Introducing Elisha Lee and the Episode

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John delind. I'm here with my brilliant partner, Margi. Hey, Margi.

Margi Dehlin [00:00:08] Hello.

John Dehlin [00:00:10] And we are here today to share an interview that I've been wanting to do for literally years. Different themes are relevant today, including what to do when your identity is completely Mormon and, and then you start to have questions about your faith or. I like the proposed title, how questioning or doubting or I don't know, leaving Mormonism Saved my Family. But regardless, this is one of those traditional long form, deep dive, faith journey Mormon Stories interviews with Alicia Lee. Hey, Alicia.

Elisha Lee [00:00:50] Oh my goodness, I am so excited to be here, you guys.

John Dehlin [00:00:55] We are so thrilled to have you.

Elisha Lee [00:00:56] Yeah, I mean, it really has been been years that we've been talking about doing this episode and I just don't think I had the perspective necessary to do it until like, literally right now.

John Dehlin [00:01:11] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just as an intro, some of the themes we'll be talking about today include eternal families or eternally broken families.

Elisha Lee [00:01:18] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:01:19] We're going to be talking about modesty, sort of modesty, culture, purity culture kind of stuff, worthiness stuff again, faith journeys, mixed faith, marriage, parenting, all sorts of stuff.

Elisha Lee [00:01:36] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and I am excited also to talk about kind of this idea of religious scrupulosity.

John Dehlin [00:01:43] Oh, right.

Elisha Lee [00:01:44] And kind of some of my challenges to this concept when it comes to Mormonism and particularly like the, the brand of Mormonism that I was attached to, which was kind of a McConkie inspired sort of approach to the gospel that like, the more you put in, the more you get out, every blessing of your life has a principle of obedience attached to it. I mean, I'm excited to get into some of that, to really see now like how I became so intense about it.

John Dehlin [00:02:17] For sure. And for those who don't know, scrupulosity is just a technical term for religious obsessive compulsive disorder, but it's very common in high demand religions or cults. And so it's prom. It's a prominent theme in your story, Alicia. So. Yeah, well, I mean, I'm excited. One of the places we like to begin is just with an intention. And you've talked a little bit about this. But some people sometimes just being open and honest in a Mormon context is viewed as hate speech and, or anti Mormon. Just if you're just saying what your experience was, but then also just in a more reasonable sense, some people say, will you come on and talk about the good and the bad then you must hate the church and want to tear the church down. Let's just take a moment, Alicia, and have you just state why you wanted to do this interview, what your intentions are, what types of people you may want, think. Think might benefit from your story.

Elisha Lee [00:03:17] That's a great question, John. I think making sense of your journey is incredibly healing. And even writing out my timeline for this interview, I started to see it in kind of a new way. And I almost feel like I'm almost five years to the day of my deconstruction. And I. I feel like the further away from it, you kind of graduate from Mormonism with this very binary perspective because you've been taught, like, if it isn't true, then it's the greatest fraud. I mean, we literally were taught that by President Hinckley. And the further away from it I get, the more I realize all the most beautiful parts of my life were also from Mormonism. Like, what a tricky dynamic. What a complexity to wrap your head around. And the longer I've deconstructed, the less binary it becomes, the more nuanced my perspective of the church is. Like, I'm able to accept the reality that it was harmful and it harmed a lot of people. And it was also the reason for so many of the greatest gifts of my life. It brought many of the gifts of my life. My husband, my marriage, my children, a lot of our experiences. So that's kind of what I've got. I graduated from it pretty, like, just jaded and kind of like, devastated. I felt like it was a betrayal. And the longer I get away from it, the more nuanced I kind of see things.

Margi Dehlin [00:04:56] And also, it sounds like able to hold paradox to opposing things being true at once.

Elisha Lee [00:05:03] Absolutely. If there's one lesson in faith deconstruction, it is embracing the polarity. Yeah, it's so true. That word that you use, paradox, it's just like. Yeah, it really is.

Growing Up in the LDS Church

John Dehlin [00:05:18] Well, let's jump in. Maybe one place to begin is just to ask if your parents were both LDs when you were born, if they're converts. Yeah, let's start there.

Elisha Lee [00:05:29] Yeah, sounds great. Okay. I was raised in North Phoenix. Both of my parents were from pioneer Mormon ancestors. I am seventh generation Mormon on my mom's side of the family, and I grew up Mormon. But I would say in kind of an unconventional way, I was the oldest in my family, so I watched my parents kind of build their lives together. I remember going from like, getting our first house. My mom put my dad through law school, and then my dad Went to work and both of my parents were Mormon, But I feel like the emphasis on Mormonism in my house wasn't as orthodox as it was in probably other houses. Our emphasis on being members of the church kind of came from a more, like, spiritual perspective. Like, we talked a lot about ancestors and spiritual experiences and things like that. And we went to church on Sundays, but we didn't do, like, family prayer every night and family scripture study every night. We did family home evening once in a while. We did family prayers once in a while, but it just wasn't real intense. There was a lot of focus in my home on the arts, fostering creativity. My mom read books to us every night religiously. Like, every night we read stories together as a family. I did dance and theater. My dad was really into music. Both of my parents were musicians. Like, not professionally, but they both played instruments. And like my dad, he traveled a lot. When I was kind of in that period between, like, 5 and 10 years old, my dad traveled a lot because he was building his career as a young attorney. And so he was gone a lot. But when he was home, he would do, like, music time at bedtime. He would play his guitar and we would sing with him. We always had, through the stereo system in the house, Bob Marley, Queen, Led Zeppelin. I mean, I was raised on music.

John Dehlin [00:07:57] Nice.

Elisha Lee [00:07:58] My parents sent me to an Episcopal school, so I think that says a lot. Like, I went to an Episcopal elementary school, like, a parochial school where we wore uniforms, and I went to chapel two days a week and religion classes two days a week.

Margi Dehlin [00:08:15] So interesting.

Elisha Lee [00:08:16] Yeah, just, like, for the academics. I mean, it wasn't for, like, the religious reasons. So I would go to chapel, and I didn't take the communion because I'd never taken communion. So just walk up to the front and the, you know, priest bless you. And anyway, so I just. Like. Mormonism was a component of our lives. I would say, like, you know how when you meet people in other religions and the religion is just, like a component of their life? I feel like that's how I was raised.

John Dehlin [00:08:42] I like to think of it as religion at its best is the salt to the meal, but it's not the meal.

Elisha Lee [00:08:47] That's a really good way to put it. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:48] Is that how it was for you?

Elisha Lee [00:08:50] Absolutely. That's a great way to describe it. Yeah. Because I always thought of my mom as, like. Yeah, she really loved the gospel and she played the organ. And so there were some years that my dad wasn't attending church with us. And I would go with my mom, sit on the front row, take care of my younger siblings while she played the organ. And then she'd come down. And there was one point during that time period, I must have been like a merry miss, because I was, like, maybe 10 or 11, and I was sitting at the back of primary, and we had this lesson that was about eternal families, and we sang together forever at the end. Families can be together forever. And it was the first time. I can't remember at that time if my parents had announced their divorce, but I just remember feeling like my family wasn't gonna be together forever. And I think from, like, an adult perspective, talking about ideas, like an eternal sounds like a neat idea, but to a child, it's like a. That is a very concrete concept coming from an adult. And so hearing that, you know this. I don't remember what was said in the lesson, but it was. It made me feel like, well, we don't qualify for this.

John Dehlin [00:10:19] So at some point, your parents started not getting along. Well, did you have a. Before they announced it, did you have a sense that that was coming? Was that a surprise?

Elisha Lee [00:10:30] It wasn't a surprise, but my parents didn't. They had a very amicable divorce. My mom. I've talked to my mom 10 times this week to see what she was comfortable with me sharing, but she said, could you just share that I didn't divorce your dad because he was inactive. That wasn't part of the reason. I think it was just probably, what do they say, Irreconcilable differences. I mean, we still have holidays together. I usually host the holidays, and they'll both come over with their spouses. It's very, like, yeah, so. But I did.

John Dehlin [00:11:04] Does that mean it was a big surprise when they told you they were splitting up?

Elisha Lee [00:11:08] Not really. I could sense that there was distance between them, but it wasn't, like, argumentative or, you know, it wasn't like anybody was yelling at each other. But, yeah, I could sense that there was distance. And so when that primary lesson was given, it was probably after my parents had announced their divorce, because I just knew for sure that we did not qualify for that eternal families thing. And I, of course, grew up in the church, so I knew about eternal families. But this was the first time as we were singing this song that it really dawned on me that we were not going to be an eternal family. And looking at it now and thinking about the way that the church shaped my perspective of, like, my dad, who was, like, an amazing dad, like, I always felt like my dad loved Me, I always felt like he thought I was the best thing. And, like, to think that the church kind of wedged itself in there to kind of shape my perspective of my dad. Like, almost kind of, like, threatened to lower my opinion of my dad because he just wasn't going to church for a period of time. Like, there's so many other important things in life, and my dad is amazing. Like, both my parents are amazing. And so to think that for a small child, this is the reality of having a parent that's not active. You are kind of conditioned. You're not taught explicitly, but you are kind of conditioned to think less of them, because what could you want more than to be with your family in the eternities? And to have this paradigm is like, you feel like you're gonna be stripped of your family in the next life. I mean, I felt like an orphan as we were singing that song. I felt like an orphan. Like, I don't know what's gonna happen to my mom. I mean, she's still. You know. And so, yeah, I think that that was kind of the beginnings of the. Of the church really bonding itself to my identity. Yeah.

Eternal Families and Afterlife Anxiety

John Dehlin [00:13:11] By creating that anxiety and fear about the afterlife and who will and won't be in the celestial kingdom. And, you know, if you're righteous enough, maybe your dad will come back, and then maybe your family can be together forever. But then who will be with who if other people remarry? Like, it took me a while to realize, and I had very similar experiences growing up because my parents divorced in middle school, that Mormonism sells eternal families as its prime dream. But the flip side of it is. Is an. Is a. Is an eternal nightmare. If, like most Mormons, there are empty chairs on the other side.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:53] It's almost when.

Elisha Lee [00:13:55] Yeah, it's less than.

John Dehlin [00:13:56] The dream unravels.

Elisha Lee [00:13:57] It's when the dream unravels. The way you describe it is absolutely perfect. Yeah. It causes you to look at who is not pulling their weight. And I think there's just this nice idea that people have. Even when we deconstructed, my husband was like, I think we should continue to go. Like, it's good for the kids. You don't see the potential for this division.

Margi Dehlin [00:14:19] Right.

Elisha Lee [00:14:20] It's really brutal, actually, because what family can you think of that doesn't have a family member that has had questions or doesn't believe anymore? I would venture to say every family has it.

John Dehlin [00:14:33] Oh, so many of the apostles. Mormon apostles have kids who left the church or grandkids who left the church. Even Today. And so we're all gonna have empty chairs, which means sad heaven. Mormon heaven is sad heaven for all Mormons.

Elisha Lee [00:14:46] Oh, my gosh. Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:14:49] And then. And then. And not to get off track, we'll get back to your story. But when you talk to other Christians, it's just like, oh, everyone goes to heaven.

Elisha Lee [00:14:55] Right.

John Dehlin [00:14:56] You know what I mean? And then you realize, wait a minute, this is a manufactured scarcity. When it's really not a bonus. Other religions, it's just everyone gets to

Elisha Lee [00:15:04] go, yeah, that is such a great point. It's offensive to say, like, it's this beautiful concept that missionaries take out. Right. A lot of times these missionaries just stay focused on this beautiful concept that we're going to sacrifice our life for a time so that others can be together for eternity. But it's. I mean, other people believe that. It's not that we believe in eternal families, it's that we actually don't believe in eternal families.

