June 1, 2022 • 45 mins
Terina had an unique experience leaving the church. Going from devout Mormon to reading the Gospel Topic Essay's and two weeks later crying in her bishops office knowing she was being done.
Join me as I have a beautiful conversation with Terina, who is a life coach, as she shares some valuable tools that assisted her in her transition out of Mormonism.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:05):
Hello, hello, hello, I'm excited to have another
guest today, it's been a minute.
And before we dive in you guys,my book is life, leaving
religion a guide, find yourspiritual center after leaving
religion, this book is one thathas been such a beautiful gift
to create, because I have donesome deeper healing as I was
(00:27):
writing this book, especiallywhen I was reading about sacred
sexuality, and about shame. Someof those pieces that I was
writing about, I got to do somedeep healing within myself. So
that was quite a gift. And thatis now life 1333, if you've ever
wanted to work with me, butcan't quite afford it, this is a
really beautiful way to do yourown work on your own at your own
(00:50):
pace. And using tools that Ioffer. It's a simple book. And
so far, the comments and thefeedback that I've gotten with
the book are just powerful. Thisis a book to help you know that
you're not alone in yourjourney, and that you can do
this, you've got this. And letme help you through this book
with moving moving through theplaces within you that are
(01:13):
asking me to move through. Soyou can find this book on
Amazon, I will provide the linkdown below or go on Amazon
search, leaving religion andthose we leave behind with my
name and you will find it. Andwithout further ado, let's dive
into my next interview. Well,welcome to Rena, you ready?
(01:33):
Ready, you're ready and readyand willing, I have another
willing victim what I feel aboutI've kind of like put the
podcasts on the side, like onthe back burner for a minute.
And it's been calling me andcalling me. So it's like, Oh,
I'm so glad I get to startinterviewing again. Because I do
love this. So thank you forjoining me.
(01:56):
You are welcome. Thanks forhaving me. I'm excited to be
here with you.
I'm curious, and you didn't knowI was gonna ask you this
question. I'm curious what waswhat was the poll to like, you
know what, I really want toshare my story on your podcast.
Why? What was that for you?
Well, one of the reasons is justI believe, in general that
(02:16):
sharing our stories is one ofthe biggest ways we can get rid
of the shame that surroundsthem. And so I'm all about like,
Let's get together, let's shareour stories. Let's get wrong
real. And also I do lifecoaching. And one of the things
I do is help empower people tobe able to share their stories
(02:37):
to get comfortable with thephysical sensations that arise
with that to really be able to,you know, have boundaries around
themselves and where they are.
So I love that yay, well, cool,we're gonna, we're gonna totally
get into that. I'm glad youbrought up shame, because shame
is one of the things that's justfascinating that we carry. So
rampant in our society,especially within religion and
(03:00):
shame blocks us from reallyaccessing our God, our, our God,
given rights and gifts and somany different pieces. So I'm
glad you brought up that shamepiece because it's huge.
It really is. It's a big blockfor many people and being able
to overcome so many things inlife.
(03:21):
Right? Yeah. Yeah, if we canjust get rid of the shame. We'd
be like, Oh, this is so mucheasier that we can move through
us righthere in our own heads that that
was a bad decision. Not I'm abad person.
Right, right. You're like, oh,maybe I don't want to choose
that again. And this is what ittaught me and I'm okay with
that. Let's move forward.
(03:43):
Yes, that's our humanity andthen learn from it.
Yeah. So tell me what is yourstory? Were you born and raised
in and were you what religionwere you?
So I was born and raised in theLDS church. of the Mormon
generation. I did the I'm aMormon campaign. Yes. And so on
(04:04):
my dad's side of the family, wego way back to pioneers crossing
the plains. I've had storiestold of my ancestors in general
conference. My mom was aconvert. So I had kind of both
aspects of that from a coolfamily. Yeah.
So you were born and raised inthat and in Utah or Arizona? So
you're in Arizona now? Yeah. InArizona. Oh, wearing Arizona,
(04:28):
like Gilbert, or?
No. So I was raised in Prescott,which it's grown quite a bit,
but at the time, it was a prettysmall town. And so when it came
to most things, and definitelyincluding church, like the
progressiveness was definitelydelayed and a little slower.
(04:51):
Oh, that's cool. So did you havea lot of growing up? Did you
have a lot of friends that wereMormon? What was that like for
you growing up?
Pretty much all of my friendswere within my ward. Because
that's where our social circlelied, or was was just within our
ward.
Yeah. So how was did you enjoybeing Mormon as a youth as a
(05:12):
kid?
Yeah, I would. I would say as akid, I didn't know any
difference. And so it was. Itwas good. I enjoyed primary, I
enjoyed Young Women's. I grew upwith a dad who has mental
disorders. He's been diagnosedwith narcissistic personality
disorder and bipolar. And sothere was quite a bit of abuse
(05:35):
that happened in our home. Andso young women activities and
church community, that was mysafe space. And that was a
refuge away from the chaotic.
Not so safe home. Hmm,yeah. So that had to be a gift
for you back then. Well, that'sbeautiful that you had, and that
would be challenging to have afather with those issues. I
guess. I don't like to label.
(05:59):
But yeah, that would bechallenging, for
sure. Very much. So.
Do you have a relationship withhim now?
I don't. And it's been manyyears. And it was a hard
decision to come to, I thinkthere's a little bit of a
misconception when people chooseto end a relationship with a
(06:22):
family member that it's justthis willy nilly, like, well,
they may be mad, and so I'm notgoing to talk to them anymore.
When really what it was wasyears of trying to have a
healthy relationship years oftrying to have healthy
boundaries that were notrespected. And yeah. So then the
boundary became, we're not,we're not in contact anymore,
(06:43):
ya know, and it's the same thingwithin the Mormon Church, right?
A lot of people when you stepout of it think it's just like
this. Oh, okay. I'm done. You'relike, oh, no, this took a while
for me to get here.
Yes, and no. So I think mystory, it's not completely
unique. I know other peoplewho've had very similar
(07:04):
experiences, but it was a matterof weeks for me, like two weeks
from being 100% all in servingin the Relief Society
presidency, like attending thetemple every other week, like
that kind of Mormon to like,sobbing in my Bishop's office,
because I found the gospel topicessays and it all just crumbled
and fell apart. And so withintwo weeks, it was all into, I
(07:29):
can't Nope, this is all a lie.
We can't do this anymore.
Yeah. Was your were you marriedat the time?
Yes, I was married then marriednow. So I'm, I'm really grateful
for the way our journey out whenit's because I know that it's
really caused division amongstso many marriages and families.
And I feel really thankful thatI was really upfront from the
(07:52):
get go, once I started findinginformation that was unsettling.
And I shared that with him rightaway. And then we kind of went
on the journey together, justexploring, basically the
foundations of Mormonism and thetruth of where it all stems
from.
Will you talk a little bit moreabout that? What like, how did
(08:13):
you come to find these? I don'tknow that. I've actually heard
of him. What did you call themthe gospel? What did you say
that theywere the gospel topic essays?
I've not heard of these. Isn'tthat interesting? You think I've
heard all of the things by now,but I haven't heard of that.
Well, letme enlighten you. Yeah, it
actually started. It startedwith a book called The saints,
which, since there's so muchinformation available, the CES
(08:36):
Letter, all these things thechurch is having to kind of
combat that with the truth, butin whitewashed, Faith promoting
ways. And so the book, thesaints had quite a bit of stuff
that I had never heard before.
But I faithfully thought, well,there's got to be answers that
(08:57):
explain it all. And it will makesense and I had remembered
hearing about the gospel topicessays. And I went to those
which did explain things in alittle bit more depth, but it
didn't provide answers that madethings feel good and okay. But
they're basically just essaysthat the church has put together
to provide information. Youknow, about Joseph Smith's
(09:23):
multiple first visions, thestone and a hat, blacks and the
priesthood. Just differentthings that have been very
difficult for people when theyfind them out. And they try and
present it in a pretty littlepackage to make it look okay. Mm
hmm.
And so it was the church thathad created these so you were
(09:45):
curious, diving in andyes, they are on lds.org right
there. You can even read them inyour your Oh, shoot, what's it's
called? It's been a while now,like your gospel Library app
where you can read yourscriptures there. Yeah. Oh,
Oh, that's interesting. So asyou started diving into these,
and your husband did the same,what was it that just was like,
(10:06):
this isn't? I can't do thisanymore. What was that for you?
