The One Who Went From Mormonism To Polyamory

00:18 - Sam (Host)

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work the Gundagara land and people. I pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I also want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which you, our listeners, are joining us from today. I recognise the deep connection that First Nations people have to this land, their enduring culture and their commitment to the preservation and care for their country. This land was never ceded and it always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

00:58

Hey there and welcome to Beyond the Surface, the podcast where we explore the stories of people who have survived religious trauma, left high control or cult communities and are deconstructing their faith. I'm your host, sam, and each week I'll talk with individuals who have taken the brave step to start shifting their beliefs that might have once controlled and defined their lives. Join us as we dig into their experiences, the challenges they've faced and the insights they've gained. Whether you're on a similar journey or you're just curious about these powerful stories, you're in the right place. This is Beyond the Surface. Welcome, aj. Thanks for joining me.

01:42 - AJ (Guest)

Hi, thank you, Sam, it's really fun to be here thanks for joining me, hi.

01:47 - Sam (Host)

thank you, sam. It's really fun to be here For some context before we get into it. For everybody listening, they will notice the accent difference. Where in the world are you?

01:53 - AJ (Guest)

Yes, there is an accent. Difference isn't there. I am on Indigenous Ute and Shoshone land which has been colonized as the state of Utah in the States. Okay.

02:04 - Sam (Host)

That might. For people who have listened to my show for a little while, the fact that you are in Utah might give a little hint as to the background that you might be coming from in terms of religion.

02:19 - AJ (Guest)

Maybe just a little bit, which we'll get into, like I haven't't always been here, which is part of the story too right yeah, that is interesting.

02:27 - Sam (Host)

I've got to admit one of my guilty pledges is the real house housewives of Salt Lake City. Um, it just is like my jam. I love it, just. They're the. They're the loosest kind of Mormons slash non-Mormons that are are great, um, okay. So I love to start these episodes with a super duper vague question, which is where does your story start?

02:53 - AJ (Guest)

Yeah, I love that. Where does my story start? I'll start when I became Mormon at the age of 15. Okay, I'll start there.

03:05

So I was raised secular in California, san Francisco Bay Area which that would be a lonely land and had just a really typical upbringing and had parents who didn't mind if I took a sip of alcohol every now and then. If I had a boyfriend, they didn't really care and I was feeling kind of empty and lost in life. I really wanted connection with adults. That was really meaningful and we can get into this too. But I'm very like Demi and Sapio, not just sexually but just emotionally, mentally, and sapio not just sexually but just emotionally, mentally. I like connection in that way.

03:46

And so I had some friends who were Mormon and they invited me to go to church and I really liked it. And what I didn't realize at the time is that I was getting love bombed on. It was a big deal. So there was this strange happening, and this is in the mid nineties and I was a teenager and there were several young girls who all kind of got baptized into the Mormon church at the same time. There were at least three of us maybe, if not four, and so there was this weird little mini revival happening in in my town that I grew up in and I was just really excited to be a part of something. I felt so special, I felt so important, I felt chosen.

04:32 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, the love bombing hits different. Hey, I love chatting to people who, because I also didn't grow up in the church that I found myself in- and and so I I refer to it as that. I chose to get on this roller coaster as a teenager and I love chatting to people who did, who also had the same situation or something similar, because it is really different when you didn't grow up in in that environment, because you experienced that love bombing really intensely. Do you remember what it was like for you at the time?

05:06 - AJ (Guest)

Oh, yeah, I ate it up. I felt so special. I felt like you said, I felt chosen.

05:13

Part of the teachings of Mormonism is that it was started by this. I can't even remember now 14, 15 year old boy went into this grove of trees to pray and saw Jesus, joseph Smith yeah, that story. I just can't remember his age, 14 or 15. But I remember I was 15 and I thought I'm like him, I'm this person in my family that is choosing this correct path and I'm going to save not only myself but my entire family path. And I'm going to save not only myself but my entire family. And because Mormons have baptisms for the dead, you can baptize your ancestors. And so I was like, wow, I can, I can save everybody all the way back down as far as I can find my ancestral lineage.

06:01

And that felt phenomenally special. It was, it was invigorating, it was. I was eating it up really, yeah, yeah. And I was having these conversations with adults. That was so stimulating to me and I came in and they just thought I was this bright, shining star here. I was this teenage girl that was saying I'm not going to do all these teenage things, spoiler, I still did. And they just thought I was and I wanted that recognition, that validation. So much, yeah, yeah, I ate it up.

06:38 - Sam (Host)

I mean, I am curious because I think there are a lot of aspects of the Mormon church that people don't necessarily know, and I think the baptism of the dead thing is probably one of those, and so I I mean I've got to ask what, at 14 and 15, made you go. This is really cool and not this is fucking insane.

07:02 - AJ (Guest)

I don't honestly know. I think part of it is that I was given so little information about actually what happens in the church. And as I got older and then started to leave and watched like the documentaries on Scientology and realized, yeah, they only give you. Mormonism is similar, where they only give you this much information and then you're supposed to get higher up to get all of the truth revealed to you. And so I was given slivers of information and it's really sugar-coated and made to look nice and pretty and packaged up with a bow, so things like that, baptisms for the dead. I, I, I think I thought it was kind of cool. In fact, when I left, I asked my mom because my family's not Mormon, they're not religious at all. I said why did you let me join a cult when I was a teenager? And she said well, they seemed like a nice cult and you were really happy. They seemed like a nice cult and you were really happy, like a nice cult.

08:07

That's great, I know. And sunrise, I wasn't doing anything wrong, I was staying out of trouble. You know, I got good grades I. I liked my church activities and my friends. And then I said to her in part of that conversation I said, you know, looking back, I really just wanted spirituality. Why couldn't we have joined a coven?

08:26 - Sam (Host)

yeah, I was like baptism of the dead. I was like there's wicked, there's like witchy shit in there, like yeah, for sure, so I think I was looking for that yeah but, I didn't know where to find it and Mormonism was um not rampant in my area.

