Introduction and Guest Welcome

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 505

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories is a production of the Open Stories foundation and relies solely upon the support of people like you, its listeners to help keep the podcast alive or to become a member of the community. Please become a monthly subscriber by visiting MormonStories.org and clicking on the Donate button on the right side of the page under support. All contributions to Mormon Stories are completely tax deductible and go towards producing the podcast and building communities and programs of support for Mormons like you. Thanks for your support.

Carrie Sheffield [00:00:36] The kindly light a myth encircling gloom Leave out me on the night is

John Dehlin [00:00:48] dark and I am hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin, and today I'm very excited to have someone who I've wanted, wanted to interview for some time, and I'm just really excited. She's one of the coolest Mormons I know, and her name is Carrie Sheffield. Carrie I've known for a couple years because she has sort of interacted with the the Mormon Stories Facebook community in New York City. But in the past couple years, she's become a bit, I would say, of a rising star in kind of political media. So she, she's appeared on fox news, on MSNBC, she's even appeared on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, the Blaze. And she's also written for several publications including the Wall Street Journal, Time, USA Today, New York Times, Washington Post, et cetera, et cetera. She, she attended Harvard University.

Carrie Sheffield [00:01:56] Masters.

John Dehlin [00:01:57] Was it Public administration. Carrie.

Carrie Sheffield [00:02:00] Public policy.

John Dehlin [00:02:01] Public policy, yeah. And. And she's. What's that?

Carrie Sheffield [00:02:08] It's the same school. Public policy, public administration. It's all just an Alphabet soup of letters.

John Dehlin [00:02:13] Yep. And. And she's, and she's kind of interesting because she is sort of, I, I'd say post Mormon or ex Mormon, maybe even progressive in some ways, but she's very much, you know, in the camp of, let's just say, Republican conservatism or however you pronounce that word.

John Dehlin [00:02:38] And so it's a bit of a paradox. And so we're going to talk about that today. This is kind of stretching my memories a bit because actually I was a political science major at BYU way back in the day. I worked for a summer on Capitol Hill as a congressional intern, and I've tried to follow politics here and there. So today we're going to talk about at least three things, sort of Carrie's experiences as a Mormon. And, you know, we'll probably go into what caused her to leave the church, but what's Even more interesting for me is Carrie has sort of found a philosophy, a life philosophy that has really been helpful to her.

John Dehlin [00:03:26] And it's the philosophy called stoicism. And, you know, as you know, we try and support Mormons in transition. There are many Mormons who sort of who aren't able to enjoy the spirituality or the philosophies of the traditional church. And so they're kind of looking for approaches to life that can still help them, you know, be healthy and happy.

John Dehlin [00:03:53] And in my conversations with Carrie, stoicism has been an important part of her journey. So we're going to talk about stoicism as a way to approach a healthy and happy post Mormon life. And then we're going to conclude by talking about her experience as what I was. I would call a talking head on the political scene.

John Dehlin [00:04:16] You know, I've seen her on Fox News and other places. And again, we're going to talk about how she can be sort of a young, hip, progressive, thoughtful person and be a conservative Republican. How in the world is that possible? So with all that introduction, Kerry Sheffield, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast.

Carrie Sheffield [00:04:35] Thanks, John. It's great to be here. And I love what you're doing, creating that space for people who question and doubt to feel like there's a place in a community for us. So thank you so much for your work.

John Dehlin [00:04:48] Oh, my pleasure. Well, good. Well, let's just jump right in and, you know, we could talk about whatever aspects of your upbringing you want, but. But tell us a bit about your Mormon story and kind of talk about whatever good or bad there was before you started to have a journey out.

Growing Up Mormon in Utah

Carrie Sheffield [00:05:08] Sure, sure. So my roots are from Utah. I should have pulled up my genealogy chart to see how many generations, but it's. It's seven or eight generations, Utah roots. The family came over from Europe, from England, Ireland, Denmark to join the church. So the traditional Mormon pioneer stock, I mean, you throw in the mix. A couple from the Revolution, the American Revolution and all that. So a pretty standard pioneer heritage. And my dad's from Salt Lake. My mom's from Provo, and they met, I believe, at a church dance. So very Mormon. And my grandfather was a Republican politician out in Utah. He died actually the week before I was born, so I never met him, but he had been the Republican whip in the Utah legislature.

John Dehlin [00:06:11] Wow.

Carrie Sheffield [00:06:12] I think in the lower house. So my father grew up immersed in kind of the Utah political scene. And certainly that was transmitted to me and other people in my family and my extended family. The other little celebrity we have in Our family is my aunt, who is my father's older sister. She was a former Miss USA. What year she was? Well, she was days of 47 Queen, and then she was Miss Utah, USA and then Miss USA and it was 1957. Okay, so it was a long time before Donald Trump bought the pageant USA system. But, yeah, so very, you know, apple pie, Utah stock.

John Dehlin [00:07:05] Okay, so your aunt was a beauty pageant winner. What else you got?

Carrie Sheffield [00:07:10] Well, and I think I mentioned this because I think that affected my. I think my dad grew up with a little bit of a complex because people would call him Mr. America. My dad was. My dad was a looker. I saw some pictures of him. He. He looked like Brad Pitt and. Yeah, but I think he.

Carrie Sheffield [00:07:32] He was kind of a rebel in his day. I think he was a little bit of a ladies man and he was in a fraternity. And he told us that he drank and I think he kind of really, really felt guilty about stuff that he did when he was younger.

Carrie Sheffield [00:07:54] And I think that he spent his life trying to kind of do penance for that. And so he kind of, you know, when he went on his mission, well, he read the Book of Mormon and went on his mission and came back and really was super, super zealous. And so we were raised, I would say, even more strict than your average Mormon, for example, when it came to fasting. So I've never looked this up to verify, but he said when he was younger, the church would have people fast once a week as opposed to once a month. And so he made us fast once a week instead of once a month.

John Dehlin [00:08:36] Wow.

Carrie Sheffield [00:08:38] Yeah. So. And that's just things like that.

John Dehlin [00:08:41] So kind of a bit more hardcore.

Carrie Sheffield [00:08:45] Very hardcore. The most rebellious thing I remember doing growing up was I scheduled a date when I was 15 to go to homecoming with a guy. This is when we were living in Maryland. And I felt so guilty that I confessed to my mom and I didn't go on the date. But even just setting it up, I felt so horrible, like God was going to be just damn me to hell. But yeah. And then the guy just went with our friends and he brought my corsage to school the next Monday. And I felt bad, but. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:09:27] So your dad didn't want you dating or what was going on?

Carrie Sheffield [00:09:31] Well, I was 15.

John Dehlin [00:09:33] Oh, you weren't 16 yet. Okay.

Carrie Sheffield [00:09:34] Yes, got it. How could you forget?

John Dehlin [00:09:37] No, just, you know, want to make sure.

Carrie Sheffield [00:09:41] Yeah, well. And frankly. Yeah. Even if I was 16. Yeah. My dad would not go for that because I didn't go on my first date till I was 18, so.

John Dehlin [00:09:51] Wow.

Carrie Sheffield [00:09:53] Yeah. But I feel like I'm kind of rambling, so I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:09:58] So kind of a conservative upbringing even. Even compared to Mormons.

Carrie Sheffield [00:10:04] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, I think, you know, a lot of your listeners can relate, I'm guessing, you know, maybe they had a very strong patriarchal figure in their family as well. And definitely our dad was the dominating influence. And it's interesting because even though he was very hardcore, there was one thing that really bothered him, and that was the idea from the proclamation or, you know, the. From Wilford Woodruff at the end of the Doctrine Covenants where he talks about, you know, the Lord will not permit me to lead the church astray. That really stuck in my dad's craw because he said that's basically creating a pope. And so he definitely encouraged us to think for ourselves and to not elevate a man to the level of infallibility.

John Dehlin [00:11:11] Okay.

Carrie Sheffield [00:11:11] So I think that was kind of. That was kind of the kernel for me that stuck with me when I. When I was older and got to BYU and started to question how.

John Dehlin [00:11:23] How would you say. How would you have described your testimony, you know, coming out of high school and going to byu? Pretty traditional. Had you had a burning in the bosom kind of thing, you know, where were your beliefs? Were you skeptical about it the whole time?

Carrie Sheffield [00:11:40] Oh, no, I was very much part of the team. Believed it, Tried my hardest, Prayed, read my scriptures, tried to do everything dressed modestly. So, yeah, I mean, I. The other day, I. Or a while back, I found a copy of the Book of Mormon. I had gone on mini mission when I was in high school with some sister missionaries in my ward, and I had written my testimony in the Book of Mormon. We were supposed to give out three. Three copies, I think, while we were with them. And I had failed to give out this one copy. And so I found the book. I don't know why I still had it, but it had my testimony. And it was like a decade later. And I read it, and I was just like, wow, I am completely different person. Like, I. It was everything to me.

Testimony, Belief, and Early Faith

John Dehlin [00:12:38] Okay, wow. So. So really into it. Had you had kind of a seminal moment, testimony moment, or was it something that just grew over time kind of thing, or that you always had?

First Doubts and Faith Crisis

Carrie Sheffield [00:12:52] I. You know, I think I first did it because I wanted, you know, to be a good kid. I was never one of those rebellious types, wanted to do well in school, wanted to please people, you know, wanted to just find a good Mormon. Boy to take me to the temple. So I think I just. Yeah, I can't think of. I mean, when I got baptized, you know, I got, My aunt got me and I kept my journal and I would always talk in the journal about how I love Jesus and how I wanted to be righteous and how I was. Wasn't good enough, but I was still trying. And I never had one of those, you know, go to EFY and see Jesus vision or anything like that. But I was definitely very sincere and it was a very consuming passion of mine.

John Dehlin [00:13:51] Right, okay. So you went to byu, huh?

Carrie Sheffield [00:13:57] Yep, yep. I. We lived in Utah, Missouri and Maryland and a couple other places. But eventually, you know, after we left Utah, I was sick of being the weird Mormon kid and so I wanted to go to BYU and to find a good Mormon boy out there. So that's what motivated me. And they have a great print journalism program, you know, so that, that attracted me to go.

John Dehlin [00:14:30] What years were you there?

Carrie Sheffield [00:14:32] I was there from 02 to 05.

John Dehlin [00:14:36] Okay.

Carrie Sheffield [00:14:37] And I loved it at first, but that was where I had my faith crisis.

John Dehlin [00:14:46] Oh, no. At byu?

Carrie Sheffield [00:14:48] Yes. And I'm sure that's what, you know, your readers can definitely relate to this. I had never really questioned my faith because it just seems everybody around me was doing. Just seems so natural and it's, it's so beautiful to me. I mean, I loved, you know, the article of Faith that says if there's anything virtuous, lovely or good report or praiseworthy. I love that it was such an embracing religion to seek after all those things. And so I never thought of it as a closed minded experience. Once when I was in high school, I went. Have you ever heard of the website beliefnet?

John Dehlin [00:15:33] Yeah, sure, absolutely.

Carrie Sheffield [00:15:36] So when I was in high school, I went on Beliefnet and they had a section about Mormonism and I think they had lumped it in with cults or something. And I just was furious. And so I went on there trying to defend Mormonism and it just made me even more staunchly Mormon.

Carrie Sheffield [00:15:58] But there was one moment where I was on a message board at beliefnet that gave me a little pause and it was. I was posting something about I was bearing witness of the Holy Ghost and I was sharing an experience that my dad said that he had of being guided by the Holy Ghost to avoid going down a certain block in New York City. And he said that the spirit guided him to not go into this certain area.

Carrie Sheffield [00:16:27] He just had that sinking feeling that he shouldn't go, didn't know why. And so he didn't do it. Then he finds out the next day in the newspaper that apparently there was some sort of helicopter crash and shards fell, blades fell or something, and several people were killed in that same area where he would have gone. And so I posted that on beliefnet and I said, look, this is evidence that God talks to us, and all we have to do is be righteous and listen to him. And someone posted, and I was.

Carrie Sheffield [00:17:00] I started shaking because I had never been around a doubter. They said, well, what does that mean about the people who were killed? Does that mean that God doesn't love them any? I mean, does he love your father more than them? I mean, why is there suffering for what you're saying?

Carrie Sheffield [00:17:22] Quote, unquote, Righteous people should never suffer, and yet they do. So in your story, it just seems like it's some random occurrence and there's no rhyme or reason because there's never any data to show that people have some spiritual gift. I mean, sure, maybe religious people have better health outcomes, but that's just because maybe they smoke and drink less and they don't party as much. You know, there's no rational reason to think that it was God that told him to not go down that street. And anyway, it really. That shook me a little bit because I had never been challenged in that way. But I think Mormonism is so reinforcing and with testimony meeting that it's easy to grow up in that bubble where you don't ever have to really deeply challenge what you're told.

John Dehlin [00:18:14] Totally. So the crack started to form at byu.

Carrie Sheffield [00:18:20] Right.

John Dehlin [00:18:21] Thanks to the.

Carrie Sheffield [00:18:22] And I. Yes. Yep. So. And I wrote an essay about this for the Washington Post. And I think that's actually how I met you, John.

John Dehlin [00:18:32] Yeah, that's right.

Carrie Sheffield [00:18:32] Was when it came to.

John Dehlin [00:18:35] Let's remember to link to that in the blog post for the podcast. We'll link to that essay. It's a good one.

Carrie Sheffield [00:18:44] Cool. So what started it out? The Faith Crisis was actually a course that I took in my journalism, history and philosophy class. I don't know if they still offered the class or not, but in the class, we had to study old forms of newspaper communication. So newspaper over time.

John Dehlin [00:19:10] Right.

Carrie Sheffield [00:19:11] And we looked. We had to go down and look at microfiche of the Deseret News from the 1800s. And so I was going through these advertisements and I think early 1900s, and I was floored to see that in the Desert News, ZCMI was advertising alcohol and tobacco, as in they were selling it. And I just. I remember I was Just like, what the hell? Like this. I didn't say health. I wouldn't have said that back then,

John Dehlin [00:19:45] but

Carrie Sheffield [00:19:48] what the heck. Oh, my heck. So I remember learning in Sunday School that the church had not enforced the word of wisdom until, I think, the twenties. Correct me if I'm wrong, John.

John Dehlin [00:20:01] Yeah, that's about right.

Carrie Sheffield [00:20:04] But seeing that the church was profiting off these products for some reason, it just really struck a nerve. And it got me on this history kick. And I realized how little that I knew about church history. And it. It just started me on this course of wanting to understand.

Carrie Sheffield [00:20:31] And, you know, I never understood what. I never chose to take the time to understand what quote unquote anti Mormons were saying about the church. I just would shut them out. So, for example, I did a study abroad in London, and there were protesters that would show up at the BYU London center occasionally. And I never understood that that's not normal. Like, most American schools wouldn't have that happen.

Carrie Sheffield [00:21:02] They were religious protesters. And then seeing the protesters down at Temple Square, I never had taken the time to really understand what they were talking about. And I felt like as a journalist, it was my job job to understand that, partially because I was writing about the church. So while I was a journalism student at byu, a lot of the work I was doing was writing about the church. So I wrote for the Deseret News, I wrote for the Provo Daily Herald, I wrote for the Daily Universe. By the way, I love the name the Daily Universe. I mean, how freaking awesome is that to say I am the editor of the universe?

John Dehlin [00:21:43] Yeah, totally,

Carrie Sheffield [00:21:47] but. Which I think they named that as a nod to what awaits you if you, you know, make it to the highest level. At least if you're a man one and a woman, I guess you can be the plural wife. But so I was writing so much about the church and. And wanting the transparency, studying journalism, just wanting to understand both sides, wanting to give context and analysis. That's really, I think, what fueled my quest when I took that class and saw that advertisement. So anyway, that was what caused the dam to burst, and I started reading no Man Knows My History. And then it all just unraveled from there.