John Dehlin [00:15:35] We believe that God keeps people from each other. Yeah.

Elisha Lee [00:15:37] Unless you're doing A, B, C, D, you know?

Margi Dehlin [00:15:40] And I actually think that is the more that is more likely the message for a child. Like, they're teaching families can be together forever, but to a child, I'm not sure it would even occur to them that a family wouldn't be together. So by bringing it up that they can. Not that they will, but that they can, a child's like, wait a second. That means my family could not be together?

John Dehlin [00:16:05] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [00:16:06] Oh, 100%. 100%. So the next point in the story is that my parents get divorced and eventually remarry.

Margi Dehlin [00:16:17] And.

Elisha Lee [00:16:18] And I just had a really hard time getting settled into the new situation. I was, like, around 12 at the time. We moved into a new ward, literally over my 12th birthday. Like, my parents got married the week before my 12th birthday, and then we attended, like, the week after. So 12 years old is the period of time that you go into the youth program and it's a whole orchestra. Like, not a whole orchestra. It's orchestrated very specifically to welcome these new kids in. And now that I've been an auxiliary leader, I know the intention is to prepare them for the temple. Your goal as a young woman's leader is to get them to the temple. So usually when a new beehive comes in, there's a whole welcoming committee. And there just was none of that in my new ward. And so we moved from North Phoenix to South Phoenix, an area called Ahwatukee. And it was right when Ahwatukee was getting built out for the first time. And I think everyone in that ward kind of felt like a newbie. So there were no welcoming committees. There was nobody. And I'm using that term pejoratively, but, like, there was no. Nobody really welcomed you. Like, you were kind of just. So I just kind of got lost. I did not make friends quickly. I, looking back, know now as an adult, I was very ner. I'm very neurodivergent or at least somewhat neurodivergent. I didn't make friends well. I made one great, great little friend that I would circle back to and become really good friends with later. But it was kind of an isolating year. And so I begged my mom to go live in Oregon with my dad's sister. They knew that it was kind of an uncomfortable time for me, and they invited me to come up and live with them. After my parents had been remarried for a year, spent a year in the new school, it was not going well. I just was having a rough time. So I went up and lived in Oregon. And I think that was really tough on my mom at that time to have me move away. Like, obviously remarriage has all kinds of struggles. And this was just. I think me leaving was just so hard on my mom. But I begged her and she did end up letting me go. And it was a transformative year. Living up in Oregon for seventh grade. I was there for just one year, just one school year. My uncle was in the bishopric, and they just did Mormonism in such a lovely way. It was like they. I think I mentioned he was in the bishopric. My aunt was involved with all the things. We did dance and we did a lot of singing up there. I had a cousin who was my age, so I had like this almost like a sibling cousin relationship. And then my little cousin. Anyway, we just. It was. It was a really great time. I really bonded with them. I was exposed to Saturday's warriors for the first time being in Oregon.

Saturday's Warriors and Mormon Culture

John Dehlin [00:19:32] And I was tell our viewers who aren't Mormon what that is. Okay.

Elisha Lee [00:19:35] Saturday's warriors is like Mormon folklore. Is that how you would. Probably.

John Dehlin [00:19:41] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:19:41] And Mormon musical.

John Dehlin [00:19:42] It's a Mormon musical written in the 70s, based on Mormon doctrine, Mormon theology, and some Mormon folklore, but most of it Mormon doctrine.

Elisha Lee [00:19:51] Yeah, that's a really good point.

John Dehlin [00:19:53] But eternal families and empty chairs in the afterlife are key themes.

Elisha Lee [00:19:57] Key themes. And the music from Saturday's warriors was, like, always playing. Not from them, but they. I don't know what happened. I think I watched it and then I just latched onto it. It was like my second taste of this idea of eternal families. And I've kind of felt like an orphan this whole time. And here I am in Oregon, almost as kind of a spectator because I'm not part of their family, and I know that, but I'm watching how it's done. And I will say their family does Mormonism really well. It's not too intense, but there is this underlining idea that there's this thing that I'm gonna need to create at some point if I want a piece of this. This is what I want to model. And so that really stuck with me. And there was in particular that we had a young woman's lesson. And I don't fault this leader for doing this. I did this myself as a young woman's leader. As a result of this, she had us close our eyes and she gave a lesson on eternal families where we spent five minutes in almost like this hypnotic meditation as she described the premortal life and what it would have been like and our. Our eternal parents, our heavenly Father and heavenly Mother, and just this whole visualization of us coming down to earth and being a chosen daughter of God. I mean, it was the first time that really that kind of caste system of Mormonism was apparent to me, that our obedience in the pre existence was going to now define what our lives were like on earth. And it's like, oh, now I've got this sacred responsibility. I was born a member of the church. That means that I was among the most elect and obedient in the pre existence. And I've got now a responsibility to live this and to bring others to it. And I just, I feel like I left that day. It really was like a hypnosis. And I feel like I left that day and did not shake that until I deconstructed at 40 years old. Like, that's how long this perspective sticks with me, that I am like a spirit daughter of God having an earthly journey. And then the next several years of like getting in trouble with my boyfriend and all those things, it's all from that perspective. Like, you are messing it up royally and your family is not pulling their weight. Like we're, you know, I moved back home to Arizona after that one year and just things like secular music being played in the house on Sunday morning, and I'm in my room with my EFY tapes and my. And my tapes, literally tapes and my, you know, EFY tapes and Saturday's warriors, and I'm trying to like, feel this spirit and I just wanna do this so much. And journaling is a huge part of my life. I never miss a day without journaling. And never a journal entry that is not just completely enveloped in testimony. Like I feel like I don't have any. Just regular journal entries. Went here, did this, did that. It was all tied to my testimony every day. So you can see this like scarcity building in me and almost a deficiency that the church has sort of assigned to me.

Margi Dehlin [00:23:41] That's right.

Elisha Lee [00:23:43] And now I'm trying everything that I can to heal myself of this deficiency.

Margi Dehlin [00:23:50] Yes. It's almost like overcompensate for this deficiency that you had no part in creating. You had no control over it.

Elisha Lee [00:23:59] Absolutely. And I'm looking at my parents like they've got a deficiency now too.

Margi Dehlin [00:24:02] Right.

Elisha Lee [00:24:03] Because it's not to blame. Yeah, exactly. Oh my gosh. Right. So come back to Arizona for eighth grade. I make a friend who's also been through like some bumpy life circumstances. Only child Mormon, but not conventionally Mormon. We make best, best best friends and kind of just lived at each other's houses. And I will just say that that friend probably saved my life at that time because it was. It just felt very lonely a lot of times. And not because I didn't have parents that loved me, but just, I think partly just being a teenager. And I don't know, there was just something about this friendship. And I think the church for both of us was in a way, like, here we've talked about the negative aspects, but it almost felt like a salve. Like it felt like. It felt like a remedy, I think for both of us. And she invited me to efy and I feel like that was just another layer on the cake. EFY was like, if you don't know what EFY is, especially I know you guys know what EFY is. EFY is a youth camp that's like. Imagine like boot camp for God's army. It's just the fire for an entire week. You're going to classes during the day and you're having firesides in the evening. It is full of music, music, live musicians. Even. Like the physical activities that you're involved with out on the field have some kind of like underlining spiritual theme. You are sleep deprived to the max. So you're going to bed sometimes at 2, 3 in the morning and you're having these deep conversations. I don't know about the boy side, but for the girls side, we're talking about this stuff till late, late at night. Waking up at 6:30 in the morning for scripture study. I mean, it was intense. And when I went to efy, it was like, you get your schedule for the day, and this is the first time, maybe for most of us that we've been excited about attending gospel classes and a couple of the lessons that stand out for me. So you'd have, like, your schedule of all the different classes for the day, and you'd get to pick. And when I went, it was like, John, by the way, over here, Brad Wilcox over there. I wouldn't be surprised if Sherry Dew was speaking at some point.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:36] It's kind of like the best speakers, like, trying to cull the best talent

Elisha Lee [00:26:42] for these DFY camps.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:43] Absolutely.

Elisha Lee [00:26:44] Absolutely. That's a great way to describe it. These are the most inspiring talks ever. And I feel like they influenced me for later in my life, becoming a youth leader and doing fireside talks and things like that. Because it's this environment of just feeling so enveloped. Sorry, I'm all manhandling this mic. So enveloped with love and talking about the scriptures, like, in the sense of. And this is literally from one of the lessons. There is not a problem in life that you cannot find a solution in the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon has every solution to every problem you can ever encounter in your whole life. That was one whole lesson. Another lesson was on repentance. And I'm 90% sure that one was given by Brad. He went through the phases of repentance. You know, you feel bad, you make it right. You don't do it again. Except if you have a sexual sin. And if you have a sexual sin, you are. You don't have the authority to repent for that on your own.

John Dehlin [00:27:48] Directly with Jesus.

Elisha Lee [00:27:50] Right?

John Dehlin [00:27:50] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [00:27:51] You have to go. You need a bishop to confess that to. And this really hit me because at this time in my life, it makes total sense to me now. I was boy crazy. And I was like. I had. I had probably kissed five people at that time. We're talking, like, somewhere like, after eighth grade, after ninth grade, somewhere around there. I probably made out with, like, five different people. But I was just thinking, okay, like, I found the splinter, and I'm going to have to take care of this. And I can't take care of this on my own. I've got to go see my bishop. And it was not only that. It was on the final night of testimony meeting. EFY testimony meeting was like the fire in all your body. You could feel this fire. And there's literally kids bearing their testimony that they wish they could Die tonight because that's how close to the spirit

John Dehlin [00:28:57] they feel and they don't want to mess it up.

Elisha Lee [00:28:58] Oh, and you don't ever want to mess it up.

John Dehlin [00:29:00] If you're at your spiritual peak and then you die, you'll go to the celestial kingdom. But then if you fall again, then if you die while you're fallen, then when you're judged in the afterlife, you will not be at peak state at death, which may impact your eternal status.

Elisha Lee [00:29:16] Absolutely. And the other thing that dawned on me when I was prepping for this, when I was thinking through this, I realized when people come into the comments, they say you just. You never had a testimony or you are confusing the church for the gospel. When they talk about their testimony of the gospel, what they're talking about is that experience of feeling that fire like it has witnessed to me that it is true. And Jesus died for my sins. And there is no question that this is true. How could I have these feelings in my body if this weren't true? This is evidence of the church's truthfulness.

John Dehlin [00:29:56] There's no other explanation for the feelings.

Elisha Lee [00:29:59] Right, exactly right. And meanwhile, I mean, when you study,

John Dehlin [00:30:03] these are universal feelings all people experience in all contexts, secular and religious.

Elisha Lee [00:30:09] Elevation, emotion. Like if you're going through the deconstruction process and you're having trouble making sense of your spiritual experience, study out elevation, emotion, the music that is correlated. You can change the vibration of anything by putting the right music with it. You can change the way that the consumer feels by adding the right kind of music. It's marketing. And so when you have these kinds of experiences and you have these lessons all week, you're sleep deprived now you have a testimony meeting where you're hearing everyone. You're in a room of sobs, emotional

John Dehlin [00:30:47] vulnerability, which leads to emotional connection and intimacy.

Elisha Lee [00:30:52] Yes. And trauma bonding. Because people are sharing.

Margi Dehlin [00:30:57] I had.

Elisha Lee [00:30:58] I went too far with my boyfriend and I tried alcohol.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:01] And I'm never gonna do that again.