08:42 - AJ (Guest)

but for being in California, there was a little bit more concentration of Mormons where I grew up than there might be in some other areas, so I was exposed to it.

08:51 - Sam (Host)

Yeah. What did your family think of it at the time? Because you know not being from a religious space of any kind, not even just like mainline Christianity in the US. What did they think of you joining the Mormon church?

09:08 - AJ (Guest)

I think that my mom was a bit flippant about it. She just thought, oh, this is nice, she's making friends, she seems happy. And I grew up with my mom and stepdad and my stepdad was raised Catholic and he went to Catholic school until eighth grade and I didn't. I kind of knew that but he didn't talk about it because you know, Catholic school doesn't have anything like there were bad things that happened to him there, so he didn't really talk about it and so, um, I don't know what it's like in Mormonism now I think they still have something similar where when you want to learn about it, you're called an investigator and the missionaries come and teach you the discussion. And at the time, the first or second discussion I was having it at my house. My parents had to be home because the missionaries are 19, 20 year old guys.

09:56

You can't be, alone if you're a woman with them and I was under age too, so they were kind of just there around my mom and stepdad, and the lesson was about how Jesus was resurrected and came to the Americas after his resurrection.

10:11

That's in the book of Mormon. And my stepdad like flew off the handle like this is bullshit. Jesus did not do that. What did he do? Fucking float across the ocean like he got so upset, oh gosh. So he wasn't super happy about it.

10:31

Looking back, it's because it was his own religious background that he was projecting and he didn't have the ability to talk to me about it. And so there were things that they didn't want me to do if it interfered with family life. They didn't want me to pay tithing and in the Mormon church you pay 10% of your increase in income back to the church. And once they found out about that, they said you're not doing that. And I had a part-time job as a teenager and they said you're not giving your money away to a church like that. So there were things that they kind of said family first. And I got away with that being a convert. It was so exciting to the adult leaders that I was just coming to church at all that I was able to pull that convert card and say, oh, my parents aren't going to let me do that and they were okay with that because they have this. Family is everything rhetoric. And to backpedal on that to this teenage girl would have made them look really shitty.

11:26 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, absolutely. I love the irony of you telling that resurrection story because it's Easter weekend as we're recording it. I just I love when things become so ironic like that. I'm curious what it was like for you at that age in terms of connecting to I mean, typically in these episodes I use the word God, but I imagine you probably use the term heavenly father at the time. But like, what was it like for you connecting to a divine being as a young person, and who was that to you?

12:02 - AJ (Guest)

Yeah, I think I use those interchangeably and it was interesting looking back. I can only look at it through the lens that I have now, so sometimes it's challenging to remember. My mindset back was special and important. It was one of his. You know the rhetoric is that you're like a chosen divine daughter of God, and so I think that felt really good to me and at the same time my personal intuition would often be at odds with it. So, like I said, I did teenage things. I had a boyfriend, we did teenage hormone things and I still partied, but I was a lot more moderate about it, I guess. I mean it was California like there's. You know, you can get weed so easily there. Now it's legal.

13:07

So you know, I did those things, but I didn't necessarily feel bad. I didn't feel like God was actually mad at me. But then I'd go to church and hear that those things were bad. And so those were little things that at the time I probably put on my shelf and didn't even realize it. I just thought I'm coming to church, I'm doing the good things, I feel good within myself. I don't, I haven't been struck down by lightning. I think I'm doing all right.

13:37 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, yeah, interesting that like did no one like in terms of like the leaders was no one pulling you up on that behavior or anything. Because you know it might not be the same language, but I know that the same ideology that fuels purity culture is also pretty rampant in the Mormon church.

13:56 - AJ (Guest)

so it's absolutely rampant and I use that convert card a lot.

14:04 - Sam (Host)

I pulled that card.

14:05 - AJ (Guest)

All the time Loved it and looking back I'm like, ooh, that was my rebellious spirit, just trying to get away with anything I could. And I also lied. I just straight up lied and because I wasn't raised in it. So I have a lot of ex-Mormon friends now I have an ex-Mormon partner and hearing from people who were raised in it the fear that was instilled in them to not lie to one of the leaders, to the bishops, to the young men's or young women's leader, whereas I had gotten away with lying before, just in life in general, and so, you know, to teachers and things.

14:47

And so when I tried it there and it worked, I didn't. I didn't have this preconceived notion that they were the mouthpiece of God, that the leaders were like you're told from the very beginning they were just, they seemed important to me, but they were like, well, they're also just dudes, like this guy works in construction or he's a dentist or something you know. So I didn't see them as these grand, like omnipotent people, the way that kind of the church talks about it. And so, yeah, I pulled the convert card a lot. I just thought, well, I'm a convert and so my parents don't want me to do this, so I didn't do baptisms for the dead when I was a teenager, because I wasn't worthy, because I was having sex with my boyfriend and partying and drinking sometimes. But I didn't want to go in and tell some old man that that I was doing those things and it just didn't seem right to me. So I would just say like, oh, I'm a convert, my parents don't want me to do that, they, I don't have their permission.

15:50 - Sam (Host)

And then I got away with it, right yeah, that's so interesting, I think sometimes I mean, I do like I talk to people in terms of like. It is often a really different experience for people who were born into whatever religious affiliation or flavor. It was, yes, those who joined um, but typically I feel like, yes, the indoctrination is different, but you're probably the first person where I've heard like that joining actually gave you loopholes that other people didn't necessarily have.

16:24

Like I think, sometimes like usually, I'm used to hearing that joining or converting set you up to a higher standard because you didn't have your family to fall back on in terms of that, so that's super interesting to me.

16:40 - AJ (Guest)

There was a change. There was a pivot point where I did get very deeply entrenched in it. So I did have that. So I, my high school boyfriend, we got married. I basically said to him we can have sex, but we have to get married, because we're supposed to marry the person we have sex with, or we're supposed to, you know, be married before we have sex. And he probably just heard the word, yes, sex. And then went, okay, right, yeah, sex. And he probably just heard the word yes, sex. And then went, okay, right, yeah. And so we got married.