Well, it's hard to pinpoint onething specifically when you find
so much information in such ashort period of time. But I, I
will say, I think the biggestthing for me was really how
(10:26):
polygamy worked. And seeing thatit just was red flag after red
flag of behavior of a sexualpredator. And then I got to the
story of oh, shoot, I forgot hername, the 14 year old. There was
(10:47):
a few, I know. But it was just,it was nothing but sexually
predatory behavior. And I wasjust like, God would not use a
sexual predator. A prophet wouldnot be a sexual predator. This
is not. No, like, I can'tsupport this. Yeah. So I think
(11:11):
being the sexually predatorythemes of polygamy was just I
couldn't accept that. Yeah.
Yeah, that is hard. Andespecially when when some of the
A lot of that's kind of sweptunder the rug of, well, that's
just what was done back then. Orthat's what God commanded, you
know, Joseph Smith, or whoeverto do to practice, you do have
(11:35):
to question if that wasn't justa way for whoever that was that
person that was that had thosesexual desires or sexual
appetites, to try and justifytheir behavior? And yeah, I,
man, this, this is the one topicin the inside of the Mormon
(11:57):
religion, that when I was calledto do this podcast, and receive
the download, I get to do thispodcast, you know, without
animosity without anger without,you know, and could I sit in
that space and do that, becausethere's good in all things. And
I had to sit with that for alittle while. And you know, if
you've heard my story, you know,that it took me I then had this
(12:17):
other layer of the patriarchypiece that I had to go clear for
me like I had to heal somepieces there. But this is the
one topic with this sexual abusethat happens within the Mormon
church that I'm very aware ofthat this kind of leads into a
little bit and we don't have todive into it. But this is one
thing. That's, that's difficult.
There's a lot of religioussects, SCC T 's, that practice
(12:38):
sexual ascetic rituals, and Ibelieve more than Mormon
religion is one of those. And itis an interesting thing to dive
into, and one that's hard todigest, and be okay with, and
obviously, we're not okay withit, right? We're not in that
anymore. Anyway, this justbrings up that topic a little
(13:03):
bit. So I guess I'm going therefor a second. So I don't blame
you. And I'm glad that you sawwhat you saw, because most
people don't, or they want tojustify it. Or I have a friend
that like, you know, there's noproof that Joseph Smith actually
had multiple wives. It didn'thave there's no other children
outside of Emma. And I'm like, Idon't know enough to to say
otherwise. But it is been in theMormon church, it has been
(13:26):
practiced, not just with JosephSmith, there have been others.
So, right. And if you, I don'taccept that, and I don't agree
with that. But if you wanted tothen just move on to the next
one. Brigham Young was a prettyawful person.
He was a racist, and all sortsof lovely things. Yes. Yes. He
(13:49):
was man. You know, he was a manthat suppose he was called a
god. It's like, okay. Yeah. Allright, the
God that I believe in would notsupport or endorse or enable
that type of abuse.
Yeah. Right. The the Mormon,White Melt version of God is
really fascinating, right? Whathas your god shifted into since
(14:13):
you've left? Has he changed? Orshe changed?
Yeah, they've changed. I don't.
So you know, this journey from ahighly structured, high demand
religion, to exploring your ownspirituality is a little bit
scary, because you've been fedand had all the answers your
(14:33):
entire life. And so then whenyou step out of that, you're
like, where do I go? What do Ibelieve? Is it all or nothing?
There was a moment in my headwhere, you know, like, atheism
popped in, and that wasdevastating to think about. It
didn't really feel right. And I,you know, I had had experiences
that made me think, oh, probablynot, but I definitely You don't
(14:58):
believe in an intervening Godthat's up there playing puppet
master and helping you find yourkeys while allowing this child
who's praying to be saved fromchildhood sexual abuse to remain
in that environment, right?
Like, that doesn't align with meeither. And so I don't have all
the answers. But I will say thatI'm very comfortable with the
(15:20):
unknown. I do feel that we'reconnected, I do feel there's
something greater than us outthere. But it's still a journey.
And I love that I can say thatmy beliefs are fluid, like, no,
maybe reincarnation feels good.
And I kind of like the idea ofthat. But I'm not gonna sit here
and say I believe inreincarnation? Because I don't
(15:40):
know, there's no way for me toprove that. But that was that
was kind of nice.
Why not? I've had memories ofpast lives. So I believe very
much in the fact that we havemultiple lives. But it is that
old saying, right? The older weget, or the more the more we
learn, the more we understand,we don't know that yet saying, I
(16:03):
wholeheartedly believe thatanything, could we fix a and fix
to something so strongly, itdoesn't give space for other
possibilities to come in? And inmy experience, I am always
learning something new everyday. I'm like, hi, I haven't
considered that. Maybe that's apossibility. You know, yes. Have
you ever? Have you ever heard ofthe Christ letters?
(16:25):
I don't think I've heard thoseactually.
So this is a I think it was achanneled. I think, I don't
know, a friend of mine sent itto me a while ago, and it's on
YouTube. And it goes intotalking about God and how
interesting it is that we wouldbelieve that a god there would
be a god that would do exactlywhat you're talking about, oh,
(16:46):
well, this person all all givethis, but this person I'm not,
they're gonna have to go throughthis shit, because they're
strong enough to handle thattrial. Or over here, I'm going
to create floods. And over here,I'm going to create a tsunami
over here. Like that is not anunconditional God. And what you
know, it's possible thatcollectively we as an organism,
(17:08):
in a society, you know, in somesay, in Alpine, Utah, where I
live, there's just so much angerand hate and everybody's just
angry, like, is it possible thatthat just that energy would then
create an earthquake? The Earthwould respond to that, like, is
it possible, we're creating thewars, we're creating all these
things that has nothing to dowith God? And I'm like, You know
what, I believe that a lot morethan a god that's like, your
(17:32):
good your bad. Earthquake, fire,tsunami, holy shit, you know,
right. Yes. And so when peopleask, oftentimes, I just say, My
religion is love, and my God islove. And that is what I let
guide my life.
Yeah, I love that. So how wasyour transition out? You said,
you went from like, two weeksbeing totally into two weeks
(17:54):
later, crying in your bishopsoffice, like, holy crap. I can't
support this. What what did thatlook like for you? And how was
it with your husband, yourchildren?
It was really hard. It wasreally hard to have your entire
foundation just ripped away so,so quickly. And it brought up so
(18:16):
many things of how am I going tomake it through this, I remember
there was one experience, it waslike, right at that, that very
beginning of our transitionwhere we weren't going to church
for the first time ever. And Ididn't know what was going on
with anything. And I just cryingin the shower, just just crying.
(18:37):
And I started to pray, I startedto say to your heavenly Father,
and I just started sobbing,because I'm like, I don't even
know that there is a God thathears and answers prayers. Yeah.
And it was like, how am I goingto make it through this hardest
thing that I've ever facedwithout all the tools that have
gotten me through the hardestthings that I've ever had. And
(19:00):
then I just had this moment of arealization that if it's not
true now, if a loving HeavenlyFather doesn't exist now, then
he didn't before when you madeit through all of those other
things. And that means that youhave always had the strength
within you to get throughthings. And that is still there,
(19:22):
and you will get through this.
And so that was a reallypowerful moment for me to kind
of reclaim my own power. Oh,yeah. And to acknowledge that
maybe I was given credit to havesomething that I didn't need to
and really the strength tosurvive. All the things that
I've survived was really withinmyself the whole time. So that
(19:44):
was a really powerful moment forme.
That is very powerful. What abeautiful awareness that you had
pretty quick. That's, that'sbeautiful.
Yeah. And so with my husband Andlike I said, we went on this
journey together. And so itreally brought us closer
(20:05):
together, as you know, difficultthings often do in
relationships. And so that wasreally great. My two oldest
children are on the autismspectrum, my oldest had already
been baptized, and they're veryinto routine. And so it was
difficult to have this huge lifechange. And we had tried going
(20:26):
to, I thought, we've gone tochurch their whole lives, let's
just keep going to church, let'sexplore some non denominational
Christian churches around us.
And it was honestly traumaticfor me, I'd be sitting there and
I would just start crying andnot in I've been touched by the
Spirit sort of way, but justjust feeling so lost. So alone,
(20:46):
like this doesn't resignate Idon't feel comfortable here. And
then I learned a little bitabout religious trauma syndrome.
And that made more sense.
Do you want to speak to that fora minute? For those guests who
haven't heard of that before?
