Episode 238 (Transcript): Embracing Your Journey | A Conversation with Lindsie Cornia
Episode Transcript
Many thanks to listener Caitlyn Hardy for her work in transcribing this episode!
This episode can be found on any podcast app or can be listened to here on our website as well. All the notes and resources we cited in the episode are found at this link as well:
LC: I now realized I had left church before COVID feeling so depleted. I had a headache. I usually had to take a nap. And then I was having church at home watching on a link. I was still doing Primary with my kids, so we still were doing all the things and yet I didn’t have the headache. I didn’t feel depleted.
CW: Wow.
LC: It was almost, it was a very stark difference for me.
And for the first time, the hustle was gone. There was nothing that I could hustle for anymore. I was, it was my husband and my four children, my brand new baby, and it gave me some incredible perspective.
SH: Hello, I’m Susan Hinckley.
CW: And I am Cynthia Winward.
SH: And this is At Last She Said It. We are women of faith discussing complicated things and the title of today’s episode is, “Embracing Your Journey: A Conversation with Lindsie Cornea.” Hello Lindsie.
LC: Hi you guys.
CW: Hello! Glad to have you.
SH: We are so excited to have you here.
Our listeners might know Lindsie as one of the voices behind the At Last She Read It Book Club and we can’t thank you enough for your work there, Lindsie. You and Shaless do an amazing job.
LC: Oh, it’s absolutely our pleasure. I was just telling both of you that it just is as enjoyable to us as it is hopefully to everyone else, so it’s a win all around.
SH: Well, those are great discussions and if there’s anyone within the sound of our voices who has not checked out any of our book club meetings yet, I would urge you to do that when they start up again next year.
Okay, Lindsie, before we get into the journey-specific part of the episode, would you like to just tell our listeners little bare bones info about you?
LC: Yeah, for sure. I am located in Kaysville, Utah. My husband and I have lived here for going on 13 years in the same home. We have four children. My oldest is ranges from 12, and then I have a 5-year-old. And we have two girls, two boys, and it’s like, girl, boy, girl, boy. Just the perfect little pattern.
I got a degree in early childhood special education from BYU–Idaho, and so I spent the first five years teaching and I taught for five years, and then I had my oldest and just decided to stay home with her.
That was a hard decision, but we decided that, and I’ve kind of just been a stay-at-home mom with little side hustles here and there because I just have never been fully content being home 24/7. So I’ve had random jobs, like I worked at Swig with a bunch of teenagers for two years.
CW: I love it!
LC: That was so fun. I’ve thought about going back many times. I have been a, I went back and did preschool for a couple years and currently I am substituting for our school districts, so, that’s a little bit about me.
SH: Awesome.
CW: Okay, but you have to say what Swig is now for people outside of Utah.
LC: Oh yeah, I feel like it’s more common now with Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, like everybody knows what Swig is.
SH: Ah, okay. Cynthia, this is, this tells you who’s outta touch and it’s us.
LC: Yeah. If you are not consuming that media, then Swig, yeah, is a popular drink place here in Utah and it’s basically soda and then you add in mix-ins. So I know how to do, you know, all of that.
CW: Oh my goodness.
SH: Wow.
LC: Yeah.
CW: So next time you and I have a party, Susan, we know who is going to be our drinkmaster.
SH: The bartender. Absolutely.
LC: Yeah. I can for sure help with that.
CW: The dry Mormon bartender.
SH: You’re hired. Well, Cynthia’s gonna take us through the conversation today, and I can’t wait to hear everything in these jam-packed notes.
So let’s get to it.
CW: Well, let’s go for it then, Lindsie, let’s just jump in. Why don’t you explain to us how it started, kind of give us a quick snapshot, some memorable experiences that have really shaped your LDS life?
LC: Okay. Yeah. So I come from a family of five. I’m the oldest of five. And I was thinking about this.
I was thinking, if you talk to my parents, what would they say about me in just like a quick little snapshot? They would probably say that I was a child who always did the right things, and I always took care of everybody around me. And so with that, it reminds me of this reel, I don’t know if either of you have seen it, but it’s a lady sitting in therapy and below it has labeled her the oldest child.
And this therapist is asking her, you know, just questions like, tell me about your life, you know, and this oldest child, she’s sitting there and she just keeps reflecting it back, like [00:05:00] deflecting it back to the therapist like, “This, you know, this job has to be so difficult, like, how are you dealing with that?”
And then the therapist would just ask her like, questions and then she’d be like, “But like, tell me a little bit about like your family. Like what….” So like always putting it back. I saw that reel and I was like, nothing describes, at least the oldest child for me, like how I was, how I am as an older child, the oldest better than that, of always people asking me questions and I’d answer, but it was always like, “how are you doing?Like how do you handle that? Like, that must be so hard. Like, tell me more.”
So I think that pretty much summed me up growing up. And still to this day I still am fighting patterns of doing that too, where it’s always, you know. “Let’s not talk about me, let’s talk about you” type of thing. So.
CW: Okay, but I already have a question about that because…
LC: Yeah.
CW: …as you’re speaking, I’m like, okay, that could just be part of your personality, being a genuinely curious person, or that’s not really what it was.
It was you just always thinking of others first. Not necessarily from a philanthropic point of view. I don’t know. That’s probably not the right word, but that’s my question.
LC: I think it could be a little bit of both as I’m like reflecting back on it. I have always been a really curious person, which I’ve never really thought of it in that regard.
That’s why I think the whole concept of being curious has been so resonant with me. But yeah, there were aspects of like, I’m just the oldest, so I should be the one that should be taking care of other people.
CW: Okay, gotcha.
LC: That I think played a part too.
SH: And I’m guessing that being the oldest and being a daughter I mean, it could be making big assumptions, but I’m guessing that you were involved in a fair amount of looking after younger siblings.