17:10

Did you get married in the temple? Eventually we had a temple ceiling. So this is where it gets all interesting. So mormonism has several colleges that private colleges, but if you are a member of the church it is inexpensive to go there. And so we went to one in Idaho and it was a two-year college. It turned into a four-year college.

17:35

So went there, came back to California, got engaged and because I was pulling the convert card, normally in Mormonism it's very short engagement, because once you get engaged, Satan knows and he's going to tempt you all with all of his might to try to have sex before your wedding and then you won't be worthy to go to the temple and so pulled the convert card and said we're not getting married in the temple because my family can't be there.

18:04

So in order to go to the temple I can explain it a little bit, for especially for listeners who have no idea in order to go to the temple you have to be a Mormon and you have to be in worthy standing, which means you have to have an interview with the Bishop, who is usually this old guy, and then you have to have an interview with another old guy, who's who's like the area bishop kind of, and then you're, you're given. It used to actually be like a card where they'd put your name on it and stuff and you'd show it to a person. I don't know what they do now, I think it's all digital, but you'd show it to a person and then they'd give it back to you and say thank you, sister, welcome to the temple today.

18:40

And they act like it's like from the moment you step in, it's supposed to be this serene, very peaceful place where you are doing ordinance work that's going to get you to heaven. So the temple ceiling is. It seals your marriage for time and eternity. So there is no till death do you part in mormonism. You are together forever and now I call it eternal enmeshment. Oh, I love that. That's great, because you can't get away from it unless you you do a really heinous sin unless you become a complete heretic. Um, you can't get away from it oh my goodness.

19:18

Okay, so you're not only sealed to your spouse, who you know, and of course it's extremely heteronormative. And you're not only sealed to your, to your spouse, who you know, and of course it's extremely heteronormative. And you're not only sealed to your, to your spouse, but that means that you become sealed to their family and all of the ancestors that came before you and all of the children that you will have after that and the people they get sealed to. So when you're in the temple doing the sealing ceremony, you are kneeling at an altar and you do a secret handshake with each other across the altar. There's a whole bunch of secret handshakes there. The Mormon temple was based off of Freemasonry rites and rituals, so I mean, have fun googling that.

19:56 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, I just think it's so funny. I think there's nothing more signifying a boys club than a sacred handshake yeah, absolutely it's a boys club, for sure it's.

20:07 - AJ (Guest)

it came from freemasonry rites and rituals and so it's not really that much different than that. But they put worthiness around it and you have to be pure and you wear white in the temple and all of these things. And so when you're kneeling across the altar and there's this like 90 year old man sealing your marriage, you don't say vows, you don't say I do, you don't exchange rings and in. I think they've changed it now, but when I did it you were the woman gave herself to the man and the man took her. Yeah, so it was that way. Each it was to the man, one hundred man, 100. There was no reciprocity, there was no equal standing. So and you have these mirrors where you can see each other reflected. The mirrors face each other, so it shows there's like hundreds of your heads reflecting forever, and they say that represents forever. It's very strange.

21:06 - Sam (Host)

Oh, my goodness, and I love that imagery. I just love the mirror's imagery. It's great. Oh, that's so funny.

21:15 - AJ (Guest)

I pulled a convert card at a civil wedding where I actually marched into the bishop's office and I said I want to get married, we're engaged, I want my family to be there because they won't be able to enter the temple. And I also wanted to wear a cute dress, because in the temple you have to wear sleeves, and so I wanted to wear whatever I wanted to wear, and so he didn't bat an eye. He was like great, when are you getting married? And we were like, oh, a year from now. And he was like great, and I was able to pull the convert card again. So after getting married was when I really doubled down to where we had to kind of backpedal and repent for sinning and having sex before marriage once we were actually married, to get ready to go to the temple. So that's when I started to get really entrenched in it okay, and so what did that do for?

22:14 - Sam (Host)

uh, because, like Mormonism is is just like in terms of like consuming. It is a very all consuming faith, which is why I think you know, we acknowledge the cult aspect and the cult dynamics that happen in church. So what did that like entrenchment look like for you and what did it do for your mindset about yourself and the world around you?

22:43 - AJ (Guest)

Yeah, it was challenging. I was living in that little town, going to the Mormon college, and so that place was very concentrated with Mormons and so it was easier to live that lifestyle. And I remember Just to your point of that, it's all consuming, almost to the point of an obsession, like I have to do. They prescribe all these things to do to obtain your worthiness to pray, to read your scriptures, to go to church to pay your tithing. It's all volunteer work, it's oh, I heard somebody speak they gave it a name where it's basically I can't remember what they said, but they called it.

23:37

It's non-consensual labor. Really is what it is. You're not given a choice because if you say no, they come back and say well, we've received inspiration that God wants you to do this, so you need to serve in this way, and if you say no, it can look really bad on your standing as a member. So it did become all consuming and then it kind of started this like, oh, I'm going to do everything and I hope I'll be worthy. So it kind of flipped, this switch flipped where I didn't really think or worry about my worthiness too much, even when I was a teenager, having sex with my boyfriend and all these things. I didn't think I was really bad or wrong and then it kind of flipped to. I hope I'm good. I hope I'm doing everything that's good yeah.

24:24 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, and I mean that's. I think one of the most heartbreaking things listening to these stories is because there comes a point whether it was from the get-go, as in being raised from it or joining a religion is that at some point you are told, conditioned, indoctrinated, convinced in some way that you are just really really broken and shit at your core. And it is just, it's heartbreaking and there is no way that that can't influence the way that you live your life. Right.

25:00 - AJ (Guest)

Yeah, absolutely yeah, it's. It really is heartbreaking because breaking, because it's so demoralizing to just question your worthiness as a human and am I doing everything right? And then it creates this really deep hustle and grind culture within the religion. We're on top of everything with life and capitalism and nuclear family. Then you're grinding in the religion to go to the temple once a week, go to church once a week, read all of these books that the bishop said you needed to read, pray to repent, and then it's expected to have these really expansive spiritual experiences. So when you're repenting, did you receive an answer from God that you've been forgiven? And so the pressure I put on myself to feel that as well. I remember that feeling very heavy.