Elisha Lee [00:31:03] I promise. I promise you all here today that I will never do that. I make that promise to you and to Heavenly Father. I mean, these are powerful experiences for 14 plus kids. And so then you're sent back to your room to journal what just happened and you are specifically given the assignment, or at least I was share what came up. What came up for you tonight? What do you need to take care of when you get home? And so in my mind, I was just like, I have to go see the bishop to talk about these makeouts that I've had. So this would Be after my, the summer after my freshman year. So I'm a sophomore at the time. It's kind of the beginning of the year. I have a new boyfriend. I'm like remembering back to efy. I'm reading my old journal entries. I'm continuing to journal. Each night I'm bringing my boyfriend to church. Cause he doesn't know what a Mormon is. Back then we really were Mormons. And, and I just realized I gotta make this appointment. So I make the appointment to go into the bishop and I'm just like, okay, I'm here to confess because I would like to repent for something that apparently I can't repent for on my own. And so here's what it is. And you know, I made out with my boyfriend and it like went too far. It was pretty far, I will say. But I was shocked to learn that that experience is not as simple as that. This experience sitting in the cinder block room as a 15 year old with my bishop, like I probably can't even go into all the details of like what was asked during that one on one session because. Just because it was so gross.

Margi Dehlin [00:33:18] Oh, right,

John Dehlin [00:33:22] meaning the bishop's asking explicit details about sexual Encounters with a 14 year old girl.

Elisha Lee [00:33:29] It's not. Yeah, at that time I guess I was 15. I was almost 16. You know, when I think about people that are called as bishops now, I don't know if they are instructed to ask those questions, but the questions that I got were pretty vile. I mean it included. Did you enjoy it? Did you climax? Like questions about like penetration and number of fingers and, and so when I think about that, it makes me think about people that are called as bishops and feel a responsibility to do this. Like it really hadn't hit me until I really started prepping for today's interview that like we have amazing friends that have served as bishops. And I will say that I have asked my children and my kids were never asked these kinds of questions.

Bishop Interviews and Purity Culture

John Dehlin [00:34:24] Mine were. Okay, yeah, no, it's very common.

Elisha Lee [00:34:30] Are they trained to do it?

John Dehlin [00:34:32] You know, I bet it's, I bet it's often either personality type or what, what was modeled for them by their church leaders also. But some people are just curious, some people are inappropriate and some people just learned by their experiences. Maybe. But we've had so many Mormon stories interviews where people have been asked the most graphic questions at the youngest of ages. So we don't want to claim it's everyone, but it's common. It's way too common.

Elisha Lee [00:35:03] So I feel lucky that My kids were not asked those kinds of questions, but I would have assumed that that was normal if it had, unfortunately, like, as a youth leader, because like you said, I mean, that was modeled for me.

Margi Dehlin [00:35:17] Do you remember. Sorry, do you remember how you felt in the meeting? Like, where. What. What was going on inside you as you were.

Elisha Lee [00:35:30] That's really interesting that you asked that question, Margit.

John Dehlin [00:35:33] So

Elisha Lee [00:35:36] when I think back on the experience of being grilled with those kinds of questions from my bishop when I was 15, it is in the same vein as my memory of, like, sexual abuse, because I've experienced both. And like, the memory of the feeling in my body that is associated with the bishop's confessional is. It feels very similar to the memory of that experience of being 11 at a sleepover with my friend's uncle.

John Dehlin [00:36:16] Yeah, like violation.

Elisha Lee [00:36:19] It's. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:36:20] Violation of personal boundaries.

Elisha Lee [00:36:23] I didn't even know that. I didn't even recognize that. But now when I think back on these kinds of experiences, I feel like all of our most traumatic events, like there's a sensation in the body and we don't even realize it and it stays with you. And when I think back about how I felt in that chair, my memory of it is just not that different of a feeling in my body as when, you know, that sexual abuse happened. So he tells me that there are two great godly powers on earth and one is to create a life and one is to take a life. And I have, I don't know, I've used one of them improperly. But in my brain, what I thought is like, you're almost as bad as a murderer. That's where my brain went.

John Dehlin [00:37:21] That's what the Book of Mormon says.

Elisha Lee [00:37:22] Yeah. But I hadn't even lost my virginity at this time. I mean, remember, this is just like make out session that went just way it got into it was him equating that. Oh, yeah, yeah. In my brain I'm just like, oh, I am like the worst of the worst. Like, I didn't even know till I got here, like, how bad I am. I am really bad.

John Dehlin [00:37:45] But this may not have been conscious for you, but I think it's Jesus himself that says, if a man looketh upon a woman, you know, inappropriately, he's already committed adultery in his heart. So, I mean, the ways that these scriptures can be interpreted can amp up the stakes to where even if you haven't actually had actual sex in a Mormon context, you can feel like you pretty much did.

Elisha Lee [00:38:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:38:10] You may as well have because of

Margi Dehlin [00:38:12] the way they treat you.

John Dehlin [00:38:13] Yeah, absolutely.

Margi Dehlin [00:38:14] Because of the words they say to you. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:38:16] In the scriptures.

Elisha Lee [00:38:17] I definitely believed that. Yeah, I definitely believed that. And so he said, I'm going to give you an informal disfellowshipping. And here's what this means.

Margi Dehlin [00:38:31] Wow.

Elisha Lee [00:38:32] It's not gonna go on your record, but you are not to take the sacrament until I let you know that it's okay. So we're gonna continue to do these visits and I'm gonna keep up with you to make sure that you are making progress. And I'm already thinking in my head, okay, I'm gonna get to church late, and that way I don't have to face the sacrament. And then he says these words, you must attend sacrament meeting to complete your repentance process. I had to publicly not take the sacrament.

Margi Dehlin [00:39:07] The shame element, you had to have.

Elisha Lee [00:39:08] Oh, you have to walk through the. The shame practice. This is a shaming ritual for children.

John Dehlin [00:39:16] We call it the shame parade.

Elisha Lee [00:39:19] Oh. Because that sacrament comes and to the

John Dehlin [00:39:24] little 12 year old or 13 year old boy hands the bread tray, it gets passed down the aisle. Then what happens?

Elisha Lee [00:39:29] And you're like, you have to let them know. And anybody could be sitting around you and see this happen, including leaders that might mention it at their next presidency meeting, which is gonna be relevant in our next chapter.

John Dehlin [00:39:43] Yeah. But anyone beside you or in front of you or behind you, family, friends, can just go, huh?

Elisha Lee [00:39:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:39:50] Alicia didn't take the bread.

Margi Dehlin [00:39:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:39:52] I wonder what she's done. Right?

Elisha Lee [00:39:53] Yeah, exactly. So your family is your family, friends. Part of my assignment was to tell my parents. Now, I have to say,

Margi Dehlin [00:40:03] because I

Elisha Lee [00:40:03] was 15 at the time, my mom took me. And then I called her when I was done to the bishop's confessional meeting. And as she was taking me or before we left the house or at some point, she said, why are you doing this? I didn't realize at that time that my mom had started deconstructing. I had no idea. But her approach really shifted at that time period. And what I didn't know at the time is that she had discovered Fawn Brody and she. I think that was the time that the Krakow book came under the banner of heaven. I think was that like around 94, 95.

John Dehlin [00:40:52] But yeah, late 90s.

Elisha Lee [00:40:55] And the Hoffman letters had been a few years prior to that. But that had also influenced her quite a bit, seeing the way that the church handled the Hoffman situation. She was jaded. Her testimony was starting to come unraveled at that time. And she was just like, why Are you going in? Do you really think you need, like, you don't need to do this. And so that was her approach, but I just did it anyway. And what did that do to my perspective of my mom? She doesn't understand. She hasn't had that fire. She hasn't obviously had that converting experience that I have had that witness. Like once you believe that story, the narrative of the plan of salvation and you somehow just kind of accept what goes along with it. And it's really sad looking back on that now, but somehow if kids are just indoctrinated just the right way, they're gonna. For the rest of your life, you just kind of accept what is given to you. So I have a quick story. I'm gonna try to abbreviate it, but it is kind of a fun story. And I figure we might need a palate cleanser after what I just. So around that time period, I left the bishop's office just like, okay, we are doing this. I am double down. I am gonna be so good. I am just gonna do everything I can to not fall off track. And I've got a boyfriend and he was so sweet about the whole thing. Like he was raised in Long Island, New York, had no concept of like Mormon culture and what that was about. But we were just like in love. And he was just like, whatever you need to do. Like, he was super supportive of all of it, which is interesting. But we were. One day I was getting ready for school and I get a call, can you pick me up for school? It wasn't my boyfriend, but it was his best friend. And then like a couple other people that I was taking to school that day. So I was. Obviously it had my 16th birthday, so I was driving and we got to school. My boyfriend was already at school. But I'm walking up with these friends and we see this car accident in front of us. And it was kind of a serious car accident. It was like a head on collision, but it was an intersection. So nobody was going full speed. But one of us went and called 911 from a neighbor's house. Cause this was like 1995 and nobody had cell phones. And we waited there and the police came and I think an ambulance came and we gave our witness of what happened. And then we were like, well, can you just write us a quick note for school? Cause we missed the bell like an hour ago. And so the police officer writes us a note and we walk up to the front of the school and. And I look at the note and it says, please excuse these students from school today. And it's signed by a police officer. So I looked at my friends, I'm like, I think we can just ditch school today. So we go up to the front and we just kind of lied and said, you know, we just gave them the note and they let us off. So we went to ihop. And as we're sitting there, as one does. As one does. And so we're sitting there and little group of friends and these are like more typical teenagers, not like Mormon teenagers. Like my friend's telling us about the bong. He just got his two foot bong and I had no idea what that was. And they were like, drive us back to the house. Like, let's go back to the house. You don't have to, you know, they explained what it was. You don't have to do anything. But like. So I'm like, okay, appearance of evil. It's gonna be fine. I'm just gonna stand there and like, whatever. I mean, I' at this point curious to see what a two foot bong looks like. So we get to their house and he pulls this out and they all take a hit from the bong. And then before I know it, they're all looking at me. And I don't know how I got talked into it, but I did. And the last words I heard him say were, breathe in really hard so that those bubbles at the bottom of the bong really bubble. Which means that I am shortly going to be like out of my mind stoned. And now what happens is that you have a very stoned girl with an eternal perspective. Are you guys familiar with that book Return from Tomorrow?

John Dehlin [00:45:46] It's a near death experience book.

Margi Dehlin [00:45:47] Yes, I am.

Elisha Lee [00:45:48] And I was positive that bad spirits had taken over my body because I clearly was not in control. So I thought for sure there were like dark spirits controlling my body. And I had the worst pot anxiety of my life. That was a really, really scary experience. And now looking back on it, I'm like, oh, it was totally predictable because that's what happens.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:17] You're framing.

Elisha Lee [00:46:19] Yes, but my brain was like. And I was walking around and they were just all chilling like, this is her first time. This is like what happens, like to them. It was like, no biggie, but I was like coming unglued. I was like having the worst panic attack of my life. And so that probably felt like it was hours and hours and hours, but. But it was probably 30 minutes. I mean, who knows? So once that kind of wore off, I Had the brilliant idea of calling the school and Ferris Buelling. Ferris Buellering, my boyfriend out of school. So I called the front office pretending to be his mom and said that he had a doctor's appointment. And then we drove up to the school and picked him up, and he had no idea what was going on. So he comes out to the car and. And that was the day that I lost my virginity. I mean, that's kind of an epic story if you think about it. But you can imagine how I felt after, like, I have, like, in the most royally way, ruined my life. I have now smoked pot and had sex with my boyfriend. And I don't know if I can stomach going into the bishop again.

Margi Dehlin [00:47:36] You were like. I was already almost disfellowshipped, like.

Elisha Lee [00:47:41] Right, exactly.