Yes, because it really washelpful for me to see
(21:07):
information about what I wasexperiencing. So religious
trauma syndrome, is basicallyyou've been traumatized in the
same way that you might be ifyou were in a really bad car
accident, if you were sexuallyassaulted. If you were in a an
abusive relationship, that sameamount of trauma can come from
(21:27):
losing your belief system,losing your community, all of
those things can can createtraumatic experience, feelings
and experiences for you. And sowhen people think that you're
just leaving, and it's so easy,and you're just not following
(21:48):
the rules, right, there's a lotof unawareness into what really
happens, because it can truly bea traumatic experience where you
can have a difficulty with yourday to day tasks, you can feel
overwhelmed. For me, there wasthoughts of, I wouldn't say
suicidal ideation, butdefinitely thoughts of I just
(22:11):
don't want to be here anymore,because this is so hard. Yeah.
And, and that's a really sad andscary place to be. Because it's
just so heavy and so hard. Man,wouldn't it just be nice to just
not wake up in the morning?
Because this is awful. It's toomuch. Yes. And so a lot of the
same tools that I've used toovercome trauma, and traumatic
(22:36):
experiences in my past, I wasable to quickly pull into place
once I was like, wait a minute,this isn't just hard. This is
trauma that I'm experiencingagain. And so I felt like I was
kind of able to navigate itfairly quickly. And a little,
and I don't want to say that itwas easy, but a little bit more
(22:56):
easily than some other peoplebecause I had knowledge of, of
tools for navigating traumaalready.
Yeah. Oh, I love that. That's sogreat. So with your kids, so you
stopped doing that you weregoing to different churches, I
assumed you stopped because itwas too much.
Yes, we stopped and I said to myhusband, let's just go on hikes
(23:17):
on Sunday morning. And so we useSundays as our family hike time,
I would find a person that had astory that taught a value that I
wanted to teach my kids and Ishare the story of this person,
we talked about them and whatthey did that we liked, and how
can we be like that in ourlives? Have you ever had an
experience where you've showedcourage or kindness or integrity
(23:41):
in that way, and that was reallybeautiful for a while, and then
living in Arizona summer hit andit was too hot. And and we
haven't really done that. Butit's been really nice to see
them have their own agency inbeliefs. If they come to me with
any sort of religious orspiritual questions. I don't
(24:04):
tell them what to think anymore.
I tell them, Well, some peoplethink this or I feel like this,
what do you think? Or, you know,you get to figure out for
yourself what, what that meansto you or what you want to
believe. And my son who's goingon 13 has said that he thinks
that all religion is just a wayfor people to get money. There's
(24:26):
just a little bit of truth tothat. But I don't try and tell
him. He needs to believeanything. I just say well,
that's an interesting thought.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I love that you're doingthat because I think that
younger we can teach our kids toself reference and to turn
(24:46):
internally for those troops andthose answers the word doing
them a huge service, and thenthey in turn, do a huge service
to everyone else. I love thatyou're doing that. So how would
as As you have transitioned out,how long has it been now?
So it was three years at thebeginning of this year. So we're
(25:07):
Yeah. Over three years. Awesome.
So what have you found? That hashelped you with moving out? You
said, you moved quickly? Whatwere some of the things that
were really useful to you as youare moving out? And is there
I'll just ask that questionfirst.
What were some of the thingsthat were helpful? Finding new
community as quickly aspossible?
(25:29):
How did you find that?
So I reached out to the peoplethat I personally knew who had
left the church, because we allknow people who've left. And I
got together and I went tolunch, and I cried to them, they
just loved me and supported me.
And I got connected with a localFacebook group for women in
(25:53):
Arizona. And they had events andI went to events, and I met
people that I'd never metbefore, and made those
connections. And I quicklyrealized that some of the
feelings within the post Mormoncommunity, were not what I
wanted to continue to alignwith. And I'm gonna say, anger
(26:15):
is a valid and needed part ofthe process of leaving, like, I
definitely was angry, and I wasbitter about some things, but I
didn't want to stay there. Andso I tried to move through that
as quickly as possible. And Istill have things that will
trigger me and make me angry ifI learn them about things that
(26:35):
are going on. But that's notwhere I want to stay. And so I
also, we really reached out toour community, like our
neighborhood where we physicallylive, and just said, Hey, we
would love to get together andyou know, have some people over
for drinks? Or does anybody wantto come to trivia at this
(26:56):
restaurant, and we just made avery conscious effort to get to
know the people within ourphysical community as well. And
so as we found people at both inthe post Mormon community who
are happy to be thriving, likewe have that connection, but
that's not all we talk about, wejust get together. And we're,
we're just normal people. And aswe've built community with
(27:20):
people, who've never been morethan it's been really helpful to
have that support. So I wouldsay, finding community as
quickly as possible, whereveryou can, is going to be huge.
And like we kind of talked aboutat the beginning, like, don't be
afraid to share your story,because I feel like, the more
(27:41):
you can speak it, the more ithelps you to heal from it. And
so it's been my honor to sitwith people who've been more
recently out and just hold spacefor them as they're in that
grief and that anger and to tellthem, it gets better. I promise
it gets better. Yes. And then Ithink another thing that's
(28:05):
really been helpful is to tryand start trusting yourself
again. That was something thatwas huge for me, like, how could
I have been so deceived? Howcould I have spent my whole life
wrapped up in this? And as Ithought about it, I was like,
but Terina, you had thosenudges, there were things that
you knew, just weren't right,but you put it on a shelf, you
(28:28):
ignored that you doubted yourdoubts, you trusted that
everything would be explained inthe next slide. So it's not that
I was totally deceived, and Ihad no idea. I just followed
what I had been told to do, butstopping mechanisms to stay
active. And so acknowledgingwhere I had been able to see
(28:51):
that the truth and some thingsand just getting to learn how to
hear my own intuition, to trustmyself to make my own decisions.
That really was was a big thingfor me to help me as I kind of
transitioned out.
Yeah. How do you feel likebecause most people that have
(29:14):
left, they they don't even knowhow to start doing that? Is
there something that you wouldgive as far as advice for
somebody who's like, that'sgreat, and I don't even know how
to start doing that.
So this ties into self care,which I think is really
essential for our happiness. Onething that I try and do and I
(29:39):
help my clients to do in mycoaching is sit down every
morning and ask yourself what isone thing you need today? And do
it in the morning don't plan itout the night before because
maybe the night before you'relike, I'm gonna go exercise and
that's gonna be self care forthe day but then you wake up and
you just feel called and old tojust instead of going to the gym
(30:00):
him in the morning, sit on thepatio and enjoy your cup of
coffee. Like, just trustyourself that you know what you
need. And that's one way, it'sas simple as just saying, What
do I need today? Maybe you needto clean your room, maybe you
need to binge a show, you willknow and trust that. And then
(30:22):
just like journaling can bereally helpful. Like, ask
yourself a question. And thenjust journal out your answer,
just free flow stream ofconscious writing. And sometimes
you'll be like, where did thatcome from? And to realize, well,
that maybe that where that camefrom is my own intuition.
(30:43):
Yeah. Oh, I love that. Those areall really, really good, good
tools. How is your husband?
How's he navigated leaving anydifferently than you?
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And I will saythat, even though initially, it
brought us closer together asyou completely deconstruct your
whole belief and rebuild whatyou believe in, like, there's
(31:06):
been some things we're we're notas aligned as we were before.
And that's maybe caused a littlebit of friction sometimes. But
for him, it's, I feel like it'sbeen a little bit easier. For
me, it was like, my whole worldjust fell apart. I got figured
out the whole world again. Andfor him, it was like, awesome.
We don't have to follow and notin the way that some members
(31:28):
talk about, but like, it's beena little bit easier. I'm like,
Okay, well, we don't have tofollow these rules anymore. So,
yeah. Like, I feel like it'ssent me on this deep spiritual
journey. And he's just kind ofcontent where he is.
Well, that's good. I know. Menand women are so different with
how they choose to navigatethings. So that's why I was
curious if it was different forhim versus you.
(31:50):
Yeah, I feel like it has beendifferent because I've
questioned everything abouteverything. And he's just like,
oh, we'll kind of figure it out.
It's okay.
So is your family like yourextended family? Are they still
Mormon?
Um, oh, yes. And no, um, myfamily. On my dad's side, they
(32:14):
go back to pioneer stocks. Soalmost all of my extended family
is still okay. Yeah, sorry. Iknow, you're
so you're good. Tech, nottechnology sometimes is lovely.
Right. You were saying? So onyour dad's side of the family,
Pioneer stocks, and most of themare still in, right.
(32:35):
Yes. And then on my mom's sideof the family, she's got like
one sister, that's a member andthen that's pretty much it.
Yeah.
So how has little How have theybeen with you guys leaving.
