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Latter Day Struggles

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Jun 18, 2023 • 8min

🔒 BONUS!

Subscriber-only episodeSend us a Positive Review!In this brief minisode, Val gets everyone (especially those not on social media) up to speed on the many directions that she is going to help you in your faith journey.Here’s what I talk in more detail about on this bonus episode:There is a new Latter Day Struggles support and processing group starting July 17th 2023 and this is the last group beginning for the next several months.  If you’ve been on the fence, now is the time to jump in!  Go to latterdaystruggles.com and enroll there.Today 6/18/23 is the LAST DAY to benefit from GREAT discounts on Valerie’s Online Courses “A Couple’s Guide to Faith Crisis and Expansion”.  She is offering buy one get one free until midnight central standard time.  Much more info about this on Instagram at @latterdaystruggle.com in the highlights and current stories and on latterdaystruggles.comNot mentioned but worth mentioning :) is that Valerie will be participating in a variety of ways at this year’s Annual Sunstone Symposium.  Her presentation topics are “The Creation of the Deviant Out-group” and “LDS Faith Crisis 10 Years After the Faith Crisis Report”.  I will also be running a breakout group on working through faith crisis.  Please come to Sunstone and support this wonderful organization!  I’d love to meet you in person! ——————————————————————————————————————SUPPORT: Like what you’re hearing at Latter Day Struggles Podcast? You can support Valerie’s efforts by becoming a recurring donor on Patreon.com!——————————————————————————————————————SUPPORT GROUPS: You are invited to join one of Valerie’s space-limited ⁠⁠Faith Crisis and Expansion Support and Processing Groups⁠⁠⁠!  As a trauma therapist, she continues to help our LDS faith expansion community become psychologically healthier and spiritually well in and around the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.Details about availability on **More sensitive or more psychologically advanced themes are saved for paid Friday episodes to protect the content creators from being mischaracterized by less familiar consumers.**LEARN HOW TO SUBSCRIBE TO FRIDAY EPISODES(Watch a 2-minute how-to video)THEN subscribe to Fridays here. TROUBLE WITH YOUR SUBSCRIPTION? Email: support@buzzsprout.comCONSULTING: Interested in doing individual or couples work with Valerie or a member of her trained team? Time-limited packages with Valerie and extended work with her team of coaches and therapists are available ⁠⁠here!⁠ SUPPORT GROUPS: Next support & processing group coming April 2025. To register/learn more, visit here.OFFICE HOURS FOR FRIDAY SUBSCRIBERS: Check your email for the invite to our next session on Mon, Feb 3rd at 2 p.m. Central!CLASSES: Visit our library.SUPPORT: Make a one-time donation to ⁠her business Venmo account⁠ or ...
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Jun 16, 2023 • 59min

130: More Latter-day Saint stories of overcoming queerphobia

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 show**More sensitive or more psychologically advanced themes are saved for paid Friday episodes to protect the content creators from being mischaracterized by less familiar consumers.**LEARN HOW TO SUBSCRIBE TO FRIDAY EPISODES(Watch a 2-minute how-to video)THEN subscribe to Fridays here. TROUBLE WITH YOUR SUBSCRIPTION? Email: support@buzzsprout.comCONSULTING: Interested in doing individual or couples work with Valerie or a member of her trained team? Time-limited packages with Valerie and extended work with her team of coaches and therapists are available ⁠⁠here!⁠ SUPPORT GROUPS: Next support & processing group coming April 2025. To register/learn more, visit here.OFFICE HOURS FOR FRIDAY SUBSCRIBERS: Check your email for the invite to our next session on Mon, Feb 3rd at 2 p.m. Central!CLASSES: Visit our library.SUPPORT: Make a one-time donation to ⁠her business Venmo account⁠ or ...
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Jun 12, 2023 • 45min

129: How Someone Like You Can (or Maybe Did) Overcome Queerphobia

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 show**More sensitive or more psychologically advanced themes are saved for paid Friday episodes to protect the content creators from being mischaracterized by less familiar consumers.**LEARN HOW TO SUBSCRIBE TO FRIDAY EPISODES(Watch a 2-minute how-to video)THEN subscribe to Fridays here. TROUBLE WITH YOUR SUBSCRIPTION? Email: support@buzzsprout.comCONSULTING: Interested in doing individual or couples work with Valerie or a member of her trained team? Time-limited packages with Valerie and extended work with her team of coaches and therapists are available ⁠⁠here!⁠ SUPPORT GROUPS: Next support & processing group coming April 2025. To register/learn more, visit here.OFFICE HOURS FOR FRIDAY SUBSCRIBERS: Check your email for the invite to our next session on Mon, Feb 3rd at 2 p.m. Central!CLASSES: Visit our library.SUPPORT: Make a one-time donation to ⁠her business Venmo account⁠ or ...
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Jun 9, 2023 • 42min

