family, so we were fairly estranged. But something happened, an event and I talk about it in my memoir when I tell my story, when I tell my story that made my family decide to go into family therapy. Wow, Uh-huh, I realize I'm so lucky, you know, because that's really an anomaly, it doesn't happen very often and my family decided to try to figure out if there was any way that we could breach the gap and by this time it was decades later. A couple of my brothers and sisters had left as well. So the family was very divided over religion. The family was very divided over religion and we learned in family therapy that we could not discuss religion and we couldn't discuss politics either.

37:05 - Sam (Host)

But that's another story. I mean, it's America, so they're basically one in the same right.

37:10 - Lyn (Guest)

Yeah unfortunately, there was, upon a time time, separation of church and state, but anyway, so, uh, that helped us learn to talk to each other with respect, uh, and to avoid subjects where we were never going to understand each other, because when I'm talking about something that was traumatizing to me and it's sacred to you, there's no way we can have a conversation. So we do that. That's the fragile connection we have. We don't talk religion or politics and we look for common ground, what we share and we're all parents now Some of us have grandchildren and we talk about our common, shared experiences and we found that what you may call beliefs, I call values, but they mean the same thing and that we had similar values.

38:25

Uh, we thought family came first and, you know, love was important, forgiveness was important, charity was important, and I think that was a surprise, because I think the mormons thought that the apostates were going to hell in a handbasket, but we're actually pretty decent people, uh. And so we weren't the? Uh, we didn't leave the church for reasons they believed. We did like we didn't want to live up to the high standards or we wanted to go out and have fun and just do whatever we wanted. No, we left because of a of a deep-seated belief that we could not live a lie, and so we found out, in trying to work it out, that we're more alike than we are different, and that's sort of our motto. We avoid the subjects that are divisive and try very hard to talk to each other with respect. Talk to each other with respect and we don't dig too deep into subjects that are going to be upsetting.

40:00 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, do you have a different relationship with your siblings who are out of the church?

40:08 - Lyn (Guest)

yes, and I mean partly because we had share so much. We have so much in common as survivors. My blog is called Heretic Survivor, from Mormon to Me, and we've been there for each other, supportive of each other's journey out and the different spiritual paths they've taken. One of my sisters is a big follower of, of, oh, some Indian guru, I can't remember his name now, but after she read autobiography of a yogi, she went to India and studied, and so she's, she's down that path. And my brother is a Buddhist, primarily in terms of his belief systems. Yeah, but, and we're closer and and sometimes we we laugh about, you know, you know, we laugh about, you know, you know, our brothers and sisters who we think have drunk the kool-aid as we refer to it, but not in front of them.

41:22 - Sam (Host)

We wouldn't talk disrespectfully like that in front of them yeah, and I think it's really interesting because there is the assumption that those who leave the church are, like you said, leaving to sin more or to just go out and do drugs and have copious amounts of sex and basically do everything that you are not allowed to do in the church. But realistically there is, like you said, you're leaving because of a shift in values, and actually your values often are what drives you out of the church. But there is then the assumption that once you're out, we're just like bitter, angry ex-mormons or ex-christians or ex-whatever it is. But in reality, um, that's not the case. Right, there can.

42:11

Actually, I have deep respect for people who hold faith, um, as part of their life, and I'm certainly um, not anti-church, I'm not anti-religion, but I am anti-harm and anti-fundamentalism and things like that, and so it's interesting that you sort of point that out, that you know you can, you can, um, there's a shared experience with the siblings that are out of the mormon church, um, but you wouldn't dare disrespect those who still are, and I think that that's a really important thing yes, and you know, in my mind the mormon church is a cult.

42:50 - Lyn (Guest)

Yeah, yeah, because I would agree all the criteria.

42:55

yeah, but if my brothers and sisters who are still in the church heard me refer to it that way, they would find it incredibly insulting. Yeah, but there's no other way for me to look at the characteristics of that religion and it checks all the boxes. So, but you know, tolerance, acceptance, reducing your expectation to reasonable levels of what you can and can't talk about and what you can and can't expect to share yeah, um allows us to be together as a family in a setting such as my mother's 90th birthday party or whatever, and um not be divisive but actually enjoy each other's company, and that is worth a lot. And I feel very fortunate because I know so many estranged ex-Mormons or ex-religion people who don't have any contact with their family now that they've left the fold.

44:18 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, yeah, family estrangement and an abandonment is a very real and an incredibly heartbreaking situation for a lot of people. It's a huge part of people's religious trauma. So, um, yeah, I can definitely uh understand the the gratitude that you have around that I?

44:41 - Lyn (Guest)

I I see what you mean. Right now, the mormon church is struggling because they're losing, uh, their young people in higher numbers than ever before due to the church's position on women and the LBGTQ community, and that's just unacceptable. Like you said, I don't have a problem with religion per se, as long as it's inclusive and love and acceptance is offered everywhere. I mean, I feel like jesus's message is sometimes the antithesis of what these churches are practicing yeah, yeah, I it's.

45:26 - Sam (Host)

It's funny that you mentioned that, because I often say I don't actually have a problem with jesus, like he seemed like quite a cool guy like I. I think that that would have been quite okay. I'm pretty sure we could have been friends right. But I very much have a problem with everybody else who tends to manipulate that figure in society.