John Dehlin [00:22:43] And this was while you were a student?

Carrie Sheffield [00:22:46] It was, Yep.

John Dehlin [00:22:47] Oh, wow. Okay. Was that awful? Was it exhilarating? How did you experience it at the time?

Carrie Sheffield [00:22:54] Oh, it was horrible. It was. It was like my entire meaning in life was completely obliterated. And it's ironic because sometimes I wonder if I had not gone to BYU and been a journalist Covering the church, maybe I would still be in the church. Like, if I had studied elsewhere and graduated elsewhere, maybe that identity would have remained intact just because I wouldn't have had so much exposure to the church or had to think so critically about it all the time as a journalist, if that makes sense.

John Dehlin [00:23:34] Yeah, totally.

Carrie Sheffield [00:23:35] But. But, yeah, it was. It was devastating. And I fell into depression because, like I said, it was. You know, as a woman, all I wanted to do was to be a mother, because that's what God wanted me to be. And when I started to question

John Dehlin [00:23:57] what

Carrie Sheffield [00:23:58] was God or what did God want, or could a man speak for God? You know, it's sort of that identity and that purpose. It's. To have that stripped away so quickly. It's. It's difficult, as I'm sure a lot of your listeners can understand.

Leaving the Church and Life After BYU

John Dehlin [00:24:15] So you graduated from BYU, is that right?

Carrie Sheffield [00:24:18] I did, yep. In 2005.

John Dehlin [00:24:20] And you ended up with my.

Carrie Sheffield [00:24:25] I was. I was a closet doubter, I would say. For the last year. I just coasted. I just wanted that degree. But I was definitely not believing at all by the last year. And so I had my first.

John Dehlin [00:24:38] You didn't try to talk to your bishop about it or anything like that?

Carrie Sheffield [00:24:42] Oh, I did. I did. And in fact, in the essay that I wrote for the Washington Post, I talked about some meetings that I had with different church leaders. I went to the. I have to pull up his title to make sure I don't get it wrong. But I think he was the dean or the assistant dean of religious education at byu. And I brought him a whole list of, I don't know, like, 50 questions that I had about church history and inconsistencies and all the standard doubts.

Carrie Sheffield [00:25:10] And I was very upset. And I said, can you help me find answers? Or here's my list. Then he never got back to me or responded. And then I had. I had some stake presidents and bishops of varying wards. I mean, I had one stake president who was incredibly warm and open and accepting of my doubts. And if the church was full of people like him, I probably would have stayed.

Carrie Sheffield [00:25:46] Um, but I had another. I mean, I had multiple leaders that were not like him. Um, I had one, and I mentioned this in the essay, who told me that reading websites that question, the church is worse than reading pornography.

Carrie Sheffield [00:26:02] Um, so which. Which. Which very much shook me up. Um, I remember the first time I logged on to exmormon.org I did feel like I was going on a pornographic website. I mean, I don't look at porn, but that's how guilty I felt.

Carrie Sheffield [00:26:22] And yet I felt like I needed to connect with other people because there is that culture of shame and silence and not speaking openly about your doubts.

John Dehlin [00:26:36] Right. So was there a space between BYU and Harvard?

Carrie Sheffield [00:26:44] There was. So I was in D.C. for a few years and that was where I first tried living life as a non Mormon. And it was pretty pathetic. I didn't even know how to. To, for example, find a date. So I actually went on some dates with some guys from Craigslist because when you've got your award, it's like insta date.

John Dehlin [00:27:17] You didn't try and attend the singles. The famous singles awards in dc.

Carrie Sheffield [00:27:25] I was so angry and so bitter at the church that I was not interested in doing that. No.

John Dehlin [00:27:31] Interesting.

Carrie Sheffield [00:27:33] Yeah. I think I went to a family ward once, but I was slightly hungover and I just said, no, this isn't where I belong. And that was like 06 or 07. That was the last time. I've only been drunk and hungover a couple times in my life and that was one of them. I think, like 06 or 07 was the last time. And I just remember sitting there thinking, this is not the place for me. And just the singles words. I. Because I felt so angry and because I felt like if I voiced my doubts, none of the men would want to date me. So what's the point of going?

John Dehlin [00:28:17] Yeah, yeah. So you had to figure out how to be a single, sort of non Mormon.

Carrie Sheffield [00:28:25] Yep. And yeah. So the Craigslist dates, I mean, they were fine. I had a pretty good screening. I. They weren't serial killers. One of them just didn't look at all like his picture and the other one was just super nerdy. But I got a nice. We had a great dinner at the Watergate Hotel restaurant, which has an amazing restaurant if you're ever in D.C. i definitely recommend it. Um, but no chemistry. So. So yeah, I. I tried exploring a bunch of different faiths. So I, for example, was dating a guy who was ex Opus DEI for a while.

John Dehlin [00:29:08] Oh, wow.

Carrie Sheffield [00:29:10] So if your listeners aren't familiar, Opus DEI is kind of a secretive subsect within Catholicism. If you've read or watched the film by Dan Brown, the. What is it?

John Dehlin [00:29:28] The. Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

Carrie Sheffield [00:29:32] When it's Tom Hanks Opus Day.

John Dehlin [00:29:35] Oh, it'll come to me.

Carrie Sheffield [00:29:39] Anyway. Anyway, so it's just a very intense. The Da Vinci Code.

John Dehlin [00:29:47] Da Vinci Code, yep.

Carrie Sheffield [00:29:49] So it's an intense order, I think is what they call it. And you're Not a priest, but you are seen as like a special guardian. I don't know all the details, but some of them are become priests and they're celibate and then some are married and have families and this guy that I dated was going to be a priest and so it was, it's an intensely spartan life. You live together like monks.

Carrie Sheffield [00:30:25] And I think all of them, including the guys who get married, they wear these things around their thighs to actually dig into their thighs. It's like a strap that they wrap around and it, it's like a penance for their sins. So they put it on their thigh and it's their way of confessing or just self flagellation kind of thing.

Carrie Sheffield [00:30:50] But he found that that didn't make him happy and so he left. But we just had a lot in common. So in terms of ex Mormon, ex Opus dei. And so I thought about becoming Catholic for a while, but then just like Laura Ingram, right. I don't know much about her Catholicism. She's Catholic.

John Dehlin [00:31:14] I think she converted, but I'm not totally sure.

Carrie Sheffield [00:31:17] Oh, okay. Okay. Well, yes. But no, I did not become like Laura Ingram because I, as I kept exploring different religions. I also went to an evangelical megachurch for a while and I was in a Bible study and they kicked out a girl from the Bible study because they said she was, had said some things that were mean to the Bible study group leader. And this girl who got kicked out, her mother was dying of cancer and she said some things in stress to the Bible study leader. And so the Bible study leader said, you can't say that to me and we're voting you out.

Carrie Sheffield [00:31:59] And I just was like, wow, her mother's dying of cancer. You think you would give her a pass? But I mean that's just an interpersonal spat. The broader notion of Christianity and just the idea that God would require the murder of his son in order to satisfy himself eventually that just really turned me off. And so the literal notion of Christianity just didn't, didn't make any sense to me.

Carrie Sheffield [00:32:34] And I lived in Israel for a while and I thought about becoming Jewish, but I had a Jewish friend explain to me, he said, he put it this way, he said, kerry, if you become Jewish, you will basically be replacing one persecuted sect for another with 5,000 more years of history. Is that what you really want?

John Dehlin [00:32:56] Yeah,

Carrie Sheffield [00:32:58] and I, I was definitely considering it, but then I, I think I, I didn't want to take on having to learn all these new customs and just going through a whole new process. And also I felt like I wanted to learn to be a person without having to have religion, if that makes sense. Like, I felt like I was using religion as a crutch, and so I chose to go solo. Yeah, as I told my brother, when it comes to religion, I'm a registered independent.

Carrie Sheffield [00:33:46] But so I just kind of, you know, stumbled along until I came upon stoicism. And as you mentioned, that just changed my life. And I highly recommend it for people who are looking for meaning and order in a post Mormon life. Oh, I also tried Unitarian Universalism, which I think works for a lot of people who leave the church as well, but.

Carrie Sheffield [00:34:13] But, yeah, stoicism, I think, is amazing, and it's beautiful, and it doesn't require any external community or external validation. In fact, it's the antithesis of that, and I love it.

Reaching a Low Point After Leaving

John Dehlin [00:34:29] Okay, so before we jump into stoicism, did you reach a low in your search, Lee, after leaving the church? Did you start. Did you reach. Did the depression continue? Did you start to really feel lost? Was there any identity struggle? Like, was there some sort of low that you reached before sort of, you know, feeling enlightened or inspired towards stoicism? Were you searching for a. Something, you know, was it. Was there a big hole that you were still trying to fill?

Carrie Sheffield [00:35:10] Yes, yes, I found that. You know, I think Mormonism does a good job of teaching detachment from this earthly world, and I think Christianity more broadly. But I think Mormonism is very intense and very effective at this idea that we don't need to be as attached to the things of this world because we are expecting much more beautiful world in the afterlife.

Carrie Sheffield [00:35:38] And when I started to doubt and stop believing in this narrative of a specific type of afterlife, my motivation or my detachment went away. And so I became very attached to this world. And so I became very attached to my career, and I became very attached to relationships and trying to find a husband or a good, good man and just also trying to find status, you know, I think that's it. I don't know if you've ever read Tom Wolfe. He's one of my favorite living writers. Fiction writer. He's amazing. He wrote Bonfire of the Vanities. I am Charlotte Simmons. I am Charlotte Simmons is almost like my autobiography in a lot of ways.

Carrie Sheffield [00:36:23] It's. I would say it's the most similar book to my life in terms of, like, secular fiction. But. But he writes a lot about status. He writes a lot about the world of finance and money and chasing these worldly pursuits and this concept of status and how we as Humans, that's what we're wired is to seek status.

Carrie Sheffield [00:36:48] And I actually think Mormonism is the same way in that you're seeking status. It's not status in this world, but it's status in the afterlife.

John Dehlin [00:36:58] Internal increase, right?

Carrie Sheffield [00:36:59] Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So you're going to be the highest status type individual ever. So we're always looking for status. And so I had failures. I had, you know, some stumbles in work, I had stumbles in relationships. And I really, really reached a low point.

Carrie Sheffield [00:37:28] I was engaged at one point, and I broke that engagement off. And that. That, I think was one of the lowest points of my life besides leaving the church, because it was sort of like the church gave me my meaning and then all these other things. When the church was gone, I tried to fill that vacuum.

Carrie Sheffield [00:37:47] I kept failing and it kept not working. And that was the low point because I was trying to use relationships to fill that void and that quest for status. And so around what year would that have been? When I broke off my engagement? It was a couple years ago, so it was actually not that long ago.

John Dehlin [00:38:14] Okay, so it would have been around that time you performed at the conference.

Carrie Sheffield [00:38:21] Yeah, yeah, actually, yeah, it was. It was around that time.

John Dehlin [00:38:26] Okay.

Carrie Sheffield [00:38:28] And so that was a pretty. That was a nice distraction, actually. But even leading up to that, like, the year leading up to that. Really showed me how I was using external things, whether it's pursuit of career, relationships, just success, prestige, whatever. Whatever external validations that people use in New York. As they say, it's a rat race. Everyone's constantly sizing each other up. You know, I was working on Wall street at the time. I had never made as much money in my life, but I had never felt so poor, because it's always about what is the person next to you doing? And it's that classic notion of, you know, not. Not having inner happiness. So that was. That was my low point.

John Dehlin [00:39:30] I would say low.

Carrie Sheffield [00:39:33] Yeah.

Discovering Stoicism

John Dehlin [00:39:34] So how did you. How did your awareness of stoicism develop in this low point? I think lots of us reach that low point, but. But maybe sometimes people don't know how to find what they need. You know, How. How did you find stoicism?

Carrie Sheffield [00:39:52] So it was kind of a process. I don't even know how I came on this idea, but I realized that I was. I forget which prophet it was. You know the phrase being acted upon as opposed to acting, I was being acted upon. And I was not seizing control of my emotions or my.

Carrie Sheffield [00:40:16] My trajectory of my life. I was relying on external factors and so I did this thing called my master's degree in happiness. And every day I had a spreadsheet where I had to do something to nurture my body, my mind and my spirit. And I had to do something for somebody else.

Carrie Sheffield [00:40:44] And every day I had to fill it out because it was just my way of getting outside my mind. And every day it built. It built and built. And so as I was doing things to nurture each dimension, I started to read a lot. And I read a lot of books that I had never forced myself to read or think about.

Carrie Sheffield [00:41:11] And I read a book that mentioned stoicism. It was a book written by a finance guy, ironically, because he writes a lot about status. And he's a very interesting guy, Nicholas Taleb. He wrote this book called Black Swan that he became famous for. But the book I was reading was a book that he wrote called Antifragile.

Carrie Sheffield [00:41:39] And the concept of antifragile is that when we are. When you look at a box of glasses and somebody stamps the word fragile, it means don't shake this box. And there's no equivalent or I guess, exact opposite of the word fragile. There's no word for antifragile. If you think about it, is it

John Dehlin [00:42:07] durable, strong or strong or durable? That doesn't work.

Carrie Sheffield [00:42:12] No, because. Or even resilient, because those words convey the sense that you are. You have the ability to withstand or bounce back from being shaken. Whereas antifragile, you stamp that on a box of glasses that says shake this box, you will make it stronger if you shake this box.

Carrie Sheffield [00:42:36] And I thought about it, and he thought about it. I can't think of a word for exactly that opposite. But anyway, that's the concept. And so he talks about. He's applying it to financial systems, but he also was talking about applying it to your life. That we as people should be anti. Fragile people.

Carrie Sheffield [00:42:56] That we should embrace challenge. And then he talked about the stoics. Somehow I came upon this book after reading about that, this other book that I think I sent to you, John, about the connection between stoic life and the notion of CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy, which is.

Carrie Sheffield [00:43:25] And you can give a whole discourse on what CBT is with your background, but just the idea of controlling your emotions. And he, the author, his name is Donald Robertson, he's Scottish. So Dr. Robertson, actually, he might not even be a doctor, but he is a psychiatrist or psychologist.

Carrie Sheffield [00:43:52] So Robertson traces the roots of cbt and he traces them to stoics and stoicism. And it's that the Name of the book is the Philosophy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. And that book really changed my life. It was an amazing book and I definitely recommend it.

Carrie Sheffield [00:44:17] And I think as an ex Mormon, for me it really taught me that I have the ability to control my emotions, which is the complete opposite, I think, of Mormonism and the idea of having the Holy Ghost come upon you and having your feelings be dictated by the Holy Spirit or something external to you. And also testimony meetings where there are excessive and public displays of emotion because you feel like you have something that is moving you.

John Dehlin [00:44:55] So there's an external source of truth and understanding and inspiration, and you're supposed to welcome it, to seek it, you know, to, to embrace it, right, and, and align your, your feelings and perspective with, with these feelings that come.

Carrie Sheffield [00:45:18] Exactly right. Whereas Stoicism is the idea that. And the word Stoic, I think, gets the bad rap. I think you say the word stoic and people think that you're cold and you're unfeeling. But if you study the Stoics, and I'm still learning about them myself. But the school of Stoic philosophy, it was founded in 3rd century BC so it's older than Christianity, but it was. It's not a religion, it's a school of thought that the ancient Greeks would send their children, you know, so the elite private schools, if you will, of the day, these families would send their sons there to be trained basically in ethics.