LC: Yes. So when my, it’s funny. My sister and I are eight years apart from each other, and until we moved from our first home in California, we shared a bed together. Her and I slept in a queen bed. She, you know, it would be like very similar to a mother and a child.
SH: Yeah.
LC: Just like coming into bed. And I was the one that if my sister got up, I was there with her.
SH: Right.
LC: We did that from the time, let’s see, I would have been eight and when we moved, I was 13, so around four to five years we shared…
CW: Wow.
LC: …a bed. I mean, she was in a crib for a while when she was a little baby.
SH: Right.
LC: And then when she was like toddler-ish age, we shared a bed. So yeah, it, yeah, very much a mothering type thing for sure. Yeah.
So a big part of growing up is we moved a lot. I didn’t grow up in the same home and stay there my whole life. I moved several times, so I was born and raised in Ogden and my dad went to BYU so we lived down in Wymount. I have very fond memories of riding my bike as fast as I can down Wymount Hills when I was like four.
My dad graduated from BYU and from there got his first job in Salinas, California. So that’s around the Bay Area. I think about Salinas a lot and in thinking about that, especially with a lot of things that are going on in the world today my dad worked for Dole Fresh Vegetables.
He spoke Spanish because he served his mission in Ecuador and so his job primarily was working with the packers in the field. He was like the liaison of speaking Spanish with this company. And so while we were in Salinas, my dad actually served as the Spanish Branch President. It was a new branch that was created.
We were attending just the normal family ward. And my dad was called to be Spanish Branch President. And it was crazy ‘cause we still attended our family ward.
CW: Oh.
LC: And for a period of time. And my dad would do everything that he needed to do to be the Spanish Branch President. So he was not attending the family ward with us.
And we did that I don’t think for very long before I have really vivid memories of my parents sitting us down and being like, we feel like we should be attending the same ward as dad. That means that we’ll be going from the family ward to the Spanish branch.
SH: Oh.
LC: And it was more like, how do you guys feel about that?
But we ultimately made the decision that’s what we’re gonna do. I had, I have two younger brothers. I had my brother just younger than me. He was not happy about the decision, as you can imagine. I mean, we were…
SH: Absolutely. Yeah.
LC: Yeah, we…so we did, we started attending and it, you know, everything’s in Spanish.
We knew a little bit here and there ‘cause my dad spoke it a little bit, but they, the missionaries would come in with the [00:10:00] translators. So we had like the translators on. And they would translate Sacrament Meeting for us.
SH: Wow.
CW: So did that affect you? I don’t know. I would love to know how, ‘cause my dad also served he in the Spanish branch in our stake.
But I’m just curious to hear how that affected you.
LC: Yeah. Now it’s like going back to like a, connecting it to this idea of like just taking care of people. Like I felt that there was a need there. I’ve thought back about that just as I had written notes for this episode, and I think that it’s really shaped a lot of my feelings politically now.
Sure. Just understanding that we all come from different places and it’s not all the same for everyone. There are some things in there that I like, would love, I’ve since asked my parents, I’m like, “Was it like white-washy? Did we go in there and wanna like, try to establish like this is how the church functions?”
My mom said there was a little bit of that, but we also, like, we, we held like quinceaneras in the chapel. Like not the chapel, but in the cultural hall.
SH: Really!
LC: Yeah, we had several that we attended. And so my mom said there was a lot, and I don’t know if that was more because of who my dad is, that he was much more embrace it, of like, he embraced their culture rather than, like, pushing our white culture on them. But yeah I don’t know if that answers your question.
CW: No, totally.
LC: So I, I was 13, then we moved to Omaha, Nebraska. Graduated high school from, in Omaha. In Omaha my dad was the bishop. Like, it just went…
CW: Oh my goodness.
LC: From like 14 to 18 my dad was my bishop when I was in Young Women’s.
Yeah. Omaha was, our church was 20 minutes away. Our ward was way bigger than here in Utah where like people just up the street and down the street. So we had people from different suburbs that were in our ward and a lot different than California. The weather was different.
CW: I was gonna say, how much do you love the snow, Lindsie? How much do you love snow now?
LC: Snow and then the heat in the summer, it would just be like so humid.
SH: Yeah.
LC: You couldn’t even be outside unless you were in the pool. Like it just was. Yeah.
CW: Wow. Okay.
LC: Yeah, so I, and then from there I went to BYU–Idaho. Moved away from family. Yeah. So that was kind of my growing up.
INTERLUDE MUSIC
CW: So then let’s get into…what changed? Tell us a little bit about your faith shift. When did it start? Was there one item or event that complicated things?
LC: Yeah, so when I think about this question, it’s complicated, as you guys phrase it.
CW: As always.
LC: …that you ladies are familiar with because looking back like hindsight is 20/20, you know, and so looking back, I can tell that there were certain ways I chose to react or feelings that I had that have always kind of put me in a nuanced space.
But with always, you know, how I described myself, if my parents would describe me, I always wanted to do the right things and I was always looking for out for other people. So between those two things and being a woman, I think it was just the perfect equation for me to be an “all in” member. I never asked any questions, like in-depth questions, even though I’m curious, like my Patriarchal Blessing says I have this gift of faith.
And I just always held onto that, that I, my faith was simple. I didn’t need to inquire further. I just, I was happy I, it worked and it worked for me. It worked really well for me. I was married to my husband in the temple. He was a returned missionary. We had our four children, and I just did everything that a good LDS woman is supposed to do.
And then fast forward to 2020, which I’m sure is a pivotal point for a lot of people I’m finding out.
SH: Right. So are we.
LC: And it gave me some incredible perspective. So at the time. I was the Young Women’s President. I was pregnant with my fourth, and my other three children were all under the age of eight.
So you can imagine all the things that I was doing, I was doing, and with the personality type, I was thriving, I thought. Like I was just, I was doing all the things for all the people and then the world shut down and all those things that I was doing, I, they didn’t exist anymore really.
