Send us a Positive Review! 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 ...
Jun 16, 2023•58 min
Send us a Positive Review! 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...
Jun 12, 2023•44 min
Send us a Positive Review! 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 pract...
Jun 05, 2023•38 min
Send us a Positive Review! 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!...
May 29, 2023•1 hr 18 min
Send us a Positive Review! 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, exper...
May 26, 2023•43 min
Send us a Positive Review! 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 LES...
May 22, 2023•33 min
Send us a Positive Review! Author, Evangelical theologian, and recently deceased Christian reformer Rachel Held Evans poignantly stated, "A lot of people think the hardest part about religious doubt is feeling isolated from God. It's not. At least in my experience, the hardest part about doubt is feeling isolated from your community." In this episode Valerie and Nathan share their thoughts and personal experiences about how faith expansion can be both a deeply sacred experience of personal enlig...
May 19, 2023•37 min
Send us a Positive Review! Join Val as she breaks down a thought provoking idea about the pull of cynicism as a natural emotional component of Christian faith evolution. She explores a beautiful and thought provoking quote by the late Rachel Held Evans from her book Searching for Sundays. Highlights of this episode: Cynicism is a protective emotion often experienced to manage legitimate emotions such as betrayed trust, grief, anger, and disorientation. Grief and disorientation in LDS (and other ...
May 15, 2023•50 min
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Healing our Ideas about God's Nature [Part II of II] In this episode, Valerie again is a guest on "The Brannon Patrick Show" and they continue in their conversation about the ways that our inherited constructs about God get in the way of our personal growth and our relationship growth to our higher powers Specific ideas that hurt: God is male. They discuss how this is a human construct and a natural outgrowth of patriarchy and that a centuries-old male go...
May 12, 2023•34 min
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Healing our Ideas about God's Nature [Part I of II] Today's episode is the first half of a fascinating conversation between Valerie and fellow therapist/podcaster Brannon Patrick where Val is guest on Brannon's new podcast "The Brannon Patrick Show” In this two-part conversation they dive into how some of our received ideas about God may hurt us here in and around the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. These harmful [though possibly unintended] ...
May 08, 2023•40 min
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Real Talk about the Book of Mormon [Part IV of IV] Join Valerie and special guest Paul Toscano in this part four (last in this series) focused on untangling some of the complexities of The Book of Mormon. In this episode Val questions Paul on a variety of topics involving The Book of Mormon, including its connection with Joseph Smith Jr., her own wrestles with the fraught relationship between leadership & followership; the roles, expectations, and hop...
May 05, 2023•47 min
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Real Talk about the Book of Mormon [Part III of IV] Join Valerie and special guest Paul Toscano in this part three on a series focusing on untangling some of the complexities of the Book of Mormon. Paul had a lot of fascinating ideas about this topic including 3 ways to look at the Book of Mormon: As a historical record (the most immature, irrelevant, and unhelpful approach) For its literary value (perhaps interesting but often not transformative) As a my...
May 01, 2023•1 hr 1 min
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Real Talk about the Book of Mormon [Part II of IV] In this second of a four part series tackling various aspects of the Book of Mormon with a couple of prominent Mormon theologians, Valerie continues to talk to Taylor Petrey about the negative impact that many current members are experiencing around the overly simplistic narrative regarding the translation of the Book of Mormon, its origin, meaning, and literalness. Valerie contends that this complicates ...
Apr 28, 2023•40 min
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Real Talk about the Book of Mormon [Part I of IV] It's time to take a deep dive into what may be a psychologically and spiritually confusing topic for many expanding members in and around the LDS church—THE BOOK OF MORMON. In this FIRST of a four part series tackling many complex aspects of the Book of Mormon with prominent Mormon scholars, Valerie begins the conversation with friend and colleague Taylor Petrey (editor in chief of the Dialogue Journal of ...
Apr 24, 2023•41 min
Send us a Positive Review! While *generally* trying to avoid “taking pages out of Satan’s playbook” [which sounds both a little terrifying and very intriguing at the same time], Val and Nathan recently found themselves at odds in their respective interpretations and experiences listening to P. Nelson’s April 2023 General Conference address titled “Peacemakers Needed”. Listen in and see how healthy it is to have different thoughts, feelings, and interpretations regarding religious experience. The...
Apr 21, 2023•50 min
Send us a Positive Review! This episode introduces the concept of “non-hierarchical revelation” as key to the spiritual health of any Christ centered organization. This episode dives into ideas about how revelation going in both directions: 1] creates a synergistic partnership between leadership and lay membership where both parties are increasingly growing in their abilities to not only communicate with God, but also where all parties learn to work together as spiritual equals 2] insulates the ...
Apr 17, 2023•24 min
Send us a Positive Review! Join Val and Nathan in this episode where they respond to the address recently given in April 2023 general conference by Allen D Haynie, titled “A Living Prophet for our Day”. Specific points from this address explored: The rule-of-thumb suggested privileging current prophetic counsel over past prophetic counsel when contradictions surface Parents who teach and model by example the importance of personal discernment over strict compliance to church authorities will ine...
Apr 14, 2023•31 min
Send us a Positive Review! In this episode Valerie and Nathan reminisce about the "good ol’ days" when they anticipated General Conference and the spiritual feasting that it involved. This podcast (111th semi-weekly session, btw ;) of reminiscing was produced mainly to help many of us make sense of the very complicated feelings we have when the first weeks of April and October roll around. What do some of us feel? Based on their conversations with dozens of Latter Day Struggles Support Group Mem...