Carrie Sheffield [00:46:12] And that's what Stoicism is. It's a school of philosophy and ethics and the pursuit of happiness and virtue. And it's the word Stoic. Like I said, I think it's evolved to be that you don't have feelings. Whereas I would say it is that you are the master of your feelings, or every day you work to master them. And if you fall out of that, you can always come back each day and you can center yourself and I don't know, I'm sure, John, you've read the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People or you're familiar with it so totally. So the notion that you, you live your life centered on principles and not on personality or something else that really, really connects or is similar, I think, to the, the virtues of Stoicism or the, the principles. So the, the four main virtues of principles of Stoicism and which are courage, wisdom, justice and temperance.

John Dehlin [00:47:24] And I'm not. Wait, I'm going to repeat that. Courage, wisdom, temperance and justice. Is that right? We just. So that our listeners can really marinate in that. Will you just talk about each One.

Carrie Sheffield [00:47:40] Right. Well, to the backdrop and then I'll talk.

John Dehlin [00:47:45] Yeah, go ahead. Okay.

Core Stoic Virtues: Wisdom and Temperance

Carrie Sheffield [00:47:46] In terms of the idea that anything else, building your life on anything else, whether it's a relationship, whether it's a job, whether it's a community external to you, whether it's anything that you use to validate yourself, all that will crumble, all that will fall, all that is fleeting.

Carrie Sheffield [00:48:06] And the only things that last are those four principles, essentially. And so we can talk about courage. I think that's pretty, I think, self explanatory. I think courage is sort of the application of the other ones, if you will.

Carrie Sheffield [00:48:27] I think if you can have these other traits, but if you don't live them in the world through courage, then I think it leads you to question whether you actually have them or practice them. The other one is wisdom, which I think that's, that's kind of the catch all, if you will, the elastic clause for the political junkies out there from the Constitution.

Carrie Sheffield [00:48:58] Wisdom. I, you know, that's just thinking about your actions in terms of is this wise? Is what I'm about to say through the lens of someone who is thinking about whether this is. They say in the book by Robertson, you know the phrase what would Jesus do? Wwjd the bracelets they would have. He says you should think about what would a sage do? Wwsc.

John Dehlin [00:49:27] A sage? Yeah, yeah, like Plato or Socrates or.

Carrie Sheffield [00:49:33] Right, yeah, or like one of the Stoic sages. So like Marcus Aurelius or Zeno or Epictetus. Okay, so that's the idea of like thinking of your situation, of whatever your scenario you're in. What would be the wise? And then justice.

John Dehlin [00:49:55] Just real quick, in, in psychology I've been taught to think about. Wisdom is the harmony of, of, of emotion and sort of reason or logic. You don't want to be purely logical and purely intellectual at the expense of both your emotions and other people's emotions. But at the same time you don't want to be just this reactive person that, that is a slave to their emotions. And so wisdom is finding a way to harmonize the two into something sort of transcendent. I don't know if that fits with Stoicism, but that's, that's how I've been taught to think about wisdom.

Carrie Sheffield [00:50:36] Yeah, yeah. I think that's interesting. And I, I think that that makes sense. I think it definitely would fit the idea. I mean, I'm, I'm not. That's the thing about Stoicism, it's not like a religion, so it's not like I'm going to tell you that's not in the correlation manual, John. You're wrong.

Carrie Sheffield [00:50:54] But. But yeah, no, I think that makes sense. I mean, because it is, like I said, learning to control your emotions, because emotions happen, you know, they happen, and people think that you don't have control. Like, I think pop culture, the idea of romance and drama, those are things that are seen as sexy or they sell a lot of books or movies, passion and that sort of thing that, you know, there's nothing wrong with emotions per se, but it's when you let them dictate and control you, I think that that's crossing that boundary of what you were describing of is this wise, you know, kind of that intersection of your body or your mind and your emotions. So totally.

John Dehlin [00:51:52] Okay, so temperance.

Carrie Sheffield [00:51:55] So temperance to me, and it's not talking about alcohol temperance, but I would say it's more being temperate in your life in the sense that you're not an extremist. And I think, for me, I try to think about this when I'm thinking about my politics because it can be very easy to get emotional about something. But if you're thinking about what is the temperament solution, as in what is sort of the moderate solution, or what is the moderate approach, what is the rational, reasonable approach to this, even if the person is being extreme, that's no excuse for you to be extreme in response. And so I think that that's. That can be a really helpful concept to think about, I think in the workplace or just when you're dealing with stressful situations and then.

John Dehlin [00:52:55] Or when you're leaving a religion and struggling with others who stay behind.

Carrie Sheffield [00:53:00] Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, I could. I could definitely see that. I mean, I think a lot of times, families. Emotions can get very thick and heavy and strong, and people might shut off a relationship or cut someone out or because they're. They're letting their emotions dictate their behavior. You know, I. I think it's interesting because I think for a lot of Mormons, they think it's the Holy Ghost that's telling them to do something when it's just their emotions.

Carrie Sheffield [00:53:36] Because in a way, I feel like that that's kind of distancing yourself from accountability. Of what. Of your actions. You know, it's like I can be a complete jerk to a family member who leaves the church because it's the Holy Ghost that tells me it's okay. You know, Whereas if in any other scenario, that would be seen as something that's hurtful or wrong, for some reason, that's accepted in the church. And I don't think that that's. That that's right.

John Dehlin [00:54:03] So totally.

Stoicism and Justice

Carrie Sheffield [00:54:07] And then the other concept is justice, which, you know, I think LDS Church talks a lot about that idea. So.

John Dehlin [00:54:16] You do or you don't?

Carrie Sheffield [00:54:17] No, the LDS Church does. I think it talks a lot about justice. I mean, that's the whole, you know, mission of Christ is to satisfy both justice and mercy. But justice in the sense that if somebody does something wrong, they should be held accountable or punished. And you as a person, if you do something wrong. So, like, if I make a mistake, I need to be willing to accept the consequences of that and understand that that's justice, you know, or if I. And it's not punishment per se or even just living your life. If I sleep in and I miss an appointment, you know, I shouldn't be angry because I'm the one who slept in. You know, it's. It's sort of just. It's one of. It's the serenity prayer. It's like God, you know, grant me the. How does it go? The wisdom. Help me out here.

John Dehlin [00:55:20] Something about accepting the things that I cannot change. Part of it, right? Yeah. And to change the things that I can. And the wisdom to know the difference. Something like that.

Carrie Sheffield [00:55:31] Exactly. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. So I think when it comes to, I think, justice, I think that is a very rational way of looking at the world in the sense that we should never be upset about our place in the world and the consequences of that place in the world, if that makes sense. So. So, like, I could be really, really angry at the universe or God or whatever, because I was born to a Mormon family and the Mormon Church lied to me.

Carrie Sheffield [00:56:15] I could be very upset about that. I could also be very upset because I was not born to have seven toes and three eyeballs. I could be very upset about that. I could be very upset about any number of things, but that's just not accepting your fate in life.

Carrie Sheffield [00:56:35] And that's another important concept, I think, for stoicism, which is the idea of loving your fate. So there's a phrase called amor fati, and it means that you. I think it's Latin. It says love of fate. And the phrase is that a person who refuses to accept their position or what happens to them in life is a lay woman in the art of life.

Carrie Sheffield [00:57:10] And there's a quote, if you Will indulge me. I can read. Arianna Huffington is a huge fan of stoicism, which I just found out earlier this year, which I think is awesome. She has a new book out and I met her at a discussion she was having about the book. It's called Thrive. And she has a lot, she has a lot about stoicism in there. And she has this quote from Marcus Aurelius, who was one of the Roman emperors, who was a famous stoic.

Carrie Sheffield [00:57:41] And this is the quote. It says that true understanding is to see the events of life in this way. You are here for my benefit. The rumor paints you otherwise. And everything is turned to one's advantage when he greets a situation like this.

Carrie Sheffield [00:57:57] You are the very thing I was looking for. Truly, whatever arises in life is the right material to bring about your growth and the growth of those around you. This, in a word, is art. And this art called life is a practice suitable to both men and gods. Everything contains some special purpose and a hidden blessing.

Carrie Sheffield [00:58:19] What then could be strange or arduous when all of life is here to greet you like an old and faithful friend. So I just love that phrase about everything that happens to you, you should greet as an old and faithful friend.

Carrie Sheffield [00:58:33] And that's the notion going back to antifragile. So that everything that happens to you, trials, tribulations, whatever, don't fight it. Love it, amor fati. Love your fate. And that's, that's been my recovery from Mormonism. And that's when I realized I didn't need an external community or religious identity because I realized I was building my self worth on external factors.

John Dehlin [00:59:08] Okay, so two quick things, like somebody who's born, you know, in Africa in really impoverished circumstances, you know, how do you think about justice when. When somebody just is born with all, all the severe disadvantages you could think of?

Carrie Sheffield [00:59:26] Yeah. So stoicism is very nature based. So it talks a lot about nature. And, and that everything in life is a function of nature. And you know, a child who's born in those circumstances, that is, I mean, eventually we will get to a place where the world will not have that. And frankly, we are, we are marching toward that. If you look at poverty rates, I mean, look at the World Bank. I think it's the World Bank. There was an op ed in the Wall Street Journal this week talking about people who are living on poverty.

Carrie Sheffield [01:00:09] Excuse me, extreme poverty. I forget the exact figures, but it's gone down substantially over time. And this is where my capitalist side will come out. It's because of development and capitalism. So, I mean, in terms of being alive or born on earth today, there has never been a better time to be alive. There's never been less poverty ever in the history of humanity, in terms of proportion as there is today.

Carrie Sheffield [01:00:37] So part of it is, like I said, that serenity prayer of accepting things that you cannot change and the wisdom to understand the difference between things that you can and cannot change. So it's sort of. It's a mirroring of the natural world and the human world.

Carrie Sheffield [01:00:59] And I think that that's the beauty of Stoicism, and that's what makes it not a sterile and cold philosophy, because it's living your life in accordance with nature. But also. And actually, if your listeners are interested in Stoicism, the best, I think introductory reading is from Marcus Aurelius. His meditations, which are all about living a life in accordance with nature, but also understanding that we as human beings are social.

Carrie Sheffield [01:01:33] We are social in nature. That's what we are. That's how nature created us. In that sense, I have compassion for someone born in those circumstances because as a social creature, that's my natural response to my environment. As someone who was born in more privileged.

Carrie Sheffield [01:01:53] So we have that programming, if you will. We are programmed to be altruistic. There are some sociopaths out there, but those are aberrations from nature, and we lock them up. So, anyway, I think that's. For me, it was relieving in the sense that I want to help cure poverty. I know that I, as an individual, physically cannot do that, but I can do everything that I can toward that end.

John Dehlin [01:02:28] Right, okay. So. So the way that I'm kind of thinking about justice after hearing you talk is just sort of, you know. Yeah. You know, things are as they are and. And they're certainly not always equal. But the most healthy and productive way to look at it is I'm where I am now. Now, what good can I do from here? And actually, how can I take what I've been given, even if it's been in extremely bad circumstances, and make something better from it?

Carrie Sheffield [01:03:06] Is that right? Right. And it's interesting because I've had some people say, well, it sounds like stoicism is a very passive way of looking at the world, that it's just like, oh, whatever's out there, you can't change it.

Carrie Sheffield [01:03:20] And I think it's exactly the opposite. It's more like if you look at who were the Stoics and who studied Stoicism, it was the most accomplished and powerful people in the world. Marcus Aurelius was the freaking emperor. I mean, I don't think you can get more powerful than that.

Carrie Sheffield [01:03:40] And so for him, so reading his thoughts and his mind, what was on his mind, because I'm sure he would have loved to cure global poverty in his day, but it's more like understanding that you cannot as much as you want to, but you should do everything that you can. And there's a great analogy, I think it was in Robertson's book. Talking about a stoic is someone who will, you know, think of a bow and arrow. He will draw his bow and his arrow and he will stretch it and aim it precisely with as much care and skill and training as he can.

Carrie Sheffield [01:04:23] He can learn from the greatest masters how to do this. And. And then at some point, he has to let go that arrow, and then that arrow flies, and then it's out of his control. So I think as a stoic, in the way I think about it is I try to spend my day in my life training that. Training myself to know how to shoot that arrow as best as I can. And then at some point I have to let that arrow go, and then it's out of my control.

John Dehlin [01:04:49] You know, this idea, and my wife likes to use the term life is wise, and I think it's a similar idea that's kind of a faith position, isn't it? That everything is a gift and a blessing and that is all there for your learning, if you choose to accept it. That almost feels like a faith position. What would you. What would you say to that?

Carrie Sheffield [01:05:12] Well, I would say it's. I would say it's a. Optimism. I would say it's rational. I mean, I think Marcus Aurelius was some sort of. He had some sort of theistic belief. I wouldn't call myself a theist in the sense that I will say there definitely is a God.

Carrie Sheffield [01:05:33] I would say Stoicism is very hopeful and believing in the universe, believing in fate, if you will. Like I said, loving your fate. Amor fatigue. And in that sense, that is. It's. It's a belief that whatever happens has been waiting to happen to you since the dawn of time. So in that sense, it's very, I guess, believing in fate, but it's also realizing that ultimately we are, at least for me, we're just animals or we're basically just mammals who have evolved from slime.

Carrie Sheffield [01:06:22] And whether or not someone created that slime, I cannot say or know. So I don't. I feel like I'm rambling here, but I Don't. I don't think that it's a hard and fast position for me to say that.

Carrie Sheffield [01:06:39] I definitely believe there is or there is not a God. So in that sense I am a faithful person because I believe in humanity, I believe in progress. I believe, like I said, that there's never been a better time to be on earth in the history of mankind than today.

Carrie Sheffield [01:07:01] And in some ways it's also the scariest and most vulnerable time as well. So, yeah, I don't know where that leaves me, but I think part of, for me leaving Mormonism was being able to live with uncertainty and live with the idea that I don't have to have a specific set of explanations for how the universe functions.

John Dehlin [01:07:27] Right. Well, and, and this is going to sound. I just have to ask this question, then I'm going to ask something more interesting. But what would you say to someone who's like, oh, she's just replaced her prophet, you know, Thomas S. Monson for Marcus Aurelius and she's replaced her scriptures for, you know, the texts that inform Stoicism. And it's just like a swapping of a belief system. What would you say to that type of response?

Carrie Sheffield [01:07:57] Yeah, I've had people say that to me, especially because I found that I. One thing that I think was hard for me to cope with when I left the church was that lack of structure. And I think, you know, dealing with, you know, the spreadsheet I was talking about was a way of bringing that structure back.

Carrie Sheffield [01:08:21] I think for missionaries, I never did a mission, a full mission, but their whole day is incredibly structured. I mean, Mormonism is basically organizational behavior, they call it in the Mormon way of doing business. It's a very structured, hierarchical, top down experience.

Carrie Sheffield [01:08:42] And when you pull that away or you rip yourself out of it, it can be very disorienting. And I did go through that period and I think, I would say that, you know, I think if someone is going to judge me for having a system or life philosophy.

Carrie Sheffield [01:09:07] Amor Fatih. Sure, bring it on, Adam. I think that it's not a Mormon thing per se, it's just like a human thing, you know, it's like no matter what, if I had been Buddhist or something and I, I wasn't feeling fulfilled in that way of thinking. And I think for me it's. Then it's been a quest for finding fulfillment and finding happiness. And I don't think anybody can take a crap on anyone else's quest for happiness. I mean, they can try if they want, but.