Mental Health Struggles and Life Changes

Margi Dehlin [00:47:42] So what's it gonna be now?

Elisha Lee [00:47:44] What's it gonna be now? What have I done? What have I done? I have to move. I mean, there's no other way.

Margi Dehlin [00:47:55] Wow.

Elisha Lee [00:47:56] And so I packed my bag and moved to California. It was like, I've made a mistake. Here we are again. We're gonna try to start over.

John Dehlin [00:48:08] So you told your mom and that was the solution? Well, or you.

Elisha Lee [00:48:14] I did. I talked to my parents and it just. There were kind of a lot of. There were a lot of other details that came in there as well. And I just. We all kind of just decided that that would be the best thing. So we waited until the end of the day. I think I may have actually tried to make it work. I don't remember the timing for it exactly.

Margi Dehlin [00:48:47] But in your mind, are you holding this secret then? Are you holding this inside and not telling your bishop at that time?

Elisha Lee [00:48:56] Oh, yeah. I did not tell my bishop, but I did tell my parents.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:01] But you told your parents?

Elisha Lee [00:49:02] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:03] And then do you remember how you. If there was a story you were then connecting to about yourself in that moment, do you remember what you were feeling about yourself at that time?

Elisha Lee [00:49:16] That's a great question. At that point, I just felt. I was just so disappointed in myself.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:24] Like a failure. Like, failing to.

Elisha Lee [00:49:26] And.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:27] And.

Elisha Lee [00:49:27] Okay. I'm so glad you asked this question, Margi. Isolation is the feeling that I felt even though my parents did nothing to try to. I mean, at that time, my dad and his wife were super actively Mormon. Nobody. None of my parents made me feel bad. I mean, it was nothing like what it was like with that bishop. But for me, I was holding this on myself. And I think that that was almost. It was almost my parents very kind of healthy approach. Excuse Me, my parents, more healthy approach to this that I think would have been supported by any mental health care provider. I mean, their response to it was fine. It was the pressure that I put on myself and, and I just felt hopeless and I felt very alone, Very alone. And it did not cross my mind that anyone else in the church, any of the church kids were going through this. Cause I was back in that ward in Ahwatukee that was just, I don't know, there were great people there. I'm sure all the people were great, but just was not.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:50] You weren't feeling like it was a

Elisha Lee [00:50:52] fit or like did not feel supported by that word at all. So I moved out to California. Just like, okay, we're gonna get a new start, we're gonna get a new start. And this is probably the darkest chapter. Like, as I go back through it, the move to California was definitely the darkest.

John Dehlin [00:51:11] Can I just, can I jump in and say one thing in the Mormon context? And I'm sure this isn't unique to Mormonism, but one common scenario where this happens quite a bit is when a, a girl gets pregnant. When a Mormon girl gets pregnant, she often just disappears, is sent to live with a family member or some host family. They have the baby there and then maybe they'll return home after the baby's been given up for adoption.

Elisha Lee [00:51:42] And so I think that was the assumption.

John Dehlin [00:51:46] That was the assumption.

Elisha Lee [00:51:47] I do think that was the assumption.

John Dehlin [00:51:48] And I would just say that whether or not that was your case and I wasn't primed, my point was, is that that that's certainly number one common. Number two, you're being slotted into that scenario. And then number three, there might be assumptions about that that would go with you wherever you went or stay behind from wherever you left.

Elisha Lee [00:52:08] It's interesting that you mentioned this and it's probably an indication of my healing that I had actually forgotten about that part. There was a rumor at my old high school and my seminary teacher at the time announced it to one of the classes without saying my name, but saying that she was basically like, I was this spoiled kid. And I was given this like something about the car that I was given when I turned 16. And what happens when someone is just. He really trash talked me without saying my name. But apparently everyone in the class knew who he was talking about because two of my friends reached out to me and they were like, you would not believe what brother so and so announced in seminary today. Anyway, yeah, so the rumors were rampant. And I mean, was there something behind some of the rumors, yeah, probably. But I moved to California. I'm thinking I'm gonna get a new start. And now looking back, I realize what happened in California was that people were just aware of me moving there for this reason. Except that that got quickly convoluted to like, she's just like a whore.

John Dehlin [00:53:26] Yeah, it's a shame parade, but on steroids. Because now it's not just the sacrament in sacrament meeting, it's complete relocation and dislocation from everyone for reasons people can only assume.

Elisha Lee [00:53:38] Yes, that's very well articulated. And I think because of my parents, like, not super orthodox approach, my dad cared more about modesty than my mom did. Like, sometimes I'd be leaving for school and he'd be like, do you wanna throw on a jacket? Like, he was really sweet about it. But I think because I wore a lot of sleeveless stuff and like that people made this assumption they would not have. The kids at church would not have made the assumption that I was actually this kid with a lot of scrupulosity. And it wasn't a super strict Mormon household at home. Which is the reason that most, most Mormon kids that are wearing the garment clothes, like the shorts down to their knees and the cap sleeves. Most Mormon kids do that because their parents are requiring it. And I didn't have that. And so I dress, you know, like, probably more like a typical teenager. So I think the kids in my ward in California just. It just all fit. Like here's this girl and she wears these, these skirts and tank tops. And I hear it doesn't take much. Yeah, exactly. To finish painting that picture. So I move out there and

Margi Dehlin [00:54:47] I

Elisha Lee [00:54:48] feel like word on the street is just I'm this whore and I have this going in the back of my head, but I have really no evidence for it. But I just feel like there's this major disconnect with everyone that I meet. First of all, the seminary kids were so sweet, but they were terrified of me. And I would like approach them at lunchtime to be like, hey, what's up? And I would feel like they were talking and they were all getting along. And then it was like, like I think I. I think I just scared them. And so I wasn't clicking with anyone and I was just kind of like, what is going on? And on my first day of school, this girl approaches me, this beautiful girl, teenager my age, and she says, if you look at my boyfriend, I will kick your ass. And I was like, okay. I mean, here's the thing. In Mormon land, losing your virginity may be considered being a whore, but to a public school in California, a very large public school in Southern California, being a whore is something much different.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:03] Right.

Elisha Lee [00:56:03] This is like giving blowjobs in the bathroom. I mean, like, the assumptions about me to, like, the general population of kids at this school, I think is just that I was just. Just awful.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:20] That is terrible.

Elisha Lee [00:56:21] And. And I didn't really see it. Like, I would. I would get to school and I'm like, trying start over. And I'm having such a hard time making connections with people. And it's like I would really connect with someone one day and then the next day I would get to school and I would go to try to talk to them, but they would turn as soon as they saw me coming. I just felt like people were just, like, ghosting me right and left. And I didn't really know why, but I knew that this challenging experience was, like, part of my consequence. Like, this is the consequence for the things that you've done. And I didn't have any friends that I felt really connected to until this one day. I was in the library and it was probably three weeks into school, I don't know. And she just starts talking to me, asks me if I'm new. She proceeds to tell me that she moved to the US from Peru a few years earlier with her little sister and invites me to come and hang out with them. And I probably spent at least five days a week at their apartment after that. Just, it was like the first time I felt really enveloped and I met some of their friends and just this, like, beautiful Peruvian family who is, like, making a new start for themselves, just like I am. In a very different way, every member of the family is working to contribute to their new life in the US I don't know if Gabby will ever know what an impact and think about this now that I'm like these amazing people. I felt so much love for her parents, and their English was very broken and it didn't matter. I felt so much love from their family. And to think now, because once I got integrated with the de la Cuba family, we were like very typical teenagers. I mean, at that point, I just really needed some acceptance. And so we were like, at parties on the weekends, but I wouldn't be drinking. So I think that, like, the Mormon kids thought I was wild and the wild kids thought I was Mormon.

Margi Dehlin [00:58:42] Right. Interesting.

Elisha Lee [00:58:44] It was kind of an interesting dynamic. Thinking back on it, it. I never got drunk in high school. I feel like there were times that this is very vulnerable to Say, and embarrassing. But I think there were times that I was at parties in high school where I kind of acted drunk, but, like, I was like, too afraid to, like, ever integrate any kind of word of wisdom problem. There was a guy who started dating me, and after like a few dates, he, like, tried to make the next move to, like, have sex with me. And I just said, oh, I don't do that. Like, I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong idea. I'm actually Mormon and I'm going through this whole repentance thing. And he was like, well, that's interesting because I've been told by multiple people that you're a whore or that I think he said that you sleep around. That's what he said, that you sleep around. He didn't say who. And I was like, really? Who said that? And one of the girls that he mentioned was like, from a super. Like, I don't want to give too much information here, but, like, from a very prominent LDS family from our stake. And she was the most mean to me of anyone.

Social Ostracization and Dropping Out

Margi Dehlin [01:00:03] Wow. Can I just bring up a couple things that are standing out to me is just how social Oscar ostracization, how it impacts, like, injury. It's like, it's the same. I know studies have been done this way, but. Right. Emotional pain and isolation and being left out. How it impacts someone's psychology and body and immune system and all those things. And also, which I just feel so much for your vulnerable developmentally, like, trying to, you know, develop self. But also too, that this branding of identity, it's like, not just, oh, this thing you did, it's who you are. People telling you over and over again, no, this is who you are. No, this is who you are. And in every circle that you go into, it's like you're othered in some way. Nope, you're not a partier, you're a Mormon. When you're with the partiers, you're with the Mormons. And they're like, nope, you're a partier, you know?

Elisha Lee [01:01:06] Absolutely.

Margi Dehlin [01:01:07] And so wherever you go, even there's no belonging, for sure. But even fitting in, there is just no place for you. And all of this is just so extremely painful. I'm feeling it for you.

Elisha Lee [01:01:20] Thank you for that, Margi. Everything that you articulated is exactly what I felt. I felt so isolated. I felt a lack of belonging. So here I finally have this sense of belonging with Gabby, and we're going to parties on the weekends. And isn't it interesting now, looking back and thinking that the most Christlike behavior came from the individuals that were not even Mormon.

Margi Dehlin [01:01:50] They were likely othered too. Perhaps in some way.

Elisha Lee [01:01:54] Perhaps, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:01:55] Living as immigrants.

Margi Dehlin [01:01:56] Yeah. Living outside. Probably a box of some sort.

Elisha Lee [01:02:02] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:02:03] I also just want to add, just imagine any Mormon parent being told someone's going to swoop in and relocate their teenage kid somewhere else for the rest of their high school experience. Like that's a really radical thing to experience.

Elisha Lee [01:02:19] Measure. Yes.

John Dehlin [01:02:20] As a teenage kid you're going to be uprooted from your parents, direct supervision from all your friends for your comfortable surroundings, from your home, from your family of origins, and you're going to spend the rest of your high school years in a completely different state alone. Without that parental supervision. No one would stand for that. And what. So that's extreme what you experienced, but also how many Mormon kids do have sex and just stay where they are or don't. But I mean that's, you know, somehow you got singled out for whatever reason to experience some really extreme punishment for very normative, probably very healthy normative development developmental behavior.

Margi Dehlin [01:03:10] Right.

Elisha Lee [01:03:10] And I want to say that a lot of that was self inflicted, that drastic measure of moving out to California. I mean my parents agreed. They kind of almost had the idea the same time I did. And I'm glad I went to California. Ultimately that's where I met my husband. So as still I'm kind of a spiritually agnostic person now. I think about like some things are serendipitous and maybe that was the time I needed to move to California. I don't know. I still like to think that things happen for a reason. But we all decided that that was the best thing for me. But I definitely did it from the approach of a self punishment.

Margi Dehlin [01:03:48] That's right. Like this situation is dire. I'm in this dire. I keep failing myself. I can't pull it together. We gotta interrupt this somehow.

