Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: The Profound Impact of Feminine Suppression on Men & their Churches [Part V of VIII]. In this compelling episode Valerie and Nathan delve deep into the subtleties of benevolent patriarchy and how it places harmful pressures on men. They explore the unrealistic expectations for men to always be strong, the emotional and psychological costs of these societal norms, and how these pressures can lead to personal and relational breakdowns. Once again, Natha...
Feb 03, 2025•48 min•Ep. 301
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: The Profound Impact of Feminine Suppression on Men & their Churches [Part III of VIII] Glad you're back! In this episode Valerie and Nathan delve into the impact that the overemphasis on masculine energy has on the ideas and practices within the LDS church because it is an institutional patriarchy. Today they focus on the masculine trait of competitiveness and explore how this plays out in unhealthy ways when not balanced with collaboration, its femin...
Jan 27, 2025•44 min•Ep. 299
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: The Profound Impact of Feminine Suppression on Men and their Churches [Part I of VIII] Val and Nathan's series tackling the common traits connecting psychologically/spiritually underdeveloped people with men strongly socialized in a patriarchy went NUTS in response, shares, and downloads (episodes 283-288) as expected. Why? Because our LDS faith expanding community seems to be STARVING to learn more about what health and wholeness looks like when women an...
Jan 20, 2025•49 min•Ep. 297
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Cutting Edge Research on the LDS Faith Journey Experience [Part I of II] You're in for a wonderful two episodes here as Valerie welcomes researcher and author Jana Reiss for a conversation brimming with details about Jana's current project (a forthcoming book!) centered around the diverse personal experiences of hundreds of people on the LDS faith spectrum. In order to not give too many spoilers for the next two episodes, you'll need to tune in to hear wh...
Jan 13, 2025•42 min•Ep. 295
Send us a Positive Review! When someone starts a podcast in the LDS faith journey space, one question that is often asked is this: "Have You ALWAYS had this much courage?" Join Valerie in this episode as she asks this question to friends and colleagues Susan and Cynthia of "At Last She Said It". In this episode Susan & Cynthia share very different stories about their journeys that led them to the airwaves. Their stories are each unique in part because their temperaments are totally different...
Jan 06, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 293
Send us a Positive Review! Happy holidays Latter Day Struggles listeners! For the next four episodes you will enjoy a few "Classic" episodes that have received some of the highest number of downloads and waves of feedback that these are among some of the most impactful episodes for many listeners. Also, as a way to share my love and gratitude for all of you during this holiday season, the classic episodes dropped on Friday 12/27/24 and Monday 1/3/25 will be open to ALL listeners! Thank you for y...
Dec 30, 2024•1 hr 30 min
Send us a Positive Review! Happy holidays Latter Day Struggles listeners! For the next four episodes you will enjoy a few "Classic" episodes that have received some of the highest number of downloads and waves of feedback that these are among some of the most impactful episodes for many listeners. Also, as a way to share my love and gratitude for all of you during this holiday season, the classic episodes dropped on Fridays 12/27/24 and 1/3/25 will be open to ALL listeners! Thank you for your su...
Dec 23, 2024•1 hr 18 min
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: The Shocking Correlation Between Men Socialized in Patriarchies & Psychological/Spiritual Underdevelopment [Part V of VI] In this episode, Valerie and Nathan continue to discuss how being spiritually formed in a patriarchy negatively affects men. This episode highlights how being raised in this "power-over model" hampers male emotional maturity, leading to issues like lack of empathy, rigid black-and-white thinking, and minimal self-reflection, making...
Dec 16, 2024•43 min•Ep. 287
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: The Shocking Correlation Between Men Socialized in Patriarchies & Psychological/Spiritual Underdevelopment [Part III of VI] In this episode Valerie and Nathan continue to explore how patriarchal systems can negatively impact the spiritual and psychological development of men. They discuss why patriarchal men learn to see the world transactionally, why they might struggle with listening skills, and how this all impacts their capacity to find connection...
Dec 09, 2024•44 min•Ep. 285
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: The Shocking Correlation Between Men Socialized in Patriarchies & Psychological/Spiritual Underdevelopment [Part I of VI] Join Valerie and Nathan as they kick off a new DEEP DIVE series exploring how patriarchy affects men in the LDS Church. This series compares the attributes that emotionally underdeveloped people have in common with men socialized in an institutional patriarchy. In each episode Nathan candidly shares how he is slowly healing from th...