John Dehlin [01:09:46] But if you're stoic. It doesn't matter. Right?

Carrie Sheffield [01:09:49] Yeah. I mean, to me, I think that that's a sign of. I would love to understand why they would feel so angry that they would have to say that, you know.

John Dehlin [01:09:59] Right. Or dismissive. Right.

Carrie Sheffield [01:10:02] Yeah.

Applying Stoic Practices to Daily Life

John Dehlin [01:10:04] Okay, so a couple more questions about this. You know, it's one thing to, like, say, oh, I found a new philosophy, and, oh, these principles are neat. I'm gonna try them. You know, and it's another thing to, like, completely transform and. And. And sort of master the interplay between intellect and emotion. Right. And then. And then to transform that into having your. Your actions become aligned and harmonious with this new philosophy and to persist beyond, you know, a few weeks or a few months. So how did you. How did you actually take this? I mean, sounds like you had this aha moment that now you would probably say has helped you for a couple years and really maybe in some ways pulled you out of not so good place. But how did you, you know, how did you do that?

Carrie Sheffield [01:11:11] Well, I would practice. So there was an interesting analogy that I read in Thinking about stoicism. And if you'd like to include a link to the book that I mentioned earlier by the Scottish guy, Donald Robertson, he gives the analogy of going to the gym.

Carrie Sheffield [01:11:32] So it's basically the idea that you control your emotions, and in the same way that a gymnast controls his body at the gym, and all it takes is daily practice. So in the same way that you can build your muscles, you can build your emotional muscles.

Carrie Sheffield [01:11:49] And I think in the Mormon Church, they teach that it's your spiritual muscles, it's reading your scriptures, it's saying your prayers and all that. And I think for me, in terms of thinking how to process my life and thinking about these. These virtues that I want to center my life on, it's been a training process to basically try to have that detachment. And I think, John, you and I have talked a bit about the idea of stoicism as being similar to Buddhism in the sense that it teaches that detachment.

Carrie Sheffield [01:12:27] So learning how to feel detached, but also being fully immersed in the world. So it's sort of this paradox of which Mormonism says being in the world, but not of the world. And there's an interesting analogy from a stoic. I'm going to say his name wrong, but. Cleanthony. Cleanthes.

Carrie Sheffield [01:12:52] Cleanthenes. He said that I mentioned those four virtues and the idea that if you try to tie your life or center your life on anything else besides virtue, you are basically like a dog that is tied to a cart and compelled to go wherever the cart goes.

Carrie Sheffield [01:13:15] So for me, I would tell myself, carrie, you're being tethered. You're being tethered. You're being tethered like a dog. So if something bad happens to me with work or I get in a fight with someone, I realize, what am I tethered to? Like, what is driving this emotion, this negativity? And then I learned to cut that tethering, and I cut that. And it's very liberating because then, like I said, you learn to treat everything like an old and faithful friend, no matter anything that happens to you.

John Dehlin [01:13:58] It seems like that's easier said than done, though, right? I mean, it seems like it. It's almost a task that people might spend a lifetime trying to. To follow. You know what I mean?

Carrie Sheffield [01:14:11] Well, that's. I think that's. That's the journey. I mean, that's the quest for happiness or the quest for a virtuous life is that it happens every day. You know, you don't. You take a shower every day because you need to shower every day. So it's like, as long as you're alive, you should shower. As long as you're alive, you should try.

Carrie Sheffield [01:14:32] And I think it does get easier with time. I know for me, it has gotten easier. And it helps me in my work, you know, working in an industry where I am faced with a lot of negativity and people who attack me, to have this idea that I can untether myself from them and to not give them power, that's incredibly liberating. And actually, the book that I mentioned, the Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, they say that that's one of President Clinton's favorite books.

Carrie Sheffield [01:15:12] That's a book that he would read or he refers to when he's working in politics. I'm obviously not Bill Clint. He. You know, I'm not comparing myself to him, but in the sense that he works in politics, and that's been a way of thinking about how he handles dealing with people who are trying to undermine him.

John Dehlin [01:15:35] Totally. Okay. So. And so I guess I have in my mind, and I tend to think in extremes, like Carrie is now the master of her emotions and. And never gets angry and never gets upset and never cries. You know, that's. That's obviously kind of an extreme interpretation. Is that true? Not true?

Carrie Sheffield [01:16:00] Well, no. I mean. I mean, it's. I wouldn't say I'm a master of anything. It's. I'm someone who struggles and who tries, you Know, and I think everybody is. It's just that I find that this way of thinking is. It's been around for a long time and it's worked for a lot of people. And I find that it works for me. It might not work for other people, but I find that it brings tremendous resonance for me.

John Dehlin [01:16:33] And do you feel like you're just kind of starting on the journey?

Carrie Sheffield [01:16:38] Yeah, yeah. I told a friend of mine I'm. I feel like I'm a baby stoic, you know? So anyway, I really enjoy this way of looking at the world. And I wrote an article about stoicism for Forbes magazine online, and there's actually a community they're having. I think it's already happened, or they do it once, once a year, and they call it Stoic Week. And it's based in London, but you can do it virtually. And it's a community of people who are interested in trying to apply stoic beliefs or philosophy. And so I did a little write up about stoicism, and maybe I can give you that link too, if you're interested.

John Dehlin [01:17:30] I'm totally interested, so. So I look forward to that. Okay, I'm gonna. I'm gonna ask you one last kind of set of questions before we close out the section. Is that okay?

Navigating Single Life and Relationships

Carrie Sheffield [01:17:41] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:17:41] So to make it really concrete, can you give us some examples, some kind of concrete examples of how Carrie. Like a situ. Some situations that would have happened to carry three or four or five years ago and how you would have. How you would have reacted to them then, and then some examples of similar situations happening. Happening to you now and how you would respond to them now. Because I really do think if we just pick two or three examples, it'll give people some rich texture to drive home the concepts that you're. You're explaining. Does that make sense?

Carrie Sheffield [01:18:23] Yeah, sure. So I can think of, for example, going back to the idea of the pursuit of status, I think, you know, like we were mentioning with Mormonism, and the idea of constantly improving yourself or trying to seek that highest level of status, I think that spills over to this world when it comes to wanting to have the bigger house, the bigger car, the designer labels, whatever. So for me, I mean, living in New York, it's, you know, if I.

Carrie Sheffield [01:19:05] The old me would have felt insecure because I maybe was going to an event and I didn't have a date, and I would have felt really insecure that I didn't have a date with me and other people had dates, you know, so feeling like I needed that Validation of I needed to have somebody with me.

Carrie Sheffield [01:19:22] Whereas now it's like, you know what? I'm single. I would like to find someone, but I am embracing my fate as an old and faithful friend. So it's like I am finding the best in being single and enriching my life. So I think that's an example.

John Dehlin [01:19:43] Okay, so wait, so what's. Okay, so you're. There's a dance and all your friends have dates. I'm sure you still feel. And, and, and I'm not. Let's not talk like this isn't really you. This just the scenario. Okay, Right. So you're feeling awful, like sad and depressed, and you don't want to get out of bed because you, like, don't have a date and all your friends do, and you, you and, and you feel like crap about it. So, okay, so you go and you have a little 3 by 5 index card somewhere that says Amor Fatih or, you know, whatever. Like, what do you do, what do you do in that moment where you're feeling emotionally overwhelmed and awful? Well, how do you translate that into the right action?

Carrie Sheffield [01:20:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:20:30] Without getting stuck in the emotion.

Carrie Sheffield [01:20:32] Right, right. So I, I, what I would do when I would have something like, over in a rush of emotions is I would try to capture it. I would try to capture where is this emotion stemming from and really trace back what is.

Carrie Sheffield [01:20:56] What is driving this. So, And just understanding that it's, it's part of nature. You know, it's like, okay, think about this. You were raised in an extremely, extremely different environment in terms of being away from the world, because that's what Mormonism is. It's very different.

Carrie Sheffield [01:21:23] It's like the 50s never happened in Utah. I'm sorry, the 60s never happened in Utah. So by design, Mormons are peculiar. So it's like, all right, Carrie, you were raised to be a peculiar person for good and for bad. And so you try to live life as a, quote unquote, normal, non Mormon person. And you tried to date certain people or forced yourself to be in a relationship with people who were not good matches or didn't understand or appreciate your peculiarity. And, and so it didn't work out. I mean, you could have stayed with them, but you chose not to. So that's your choice. So it's like just understanding the logical progression of why am I still single and embracing that.

Carrie Sheffield [01:22:17] You know, it's like I embrace everything about my life. And so it's like, how can I shut myself off to that evolution of where I am today? And just to cut. It's like cutting off one of your appendages, you know?

Carrie Sheffield [01:22:33] So I, I need to embrace that. That's what nature created for me, and that's sort of where I am today. Because if not, I will always have that canker inside myself, if that makes sense. That was a very long winded answer.

John Dehlin [01:22:45] Okay, so if I have to go, if I had to kind of understand

Carrie Sheffield [01:22:48] it at the metal rambling John, this whole interview.

John Dehlin [01:22:51] No, no, no, this is great. I love this. So, so, so you do some self talk, you kind of. You kind of step back and you try and do a rational, kind of calm analysis and you try and talk yourself through what, what is it you're attached to? Why is it that you formed that attachment?

Carrie Sheffield [01:23:13] Right.

John Dehlin [01:23:13] Why is it that you're feeling emotionally activated? And, and what's, what's the more wise and seasoned approach that that is? Embracing your fate instead of, instead of fighting it or believing it or subduing it, you know, subduing yourself to it. Is that kind of right?

Carrie Sheffield [01:23:35] Yeah, yeah, I think that characterizes it pretty well. And just the idea that to say that when something happens to you, to say, well, it would not be rational to think that something bad like this would never happen, so why would you be upset or angry when it's just not rational for you to be upset about it, if that makes sense.

Carrie Sheffield [01:23:58] So if I make a mistake. So like I was in a taping of a show once and the host made a mistake and we had to go back and retape it, and he was feeling embarrassed, and I said to him, you know what? It would not be rational for you to think that you would never make a mistake. So let's just move on and be rational. He said, thank you.

Carrie Sheffield [01:24:17] And I said, that's just how I get through my life. You know, it's like making mistakes and understanding that's part of the process and not feeling upset about that. You know, maybe you. You quote, unquote, fail, but that's how you create that. Going back to the analogy at the gym with your muscle, when you're creating muscle, you tear the fiber of your muscle and you have to, in its own sense, that that's a lot of pain, that's a lot of breakage, and then the muscle grows back and that fiber is formed. So you have to push yourself and you have to have these moments of quote, unquote, failure, otherwise you're not going to move forward in your trajectory.

John Dehlin [01:25:00] Now, I mean, this is, this is kind of my psychologist coming Out a tiny bit. And I'll just. I'll ask you about one specific thing you just said. Kind of like not feeling upset or not feeling disappointed to some extent.

John Dehlin [01:25:16] You know, what I found is that feelings. The fact that feelings arise. It's almost hard to control the fact that feelings are going to arise. So is it a matter of not feeling disappointed or upset? Or is it a matter of finding a way to sit with that disappointment, to kind of create some distance between you and those feelings, to analyze them, to make sense of them, and then to make. Make a behavioral decision afterwards that isn't sort of a slave to those emotions? So there's a difference between not, you know, thinking that you're going to find a way to not feel sad or angry or miserable or discouraged or depressed.

John Dehlin [01:26:02] There's a difference between thinking that you can get rid of those feelings and sort of just saying, no, no, no, I'm going to feel those things, but I'm going to respond to them differently. Which is it for you?

Carrie Sheffield [01:26:13] Yeah, no, I think it's probably more of the latter. Well, especially for the more major things. I mean, I think for things that are pretty minor, we can control ourselves and not get upset about them. So, for example, I was. When I first started getting into this, I was sitting on a plane and the passenger in front of me vomited, and it, like, splashed back on me. And the passenger guy next to me, and I was like, what a gift. I know.

Carrie Sheffield [01:26:47] I was like, okay, yes, this is, like, my test. I was like, okay. And the guy next to me really got angry and upset and. And he was, like, agitated and, like, started swearing and, like, really upset at the guy in front of him and, like, wanted to move seats. And I was just like, he is really tethered. Like, he's.

Carrie Sheffield [01:27:07] I understand why he's feeling this way, but, like, I just had this moment of, like, well, it would. It would not be rational to think that I would never be vomited on on a plane. So this is just my moment. So, like, I just have to deal with it, you know, So I actually kind of left inside. Like, I. Maybe that's just weird, but, like. And I'm not trying to say that, like.

Carrie Sheffield [01:27:31] And this is the thing that I might have done when I was Mormon. I would have thought that I was, quote, unquote, better than that person that got angry. It was more like, I just have this stuff that I've read that I have this reaction, and that's just my natural response. So that's just how I choose to do it, and he chooses to do a different way. That's totally his choice, you know, so it's not. I think that I was a much more judgmental person before.

Carrie Sheffield [01:28:03] Whereas I think with stoicism, it's just understanding that everybody has pathways, and it would be great if everybody was stoic, but everybody's not. So I just have to accept that, too. So. And I have to keep trying myself. So.

John Dehlin [01:28:21] Okay, so I'll get. I'll give you.

Carrie Sheffield [01:28:23] So, anyway, so. Sorry, that's like a. That's like a minor example of something more superficial, but for, like, the deeper things, the things that are, you know, the loss of a loved one or someone betraying you, those are real emotions that will hit you that you should not try to suppress. It's more that latter point that you were saying of, I think understanding the emotions are very real and that they come, but that you can master them someday. So it's like, I had an analogy of so what? Like, for example, your. If someone pokes your eye, you blink. I mean, it's just like a physiological reaction that you will blink.

Carrie Sheffield [01:29:09] I mean, maybe there are some people who can train themselves to never blink, but if someone pokes you, most people blink. And that's just a natural, immediate response. And it's the same with emotions. Emotions hit people, and it's just sort of an immediate reaction that you have, and it's your choice as to what you will do with that.

John Dehlin [01:29:32] Okay, and are there other exercises that you, you know, tools that you have developed to help create distance between the feelings and the behavior? I mean, as a therapist, you know, we work about. We talk about deep breathing. We talk about mindfulness. You know, Buddhism, where you would try and, you know, experience, practice. The idea of you being the observer of your thoughts and feelings and learning to watch them come and go, to ride the urge or ride the wave of your feelings or emotions and just to practice just creating that distance. And people do that through yoga. They do it through meditation. They do it through breathing exercises, all sorts of stuff. Are there tools that you had to develop to. To help you create that distance between, like, the vomit landing in your hair and your. Your urge to say, what the f. And your actually calm reaction, which is what a gift?

Carrie Sheffield [01:30:39] Well, yes, I think. Like I said, I think it's something that can be practiced, and it is mindfulness. I do meditate. I try to meditate every morning. Sometimes if I'm in a hurry, I don't have time, but I try to make a space where I meditate and I'll read something to remind myself of stoic principles or just some. Some book of wisdom. Take some time in the morning. And that I think really sets the course for me for the day.

Carrie Sheffield [01:31:15] Another concept that I found was helpful was the idea that to be a stoic, you don't need something, you just prefer it, if that makes sense. And once you distinguish between needing something versus preferring something, it's an incredibly empowering position to be in.

Carrie Sheffield [01:31:40] And I think our culture tells you that you need things like you need a relationship, you need a certain paycheck, you need this, you need this. I need this as opposed to. I prefer this. I think that gives a distance of understanding, that I don't have to be tethered to these external validations.

