My kids all started school this week and I received the paperwork with the demands for scheduling and parent volunteer hours this semester in order for them to participate. It’s much more hectic than I anticipated and the craziness already began this week. As they are entering a busier and more demanding phase in their lives, I’m realizing I must e…

The primary developmental task your teen will go through, whether they grew up in high demand religion or not, is differentiation. Differentiation is a process all humans go through to establish an individual identity separate from their parents and authority figures. It is a process whereby we discover our values, our beliefs, our desires, and our…

Creating a sense of emotional safety in your home after high demand religion with teens is a little different than starting with young children. You’ve likely already established relationship patterns. And if it feels like your teen is closed off or won’t share their feelings and thoughts freely with you, there’s likely some work needed to heal tho…

Parenting after deconstructing high demand religion can feel daunting. Going from a system where you’re given a road map for how to raise your children to having to rely on both your inner guidance and the guidance your kids share with you can feel scary and confusing. Creating a parenting environment where you’re able to work alongside your kids t…

When we left Mormonism, we were terrified of what that would mean for our kids. It’s been 6 years of trusting ourselves as parents, trusting our kids input about what they want for their lives, and creating a dynamic parenting strategy together. While it has been far from perfect, we’re pleased with how things are going. This podcast is a conversat…

How do you even begin to create community for yourself after leaving high demand religion? In this episode, Communication Coach, Chris Peck and I explore how we can be intentional with the process, take cues from our relationship with ourselves, and lean into the sometimes awkward rehearsal process of practicing new ways of relating in community. _…

I’m so excited to have Chris Peck from Speak Into Action Communications back on the podcast to talk about the subconscious scripts we intentionally or reactively use in our relationships with others. In Part 1 of this episode we explore the difference between showing up intentionally versus showing up in a reactionary way. We also explore how the s…

I know you’ve heard it before and you’re going to hear it again at least one more time today. You’re not meant to be everyone’s cup of tea. Today we discuss the reality that you may fully accept who someone is and STILL not be compatible with their reality. It doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. It doesn’t mean something is wrong with them. I…

We all crave acceptance, but what does it really mean to accept someone? In this episode we discuss the pieces of acceptance everyone seems to agree on…and some of the problematic ideas around acceptance that lead to us feeling used, confused, and sometimes abused. We’ll then talk about how you can walk the line between accepting others and maintai…

Sharing our stories in a safe environment is an important step in healing from trauma. Often we engage in this important step with others who have experienced similar things in their past. When we tell our story and someone else says, “Me too! I get it. I’ve been through something similar” we feel seen, heard, and validated. This feeling can be bot…

As we’ve talked about healthy attachments, two words kept cropping up in conversations: Trauma Bonding. Many people used these words to describe the almost instant friendship between two people who have experienced the same trauma and can validate one another’s experience. However, this is known as “bonding over trauma”. (We’ll talk more about this…

Developing healthy interdependence with our partners, family, and friends is healthy and normal. Relationships where we feel free to both give and receive support and love can help us feel more emotionally stable and studies are showing that it can even help us live longer. But in our Western culture where independence is prized almost… Read More »…

Developing a safe, intimate connection with others can feel scary for those who are trying to reclaim a sense of personal identity after religious trauma or interpersonal codependency. In this episode, we discuss what healthy emotional co-regulation looks like and how we can set the stage for this powerful experience in our most important relations…

If you’ve been in a relationship with insecure attachment patterns, how do you begin practicing secure attachment? Licensed Professional Counselor and my husband, Kevin Hales, discusses the first three steps he shares with couples in his therapy room as well as practical examples of conflict resolution from our own marriage. _______________________…

In today’s episode, we explore the last of the 4 attachment styles and how high demand religion may have influenced our primary caregivers or us as children and how we relate with others. Disorganized Attachment Style, otherwise known as Fearful-Avoidant Attachment Style, is a unique combination of both Anxious and Avoidant behaviors. Today we talk…

If you have an avoidant attachment style, you may feel highly uncomfortable getting emotionally vulnerable with other people, which makes it difficult to create the deep connections you both crave and fear. On the one hand, you would love to feel the joy of connection with another special human but on the other hand, because… Read More »Emancipate …

If you have an anxious attachment style, you likely spend your time trying to people please, take care of the people around you, and in general try to win the love and connection you so desperately crave. But, you may worry that those you love don’t care about you as much as you care about… Read More »Emancipate Your Mind: 105: Anxious Attachment a…

Do you crave close relationships with others but find it hard to connect on a deep level? Do you often feel lonely or misunderstood? Do you worry deeply that those you love will abandon you? You are likely struggling with an insecure attachment style. For the next few episodes, we’re going to talk about what… Read More »Emancipate Your Mind: 104: W…