25:56 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, okay. So how long were you a part of the Mormon church for?

26:02 - AJ (Guest)

Yeah, so I was a part of it for 19 years. I joined when I was 15 and I left at 34, and it's been 10 years. I'm about to be 44. So it's been 10 years since I've been out, okay.

26:16 - Sam (Host)

So what was your journey out to like? Because typically it is very rarely a quick process. It's usually slow and arduous and exhausting, and typically painful also when you leave a system like that All of that absolutely experienced and I had, I think, a slow drip in.

26:41 - AJ (Guest)

And I don't know if other, if people who have left other faiths, call it this, but in Mormonism they say that you have a shelf and you put so many things on your shelf. You heard that. You heard somebody say something in a talk, you heard a leader say this. You had your home or visiting teacher say this to you and it didn't sit right with you, and you read something in scriptures that seemed strange. You put it on your shelf. You put it on your shelf. You put it on your shelf. Eventually the shelf breaks for people who who leave. Sometimes people's shelves just get really cluttered and heavy and stay like that. So I think, looking back, I put a lot of things on my shelf and then instantaneously it broke. So, living in that Mormon town, I moved back to California over time and this whole time I wanted to have babies. I wanted to have a bunch of babies and have a big old Mormon family and I was going to have this idyllic life and I didn't get pregnant and I didn't get pregnant and time went on, so much infertility and still didn't get pregnant, and so that started to chip away at my worthiness even more because I was doing all the things right. I was trying to be as good as possible. I was reading these accounts in the Bible where when women were faithful you know they were they were blessed with children. And I I really cherry picked like reading scriptures. I didn't like it. They were so boring so I'd only read something every once in a while if I felt like I needed a boost, and it usually didn't give me a boost. And so I I just I remember praying and begging and pleading and just feeling empty when I would pray to get pregnant and to have a child. And so I ended up, um, after we kind of said like let's not do this anymore, let's try to not have kids. This is just becoming really arduous and really stressful and chaotic and painful and in that time I left the church. And then, after I left the church, I actually did kind of a last ditch effort let's try one more thing. I got pregnant with twins and I lost that pregnancy at 20 weeks. So I was already out of the church at the time.

28:46

But the infertility, the whole time I was in the church had me putting things on my shelf, on my shelf, on my shelf. And then I actually had a friend reach out to me from high school and her spouse at the time was leaving the church and she said I don't know who else to talk to. You've always been really open-minded and nonjudgmental. And he's reading this and he's doing this. And I was like, oh, he's reading what?

29:08

And at the time the church had come out with these articles about they called them the gospel topic essays, where you can learn about, you could kind of do a deep dive into different tenants of the beliefs and I thought, oh, okay, I wonder why he thinks these are not faith promoting if the church put them out. So I read them and there were I can't remember how many, 10 or 12 of them on different gospel topics and the first or second one I read it may have been the first one was about Joseph Smith and the first vision. So piggyback to learning that this 14, 15 year old went to a grove of trees, prayed God and Jesus appeared to him. He started a religion that was supposed to be the one true religion, and I was 15 and I felt so much resonance with him.

29:53

And when I read the accounts of the first vision and I can't remember the details. It's really fuzzy. But you know he he didn't talk about it for 10 or 12 years until after it happened. And there were seven to eight documented accounts of it and they all read a little bit differently. And in that moment, instantaneously, everything crashed down and I went it's all made up, this is all made up. And so after that came the faith crisis of voraciously consuming information.

30:26 - Sam (Host)

Okay, I want to ask about what that process was like. Okay, I want to ask about what that process was like, but if you are comfy, I would love to know what it was like for you. In a church system that thrives on, a woman's role is to be a mother and to have as many children as humanly possible. What that was like to be in that church and to be having infertility problems it was awful.

30:49 - AJ (Guest)

Yeah, it was absolutely awful. It was a constant battle within myself of I'm doing the right thing and then hearing all of these things that made me feel less than so. There's this talk that women in Mormonism are second class citizens, and so I was an infertile woman. So I felt like a third class citizen, and at least I was by the church's standards. I was married, because they're if you're not married, you're just you're like a fourth class citizen. It's absolutely abhorrent, and so it was really hard. I felt really useless. I felt like my purpose was not being fulfilled. And then, at the same time, when I didn't think about church, I didn't mind being child-free, it was okay with me, and so I battled that for over a decade and, yeah, I stopped going to church on Mother's Day pretty early on, actually in the infertility experience.

31:48

Um, looking back I said, yeah, I set some pretty good boundaries for myself. Actually, you know, I stopped going to church on mother's day. I wouldn't attend things that made me feel that was really heavy on kids. You know, if there was like a kid's performance or something cause they would sing church indoctrinated songs and things like that, I just wouldn't go to those things. Um, so I set pretty good boundaries for myself looking back, but it was really hard, yeah yeah, yeah, um, okay, the shelf is broken.

32:24 - Sam (Host)

What do you do with that at the time? Because it is like I know, like I've obviously talked to a lot of people where their shelf is broken mine broke. It just is, like you know, in lots of different faith systems, but, um, it's just like really fucking hard right.

32:42 - AJ (Guest)

It's so fucking hard. It's crazy making I questioned my reality all the time. Yeah, I like what is up and down and left and right. This is fucked. Sleepless nights of staying up just on in groups on Facebook. I joined a bunch of like I'm questioning or maybe have left the church Facebook groups. Um, listening to podcasts there. There are quite a few podcasts for Mormons who have left or who are questioning who need support.

33:11

Started listening to those and just diving into reading accounts, um, blogs from people who had left, just looking for validation that I wasn't crazy.