Elisha Lee [01:03:56] Yes, exactly that. Exactly that.

John Dehlin [01:03:59] But I'll also note that the most effective and pernicious high demand religions or cults or dogmas rely on self enforcement as the harshest form.

Margi Dehlin [01:04:10] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:04:11] Of enforcement. Kind of like the learned helplessness studies with Marty Seligman where they put the dog with the, with a fence that shocks them. They remove the fence and the dog just doesn't leave because the dog self enforces even after the physical reinforcer is gone. So don't. Maybe I would just say don't minimize the fact that you were self enforcing because that's the, that's the most effective and severe form of a high demand religion or cult.

Elisha Lee [01:04:44] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:04:45] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [01:04:46] So the next phase in this story is that the beginning of my senior year rolls around, and it's like, maybe a month into the school year. No, it was November of my senior year because I had already turned 16. And I started thinking, like, I don't remember getting, like, senior pictures done. I don't remember, like, should we have done that by now? Nobody has reached out to do senior pictures. We're November, senior year. I go into the counseling office. And just to give a little preface on this, I had been going to summer school since I was a freshman because I wanted to graduate early. I had. There was a school in London, a performing arts school, that I wanted to go to for the second half of my senior year. So I had been preparing to go do this thing, and I had taken summer school classes so that I would have enough credits. So that's the preface. So I go into the counseling office as a senior, and I said, you know, I haven't gotten, like, should I have done senior pictures? Like, nobody reached out to me about that. And she said, well, I don't have you graduating this year. And I'm like, you don't have me graduating? She goes, you don't have California government class. I had taken Arizona government as a junior because I was almost a year ahead. You can't graduate in California without that. In addition, in Arizona, you needed a year of PE. In California in 1997, you had to have two and a half years of PE so I was behind on my PE. I'm like, you're not going to let me graduate because of PE and government. And she said, I can let you walk. I didn't even take my. Like, I didn't even take my senior pictures. This is November of my senior year. I literally drove to the GED office after school. Like, I signed myself out and I went. I dropped out of school.

Margi Dehlin [01:06:52] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [01:06:53] So I'm like, here we are. This is another layer.

John Dehlin [01:06:58] It's like dominoes. It's like a Shane Perry domino.

Elisha Lee [01:07:00] I'm gonna tell you that. I cannot tell you how much trauma comes up in me, but just, I gotta share this. I was at my kid's orthodontist, and he has all of the school yearbooks back to, like, 1980. He, like, collects them for the high school that I was at. And I went in there and I thought, I wonder what happened in 1997. Like, I wonder what the school yearbook looks like. I never got one. I didn't even do my senior pictures. Did they include me? I mean, I dropped out at the beginning of the year. So I go through all the pictures of the graduates, and I'm obviously not there. I thought maybe. And then at the very end, there's, like, a others to be mentioned page. And it's a page of kids that were probably, like, down at juvie or like, maybe they had experienced teen pregnancy or something. There's, like, five of us on the page, and it's literally a picture of me from my student id. That was the only picture they had of me, and I wasn't even smiling.

Margi Dehlin [01:08:05] Wow.

Elisha Lee [01:08:06] And all these beautiful pictures of all the graduates. And then I'm in the others to be mentioned.

Margi Dehlin [01:08:12] And the others to be mentioned.

Elisha Lee [01:08:14] Could we just have a moment for that? Like, whose idea. Whose idea was that? These were the kids that didn't show up for senior pictures. They may have dropped out that year. Maybe they had a baby. Maybe they went to juvie. I mean, who knows? And that's the page that I was on. And I. So now I have smoked pot, broken the word of wisdom, had sex with my boyfriend. And I am a high school dropout. And if you could go back to when I was young at, like, my parochial school, wearing my little uniform. And, like, I loved academics. I had done all this writing. My journals were thick. I have a college degree. I'm a nutrition educator. I'm certified. And, like, I've done all this schooling since then. But at this moment in my life, I am literally a high school dropout. It's just, again, another blow. I'm just, like, capital L, loser. So I talked to the bishop, and I just said, I think I need to go to the singles ward. There's no point for me to be here at the family ward, right? And I'm just thinking, I've gotta get married. I'm 18. That's old enough to get married. Married, right. Like, I'm gonna go to the singles ward. I dated one guy that I really thought that I was gonna marry. I didn't meet him at the singles ward. I'd met him through another thing. And it got to the point that I was like, I'm gonna need to let him know. I mean, I can't go into marriage without letting someone know that I'm not a virgin. And so the way that I shared it was just to say, would you ever marry someone that was not a virgin? And he was just. It was like, super quick. Like, not a chance. Not a chance. So the way that I handled that was less than ideal. I more or less ghosted him. I was 18, very immature. I think it was a big heartbreak. And I actually feel. I feel really badly about that today. But at that point, that's when I started going to the singles ward. And. And first day I was there, this redhead, like, looked like a 15 year old, came walking toward me and pulled a chair out for me. And that was Jamie, your current husband. My current husband, yeah. And it's so sad. Like, looking back, Jamie has so many wonderful qualities, and we have just enjoyed each other so much so since the faith deconstruction. And to think that all of those were kind of overlooked, because the most important thing was that he was a righteous priesthood holder that was gonna be a good father. Cause we definitely could not repeat what just happened to me. Like, this train wreck that is my life we can't do again. And Jamie was just awesome. He was like, oh, I've got repentance issues too. I think a lot of people do. He's like, I had to wait a year to go on my mission. And I was just like, it's the first time I haven't felt totally alone.

Marriage and Temple Sealing

John Dehlin [01:11:23] I'm not the only one.

Elisha Lee [01:11:24] Yes. And our singles word bishop was like. He was like, oh, I don't need to hear more. We're good. Let's just. Because, you know, I had flubbed between, like, I kind of. You reach a degree of hopelessness that you're just like, may as well. I mean, you know, and so went into him, and he's like, I just want to get you back to the temple as soon as possible. I don't want to hear details. Like, you know, and he just. Oh, he was. He was a really great guy. And it. Anyway, it was. It was just quick. And we got married, and it was a weird day. The initiatory, though, I have to tell you, the initiatory was in 1997, so it was still the naked part. You go into this room, a locker room, and you take all your clothes off, including your underwear, and you put this shield over your head like a poncho. It's open on both sides. And I had a friend who went through with me from the singles ward, and she prepped me for it. She's like, they're gonna need to access you for the blessings. And they're really beautiful, you guys. I was so jaded. I. I wasn't even traumatized by the initiatory. Like, not at all. It was, like, the most beautiful experience of my life because they said the words, and you are Clean every wit. And I just. It was, to me at the time, it was the remedy.

Margi Dehlin [01:12:57] That's right.

Elisha Lee [01:12:58] It just felt like exactly where I needed to be and what I needed to be doing. And I. I felt better about myself. I mean, I left that day and was like, this is it. I mean, I have arrived.

Margi Dehlin [01:13:13] Right.

John Dehlin [01:13:14] But that's part of the grip that I know you're gonna mention later. They told you you were unclean, and they offered themselves up as the one to pronounce you clean once you've conformed.

Elisha Lee [01:13:29] It's exactly what marketing does. It makes us think that our body look right and we need this product so that we look this certain way. And the church does exactly the same thing. They make us feel deficient and in need of this remedy, and so they just insert themselves there. So I felt like I had arrived. And it's so interesting thinking back on it. Right after we got married, my husband was from. More of a developer. I like to use the word orthodox because I really do think my mom was devout. She had a faith deconstruction. And I didn't even know it was going on. I just knew that kind of. Her approach was changing. And after we got married, this would come up a little more.

John Dehlin [01:14:20] This meant you came from a divorced community.

Elisha Lee [01:14:22] And I just. Yeah, I married up because I married into. Yeah, exactly.

Margi Dehlin [01:14:27] And that could almost be for. For any reason. But I think this being evaluated by people, this is a theme, it feels like in your life of people telling you again, your worth, your value. Right.

Elisha Lee [01:14:42] Well, and it would have been more about me. It could have been like, oh, here you are marrying this lovely returned missionary who literally, his background was exactly like mine. Like, he'd had made all this. We'd made all the same mistakes, but from the outset, he looked. It looked like I was marrying up because I was a whore.

Margi Dehlin [01:15:01] Exactly.

Elisha Lee [01:15:02] And he's a returned missionary.

Margi Dehlin [01:15:04] That's what I mean. This feels like such a theme in your. And also like, I'm so connecting with why you're showing up in your marriage the way you are given your teen years and through the ged. Right. And then you go to a singles ward and in Mormonism, the way a woman has value, you've been, like, rejected. You've been, like, found wanting time and time again by patriarchy throughout your teen years. Right. So is to be chosen by patriarchy. That's how we're valuable. Right. So, like going for the marriage thing and then this is your clean slate moment. This is where your family can be different. You Start the narrative. And so it's different from your family, where you grew up. Right. And you have. And so there's all this intensity coming from a narrative.

Elisha Lee [01:16:00] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [01:16:00] That was like, you know, given to you, basically. Yes.

Elisha Lee [01:16:04] Assigned to you.

Margi Dehlin [01:16:05] Right.

Elisha Lee [01:16:06] Yes. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:16:06] So it makes so much sense to me where you went, what you looked for, the marriage, and then also how now you're going into the marriage and saying, we've got to do. We've got to do all the things like we've got to. Right.

Elisha Lee [01:16:22] And because you're in such an isolated frame of mind, you're not hearing from other people that have had similar experiences. So you think you're the only one. And it always blows me away to think about some of the Mormon girls that I was in high school with that got married outside the temple and then sealed later. And so I'm like, obviously they had some of the same issues I did, but how was I I so violently branded?

Margi Dehlin [01:16:50] Right. What was that about?

John Dehlin [01:16:52] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [01:16:53] And I think a lot of it is just gossip and the failure of adults. I really do think that it was kind of the consequences of just some pretty vile gossip.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:06] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [01:17:06] And yeah, just looking at where that went and even just comparing it to my husband. His story, though, is pretty compelling on that front as well, because waiting to go on a mission and having people approach you and ask you, when are you leaving? Hey, aren't you 19? You know, back then I was 19. And so that can be traumatic as well. But from the outside, I had married up.

John Dehlin [01:17:32] Yeah. And also sometimes I've noticed that some people can be a super devout Mormon because they come from pioneer ancestry and their parents are super faithful and they identify with the Nephi sort of, you know, paradigm early on. And they're the noble and righteous one. And so they thrive and succeed, committed to the church because they're fitting in that mold. There's a whole other type of super orthodox faithful Mormon that went the other route in their teen and young adult years to where they felt like they were in deficit. And so their orthodoxy is sometimes even more extreme than the previous type of person that I mentioned. But they're trying to play catch up. They're trying to overcompensate for their perceived failures throughout their childhood and adolescence and young adult years. And sometimes those are the most extreme and the most extremely devout Mormons of all are the ones who feel like they are playing catch up because of all their, quote, sins.

Elisha Lee [01:18:49] I absolutely agree. In fact, preparing for today, just telling these stories, it occurred to me that I think for so many members, the experience of gaining a testimony is really just attaching the church to all of your most vulnerable points. Your hardships, your shortcomings, your deficiencies, your loss for people who have lost loved ones. Your testimony is actually just the attachment that the church has to those hardships.

Margi Dehlin [01:19:29] That's right. And your hope.

Elisha Lee [01:19:31] And it is. Yes, that. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So it's exactly what you just said, John.

John Dehlin [01:19:40] So you. You. Did you turn it up to 11 as soon as you got married?