SH: Right.
LC: Like, [00:15:00] you know, it was just me and my family and that was it.
And so it really gave me some time to pause and reflect and realize that I was like this robot that was just like, “go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go.” And then everything that I was go-go-going for was non-existent. You couldn’t even do them anymore. Nothing. Like you couldn’t even go into the grocery store.
SH: Right.
LC: So what was I supposed to do? Because my body just knew to go, go, go, go go. To like, do things for other people to, and I was really good at it. Really, really good at it.
And so a big part of this was Sundays changed. You know, we were not attending church in the building. We were Zooming, like getting the link to Zoom.
So we’d be sitting on the couch watching it. I still did Primary with my kids.
CW: Wow.
LC: But it felt like it really did feel different. I didn’t leave church. I now realized I had left church before COVID feeling so depleted. I had a headache. I usually had to take a nap. Like, and then I was having church at home watching on a link.
I wasn’t even in the actual church building.
SH: Right.
LC: I was still doing Primary with my kids, so we still were doing all the things and yet I didn’t have the headache. I didn’t feel depleted.
CW: Wow.
LC: It was almost, it was a very stark difference for me.
And in my bo-, like I could feel it in my body. Like, I was like, okay, like I have been hustling for my whole life basically.
And for the first time, the hustle was gone. There was nothing that I could hustle for anymore. I was, it was my husband and my four children, my brand new baby. And I just loved it. I loved COVID, I loved it so, so much. I know people, I, that is not to take away from people’s experiences of COVID being the worst time.
What was going on in the world, outside of the walls of my home was awful. It was terrible. But for me, it was like my first real experience, and this is in hindsight, that I actually felt like peace, like true peace and just like this sense of like being like, I’m just going to be, and that’s good enough. That’s good. So.
SH: My question is, how much of that were you able to identify at the time as being associated with church-stopping? Like did it have your attention that you felt better, like you didn’t feel depleted after church, you didn’t have to have a nap on Sunday. Like did you associate, did you make those associations at the time or are those things that you’ve been able to look back now and see?
LC: Yeah, it was when I went back to church that I, you know, a year…
CW: The headaches came back.
LC: Yeah. The year came and I had this brand new baby and it was like the bishop was just short of being like, “Lindsie, we are begging you to be back” because I was Young Women’s President still.
CW: Woah.
LC: Like, you’ve got to come back. And I was like, but I have this new baby and I have this counselor that she didn’t have any children. And she’s like, I can kind of just be the leader because I totally understand. So many of you are still afraid of, ‘cause I mean, we were going back, but it was still with masks. There still was so much uncertainty.
And I had this brand new baby and so it really was…
CW: Oh yeah!
LC: …the bishop basically telling me like, yeah, you gotta come back. And I was like, so I literally was taken back.
CW: Oh my gosh.
LC: The, I was like clawing at the ground, like the Sunday that I actually had to be back in the church building.
CW: Wow.
LC: And it was then that I made the connection.
SH: Okay.
LC: Like. I, because all, it took a little bit, maybe a couple weeks, maybe a month. ‘cause I was like, okay, like there were some things that happened in COVID. I’m gonna try to bring it back into like post-COVID and like still try to, you know, eliminate all the hustle things that we do and make it pretty simple.
And, you know, and it, no. It took about a month and I was like, the headaches were back. I felt so tired. I was irritated with my family when we would come back from church, I was just felt, and I was like this, it was just, like I said, it was a stark difference, but I didn’t notice it in the time I noticed it when I went back.
CW: Wow.
LC: Yeah.
CW: Wow. Susan likes to use the analogy of the rollercoaster, right? With COVID, we were all told to get off the rollercoaster and then we all had a choice to make whether we were gonna get back on and I love your analogy you used just a minute ago of scratching at the ground. Like you just like, “No! Don’t take me!”
SH: I can picture it.
CW: “Don’t take me!” Yeah. That’s so telling.
LC: Yeah. And it was really, it rocked me because all, every Sunday, all I knew was get up, [00:20:00] get ready for church.
CW: We all did.
LC: Go to church, be in this church building when I was doing it was for three hours. You know, and that’s just what we did. We did that every Sunday. Like that, I did that from the time I was born.
SH: Right.
LC: I would, I don’t know, it was something about it that I was like, How? Like, that was the other thing too, of being like, how is this possible? How can I feel more peace and connection to God or whatever I was connecting to. Yeah, because I started like deconstructing God.
This is kind of what shifted ‘cause I was like, okay, so I could feel like more peaceful and more fulfillment in my home, not in the actual church building? What? Like how is that possible? I’ve always been told that I have like this is how I can feel it. I can feel it in my going by going to church every Sunday.
SH: Right.
LC: And I wasn’t for a year and a half and yet I was still feeling that, and I was like, okay.
CW: Oh yeah. Dangerous.
LC: Something, and it was just this like, it made for the perfect little storm for just now everything to kind of…
SH: Right.
LC: …come in. But it wasn’t because I wasn’t, I mean, you hear like, “They’re lazy and they don’t want….” Like, lazy learners. Lazy. I’ve, I hate that so much because it’s just like, I wasn’t. I was doing all the things still.
SH: Right!
LC: I was still Young Women’s President. I was planning Girls’ Camp. I was trying, taking care of my four children, brand new baby. Like I just you know, you know what goes with all of that. And so….
SH: But I think for a lot of people, it was really destabilizing when like you describe, and I think like Cynthia and I both experienced, it was never a question whether you would go to church on Sunday.
That was just so much part of our lives that then to have it stop and realize you didn’t miss it was a really destabilizing feeling.
LC: Totally. I didn’t like it. I, and like my body was telling me like Lindsie, like, ‘cause now I knew, like I knew the reverse. I knew.
SH: Right, right.