45:49 - Lyn (Guest)

So yeah, that's a good way of putting it Manipulate yeah, use Jesus in the pursuit of power money yeah, absolutely what is it like for you now, having been out of the church for quite some time?

46:08 - Sam (Host)

um?

46:10 - Lyn (Guest)

well, I remember when I decided for sure that I was out and there was no going back and I was riding a horse and thinking that I was going to go, have to go home and tell my family, but I wasn't ready to do it yet and I was trying to feel what I was feeling and it was kind of bubbling up inside me but I couldn't put my finger on it. And then I realized freedom. That's what I was feeling and I think that's the biggest freedom to love myself, to put myself. In the Mormon church, women are told your needs are not important. Your job is to sacrifice yourself endlessly in service to others. Yeah, and to have a healthier, uh, self-esteem and esteem and, uh, actual compassion for myself and some grace. I'm not perfect, but I no longer feel like I have to be to be worthy of love and that's a a big change. Yeah, that's how I felt, where I was earning my way to heaven. Yeah, yeah.

47:35 - Sam (Host)

I love part of what I have done and what I love hearing other people do is reclaiming language that often we feel like the church owns, like words, like grace and joy and peace and things that often have like religious connotations, and so I love asking people what brings you joy and peace in this world now?

48:00 - Lyn (Guest)

yes, you know, for me, um, I believe we not only just in my family of origin, but in the whole human race, we are more alike than we are different. And what really is meaningful to me is connection with others, real connection from an authentic self, that I'm not presenting a front or a persona. I'm not presenting a front or a persona, but my goal. Every morning, when I get up, I set my intention for the day. Let me be the face of kindness in every encounter in my life today, and that's what it's all about to be people, relationships. I am so much more aware of the beauty of nature yeah, it's where I feel very close to source the divine god creator, um but also in the our capacity to love one another. That seems to me that we're hardwired for god. Where does this come from? Our capacity to love somebody when we're not getting anything back? That altruism, that seems divine to me yeah, absolutely.

49:29 - Sam (Host)

I will often, uh, use the term hardwired. I tend to say we as humans are hardwired for connection, whether that's connection to people, connection to nature, connection to music, to creativity, to the universe. We are just hardwired for connection, and so I love that. I love that. Yeah, I have been finishing these episodes by asking what piece of advice, word of encouragement, what thoughts would you have for somebody who is fresh in their deconstruction, or they are fresh out of the church that they have been raised in? What message would you have for them?

50:18 - Lyn (Guest)

in. What message would you have for them? I?

50:22

would tell themselves to treat themselves as they would. A very dear friend, to have the self-talk be as gentle and that it's going to take time. And allow yourself the grace to go through the process without feeling the pressure of having to rush it, because some of these things just can't be rushed it. You don't even know you've got something still left that needs to be dealt with until it's triggered and then you deal with it. But you know it would be. Find good support systems, both personal therapy and a support community, because I think it helps a lot just knowing you're not alone and that other people are going through lot, just knowing you're not alone and that other people are going through and that what you're experiencing is normal for someone who's leading a cult or a heavy demand, a high control religion.

51:28 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree about the. You just don't know, like, what is going to trigger a reaction until it happens sometimes, because sometimes there are things buried deep inside us that we don't necessarily realize have had an impact until they do. And, um, I have a dear friend who, um, uses a really great analogy of uh, the whack-a-mole game, in that, uh, you think that they're all down and then randomly, like one might pop up out of the blue and you go, oh, I didn't realize that that was a thing until it became a thing. Um and um, I had that the other day. Somebody, somebody, I heard somebody say the term God willing and I was like, oh, yikes, that felt really like jarring for me. So it is a little bit like you, don't you? Just, it is a continual work in progress and I think that that's the way life is supposed to evolve, right I agree it's not about being perfect.

52:34 - Lyn (Guest)

Yeah, we're perfectly imperfect and that's okay, and we don't have to be perfect to be worthy of love and joy. Yeah, and living in this wonderful world with this incredible, mysterious dance of pain and sorrow, but highs and lows, and contentment and and connection yeah, amazing now.

53:02 - Sam (Host)

If, uh, if people do want to connect with you, where can they find you?

53:07 - Lyn (Guest)

well, the best place is my website, which has my blogs, and it's lynn, with just one n, lynn smith, gregorycom, and I have a blog called the heretic survivor from mormon to me and I've, um, my agent has just sent my finished memoir to publishers and so that is called we Were Smiths Escaping the Shadow of Joseph Smith's Mormon Legacy, and hopefully that's going to find a home with a publisher soon. And if you can follow me on Instagram, it's Lynn Smith, gregory, on Facebook and Instagram or LinkedIn or Substack, I'm on all those.

54:00 - Sam (Host)

I will. I'll pop all of those in the show notes anyway, so people will just be able to click a nice little button and find you. But yeah, thank you so much for joining me. I will have all of my fingers and toes and everything crossed that that book gets to a publisher, because I think it is an incredible story. Yeah, so thank you so much for joining me.

54:26 - Lyn (Guest)

It was a pleasure to be here.

54:31 - Sam (Host)

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Beyond the surface. I hope you found today's conversation as insightful and inspiring as I did. If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with others who might benefit from these stories. Stay connected with us on social media for updates and more content. I love connecting with all of you. Remember, no matter where you are in your journey, you're not alone. Until next time, keep exploring, keep questioning and keep moving forward. Take care.

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