Elisha Lee [01:19:44] Yeah, I would say so. I mean, the tithing is just one example. But we had also a little later on, a stake president that just really got the members of the stake excited about living the gospel. He did this Nauvoo project where we were all encouraged to do a certain number of family names. I think it was 40 names, and to go to the temple and get them all done. And it became this big production,

John Dehlin [01:20:19] meaning going to the temple to get baptized and married and endowed.

Elisha Lee [01:20:23] All the ordinances. All of the ordinances, yeah. So getting your family names and getting them from baptism to sealing. And this would mean for our stake being able to use the temple for 24 hours straight. So during the nighttime, members of our stake would run. They would officiate in the endowment sessions or the ceilings.

John Dehlin [01:20:48] For the dead.

Elisha Lee [01:20:49] Yes, for the dead, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:20:50] And so for our non Mormons, I

Elisha Lee [01:20:52] just wanna make that clear, we're performing

John Dehlin [01:20:54] marriages and endowment ceremonies and baptisms for

Elisha Lee [01:20:58] dead people to make sure that everybody can get into heaven. To make sure that everyone has salvation. I mean, the way that I view. I know there's a lot of, like, weirdness associated with, especially with social media that, like, baptisms for the dead is kind of a weird thing. From my perspective, it's kind of a more compassionate approach to Christianity. Well, it's like, what's your other alternative? People just aren't going to get into heaven because they never heard about Jesus.

John Dehlin [01:21:20] They burn forever.

Margi Dehlin [01:21:21] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [01:21:22] Like, I feel like Mormonism has a more compassionate approach than some brands of Christianity. That's just my take. But. But yeah, so I really went all in. And I felt such a disconnect from my husband at that time. I think I was young women's president when that project started. And I went and got him the white jacket and the shoes and the white tie, because I was like, look, they're looking for members of our stake to officiate. What's the term now I'm totally losing the vernacular. Officiate. Is that the right. And he was just not. And I was trying to figure out, like, what is going on with you? That I feel so disconnected. And I took him into the bishop, and I was like, something is going on with him.

John Dehlin [01:22:18] You mean your husband?

Elisha Lee [01:22:19] My husband, yeah. He's not like. I felt like he just wasn't, like, living up to his priesthood duties. And it's not that he was doing anything wrong.

Family Polygamy and Tithing Pressures

John Dehlin [01:22:31] He wasn't jazzed.

Elisha Lee [01:22:32] He just was not jazzed about it. He'd be on his phone during sacrament meeting, and one day he said to me, what are your thoughts on polygamy? Because, you know, we're gonna have to live that. That's how he presented it. And I knew about that already because my grandfather was flds. My grandfather took the discussions during Leroy Johnson's time as this is your mom's dad. This is my mom's dad. And so I knew all about polygamy, and I had a sour taste in my mouth because of it.

John Dehlin [01:23:12] Was he born into it or did he convert to it?

Elisha Lee [01:23:15] He was born. So he's a Phelps. His ancestor, Morris Phelps, who's my fourth great grandfather, maybe was born the same year as Joseph Smith. He was jailed with Joseph Smith. We were through and through Mormons.

John Dehlin [01:23:31] Meaning W.W. phelps.

Elisha Lee [01:23:32] Not W.W. phelps, but Morris Phelps. It's a different Phelps. I don't even think they're related, but my mom is a Phelps. And so, yeah, Grandpa did a deep dive into. He believed that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was not living the gospel fully, and they abandoned

John Dehlin [01:23:55] polygamy in 1890 to 1905ish.

Elisha Lee [01:23:59] Yeah. Wilford Woodruff. And he tried so hard to get my grandmother to go with him. And I just always had kind of a negative taste in my mouth regarding polygamy. And so whenever it was mentioned, which is very. I mean, a lot of members of the church don't even know that it's part of. Of the doctrine. I just didn't. I was like, I don't know if I believe that. And Jamie kind of challenged me a little bit. He was like, do you not know of. Because it's in the scriptures now. What I didn't know is that this was all falling apart for my husband. He was, like, finding things Masons in the temple. His dad was a Mason. I mean, he knew that there were connections with the handshakes and how they were. Were pretty identical to the Masonic rituals. We had resolved that in our minds by saying that the Masons were temple builders from Solomon's time. I don't know if other people do that, but I thought they were. And you come to find out that the Masons origins were more like in the 1700s. It was nowhere near Solomon's temple. And I apologize, I am not a historian, so I may be off on this, but the realization was Joseph Smith basically used the Masonic rituals because it was promises of secrecy essentially. So that he could be sealed to his plural wives and keep it secret. And keep it secret. But it's gotta be official. You can't like legally marry more than one wife. So they've gotta have a sacred, you know, and so they've got the. I think it was death oaths. Yep.

John Dehlin [01:25:43] Very high consequences if you reveal what's going on. Which probably was the most important part because Joseph wanted people fearing for their life if they disclosed his polygamy. Because if they did, it would lead to what happened to him, which was ruined.

Elisha Lee [01:26:01] Exactly. And I believe it was almost positive it was Kimball, Heber C. Kimball that said the endowment is to teach the saints about secrecy. And so Jamie's coming to all of this information and is totally jaded on the temple. Like this was basically to hide. Polygamy in the early days of the church was kind of. And they were using Masonic handshakes. It's like what, like how that wasn't from God. I mean that was like. So he was jaded. He was presenting it to me and I just shut that down so fast.

John Dehlin [01:26:38] Which is crazy because it sounds like what you're saying is your grandpa left your grandma to go become a polygamist.

Elisha Lee [01:26:44] Uh huh.

John Dehlin [01:26:45] So you had it in your own immediate family.

Elisha Lee [01:26:48] Yeah, I did. And I've asked my mom about this. So my mom was deconstructing in about 1993 after she read Fawn Brodie and there was no, I don't think we even had Internet in our house at that time and there was nothing available on the Internet, so.

John Dehlin [01:27:05] And the book, for those who want to know the book is called no Man Knows My history by Fawn McKay Brody. Just. It's the best book probably ever written on Joseph Smith.

Elisha Lee [01:27:13] Yeah. It's a, it's an accurate biographical depiction of Joseph Smith's life and it talks about the things that aren't part of the correlated materials about his young life. And my understanding correctly, correct me if you know this for sure, but my understanding is that because she was the niece of David O. McKay, she had access to records that other people didn't have. Right. And so my mom reads this and she's just compelled to read more. And that's when she started to reevaluate Hoffman's letter.

John Dehlin [01:27:47] That was when you were younger.

Elisha Lee [01:27:49] Right.

John Dehlin [01:27:50] That's why she was a little more relaxed than maybe the traditional Sandy or Draper Mormon mom.

Elisha Lee [01:27:56] Yeah. And I think the reason it's relevant to bring it up at this point in the story is because now my husband's finding this stuff too. Yeah. But nobody is talking about it, because who wants to dance around Alicia? It's like, nobody wants to disrupt the piece, and she's finally on track. Yeah, well. And I just think my mom's kind of looking at me like, oh, man, she's just taking it to the next level. And. Yeah, and my husband, too. Like, gosh, I didn't even mention the theater company, which was the business that I started so that I could pay tithing. Tithing with pretty much all of my revenue, because I didn't want contention in my marriage. I didn't want to have to butt up against my priesthood holder's opinion. So I just worked my own job, and it's like, well, if you want to pay tithing with all of your. Your revenue, you can do that. And that's what I did.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:55] Wow.

Elisha Lee [01:28:56] Yeah.

Scrupulosity and Religious OCD in Marriage

Margi Dehlin [01:28:56] So can we take a minute and just check in with this scrupulosity, religious OCD component? How would you describe it at this point in your life?

Elisha Lee [01:29:10] That is a great question. I know I always say that, but I love these questions. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:29:17] Did you start, you know, scripture study at that point?

Elisha Lee [01:29:20] Yeah. In that point in my life, my spiritual connections were where the orthodoxy was. So. And the reason that I mention that is because I felt like the approach of the Savior was to be not so legalistic, but to be really in touch spiritually through prayer, through journaling, through kind of the inner vessel. Yeah, that's probably the best explanation for my scrupulosity at the time. I would pray about things. I was, like, privately forsaking different things, always making kind of these sacrifices and these kind of deals. Like, I'm gonna pray for this. And in exchange. This is so embarrassing to admit. I'm going to forsake watching all the shows on Bravo that I'm clearly addicted to watching.

John Dehlin [01:30:17] It's like Real Housewives.

Elisha Lee [01:30:19] Yeah, it was like Real Housewives Blow Deck. I think it's called. Like, I was watching all. I would just fold clothes while I watched Bravo.

John Dehlin [01:30:26] Sorry, Heather. Sorry, Heather.

Elisha Lee [01:30:27] I know. Oh, my God, I love Heather. And I just. Yeah, I would just do all these weird little things. And looking at it now, I can see, like, yeah. Where that definitely falls in. Into the Realm of ocd. And I was just constantly working in my head of different things, different angles that I was taking to try to manifest different things in my life. And I don't know. It's just. So that's kind of where my spirituality was, or that's where my scrupulosity was at that time. And Jamie was supportive, but he just wasn't on board for it. So he wasn't as. As dedicated as I was, I would say. So I took him into the bishop. I did that a couple times throughout our married life. But I take it.

John Dehlin [01:31:15] I'm just trying to imagine that, like, honey, we're going to the bishop. We're gonna fix you. You know what I mean?

Elisha Lee [01:31:21] That's pretty much what it was, John. I'm sorry, Jamie. Yeah, so I. Seems emasculating, but, yeah, I left him in there with the bishop, and I've asked him since then, like, what happened? And he's like, I'm just, like, sitting there with the bishop. He's like, you got anything you want to share? Jamie's like, nope. But he really was struggling with some of these things that he was finding. And so it was a wedge. And he tried to bring it up. Tried to bring it up a couple of times. My response was like, this feels very anti. And if you were to leave the church, I just don't think we would make. I think that what's holding us together is the gospel. And what I didn't see at the time is that the gospel was a thick wedge in our relationship. And when we would finally just remove that, most of the things that we were working through would resolve themselves.

Margi Dehlin [01:32:19] Yeah. So interesting.

Elisha Lee [01:32:20] Most of the conflict. Most of the conflict would resolve itself if we could just pull out that wedge. But there was no way at that time that I could see that. So we get to the end of this temple project, which, looking back, wasn't a very long period of time that we were doing this temple project. I don't think Jamie went to one of the sessions, but I was going as much as I could. I didn't feel totally supported in my calling at that time. I felt like there was a lot of burden on me, but I thought my burden was Jamie.

Margi Dehlin [01:32:59] Right.

Elisha Lee [01:32:59] Because as a young women's president, you have meetings. We had a lot of, like, less active girls that actually wanted to come to church with us. And so we would pick them up and take them with us to church. We would take them to activities. I had amazing counselors that kind of had the same approach as I Did with we want to make the gospel fun. We want to make it a joy. We don't want it to be heavy, serious. Exactly. One story that really stands out in my mind that I think I was faced with my first real dissonance. So it was at the end of being young women's president. I got word that there would be a stake fireside and that it was going to be a surprise topic. But they wanted everyone, all the women to be there and girls 8 years old and up. And I just remember that part because I took Maddie and it was a fireside on modesty. And the woman giving the fireside had a dropdown screen behind her where she projected images of what she considered to be modest and immodest. And the picture that she had up to represent, like, to show us immodest immodesty was a shade shirt. Do you remember the shade shirts?

Margi Dehlin [01:34:30] Yes, I do.

Elisha Lee [01:34:31] They were designed for garments. They were literally designed for garments to

John Dehlin [01:34:36] cover your shoulders, to cover your cleavage. Yes.