LC:I knew at home my body, I was feeling more connection to my family, more connection to my husband.
More, more, more, more. All of those like things. And then when I went back it was like, ugh. Like my body was like, I can’t do this. You could feel it when they say you could feel it in your body. I feel it in my body.
Now. For sure.
SH: Your body rebelled.
CW: Yeah.
LC: Yeah.
CW: Yeah. Well keep going. Keep telling us more.
LC: Yeah. So then just a course of events happened. I don’t know how specific you want me to be, but these are just like very vivid, like, events.
CW: Yeah.
LC: So, Elder Holland and his “Musket Fire” talk came out at BYU.
That was, I’ll go into detail about that I guess, but I’ll just list off these events and then we can maybe discuss them further if we want.
The Mormon No More documentary came out and I watched it; Brad Wilcox’s extremely racist talk that he gave and I watched Under the Banner of Heaven. I found and listened to Lindsay Park Hansen [Lindsay Hansen Park]’s Year of Polygamy podcast.
CW: Yeah.
SH: Right.
LC: Like, when you say you had to lie down, like I was listening to those and I’m just like, and at the same time, so appreciative that Lindsay took the time to research and share these women’s stories who I had never even heard of.
I had heard of the men that were involved in their stories, but I had never heard the women.
CW: Yeah.
LC: Then I started listening to Mormon Stories. I know that can be very controversial for some people. And I’m not necessarily in support of the host or whatever. Like I don’t have feelings one way or another.
But what I did love about Mormons Stories as I was listening to people’s stories and they were resonating with me. Like I was like, I felt like that growing up and I just didn’t ever think about it, or that like resonated with me and I just never really thought about it. So that’s the portion of Mormon Stories that I really really loved.
CW: Sure.
LC: And then there was the terrible sexual abuse case in Arizona…
SH: Right.
LC: …that made national headlines. This all just like, felt like it was like bing, bing, bing!
CW: Yeah, sounds like it.
LC: And then there was the SEC scandal that was a major pivotal point for me. And last but not least, I went to dinner with a friend who I grew up with in Omaha, and I was kind of talking to her about some of these things that I was discovering I was listening to and thinking things differently than I had before.
And she was like, Lindsie, I think that you would just love this podcast. And I was like, okay, what is it? And she’s like, it’s called, At Last She Said It. And I was like, oh, okay. Yeah. And I kind of looked at it and I was like, okay, I love the red lips. I’m feeling like yes, I will start listening to it.
And so I started listening to your podcast and that just felt like, all those things that I [00:25:00] was like listing off, it just felt like this nice like landing spot. Like I could just put it all there and it could just sit there and I could just listen and I didn’t have to feel all the way one way about something or all the way another about something.
CW: Yeah. Yeah.
LC: And just listening to your podcast was probably one of the most, I think it helped me be in this space of like.
Not too much anger, not too much. I don’t know, it just felt like a very nice landing space is all I can. Very soft, just like a little pillow. I could just lay my head down.
SH: I love knowing that.
LC: And all the things that I was just like reeling through my head of being like, I didn’t know that. I never thought of it that way.
I didn’t know, like I just, I could sit there and just listen and just be, I guess.
INTERLUDE MUSIC
LC: I think for me it’s not so much like the content, like all the things that I listed were like pivotal things for me. But I think like one of the main things that I think about is this idea of truth claims. Like, and the truth claims I kept just kept hearing it and it felt like kind of across the board they all shared similarities of this, like the truth claims of the Mormon church and I was like, I don’t even think I knew like.
I was never taught them, like these are the truth claims of the Mormon church. And so when I started really like digging into those, you know, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, the Book of Mormon, like the temple. I came to the conclusion through, lot, I’m not saying this casually, but it was months and months, I would say I’m almost about a year and a half of just like studying and listening.
And it wasn’t casual that I was like, oh, I just don’t think these are true anymore. I was studying, I was intently asking. I was doing all the things. Shocker. ‘cause I, that was all I, that’s all the formula that I know. Right?
CW: Exactly.
LC: And I remember being like I’m not feeling as solid about all these things anymore.
CW: Sure.
LC: Like I’m not feeling solid about Joseph Smith and the First Vision because now we’ve introduced that there were four versions of this First Vision. I’m not feeling so solid about the Book of Mormon anymore because I was never told that he took these two rocks and put ‘em in a hat and then like looked into it.
Now that I’m being told the story differently after 35 years of hearing it all one way, I’m just like, I’m not sure about any of these things anymore. Like I, so then I remembered being like, okay, is it possible that I could maybe feel unsure and maybe not even believe some of the truth claims of the Mormon church and yet still show up and be like a Mormon, like go to church still.
CW: That’s a big question.
LC: A huge question. And as I talk to my friends, that’s a question that they’re like, I’ve never even really thought of that before. And I don’t know why that came to my head, but I remember it was like two or three in the morning, one morning and I was, I don’t know what I was consuming, but I was reading something and I remember being like, I feel differently about these truth claims than I did before.
And feeling like this tug to like, so should I like leave? Like should I just not participate anymore? Like and you guys had said it on your podcast too, I think that this probably helped me in my brain as well of you don’t need to make a decision one way or another.
SH: Right.
LC: Just be!
CW: Yeah.
LC: And this is not negating the fact that I totally understand people that learn all these things and see things differently and feel like they have to leave.
I totally see people that learn all these things and see things differently, and then they choose to stay. I also see people that are like in the middle. Like for me, that was just a really, and it’s shaped so much of how I’ve moved forward of this idea of like, could I not believe in the truth claims of the Mormon church and still participate.
CW: Yeah.
SH: And how was it for you, if you don’t mind answering this, how was it for you within your family and other close relationships, your marriage, friends, things like that? When these things kind of start unraveling how did you feel about that in the ways it might impact those relationships?
