Latter Day Struggles

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Series Title: Valerie’s Personal Journey [Part I of II]

Join Val and fellow therapist Brannon Patrick this week as Brannon interviews Valerie about her first year accidentally diving into the deep end as a professional voice speaking respectfully but directly on behalf of thousands of individuals in the LDS faith and trust crisis and expansion space.

In those two episodes Valerie responds to a variety of personal questions including (but not limited to): 

• Her own experiences finding herself a in a role speaking at the intersection of good psychology, a call for healthy theology, with a keen understanding of the dynamics of healthy and unhealthy organizations.
• How she has navigated activity in the church.
• Her and Brannon’s experience first deciding to work together and then his deciding to no longer work with her and their touching conclusions about this tough relational period.
• Her experience with the very real possibility of burnout in this highly emotional work.
• Her reasons for committing so much time and nurture to the support and processing group process and the unintended benefits of this experience for her as a facilitator
• Her and Nathan’s journey as a couple, evolving parents, and working together on the podcast
• Val’s thoughts on the possibility of church discipline due to her ministry

And much more! Latter Day Struggles Podcast Episodes mentioned in this episode as most impactful for Valerie:

• Latter Day Struggles Podcast Episode 118: Stumbling Blocks and the Book of Mormon with Paul Toscano—Part IV
• ⁠Latter Day Struggles Podcast Episode 126: A Glimpse into the Spiritual Journey of LDS Theologian Fiona Givens

Info on how to subscribe to listen to Friday’s episode is directly below.  See you there!

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In this brief minisode, Val gets everyone (especially those not on social media) up to speed on the many directions that she is going to help you in your faith journey.

Here’s what I talk in more detail about on this bonus episode:

1. There is a new Latter Day Struggles support and processing group starting July 17th 2023 and this is the last group beginning for the next several months.  If you’ve been on the fence, now is the time to jump in!  Go to latterdaystruggles.com and enroll there.
2. Today 6/18/23 is the LAST DAY to benefit from GREAT discounts on Valerie’s Online Courses “A Couple’s Guide to Faith Crisis and Expansion”.  She is offering buy one get one free until midnight central standard time.  Much more info about this on Instagram at @latterdaystruggle.com in the highlights and current stories and on latterdaystruggles.com
3. Not mentioned but worth mentioning :) is that Valerie will be participating in a variety of ways at this year’s Annual Sunstone Symposium.  Her presentation topics are “The Creation of the Deviant Out-group” and “LDS Faith Crisis 10 Years After the Faith Crisis Report”.  I will also be running a breakout group on working through faith crisis.  Please come to Sunstone and support this wonderful organization!  I’d love to meet you in person! 

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SUPPORT: Like what you’re hearing at Latter Day Struggles Podcast? You can support Valerie’s efforts by becoming a recurring donor on Patreon.com!

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SUPPORT GROUPS: You are invited to join one of Valerie’s space-limited ⁠⁠Faith Crisis and Expansion Support and Processing Groups⁠⁠⁠!  As a trauma therapist, she continues to help our LDS faith expansion community become psychologically healthier and spiritually well in and around the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Details about availability on ⁠⁠⁠latterdaystruggles.com⁠⁠⁠⁠.  These groups ALWAYS FILL UP, so jump in asap!

     Click here for a step-by-step guide on how to join a support group

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COURSES: Now available! “⁠⁠⁠A Couple’s Guide to Faith Crisis and Expansion⁠⁠⁠” parts I and II. See what else is offered on ⁠⁠latterdaystruggles.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

     Click here for a step-by-step guide to purchase a course

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Series Title: PRIDE and Personal Growth [Part II of II]

Join Val and a handful of special guests on this second half of a series honoring PRIDE month.  In this episode several beautiful women and men share their unique journeys finding self/other love and acceptance on the full spectrum of gender and sexuality.