Um, one of my husband's aunt. Soit was shortly after we left, it
(32:58):
was the first like, worldwideday. So my husband took a
picture of a wine bottle and waslike happy wine Day, everybody.
Really messaged him that he senther to the hospital with his bad
decisions. And she's havingheart problems now, because it's
so awful. So that was oneexperience that we
(33:20):
had. Oh, my goodness, you'relike, well, that has nothing to
do with me. Sowe're Oh, shoot. Right. Right.
But we've definitely felt thecovert shunning that happens
within the church, we went tothe first big family holiday
last Thanksgiving, and nobodyreally talked to us. And so we
(33:44):
felt that there's definitely aseparation that has happened.
Have you guys navigated that?
Sometimes family is who youchoose and not blood. And just
realize that just feel thathurt, and feel that loss and
(34:08):
feel that sorrow? Becausethere's a lot of that? And then
and then let that go and leaninto the love of people that are
there for us.
Yeah. You mentioned boundariesearly on in the in our call, I
would imagine that you havecreated some boundaries that are
pretty strong within familydynamics.
(34:29):
Yeah. So my mother in lawshortly after we left, and to no
fault of her own, it's whatshe's been taught to do was
trying to send us articles andfight us to things and so I
just, I believe that boundariesshould be should be set with
love. And so I always try andacknowledge where they're coming
(34:51):
from, because I know her and Iknow she's a good person, and I
know exactly where she's comingfrom because I've been there.
Right? You know, like Iunderstand And that you love us
and you care for us. And you'rejust trying to share things from
a space of love. I want you tounderstand that what it feels
like is you not trusting us tomake our own decisions. Also, I
(35:12):
shared an article with her aboutwhat religious trauma was
because I was kind of in thedepths of that, and I shared,
like, this kind of informationis actually really triggering
for me right now. And so I needfor you to just not share these
things with us and to respect usand where we are. And she hasn't
sent me anything since she hasinvited me. Which is great.
(35:36):
So yeah, oh, that's really good.
Did she respond when you saidthat? Or did she just not
respond?
She just did not respond.
Sometimes noresponse is the best response,
right? Because you're like, Idon't want to get into an
argument over this. I don't wantto get into a conversation. It's
just, sometimes that's the bestresponse, you're like, great.
(35:56):
Right, and I had an uncle whoI'm on Facebook, anytime I would
share anything about my personalexperience with leaving the
church. So not like me attackingthe church, not sharing other
people bashing the church, likemy own personal experience, he
would get on and he wasn'tnecessarily like, aggressive,
(36:18):
but it was always he's defendingthe church. And it was very
invalidating of me and myexperience and my opinions. And
so I tried over and over, totell him what it means to hold
space for somebody, what itmeans to love somebody
unconditionally, even if youdon't agree with their beliefs,
(36:40):
to try and help him. Like, thisis how I need support. I
understand you don't agree withme, that's totally fine. I
respect you and your beliefs,but I need you to not come on
here. And tell me that Ishouldn't be saying these
things. Yeah. And finally, hedid it again, just a few months
ago, and I thought, I've givenhim lots, lots of help to try
(37:03):
and know how to support me, I'vetried to establish boundaries,
like this is not what I wouldlike our interactions to be when
I share this type ofinformation. And so I just sent
him a message. And I said, Ilove keeping in touch with you
and what's going on with yourfamily. But I feel like maybe
being connected on Facebook isnot the best thing for our
relationships. So please reachout via email, you have my phone
(37:25):
number, feel free to call ortext anytime. But we're not
going to be connected onFacebook anymore. I love you,
I'll hopefully hear from yousoon.
Good, good for you. And now Idon't
have to worry about somebody,you know, being an invalidating
passive aggressive. When I whenI share about my personal
(37:48):
experience.
I know social media is such atricky place because we put
everything on display. So thenwe are opening up for any
comments to be said. And thenthere are those places of you
know, and you don't need to bein my circles on my social
media, because that I know thatme sharing this is helpful to me
and helpful to others. And yeah,I love that. I love that you've
(38:11):
done that. I think that that'sbeautiful. What, um, so you're a
life coach? Yes, who do youmainly work with?
I've seen quite a few differentpeople from different
backgrounds. I've definitelyworked with people who are
leaving their religion, orleaving abusive relationships,
(38:35):
just who are ready to step intofinding themselves and owning
their lives. So that's been someof the clients that I've worked
with, and that I've seen arepeople that are really just
ready to start owning themselvesand their lives, and step out of
the box that they were told thatthey need to live in. So helping
(38:59):
empower people to find theirvoices to learn how to set
boundaries, to learn how to carefor themselves, because a lot of
times in high demandrelationships, whether it's a
religion or any otherrelationship, you don't put
yourself first and constantlyput others or an organization
(39:20):
before your own needs. And sojust learning to overcome that
tendency and put yourself firstand what that really feels like
and how empowering that can beand how that can just have a
domino effect that just canchange how you how you look at
life in general. So I justreally love working with people
who are ready to who are readyto take that step to really make
(39:43):
those changes.
Awesome. How? Go ahead, sorry. Iwas just gonna say regardless
of where they're coming from,like whatever you're wanting to
step out of, like, let's do itand I'll help you help you
navigate that with a little bitof confidence and I Love for
yourself.
Oh, I love that. So they wantedto get in touch with you what's
(40:04):
the best way to connect withyou?
Um, so I'm on all the socialmedia channels.
Okay, well, I'll make sure andput them on the show notes so
that they can reach out ifthey're interested in working
with you.
Yeah, they can find me. You canconnect with any of those
through my website, which isjust Terina maldonado.com. But I
(40:24):
am also on Facebook, Instagram,Tik Tok. So,
all the places, that's awesome.
So, one kind of just to wrap up,if you could give, say someone's
listening, and they're reallystruggling right now, just in
general with leaving, andthey're in that place that you
had talked about with, you know,it feels too much, and I just
want to be done. What advice? Orwhat thoughts would you love to
(40:47):
offer someone who's just reallyin the depths of losing and
unraveling the constructsthey've been in.
Give yourself grace, like youare being so courageous, it may
not feel like it, it might feellike you're just clawing your
way through every single day.
But even in just doing that,you're exhibiting great courage.
(41:11):
So acknowledge that withinyourself, and give yourself
grace and just know that it doesget better and it is worth it.
And the fact that you arewilling to let go of so much,
and to explore what that meansfor you. And your life is huge.
It is so big, and it is sobrave. And it is so wonderful.
(41:36):
Like you right now are on yourhero's journey. You're just in
the thick of it. So hold on,your hero's journey is going to
be beautiful.
Keep going. I love it. Oh, thankyou. Was there anything you
would love to? To add or to saybefore we end?
(41:58):
This anything else? We've had areally great conversation. So
Ha, okay, great, thanks.
Well, beautiful. Well, I willmake sure I tie I add your
different ways that they anybodycan get in touch with you if
they're interested. And yeah,it's been great to connect with
you, Trina.
Yes, thank you so much for thisconversation. It's been
(42:19):
beautiful.
I love these conversations. It'sso fun. They're so fun. Well,
thank you so much.
Thank you for joining us today.
I so loved the tools that Trinaoffered. And if you're curious
in finding more about her, youcan go follow her on her social
(42:40):
media sites. I will post thelinks down below, or find her on
our website. Terina malMaldonado. And again, you can
find that down below in the showlinks. Trina actually was also a
co author of a book fear tofreedom stories of triumph after
leaving a high control religion.
(43:01):
And I will provide that linkdown below as well. And don't
forget to snag my book a leadingreligion a guide to finding
yourself after religion andcoming back to your spiritual
center. This is a beautifulbook, you can find it on Amazon.
And in addition to that, ifyou're not if you're kind of
further on in your journey, butyou're wanting a little bit more
(43:23):
tools, I have something that Iwould love to provide it for you
if you head to my website,Amanda joy loveland.com forward
slash leaving religion tools,you will find a series of guided
meditations that assists you in,in releasing the old holdings to
God to Jesus to the Godhead toordinances and all the pieces
(43:46):
that you have bound yourselfwith in religion, these guided
meditations are really reallypowerful to releasing those
places within. So you can headover there, go grab that bundle.
It's like a mini course you'lltake do one journey. Each time
anyway, you'll see on mywebsite, so head over there. And
as always know that you're notalone. Remember that at any time
(44:08):
you do have the power and theability to call on your guides,
to call on your angels to callon heaven in general to be there
for you to assist you in takingyour next step so that you are
reminded you're not alone. Andthere's so many of us on the
same path. There are communitiesand communities that are out
there that are here to supportyou to provide support for each
(44:33):
other. So reach out if you'restruggling reach out to someone.