And how did you approach talking about those hard things? Or maybe you didn’t.
LC: Yeah, no, I was, I think really fortunate. My husband is so understanding and approaches things with a lot of understanding, so I actually felt like I could go talk to him. I was a little nervous about some things, but then as we chatted, he was like, oh yeah, I’ve already thought about that.
I thought about that on my mission. And I’m like…
CW: Wow!
LC: …what? Like…
SH: How have we never talked about this?
LC: He’s like, I thought that you would’ve already known.
SH: Yeah.
LC: Yeah. [00:30:00] I was like, what? We’ve been married for 13 years and we’ve, you know, and so he has been I am, I’m able to chat with him about, there is nothing off the table.
We’re able to talk about anything. And I recognize that’s an extreme privilege that not a lot of other…
SH: Right.
LC: People don’t have that. With that being said too, my, my parents so I’m the only one in my family that still participates in the church.
SH: Oh, okay.
LC: Out of all five children. So my parents have through that I think have really, that’s really started to shift things for them.
And so they’re actually people that I can have conversations with.
CW: Sure.
LC: I like, I sent them the notes for this podcast and was like, I just wanna send these over to you before I put them in. And so they, you know, they’re very open to talking about it. As far as like, in-laws, in-laws get a little trickier because they don’t talk about things very often.
And so, like these types of things, and I think it’s just assumed that everybody is 100% “all in” active, so to speak. We are not gonna talk about it in any other way. I don’t know if I’ve equated that with like a safe space, so I just don’t share. Like what I do with my parents.
CW: Probably.
LC: So there’s a contrast there I’m able to share.
But in that too, it’s been, it was, it’s probably a pivotal point in my, like, deconstruction process is I actually had feelings that I needed to reach out to each of my siblings and ask them their story. So essentially what I’m sitting here explaining to you, I wanted to know that from my brother that was just younger than me because I had never, I’d never asked I just always, you know, assumed that he, it was this that happened and so then therefore he left.
And it, you know, in chatting with siblings, it was like, okay, yeah, we have a lot of similarities. So that was actually a really cool part of the journey that I was able to chat with each one of them and be like, so tell me, like, tell me what it, so yeah. Does that answer your question?
SH: It does, yeah. How about, how long a time was it that all of this was sort of unraveling and that you were working through it?
Or maybe you still are? I mean, I….
LC: Oh, very much still am. Like I’m not at all in like, that was nice and now we’re to this point, like it’s just like, no, I’m still very much in it. It’s a day-to-day struggle. And I even feel like when I wrote the notes for this show, when you sent me over, I was in a different place than I even am…now.
CW: Wow, Lindsie.
LC: And it’s just, I mean, that was just what, like two to three weeks ago?
SH: Yeah. So it’s very dynamic.
LC: Yes. Very. And it’s just, that’s one thing that I’ve kind of taken away from all of this is like, it’s just day to day. Like we just, nothing. I don’t know anything. Literally.
Like I know nothing and I’m just taking it all day by day, because I am, I’m deconstructing, but then I’m the mom and I have four children, and that’s then affecting my children. And so then it’s like trying to then figure that out on top of that is like a whole other layer.
CW: Oh yeah.
LC: It’s just never, it’s never done. I’m not, I’m, all of the things that I am explaining are all things that I still wrestle back and forth with. On the daily.
INTERLUDE MUSIC
CW: Well, Lindsie, how’s it going now? Tell us where you’re at now and how you’re navigating all these big changes. Even though, like you said, nothing is completely settled.
LC: No, and I think that, I answered a few of those things that kind of bleed into this third question. Yeah, from what I was chatting about earlier.
But yeah, it just ebbs and flows. It’s just like sometimes I’m like, this is great. It’s going great. And other times I’m like, what are we doing? Like what am I doing? I don’t know what I’m doing. I but here, I’m here. That’s what matters. I’m here today. But I did, I mentioned that pivotal moment of me like ask in my head being like, okay, so I’ve learned all these things.
Things are maybe differently than what I grew up hearing about. The narrative is different. There’s lots of different narratives now that I’ve learned about, and so now I just don’t even know how I feel about the truth claims. I actually don’t. I feel like I’m comfortable saying that I don’t believe the truth claims of the Mormon church, at least in the same way that I did growing up.
And so then it was this idea of like, if I don’t, can I still participate? Can I still be a Mormon? And what? Like what does that look like? And so I decided that, yeah, I kind of wanted to try to make that work ‘cause that was like two years ago when that pivotal moment happened. And so I’ve spent the last two years kind of in this limbo phase of which I’m sure a lot of [00:35:00] people can relate to.
So that’s not to say that things don’t look and feel drastically different. So just from off the top of my head, a couple things that I thought of like that maybe look different is we sometimes don’t go to church every Sunday. I know, shock. Like, gasp, like, what? Okay. Like church feels like a lot. So can I actually just like not attend this week?
So I like had discussions with my husband of being like, could we like go to Red Butte Garden on Sunday? And it wasn’t even like, could we go boating or like the things that you always hear…
CW: Right.
LC: …growing up of…
CW: The boating. Right.
LC: …the grocery store. It was just like, can we just like go enjoy God’s nature?
CW: Yeah.
LC: We just take it week by week. Like, do we feel like we wanna go this Sunday? So that’s changed.
SH: Do, are your kids old enough that they ask you questions about that? Or is that something that you’re having to navigate or not really get?
LC: Yes.
CW: Okay.
LC: Yes. Yes. ‘cause my oldest is 12.
SH: Oh, okay. Okay.
LC: So, she’s in Young Women’s now, so we usually try to attend if it’s a Young Women’s Sunday, because I do know that’s important to her.
That’s what is hard is it’s just not my community now. It’s my kids’ community, like church.
SH: Right.