Elisha Lee [01:34:39] As a modest shirt. And she explained that the reason that this wasn't modest is because it's just showed the silhouette of the breast.

John Dehlin [01:34:45] So too form fitting.

Elisha Lee [01:34:47] Too form fitting.

John Dehlin [01:34:48] Not baggy enough.

Elisha Lee [01:34:49] Right. Then she showed a picture of a loose fit blouse that looked like something that you would wear to, like, a business meeting. And she said, this isn't modest either. And then she explained that because when your date would be taller than you would be able to look down and see into your breast line.

Margi Dehlin [01:35:15] Goodness, yes.

Elisha Lee [01:35:17] And at that time, you guys, I was still really, really devout, But I was furious. I was furious thinking about the girls from our ward that were here, knowing that they're from less active families and they're dressed the same way I was in high school. And as soon as that lesson was over, they had us all stand to sing. Choose the right. And so we all stood. And I don't even think I sang. I just looked around that room like it was like, what am I doing? This is horrific. And you guys, it would be 10 more years that I would stay in. That was like the first knock at my door. Like, something is wrong here. And I was a young women's president at the time, but I was just like, you have got to be kidding me. We're gonna follow that up with them standing so that everyone in the room can see what they're like. I just. And it was a surprise topic, so no one could have prepared by saying, we're having a fireside on modesty. I should probably. This is how I remember it. I always worry when I'm telling stories that something's gonna be off. But I remember it being a surprise fireside hosted by the stake, and they brought in someone from a neighboring stake. Anyway, I should have woken up at that time, and unfortunately, it just wasn't enough.

John Dehlin [01:36:52] That's your inner voice telling you something's off.

Elisha Lee [01:36:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:36:55] And then because you're conditioned and on plan, packing that down and muting it to stay on plan. But you're learning to ignore your own voice or conscience, allowing it to be overridden by the plan.

Elisha Lee [01:37:10] This is really the complexity that members face, is that they are always challenged with hearing their own voice versus the church's voice. Because you're told that the Holy Ghost will never convey something that is not in alignment with the gospel. But what happens when your inner voice conveys to you something that is not congruent with the gospel teaching? That's right. This is such a tricky dynamic, and you're constantly battling. And I would actually argue, and this could be a topic for a totally separate episode, but I would actually argue that purity culture also blocks us, us from feeling our intuition.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:52] Absolutely.

Elisha Lee [01:37:53] Because you're taught to ignore your impulses. You're taught to ignore even a bad thought is like John was saying, even the thought is where the sin arises. And so you're taught to suppress your thoughts. You're taught to disconnect from your body. But I guess I was kind of waking up to that at 30.

Margi Dehlin [01:38:16] Right.

Elisha Lee [01:38:16] And. And around that time period, the same stake president that was who had done that whole Nauvoo project, he was just so ambitious. And the next thing that I remember, I think it came after, was that we had a fifth Sunday, third hour meeting where we were invited to share our light online. And I'm so curious if this was happening in other stakes. I know Jesse Stay has talked about this before, because Jesse, who makes ex Mormon content now, worked for the church in their social media department or their PR department. And he was in charge of a lot of the campaigns that they had online. And so I did run this by him, and he was just sharing some of what he had experienced from his angle. But from my angle, I was a member of the stake, and my stake president was encouraging us to start sharing our light online. Not necessarily to share the gospel per se, but just to be a presence. This was during the I'm a Mormon campaign. And so there was a lot of emphasis on members of the church, like, there's so much confusion. And he showed us all the statistics, these are. These are the percentages of people who don't think we're Christian. So he gave us a marketing pitch. He said, the pitch is this. The gospel was here on the earth. It was taken away after Jesus died, and now it's back. Like, I'll never forget that that was our marketing. I mean, I mean, he didn't say, this is your marketing pitch, but that was it. And the idea was just let's give people a more favorable view of Mormons. Let's show them that we are diverse. Let's show them that we are caring and compassionate people. And like, let's just show them who you are. You don't even have to push anything. You just be who you are and shine your light online. And I took that seriously and I started a blog and I started the blogging process. And I would probably argue that if this had not happened, I. I would never be making content online today. I would never even think to do it. But I started a blog. It, like, blossomed into a few different things. One of them was the nutrition. I started blogging about this nutrition plan that I was doing, and it was whole food plant based. The word of wisdom. I mean, it is like totally the word of wisdom when you break this down. No alcohol, no coffee, like lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. I mean, this is something that I want to share with the world.

John Dehlin [01:41:07] So I eat only in time of famine.

Elisha Lee [01:41:09] Yeah, yeah. And that is basically the idea of a whole food plant based diet. I went back to school because this community just exploded. I started a group on Facebook and it ended up having like 60,000 in the group doing this whole food plan. I started getting into learning about how to do digital marketing and taking a lot of classes to help with, you know, supporting the platform. Built a membership website for it. I mean, I offered all kinds of free materials. And in my mind, this is like. I mean, this is what they were going for, right? Like, I'm sharing my light online. I mean, I've actually made a career of it. And. And that started in 2011. And I mean, the group still exists today. The other thing that I did on my blog was standard works in a year. It was a scripture schedule that our amazing, sweet loving Relief Society president had offered to the sisters of our ward. Like, let's read the scriptures together. We're gonna read the whole standard works this year. And I did it once and I was like, I just kept going back for more. Every year I would do it. And so eventually I put that on my blog And I would put a scripture reading schedule. I even. And this was not a paid gig. This was just, I figured, a passion project. You know, I had a programmer design a calculator where they could punch in what day they were starting and it would generate a calendar of what they needed to read to do standard works in a year if they were starting in April, you know. So I just was like really, really dedicating myself to this idea. I think probably more ocd, but.

Margi Dehlin [01:43:01] And also I'm seeing this play into your. One of your themes, right. Which is my identity was Mormon. Because now we have. You have your family life, where Mormonism is a key component of that, and now we have your work life where at the root you're trying to also bring in Mormonism, right?

Elisha Lee [01:43:24] Ah, yeah, absolutely. And this is honestly Margi, something that I'm still unpacking because when I've thought about it, I'm like, ex Mormonism has probably been my identity now too. Yeah, yeah. There was a day that I was doing, I can't remember what, what brought it to light, but Jamie had said to me, you know, you should think about doing with your blog. Like, you're just writing and that's great and you have these meal plans and that's great. But have you ever thought about like teaching? Like, you're a pretty good teacher, you should teach this stuff on video. And so I did. And it's so weird now thinking about this. That assignment from our stake president definitely evolved into Faith Unraveled.

Margi Dehlin [01:44:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:44:18] Which is your TikTok channel. Instagram.

Margi Dehlin [01:44:22] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [01:44:23] I mean, I don't think I ever would have had the thought to like record my face talking. Right. Like, no way. Jamie for sure encouraged me to do that. He like really pushed me to do that. He was like, I think you would be awesome on camera. Just try it. And so I started interviewing people on Facebook and then we did a podcast and I would interview like Dr. Greger, Dr. Fuhrman, these big plant based doctors. And honestly, so many positive aspects of that experience. I mean, so many people's lives changed because they, you know, sometimes when you dial in your nutrition, some of your health concerns resolve. I mean, not for everybody, but there were lots of people that did have that experience. So I think there was a lot of positive changes to it. But it is interesting how after my faith deconstruction, it was just very natural to think about making now content. Content. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:45:24] Well, note to church, be careful. Encouraging members to bear testimony via the Internet.

Elisha Lee [01:45:29] The church has created the ex Mormon

Margi Dehlin [01:45:33] community Yeah, and in some ways too. Don't you see this with some Mormon Instagrammers who start up and it's all about the Mormon family, their culture. And then mid, you can tell all of a sudden they're trans and all of a sudden they're wearing different things and they've changed. Now they're, you know. And you can absolutely tell that it is now documenting someone leaving the church.

Elisha Lee [01:46:00] Totally, totally. Think about the formula necessary for someone to be ex Mormon. They have. Or to be an ex Mormon. Content creator, a deconstruction content creator. They have to have at some point really had a testimony of the gospel. They had to have been living it really well. They had to probably be accustomed to doing work without pay.

Margi Dehlin [01:46:21] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [01:46:22] Like as a member, that's a big deal. As a member of the church, you in some cases are accustomed to spending 10 hours a week. I think that's a pretty average number in the church spending 10 hours a week. I mean, when you consider all the things that you do as a member of the church, if you're doing family history especially, I mean some people, it's more like full time work. If they're a bishop, I mean, for sure. And so you think about the practice of journaling. We've been taught to journal since we were young. We have been trained to stand and speak in front of groups of people since we could walk.

Margi Dehlin [01:47:02] That's right.

Elisha Lee [01:47:03] And so you've got. And you've got a group of people who have been taught to proclaim truth.

Margi Dehlin [01:47:08] That's right. And. And also on some level feeling like you're special too. So you have. And that in some way, you know, you have something to offer, you have something to give and you care about people. So you want to share it.

Elisha Lee [01:47:25] Yes. We talk about this in our deconstruction podcast on Faith Unraveled YouTube channel. The idea of being special, where does that go? Oh, it's a really interesting thing to unpack and I think it's something that we don't talk about enough. Especially like with the boys, like they really are taught that they have something very, very special. We're all part of a royal generation that was chosen for this day. But to be a boy and to have the priesthood, it's a lot to unpack. I mean, it's a lot of privilege to unpack as well.

Margi Dehlin [01:48:05] That's right.

Elisha Lee [01:48:05] Like realizing that you have had this paradigm since you were young and I think there's just this kind of equation for success in the church. You're a good speaker, you're a good writer. You're not afraid. You've got the Holy Ghost behind you. You're able to engineer any outcome that you want with faith. Yeah. Look at the brother of Jared Mahan Rai Mori Ankumar. He, the Lord entrusts him to find a solution for the dark submarine. Yeah. The barge. And so he comes up with this on his own. We're gonna make rocks that glow. For me, it was just so inspiring to think what a powerful being I am, that I have this gift of the Holy Ghost. And it's really interesting to look at, like, what that has the potential to generate amongst its members. Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:49:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:49:03] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:49:03] There's.

Elisha Lee [01:49:04] I think there's a lot there.

Navigating a Mixed-Faith Marriage

Margi Dehlin [01:49:05] I was going to ask you about this tension in your marriage and. Or let's just say the mixed faith component if we were to get back to kind of what that felt like. Because I think you mentioned you had that blip at the meeting around modesty. Right. And what's modest and what's not.

Elisha Lee [01:49:25] Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:49:25] And then you said 10 years until really you kind of unpacked. And if you were going to try to talk about what your marriage felt like and how you navigated some of those years, how would you talk about that?

Elisha Lee [01:49:44] Okay. So just for clarity, the modesty fireside, the way that I made sense of that in my mind is that that there are people in the church who are far too legalistic in their approach to the gospel. And that's actually not what Jesus intended. I had kind of a progressive idea of Jesus. I saw him as kind of radical for his time. And to me, the very. Legalistic approach to Mormonism was just not it. I felt like if there's contention in your family because of the rules, then this is not the correct approach that I had for a long time. And I think that that helped with our mixed faith situation.

Margi Dehlin [01:50:39] And it's kind of that emphasis on peace.

Elisha Lee [01:50:41] It's the emphasis on peace, love and

Margi Dehlin [01:50:44] peace that you were describing earlier.

Elisha Lee [01:50:46] Yes. And it wasn't that I wanted my husband to be, like, more strict with our kids or something like that. I just wanted him to. To have more interest in having, like, spiritual conversations and more interest in, like, exploring, like, gospel ideas with me at bedtime and things like that. Those were. That was what I had imagined.