128: Supporting Your Struggling LDS Marriage

Send us a Positive Review!Series Title: When Marriage Doctrines Unintentionally Divide a Couple [Part II of II]In this episode Valerie reviews her overarching philosophical and psychological orientation for healthy marriage in general and how she helps couples heal from struggles typical to LDS faith crisis in particular.She reviews key components to every section of her six self-guided online classes titled created to help the LDS couple struggling due to the faith journey of one of the partners.  These classes can be taken as a couple or you can take them individually and integrate their concepts organically into your relationship if your partner is not yet ready to confront these complex issues.  See link below to check this and other self-paced online classes to support you in your faith expansion journey! ——————————————————————————————————————CONSULTING: Interested in doing individSupport the show**More sensitive or more psychologically advanced themes are saved for paid Friday episodes to protect the content creators from being mischaracterized by less familiar consumers.**LEARN HOW TO SUBSCRIBE TO FRIDAY EPISODES(Watch a 2-minute how-to video)THEN subscribe to Fridays here. TROUBLE WITH YOUR SUBSCRIPTION? Email: support@buzzsprout.comCONSULTING: Interested in doing individual or couples work with Valerie or a member of her trained team? Time-limited packages with Valerie and extended work with her team of coaches and therapists are available ⁠⁠here!⁠ SUPPORT GROUPS: Next support & processing group coming April 2025. To register/learn more, visit here.OFFICE HOURS FOR FRIDAY SUBSCRIBERS: Check your email for the invite to our next session on Mon, Feb 3rd at 2 p.m. Central!CLASSES: Visit our library.SUPPORT: Make a one-time donation to ⁠her business Venmo account⁠ or ...
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Jun 5, 2023 • 38min

127: When it Feels Like Your Spouse Chooses the Church over Your Marriage

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 show**More sensitive or more psychologically advanced themes are saved for paid Friday episodes to protect the content creators from being mischaracterized by less familiar consumers.**LEARN HOW TO SUBSCRIBE TO FRIDAY EPISODES(Watch a 2-minute how-to video)THEN subscribe to Fridays here. TROUBLE WITH YOUR SUBSCRIPTION? Email: support@buzzsprout.comCONSULTING: Interested in doing individual or couples work with Valerie or a member of her trained team? Time-limited packages with Valerie and extended work with her team of coaches and therapists are available ⁠⁠here!⁠ SUPPORT GROUPS: Next support & processing group coming April 2025. To register/learn more, visit here.OFFICE HOURS FOR FRIDAY SUBSCRIBERS: Check your email for the invite to our next session on Mon, Feb 3rd at 2 p.m. Central!CLASSES: Visit our library.SUPPORT: Make a one-time donation to ⁠her business Venmo account⁠ or ...
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Jun 2, 2023 • 45min

🔒 126: Fiona Givens' Tender & Inspiring Faith Journey

Subscriber-only episodeSend us a Positive Review!Series Title: Visionary Women Past & Present [Part II of II]In this beautiful and tender episode, Valerie has the privilege of interviewing LDS theologian Fiona Givens about her early life, diverse experiences, important relationships, and classical education that eventually led her into the LDS faith and deeply into the study of many facets of the nature of God.This story is one of all of the typical ups and downs, seemingly insignificant events that lead to other more significant events, and finally a few moments where Valerie proposes to Fiona why her unique life distinctively prepared her for the work that she is doing now; something that is profoundly blessing thousands of faith-expanding Latter Day Saints in this era.  Perhaps Fiona is our own “Esther”, prepared for such a time as now.Don’t miss this truly love-filled episode if you have found healing through the work of Fiona Givens.  It will endear you to her even more.Books referenced in this episode:The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of LifeThe Christ Who Heals: How God Restored the Truth that Saves UsThe Crucible of Doubt: Reflections On the Quest for FaithAll Things New: Rethinking Sin, Salvation, and Everything in Between**More sensitive or more psychologically advanced themes are saved for paid Friday episodes to protect the content creators from being mischaracterized by less familiar consumers.**LEARN HOW TO SUBSCRIBE TO FRIDAY EPISODES(Watch a 2-minute how-to video)THEN subscribe to Fridays here. TROUBLE WITH YOUR SUBSCRIPTION? Email: support@buzzsprout.comCONSULTING: Interested in doing individual or couples work with Valerie or a member of her trained team? Time-limited packages with Valerie and extended work with her team of coaches and therapists are available ⁠⁠here!⁠ SUPPORT GROUPS: Next support & processing group coming April 2025. To register/learn more, visit here.OFFICE HOURS FOR FRIDAY SUBSCRIBERS: Check your email for the invite to our next session on Mon, Feb 3rd at 2 p.m. Central!CLASSES: Visit our library.SUPPORT: Make a one-time donation to ⁠her business Venmo account⁠ or ...
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May 29, 2023 • 1h 19min