LC: The Mormon church is my children’s community. So I just was like to rip that from underneath them feels, and it’s so much the water we’re swimming in, especially here in Utah, like it is not just like church community.
CW: Right.
LC: It’s like school too. It all bleeds into each other.
SH: Right.
CW: Yep.
LC: And so we usually are try, we try to go the Sundays that there’s Young Women’s. I also teach youth Sunday School once a month.
CW: Oh, that’s great.
LC: So we go the week that I teach. But yeah, it’s just this pretty flexible and we, yeah, we’ve had to have conversations with our kids, like God can, and spirituality can be outside the walls of the church.
Like we’ve had to, we’ve been able to have these conversations with our children. And now our children almost sometimes would rather do the other than be in the church building. So that is something that we’re trying to navigate now because they’re just like, church, like, that’s boring. We liked it when we went to the farmer’s market.
CW: Right.
LC: You know, like it’s just this like tricky dynamic because I want them to see the value in church too. So this is where I’m saying I have no idea what the heck I’m doing, honestly. Like I just am like, we just gotta do what works for our family. This is specifically tailored to the Cornea family.
CW: But what I love what you’re, I love that the wrestle is coming through in this conversation, Lindsie, because I feel like this is kind of one of the top five things that Susan and I always hear is when women go through these big faith changes, they’re like, but what about my kids?
Like it’s easy for Susan and I to sit here and talk about these big things because we are the only ones in our home now. I mean, you know, spouses, but they’re adults so they get to make their own decisions.
SH: Right.
CW: So I actually really appreciate that you don’t have this all figured out because I think so many times when women land kind of in our, At Last She Said It space, that’s what they write and say to us is, what about my kids?
What do I do here? And we’re like, we don’t know.
LC: Yeah.
CW: Like, like you said, Lindsie, I like Lindsie, like this is a Cornea family decision. Like this is very specific to just us. And I think that’s all that, that it really can be. Like, I don’t think that anybody should hand you answers. Otherwise they wouldn’t be your answers.
They’d be someone else’s answers.
LC: Yeah. Our children are getting our, at least my two oldest, so I have one that’s 12, a girl, and then one that’s 10, a boy. And we’re now being able to have like, I think, a little bit more deeper conversations. Like for instance, our Primary Program’s coming up on Sunday.
So this is a tricky one to navigate because we, our church attendance is not consistent. So my children aren’t there to learn the Primary songs. They’re not really there to understand questions that are being asked of them in Come Follow Me.
So they kind of feel like, you know, who wants to be in a space that when they, a teacher asks you a question you don’t even know the answer to like, like you don’t know anything, that you have no realm of reference to pull from because we are not studying Come Follow Me at home.
And so then we have this Primary Program that’s supposed to showcase all of that. And my kids are like, we don’t wanna participate.
CW: Oh!
LC: Okay, like this makes sense that you don’t wanna participate. But also a member of the Primary presidency came to me and asked me if we would be here that Sunday. And I didn’t know what to say and said, yes we would be.
And so we now have to have a conversation of following through on your commitments, even though that looks hard, even though you might feel uneasy about not knowing all [00:40:00] the answers. And then actually like talking to my 8-year-old who’s a girl: Why did you feel like your answer that they asked you for your Primary Program part was stupid?
And she’s just like, well, she asked me the question and I had to think about it for a while. And I was like, Dixie, like that is not (Dixie is my 8-year-old.) You should be thinking about your questions.
SH: Yeah. That’s what you should be doing.
LC: And we get the part back and the question’s like, How do you show that you walk with Jesus?
Or something like that. And her response, her answer was, I stay by him. Like I stay right with him. And it was like that logically made sense to Dixie because it’s just like she knows when we walk, like I explained to her, we walked to school, if I walked ahead of you, what would be the point of me walking you to school?
We need to walk next to each other so we can connect and all the things. So I was like, Dixie, that is not a stupid answer. That’s a remarkable answer. And so just having these conversations with my kids, but these conversations are not happening with my children at church. My children know that when they go to church, they need to answer this, this, this and this and this.
And if they don’t, they’re stupid. And it’s just like, I, it’s just this really hard…
CW: That’s hard.
LC: It’s really hard to try to be like, ‘cause then it’s just like, do you feel like you belong at church? Like it’s almost affecting like their sense of belonging.
And so there’s gotta be a space where people can show up having not studied the Come Follow Me manual, having not practiced the Primary songs and still be a part of this community. Or like, what’s the point? Why are we here?
SH: Yeah.
CW: Okay. I have a question, Lindsie, because you are a youth Sunday School teacher, and I was until a year and a half ago. I was a youth Sunday School teacher for four, five years, four years.
I don’t know. I don’t think I had one single student in all those four years that was like, oh yes, we studied the Come Follow Me lesson this week. I am prepared. So it’s really interesting to me that maybe your daughter is feeling less than like, I don’t know the answers when really I’m like, do any of these kids really know the answers?
I mean, maybe I am. My ward was an anomaly, but these were what I would call strong families. I’m putting air quotes there, and they had never read Come Follow Me. So that’s really interesting.
LC: Yeah. Well, and it’s tricky because I can’t tell because they also get it in Seminary too. So everything like their families could not be studying the Come Follow Me manual, but they, the Seminary curriculum follows the same as the Come Follow Me manual.
SH: Right.
LC: And so it’s just like, and you know, they start Seminary, this is like shocking to me. They start Seminary when they’re 14. So like, my daughter will still be in junior high when she starts attending Seminary, like leaving to go to the Seminary building right next to the junior high.
And I’m just like…
CW: Oh!
LC: I, it’s not even high school, it’s junior high. She’s attending that, at least where I’m at.
SH: Wow.
CW: I didn’t know that.
LC: Yeah.
CW: Okay.
LC: So I don’t know. But yes, you bring up a good point of like this idea of how are we gathering that when I show up to church I need to look like X, Y, and Z.