33:22

And I came across some content creators who were making content and in their like best friends, and one of them she grew up in England and then moved to Idaho and went to that little school there and they're about a decade younger than me, but she was a convert at 18 or 19 I think 17, 18, 19 and she talked about how disaffected she felt leaving and I really resonated with that and I needed to hear that languaging because once I entrenched myself in it, I was like I'm in it to win it, I'm going to save my family, I'm going to have all the babies I'm going to, I'm going to do this thing. I've committed myself to this, I'm going to do all the temple stuff, and so when she mentioned that like being a disaffected convert, it hit me really hard because I had chosen something for myself and I had chosen to make a life out of it and then it all came crashing down and I realized it was not what I thought it was and that was painful.

34:24 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, absolutely, I mean it's so. It's. Yeah, absolutely, I mean it's so, it's um, oh it, there's just like so much within that journey to unpack. But it's so interesting when we realize that so much of what we thought we wanted, we actually were just conditioned to think that that's what we wanted or what was expected of us. We wanted or what was expected of us, and so, uh, what was it like unpacking that? But also just like learning about who you were amongst all of that, because I think that's equally the most you know destabilizing and painful parts of deconstructing whatever faith of origin you've come from.

35:07 - AJ (Guest)

Um, also, finding your renewed sense of self is also really beautiful and really liberating yeah, yeah, it was a lot of deconstructing and a lot of really reclaiming feeling the pieces of me that I had lost yeah especially my feeling, the pieces of me that I had lost, especially my intellectualism.

35:31

I feel like, as a woman, that was really beat out of me because women are so infantilized in the Mormon church. You have to stay young, you have to stay pretty, you have to have all the babies. Utah has very high rates of plastic surgery tummy tucks and things and so it's you have to stay, stay perfect, really in this like infantilized state to be desirable, and so really reclaiming my intellectualism was something that just started flooding back. I realized I hadn't kept that part of myself, really small, coming back again to like I'm so sapio, I love intellectual connections with people, I love to learn and I wanted I've always been a seeker, and so that part of me didn't completely go away.

36:21

But then the floodgates opened and I was, I allowed myself to just go in any direction that felt good, which was really self. To just go in any direction that felt good, which was really, really fun. Um, reclaiming of my body in in so many ways. I had had a pretty steady yoga practice and I was actually doing my yoga teacher training during my faith crisis, which was phenomenal for me, for my mental health.

36:44 - Sam (Host)

I was about to say I bet that was a godsend. And then I was like, oh, that's probably not a like knee-jerk reaction in language, but I absolutely think it was really. It was probably really great for your healing and your nervous system.

36:58 - AJ (Guest)

Yes, yes, for my nervous system it was fabulous. And so just reclaiming my body in a way of dressing, however I wanted to, was really big, because in Mormonism, if you are a temple going member, you wear garments which are under layers of underwear and they are, at the time, like a cap sleeve shirt and a mid to just above knee like underwear situation. Um, so there's no really there the amount of clothes I could wear that I felt cute in or limited, yeah. So just reclaiming that was was really amazing for me, and also reclaiming my sexuality, and that comes into. I was listening. One of the podcasts I listened to was called Year of Polygamy, and this brilliant podcast creator and she started researching early Mormonism, polygamy and so, and polygamy being the umbrella term of polygyny and polyandry, so polyandry being one woman, multiple husbands. Polygyny being one husband, many wives. So Mormonism is known for its polygamy and they renounce it now. They say it's not a part of it.

38:21

However, it still is in the eternal enmeshment situation, which I won't necessarily go down that rabbit hole, but if folks want to Google it, it's very, very free to find information about that. So basically, a man can be sealed in the temple to multiple women throughout his lifetime, but only have one alive wife at a time. So if a man has a wife who dies, he can get remarried in the temple and be sealed to multiple women in his lifetime. So I started doing this year of polygamy research and I heard a podcast episode where the host was reading journal entries and diaries of sister wives and there were these two women who were sister wives and had the same husband and they actually enjoyed it. They actually enjoyed the life. He seemed like a very kind man who treated them well. They got along really well together.

39:15

It was kind of questionable whether the two women also had their own relationship by hearing their journal entries and how the amount of affection and care that they were speaking about each other and I thought I want that and I went where the fuck did that come from? So I told my spouse at the time I'm I heard this episode and it kind of touched me in a way. That seemed strange and I'm kind of uncomfortable but also intrigued by how I'm feeling. And then he looks at me and he goes I totally love a live-in girlfriend or another wife and I'm like, well, if you get to have another wife, I want a wife. Mind you, I'm annoyingly straight like annoyingly straight.

40:07

So me saying I want a wife meant I wanted companionship and connection from more than just my spouse of monogamy was actually starting to hit me, of not just monogamy but mononormativity. This person is your everything and no questions about it. And so that kind of started about five years of little joking pings between him and I, of these little like what about this, what about that? And I found myself starting to daydream and think like what would it be like with more people being connected to? And I'm sure I'd heard of polyamory but I didn't really have the language or the framework for it yeah, um, I mean, five years is a really long deconstruction of monogamy, essentially.

41:04 - Sam (Host)

I mean, like my wife and I also heard a podcast and we're like actually, uh, we kind of think monogamy is really fucking overrated and the only reason we're doing it is because we were told we had to and we kind of just like had a few months of conversations and like all of that sort of thing, and so I'm curious why you think it took such a lengthy period of time. Like what was it that you were wrestling with over that period of time?