Carrie Sheffield [01:32:05] And it's the idea that the journey of getting those things, that's what life is. And so if you're skipping steps or if you're not enjoying the journey, then you're acting like you need those things versus just preferring them. And that. That can cause a lot of suffering, right? Emotional suffering.

John Dehlin [01:32:31] Has it ever occurred to you that. That there's a lot of that? These principles in many ways can be found in, in many of the major religious traditions, including Mormonism. Whether it's, you know, the Lord gives us challenges to make us strong, or, you know, turn the other cheek, or, you know, a soft answer turneth away wrath, or consider the lilies of the field, you know, kind of all the non. Attachment that Christ seemed to talk about. Materialism. And what's most important, what if someone were to say, hey, Carrie, it just sounds like this sounds a lot like the Mormonism or the Buddhism that I was taught. What would you say to that?

Carrie Sheffield [01:33:19] Yeah, I say that's great because those are all given to us by nature. I think we as mammals or as social creatures, we create systems of belief and we are always searching for meaning. And any meaning that we have on this earth is what we create ourselves, which is what I believe. You know, I think people who are part of an organized religion would say, no, the meaning is from God.

Carrie Sheffield [01:33:58] But I think we kind of create our notion of what is God. So, yeah, I mean, I think, I think all those things are wonderful and proverbs and. But I think with, like I said, with Christianity, there is this notion of, you have to believe this narrative of God murdering his own son to satisfy himself. Like, I just think that that's distasteful for me and it's not based in rationality. And I think stoicism is Intensely rational.

Carrie Sheffield [01:34:35] And in that sense, that's why I find it more appealing since I just want to live a life that's based on rationality and what we know.

John Dehlin [01:34:51] Yeah, right.

Carrie Sheffield [01:34:54] Because that's the thing about Mormonism is in testimony meeting, people get up there and say, I know the church is true. I know Joseph Smith was a prophet. I know, I know, I know, I know. When in fact they should be saying, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe. And I think that's something that really turned me off as I was transitioning out of the community because I felt like people would say that they knew things when they didn't actually know. Right.

John Dehlin [01:35:25] And, and so in, in some ways that's kind of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater in the sense that you're, you've found a life philosophy that, that really does, that is consistent with, with, with many of the teachings found in many of the great world traditions. But it maybe doesn't carry the baggage of the super, the superstition and maybe some of the pride or the kind of rituals that don't appeal to you in terms of adding value.

Carrie Sheffield [01:36:05] Well, I think, Well, I really, I don't know if you've read the Jefferson Bible.

John Dehlin [01:36:12] Sure.

Carrie Sheffield [01:36:13] So just the idea that he distilled the ethics and the principles and took out the things that were not based in rationality and the things that were not provable, that's the kind of pathway that appeals to me as someone who strives for rationality and strives to. I want to live a life that's centered on, I mean, it's.

Carrie Sheffield [01:36:41] I mentioned the article of faith, you know, seeking for things that are virtuous. Lovely, good report. Praiseworthy. I think there's so many things that being raised in that bubble where you're not allowed to think about these things, what if there is no afterlife? I mean, that's a concept that I think is tremendously, I don't know, empowering or exhilarating to think about or what if Mormonism isn't true? You know, I mean, I think that that's something worth pursuing, praiseworthy, to think about these things. So I just, I always thought it was a paradox that the religion would want to be so open minded and then also so close minded.

John Dehlin [01:37:33] So for you, this is a more expansive perspective as well.

Carrie Sheffield [01:37:37] Yeah, well, and I think Mormonism, well, Mormonism does a great job of saying why all the other religions are wrong, kind of pointing out the inconsistencies. And I think maybe that's part of why I didn't find any faith that really resonated with me because it's like, well, I can tell you why those evangelicals are wrong, because all they believe isn't is in faith with no works. And so I think given that background that we all have, that kind of set me up to want to or to just not feel drawn to any other religion. Kind of what Joseph Smith said that he said they were all wrong.

John Dehlin [01:38:25] Right. Okay, so let me just, you know, I, I deal with a lot of Mormons sort of trying to, to figure out how to handle their tradition transition and, and maybe even disaffection from the church. Let me just ask you a couple more questions and then we'll close this segment. What about morality? Like, you know, people have the law of chastity, the word of wisdom. You know, they feel comfort. The basic argument is if I'm not Mormon, then I'll just become, you know, debaucherous. How would your, how would stoicism approach drinking and drugs and sex and ethics? You know?

Stoicism on Desire, Identity, and Self-Mastery

Carrie Sheffield [01:39:10] Well, I think, you know, one of those core virtues is temperance and wisdom as well. And, you know, Marcus Aurelius's writing is talking about really stripping down everything that would be seen as attractive or something to pursue in the world and really distilling and stripping down what is its essence and to say what is. Why should I value this or think that it's worth pursuing. So, for example, he says, you know, he's the emperor.

Carrie Sheffield [01:39:54] He talks about, you know, the royalty wears purple clothes. You know, it was the sign of, you know, I don't. Not a historian, but from what I understand, the color purple was something very special and it signified, you know, great power or wealth or whatever. And he talks in and is writing about, well, what is purple? It's just some, it's something that's been dyed in a bunch of animals that were stained to make it look this certain hue. And so why should I really that care that much about it? Or he even talks about sex, how it's just like you're just basically thrusting yourself and getting a little liquid out.

Carrie Sheffield [01:40:30] Like, just like. It's kind of funny because you distill everything to its most absurd, stripping away all the trappings, if you will, to say what, what about it is drawing me to it? And is it unhealthy? Is this attachment that I have unhealthy?

Carrie Sheffield [01:40:51] Do I really want this Louis Vuitton bag? Because it's. What is it? You know, it's just a dead cow. So why am I so attached to it? So I think, yeah, I think that that's how we would think about drinking. It's just fermented grapes. And so why should I have my life careen out of control just because I enjoy sipping some rancid grapes, if that makes sense.

John Dehlin [01:41:20] Okay.

Carrie Sheffield [01:41:22] It's very rational. I mean, I guess it sounds boring, it's not very artistic or whatever, but it's just basically questioning everything around you and asking, why am I attached to it? Or why does our culture have attachment to it?

John Dehlin [01:41:36] Sure, sure. You know, but to some extent, someone might answer, well, I drink these rancid grapes because they make me feel awesome, and I like to feel awesome, so I'm going to keep drinking them even to excess. Right.

Carrie Sheffield [01:41:51] Well, yeah, but then I guess you would have the justice of, well, the just response to weird behavior then, is that your life could careen out of control, and you should accept that that's what nature creates for someone who does that, you know, that's. It's unfortunate that that's your choice, but you have to understand that that is your choice.

John Dehlin [01:42:19] Yeah. So you look at things, you, you take a rational approach to the consequences of your behavior, and you try and make the wisest decisions, which kind of just makes sense. Right. You just kind of be temperate, be wise, be moderate, and don't do anything that would harm yourself or others. Right, Right.

Carrie Sheffield [01:42:41] Yeah. Live in accordance with nature and live as a social being is the idea.

John Dehlin [01:42:47] Okay, okay. What about identity? You know, I'm, I'm a Mormon. It's, it's my, it's my identity. It's who I am, you know, Would you say that stoicism is kind of an identity for you?

Carrie Sheffield [01:43:02] I don't, I don't really think of myself as. That's my identity. And I think that's part of the concept, at least how I think about it, of, you know, I want to be someone who looks at the world rationally, and that's, that's what I want to be. And so in that sense, I don't think about it as, like, I hew to this rigid set of orthodoxies. Therefore, that makes me a stoic. It's just, this is the person that I strive to be. These are the principles that I want, and these are some really interesting ways to think about it, if that makes sense.

John Dehlin [01:43:44] Okay. And, and in terms of, like, community, you know, a really crucial part of, well, being is just being connected. And you don't have stoics that you can hang out with on Sunday. You know, stoic hymns, stoic temple Ordinances, like there's all sorts of ritual and community that you, that you gave up as a Mormon. You know, how do you, how do you think about those things now? Do you ever miss some type of Sunday service? Do you miss so award? Do you wish there was a stoic ward there in New York that you could hang out in? What about the, all the, the social and cultural benefits that a religion can provide? Do you miss that at all?

Carrie Sheffield [01:44:30] Well, I, I did it first and as I mentioned, I tried many other pathways and different religious communities until I came on stos. And now I don't miss it or feel like I need that because that's the whole idea of needing something versus preferring something. And so I don't feel like I need that, if that makes sense. I mean, I, I am a social person. I like being around people. People are fun, interesting. But I have also learned how to be alone. And that was very liberating. And that was something that I don't think Mormonism embraces. You know, I think that's part of its strength in the sense that the community is incredibly high performing, very enveloping. It does give you. What's the name of this book? She's the tiger mom, this book, and she focuses on three communities. Asians, Jews and Mormons. Can you remember the name of the book?

John Dehlin [01:45:52] I'm looking it up right now.

Carrie Sheffield [01:45:55] So she basically says that those three groups.

John Dehlin [01:46:00] The triple package by Amy Chua.

Carrie Sheffield [01:46:04] Yes. So yes, the triple package. The Jews, the Mormons and the Asians. And she says that they are very high performing because for these characteristics, including this notion of identity and also a sense of. It's a combination of a superiority complex, but also insecurity and also impulse control. So it's sort of the, these three things where like, you know, with, like I said, I wanted to go to BYU because I was sick of being the weird Mormon kid. So I had that insecurity, but I also had the superiority because I was better than those worldly schmucks, you know, so it's like.

Carrie Sheffield [01:46:46] But then also a high sense of self discipline. So those are the ingredients that she says unites the Asians, Jews and Mormons. So that was hard for me to give up. And like I said, losing that discipline is something that I've gotten back as I've studied these ideas of stoicism because it's helped me see that the things that I guess were causing me to lose that discipline, I was able to overcome them and understand the roots of what was driving that.

John Dehlin [01:47:23] Got it okay, so just to close out this section, you know, a Mormon would. Would, you know, think about the missionary spirit and bear their testimony about what they know is true. If I were to ask you to summarize, you know, final, some closing thoughts regarding what stoicism has meant to you and what you would want to communicate to listeners that would be a stoic, analogous for a stoic to a testimony, what would you. How would you.

Carrie Sheffield [01:47:59] Wow.

John Dehlin [01:47:59] How would you. How would you close our discussion of stoicism for our listeners that in many ways are seeking to fill the holes that Mormonism or that orthodox Mormonism used to fill?

Carrie Sheffield [01:48:12] Yeah, that's. Wow. I didn't think I'd have to do that because I think stoicism is sort of the antithesis of the burning in your bosom. In a sense. It's like I control that burning in my bosom or I recognize where is it coming from. And not to say that I don't feel joy or happiness or excitement.

Carrie Sheffield [01:48:40] I don't know. It's just. Okay, so let me try. Stoicism has certainly brought me to a place of calm and rationality that I did not have as a Mormon and as a post Mormon. And so I. I highly recommend it as a way of looking at the world or some books and a school of thought to consider as you're going through that journey and trying to transition from a place that is intensely structured and gives you a powerful sense of identity. And so as you're leaving that or thinking about leaving it or even just questioning it, because I think you could still read these books or still embrace these concepts as a stoic and still be in the church.

Carrie Sheffield [01:49:45] Absolutely. As I mentioned, I think the concept from the Book of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by the Mormon author Stephen Covey are very similar. So I think it's certainly compatible with still being in the church. But I would say that it has been around for thousands of years, longer than Christianity, and I think it's survived that voice from the dust, if you will, because it's very empowering and it gives you the understanding that you are the master of your emotions and you are the master of your response to your environment.

John Dehlin [01:50:36] Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us make more like it by becoming a monthly subscriber@mormonstories.org music for this episode was performed provided by the Lower Lights and other sources.

Carrie Sheffield [01:50:51] Cease to make me whole

John Dehlin [01:50:59] when with

Carrie Sheffield [01:51:00] the wounded heart, anger or malice I draw myself part searching my soul.

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 506

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories is a production of the Open Stories foundation and relies solely upon the support of people like you, its listeners to help keep the podcast alive or to become a member of the community. Please become a monthly subscriber by visiting MormonStories.org and clicking on the donate button on the right side of the page under support. All contributions to Mormon Stories are completely tax deductible and go towards producing the podcast and building communities and programs of support for Mormons like you. Thanks for your support.

Carrie Sheffield [00:00:36] The kindly light a myth encircling gloomy on the night is done.

Part Two Introduction and Context

John Dehlin [00:00:48] Welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John De Lynn and this is part two of my interview with Carrie Sheffield. In our first segment, we talked with Carrie about, you know, growing up in the church, going to byu, about how she kind of started a crisis of faith while at byu, which eventually led her kind of out of the church. She went to Washington D.C. and ultimately to Harvard, studied public policy, politics, that type of stuff. And now she lives in New York City and she's become kind of a rising star as far as I'm concerned in terms of commentary, political commentary.

John Dehlin [00:01:38] She's been on Fox News, Real Time with Bill Maher, she's written in many of the premier publications, you know, Wall street journal, Time, New York Times, etc. And she's just really super fun and interesting and nice. We talked about stoicism and what that meant to her in helping her take a new approach to life after transitioning out of Mormonism. I really, really recommend that first hour, if you have the first two hours, if you haven't had a chance to listen to them. But now we're going to totally just turn our emphasis to politics.

John Dehlin [00:02:15] And so, and so Kerry, you know, when, when I think about people transitioning away from Mormonism, I actually, I actually read a report over the weekend by the Pew report. They, they did a study of, of people who no longer identify with any religion. So it's a report about the nuns. N o N E nuns, which means that when asked by, by the Pew foundation what, what religion they identify with, they say none, none of the religions. And this is a group that now represents one out of five Americans. It's the fastest growing segment of religious segment, meaning that all other religions are basically either stale, kind of flat or in decline.

John Dehlin [00:03:06] But, but also 30% of the 20 somethings in the United States right now, that's a full third, you know, no longer identify with any religious tradition. And one of the points this report makes is that progressive politics correlate with disaffection from a religious tradition. And so some of the things they specifically asked about were, you know, stances on abortion, stances on same sex marriage, birth control, things of that nature. And for the most part, people that leave their religion, especially in their 20s or 30s, tend to be religious progressives. And that's true for a lot of my audience, although I don't think it's all my audience, which is kind of why it's fun to have you on.

Being Conservative After Leaving Mormonism

John Dehlin [00:04:00] So I guess my first question is, how can you be. How could you be an ex Mormon and be a Republican or a conservative? Right.

Carrie Sheffield [00:04:14] Well, maybe I can ask you, John, how can you not be one?

John Dehlin [00:04:18] All right, because. Okay, I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. Well, no, no, go ahead, go ahead. Maybe you were joking when you asked.

Carrie Sheffield [00:04:27] Whoa. No, please.

John Dehlin [00:04:28] Okay, so.

Carrie Sheffield [00:04:30] So here's where conversational this, this segment, because I feel like I rambled a lot. So.

John Dehlin [00:04:35] Okay, conversational is great. So. So I definitely was raised Republican and, and conservative. I was a Rush LIMBAUGH Republican @BYU and, you know, I was against abortion. I was against same sex marriage and gay rights. Like, that was a very easy decision for me.

John Dehlin [00:04:52] And I guess, I guess one of the things that David Campbell has written about, and we just had a podcast about this with Jay Nelson Seawright. One of the risks that Mormonism, the LDS Church, has today is that by associating themselves so closely with the Republican Party, it makes people who, you know, who decide that they have some other set of politics feel like they can't stay Mormon anymore. But to some extent, as I've left Mormon orthodoxy, it just kind of felt like you have to leave Republicanism if you're going to leave Mormonism, because they're almost one of the same. But it's more than that.