Have you ever thought about how high demand religion taught you to relate to and attach with God? Have you considered how your learned attachment style with the God you were taught to worship might have informed your childhood relationships and may still inform your relationships today? In this episode, Self-Trust Coach and Licensed Mental… Read Mo…

Often, some of the most difficult conflicts of values we’ll face is with the people we love the most. Many of us were taught through codependent patterns and practices that love means always agreeing with one another on the things that matter most. This kind of thinking is reinforced through scripture that tells us that… Read More »Emancipate Your …

Have you ever experienced that feeling of being pulled between two competing values? It can feel like you’re in the middle of a huge game of tug of war as you wrestle between two values that mean so much to you. No matter what you choose, it feels like you lose something important. Sometimes the… Read More »Emancipate Your Mind: 101: Calming Intern…

Everyday, you’re making choices about what to do with your limited time, money, attention, and energy. Every time you say “yes” to one thing, you’re effectively saying “no” to several other things you could be doing with those resources. If you’re spending your limited resources on things that don’t matter much to you, you’ll feel… Read More »Emanc…

Every day you are creating a life based on your set of personal values. Do you know which values are running the show? If I asked you today what top 5-7 principles are informing most of your priorities and decisions, would you be able to answer confidently? If your answer is no, you aren’t alone.… Read More »Emancipate Your Mind: 099: Which Childho…

The authenticity movement has brought us a lot of great opportunity to learn more about ourselves and free ourselves from situations that don’t feel healthy for us. On the flip side, with the authenticity movement has grown a binary way of thinking that is reminiscent of the high demand cultures we’ve worked so hard to… Read More »Emancipate Your M…

Authenticity has become a huge topic of conversation in the past couple of decades. While there is great freedom and personal guidance in getting curious about what does and does not feel good to us as individuals, there can also be a lot of confusion about what “being authentic’ means and even shame and fear… Read More »Emancipate Your Mind: 097: …

If you’ve ever felt like you’re at war with yourself as you go after the things you want and need in life, it’s probably because there are childhood parts of you that aren’t used to having their wants and needs heard, validated, and met. Giving yourself what you want and need as an adult can… Read More »Emancipate Your Mind: 096: Healing Childhood …

“I still feel like I’m not allowed to want anything. The voice in my head says I’m selfish, ridiculous, or dramatic whenever I try to access my needs.” “I feel like I’m at war with myself.” “Sometimes I think it was easier to convince myself I didn’t have any wants or needs because then I… Read More »Emancipate Your Mind: 095: Childhood Emotional N…

Transcript This year on the podcast, we’ll be talking about how to “fill the void” after deconstruction. But in order to do that in a healthy way that helps you operate as your own authority, recognize red flags, set boundaries, and avoid high demand relationships and groups, we have to spend some time building our… Read More »Emancipate Your Mind:…

Transcript Are you tired of trying to change thought and behavior patterns year after year only to end up ditching your resolutions and feeling even worse about it all by the first week in February? This isn’t happening because you’re weak, broken, or malfunctioning in some way. In fact, you’re operating exactly the way we’d… Read More »Emancipate …

Transcript In this Part 2 episode with Licensed Professional Counselor, Kevin Hales, we explore some of the first steps towards healing fragile masculinity. Kevin shares ideas about what men themselves can do to become aware of and heal subconscious programming about what it means to be a man. He also talks about how those of… Read More »Emancipate…

Transcript Patriarchal systems don’t just attempt to put women in their place, but also men. The system constructs a “box” that men must stay in to be considered “real men”. In this episode, my husband and Licensed Professional Counselor, Kevin Hales and I explore how limiting our ability to express ourselves as humans into stereotypical… Read More…

Transcript Have you ever wanted to speak up and either found it difficult to open your mouth or felt horrible afterwards? Have your found yourself downplaying your authority or your experience to make others more comfortable? Does it feel like even when you do speak up, no one really hears you? In this episode, life… Read More »Emancipate Your Mind…

Do you ever find yourself wanting to speak up, to change something about your life for the better, but find the words getting stuck in your throat? Do you ever notice yourself ignoring parts of yourself to make other people comfortable in an attempt to preserve a relationship? This episode focuses on some of the… Read More »Emancipate Your Mind: 08…

Transcript In this episode, Reiki master, podcaster and co-star of the recent Hulu documentary “Mormon No More”, Lena Osborne, talks about the importance of listening to the wisdom of your body that comes through emotions and physical sensations and how building a relationship with that feminine wisdom already inside of us can help us shed… Read Mo…