41:34 - AJ (Guest)

Yeah, I think it was just life. So this is pre-COVID, pre-pandemic, everything pre-everything shutting down, and I think it was just life. I was really busy teaching yoga and enjoying having a new career, and my spouse at the time you know I won't share his story but his process out of the church was very different than mine, very different pathway. He was raised in it and so it was just, it was different and they didn't really line up a lot. I was really well, well, well out of it before he even started toe dipping and like maybe I'm not doing this anymore. And so these little conversations were just funny, little pings of of, um, different thoughts and ideas, without it actually really going anywhere, because I think you know I have spoken to him about it and just the fear of doing something different, the fear of rocking the boat, the fear of making a change, creating waves, all of that. So much in Mormonism is, there's such a heavy focus on sameness and just keeping the status quo and not changing. They have this whole idea that God is unchanging and everlasting, yet their policies change all the time so that it really doesn't embrace the human nature of change. And so it was right around the hit of the pandemic and we were. You know, we had to isolate together, living in a small little cottage. Neither I stopped working you know, his work was very, very seldom, mostly at home went into the office very, very sporadically and just in each other's faces all the time. And it hit me so deeply how much we needed therapy, because I was ready to be done. I was just ready to be done and I didn't know what to do. I was like here I am, I guess at the time I was almost 40. And what am I going to do? Go live with my parents. I don't have friends, I don't have connections to anybody. It's also COVID, so I can't really just be out there in the world. And we found a couple of therapists, until one actually landed and this is all, of course, telehealth. And it turns out that she was in California but not in our area, and she was ex-Mormon and poly and queer affirming Beautiful, what a combo. And it was not on her website. The poly and queer affirming was on her website, but nothing about being ex-Mormon, nothing about helping people with faith transitions, because it wasn't something she came across very often. It was just part of her story, more than what she did as a therapist and so it was maybe the second or third session with her.

44:27

This is early: 2021

45:27 - Sam (Host)

So how did you navigate that on like a personal level, but also within your relationship?

45:36 - AJ (Guest)

our therapist was phenomenal. She, she was phenomenal. It was a lifesaver to work with her and, being that I am a seeker, it took about a month of we were meeting with her. I think maybe even at that time, twice a week because it was just all so new and flooding in. And she said here's some books, here's some podcasts. And I went, I don't know, I just need to feel right now. And then it broke open and I started consuming everything. I read, uh, jessica Fern's books and ethical slut. And just, yeah, it just started. And and he looked at me and he's like I knew you were eventually going to start researching all this yeah, I mean, what was that like for you to try and I?

46:23 - Sam (Host)

obviously you would have, by this point, deconstructed your faith pretty heavily, I imagine.

46:30 - AJ (Guest)

Oh yeah, oh yes.

46:31 - Sam (Host)

I don't know about you, even though I had also deconstructed my faith. Starting to deconstruct monogamy is sort of like, is like the equivalent of sticking your hand in a fish tank and rustling around the rocks and realizing, oh, there's still some shit there.

46:44

Right, absolutely yeah, sticking your hand in a fish tank and rustling around the rocks and realizing oh there's still some shit there, right, absolutely yeah. What was that? Like sort of like thinking and being conditioned that monogamy was not just the default but it was the only acceptable right in this situation I felt like I was drinking from a fire hose I love that image.

47:04 - AJ (Guest)

It was oh deep deconstruction and I hit moments that felt even heavier with grief and with confusion and that crazy making feeling than when I was deconstructing my faith because this was down to the root of even my secular upbringing yeah even my family and my like intergenerational ideas that I was raised with my family is still very traditionally monogamous and mononormative, and so that was.

47:37

It went deeper and I felt like I was getting into this deconstructing level of hitting these undercurrents, like the seedy underbelly of what was still there. And looking at purity culture was one thing within mormonism, but then puritanical culture and looking at like the colonialism that came and you know, wiped out the indigenous populations and brought their puritanical ideals and how that I was still steeped in that and mononormativity and the idea that you have the one. And starting to look at couples privilege and to see how, in at least my world around me, everything was geared towards couples. Yeah, and, and waking up to all of that was it was heavy, it was deep, and I actually started my Instagram then because I needed a void to scream into yeah, yeah, I needed some sort of.

48:36

If I put this out, there is anybody going to ping back and say, hey, I at least get a little bit of what is happening Because therapy was helpful. Yes, and say, hey, I at least get a little bit of what is happening because therapy was helpful. Yes, talking to some friends was helpful, consuming information about how to deconstruct. All of that was helpful and I just I'm such an external processor I had to put a bat signal out.

48:58 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, I mean, I've had conversations with so many people who have done something similar in terms of they've started deconstruction accounts or something like that, because there is this desire to not just have an outlet for your own stuff but to connect with people who are thinking and feeling the same experiences, and they're going, oh, get that. It's like the part of us that wants that co-connection and co-regulation. And you're not alone in this, like you're not the only person thinking this, but it also takes an immense amount of courage and bravery to start posting on a public platform about something that is really private and probably still quite raw in some spaces for you.

49:47 - AJ (Guest)

Yeah, yeah it was. It was actually really cathartic and kind of scary. So I still I still maintain some anonymity, not as much as I had before, but I was completely anonymous for at least the first year because I was worried that somebody from not necessarily my Mormon life I was pretty disconnected, especially not having any Mormon family. I was pretty disconnected from those people in that past, but just in my regular general life at all I was concerned about somebody finding, you know, my face would pop up on their suggested. Now I care much, much less, but I still maintain some anonymity, partly because it's kind of fun, of fun. It's kind of I'm able to tap into like kind of a darker side of me, just kind of a more kind of cheeky, rebellious, like kind of sexy and, um, you know, I'll share. I'll share memes that are a little more salacious in my stories, um, on my authentic relating account than I will on my, you know, personal Instagram where I show my face and yoga stuff and all these things.

51:12 - Sam (Host)

I mean, what was it like for you personally to deal with that heaviness and the complexities and the trying to hold two things at the same time and all of those sorts of things? How did you navigate that?

51:22 - AJ (Guest)

It was a lot. I am actually extremely appreciative that it was COVID and lockdown time because I did have a lot of time and space to navigate that. Yeah, I started to, so at the time it was already happening with my spouse and I. We we went into our own bedrooms and things because I I needed space. I just needed space to be me, to feel my own energy. I started doing somatic work. So I started working with a somatic guide who uses a modality called Hakomi and some other things that it's, yeah, similar to parts work and things like that, and that was extremely helpful. I I tapped into some psychedelicsics and did a little bit of work there Not a ton, but some and it was helpful.