John Dehlin [00:05:30] I've come to hate war, and I've come to associate the Republican Party as being kind of a warmongering party. I definitely am for same sex marriage, and I associate the Republican Party as being sort of anti gay. I.

John Dehlin [00:05:48] While I think our welfare policies are kind of obviously imperfect, I kind of have grown to believe that we need some type of social safety net to take care of the poor. I still say I still have some Republican parts of me, which would be that I think that we need more fiscal responsibility. The amount of debt that we have is really troubling, and the size of government and the degree to which government is kind of getting into our lives can be really alarming. But because I hate war, because I love gays, because I feel like women should have the right to choose, I kind of feel like I have to be.

John Dehlin [00:06:31] I have to be Democrat or progressive. So tell me where I'm wrong. Tell me where you agree and disagree with those positions, and then. And then tell me why I need to reconsider.

Carrie Sheffield [00:06:42] Well, I am not on a. Trying to proselytize. I can only kind of talk about how I have challenged my political beliefs, and maybe some of it will resonate with you and your listeners. So I mentioned earlier my grandfather, you know, had been a Republican official in Utah. And I grew up surrounded by these ideas. And in the same way that I didn't want to just accept the orthodoxy of Mormonism, I didn't want to just accept the orthodoxy of conservatism.

Carrie Sheffield [00:07:23] And so when I moved to dc, I became a straight reporter, which means that I had to talk to both sides. I had to talk to people who I would have had no interest or desire or inclination to be in a room with.

Carrie Sheffield [00:07:45] I had to talk to them, and I had to write their story in a very balanced way. So, for example, the Equal Rights Amendment, you know, it was actually a big issue for the church, I think, in the 80s, but it's the idea that feminists wanted to amend the Constitution to say that you cannot discriminate based on gender. And. And conservatives said, well, this would cause a lot of issues, legal issues, and we already have sufficient protection under other amendments, so this is a hornet's nest. And so that failed. And the church was very vocal against it. And there was a group, after the Democrats took over the Congress in 2006, when Nancy Pelosi became Speaker in 2007, they tried to resurrect the Equal Rights Amendment.

Carrie Sheffield [00:08:39] And so I was sitting across the table from these feminists who I had been told were, you know, the devil incarnate. So from, like, the Feminist Majority alliance, from the National Organization of Women, people who were trying to destroy the fundamental nuclear family, which, you know, in the Mormon faith is the building block of society.

Carrie Sheffield [00:09:02] And so I had to interview them and be respectful and tell their story and really listen to them. And so that was one experience where I really had to challenge myself. And I did it on purpose because I didn't want to just accept what I had been told. And then when I.

Carrie Sheffield [00:09:22] And I did not vote in the 2008 election, because as a journalist, I did not want to feel like I was invested in either candidate because I wanted to have that independence as a journalist. And then when I went to Harvard, I went in questioning everything economically because I wanted to.

Carrie Sheffield [00:09:49] I had been in D.C. and seen both sides. And so I went into the Kennedy School more moderate, and I came out much more conservative because the more I challenged my beliefs, the more I actually came back to them politically, because the more I just came away with the sense that conservatism is more sustainable and it's more realistic.

Carrie Sheffield [00:10:14] And I'm not an ideologue in the sense that I don't believe in some rigid orthodoxy just for the sake of orthodoxy. I believe in what makes human beings flourish and what makes life the best for the greatest number of people. And I think I know for a fact, because the data shows this, the number one factor for that is capitalism.

Carrie Sheffield [00:10:41] And the more we dismantle capitalism and the more we take away the incentive structure built around that, the more stagnant a society becomes. And so that's a pillar of my belief politically. In terms of. You mentioned foreign policy warmongering, I think there is considerable variation within the Republican Party or the center right movement. There is the libertarian wing, which would probably agree more with you in terms of being isolationist. There's the more neocon that you would probably describe as more warmongering. So I wouldn't say that you could say that all Republicans are monolithic in the way that you might think they are.

Carrie Sheffield [00:11:30] But going back to what I was saying before, I think that, for example, Mitt Romney took a much more realistic approach to foreign policy than Barack Obama did. And Barack Obama, he mocked him in the debate on foreign policy. He said, oh. Because Mitt Romney said, oh, you know, Vladimir Putin is one of the greatest geopolitical threats of our time. And Obama said, oh, the 1980s called and wants foreign policy back. I mean, that is incredibly flippant for him to say. And it turns out that Romney was right. And I think that for me, I find the notion that.

Carrie Sheffield [00:12:14] I think that a lot of progressives or just even the whole kind of idea of the UN is that we can engineer human behavior and that we can eradicate evil from the world. When I think that a realistic approach is that we can do everything we can to eradicate evil, but there will be evil in the world. That's just part of human nature.

Carrie Sheffield [00:12:44] And how can we be realistic about it and how can we be proactive about it in preventing its spread? So that's how I approach it. So anyway, I've been going on a lot.

Conservative Views on Social and Economic Issues

John Dehlin [00:12:55] Okay, so what about. So I'll drill down. But just what about same sex marriage and abortion? What about social issues?

Carrie Sheffield [00:13:05] Well, I think it's interesting because I think people try to do this nice, neat kind of cleavage, if you will, between social and fiscal issues when I would say that they're enmeshed pretty closely in ways that people might not understand.

Carrie Sheffield [00:13:21] So, for example, you mentioned the welfare state. I think conservatives and Republicans support the welfare state. They support a safety net. I mean, Richard Nixon was hugely instrumental in expanding the welfare state, and it was Ronald Reagan who pushed forward the earned income tax credit, which rewards the working poor and gives them tax credits. So, I mean, I think there's this stereotype that conservatives don't care about the poor when I think there are ways to structure poverty programs so that they're both fiscally sustainable but also socially conscious. And so when you say on social issues I'm liberal, but on fiscal issues I'm conservative. It's like, you can't have it both ways.

Carrie Sheffield [00:14:12] You really have to understand that they are, it's all connected. On gay marriage, I am supportive of gay marriage because I traced my opposition to gay marriage and it was religiously based. And when I, you know, stopped practicing, I realized that that belief was not rational.

Carrie Sheffield [00:14:38] I do know people who are secular conservatives who are opposed to gay marriage, and I disagree with them. I mean, they say that it's, you know, tampering with a family structure that's been in place for thousands of years and we should be wary of that.

Carrie Sheffield [00:15:01] And I get that. But I think there's so many issues within heterosexual marriage. For example, the number one correlating factor with someone who's in poverty and whether they stay in poverty is if they are born into a single, born to a single mother.

Carrie Sheffield [00:15:22] And so I would, I would rather spend way more energy trying to help single mothers than trying to stop gay people from getting married. So I think younger conservatives are much more open to gay marriage than the older set. And I also think there's a conservative argument for it because it's promoting monogamy, stability, just conservative behavior. Right.

John Dehlin [00:15:46] And there's a get the government out of the bedroom, get the government out of my private life kind of argument too.

Carrie Sheffield [00:15:52] Right, right, exactly. And that's sort of the libertarian appeal that is really appealing to the younger crowd. You know, kind of like the Rand Paul set.

John Dehlin [00:16:02] Right.

Carrie Sheffield [00:16:05] And I think it's interesting because I had a guy who was, he was the leader of an internship that I did, and he was Mormon. And he said, I think that Mormons, there should be Way more libertarian Mormons. Because if you think of our history as Mormons, we were so persecuted by the government. I mean, the government tried to exterminate us. You know, it's like, why should we be progressive and have such faith in government when the state wanted to kill us? You know. And as a conservative, I take even a broader approach to say if you look at the worst things that have ever been done in terms of the quantity of people who have been murdered, it's been done by government.

Carrie Sheffield [00:16:50] So why should we have such faith that government is going to have our best interest at heart? You know, I think for me it's like I'm skeptical of authority, whether that's religious authority or political authority or government authority.

Carrie Sheffield [00:17:08] So I make the joke of hipsters should be conservatives because if you want to be counterculture or anti authority, then you should be conservative. Especially as a young person. Especially as a young person, because on a college campus, if you want to be the most rebel person on campus, be a conservative. Everyone's going to think you're, everyone's gonna hate you. Like you are going to be an actual rebel. I mean, I know conservatives who even this year, you know, these liberal campuses invite speakers like Condoleezza Rice or whoever that are more conservative and they get banned because the students are so drunk in the Kool Aid of liberalism that they don't even want to hear from someone as accomplished as she is, you know, and I just find that profoundly paradoxical. If you say you're a liberal, open minded person, but you don't value diversity of opinion at all.

John Dehlin [00:18:08] Yeah, Condoleezza Rice is pretty, pretty sharp. It's hard to argue with that. You know, a lot of us have the opinion that the Republican Party is sort of, I mean, you can say that you support same sex marriage and that they're. There's a minority of new and up and coming, you know, Republicans that are more progressive on some of the social issues.

John Dehlin [00:18:32] But at the same time, you know, I think the Republican Party, you know, has in its plank that it doesn't support same sex marriage. I'm not sure about that, but I remember something to that effect. And just broadly, the Republican Party sort of comes off to many as being, you know, anti gay, anti immigrant, kind of anti women.

John Dehlin [00:18:57] So, so you have to admit that generally 95% of Republicans probably run on an anti same sex marriage campaign, as one example. So is it, is it hard for you to be associated, you know, given, given that that's a, for, for many a pretty bigoted position and it's, and it's pretty strongly correlated with, with the Republican Party right now.

Carrie Sheffield [00:19:24] Well, I actually think that's changing. Like, you know, we've seen some, the recent ruling on same sex marriage, and if you notice the response from Republicans, it was actually very muted. There was not this vociferous opposition. So I actually think things are changing in that way. And there is a big movement, they call them Log cabin Republicans that are, are expanding that notion.

John Dehlin [00:19:55] So those are gay Republicans, right?

Carrie Sheffield [00:19:59] No, I mean, they're like straight Republicans who work with them. I know straight people who are affiliated and work and are members of it. So.

John Dehlin [00:20:07] Okay.

Carrie Sheffield [00:20:08] It's allies as well. So.

John Dehlin [00:20:14] So it's getting better.

Carrie Sheffield [00:20:16] I think it's getting. Yeah, it's getting better. And at the same time, I also understand that, like I said, there are some people who are hesitant to tamper with the family structure because the family is unraveling. And I understand that. You know, I, like I said, I don't, I don't think that focusing your energy on that is healthy or something we should do, but I understand where they're coming from.

John Dehlin [00:20:43] Okay, but someone who says as long as the Republican Party is generally against same sex marriage, I can't be a part of it, what would you say to that person?

Carrie Sheffield [00:20:53] I would say that that is incredibly myopic and it's a gateway issue. And if that's your sole litmus test, then I would question how open minded you are. Because if that's your only issue, then you're missing out on so many other issues in humanity, whether it's sustainability of the debt, whether it's preserving the society that we have to pass on for the next generation. Sorry, I'm getting on my soapbox, but

John Dehlin [00:21:24] it just seems like, go ahead, do it, preach it.

Carrie Sheffield [00:21:27] To focus only on gay marriage. I just. And there's health care, there's taxes, there's. I mean, environmental policy, there's development, there's anything. I mean, it's tech policy. I mean, the tech world is starting to turn for the Republicans because, for example, President Obama has shown that he won't stand up on net neutrality like he said he would. I mean, there's so many things. And if you're going to say that gay marriage is the only litmus test for you, then I just don't think that that's fair. And in fact, I think that that's incredibly rigid. And I think you mentioned abortion.

Carrie Sheffield [00:22:07] There are so few pro life Democrats. I mean, I think Harry Reid might be one, but that's like A litmus test. I mean, and I just interviewed Carly Fiorina and she was saying how the that didn't used to be the case where you could be a pro life Democrat, but now it's like you have to be pro abortion to be a Democrat. And I think that that's incredibly narrow minded. And actually I think a lot of people don't realize the history of Planned Parenthood and the abortion movement in this country was founded by Margaret Sanger, who was a eugenicist and a racist and wanted to purify the race and basically wanted to kill off black babies.

Carrie Sheffield [00:22:48] So I have a problem with the ethics of Planned Parenthood in terms of its history and I think a lot of women don't understand that. And so for me, I think having a litmus test, whether it's abortion or gay marriage for any on either side of the aisle, I just think that that's incredibly narrow minded.

John Dehlin [00:23:09] So are you pro life generally?

Carrie Sheffield [00:23:13] Yeah, yeah, I mean, I am, because like I said, I have ethical questions about what does that mean as a society. I mean, we don't know when consciousness begins in the sense that when is. When is their consciousness. And we don't know what is consciousness. We know kind of when the electrical impulses. I mean, I'm not a scientist, but I've had a scientist friend explain this to me, that we know the moment at which the brain impulses begin in terms of this substance has sentience or it has consciousness. So I just think we should err on the side of protecting consciousness, you know, and I think it's incredibly questionable to say that we would err on the side against that.

John Dehlin [00:24:12] But you know that people frame it as just a woman has the right to make medical decisions about her own body and it shouldn't be the government that's kind of intervening in that decision.

Carrie Sheffield [00:24:24] Right, right, right. Well, and I think there's a lot we can do to prevent and I've written about this. So for example, the iud, which is the long term form of birth control, it can be, it's way more effective than a condom or even the pill. You're so much less likely to get pregnant. It's like a 10 year long lasting birth control. I think we really need to expand that access to that, especially for low income women because they're the ones who are most likely to have an unwanted pregnancy and the most likely to have abortion. So I think there are a lot of things we can do to prevent pregnancy from happening versus terminating something.

John Dehlin [00:25:19] Just because there's a Sacredness to life, that it's a slippery slope to start kind of callously disregarding life. Is that kind of what you're saying?

Carrie Sheffield [00:25:28] Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting that, like, tonight I passed a bunch of protesters that were angry about whales, and I just thought, I wonder how many of them are pro life. Like, like, why is the whale so much more sacred than the human life or the human consciousness? You know, I just don't. To me, it doesn't seem compatible, but I, I know there are a lot of people who disagree.

John Dehlin [00:25:57] So just real quick back to same sex marriage. I think for many, it's a, It's a litmus test purely because they see it as a civil rights issue that, that people have a fundamental right to, to love another. That they, you know, to, to categorize same sex union as something separate but equal or inferior to a traditional marriage. It's just a showstopper because it's, it, it represents, for, for many, kind of a violation of a very basic civil right, which they would say is the right to be able to, To. To life, liberty and happiness, to be able to choose, you want to love and to enjoy all the tax and social and governmental benefits of that union. Surely you can see why someone would say that's, that's a showstopper, right?

Carrie Sheffield [00:26:52] Well, I mean, I, I totally agree with same sex marriage. I mean, I agree, like, they should have access to the same, you know, benefits and contractual, you know, access as a heterosexual couple. I totally agree. I, I do think if, if that's your only burning issue, it just seems like you're kind of missing the boat on a whole lot of other things that you might want to think about. That's just my perspective. So I, I mean, because I don't think. I think there are probably a lot of people on the left who might disagree with the Democratic Party on some things. And it's like if, if you have to say that you have.

Carrie Sheffield [00:27:43] The Republican Party must align with everything that you believe. I mean, nothing is perfect in this world. I mean, there is no, I don't think it's rational to say that every party would have all your answers. I mean, I think there are very few people who would say that either party would 100% fulfill everything that they want.

John Dehlin [00:28:06] Right. Okay.