Unlearning can be more challenging than learning, especially in a religious system that has focused so strongly on heteronormativity.  But these beautiful people show that is can indeed be done and that the journey is sacred and one worth celebrating and sharing. 

Please note: In the section featuring Kit and Bree and their beautiful love story, I want to make clear that the manner in which they have been able to navigate their marriage is a representation of what has felt congruent to each of them in their own personal story.

 I do not want to communicate that other outcomes in other marriages are not acceptable or reasonable.  I believe that giving each individual in each couple the liberty follow what is most congruent to them is the path to wholeness.  Books and podcasts recommended in this episode:

• Questions from the Closet Podcast
• Listen, Learn, and Love Podcast
• Beyond the Block Podcast
• Goodbye, I Love You, written by Carol Lynn Pearson

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Series Title: PRIDE and Personal Growth [Part I of II]

Join Valerie for the next couple of week honoring PRIDE in a variety of different ways.

First and most importantly, Valerie has invited several individuals (like yourselves!) from her small groups to share their own growth journeys in the context of PRIDE month.

In each of these stories shared you will learn from gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and straight ally individuals who learned profound lessons about love over fear, love over judgment, and love over unhealthy theology.

They share the beauty of being a work in progress and each model how it is okay to believe one way until we experience enough life to teach us to belief another way that is more aligned with God’s love for the diversity of their sacred creations.

Books and podcasts recommended in this episode:

• ⁠Questions from the Closet Podcast⁠
• ⁠Listen, Learn, and Love Podcast⁠
• A Walk in My Shoes: Questions I'm Often Asked as a Gay Latter-day Saint, written by Ben Schilaty

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Series Title: When Marriage Doctrines Unintentionally Divide a Couple [Part II of II]

In this episode Valerie reviews her overarching philosophical and psychological orientation for healthy marriage in general and how she helps couples heal from struggles typical to LDS faith crisis in particular.

She reviews key components to every section of her six self-guided online classes titled created to help the LDS couple struggling due to the faith journey of one of the partners.  

These classes can be taken as a couple or you can take them individually and integrate their concepts organically into your relationship if your partner is not yet ready to confront these complex issues.  

See link below to check this and other self-paced online classes to support you in your faith expansion journey! 

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CONSULTING: Interested in doing individ

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Series Title: When Marriage Doctrines Unintentionally Divide a Couple [Part I of II]

This week on the Latter Day Struggles podcast Valerie focuses on a population of people whom she loves and sees consistently in a lot of pain here in and around the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Married couples in the LDS church tend to experience a great deal of distress when one partner begins a growth process that departs in any way from the standard beliefs and practices of the LDS faith. 

In this episode Valerie breaks down what she has coined “the successful failure” of LDS marriage theology, a belief system that is so incredibly successful garnering the faith and loyalty of some individuals that they would choose their religious beliefs about marriage over the marriage itself.

In short, the success of the LDS indoctrination about the specific demands of an LDS marriage may strongly contribute to the failure of the actual LDS marriage. 

This is tragic.

As a marriage therapist and a witness to too many LDS marriages coming undone unnecessarily,  Valerie has chosen to commit the past few months creating two profound online courses to help couples not become casualties to this “successful failure” phenomenon.

This episode describes the phenomenon in detail and the next episode in this mini-series describes Valerie’s overarching philosophical and psychological orientation to helping couples work through this challenge and become a stronger, more unconditionally loving couple than they ever imagined possible.

See directly below to grab the link to check out these self-paced online classes to support your marriage!  These classes can be taken as a couple or individually.  

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Series Title: Visionary Women Past & Present [Part II of II]

In this beautiful and tender episode, Valerie has the privilege of interviewing LDS theologian Fiona Givens about her early life, diverse experiences, important relationships, and classical education that eventually led her into the LDS faith and deeply into the study of many facets of the nature of God.