You are not alone. You don'thave to do this alone. We are
all in this together. Sendingyou all so much love my friend.
Hello, hello, hello, I'm excited to have another
guest today, it's been a minute.
And before we dive in you guys,my book is life, leaving
religion a guide, find yourspiritual center after leaving
religion, this book is one thathas been such a beautiful gift
to create, because I have donesome deeper healing as I was
(00:27):
writing this book, especiallywhen I was reading about sacred
sexuality, and about shame. Someof those pieces that I was
writing about, I got to do somedeep healing within myself. So
that was quite a gift. And thatis now life 1333, if you've ever
wanted to work with me, butcan't quite afford it, this is a
really beautiful way to do yourown work on your own at your own
(00:50):
pace. And using tools that Ioffer. It's a simple book. And
so far, the comments and thefeedback that I've gotten with
the book are just powerful. Thisis a book to help you know that
you're not alone in yourjourney, and that you can do
this, you've got this. And letme help you through this book
with moving moving through theplaces within you that are
(01:13):
asking me to move through. Soyou can find this book on
Amazon, I will provide the linkdown below or go on Amazon
search, leaving religion andthose we leave behind with my
name and you will find it. Andwithout further ado, let's dive
into my next interview. Well,welcome to Rena, you ready?
(01:33):
Ready, you're ready and readyand willing, I have another
willing victim what I feel aboutI've kind of like put the
podcasts on the side, like onthe back burner for a minute.
And it's been calling me andcalling me. So it's like, Oh,
I'm so glad I get to startinterviewing again. Because I do
love this. So thank you forjoining me.
(01:56):
You are welcome. Thanks forhaving me. I'm excited to be
here with you.
I'm curious, and you didn't knowI was gonna ask you this
question. I'm curious what waswhat was the poll to like, you
know what, I really want toshare my story on your podcast.
Why? What was that for you?
Well, one of the reasons is justI believe, in general that
(02:16):
sharing our stories is one ofthe biggest ways we can get rid
of the shame that surroundsthem. And so I'm all about like,
Let's get together, let's shareour stories. Let's get wrong
real. And also I do lifecoaching. And one of the things
I do is help empower people tobe able to share their stories
(02:37):
to get comfortable with thephysical sensations that arise
with that to really be able to,you know, have boundaries around
themselves and where they are.
So I love that yay, well, cool,we're gonna, we're gonna totally
get into that. I'm glad youbrought up shame, because shame
is one of the things that's justfascinating that we carry. So
rampant in our society,especially within religion and
(03:00):
shame blocks us from reallyaccessing our God, our, our God,
given rights and gifts and somany different pieces. So I'm
glad you brought up that shamepiece because it's huge.
It really is. It's a big blockfor many people and being able
to overcome so many things inlife.
(03:21):
Right? Yeah. Yeah, if we canjust get rid of the shame. We'd
be like, Oh, this is so mucheasier that we can move through
us righthere in our own heads that that
was a bad decision. Not I'm abad person.
Right, right. You're like, oh,maybe I don't want to choose
that again. And this is what ittaught me and I'm okay with
that. Let's move forward.
(03:43):
Yes, that's our humanity andthen learn from it.
Yeah. So tell me what is yourstory? Were you born and raised
in and were you what religionwere you?
So I was born and raised in theLDS church. of the Mormon
generation. I did the I'm aMormon campaign. Yes. And so on
(04:04):
my dad's side of the family, wego way back to pioneers crossing
the plains. I've had storiestold of my ancestors in general
conference. My mom was aconvert. So I had kind of both
aspects of that from a coolfamily. Yeah.
So you were born and raised inthat and in Utah or Arizona? So
you're in Arizona now? Yeah. InArizona. Oh, wearing Arizona,
(04:28):
like Gilbert, or?
No. So I was raised in Prescott,which it's grown quite a bit,
but at the time, it was a prettysmall town. And so when it came
to most things, and definitelyincluding church, like the
progressiveness was definitelydelayed and a little slower.
(04:51):
Oh, that's cool. So did you havea lot of growing up? Did you
have a lot of friends that wereMormon? What was that like for
you growing up?
Pretty much all of my friendswere within my ward. Because
that's where our social circlelied, or was was just within our
ward.
Yeah. So how was did you enjoybeing Mormon as a youth as a
(05:12):
kid?
Yeah, I would. I would say as akid, I didn't know any
difference. And so it was. Itwas good. I enjoyed primary, I
enjoyed Young Women's. I grew upwith a dad who has mental
disorders. He's been diagnosedwith narcissistic personality
disorder and bipolar. And sothere was quite a bit of abuse
(05:35):
that happened in our home. Andso young women activities and
church community, that was mysafe space. And that was a
refuge away from the chaotic.
Not so safe home. Hmm,yeah. So that had to be a gift
for you back then. Well, that'sbeautiful that you had, and that
would be challenging to have afather with those issues. I
guess. I don't like to label.
(05:59):
But yeah, that would bechallenging, for
sure. Very much. So.
Do you have a relationship withhim now?
I don't. And it's been manyyears. And it was a hard
decision to come to, I thinkthere's a little bit of a
misconception when people chooseto end a relationship with a
(06:22):
family member that it's justthis willy nilly, like, well,
they may be mad, and so I'm notgoing to talk to them anymore.
When really what it was wasyears of trying to have a
healthy relationship years oftrying to have healthy
boundaries that were notrespected. And yeah. So then the
boundary became, we're not,we're not in contact anymore,
(06:43):
ya know, and it's the same thingwithin the Mormon Church, right?
A lot of people when you stepout of it think it's just like
this. Oh, okay. I'm done. You'relike, oh, no, this took a while
for me to get here.
Yes, and no. So I think mystory, it's not completely
unique. I know other peoplewho've had very similar
(07:04):
experiences, but it was a matterof weeks for me, like two weeks
from being 100% all in servingin the Relief Society
presidency, like attending thetemple every other week, like
that kind of Mormon to like,sobbing in my Bishop's office,
because I found the gospel topicessays and it all just crumbled
and fell apart. And so withintwo weeks, it was all into, I
(07:29):
can't Nope, this is all a lie.
We can't do this anymore.
Yeah. Was your were you marriedat the time?
Yes, I was married then marriednow. So I'm, I'm really grateful
for the way our journey out whenit's because I know that it's
really caused division amongstso many marriages and families.
And I feel really thankful thatI was really upfront from the
(07:52):
get go, once I started findinginformation that was unsettling.
And I shared that with him rightaway. And then we kind of went
on the journey together, justexploring, basically the
foundations of Mormonism and thetruth of where it all stems
from.
Will you talk a little bit moreabout that? What like, how did
(08:13):
you come to find these? I don'tknow that. I've actually heard
of him. What did you call themthe gospel? What did you say
that theywere the gospel topic essays?
I've not heard of these. Isn'tthat interesting? You think I've
heard all of the things by now,but I haven't heard of that.
Well, letme enlighten you. Yeah, it
actually started. It startedwith a book called The saints,
which, since there's so muchinformation available, the CES
(08:36):
Letter, all these things thechurch is having to kind of
combat that with the truth, butin whitewashed, Faith promoting
ways. And so the book, thesaints had quite a bit of stuff
that I had never heard before.
But I faithfully thought, well,there's got to be answers that
(08:57):
explain it all. And it will makesense and I had remembered
hearing about the gospel topicessays. And I went to those
which did explain things in alittle bit more depth, but it
didn't provide answers that madethings feel good and okay. But
they're basically just essaysthat the church has put together
to provide information. Youknow, about Joseph Smith's
(09:23):
multiple first visions, thestone and a hat, blacks and the
priesthood. Just differentthings that have been very
difficult for people when theyfind them out. And they try and
present it in a pretty littlepackage to make it look okay. Mm
hmm.
And so it was the church thathad created these so you were
(09:45):
curious, diving in andyes, they are on lds.org right
there. You can even read them inyour your Oh, shoot, what's it's
called? It's been a while now,like your gospel Library app
where you can read yourscriptures there. Yeah. Oh,
Oh, that's interesting. So asyou started diving into these,
and your husband did the same,what was it that just was like,
(10:06):
this isn't? I can't do thisanymore. What was that for you?