52:11

There were times when it was really helpful to just kind of shed some stuff, shed some limiting beliefs. I did a lot of journaling. I went on a lot of walks. I'm really appreciative that I did have that time and space to process and it was heavy. It was heavy processing all the time. It was my face and I tried to get away from it, but it did feel so consuming in the way that, like I want to keep moving through this, I want to keep processing this and there were times of just sitting with it and doing other things, but I am grateful that it was able to be such a concentrated time to be able to navigate that, because I don't think I would be where I am now if I wouldn't have had that time and space, because it was a heavier deconstruction than leaving the religion, especially because I had been a convert. So, like I said, I was touching on things that were deeply ingrained in me from the time I was pre-verbal, whereas religion was not a part of my life when I was that young.

53:07 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, absolutely. I think, when I, when I talk about deconstructing monogamy people forget that there is a secular aspect to that as well, that it's just religious indoctrination that tells you that monogamy is right, like you see it in Disney movies and you see like all sorts of things. You know all of your tv shows and it's just like you know it's just in the water in in all of society and so there is. It does feel like a heavier type of indoctrination and deconstruction. Deconstruction um, at what point did you start to notice?

53:46 - AJ (Guest)

this is not feeling as heavy anymore ah, I haven't thought about that, I think, when it was really free and open for my spouse and I to just talk about it and without shame, without fear of hurting each other, stepping into more autonomy in that relationship and realizing that, like the process, the differentiating process of where we were really differentiating and discovering our own autonomy, and like, hey, I'm still here, you're still here, you know that that felt really good, like we would just lay in bed for hours and talk about, okay, what if? What if this, what if that, what if someone? What if we meet somebody we want to move in with and not live together anymore? What if we do this? What if we do that? And so eventually did de-nest from him and move, uh, quite far away. Okay, which is what brought me to the land I'm on now. It's a good old fashioned Mormon Utah, yeah, yeah, which is really strange.

54:50

d up here because it was late: 2020

56:05

I took a trip to Utah and I met some of these folks and I just thought I I feel home here in in a very strange way, and so I've been asked quite often how could you move here as an ex-Mormon? Because people who are here who are ex-Mormon have a really hard time. There's churches sometimes on every corner. There are temples all over the place. Certain towns have a really heavy, not only Mormon population but just a Mormon culture that is very conservative. It's very modest. There are dry grocery stores where you can't get alcohol in some counties here.

56:41

And so, being that, I came to Salt Lake City, where it's a lot more progressive and diverse, at least really trying to be, and there's a really big movement towards just inclusivity and and just acceptance, and not only acceptance but just embracing all folks, all forms of life.

57:05

There's way more pride flags than US flags in a lot of those neighborhoods, which makes me really happy, like so happy. And so I found myself not really feeling like I was steeped in this Mormon culture and because I wasn't raised in it and I left the church when I was outside of Utah, I, I just it's, I I consider it an extreme privilege that I just don't see it. I don't let myself see it or wallow in it, and as I'm driving I'm like there's a church, whatever Like. To me it kind of just looks like a gas station or a grocery store. It's just some building that I don't participate in what they do there and I don't have a charge on it's just some building that I don't participate in what they do there and I don't have a charge on it, and I consider that um a privilege. I really do that.

57:51 - Sam (Host)

Not a lot of people here have yeah, it also sounds like you've done a shit ton of work to get to that point, though right, so like yeah, yes, but acknowledgement of all of the, of all of the therapy and the somatic work and all of the stuff you've done to absolutely give your nervous system the best chance to live in a space that could activate your nervous system every 30 seconds so yes, um, you know there's also like acknowledgement there of you know all of the work that you have done as well, yes, thank you, I appreciate that.

58:21 - AJ (Guest)

And also like not having not not having Mormon family is huge. Yeah, because that's a lot of thing, that a lot of a major factor, and folks I know who are ex-Mormon that that's the place where they seem to not be able to get away from it is family, and so that is where I I'm very appreciative that I don't have that.

58:42 - Sam (Host)

present day, you know, early: 2025

59:15 - AJ (Guest)

Yeah, I, I feel really free, which is lovely. I enjoy, um, just exploring where I want to explore and going where I want to go. Relationally I have separated from my spouse and we have a good connection just realized that we wanted different things and it wasn't going to translate to the authentic life that we each wanted to live, and so that's been really happy. That's been a really slow process which has felt really gentle on both of our nervous systems. It's felt just like a very kind, loving way to deescalate and so I enjoy that.

:: 00:00

I recently moved in with my partner, who I've been with for two years. So, nesting with somebody else after years of denested and being on my own, do I want to eat? And just following my own flow has been really great. And finding that autonomy and then meeting a partner who has gone through his very own extremely unique process but also has kind of paralleled mine in a way of like the timing of things, um, it has been really really lovely and fun and and so far it's it's going quite well. I'm like kind of very subtly anticipating like okay, there's gonna be hiccups moving in together, but so far it's been really really enjoyable. Yeah, um, I think that we're not. We're not scared to speak up and be honest because it's still held in like love and support for each other. So that's been really wonderful and, yeah, just being able to follow my flow just feels really really good, without shame, without worrying about if I'm good or if I'm doing the right thing. I I don't care if I fuck up, it doesn't matter to me.

:: 01:28

Yeah, and is a connection to some form of spirituality, something that's important to you or not so much?

:: 01:35

It has ebbed and flowed a lot. It was actually a lot stronger when I was leaving and I was really heavy in my yoga practice because I was in my teacher training and all of that. And I still practice yoga. I don't practice as much physical like asana yoga, but it's not also not just complete meditation either. Um, I enjoy the universal tenets of the spirituality that yoga has to offer, without attaching to it.

