Latter Day Struggles

Send us a Positive Review!Series Title: Valerie’s Personal Journey [Part I of II]Join Val and fellow therapist Brannon Patrick this week as Brannon interviews Valerie about her first year accidentally diving into the deep end as a professional voice speaking respectfully but directly on behalf of thousands of individuals in the LDS faith and trust crisis and expansion space.In those two episodes Valerie responds to a variety of personal questions including (but not limited to): Her own experiences finding herself a in a role speaking at the intersection of good psychology, a call for healthy theology, with a keen understanding of the dynamics of healthy and unhealthy organizations.How she has navigated activity in the church.Her and Brannon’s experience first deciding to work together and then his deciding to no longer work with her and their touching conclusions about this tough relational period.Her experience with the very real possibility of burnout in this highly emotional work.Her reasons for committing so much time and nurture to the support and processing group process and the unintended benefits of this experience for her as a facilitatorHer and Nathan’s journey as a couple, evolving parents, and working together on the podcastVal’s thoughts on the possibility of church discipline due to her ministryAnd much more! Latter Day Struggles Podcast Episodes mentioned in this episode as most impactful for Valerie:Latter Day Struggles Podcast Episode 118: Stumbling Blocks and the Book of Mormon with Paul Toscano—Part IV⁠Latter Day Struggles Podcast Episode 126: A Glimpse into the Spiritual Journey of LDS Theologian Fiona GivensInfo on how to subscribe to listen to Friday’s episode is directly below.  See you there!Support the showSupport the show Listen, Share, Rate & Review EPISODES Friday Episodes Annual Access $89 Friday Episodes Monthly Access $10 Valerie’s Support & Processing Groups Gift a Scholarship Download Free Resources Visit our Website

Send us a Positive Review!Series Title: PRIDE and Personal Growth [Part II of II]Join Val and a handful of special guests on this second half of a series honoring PRIDE month.  In this episode several beautiful women and men share their unique journeys finding self/other love and acceptance on the full spectrum of gender and sexuality.Unlearning can be more challenging than learning, especially in a religious system that has focused so strongly on heteronormativity.  But these beautiful people show that is can indeed be done and that the journey is sacred and one worth celebrating and sharing. Please note: In the section featuring Kit and Bree and their beautiful love story, I want to make clear that the manner in which they have been able to navigate their marriage is a representation of what has felt congruent to each of them in their own personal story. I do not want to communicate that other outcomes in other marriages are not acceptable or reasonable.  I believe that giving each individual in each couple the liberty follow what is most congruent to them is the path to wholeness.  Books and podcasts recommended in this episode:Questions from the Closet PodcastListen, Learn, and Love PodcastBeyond the Block PodcastGoodbye, I Love You, written by Carol Lynn PearsonSupport the showSupport the show Listen, Share, Rate & Review EPISODES Friday Episodes Annual Access $89 Friday Episodes Monthly Access $10 Valerie’s Support & Processing Groups Gift a Scholarship Download Free Resources Visit our Website

Send us a Positive Review!Series Title: PRIDE and Personal Growth [Part I of II]Join Valerie for the next couple of week honoring PRIDE in a variety of different ways.First and most importantly, Valerie has invited several individuals (like yourselves!) from her small groups to share their own growth journeys in the context of PRIDE month.In each of these stories shared you will learn from gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and straight ally individuals who learned profound lessons about love over fear, love over judgment, and love over unhealthy theology.They share the beauty of being a work in progress and each model how it is okay to believe one way until we experience enough life to teach us to belief another way that is more aligned with God’s love for the diversity of their sacred creations.Books and podcasts recommended in this episode:⁠Questions from the Closet Podcast⁠⁠Listen, Learn, and Love Podcast⁠A Walk in My Shoes: Questions I'm Often Asked as a Gay Latter-day Saint, written by Ben SchilatySupport the showSupport the show Listen, Share, Rate & Review EPISODES Friday Episodes Annual Access $89 Friday Episodes Monthly Access $10 Valerie’s Support & Processing Groups Gift a Scholarship Download Free Resources Visit our Website

Send us a Positive Review!Series Title: When Marriage Doctrines Unintentionally Divide a Couple [Part I of II]This week on the Latter Day Struggles podcast Valerie focuses on a population of people whom she loves and sees consistently in a lot of pain here in and around the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.Married couples in the LDS church tend to experience a great deal of distress when one partner begins a growth process that departs in any way from the standard beliefs and practices of the LDS faith. In this episode Valerie breaks down what she has coined “the successful failure” of LDS marriage theology, a belief system that is so incredibly successful garnering the faith and loyalty of some individuals that they would choose their religious beliefs about marriage over the marriage itself.In short, the success of the LDS indoctrination about the specific demands of an LDS marriage may strongly contribute to the failure of the actual LDS marriage. This is tragic.As a marriage therapist and a witness to too many LDS marriages coming undone unnecessarily,  Valerie has chosen to commit the past few months creating two profound online courses to help couples not become casualties to this “successful failure” phenomenon.This episode describes the phenomenon in detail and the next episode in this mini-series describes Valerie’s overarching philosophical and psychological orientation to helping couples work through this challenge and become a stronger, more unconditionally loving couple than they ever imagined possible.See directly below to grab the link to check out these self-paced online classes to support your marriage!  These classes can be taken as a couple or individually.  Support the showSupport the show Listen, Share, Rate & Review EPISODES Friday Episodes Annual Access $89 Friday Episodes Monthly Access $10 Valerie’s Support & Processing Groups Gift a Scholarship Download Free Resources Visit our Website