Well, it's hard to pinpoint onething specifically when you find
so much information in such ashort period of time. But I, I
will say, I think the biggestthing for me was really how
(10:26):
polygamy worked. And seeing thatit just was red flag after red
flag of behavior of a sexualpredator. And then I got to the
story of oh, shoot, I forgot hername, the 14 year old. There was
(10:47):
a few, I know. But it was just,it was nothing but sexually
predatory behavior. And I wasjust like, God would not use a
sexual predator. A prophet wouldnot be a sexual predator. This
is not. No, like, I can'tsupport this. Yeah. So I think
(11:11):
being the sexually predatorythemes of polygamy was just I
couldn't accept that. Yeah.
Yeah, that is hard. Andespecially when when some of the
A lot of that's kind of sweptunder the rug of, well, that's
just what was done back then. Orthat's what God commanded, you
know, Joseph Smith, or whoeverto do to practice, you do have
(11:35):
to question if that wasn't justa way for whoever that was that
person that was that had thosesexual desires or sexual
appetites, to try and justifytheir behavior? And yeah, I,
man, this, this is the one topicin the inside of the Mormon
(11:57):
religion, that when I was calledto do this podcast, and receive
the download, I get to do thispodcast, you know, without
animosity without anger without,you know, and could I sit in
that space and do that, becausethere's good in all things. And
I had to sit with that for alittle while. And you know, if
you've heard my story, you know,that it took me I then had this
(12:17):
other layer of the patriarchypiece that I had to go clear for
me like I had to heal somepieces there. But this is the
one topic with this sexual abusethat happens within the Mormon
church that I'm very aware ofthat this kind of leads into a
little bit and we don't have todive into it. But this is one
thing. That's, that's difficult.
There's a lot of religioussects, SCC T 's, that practice
(12:38):
sexual ascetic rituals, and Ibelieve more than Mormon
religion is one of those. And itis an interesting thing to dive
into, and one that's hard todigest, and be okay with, and
obviously, we're not okay withit, right? We're not in that
anymore. Anyway, this justbrings up that topic a little
(13:03):
bit. So I guess I'm going therefor a second. So I don't blame
you. And I'm glad that you sawwhat you saw, because most
people don't, or they want tojustify it. Or I have a friend
that like, you know, there's noproof that Joseph Smith actually
had multiple wives. It didn'thave there's no other children
outside of Emma. And I'm like, Idon't know enough to to say
otherwise. But it is been in theMormon church, it has been
(13:26):
practiced, not just with JosephSmith, there have been others.
So, right. And if you, I don'taccept that, and I don't agree
with that. But if you wanted tothen just move on to the next
one. Brigham Young was a prettyawful person.
He was a racist, and all sortsof lovely things. Yes. Yes. He
(13:49):
was man. You know, he was a manthat suppose he was called a
god. It's like, okay. Yeah. Allright, the
God that I believe in would notsupport or endorse or enable
that type of abuse.
Yeah. Right. The the Mormon,White Melt version of God is
really fascinating, right? Whathas your god shifted into since
(14:13):
you've left? Has he changed? Orshe changed?
Yeah, they've changed. I don't.
So you know, this journey from ahighly structured, high demand
religion, to exploring your ownspirituality is a little bit
scary, because you've been fedand had all the answers your
(14:33):
entire life. And so then whenyou step out of that, you're
like, where do I go? What do Ibelieve? Is it all or nothing?
There was a moment in my headwhere, you know, like, atheism
popped in, and that wasdevastating to think about. It
didn't really feel right. And I,you know, I had had experiences
that made me think, oh, probablynot, but I definitely You don't
(14:58):
believe in an intervening Godthat's up there playing puppet
master and helping you find yourkeys while allowing this child
who's praying to be saved fromchildhood sexual abuse to remain
in that environment, right?
Like, that doesn't align with meeither. And so I don't have all
the answers. But I will say thatI'm very comfortable with the
(15:20):
unknown. I do feel that we'reconnected, I do feel there's
something greater than us outthere. But it's still a journey.
And I love that I can say thatmy beliefs are fluid, like, no,
maybe reincarnation feels good.
And I kind of like the idea ofthat. But I'm not gonna sit here
and say I believe inreincarnation? Because I don't
(15:40):
know, there's no way for me toprove that. But that was that
was kind of nice.
Why not? I've had memories ofpast lives. So I believe very
much in the fact that we havemultiple lives. But it is that
old saying, right? The older weget, or the more the more we
learn, the more we understand,we don't know that yet saying, I
(16:03):
wholeheartedly believe thatanything, could we fix a and fix
to something so strongly, itdoesn't give space for other
possibilities to come in? And inmy experience, I am always
learning something new everyday. I'm like, hi, I haven't
considered that. Maybe that's apossibility. You know, yes. Have
you ever? Have you ever heard ofthe Christ letters?
(16:25):
I don't think I've heard thoseactually.
So this is a I think it was achanneled. I think, I don't
know, a friend of mine sent itto me a while ago, and it's on
YouTube. And it goes intotalking about God and how
interesting it is that we wouldbelieve that a god there would
be a god that would do exactlywhat you're talking about, oh,
(16:46):
well, this person all all givethis, but this person I'm not,
they're gonna have to go throughthis shit, because they're
strong enough to handle thattrial. Or over here, I'm going
to create floods. And over here,I'm going to create a tsunami
over here. Like that is not anunconditional God. And what you
know, it's possible thatcollectively we as an organism,
(17:08):
in a society, you know, in somesay, in Alpine, Utah, where I
live, there's just so much angerand hate and everybody's just
angry, like, is it possible thatthat just that energy would then
create an earthquake? The Earthwould respond to that, like, is
it possible, we're creating thewars, we're creating all these
things that has nothing to dowith God? And I'm like, You know
what, I believe that a lot morethan a god that's like, your
(17:32):
good your bad. Earthquake, fire,tsunami, holy shit, you know,
right. Yes. And so when peopleask, oftentimes, I just say, My
religion is love, and my God islove. And that is what I let
guide my life.
Yeah, I love that. So how wasyour transition out? You said,
you went from like, two weeksbeing totally into two weeks
(17:54):
later, crying in your bishopsoffice, like, holy crap. I can't
support this. What what did thatlook like for you? And how was
it with your husband, yourchildren?
It was really hard. It wasreally hard to have your entire
foundation just ripped away so,so quickly. And it brought up so
(18:16):
many things of how am I going tomake it through this, I remember
there was one experience, it waslike, right at that, that very
beginning of our transitionwhere we weren't going to church
for the first time ever. And Ididn't know what was going on
with anything. And I just cryingin the shower, just just crying.
(18:37):
And I started to pray, I startedto say to your heavenly Father,
and I just started sobbing,because I'm like, I don't even
know that there is a God thathears and answers prayers. Yeah.
And it was like, how am I goingto make it through this hardest
thing that I've ever facedwithout all the tools that have
gotten me through the hardestthings that I've ever had. And
(19:00):
then I just had this moment of arealization that if it's not
true now, if a loving HeavenlyFather doesn't exist now, then
he didn't before when you madeit through all of those other
things. And that means that youhave always had the strength
within you to get throughthings. And that is still there,
(19:22):
and you will get through this.
And so that was a reallypowerful moment for me to kind
of reclaim my own power. Oh,yeah. And to acknowledge that
maybe I was given credit to havesomething that I didn't need to
and really the strength tosurvive. All the things that
I've survived was really withinmyself the whole time. So that
(19:44):
was a really powerful moment forme.
That is very powerful. What abeautiful awareness that you had
pretty quick. That's, that'sbeautiful.
Yeah. And so with my husband Andlike I said, we went on this
journey together. And so itreally brought us closer
(20:05):
together, as you know, difficultthings often do in
relationships. And so that wasreally great. My two oldest
children are on the autismspectrum, my oldest had already
been baptized, and they're veryinto routine. And so it was
difficult to have this huge lifechange. And we had tried going
(20:26):
to, I thought, we've gone tochurch their whole lives, let's
just keep going to church, let'sexplore some non denominational
Christian churches around us.
And it was honestly traumaticfor me, I'd be sitting there and
I would just start crying andnot in I've been touched by the
Spirit sort of way, but justjust feeling so lost. So alone,
(20:46):
like this doesn't resignate Idon't feel comfortable here. And
then I learned a little bitabout religious trauma syndrome.
And that made more sense.
Do you want to speak to that fora minute? For those guests who
haven't heard of that before?
Yes, because it really washelpful for me to see
(21:07):
information about what I wasexperiencing. So religious
trauma syndrome, is basicallyyou've been traumatized in the
same way that you might be ifyou were in a really bad car
accident, if you were sexuallyassaulted. If you were in a an
abusive relationship, that sameamount of trauma can come from
(21:27):
losing your belief system,losing your community, all of
those things can can createtraumatic experience, feelings
and experiences for you. And sowhen people think that you're
just leaving, and it's so easy,and you're just not following
(21:48):
the rules, right, there's a lotof unawareness into what really
happens, because it can truly bea traumatic experience where you
can have a difficulty with yourday to day tasks, you can feel
overwhelmed. For me, there wasthoughts of, I wouldn't say
suicidal ideation, butdefinitely thoughts of I just
(22:11):
don't want to be here anymore,because this is so hard. Yeah.