But all the people that are showing up at church aren’t… showing up in X, Y, and Z, but we’re perceiving that they are.
SH: Right.
CW: That’s the perception.
SH: This is the interesting thing to me as you tell this, that your children have already are internalized these ideas.
LC: Yes.
SH: Of what they need to sound like and what it needs to seem like. It’s kind of sad to me that they’re so young and that they’ve already absorbed some kind of message that they don’t belong unless, you know, fill in the blank. Ouch.
LC: Yeah. It’s a real struggle and it’s just like, I just, this last Sunday said to my husband I mean, nobody wanted to go to church this last Sunday.
There were events that happened here in Utah that made it so that I just didn’t want, that is the last place I wanted to be, but…
SH: Right, right.
LC: …we knew that the kids were gonna be practicing for the Primary Program and you know, then my kids are also telling my husband and I like, we just, we don’t want to participate.
And I just was like…
CW: Wow.
LC: Why? What are we doing? What are we doing? We really need to like, so yeah, it’s a con- I mean, just like this slide just within a couple days ago, we’ve, we’re still just trying to figure it out. I’ve never, I’ve not landed in a space that I feel confident and give advice to somebody else at all.
SH: I really appreciate you having this conversation with us, though. I’m being so honest about this part of it because we have so many listeners who are really deep in the wrestle of how does this impact my kids and what am I supposed to do with all of it as it pertains to my kids? And that’s something that Cynthia and I, you know, we’re far beyond those questions, but they’re so real and I don’t have good answers.
So having you come on here and also not have good answers, I feel like [00:45:00] is maybe even more valuable to other women than if you had come on here and had answers, if you see what I mean.
LC: Yeah. There’s definitely solidarity and no, like…
SH: Yeah.
LC: When I hear somebody else say. I don’t know. And I’m like, I don’t know either.
But here we are, like, we’ll just be in this together, I guess. But one thing that I do feel like I could give advice on is just to like, have real conversations with your children, even though it seems scary ‘cause for instance, my 12-year-old daughter, so she just barely turned 12 in January.
January 4th is her birthday. So she missed the cutoff to go to Young Women’s last year just by four days.
CW: Yeah.
LC: Like, so it gave us a whole other year to kind of figure things out and…
SH: Right.
LC: You know, maybe be in a better space with her when she went to Young Women’s. And I knew that when she went to Young Women’s that she’d have to have this interview and then temple would come into it and all the things and, you know, attending with a parent and so it was just like, how do I have this conversation with my 12-year-old?
Like, I am still very much trying to figure this out myself. But the, like, we have to have a conversation. And it was, we just sat down with her and it was like my husband and I, and me being like, I feel this way, Dad feels differently about these things. There are some things we feel the same about.
The remarkable thing is that you don’t have to side with mine or Dad’s. You can choose whatever that looks like for you.
So in the instance of like getting a temple recommend, it was like, I’ve chosen not to have a temple recommend at this current point. But if you choose that you would like to, which is something that you do have to do in order to attend the temple, to do baptisms, Dad and I will do all that we can.
And my husband was actually like, I’ll renew mine and I’ll go with her. And it was just like this, we had to figure it out. We very much were figuring out in real time because it’s just like otherwise, I mean, what you can’t hide from these topics, they come up and they come up quick and it’s just like this, yeah.
It’s a wrestle. Like you said.
CW: I’m just loving though that you’re having these very grownup conversations with your 12-year-old that you’re just being honest about where you are. Your husband is saying, I wanna support you, so I’ll get a recommend if that’s important to your 12-year-old. You know what I mean?
I just hear so much love in these conversations that you’re having with her, and I don’t wanna be Pollyanna and say everything’s gonna be just fine, but it really sounds like it really sounds like you guys are doing everything to support her and really what else is parenting about other than just supporting our kids and shuffling them along this path, quite clumsily ourselves. I don’t know.
LC: Yeah.
CW: I’m not gonna be writing greeting cards anytime soon because I don’t have any fancy little answers to put on a card either, but…
SH: I’d buy them though, Cynthia, if you did.
CW: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
INTERLUDE MUSIC
CW: Lindsie, in what ways has this journey changed you?
LC: I just feel like I’m more authentic for someone that grew up always trying to do everything right and I was always afraid about getting it wrong. All of that’s just kind of fallen by the wayside a little bit. Like I’m like, I’m probably getting it wrong and I’m okay with that.
So that just feels more authentic. Like there just feels like there’s more of a connection with myself of being like, yeah, I don’t know everything, and I’ll be the first to admit it. And I, there’s comfort in that, oddly enough that we just don’t know everything that I could get it wrong and learn something from getting it wrong.
The other thing that I’ve, it’s changed me is I just feel a deeper connection with people. I do think that when I was a this “all in” member, I always wanted to have a deeper connection with people, and I just felt like I was hitting up against a wall, a brick wall. I could never get there.
I could never get there. And I now feel like something’s been stripped away from me, that I’m able to get there more quickly with more people than I ever have before.
CW: Wow.
LC: Just listening for people’s, like individual journeys, having grace for individual journeys. So yeah, those are probably the two. I just feel more authentic and more connection with people.
CW: Wow.
SH: Beautiful.
CW: That is beautiful. All right Lindsie, we have a few minutes left, but we would love to know if you have advice for other women in your shoes.
LC: Even though I say I don’t have any advice, I think I gave a piece of advice of like, be authentic with your children, but then here’s this other one of just like leaning in and getting curious, which I love that you pointed out at the beginning that I come off to you as a curious-type person because this has been a word that I’ve really embodied and tried to embrace is just leaning in and getting curious.
If something feels uncomfortable, [00:50:00] that’s the first sign for me to lean in and get curious, not to back away from it. Not to turn around and go like, but just to really lean in, get curious, ask questions. I have never felt like that’s led me astray in the last two years of my deconstruction. And the other thing is nothing is permanent, so you can always change your mind.