Send us a Positive Review!Series Title: Visionary Women Past & Present [Part I of II]Join Valerie and guest Fiona Givens as together they discuss a true prophetess and mystic, Julian of Norwich.Father Richard Rohr has often called Julian his "favorite mystic" and Fiona attributes this woman as one of the most personally influential to her in the development of her own whole and holy theology of the divine.  If these two recommendations aren't enough for you...then I don't know what to say!A few highlights of this episode:Julian's “showings” really shine a light on God’s inability to be angry with us for our humannessOur current struggles with the nature of God in some brings up pain, anxiety, religious scrupulosity, and defection from the churchOur misunderstandings of the nature of God brings up generational trauma to the extent that we perpetuate a God concept that estranges us from Julian's God of infinite loveAccording to Julian's visions, sin is “no thing” in God’s eyes.  Our missteps are the education that endears us to GodAs a committed Catholic, Julian too struggles with heavenly visions that did not align with the teachings of her “holy church” and she [as do we] does the work of differentiating her church’s imperfections with her personal revelations, choosing to align with the truth that was revealed to her directly from it’s sourceBook referenced in this episode:Julian of Norwich: The Showings: Uncovering the Face of the Feminine in Revelations of Divine Love, by Mirabai StarrThe God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life, by Terry and Fiona GivensSupport the showSupport the show Listen, Share, Rate & Review EPISODES Friday Episodes Annual Access $89 Friday Episodes Monthly Access $10 Valerie’s Support & Processing Groups Gift a Scholarship Download Free Resources Visit our Website

Send us a Positive Review!During the Covid Pandemic, Valerie read even more than usual.  One of the authors whom she binged was Jungian analyst James Hollis, who tipped her entire psychological and theological paradigm…right-side-up…finally. She passed several books off to Nathan and together they reconfigured a spirituality that is the foundation of what you hear in some way, shape, or form in each episode of Latter Day Struggles. In this episode they discuss the colossal difference between LESS MATURE and MATURE spirituality.Highlights:Immature spirituality hands beliefs and life choices off to authority figures.  Mature spirituality takes personal ownership in one’s own beliefs and life choicesImmature spiritual builds walls.  Mature spirituality breaks down wallsImmature spirituality “pins down” truth and mandates proper worship, observance, and belief.  Mature spirituality knows that once the mystery of God and other mystical experience has been given a name, a form, a face, and a structure—its essence, beauty, and mystery often recedes, ceasing to connect us to the divine.Book referenced in this episode: Living a Examined Life by James HollisSupport the showSupport the show Listen, Share, Rate & Review EPISODES Friday Episodes Annual Access $89 Friday Episodes Monthly Access $10 Valerie’s Support & Processing Groups Gift a Scholarship Download Free Resources Visit our Website

Send us a Positive Review!Author, Evangelical theologian, and recently deceased Christian reformer Rachel Held Evans poignantly stated, "A lot of people think the hardest part about religious doubt is feeling isolated from God. It's not. At least in my experience, the hardest part about doubt is feeling isolated from your community."In this episode Valerie and Nathan share their thoughts and personal experiences about how faith expansion can be both a deeply sacred experience of personal enlightenment but also profoundly isolating, lonely, and relationally painful as we try to relate to our former circles of family and friends. Why is this so hard? Val and Nathan offer some ideas:Our Former Inner Circle LDS tribe (both friends and family):Sometimes build their relational lives around the church, which makes relating to those different from themselves challenging; especially in relationships where both parties were accustomed to relating to one another only through church-related common beliefsSometimes seem to struggle being genuinely interested, curious, and open to the experiences of their friends and loved ones now differing from themselves and relate to us from a place of "concern, heal, reconvert, or fix"Are conditioned by teachings at church that those of us in faith expansion are "falling away" or "led by Satan" in our experiences, thereby making it challenging to want to explain, justify, self defend (as we have heard this rhetoric ourselves all of our lives)Judge those of us no longer fully aligned with them. This judgment might be cloaked in 'concern', but its essence (possibly unconscious but still felt by us) is "without the church you are lost.  As a faithful  church member, my testimony insulates me in certainly, thereby also preventing me from curiosity, openness, and a true desire to learn from you."These divides create an added layer of grief on top of the grieve of faith and trust crisis. These divides prevent us from drawing upon our core family and friends when we’re need them most.This episode was is offered with the hope to help you feel seen, understood, and not alone as we struggle relationally in our faith expansion.Book referenced in this episode:Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church, by Rachel Held EvansPodcast mentioned in this episode Fireside with Blair Hodges: Voices, with Jeff ChuSupport the showSupport the show Listen, Share, Rate & Review EPISODES Friday Episodes Annual Access $89 Friday Episodes Monthly Access $10 Valerie’s Support & Processing Groups Gift a Scholarship Download Free Resources Visit our Website

