At Last She Said It

“Deconstruction doesn’t just happen to lazy learners,” says Jen Dille. “It's often the most true-blue Mormons and the people who are all in who have this experience.” In episode 233, Jen joins Susan and Cynthia for a conversation about her personal journey. It’s a story of old wheels coming off, and the new ones taking their place. “I dream of a time where we can each just have our own experience, and be okay with that, not be scared or threatened by it,” she explains. “If we could find other ways to be LDS and still come together, that's the dream.”

Diana Butler Bass wrote, “To belong is to be, for belonging is ultimately a question of identity: Who am I?” For many Latter-day Saint women, a place where they can just “be”—whoever and wherever they are right now—feels elusive. That’s what the ALSSI project aims to create: a community where women can speak honestly about the complexity of their church life and/or faith journey, feel seen and validated in their experience, and find support. Episode 232 explores ideas about spiritual sanctuary. What does it mean to create it for ourselves? And how can we provide it for others?

What triggered your faith journey? In this short bonus episode, more women from the ALSSI community share their answers!

“I can take as long as I need on the edge of the chasm of the unknown,” writes Jody England Hansen. “I can experience the terror of moving into the future for however long I feel it. I can turn again to the past if I choose to deal with that pain. I can create my future, choosing to step forward on a path that I might not see until I am in the next moment, the next place I step.” In Episode 230, Jody joins Cynthia and Susan to discuss approaching whatever’s next in our lives with active hope and love. She reminds us to “create reasons to create.” This is a conversation about mercy, grace, forgiveness, and our power to face the tragic gap and walk forward anyway.

How can we know if we’re getting it right when it comes to meeting others with empathy? “Empathy is a tool of compassion,” writes Brene Brown. “We can respond empathically only if we are willing to be present to someone’s pain. If we’re not willing to do that, it’s not real empathy.” We’re living now in a time and society where people actually talk about the sin of empathy. But for followers of Jesus—charged to mourn with and comfort others—how can being present to someone else’s pain ever wear the title of “sin?” In Episode 229, Cynthia and Susan take on empathy, exploring this hot-button word and a few of the familiar ideas related to it. Why does such a simple sounding principle sometimes feel clumsy or complicated when we try to put it into practice?

For many Latter-day Saint women, a faith journey begins as their personal experiences pile up and dots begin to connect. Abby Maxwell Hansen began to see a thread of internalized misogyny in her own story emerge like this: “Every time I went to church, I had some type of message—whether it was really overt or whether it was just sitting down at conference, and they didn't come out and say women's voices aren't as important, but all the speakers were men except for two. So whether it was implied or overtly stated, I got the message over and over that women are not as important as men.” In Episode 228, Abby joins Cynthia and Susan to share some of the experiences that shaped her church life beginning in childhood, and continue to inform her journey now.

What triggered your faith journey? In Bonus Episode 227, 10 women share their answers.

Sometimes it’s hard to untangle specific beliefs from our ideas about faith. Is struggling with church policies or doctrinal tenets an indictment of a Latter-day Saint woman’s faith? What does it even mean to have faith? And who gets to measure ours? In Episode 226, Cynthia and Susan take on a topic that comes up frequently for church members who find themselves on a journey of expansion or redefinition: Imposter Syndrome. It’s a conversation about faith vs. knowledge, Churchianity vs. Christianity, the place of doubt in a religious life, and finding hope by leaning into personal spiritual authority.

“I have always felt the gentle nature of Jesus being one of the most resonating parts of what I saw and knew as the gospel, and I always imagined Jesus speaking to me, saying, ‘Consider the lilies, how they grow, and they don't toil.' And my whole life ... I have been a toiler,” explains Kajsa Berlin-Kaufusi. “What if I wasn’t a planter at this time, and what if I was the field?” In Episode 225, Kajsa joins Susan and Cynthia for a conversation about being still. What kind of rejuvenative possibilities might exist when, for whatever reason, we find ourselves in what feels like a fallow stretch of life?

Maya Angelou said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” When things start to get shifty in your faith life, it can feel overwhelming and difficult to talk about, even with those closest to you. There are as many stories of evolving faith as there are Latter-day Saint women who experience them. For Season 10, Cynthia and Susan have asked listeners to share what started them on the journey they’re navigating now. In Episode 224, they explore some of those stories.