I think this is a line that I heard from both of you. You could change your mind at any point. You know, we could be like, I don’t love going to church every Sunday, so we do these things and then you could be like, I love going to church every Sunday. Like, I…
CW: Sure.
LC: …you can change your mind. Nothing is permanent. That’s given me a lot of comfort.
SH: Love that.
CW: I hope that gives a lot of individuals comfort because I feel like the message that I absorbed, at least growing up in the church was that some things are permanent. Okay, but if I want to be at church and I take a break, then. Or if I take a break from church and then I feel like I wanna go back, well then that’s what’s right for me in that moment is to go back.
‘Cause like you said, it’s not permanent. If someone steps away that they can’t then step back in. So I don’t know how I absorb that or why I absorb that but that’s something that’s given me a lot of peace too, is realizing like, I can change my mind about any of this. It’s okay!
LC: Yeah. I mean, I, you say that and I just like feel like a huge amount of like, stress off my shoulders.
It was this way today. It could look totally different tomorrow.
CW: Yeah!
LC: It’s all good.
CW: Well, Lindsie, we would love to know what you know. What is something that you know right now today?
LC: So, I must admit after the giving this question a lot of thought, a lot of thought: I’ve discovered Chat GPT. Do either of you use Chat GPT?
CW: Sometimes. That’s good. I love it.
LC: So I asked Chat GPT, I asked this exact question, like if I’m not sure, what do I say? And Chat GPT said something that felt super resonant. Spit out this answer. Do you want help figuring out what you don’t know? And I was like, okay yeah, that feels like a lot better to me.
CW: Nice.
LC: That’s one thing I don’t, one thing that I’ve learned is I actually don’t know anything at all. Nothing at all. I very, I know very little and there’s, you would think that would be scary, but I just had a lot of comfort with that. So if it’s okay, I wanna share the lyrics to a song that I came across during COVID, right when I was going through all of this deconstruction.
A movie came out called Coda. I don’t know. Have either of you seen the movie? It’s a great movie about a family that is deaf. The mom and the dad and the son are deaf and the daughter is, she can hear…
SH: …is hearing. Yeah, I think just…
LC: …and it’s kind of their journey. And she sings this song. It’s a Joni Mitchell song called “Both Sides Now.”
CW: Yes.
LC: And she sings the song, but she also signs it at the end. And I just find the words to this song. I listen to it, still. Listened to it just this morning. It just gives me a lot of comfort. So this song explores the duality of life through shifting perspectives. It uses metaphors of clouds, love, and life itself.
Joni Mitchell describes how this perfect worldview often gets, gives way to disillusionment. Despite experiencing both the joys and sorrows, she ultimately admits that she still doesn’t fully understand any of them, highlighting the complexity of the human experience. So these are the lyrics to her song that get me every time.
She says:
“Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I’ve looked at life that way
But now old friends they’re acting strange
They shake their heads they say I’ve changed
Well, something’s lost, but something’s gained
In living every day
I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know life at all
I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know life at all.”
SH: Lovely.
CW: Lovely, lovely. Yeah. I love the line in that song about clouds, cloud illusions and anyway. Who knew that could be a song about faith journeys, Lindsie?
LC: It is my mod- like it’s, like if I had a theme song, that’s it.
CW: There you go.
SH: That’s the one.
LC: Yeah, it’s, yep. Yeah.
SH: Beautiful. Now as soon as we’re done recording, I’m gonna pull it up and listen to it
LC: And listen to the specific, I love Joni Mitchell. Know, like she’s, [00:55:00] you can’t compare, but listen to the Coda version ‘cause they just slow it down enough that you can…
CW: Oh, okay.
LC: …process. And it just is, it’s beautiful. So.
SH: Great tip. Actually, I will link to it in our show notes for this episode, so.
CW: Yes. Yeah. Well, Lindsie, thank you. Thank you for the important part that you play in our At Last She Said It community. Thank you for being willing to tell your story today. We seriously, this whole community is just amazing and you’ve just added some more amazingness to it by sharing your story. So we thank you so much.
LC: Oh, you’re very welcome. It feels surreal to be on here recording a podcast with this podcast that I just like softly fell into after all, so really thanks to both of you because I think that I’m in a better space now because of this podcast.
Voicemail 1: Hi Cynthia and Susan. I’m listening to today’s episode with Jen Dille, and first of all, I wanna be besties with her as well as you guys, but I also wanted to say, I haven’t even finished the episode, but you’re talking about the stages of faith. What if those conversations were had on a personal level, so they’re in the organization, but not from the organization with like our ministering sisters? If we have these conversations about where we’re at, where they’re at, isn’t that a part of ministering, checking in and seeing where everybody is?
If I was still actively going to church, I might like ask for the people who are challenging to talk to. Like give me the people who might be having stages of faith needs or desires and don’t have anybody to talk to. So, I’m gonna go finish listening to the episode. Thanks.
Voicemail 2: Hi, Cynthia and Susan. I listened to the episode on sanctuary and that very week I attended church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The bishop explained this year’s talks during Sacrament were going to be all about people’s faith journeys. One of the talks was from a man who shared his struggle with his faith journey. He admitted that he didn’t know really what he believed and still chooses to come while he is working it all out.
After the Sacrament meeting, the bishop held a fifth Sunday lesson where he literally talked about issues that can affect people’s faith and why they struggle in their journey. People brought up doctrinal issues that don’t align with their personal beliefs, patriarchy, et cetera. It was such an honest and raw discussion that I felt like I found community and kinship.
It was literally the most freeing and comfortable place, and the bishop is going to hold these discussions the rest of the year. What a safe and beautiful experience it was. I feel like I’m in stage three of my personal journey, which is probably the least comfortable place to be, but I’m getting closer to finding peace in it.
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