And, and that's a really sad andscary place to be. Because it's
just so heavy and so hard. Man,wouldn't it just be nice to just
not wake up in the morning?
Because this is awful. It's toomuch. Yes. And so a lot of the
same tools that I've used toovercome trauma, and traumatic
(22:36):
experiences in my past, I wasable to quickly pull into place
once I was like, wait a minute,this isn't just hard. This is
trauma that I'm experiencingagain. And so I felt like I was
kind of able to navigate itfairly quickly. And a little,
and I don't want to say that itwas easy, but a little bit more
(22:56):
easily than some other peoplebecause I had knowledge of, of
tools for navigating traumaalready.
Yeah. Oh, I love that. That's sogreat. So with your kids, so you
stopped doing that you weregoing to different churches, I
assumed you stopped because itwas too much.
Yes, we stopped and I said to myhusband, let's just go on hikes
(23:17):
on Sunday morning. And so we useSundays as our family hike time,
I would find a person that had astory that taught a value that I
wanted to teach my kids and Ishare the story of this person,
we talked about them and whatthey did that we liked, and how
can we be like that in ourlives? Have you ever had an
experience where you've showedcourage or kindness or integrity
(23:41):
in that way, and that was reallybeautiful for a while, and then
living in Arizona summer hit andit was too hot. And and we
haven't really done that. Butit's been really nice to see
them have their own agency inbeliefs. If they come to me with
any sort of religious orspiritual questions. I don't
(24:04):
tell them what to think anymore.
I tell them, Well, some peoplethink this or I feel like this,
what do you think? Or, you know,you get to figure out for
yourself what, what that meansto you or what you want to
believe. And my son who's goingon 13 has said that he thinks
that all religion is just a wayfor people to get money. There's
(24:26):
just a little bit of truth tothat. But I don't try and tell
him. He needs to believeanything. I just say well,
that's an interesting thought.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I love that you're doingthat because I think that
younger we can teach our kids toself reference and to turn
(24:46):
internally for those troops andthose answers the word doing
them a huge service, and thenthey in turn, do a huge service
to everyone else. I love thatyou're doing that. So how would
as As you have transitioned out,how long has it been now?
So it was three years at thebeginning of this year. So we're
(25:07):
Yeah. Over three years. Awesome.
So what have you found? That hashelped you with moving out? You
said, you moved quickly? Whatwere some of the things that
were really useful to you as youare moving out? And is there
I'll just ask that questionfirst.
What were some of the thingsthat were helpful? Finding new
community as quickly aspossible?
(25:29):
How did you find that?
So I reached out to the peoplethat I personally knew who had
left the church, because we allknow people who've left. And I
got together and I went tolunch, and I cried to them, they
just loved me and supported me.
And I got connected with a localFacebook group for women in
(25:53):
Arizona. And they had events andI went to events, and I met
people that I'd never metbefore, and made those
connections. And I quicklyrealized that some of the
feelings within the post Mormoncommunity, were not what I
wanted to continue to alignwith. And I'm gonna say, anger
(26:15):
is a valid and needed part ofthe process of leaving, like, I
definitely was angry, and I wasbitter about some things, but I
didn't want to stay there. Andso I tried to move through that
as quickly as possible. And Istill have things that will
trigger me and make me angry ifI learn them about things that
(26:35):
are going on. But that's notwhere I want to stay. And so I
also, we really reached out toour community, like our
neighborhood where we physicallylive, and just said, Hey, we
would love to get together andyou know, have some people over
for drinks? Or does anybody wantto come to trivia at this
(26:56):
restaurant, and we just made avery conscious effort to get to
know the people within ourphysical community as well. And
so as we found people at both inthe post Mormon community who
are happy to be thriving, likewe have that connection, but
that's not all we talk about, wejust get together. And we're,
we're just normal people. And aswe've built community with
(27:20):
people, who've never been morethan it's been really helpful to
have that support. So I wouldsay, finding community as
quickly as possible, whereveryou can, is going to be huge.
And like we kind of talked aboutat the beginning, like, don't be
afraid to share your story,because I feel like, the more
(27:41):
you can speak it, the more ithelps you to heal from it. And
so it's been my honor to sitwith people who've been more
recently out and just hold spacefor them as they're in that
grief and that anger and to tellthem, it gets better. I promise
it gets better. Yes. And then Ithink another thing that's
(28:05):
really been helpful is to tryand start trusting yourself
again. That was something thatwas huge for me, like, how could
I have been so deceived? Howcould I have spent my whole life
wrapped up in this? And as Ithought about it, I was like,
but Terina, you had thosenudges, there were things that
you knew, just weren't right,but you put it on a shelf, you
(28:28):
ignored that you doubted yourdoubts, you trusted that
everything would be explained inthe next slide. So it's not that
I was totally deceived, and Ihad no idea. I just followed
what I had been told to do, butstopping mechanisms to stay
active. And so acknowledgingwhere I had been able to see
(28:51):
that the truth and some thingsand just getting to learn how to
hear my own intuition, to trustmyself to make my own decisions.
That really was was a big thingfor me to help me as I kind of
transitioned out.
Yeah. How do you feel likebecause most people that have
(29:14):
left, they they don't even knowhow to start doing that? Is
there something that you wouldgive as far as advice for
somebody who's like, that'sgreat, and I don't even know how
to start doing that.
So this ties into self care,which I think is really
essential for our happiness. Onething that I try and do and I
(29:39):
help my clients to do in mycoaching is sit down every
morning and ask yourself what isone thing you need today? And do
it in the morning don't plan itout the night before because
maybe the night before you'relike, I'm gonna go exercise and
that's gonna be self care forthe day but then you wake up and
you just feel called and old tojust instead of going to the gym
(30:00):
him in the morning, sit on thepatio and enjoy your cup of
coffee. Like, just trustyourself that you know what you
need. And that's one way, it'sas simple as just saying, What
do I need today? Maybe you needto clean your room, maybe you
need to binge a show, you willknow and trust that. And then
(30:22):
just like journaling can bereally helpful. Like, ask
yourself a question. And thenjust journal out your answer,
just free flow stream ofconscious writing. And sometimes
you'll be like, where did thatcome from? And to realize, well,
that maybe that where that camefrom is my own intuition.
(30:43):
Yeah. Oh, I love that. Those areall really, really good, good
tools. How is your husband?
How's he navigated leaving anydifferently than you?
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And I will saythat, even though initially, it
brought us closer together asyou completely deconstruct your
whole belief and rebuild whatyou believe in, like, there's
(31:06):
been some things we're we're notas aligned as we were before.
And that's maybe caused a littlebit of friction sometimes. But
for him, it's, I feel like it'sbeen a little bit easier. For
me, it was like, my whole worldjust fell apart. I got figured
out the whole world again. Andfor him, it was like, awesome.
We don't have to follow and notin the way that some members
(31:28):
talk about, but like, it's beena little bit easier. I'm like,
Okay, well, we don't have tofollow these rules anymore. So,
yeah. Like, I feel like it'ssent me on this deep spiritual
journey. And he's just kind ofcontent where he is.
Well, that's good. I know. Menand women are so different with
how they choose to navigatethings. So that's why I was
curious if it was different forhim versus you.
(31:50):
Yeah, I feel like it has beendifferent because I've
questioned everything abouteverything. And he's just like,
oh, we'll kind of figure it out.
It's okay.
So is your family like yourextended family? Are they still
Mormon?
Um, oh, yes. And no, um, myfamily. On my dad's side, they
(32:14):
go back to pioneer stocks. Soalmost all of my extended family
is still okay. Yeah, sorry. Iknow, you're
so you're good. Tech, nottechnology sometimes is lovely.
Right. You were saying? So onyour dad's side of the family,
Pioneer stocks, and most of themare still in, right.
(32:35):
Yes. And then on my mom's sideof the family, she's got like
one sister, that's a member andthen that's pretty much it.
Yeah.
So how has little How have theybeen with you guys leaving.
Um, one of my husband's aunt. Soit was shortly after we left, it
(32:58):
was the first like, worldwideday. So my husband took a
picture of a wine bottle and waslike happy wine Day, everybody.