This story is one of all of the typical ups and downs, seemingly insignificant events that lead to other more significant events, and finally a few moments where Valerie proposes to Fiona why her unique life distinctively prepared her for the work that she is doing now; something that is profoundly blessing thousands of faith-expanding Latter Day Saints in this era.  Perhaps Fiona is our own “Esther”, prepared for such a time as now.

Don’t miss this truly love-filled episode if you have found healing through the work of Fiona Givens.  It will endear you to her even more.

Books referenced in this episode:

• The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life
• The Christ Who Heals: How God Restored the Truth that Saves Us
• The Crucible of Doubt: Reflections On the Quest for Faith
• All Things New: Rethinking Sin, Salvation, and Everything in Between

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Series Title: Visionary Women Past & Present [Part I of II]

Join Valerie and guest Fiona Givens as together they discuss a true prophetess and mystic, Julian of Norwich.

Father Richard Rohr has often called Julian his "favorite mystic" and Fiona attributes this woman as one of the most personally influential to her in the development of her own whole and holy theology of the divine.  If these two recommendations aren't enough for you...then I don't know what to say!

A few highlights of this episode:

• Julian's “showings” really shine a light on God’s inability to be angry with us for our humanness
• Our current struggles with the nature of God in some brings up pain, anxiety, religious scrupulosity, and defection from the church
• Our misunderstandings of the nature of God brings up generational trauma to the extent that we perpetuate a God concept that estranges us from Julian's God of infinite love
• According to Julian's visions, sin is “no thing” in God’s eyes.  Our missteps are the education that endears us to God
• As a committed Catholic, Julian too struggles with heavenly visions that did not align with the teachings of her “holy church” and she [as do we] does the work of differentiating her church’s imperfections with her personal revelations, choosing to align with the truth that was revealed to her directly from it’s source

Book referenced in this episode:

• Julian of Norwich: The Showings: Uncovering the Face of the Feminine in Revelations of Divine Love, by Mirabai Starr
• The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life, by Terry and Fiona Givens

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If you loved the last episode of Latter Day Struggles, you’ll love Valerie and Nathan’s discussion about the 5 components that can help each of us know that we have embraced a mature spirituality:  A MATURE SPIRITUALITY: 

• Resonates from within (is not compelled from beyond)
• Invites the numinous (beckons, compels us forward, drives us to know more with a magnetic-like pull)
• Opens us to mystery (welcomes the unknown; is open to a different way of seeing, worshipping, experiencing, that is unconnected to our programming)
• Asks us to grow up (does not hand off the soul stretching discerning process of life to authorities, experts, or any other "big person", thus preventing us from the inevitable anxiety of growth)
• Invites us to live a value driven relational life (the culmination of all of the above points shows up "on the ground" as responsible, accountable, respectful of other's journeys, and loving of the process of life as a sacred growth experience)

**Each of Valerie’s Support and Processing Groups and Online Courses is Grounded in these Five Principles and offers a structure for achieving a mature relationship with spirituality. 

Book referenced in this episode: 

• Living an Examined Life by James Hollis

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During the Covid Pandemic, Valerie read even more than usual.  One of the authors whom she binged was Jungian analyst James Hollis, who tipped her entire psychological and theological paradigm…right-side-up…finally. 

She passed several books off to Nathan and together they reconfigured a spirituality that is the foundation of what you hear in some way, shape, or form in each episode of Latter Day Struggles. 

In this episode they discuss the colossal difference between LESS MATURE and MATURE spirituality.

Highlights:

1. Immature spirituality hands beliefs and life choices off to authority figures.  Mature spirituality takes personal ownership in one’s own beliefs and life choices
2. Immature spiritual builds walls.  Mature spirituality breaks down walls
3. Immature spirituality “pins down” truth and mandates proper worship, observance, and belief.  Mature spirituality knows that once the mystery of God and other mystical experience has been given a name, a form, a face, and a structure—its essence, beauty, and mystery often recedes, ceasing to connect us to the divine.

Book referenced in this episode: 

• Living a Examined Life by James Hollis

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