Dec 02, 2024•51 min•Ep. 283
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Celebrating 50 Years Exponent II & Mormon Feminist Voices [Part I of II] In this episode, Valerie speaks with Katie Ludlow Rich and Heather Sundahl, the co-authors of newly published book '50 Years of Exponent II'. They discuss the fascinating history of the original “Woman's Exponent” magazine in the late 1800s and its revival magazine “Exponent II”, both offering a place for Mormon feminists to gather, write, and share their experiences as women of ...
Nov 25, 2024•57 min•Ep. 281
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: A Story of LDS Faith Expansion & Marital Resilience [Part V of V] In this episode Valerie answers a variety of audience questions regarding the complexities of the LDS faith journey when a married couple finds themselves in different places on the LDS faith spectrum. Valerie provides resources, insights, and tools around topics that range from how to establish emotional safety in frightening conversations, how to develop emotional intimacy, how to nav...
Nov 18, 2024•45 min•Ep. 278
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: A Story of LDS Faith Expansion & Marital Resilience [Part III of V] In this episode, Valerie is joined again by Katie and Jeremy as they share their journey from early religious alignment, through painful confusion and isolation, and then profound personal and relational growth and intimacy as a couple and family. Emphasizing the importance of emotional safety, attachment styles, and healthy stress management, Through their candid discussions, Katie a...
Nov 11, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 277
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: A Story of LDS Faith Expansion & Marital Resilience [Part I of V] In this episode, Valerie hosts a heartfelt and raw discussion with Katie and Jeremy about the complexities of navigating a mixed-faith marriage. They share personal stories, fears, challenges, and the journey they've taken to find common ground and love despite differing faith paths. This episode delves into the deep emotions of fear, hurt, shame, loneliness, and highlights the importan...
Nov 04, 2024•1 hr 27 min
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Navigating Information Quality in the Latter Days [Part I of II] Join Val and Nathan in this two-part series walking you through six questions that you can tape on your fridge and bathroom mirror to help you become a super savvy discerner of information quality. In an age where we are inundated with information and people from all quarters of our lives wanting to persuade us to do things their way--this short series hopefully will assist you in becoming m...
Oct 28, 2024•39 min•Ep. 273
Send us a Positive Review! Hello everyone! Here is a quick introduction to NEW curriculum that I am putting together (by popular demand!) helping our Latter-day Saint and surrounding community better understand our complicated relationship with what healthy masculinity and femininity looks like in all human beings and how this concept has been warped by being socialized in multiple layers of patriarchy. This group beginning on November 7th at 10:30a Central is for those who have already been in ...
Oct 21, 2024•19 min•Ep. 271
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Faith Journeying Parents of Adult Children [Part III of IV] In this tender episode Valerie has a conversation with special guest, Kim, who shares the intense emotional experience of entering into her own faith journey in the face of terror that she might lose the love and trust of her children and grandchildren. This episode walks us through the steps she took to meet each of her adult children where they were while also standing in her own sacred truths....
Oct 14, 2024•56 min•Ep. 269
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Faith Journeying Parents of Adult Children [Part I of IV] In this series Val is joined by therapist, colleague and friend Liz MacDonald to dive deeply into the world of the faith expanding Latter-day Saint with more traditionally believing adult children. They explore the unique stressors of this parent/child dynamic when the parent “goes first” on a faith journey, their fears, and some of their strategies intended to differentiate while staying in connec...
Oct 07, 2024•54 min•Ep. 267
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Embracing Anxiety, Ambiguity & Ambivalence as a Grown-A** Adults [Part III of IV] Remember when things were so simple? Back in the day when we were experts on pretty much everything related to life and eternity? Well, if you’re listening to Latter Day Struggles, you’ve likely let that go and are learning to embrace ambiguity. This episode tackles why certainty is so compelling but actually an illusion. The good news? Our growth turns mystery from terr...
Sep 30, 2024•43 min•Ep. 265
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Embracing Anxiety, Ambiguity & Ambivalence as a Grown-A** Adults [Part I of IV] Join Val and Nathan in this fast-paced 4-part conversation walking you through some hard evidence that you ARE, in fact, growing up! This series tackles why humans long for certainty, and how early life is mainly focused on avoiding anxiety. It goes on to help you see that the faith journey offers you all of the ingredients for growth in ways that you could not have imagin...