Really messaged him that he senther to the hospital with his bad
decisions. And she's havingheart problems now, because it's
so awful. So that was oneexperience that we
(33:20):
had. Oh, my goodness, you'relike, well, that has nothing to
do with me. Sowe're Oh, shoot. Right. Right.
But we've definitely felt thecovert shunning that happens
within the church, we went tothe first big family holiday
last Thanksgiving, and nobodyreally talked to us. And so we
(33:44):
felt that there's definitely aseparation that has happened.
Have you guys navigated that?
Sometimes family is who youchoose and not blood. And just
realize that just feel thathurt, and feel that loss and
(34:08):
feel that sorrow? Becausethere's a lot of that? And then
and then let that go and leaninto the love of people that are
there for us.
Yeah. You mentioned boundariesearly on in the in our call, I
would imagine that you havecreated some boundaries that are
pretty strong within familydynamics.
(34:29):
Yeah. So my mother in lawshortly after we left, and to no
fault of her own, it's whatshe's been taught to do was
trying to send us articles andfight us to things and so I
just, I believe that boundariesshould be should be set with
love. And so I always try andacknowledge where they're coming
(34:51):
from, because I know her and Iknow she's a good person, and I
know exactly where she's comingfrom because I've been there.
Right? You know, like Iunderstand And that you love us
and you care for us. And you'rejust trying to share things from
a space of love. I want you tounderstand that what it feels
like is you not trusting us tomake our own decisions. Also, I
(35:12):
shared an article with her aboutwhat religious trauma was
because I was kind of in thedepths of that, and I shared,
like, this kind of informationis actually really triggering
for me right now. And so I needfor you to just not share these
things with us and to respect usand where we are. And she hasn't
sent me anything since she hasinvited me. Which is great.
(35:36):
So yeah, oh, that's really good.
Did she respond when you saidthat? Or did she just not
respond?
She just did not respond.
Sometimes noresponse is the best response,
right? Because you're like, Idon't want to get into an
argument over this. I don't wantto get into a conversation. It's
just, sometimes that's the bestresponse, you're like, great.
(35:56):
Right, and I had an uncle whoI'm on Facebook, anytime I would
share anything about my personalexperience with leaving the
church. So not like me attackingthe church, not sharing other
people bashing the church, likemy own personal experience, he
would get on and he wasn'tnecessarily like, aggressive,
(36:18):
but it was always he's defendingthe church. And it was very
invalidating of me and myexperience and my opinions. And
so I tried over and over, totell him what it means to hold
space for somebody, what itmeans to love somebody
unconditionally, even if youdon't agree with their beliefs,
(36:40):
to try and help him. Like, thisis how I need support. I
understand you don't agree withme, that's totally fine. I
respect you and your beliefs,but I need you to not come on
here. And tell me that Ishouldn't be saying these
things. Yeah. And finally, hedid it again, just a few months
ago, and I thought, I've givenhim lots, lots of help to try
(37:03):
and know how to support me, I'vetried to establish boundaries,
like this is not what I wouldlike our interactions to be when
I share this type ofinformation. And so I just sent
him a message. And I said, Ilove keeping in touch with you
and what's going on with yourfamily. But I feel like maybe
being connected on Facebook isnot the best thing for our
relationships. So please reachout via email, you have my phone
(37:25):
number, feel free to call ortext anytime. But we're not
going to be connected onFacebook anymore. I love you,
I'll hopefully hear from yousoon.
Good, good for you. And now Idon't
have to worry about somebody,you know, being an invalidating
passive aggressive. When I whenI share about my personal
(37:48):
experience.
I know social media is such atricky place because we put
everything on display. So thenwe are opening up for any
comments to be said. And thenthere are those places of you
know, and you don't need to bein my circles on my social
media, because that I know thatme sharing this is helpful to me
and helpful to others. And yeah,I love that. I love that you've
(38:11):
done that. I think that that'sbeautiful. What, um, so you're a
life coach? Yes, who do youmainly work with?
I've seen quite a few differentpeople from different
backgrounds. I've definitelyworked with people who are
leaving their religion, orleaving abusive relationships,
(38:35):
just who are ready to step intofinding themselves and owning
their lives. So that's been someof the clients that I've worked
with, and that I've seen arepeople that are really just
ready to start owning themselvesand their lives, and step out of
the box that they were told thatthey need to live in. So helping
(38:59):
empower people to find theirvoices to learn how to set
boundaries, to learn how to carefor themselves, because a lot of
times in high demandrelationships, whether it's a
religion or any otherrelationship, you don't put
yourself first and constantlyput others or an organization
(39:20):
before your own needs. And sojust learning to overcome that
tendency and put yourself firstand what that really feels like
and how empowering that can beand how that can just have a
domino effect that just canchange how you how you look at
life in general. So I justreally love working with people
who are ready to who are readyto take that step to really make
(39:43):
those changes.
Awesome. How? Go ahead, sorry. Iwas just gonna say regardless
of where they're coming from,like whatever you're wanting to
step out of, like, let's do itand I'll help you help you
navigate that with a little bitof confidence and I Love for
yourself.
Oh, I love that. So they wantedto get in touch with you what's
(40:04):
the best way to connect withyou?
Um, so I'm on all the socialmedia channels.
Okay, well, I'll make sure andput them on the show notes so
that they can reach out ifthey're interested in working
with you.
Yeah, they can find me. You canconnect with any of those
through my website, which isjust Terina maldonado.com. But I
(40:24):
am also on Facebook, Instagram,Tik Tok. So,
all the places, that's awesome.
So, one kind of just to wrap up,if you could give, say someone's
listening, and they're reallystruggling right now, just in
general with leaving, andthey're in that place that you
had talked about with, you know,it feels too much, and I just
want to be done. What advice? Orwhat thoughts would you love to
(40:47):
offer someone who's just reallyin the depths of losing and
unraveling the constructsthey've been in.
Give yourself grace, like youare being so courageous, it may
not feel like it, it might feellike you're just clawing your
way through every single day.
But even in just doing that,you're exhibiting great courage.
(41:11):
So acknowledge that withinyourself, and give yourself
grace and just know that it doesget better and it is worth it.
And the fact that you arewilling to let go of so much,
and to explore what that meansfor you. And your life is huge.
It is so big, and it is sobrave. And it is so wonderful.
(41:36):
Like you right now are on yourhero's journey. You're just in
the thick of it. So hold on,your hero's journey is going to
be beautiful.
Keep going. I love it. Oh, thankyou. Was there anything you
would love to? To add or to saybefore we end?
(41:58):
This anything else? We've had areally great conversation. So
Ha, okay, great, thanks.
Well, beautiful. Well, I willmake sure I tie I add your
different ways that they anybodycan get in touch with you if
they're interested. And yeah,it's been great to connect with
you, Trina.
Yes, thank you so much for thisconversation. It's been
(42:19):
beautiful.
I love these conversations. It'sso fun. They're so fun. Well,
thank you so much.
Thank you for joining us today.
I so loved the tools that Trinaoffered. And if you're curious
in finding more about her, youcan go follow her on her social
(42:40):
media sites. I will post thelinks down below, or find her on
our website. Terina malMaldonado. And again, you can
find that down below in the showlinks. Trina actually was also a
co author of a book fear tofreedom stories of triumph after
leaving a high control religion.
(43:01):
And I will provide that linkdown below as well. And don't
forget to snag my book a leadingreligion a guide to finding
yourself after religion andcoming back to your spiritual
center. This is a beautifulbook, you can find it on Amazon.
And in addition to that, ifyou're not if you're kind of
further on in your journey, butyou're wanting a little bit more
(43:23):
tools, I have something that Iwould love to provide it for you
if you head to my website,Amanda joy loveland.com forward
slash leaving religion tools,you will find a series of guided
meditations that assists you in,in releasing the old holdings to
God to Jesus to the Godhead toordinances and all the pieces
(43:46):
that you have bound yourselfwith in religion, these guided
meditations are really reallypowerful to releasing those
places within. So you can headover there, go grab that bundle.
It's like a mini course you'lltake do one journey. Each time
anyway, you'll see on mywebsite, so head over there. And
as always know that you're notalone. Remember that at any time
(44:08):
you do have the power and theability to call on your guides,
to call on your angels to callon heaven in general to be there
for you to assist you in takingyour next step so that you are
reminded you're not alone. Andthere's so many of us on the
same path. There are communitiesand communities that are out
there that are here to supportyou to provide support for each
(44:33):
other. So reach out if you'restruggling reach out to someone.
You are not alone. You don'thave to do this alone. We are
all in this together. Sendingyou all so much love my friend.
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