Carrie Sheffield [00:28:09] And, you know, I think it'll be interesting to see in 2016 whether they take that out in terms of being opposed to gay marriage. I think over time, I think the movement is going to just sort of treat it as. This is the law of the land or make it a states right issue, because that's, I think that's what Harry Reid has done because Harry Reid's a Democrat and as I understand it, he says that we, we should leave it up to the states. So he thinks that it's okay that some states should ban it. And in fact, President Obama was against gay marriage until 2012, just before the election.

Carrie Sheffield [00:28:44] So I just think it's, people should look to see the Democrats who are opposed to gay marriage as well and whether they change their views for political expediency. I mean, in some ways you could say the Republicans who are more consistent are, you know, they're more principled. That was the whole thing about Mitt Romney being flip flop, whatever. People don't like politicians that flip flop. But I don't know. I mean, I think it's okay.

Carrie Sheffield [00:29:17] I changed my opinion on gay marriage. I mean, I think it's great if people change their opinions, but I think people should recognize that there are lots of Democrats who are opposed to gay marriage and switch for political expediency.

John Dehlin [00:29:30] Right, okay. And again, as you're saying, you think the Republican Party is kind of changing in this regard?

Carrie Sheffield [00:29:36] Yeah, yeah, I think it'll be interesting to see 2016. And in fact, I think we were talking about in New York, for example, gay marriage passed in this state because of Republicans that were very active in pushing it.

John Dehlin [00:29:53] Right, right. What about people that sort of listen to Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck and they, and they, what they feel is a lot of race kind of race baiting or race mongering. This whole notion of the immigrants are invading our country and they want to take all our jobs and we need to put up, you know, border patrol and big old walls for some knowing that our country was literally built on immigrants from the ground up. To a large extent, to many these positions just feel kind of racist. It's just like, let's appeal to the angels of our lower nature, dark skinned people. We don't want him here. Let's get them out. And all that flows to the Republican Party in the minds of some. Can you, can you, can you see why people feel that way and then tell us why we might see it differently?

Carrie Sheffield [00:30:53] Yeah, no, I would challenge that because I think that's a monolithic way of thinking about how both parties view immigration. Because for example, on the Democratic side, the labor movement is very opposed to immigration because they do. See, and this is an economic fact, when you have such a huge supply of lower skilled immigrants flooding the country, millions of people, that has a suppressing effect on wages and that affects the wages of the native populations. By native, I mean the American, European ancestry, what have you.

Carrie Sheffield [00:31:30] And so a lot of the unions, the white, quote, unquote, unions from the left are opposed to immigrants. And in fact, actually, Cesar Chavez, the labor leader, who was Hispanic, was very opposed to illegal immigration because he saw that it suppressed the wages for legal immigrants. And so I don't think you could accuse him of being racist.

Carrie Sheffield [00:31:58] And also on the right, you have a whole Chamber of Commercial Commerce wing of the Republican Party who embraces immigrants because it drives down the cost for the businesses. So they love immigrants. So I think what you're talking about is a subset of the movement.

Carrie Sheffield [00:32:17] Maybe some of them are racist. A lot of them are not. Sean Hannity, I've met, I'm pretty convinced he's not a racist. I know he's not. So, I mean, I don't know inside his heart. I'm not in his heart, but from everything I know he's not a racist. So I just think for them it's an issue of sovereignty and it's a notion of what is a country, what is the purpose of a border, what is the purpose of a constitution, what is the purpose of a commonwealth? Is it meant to protect its citizens? What does citizenship mean? I think that's what's driving most of their motivation.

Carrie Sheffield [00:32:58] So I think it's much more complicated. And I think a lot of progressives don't take the time to understand it, and they paint in very broad strokes.

John Dehlin [00:33:07] Okay, so you're saying there's a substantive, you know, substantive segment of the Republican Party that is very much not racist to very much, you know, pro immigrant.

Carrie Sheffield [00:33:20] Right. I would say there's. Yeah, I, I really find it distasteful when people love to accuse Tea Partiers or the conservative women racist. I just find that incredibly offensive and inaccurate because, I mean, yes, there are some racists, but there are racists on the left. I mean, Robert Byrd was a member of the KKK Democratic senator. I mean, there's plenty of racism for, I don't know, different types, I mean, on both sides of the aisle. So.

Carrie Sheffield [00:34:01] But I also think that we're progressing. I think society is becoming less racist and that if you work hard in this country, it doesn't matter what your skin color is. You know, I just, I think it's trying to create fissures in American society based on race. And I think it's really divisive. And I.

Carrie Sheffield [00:34:23] We mentioned Mia Love, I mean, she, she doesn't like to exploit the fact that she's African American, she's a conservative. That's who she, I mean, that's what motivates her. You know, it's not that she wants to do racial politics or identity politics.

John Dehlin [00:34:42] Interesting. Okay, what in the heck is wrong with universal health care? You know, why isn't it good that everybody's got coverage, that the people have basic, basic health care provided to them that's kind of affordable? You know, is there anything virtuous, lovely, or good reporter praiseworthy about Obamacare?

What It Means to Be a Republican Today

Carrie Sheffield [00:35:10] Well, short answer for me is yes, but I think it was incredibly disruptive. I think there are things that could have been done incrementally without causing all this damage. And also, there's a lot of pushback on the question of expanding Medicaid. And if you look at the outcomes of people who have Medicaid, the health outcomes there was, they call it the gold standard study by these economists from Harvard and I think Berkeley they were looking at. It was a perfect natural experiment. And you as a social scientist can appreciate the nature of it in Oregon. I don't know if you heard about the study, but it was basically a lottery system.

Carrie Sheffield [00:35:55] So it was a pure natural experiment of people who signed up to receive Medicaid and either you got it or you didn't. And it was entirely based on the lottery. So then they tracked the people, people who had Medicaid and people who did not, and they tracked their health outcomes.

Carrie Sheffield [00:36:13] There was no difference in terms of their outcomes, in terms of their health, having Medicaid versus not having Medicaid. So it was this huge upset and it, a lot of progressives didn't want to talk about it because it questioned the orthodoxy of Medicaid expansion just for the sake of Medicaid expansion. And I think for someone coming at it from a conservative philosophy, it's saying, well, let's, okay, let's build Medicaid so that we're actually getting improved outcomes. You know, we're going to spend trillions of dollars of taxpayer money saddling generations with debt with nothing to show for it.

Carrie Sheffield [00:36:54] And I think the way that the Affordable Care act is structured, I think it causes a lot of problems and doesn't. I mean, it's trying to create incentives and it's trying to bring down the cost. But I think what's actually going to happen is it's going to increase the cost. And in fact, I personally had this happen to me. I was on an exchange plan and it jacked up by 18%. So I, that's certainly for me, not reducing the cost at all.

John Dehlin [00:37:29] So it's gone up in the past year for you?

Carrie Sheffield [00:37:33] Yeah, well, I mean I, I was not happy about that, you know, and also my primary care doctor, I was on a different, like a company plan and then I switched to an exchange plan and she wouldn't accept it. So I actually lost my doctor. So I think the problem is that it tried to do too much and there are some things that I like. For example, it tried to bring mental health care on parity with physical health care in terms of the way it's viewed by billing and coding, I think that's good. And making sure that nobody gets denied coverage because of pre existing condition, I think that's good. I think there are a lot of things that are, like you said, virtuous, praiseworthy, but I think there's a lot to be desired.

John Dehlin [00:38:26] Okay. And the fact that, what is it? How many tens of millions of people have coverage when they didn't before, is that, is that true?

Carrie Sheffield [00:38:37] Well, the numbers we don't actually know. And as I said, I'm more concerned about the outcomes, like what are we getting? And I think what I'm also concerned is a lot of people had better coverage and then they were thrown onto the plans and so they're actually getting worse coverage so they can actually see worse outcomes.

John Dehlin [00:39:00] Okay.

Carrie Sheffield [00:39:02] So I think it's important to keep the end goal in mind, which is we want to make the country healthier, not disrupt things just for the sake of moving towards single pair, which is what this wants to be.

John Dehlin [00:39:15] Got it. So the, so the outcome, the eye in the prize in this case is better health. Not an arbitrary rule that everyone should have health care whether or not it actually leads to improved health.

Carrie Sheffield [00:39:28] Right.

John Dehlin [00:39:28] Well, I mean, everybody, especially if it's disruptive and expensive.

Carrie Sheffield [00:39:33] Well, and if it's, if it's moving people from private or better structured care onto a plan that is not as structured in a way that doctors are incentivized to treat. I think that that's, like I said, it's moving towards single payer and I'm opposed to that. So.

Carrie Sheffield [00:40:03] But I, and I think there are lots of behavioral things. People who are on Medicaid, you know, they tend to be obese, they tend to smoke, you know, in greater proportions to people who are not on Medicaid. And those are behavioral lifestyle choices that no matter how much healthcare you're getting, if you're, if you have these risks that you're not Taking proactive measures to change.

Carrie Sheffield [00:40:28] It doesn't matter how much health care you're getting. You have to change your behavior. And I think those are the things like we have to get to the root cause of what's causing the health problems instead of just treating the symptoms rather than the cure or the root cause.

John Dehlin [00:40:43] Got it. Okay, so. Okay, so I just thought of a kind of acute question, but I think it gets to the bigger, to the bigger points that, that maybe you'll want to address because, because what I'm kind of hearing you say is, you know, you can be pro same sex marriage, pro immigrant, you know, pro universal health care, you know, pro environment, Pro social safety net person, and, and still be a Republican. And you know, a lot of those things that I just listed are things that, that in the past have been historically kind of associated with the Democratic Party. And, and the Republicans have often been painted as kind of the enemies of those, those types of things.

John Dehlin [00:41:38] And so what is it? If you could be all those things and be a Republican, then what does it mean to be a Republican? And why does it, why does it matter? Right? If, if you can be everything a Democrat is and still be a Republican, then why does that matter?

Carrie Sheffield [00:41:55] Well, what does it mean? I am technically registered independent, but I do vote, I tend to vote for Republicans and I did vote for Mitt Romney and I was a big booster of him politically. I also like John Huntsman.

Carrie Sheffield [00:42:15] Well, I could give the, I can give the sound bite answer and say, well, a Republican is just a smarter Democrat. That's the offensive answer. I think for me to be conservative means, for me personally, my allegiance is to the data.

Carrie Sheffield [00:42:39] I don't want to be someone who is a Republican or conservative just for the sake of it, you know, and the more I look at the data, this is where it leads me. So, you know, I think that's the pragmatic side of.

Carrie Sheffield [00:43:00] I think. I don't know if there's a. I mean, there's. It gets back to the fact that we live in a broken world. I mean, there's no perfect political party that matches exactly everything that I want. It's just that I tend to want to be with the party that believes capitalism is the key to human flourishing, and that tends to be the Republicans.

Carrie Sheffield [00:43:26] And if you look at the rest of the world and the growth rates that we have here, you know, and the fact that we have the world's best universities, the fact that we have Silicon Valley, we have so many more patents here, we have so much more innovation Here, there is no Silicon Valley in Japan, Japan is stagnated. Japan has negative birth rates. Japan, they have had the last two decades now, or European. Our median wages are 20% higher than Germany's. You know, we have so much like our median and our average wealth. I mean, it was JFK who said rising tide lifts all boats.

Carrie Sheffield [00:44:13] I mean, that, and that's jfk, you know, he's not a Kool Aid drinking, conservative Goldwater guy. You know, I mean, I think that's, that's what the data shows. And so for me, that's where I want to go. And I want to do it in a, in a compassionate way, in a way that is rational, in a way that maximizes flourishing for everybody.

Carrie Sheffield [00:44:43] And I'm on my soapbox, but that's, that's sort of what guides me in terms of how I think about, you know, where my political philosophy is.

John Dehlin [00:44:54] Okay, so for you it's about flourishing. It's about. Well, that's interesting because it, someone, someone could then stereotype it as just saying, well, it's about materialism, it's about big business, it's about creating wealth for the few at the expense of the many. And it's just all money, money, materialism. What are you, what would your thoughts be about that?

Carrie Sheffield [00:45:21] Well, I think wealth, if you look at the, you know, I think it's funny. So I write sometimes with Forbes and they have, you know, the richest list. I think that concept, I mean, it's, it's a great, Sells a lot of magazines, but the idea of who is the richest, what is wealth, what is riches? I mean, it's, it's, it is community, it's faith, it's having some work that you find fulfilling. I mean, this is, there's a, a guy, he's the head of the American Enterprise Institute think tank. His name is Arthur Brooks and he is conservative and he has spent his whole life researching happiness.

Carrie Sheffield [00:46:05] And he says that, that it's those four things that lead to a happy life. Community, faith, work, and family. So those are things that you, I don't know, I think you don't need, you don't need money for those things. I mean, you need a job, but if you dismantle capitalism, you're not going to have a job. But faith, community and family, those are things that actually tend to be more common in conservative communities. And I think that's, I think that's why the Mormon Church is so politically conservative.

Carrie Sheffield [00:46:51] Because I think there is, if you've read the work of Robert Putnam, who is a social scientist at Harvard who writes a lot about social capital. Communities that have strong social capital, strong ties, they tend to have the better life outcomes. They tend to have lower unemployment, lower divorce rates, lower crime rates. Society flourishes better for people who live in communities where there is strong sense of community.

Carrie Sheffield [00:47:20] And that to me is wealth. But the thing is those things are also. It's so much easier to have those things when you have material well being. It's sort of that hierarchy of needs, if you will. Anyway, I feel like I'm going off, but I.

Carrie Sheffield [00:47:40] So I guess I would question the notion of that it's solely based on wealth or monetary happiness. All I'm saying is that capitalism leads to the greatest material wealth and that material wealth then enables the best social capital, if you will.

John Dehlin [00:48:02] That a strong economy, strong rule of law creates an environment where families and community can flourish.

Carrie Sheffield [00:48:11] Exactly. Yeah.

Republicans, Environment, and Media

John Dehlin [00:48:15] What about people who say Republicans are anti environment, that they're, they want deregulation so that they can pollute and dump their chemicals into the, you know, the Hudson GE and all that. What's your response? You know, also global global warming deniers. How much of that's true? Not true in terms of a stereotype for Republicans?

Carrie Sheffield [00:48:39] Well, conservatives, I think, I think in terms of like the, the question of climate change for a lot of conservatives comes down to. Well, if you look at our emissions here in the US Our emissions have actually gone down and a lot of that is because of shale and natural gas.

Carrie Sheffield [00:49:04] It's not come because of clean energy. I mean, I think the hope is someday we will find a clean energy source to replace carbon and it will be capitalism that will make it that economically feasible. Because Germany has shown through its $2 trillion experiment in clean energy subsidies that it's just not working and it's really bilking the taxpayer.

Carrie Sheffield [00:49:34] But I think global emissions, the main problem here is China and India and it's an interesting ethical dilemma because the developing world is where the emissions growth is. And ethically, I wonder, how can we tell China that you cannot lift starving people out of poverty and raise their wages because you are going to be polluting your air? You know, it's sort of this question of chicken or egg. You know, it's like once people attain a certain quality of life, then they will be able to have the technology to improve the air quality, if you will, because we have that here.

Carrie Sheffield [00:50:24] I mean, that's just part of the nature of development. You know, once, once technology and once development has refined, then you can start mitigating and then you can get that even higher quality of life. But it's, to me it's an ethical quandary of telling China and India we're not going to allow you to have the same quality of life as we have here in America because we're mad at you because of your emissions.

John Dehlin [00:50:49] Right. Because if you would have gone 100 years ago to the United kind of industrialized early 20th century United States, it was pretty, pretty awful, right?