There is a prevalent myth, particularly in high demand religion, that there exists such a thing as an “ideal woman”. In Christianity, she is described in Proverbs 31. But this idea that there is a feminine “ideal” that women should strive for exists in religion from Islam to Hinduism. You’ve likely encountered this idea out… Read More »Emancipate Y…

Continuing the conversation from last week about Yahweh’s connection to a mother goddess, Asherah, we progress into how she was discredited and divorced in Genesis. We also talk about the cultural and societal context that may have prompted this divorce, codifying the patriarchy into religious text that was considered direct and irrefutable truth f…

Gerda Lerner, in her book, “The Creation of Patriarchy”, says that “patriarchy is a historical construct; it has a beginning, it will have an end.” if you grew up in Christianity, it may seem like fact that the heavens and Earth were created by a lone male god who created an order in which men… Read More »Emancipate Your Mind: 085: Remembering the …

Christianity and Patriarchy have a long history together, starting with the creation mythology in the first chapter of Genesis. While the scriptural text itself, whether you read it in the original Hebrew or any other translation, has some obvious though brief patriarchal references, it’s been the 2000+ years of male, mostly European, commentary on…

In part 2 of our discussion on interdependency, Kevin and I talk about the ground rules needed to create safe space for both parties to feel seen, heard, and validated in a healthy relationship. Kevin talks particularly about how curiosity and the desire to understand matter more than the actual words we say. When we… Read More »Emancipate Your Min…

Many times, those of us who are healing from relationships of codependence sometimes slingshot to the other side of the dependence spectrum into extreme independence. However, as Kevin mentions in this first part of our discussion, either extreme can be dangerous or hurtful to our sense of well being. In this first part of our… Read More »Emancipat…

Do you have someone in your life that you love dearly that tends to drive you crazy with their lack of self awareness and emotional intelligence, their inability to empathize, or their inability to resolve or even approach conflict? You’re likely dealing with an emotionally immature person. In this episode, we explore why many of… Read More »Emanci…

This month has been a dumpster fire in the LDS and ex-LDS communities as we’ve watched the LDS church respond to allegations that they’ve been covering up child sexual abuse. Since the Associated Press investigation broke, my Licensed Professional Therapist husband and I haven’t been able to stop reading and researching and discussing what we’ve… R…

The final type of narcissism that you’re most likely to run into in high demand religion is the vulnerable narcissist. This type of narcissist will often seem like the perpetual victim of life circumstances. They’ve had a rough life and they need YOU to save them. Their narcissistic supply is the pity and sympathy of… Read More »Emancipate Your Min…

High demand religions often teach us to deny ourselves and spent our lives in the service of others. While service because we’re passionate about a cause and care about making the world a better place can be a beautiful part of expressing our humanity, when coupled with the idea that we’re not allowed to have… Read More »Emancipate Your Mind: 078: …

If you were raised in a high demand religion that prized unquestioning obedience even if it harmed you or someone you cared about, believed that your faith was “the one truth”, and that taught you that your purpose was to convince or save others from the errors of their ways, you were likely groomed to… Read More »Emancipate Your Mind: 077: Spiritu…

Before we embark on a series exploring covert narcissism in high demand religion, I think it’s important we address one of our collective biggest fears: Are we all just a bunch of narcissists? In today’s episode, we discuss how you can recognize the basic traits that all clinical narcissists have and questions you can ask… Read More »Emancipate You…

In this last installment of our 4 part discussion we explore one final possibility for why it can be so hard for us to rest and relax guilt and anxiety free: we’re trying to avoid our difficult emotions. In order to rest and recover, we have to put away our work and embrace the quiet.… Read More »Emancipate Your Mind: 075: Numbing Your Emotions wit…

This week we dig further into why so many of us continue to work even when our bodies and minds are begging with us to rest. One possible reason may be a pattern called “Insecure Overachievement”. Insecure overachievement is a behavior pattern we use to get validation, approval, and to fill self-worth wounds. Because our… Read More »Emancipate Your…

Over the past couple of years, we’ve collectively taken several hits to our nervous system. When that happens, sometimes we get stuck in a pattern of “fight or flight”, constantly on alert for the next threat. In this episode, we talk about how the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems operate and complement one another during… Read More …

Have you ever felt guilt or anxiety when you try to rest, relax, or go on vacation? Do you sometimes feel driven to be productive, even when you’re exhausted mentally or physically? In this series we’ll explore some of the common reasons individuals find themselves unable to be fully present when resting. In this episode,… Read More »Emancipate You…