Send us a Positive Review!Join Val as she breaks down a thought provoking idea about the pull of cynicism as a natural emotional component of Christian faith evolution. She explores a beautiful and thought provoking quote by the late Rachel Held Evans from her book Searching for Sundays. Highlights of this episode:Cynicism is a protective emotion often experienced to manage legitimate emotions such as betrayed trust, grief, anger, and disorientation. Grief and disorientation in LDS (and other Christian) faith crisis/expansion experiences are often directly correlated to one’s former “all in” status and [over] commitment to the promises made by the institutionRecovering from cynicism and moving into a psychological space of faith expansion and spiritual peace cannot be forcedPsychological and spiritual growth embodies an eventual paradigm shift in relationship to the institution, complete with a realization that no institution could (nor should) do for us what it claimed it could (and should) do to bring us truly into contact with our most whole selves and our creators.As we grieve the former paradigm (and any harm done by it) and embrace our life’s experiences as platforms for deepening discernment, wrestle, and the opportunity to seize personal authority for ourselves, we can see these institutions as paradoxically instrumental in our processes of truly growing up and deciding what to accept, reject, and reconcile for ourselves.Book referenced in this episode: Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church, by Rachel Held EvansSupport the showSupport the show Listen, Share, Rate & Review EPISODES Friday Episodes Annual Access $89 Friday Episodes Monthly Access $10 Valerie’s Support & Processing Groups Gift a Scholarship Download Free Resources Visit our Website

Send us a Positive Review!Series Title: Healing our Ideas about God's Nature [Part II of II]In this episode, Valerie again is a guest on "The Brannon Patrick Show" and they continue in their conversation about the ways that our inherited constructs about God get in the way of our personal growth and our relationship growth to our higher powersSpecific ideas that hurt: God is male.  They discuss how this is a human construct and a natural outgrowth of patriarchy and that a centuries-old male governing church culture has created religious systems that carry energies consumed in power and control issues.  They discuss the parallels between our institutions struggles with women (heavenly and earthly) and how this shows up in ways that men have contrived to limit power, authority, participation, and voice of both the feminine divine and of her daughters; and that this extends into an attempt to curtail interaction between the feminine side of God and all of her children. They discuss how our male construction of God insidiously impacts marriages, parenting, family systems, and church systems.  God is white.  In this section Val and Brannon layer racism on top of our centuries-old struggles with sexism in our ideas about God and go through the various ways this has impacted not only our own tradition, but countless others as well. They end the episode by exploring why it is so scary to let go of our false and sometimes even harmful constructs about God but also why it is so important to do so in an effort to become psychologically healthy and autonomous human beings “worshiping how, where, and what” we may. Support the showSupport the show Listen, Share, Rate & Review EPISODES Friday Episodes Annual Access $89 Friday Episodes Monthly Access $10 Valerie’s Support & Processing Groups Gift a Scholarship Download Free Resources Visit our Website

Send us a Positive Review!Series Title: Healing our Ideas about God's Nature [Part I of II]Today's episode is the first half of a fascinating conversation between Valerie and fellow therapist/podcaster Brannon Patrick where Val is guest on Brannon's  new podcast "The Brannon Patrick Show”In this two-part conversation they dive into how some of our received ideas about God may hurt us here in and around the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. These harmful [though possibly unintended] ideas includes the following:God is unapproachable until we are worthy enough and we need an intermediary to protect us from himWe increase in lovability according to our righteousnessFear of God’s anger or disappointment is an effective motivator for obediencePressure to “follow the covenant path” creates a high anxiety relationship with self, others, and God as well as a low sense of personal confidence,  autonomy, struggles with perfectionism, and struggles with shame.In response to these fraught ideas about God, Val and Brannon talk about how a new understanding of God can heal us both psychologically and spiritual.  They discuss the following:The only motivation that is transformative in our growth and development is loveMistakes do not estrange us from God, they draw us towards God, provide experiential learning, embodied growth, and compassion for others’ strugglesOur natural disposition is towards goodnessWhen we experience ourselves as lovable, we simply become more of who we always were and therefore fear and shame have no healthy part in our life’s experiencesGod blesses every part of our personal journeySpiritual maturity creates resilience and decreasing need for validationNext episode in this 2-part series:  The White Man's Creation of the White Male God To check out Brannon’s new podcast: The Brannon Patrick ShowSupport the showSupport the show Listen, Share, Rate & Review EPISODES Friday Episodes Annual Access $89 Friday Episodes Monthly Access $10 Valerie’s Support & Processing Groups Gift a Scholarship Download Free Resources Visit our Website