Carrie Sheffield [00:51:01] Yeah, Yeah. I mean we, yeah, that was the industrial quality we had. It's just, it all goes down to, like I said, flourishing. It's all about trade offs. It is much better to be alive today than 200 years ago. Yes, there are some negative externalities to the environment that have happened along the way. But, but as long as we are refining and we are striving for improvement, then I think that's the right direction. But I think it's, I think it's a much more nuanced portrait than some people on the left think that the right considers, if that makes sense.

John Dehlin [00:51:46] Okay, but what about just here in the US like many would say that it was, it was liberal policies that, that inserted the environmental regulation that helped clean up the air, that helped, that helped minimize pollution. And we still have a long way to go because we're destroying our planet. And Republicans in the United States would just want to loosen the regulations to let, let businesses here in the US run amok on un uncontrolled and that if it weren't for the liberals in the Environmental Protection Agency, etc. You know, we would, we would, we would still have the pollution that we had 100 years ago. Is there any truth to that?

Carrie Sheffield [00:52:34] Well, I mean, I mean, sure, I mean I think we definitely, I don't think anybody wants to live in a gross unhealthy environment. But, but I do know that the data shows emissions have gone down because of shale natural gas, which is more of a capitalistic endeavor and not so much a regulatory kind of top down approach. It's more natural gas is cleaner than kind of the more dirtier coal. So that's sort of the going from 1.0 to 2.0 to 3.0. I mean eventually, like I said, I believe we will get to that place where I mean there could be some energy source that we have we don't even know yet or haven't even conceived of yet or that is still incubating.

Carrie Sheffield [00:53:27] But I think shale and natural gas is sort of that go between and a lot of liberals are opposed to it. Like fracking. Fracking and natural gas exploration has done more to reduce emissions than I think a lot of other well intentioned people would like to admit. So I think it's more, it's not just black or white.

John Dehlin [00:53:56] Sure. All right, so Kerry, real quick, a couple questions. Mitt Romney, I guess the most important thing to ask is do you think he's going to run? What do you think the chances are that he'll run in 2016? We'll have a Mormon Moment 3.0.

Carrie Sheffield [00:54:17] Well, I, nobody knows for sure and he's definitely still remaining in the public eye and he's been doing a lot of fundraising, he's doing the late night talk circuit, doing a lot of social media and he was very effective this campaign cycle, I think of helping candidates.

Carrie Sheffield [00:54:40] So my take is if, for example, Jeb Bush or Scott Walker are kind of the more middle of the road moderate Republicans, if they don't run, then he might step in. But if they do run, then I think he'll sit it out. But if it comes down to where it's just going to be someone like Ted Cruz who, you know, he's a smart guy. But I completely disagreed with the shutdown. I think that was bad politically and just very self serving.

Carrie Sheffield [00:55:21] So I think if someone like him were to, unless he moderates his behavior, I think if he, if he was making noises and the more moderate guys in that lean were not running, then I, I think that Romney might step in. So we'll see. I mean it seems like Jeb Bush is probably going to run, in which case I think Romney would sit out. So. But we'll see.

John Dehlin [00:55:49] And wouldn't that be crazy to have a Bush Clinton election in 2016?

Carrie Sheffield [00:55:55] Yeah, I think it would be kind of like the Twilight Zone. I mean it would be the only time when Bush could run, you know, just in order to get over the Bush name. If it is Clinton and it looks like she's positioning herself. So we'll see. I think Bush, the question is with his family. So I think his wife and his daughter, you know, they've had some issues and it's a question of whether they want to expose themselves to that scrutiny.

John Dehlin [00:56:27] So what issues?

Carrie Sheffield [00:56:30] I think like just some behavioral issues with the daughter and I think with his wife as well. I don't know all the details. I should probably know.

John Dehlin [00:56:42] Some skeletons in the closet kind of thing.

Carrie Sheffield [00:56:44] Yeah, some personal skeletons. I think that's what's causing the question mark. But, but we'll see. So I don't think Huntsman will run this go around because it, because of how he did in the primary last time. Because it was interesting, because Huntsman, he, I thought it was interesting how he put his headquarters in Florida as opposed to Utah, where he was the governor. And that, to me, was a very strong signal of. He was trying to distance himself from the Mormon background, I think in part because Utah seemed to be cutting more for Romney. So rather than deal with that Fisher, he just said, I'm just going to headquarter in Florida. And then he moved it to New Hampshire. So. So, yeah, I could see him running maybe at a future date, but I think right now he's just kind of waiting.

John Dehlin [00:57:44] Right. Okay. Okay. And do you, do you think a Republican victory is likely? Do you think the victories of last night, November 4, 2014, are going to carry through to 2016?

Carrie Sheffield [00:58:01] That's a lifetime. I mean, because two years ago it was 2012 and it was President Obama again. So, I mean, I think people are. Unless President Obama creates some crescendo and some wave where he ends his presidency on a very high note, I don't think you would have much of an afterglow for a Democrat to take the mantle, if you will. Kind of like how HW was able to ride off the coattels of Ronald Reagan.

Carrie Sheffield [00:58:35] So I think that leaves the door open unless Obama, like I said, he changes the course of where things are going. I think Hillary has a lot of name recognition and the fact that she's a woman, people like that.

Carrie Sheffield [00:58:54] But she, she makes a lot of awkward statements. She's kind of like Romney in that way that they say things that are unintentionally out of touch and they just come across as elitist, even if they don't mean it that way. But, but that's how it's perceived. So I think that could be her downfall. She could be kind of like an Al Gore female Al Gore or female Mitt Romney.

John Dehlin [00:59:19] So kind of stepping in it too much.

Carrie Sheffield [00:59:22] Yeah. Or just being perceived as a little stiff.

John Dehlin [00:59:27] Right. You've met, you've met Sean, Sean Hannity and you met Glenn Beck, right?

Carrie Sheffield [00:59:35] Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know them well, but yeah.

John Dehlin [00:59:38] What would you, you know, what would you say to people who say they aren't, they aren't good guys, that they're bad for America or, or bad people? Do any, any thoughts on that?

Carrie Sheffield [00:59:51] Well, it's interesting because Glenn Beck has really come around and he's actually apologized for his tone when he was at Fox, which is very interesting. And I think a Lot of people don't realize that. And the fact that he was actually shown the door at Fox, I think, actually says a lot about Fox and its standards in terms of just being worried that this was. What he was saying was so divisive and it wasn't substantive.

Carrie Sheffield [01:00:23] And I think he's recognized that. And I mean, your listeners can Google and see kind of things he said to come around. But Hannity, I think Hannity is different. I don't think Hannity's tone is like Glenn Beck's 1.0 tone. I don't. I think he's not as strident at all.

Carrie Sheffield [01:00:47] I think he's actually a very kind person. There's an interesting. Have you heard of Sally Khan? K O H N. She is. She's lesbian and she for a long time was a Fox commentator. She's progressive and she has a TED Talk that, if you're interested.

John Dehlin [01:01:07] Oh, yeah, I've heard it. I've heard it. Actually, she says that he was good or really kind to her the whole time.

Carrie Sheffield [01:01:13] Yeah, yeah. Just talking about kind of the difference between your. Who you are as a person and what you do and how. He certainly had that sort of Right positioning as a person. And so I think fundamentally he has a very good, solid character. I mean, like I said, I don't know him well, but from what I hear and my limited interaction, people who I know who work for him, that's the perception. And so, yeah, that's my take.

John Dehlin [01:01:41] Okay. And I have to ask this question. You know, there are a lot of people with grandparents or parents who are in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, and all they seem to do is watch Fox News. And. And they're like these talking point memos that our parents and grandparents are kind of continually marinating in.

John Dehlin [01:02:06] And there seems to be this sort of view of America that Obama is evil, that everything is awful. And it's just, it's almost like. I mean, to some, it's almost like an infection of the mind of just this negativity and pessimism that's like incessant.

John Dehlin [01:02:26] And that's how some people view Fox News. Do you? Do you? I mean, I know that you, you work for them. So what perspective can you offer when somebody says, I feel like Fox News has stolen my. My mother or, you know, father and brainwashed them to where all they do is see the world as this awful, terrible, horrible place and Obama's evil. And I, I wish they could have their thinking back and I wish there was a news program that could present that could present both sides in a way that allowed them to be more informed and that wasn't so monolithic. Can you empathize with people who might have that concern? Maybe that's not the first time.

Carrie Sheffield [01:03:10] Yeah, no, that's. Well, to clarify it, I don't, I don't have. I'm a free agent right now, so I'm not signed with any TV outlets, so I don't want to claim something that I, I'm not.

John Dehlin [01:03:23] Okay.

Carrie Sheffield [01:03:25] But I mean, it would be great to work there someday. I mean, I do appear on there, but I'm not signed with anybody. But as I've, like I said, my allegiance is to the data. And, you know, coming back to feeling fully comfortable being part of the conservative movement, I had to challenge that orthodoxy that I had kind of pumped around me by my liberal friends.

Carrie Sheffield [01:03:57] And, you know, when I go on Fox, I, I have never felt like I had to say something that I did not believe. I have never, I try my best to, you know, to the values that I talked about earlier, to be someone who is thoughtful and tries to be temperate. So, you know, if there are some people who say things that I disagree with, that's okay.

Carrie Sheffield [01:04:29] And if there is something that I feel like is out of bounds, frankly, that's better for ratings to call somebody out. And actually Fox has a much deeper bench of progressives than, for example, MSNBC has of conservatives. You have some very heavy hitters who work for Fox who are progressives.

John Dehlin [01:04:51] Juan Williams and.

Carrie Sheffield [01:04:55] Yeah, or Joe Trippy or his is. No, his. Gibbs at Fox. No, I mean, there's. Yeah, sure, Dennis Sinich. I mean, there are so many more people who are hired by Fox who are progressive than conservatives who are hired by msnbc. So. And the idea of Fox promoting that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. I would ask people, which program specifically are you referring to? And I think you might be hard pressed that they would actually have an answer for that.

John Dehlin [01:05:41] Right. Okay. All right. So you're, you, you feel like Fox is doing, overall doing good things. Not perfect, but overall doing good things.

Carrie Sheffield [01:05:53] Yeah, no, I, I think, I mean, they're the consistently number one rated cable news program in America. They far dominate CNN or msnbc. And in fact, they recently, I think, surpassed even ESPN as the number one cable show, period, of any genre.

Carrie Sheffield [01:06:21] So I think what they're doing resonates with a lot of people. And like I said, I have never been pressured to say something that I thought was out of bounds. And I think this country has a long history of political dissent or political debate across the spectrum. I think this gets into a very deep conversation about media and the future of media because it is very fractured.

Carrie Sheffield [01:07:00] You know, in our parents or grandparents generation, there were only three networks. Abc, cbs, NBC. And those were monoliths. And they controlled the entire dialogue of American media. And they were incredibly, incredibly leftist. And Fox is a small counterbalance to an incredibly leftist news constellation, if you will. If you look at the self identified political or ideological leanings of people who work in media, it's something like 80 to 90% Democrat or liberal.

Carrie Sheffield [01:07:40] So I don't think that that's reflective of the country. The country is much more diverse. So I actually think the Fox provides some counterbalance.

John Dehlin [01:07:51] But what about the idea of like the NPR model being best, where you're really trying to just represent both sides? Do you see, do you. I actually honestly see NPR as balanced, but I know that a lot of, a lot of conservatives see NPR as super liberal. Do you disagree with that?

Carrie Sheffield [01:08:10] Well, I think if you talk to or survey the people who work at npr, and I know people who work at NPR or haven't worked at npr, they themselves are very liberal and they are progressive. So I think the notion of objectivity is incredibly relativistic.

Carrie Sheffield [01:08:29] We are all shaped by everything that influences us. And so sometimes it's a quote unquote sin of omission versus commission. It's what stories do you choose to cover versus not covered? And some of it might even go to the notion of rural versus urban. What are you covering?

Carrie Sheffield [01:08:53] You know, I think people who choose to go into media and this is just the marketplace functioning, people who choose to go in media tend to be liberal. That's just how the market works. So I had to come to terms with that. As someone who was more conservative, I just had to accept that that's how it was. And I understand that. And I think the Fox, like I said, it's in that constellation as well. And so I would ask people what do they actually find offensive about the content itself? Because most of it is just straight reporting. I mean, there are the opinion shows like Bill O'Reilly, um, but most of it is just news.

John Dehlin [01:09:42] Right.

Carrie Sheffield [01:09:42] But they choose to report on some things that NPR would not report on.

John Dehlin [01:09:49] Right. Okay. Well, Carrie, this has been so fun. I, as someone who's Mormon, as someone who is sort of certainly no longer orthodox Mormon, it's so fun to see sort of someone who I see as one of us showing up on news programs and in the media, there's so much more. I'd want to ask you about what it's like to be on those talk shows, but I've over taxed your time already. So I guess I just want to thank you so much for all you're doing to, you know, to help inform and educate our country. And it's fun to have someone like you representing us and doing such a great job.

Closing Reflections and Farewell

John Dehlin [01:10:32] So I'm proud and honored to call you a friend and to call you a fellow, I don't know, unorthodox post Mormon and a friend. So before I end, I guess I just want to give you a chance to share some closing thoughts. I'm not going to ask you to bear your testimony or share your faith perspectives.

John Dehlin [01:10:54] We talked a little bit about your stoicism last segment and people can listen to that in terms of a life's philosophy. So I guess what I wanted to end with this segment. You know, you've got a lot of unorthodox Mormons and, and progressive Mormons or post Mormons out there that are listening to the show. Some, some believing Mormons. But any, any last comments or appeal that you'd make in terms of, of giving conservatism and even, even the Republican Party a second look. How would you close this segment?

Carrie Sheffield [01:11:30] Well, first, thank you for the conversation and like I said at the beginning, I really appreciate what you're doing and creating this community and letting people tell their stories. So if there are folks out there, if there's anything that I said resonates with them or it can help in terms of the journey with your faith crisis, with deciding whether to stay or to go or dealing with family situations, please, by all means, I'm happy to help how I can as well. And John, you're doing mammoth work there, so thank you so much.

John Dehlin [01:12:12] Thank you.

Carrie Sheffield [01:12:14] But certainly, I think for me, and this I think goes to my core, both politically and personally, is that I really believe in the power of the individual. And I think that's what drives my worldview in terms of how should government be structured? It should be structured to empower the individual. And how should religion or how should perception of supernatural beings or whatever or the afterlife, I mean, how can, how can we empower the individual as much as possible as opposed to suppressing or, you know, causing feelings that dissent is not allowed? You know, that's, and I think that's, that's for me how I would have my olive branch, if you will.

Carrie Sheffield [01:13:19] You mentioned it's hard for you to understand how someone could be a questioning Mormon and be a conservative. For me, I would say be skeptical and be curious about the world around you, whether that's your political world or your personal world or your religious world. Just be skeptical and be curious and embrace uncertainty. And being able to live with uncertainty is incredibly difficult. But once you are able to do it, and I'm still learning the process so far, it's been incredibly empowering and invigorating. So best of luck.

John Dehlin [01:14:00] All right, well, Kerry Sheffield, she can be viewed on Fox. She can be. I don't know. You're writing for Forbes. You're kind of all over the place. And I imagine the next two years are going to be even busier than the past two years. So we wish you the best of luck and just know we're super proud and having a lot of fun watching you do good things.

Carrie Sheffield [01:14:24] Thanks, John.

John Dehlin [01:14:28] Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us make more like it by becoming a monthly subscriber@mormonstories.org music for this episode was provided by the Lower Lights. When with a wounded heart, anger or

Carrie Sheffield [01:14:59] mouth, I draw myself apart, searching my soul.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.