Episode 195 (Transcript): Embracing Your Journey | A Conversation with Candice Clark

Episode Transcript

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Many thanks to listener Rebecca Graham for her help in editing the transcript for this episode!

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[teaser] CC: I would say, learn how to make decisions for yourself, and be kind to yourself no matter what. Both parts of that are essential. You can’t have one without the other. Because not every decision is going to go well. You’re not necessarily going to be happy with it. But if you can be kind to yourself and not make that mean that you’re worthless, then that’s a fundamental skill. I mean, that really is what allows growth.

CW: Hello, I'm Cynthia Winward.

SH: And I'm Susan Hinckley.

CW: And this is At Last She Said It. We are women of faith discussing complicated things. And the title of this week's episode is “Embracing Your Journey, A Conversation with Candice Clark.” Welcome, Candice.

SH: Hi, Candice.

CC: Hi! Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited.

CW: We're excited to have you. I feel like we run in a lot of the same hallways. Is that right, Susan?

SH: Yes, I think so.

CW: We see Candice online and in different groups that we're in. You recently saw her, Susan, at an event that you were both at in the Midwest. So I'm excited, Candice, for us to finally get together and learn a little bit more about you as we put you in the hot seat today.

And our Embracing Your Journey episodes are some of our favorite episodes

SH: Absolutely.

CW: Because, right, Susan? I feel like we really get into the meat and potatoes of a woman's spiritual journey. And I always end up finding something resonant, something that makes me go, “Me too” or something that makes me go, “Wow, that's really interesting. I want to start whatever, maybe doing that or looking at things that way.”

So, these are our favorite conversations. And so we're so glad that we are going to get to know you a bit more today.

Before we jump in, can you, Candice, just kind of give us a quick snapshot? We'll get into details later, but just give our listeners anything you'd like them to know about you that will kind of give context to where we're headed today.

CC: Yeah, I have been a participating member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints my entire life. I grew up in Oregon and then went to high school in Utah. I’m the second of six children. My parents both grew up in Utah and now I live in Iowa and I have five adult children who are ages 19 to 31, and I was an at-home parent for a long time, and now I have a full-time job, and I also became a life coach for moms whose kids don't come to church, because I have five of those.

CW and SH: Mmm.

CC: And in that process, I started a podcast called “No Empty Chairs,” where I talk about things that have helped me. The gospel principles and ways of seeing the world and coaching tools that have helped me to really build better relationships with my kids and be respectful of their journeys.

SH: I have a feeling that there are a lot of women who just sat forward in their chairs and are thinking, “Aha! Another conversation with another mom whose children are no longer attending the church. And so I want to hear more.”

CW: And I can also imagine, I mean, for half a second there, I was thinking, that's a very specific focus, Candice, for a life coaching business.

And then I was like, no, it's not.

SH: Oh, so needed.

CW: Not in this space. Yeah. I mean, if we count up all our children right here, 9, 10, 11, between the three of us, we have 11 children and only one attends, it sounds like.

SH: That's amazing.

CW: Yeah, that's my son. So that's a pretty big hole you're probably trying to fill right now, Candice, with so many parents who just need a little extra help in figuring this out because we don't get a whole lot of help, I think, when we're attending church on Sundays with how to navigate these complicated family situations. So, wonderful.

CC: Yeah, the way the stories are told at church are sometimes painful and not hopeful. And I just have found that I have really had to shift my focus to my personal faith in the infinite atonement of Jesus Christ, because there's a lot of other stuff around it that doesn't match my story. And I just have to choose what I want to believe about. What God thinks of me and what God thinks of my kids.

SH: Well, and as hard as it was for me to get my head around the idea that I don't have to save myself, speaking of the atonement, it was really hard for me to also give away the idea that I'm responsible to save other people, like my children.

CC: Yeah.

SH: That had to save all of us through my hard work and my worthiness and all those things. So those are really pervasive ideas in our [00:05:00] culture and I feel like a lot of women end up in this space, in the “At Last She Said It” space, where they're maybe starting to question things, or, you know, something has launched them on a journey of some kind, and it very often involves something around their children or family members.

CC: Yeah.

SH: So, thank you for being a coach for the women in this space because so many of us need you.

CW: Yeah. Well, Susan's gonna lead our discussion today. She's going to kind of go through those same, I don't know, five questions, Susan, that we like to ask women on these episodes. So, take it away, Susan.

SH: Yeah, we always like to start these episodes with getting a snapshot of your LDS life. Candice, can you tell us a little bit about your experiences as a Latter-day Saint woman and sort of, how you got to where you are right now?

CC: Sure. Yeah. I was baptized at age eight in Oregon. And when I was 13, I moved to Provo, Utah. And that was a culture shock for me [laughing]. Because we had been in the mission field.

We don't talk about the mission field as much anymore, but when I was a kid living outside of Utah, we were in the mission field.

SH: Absolutely.

CC: And coming back to Utah and I had high expectations for what that was gonna be like and how great it was gonna be. And it was really hard.

CW: Well, I had that same culture shock at 18 when I moved to Provo, Candice, and I'm 50 and I still haven't gotten over it 'cause I'm still in Provo [laughing].

CC: [laughing] Because you're still there. Yeah.

CW: I never ceased to be amazed.

CC: Yeah. It was a hard transition for me. I was very much a nerd. But I really did hang a lot of my identity on being a member of the church. So I was really excited to be around a lot of church members and that didn't really go exactly as I had hoped because everyone else was also a teenage girl.

SH: Right, right [laughing]

CC: It’s a tricky time. But I did find some really good friends starting about the middle of my junior year that I'm still friends with to this day. So I found my people eventually, but it took awhile and it was just a huge change. But I attended BYU after graduation, all of it seems to be a family requirement in my family that you attend BYU.