Sep 23, 2024•35 min•Ep. 263
Send us a Positive Review! Join Val and colleague Dr. Julie Hanks as they dive into the topic of differentiation and how being differentiated is the key to our making healthy choices related to our relationship with the church. This episode is a wonderful “teaser” for those who want to jump into their FINAL 4-week Q&A session, focused on supporting those people perplexed about how to relate to the LDS Church. This session will not only include a Q&A but also include instruction on practi...
Sep 16, 2024•35 min•Ep. 261
Send us a Positive Review! A couple of months ago Valerie was invited by the Faith Matters Podcast to speak about one of the toughest topics they’ve ever covered—how to navigate the faith journey of a loved one when that faith journey seems to be costing a marriage or family eternal life together with that loved one. When that episode dropped, both the Latter Day Struggles and the Faith Matters platforms were flooded with messages of gratitude from people grateful that important conversations li...
Sep 09, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 259
Send us a Positive Review! Join Valerie and fellow podcaster Aubrey Chaves of the Faith Matters podcast as together they discuss the vision and purpose of the Restore Conference. A common belief among these two brave and compassionate women? True growth and connection is about being welcome and accepted wherever you are on your faith journey. No fine print. In their unique ways each are involved in efforts for their LDS and surrounding fellow travelers. Listen in to hear why they are so committe...
Sep 02, 2024•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 257
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Plato's Allegory of the Cave & the LDS Faith Expansion Journey [Part III of IV] In this episode, Valerie and Nathan delve into how faith journeys can be compared to the transformative experience of seeing the sun for the first time and the internal and external struggle that comes with returning to the cave. How does the hero of Plato’s story reconcile his new perspective in his old surroundings? Val and Nathan discuss how enlightenment changes our pe...
Aug 26, 2024•46 min•Ep. 255
Send us a Positive Review! Series title: Plato's Allegory of the Cave & the LDS Faith Expansion Journey [Part I of IV] What could Plato and "The Matrix" possibly have in common?? In episode one (of this four part series), Val and Nathan discuss themes that echo throughout ancient philosophy and modern day society. They begin this series by introducing Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and the symbolism throughout one man’s journey from darkness to light. Drawing parallels between Plato’s allego...
Aug 19, 2024•39 min
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Vertical Development & the LDS Faith Journey with Ryan Gottfredson [Part III of IV] In this episode, Valerie and Ryan expand on the characteristics of a vertically developing mind. This episode highlights the characteristics of the most psychologically developed mind--characteristics that embody only 1% of the population! This "mind 3.0" values contributing to the world in meaningful ways, interdependent thinking, embracing vulnerability, and holding ...
Aug 12, 2024•46 min•Ep. 251
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Vertical Development & the LDS Faith Journey with Ryan Gottfredson [Part I of IV] In this opening episode [of a four-part series], Valerie welcomes organizational psychologist Ryan Gottfredson for a fascinating study of how our level of psychological development impacts how we (our loved ones, our friends, and our church!) navigate religion and spirituality. This episode is a broad overview of Ryan's scholarship, found in his book "The Elevated Leader...
Aug 05, 2024•41 min•Ep. 249
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Redefining Spiritual Experiences [Part I of II] In this episode of Latter Day Struggles, Valerie and Nathan respond to a very common question that people in early faith crisis often ask: "What do I make of my former spiritual experiences?" This two part series tackles many aspects of this perplexing aspect of faith expansion. Val and Nathan talk about the feelings of confusion that many feel about early faith defining experiences. They talk about other fe...
Jul 29, 2024•53 min•Ep. 247
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: Moving Beyond the Transactional Gospel [Part I of II] Is it time to graduate from your "Pee Wee" (aka "beginner level" for all of you non-football players) level of discipleship? If you're listening to this podcast, we are pretty sure the answer is a resounding YES! Bring on the Pro-Level! In this enlightening episode of Latter Day Struggles, Valerie welcomes special guest Steve Young to delve into the transformative power of love within the context of fa...
Jul 22, 2024•57 min•Ep. 245
Send us a Positive Review! Series Title: A Study of Loyalty [Part I of II] In this episode Valerie and Nathan delve into the delicate relationship between love, loyalty, and integrity. They discuss how loyalty, when prioritized over love, can lead to moral conflicts, confusion and systemic issues. The conversation centers around recognizing loyalty as a near enemy to love, particularly within political, religious, and social contexts. With their usual compassion and candor, Valerie and Nathan ad...
Jul 15, 2024•40 min•Ep. 243