Apr 10, 2023•27 min
Send us a Positive Review! In this episode Val and Nathan explore what it takes to form a psychologically healthy system…whether this system is an immediate or extended family group, a relief society class, priesthood quorum, Sunday school group, or any combination of people who come together regularly to share some part of their lives, thoughts, feelings, or experiences. Val and Nathan walk through the four stages that all groups of people must pass through to become a safe and vibrant place fo...
Apr 07, 2023•58 min
Send us a Positive Review! In this episode Valerie reviews some fascinating ideas about the relationship between cognitive dissonance and self justification and applies these ideas to humanity, institutions, churches, and the LDS church. She walks you through the following ideas: why humans and institutions self justify why people in leadership are especially prone to self justification why entire communities get caught up in self justifying behaviors the self-justifying tactics people and insti...
Apr 03, 2023•1 hr 4 min
Send us a Positive Review! In this episode, Valerie highlights what you will learn in her NEW online course “A COUPLE’S GUIDE FOR LDS FAITH CRISIS AND EXPANSION” for couples struggling with uneven faith journey experiences. As of mid-2024, this course ("The Couples Guide to Faith Crisis and Expansion") has been broken into three stand-alone self-paced online classes. Once purchased, you will receive access to a printable workbook and enjoy unlimited access to the recorded presentations. Each of ...
Mar 31, 2023•22 min
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Psychological Health Check on LDS Theology of Marriage & Family [Part XII of XII] In this final guest-interview portion of their ‘Eternal Marriage Theology Health Check’ series, Valerie visits with a married couple who shares their journey from early Mormon orthodoxy (which came naturally for him and felt like an ill-fitting costume for her) to their current stance as a couple whose primary allegiance shifted away from the LDS church and its beliefs a...
Mar 27, 2023•1 hr 31 min
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Psychological Health Check on LDS Theology of Marriage & Family [Part XI of XII] In this episode you meet TJ, a wonderful young man navigating the complexities of young single adult life as a gay member of the LDS church. He shares his story about slowly and gradually learning to accept his infinite lovability in God's eyes, which led to his eventual ability to also accept his sexual identity. TJ shares with Valerie his ongoing process sorting out wha...
Mar 24, 2023•1 hr 1 min
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Psychological Health Check on LDS Theology of Marriage & Family [Part X of XII] Join Valerie in this incredibly tender episode with two sets of LDS parents with children on the LGBTQ+ spectrum as they share their journey as individuals, as a couple, and as a family system embracing their gay and transgender children. Each of these beautiful parents walk us through their early years of life in the LDS church and their varying experiences embracing the ...
Mar 20, 2023•1 hr 21 min
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Psychological Health Check on LDS Theology of Marriage & Family [Part IX of XII] In this portion of this series featuring the tender stories of individuals learning about the complexities of the LDS eternal marriage theology first hand, Valerie visits with Cindy, a woman brave enough to share her story of her two marriages. Her first marriage was the result of young Cindy’s desire to please her orthodox family, her ward, and her church by marrying the...
Mar 17, 2023•43 min
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Psychological Health Check on LDS Theology of Marriage & Family [Part VIII of XII] Join Valerie and her special guest Lark, a single woman who candidly shares her painful journey beginning in the youth program aspiring to check every single box on the Mormon woman spectrum that was practically guaranteed to bring her all of the love, fulfillment, and satisfaction earth or heaven could offer. This seemed all good and fine until life didn't cooperate an...
Mar 13, 2023•57 min
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Psychological Health Check on LDS Theology of Marriage & Family [Part VII of XII] In this final autobiographical portion of this series focusing on the complexities of the LDS eternal marriage doctrine, Valerie and Nathan reflect on their own relationships with fear and shame as driving forces in their own formative years. This conversation spans several topics including fears around singlehood (and the deep psychological wounds inflicted by the curre...
Mar 10, 2023•36 min
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Psychological Health Check on LDS Theology of Marriage & Family [Part VI of XII] In this very personal episode, Val and Nathan talk about their own lived experiences around the LDS eternal marriage doctrine and specifically how they have navigated concepts of patriarchy and eternal polygamy. Valerie expands the concepts of masculinity and femininity and shares thoughts on how these concepts are often confused with our socialized understandings of male...
Mar 06, 2023•34 min
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Psychological Health Check on LDS Theology of Marriage & Family [Part V of XII] In this very personal next several episodes in this series on the LDS theology of eternal marriage and its implications, Val and Nathan talk about their own marriage and how both individually and as a couple they have experienced plenty of soul-struggle in an effort to find the path that celebrates both relational intimacy (in all of its forms) as well as deep commitment t...
Mar 03, 2023•45 min
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Psychological Health Check on LDS Theology of Marriage & Family [Part IV of XII] In this fourth part of their ongoing series on the complexities of the LDS doctrine of eternal marriage, Val and Brannon tackle yet another tough but important facet of this subject: the possible engines that drive us all too often…Here are just a few of the many examples they explore in this episode: 1] FEAR: The fear of the eternal consequences of not marrying. The fear...
Feb 27, 2023•40 min