:: 02:05

I don't consider myself like wanting to go along a path to like like Hindu or Buddhism or anything again, I just, I just really enjoy like following my own flow and so having having some sort of connection to not only myself but just the broader world. Like nature has always been there, but nature has become even more important to me since like there are gorgeous mountains and canyons like 10, 20 minutes away from me, which I didn't have where I was living before, and and just that like going and being off grid like my cell phone doesn't work, even if I go 20 minutes outside of town is amazing. Like that is just amazing to just get quiet and be with myself and just to get invigorated by, like the rhythms of the earth. So I would say that I've definitely leaned towards more kind of animistic pagan. I don't celebrate like Christian religions.

:: 03:08

I don't Christian and colonial religion or not religions uh, holidays, yeah, that's the word um, I like when you, you know, when we popped on and said it's Easter.

:: 03:19

I keep forgetting, yeah, which is why neither of us care that we're recording this at Easter weekend.

:: 03:26

Exactly. So I have, you know, toe-dipped in some of like my personal ancestry is like multiple, you know, european, like some Celtic, some English, and so just kind of try to look at some of those like more ancient practices that were indigenous to those folks before like religion took over in those areas. And so I do like that. But I just kind of dabble. I just kind of dabble in like full moon, new moon. Sometimes I'm like, oh, there's a full moon, maybe I'll light a candle and pull a tarot card but I don't always do it.

:: 04:10

So again, it kind of following that like what do I want to do? What feels good? Yeah, it's the it's like.

:: 04:12

I think sometimes it's the lack of having to do, it's the expectation, right, like that's the expectation to do all of these rituals, to remove that away and to do them when or if you feel like you want to. Like. We love consent in all forms, not just in in the sexual realm, but like it is. There is just a freedom that can come from being able to engage in any form of spiritual practice on your own terms, when you want to. If you don't want to, you don't.

:: 04:44

Um and yeah so I love, I agree, I'm so with you on that and that that is a really good point, that it was so structured and so all-consuming with Mormonism that to be able to just allow that flow and that connection to myself and my own intuition is a really big reclaiming, because that is one thing that I definitely felt was taken away from me was my connection to my intuition and myself. Oh, absolutely and so from the religion. So continually just honoring that and going with the flow feels really good.

:: 05:17

Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned nature a moment ago. I often will joke in these episodes with people that the church thinks that sex, drugs and rock and roll are going to lead people away from the church. A good rock or a tree will do much more right, like nature will do far more in leading people out of the church than sex ever will, it's so true.

:: 05:40

And also I have met folks where it's been weed or mushrooms, which is also nature.

:: 05:47

And so you know, yeah, a really amazing, you know dip in the river, or yeah, looking up at laying on your back, looking up at a tree and just marveling at the sun coming through the leaves, yeah Is, yeah, is really special.

:: 06:01

In fact, I remember I like that you mentioned that because I remember, specifically towards the end, when I was getting ready to leave the church but I was still kind of like, oh, am I in or not? And I went to. They would have a congregation with everybody and then they would break you off into men and women, and so in that portion of the church day, the woman who was teaching the lesson, she said I got up today and it was such a beautiful day and I wanted to go to the beach. But then I remind which was I was about an hour away from there. And she said then I reminded myself that this is where I need to be. And I sat there the whole time thinking I want to be at the fucking beach right now. Why am I here? I don't even like the beach that much and I'd prefer to be at the beach than sitting under the fluorescent lights in a stale room with an uncomfortable chair and an old woman with her stinky perfume, rose perfume next to me.

:: 06:54

Yeah oh, I hear the same thing when I talk to you know, ex-evangelicals or pentecostals, because they're often in like dark auditoriums and it's the most beautiful sunshine ridden day outside and it's just the it's just the most ironic situation. I think, um, but yeah, I just think it's so funny, um, okay, I love to finish these episodes with some encouragement for people, um, and so I'm going to leave it up to you in terms of where you want to take this, because we are, I guess, have a double deconstruction in your story, right?

:: 07:33

So usually I would say, like, what would you say to someone who is fresh in their deconstruction and so you can take that in terms of either of those or both of those but what would you say to that person who is just, you know, knee deep in that and just doesn't know where to turn or what to do?

:: 07:53

I love that. I think there are things that can apply to any type of deconstruction. Take some deep breaths, Sit in grass or sit on the earth or sit in dirt, doesn't matter. And and feel and feel. Allow yourself to feel if it, if it feels okay with you, put your hands on your body anywhere you know, hold your, hold your forearms, or hold your shoulders or hands on your belly or on your thighs, and give awareness to your humanity and your aliveness and just breathe and pause, drink some water and really allow that space for yourself to start to come through, for your own inner voice, your own intuition, your own inner knowing and inner wisdom, Even if you question it or you're not familiar with it or it feels scary. Spend some time pausing and then find a space where you can feel validated in your experience, whether it's a therapist or a coach or a really good friend, somebody who's walked the path before you, who can offer some support, even if it's just, even if you just need to vent and need them to listen or something.

:: 09:23

it doesn't have to be any guidance or anything yeah find another human, like you know, even if it's online like this, just another human like the online spaces, the groups, the chat groups can be helpful, but find another human or group of humans, a support group, something like that, yeah yeah, a mix of practical and grounding, which is a beautiful combination.

:: 09:48

We need to do one, we need the other, so I love that. Yes, well, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for your wonderful Instagram account. Give it a quick plug.

:: 10:01

Yes, thank you, sam. It is authentically relating underscore AJ Amazing.

:: 10:08

And it will be linked in the show notes and all of that. Anyway, but encourage people to go over there. I guarantee you will learn something, even if you don't think you will, but you will. And so, yeah, thank you for your account, thank you for being so open and honest and thank you for your time. I'm appreciative.

:: 10:32

Thank you, Sam. This has been so much fun.

:: 10:35

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Beyond the Surface. I hope you found today's conversation as insightful and inspiring as I did. If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with others who might benefit from these stories. Stay connected with us on social media for updates and more content. I love connecting with all of you. Remember, no matter where you are in your journey, you're not alone. Until next time, keep exploring, keep questioning and keep moving forward. Take care.