125: Feminine Visions of Julian of Norwich w/ Fiona Givens

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 show**More sensitive or more psychologically advanced themes are saved for paid Friday episodes to protect the content creators from being mischaracterized by less familiar consumers.**LEARN HOW TO SUBSCRIBE TO FRIDAY EPISODES(Watch a 2-minute how-to video)THEN subscribe to Fridays here. TROUBLE WITH YOUR SUBSCRIPTION? Email: support@buzzsprout.comCONSULTING: Interested in doing individual or couples work with Valerie or a member of her trained team? Time-limited packages with Valerie and extended work with her team of coaches and therapists are available ⁠⁠here!⁠ SUPPORT GROUPS: Next support & processing group coming April 2025. To register/learn more, visit here.OFFICE HOURS FOR FRIDAY SUBSCRIBERS: Check your email for the invite to our next session on Mon, Feb 3rd at 2 p.m. Central!CLASSES: Visit our library.SUPPORT: Make a one-time donation to ⁠her business Venmo account⁠ or ...
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May 26, 2023 • 43min

124: Five Components of Mature Spirituality

Send us a Positive Review!If you loved the last episode of Latter Day Struggles, you’ll love Valerie and Nathan’s discussion about the 5 components that can help each of us know that we have embraced a mature spirituality:  A MATURE SPIRITUALITY: Resonates from within (is not compelled from beyond)Invites the numinous (beckons, compels us forward, drives us to know more with a magnetic-like pull)Opens us to mystery (welcomes the unknown; is open to a different way of seeing, worshipping, experiencing, that is unconnected to our programming)Asks us to grow up (does not hand off the soul stretching discerning process of life to authorities, experts, or any other "big person", thus preventing us from the inevitable anxiety of growth)Invites us to live a value driven relational life (the culmination of all of the above points shows up "on the ground" as responsible, accountable, respectful of other's journeys, and loving of the process of life as a sacred growth experience)**Each of Valerie’s Support and Processing Groups and Online Courses is Grounded in these Five Principles and offers a structure for achieving a mature relationship with spirituality. Book referenced in this episode: Living an Examined Life by James HollisSupport the show**More sensitive or more psychologically advanced themes are saved for paid Friday episodes to protect the content creators from being mischaracterized by less familiar consumers.**LEARN HOW TO SUBSCRIBE TO FRIDAY EPISODES(Watch a 2-minute how-to video)THEN subscribe to Fridays here. TROUBLE WITH YOUR SUBSCRIPTION? Email: support@buzzsprout.comCONSULTING: Interested in doing individual or couples work with Valerie or a member of her trained team? Time-limited packages with Valerie and extended work with her team of coaches and therapists are available ⁠⁠here!⁠ SUPPORT GROUPS: Next support & processing group coming April 2025. To register/learn more, visit here.OFFICE HOURS FOR FRIDAY SUBSCRIBERS: Check your email for the invite to our next session on Mon, Feb 3rd at 2 p.m. Central!CLASSES: Visit our library.SUPPORT: Make a one-time donation to ⁠her business Venmo account⁠ or ...
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May 22, 2023 • 33min

123: A Study of Immature Versus Maturing Spirituality

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 show**More sensitive or more psychologically advanced themes are saved for paid Friday episodes to protect the content creators from being mischaracterized by less familiar consumers.**LEARN HOW TO SUBSCRIBE TO FRIDAY EPISODES(Watch a 2-minute how-to video)THEN subscribe to Fridays here. TROUBLE WITH YOUR SUBSCRIPTION? Email: support@buzzsprout.comCONSULTING: Interested in doing individual or couples work with Valerie or a member of her trained team? Time-limited packages with Valerie and extended work with her team of coaches and therapists are available ⁠⁠here!⁠ SUPPORT GROUPS: Next support & processing group coming April 2025. To register/learn more, visit here.OFFICE HOURS FOR FRIDAY SUBSCRIBERS: Check your email for the invite to our next session on Mon, Feb 3rd at 2 p.m. Central!CLASSES: Visit our library.SUPPORT: Make a one-time donation to ⁠her business Venmo account⁠ or ...
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May 19, 2023 • 37min

122: On the LDS Faith Expansion Journey & the Painful Loss of Community

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 Support the show**More sensitive or more psychologically advanced themes are saved for paid Friday episodes to protect the content creators from being mischaracterized by less familiar consumers.**LEARN HOW TO SUBSCRIBE TO FRIDAY EPISODES(Watch a 2-minute how-to video)THEN subscribe to Fridays here. TROUBLE WITH YOUR SUBSCRIPTION? Email: support@buzzsprout.comCONSULTING: Interested in doing individual or couples work with Valerie or a member of her trained team? Time-limited packages with Valerie and extended work with her team of coaches and therapists are available ⁠⁠here!⁠ SUPPORT GROUPS: Next support & processing group coming April 2025. To register/learn more, visit here.OFFICE HOURS FOR FRIDAY SUBSCRIBERS: Check your email for the invite to our next session on Mon, Feb 3rd at 2 p.m. Central!CLASSES: Visit our library.SUPPORT: Make a one-time donation to ⁠her business Venmo account⁠ or ...

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