Margi Dehlin [01:51:11] And so how did that need. Right. Come across to Jamie? Like, I guess what I'm trying to say is sometimes in marriage, right. You can feel that expectation or desire of a partner for you to be something else.

Elisha Lee [01:51:27] Yes. He felt like he was a disappointment

John Dehlin [01:51:30] to me, that's not good for marriage, by the way.

Elisha Lee [01:51:33] Oh, is it not?

Margi Dehlin [01:51:35] Wait, that doesn't, that doesn't work.

Elisha Lee [01:51:39] And I feel so badly hearing him say that now, but he has every reason to feel that way because. Because I think I felt that way as well.

Margi Dehlin [01:51:49] And in your mind, I'm sure somewhere, even if it wasn't conscious, it's this. You had a dad and your dad stopped going, and this is your chance. Now you're trying not to do. Trying not to do to your family what was done to you. So I would imagine for you, you're like, oh, no, no, no. Oh no. Like, we can't have this.

John Dehlin [01:52:12] Also not to end up divorced, right?

Elisha Lee [01:52:14] Absolutely. Some of the most painful conversations that we had were like, in the spirit of, I married you because I thought you would be a faithful priesthood holder. And that to Jamie was like the worst thing you could hear as a husband because he's like, I married you because of this and that, and, and all you saw in me was that I was a potentially good priesthood holder father. And I like to argue back on that and say, well, no, but the reality is a lot of the great qualities that Jamie has I didn't see until after deconstruction.

John Dehlin [01:53:01] Yeah, yeah.

Elisha Lee [01:53:02] How sad.

Margi Dehlin [01:53:04] And absolutely understandable when we look at, at the young women's program.

John Dehlin [01:53:10] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [01:53:11] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:53:12] Righteous priesthood holder is the goal.

Elisha Lee [01:53:14] Absolutely. Oh, yeah. There was always an assignment. There was when I was a kid, and then I had it in my manual where we have the girls make a list of the qualities that they want in their future husband. And this is arguably the pressure that the boys have on them to serve a mission is that you feel pretty unmarriable if you, you don't. And I know that was part of Jamie's big push to get on a mission knowing that I'm not going to be marriable if I don't do this. And it's actually true. There are a lot of girls that would not marry someone that wasn't a retir missionary.

John Dehlin [01:53:50] So, you know, and when I said this is bad for the marriage, part of where it sometimes goes bad is if Jamie especially is no longer believing as he did, if he's losing or lost his father faith, and yet you've let him know that he feels like a disappointment to you, then he feels like he has to hide a lot of what he's thinking and experiencing from you and won't want to be vulnerable or candid with you. And that's when a marriage can start. To really. Two people can really grow apart because one feels they're in the doghouse all the time. They're a disappointment. And now they don't believe in anymore, traditionally, so they have to hide and keep secrets. And it's just. And then you're having kids and it's building your career and all the kids, it's just. It's a recipe for some sort of. The exact outcome you didn't want.

Elisha Lee [01:54:43] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:54:44] A breaking point.

Elisha Lee [01:54:45] And that is so true. And I also don't wanna take the emphasis off the dynamic with my mom as well, which was similar. And here she had found things and she would try to mention them. And my feelings were. Was she's just not obedient enough. Like, I know this polygamy stuff is hard to swallow. I get it. Joseph Smith wasn't perfect. But, like, if you just, you know, back to that EFY experience, like, that was the feeling that fire. My testimony. It's like, if you felt that, you can't ever deny it. So all these other things that don't make sense, you just have to somehow reconcile them. Because we know the gospel is true. We're starting from a place that the gospel is true. Everything else has to conform. And so if a puzzle piece doesn't fit, you gotta bend that thing. You've gotta do whatever you have to do. And so, like, there were times that my mom would, like, she wanted to order a decaf at breakfast one time. Yeah, yeah, coffee. And she said to me, would you mind if I ordered a coffee? I'll get a decaf. And it was front of the kitchen. And I was like, I'd rather you not.

Margi Dehlin [01:55:59] Because I was the appearance of evil.

Elisha Lee [01:56:01] Because of the appearance of evil.

Margi Dehlin [01:56:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:56:04] She's like, it might help with my digestion.

Elisha Lee [01:56:07] Right, Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:56:09] But for you, and this is Mormonism, it's like in something that is as simple and every day as, like, can I get this decaf coffee? You're like, like, my family's at stake.

John Dehlin [01:56:23] Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:56:24] And that is it.

Elisha Lee [01:56:27] That is so true. It almost brings up this, like, primal fear. Oh, my gosh, that is so true. Because the church, again, the church, has attached itself to your greatest fears. Not just your greatest inadequacies, but your greatest fears.

John Dehlin [01:56:45] Yeah. To your brain. I want to order a decaf coffee as, like, a threat to your survival. There's a lion in the bush that's about to eat me and my family.

Elisha Lee [01:56:54] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:56:55] Like your amygdala.

Elisha Lee [01:56:56] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:56:56] Your amygdala registers it in the same way, I think or similarly.

Elisha Lee [01:57:00] Yes, thank you for validating my irrational behavior as a Mormon. It's so disappointing. But you know, I'm just here to speak the truth, so it's really embarrassing. Embarrassing isn't the right word. I feel so badly. I feel so badly that I couldn't see things clearly. And I have to say, I have some members of my family that are still very active and they behave much better. I'm not trying to say that every member is this way. I do think that there was some scrupulosity there for me, but I would argue that it was programmed in there. Don't you think?

John Dehlin [01:57:39] Of course.

Margi Dehlin [01:57:39] Part of conditioning.

Elisha Lee [01:57:40] Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:57:42] This is the point. You know, one of the major themes, and possibly the title of this whole episode is How Losing my Mormon Faith Saved My Family. This is the point where families can go kind of one or two ways where either the non believing spouse becomes the pariah, starts to hide things and trust gets breached and the marriage blows up, or. Or another option is the faithful spouse can start to open their mind to develop empathy or understanding for what the non believing spouse is going through. We're right at the point of the story where it can go one of two ways. How did it start?

Elisha Lee [01:58:25] So I'm doing my blog. I've got my scripture reading schedule.

John Dehlin [01:58:29] It's around 2011.

Elisha Lee [01:58:31] No, this is all the way in 2019.

John Dehlin [01:58:34] 19.

Elisha Lee [01:58:35] So we're talking 10 years.

John Dehlin [01:58:37] So five years ago.

Elisha Lee [01:58:38] So. Yeah, almost five years ago. Yeah. Here's a funny note. 11 years from the time we were married, Jamie had his faith crisis. Didn't tell anyone about it. Eleven years after that, I had mine.

John Dehlin [01:58:49] Okay.

Elisha Lee [01:58:50] It's just so interesting.

Margi Dehlin [01:58:51] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [01:58:52] That number 11, it just pops up everywhere, I'll tell you. But for me at least Jamie. Okay. Yeah. So we're floating along, doing our thing. We've definitely got some issues that we haven't really talked about. There's that kind of intensity, that pressure, that feeling of disappointment on his part. My feeling of, gosh, I just, I wish even our intimacy would be better if we were just all on the same page. That's kind of how I viewed things. Like, let's just get enthusiastic about the gospel. That's where we were at the time.

John Dehlin [01:59:24] You mean sex would be better if he was more faithful?

Elisha Lee [01:59:27] Totally. We had a whole weekend getaway where this is all we talked about. I mean, it was completely. It was affecting our sex life.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:34] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [01:59:35] Like our sex life has been better than ever since we left the church.

John Dehlin [01:59:38] Because you're on the same page.

Elisha Lee [01:59:40] We're just more connected. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:42] It's the emotional connection, right?

Elisha Lee [01:59:45] Yeah, absolutely. Exactly. And feeling like a disappointment, like you said, it's not real good for marriage. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:54] So

Elisha Lee [01:59:56] I have a client had come to me, this is through my food community. And I looked at her Facebook page, and I saw that she had this TED Talk that she had given, and I listened to it, and it was about shadow work. It was the first exposure that I had to shadow. And it was. So I messaged her and I was like, I'm really interested in this. And she's like, okay. Well, she said. Explained that she's the president of the Ford Institute, which was established by the late and great Debbie Ford, who taught about shadow work, Carl Jung's work, with just a very spiritual undertone. And she used a lot of words like your divinity. You're kind of like talking about your divine nature. But she talked about it in terms of all these different parts of you are important, and your culture and your family and the experiences that you've had in your life have compelled you to bury aspects of yourself that are actually quite necessary to who you are as a whole. Human and. And man. Did that resonate with me?

Margi Dehlin [02:01:16] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [02:01:16] I started making all these connections with scripture. I even gave my last sacrament meeting talk, which must have been like that summer of 2019. I talked about. The bishop. Let me pick my topic. And I gave this talk on the scripture. Be therefore perfect. That we were made in God's image. And. And anything about us was given to us by God. And we were taught shame by the adversary. Like we were born perfect.

John Dehlin [02:01:51] And even in the temple ceremony, Satan introduces shame.

Elisha Lee [02:01:54] And what was it for?

John Dehlin [02:01:55] Tells us, you are naked. Right.

Elisha Lee [02:01:57] It was for your body.

John Dehlin [02:01:58] He says, run and hide.

Elisha Lee [02:02:01] Exactly. And so I'm giving this whole talk about the nature of shame.

John Dehlin [02:02:06] I'd never thought about that before, the nature of shame.

Elisha Lee [02:02:09] And I tied it in with shadow work and accepting all the divine parts of us. And it was my argument that when things became convoluted, when someone had really bad behavior like that was harmful to others, it was a result of burying a sacred part of yourself. And then it becomes convoluted. The shadow part can kind of destroy us when they fester there. And Debbie Ford explains it like, if you were sitting on beach balls in the water and your intention for your life was to keep that beach ball under the surface so that nobody saw it. And if you had been jostled, it might come flying out of the water. And that's where we see people get triggered, like, when they are disproportionately upset over someone cutting them off in traffic. Like, it's her argument that these are like, life is really difficult when you're trying so hard to hide aspects of who you are. And I'm just thinking about. I don't know. To me, it just fit really well with my spiritual beliefs. And I felt like there was enough scripture to back it up. So I gave this talk and I continued to really research and study. And what I didn't mention is that this sweet friend that started as a client and became a really close friend sent me a box of books from Debbie. And I read through all of them. There were so many, like, just cool concepts. And I just felt it really resonated with me because it had so much of that divine nature. And I just. It just made sense to me. And one day, I think as a result of this, I kind of a question popped up in my mind which was like, there's a conflict between the teaching of sin and, like, this stuff. Like, it doesn't fit. Like, how would the most loving conscious being in the universe not want his children home if they were, like, drinking a cup of coffee? Like, didn't you make us. Like, there's all these requirements that don't match my description of a conscious, loving father. These are descriptions of, like, an intolerant, like, narcissist dad, not a loving, accepting father. And at this time period, I had just gotten asked if I would teach seminary the following year. It wasn't a formal calling. It was kind of letting, like, what would you think about teaching seminary? And I was like, I would love to. I mean, I was so enthusiastic about this idea.

John Dehlin [02:04:56] And for a high school dropout, you feel like I've really. They're going to let me teach the high schoolers. No. And seriously, in the church, the youth, the teenagers, I think are the most treasured assets from the standpoint of the leaders. So any letting you be a young women's president or, heaven forbid, you know, teach seminary.

Elisha Lee [02:05:20] Yeah, that.

John Dehlin [02:05:21] That's a real validation that you've kind of arrived.

Margi Dehlin [02:05:25] Yeah. And let's just be real. You have been doing your blog, reading the scriptures round the year clock. So you're like, you know, I am actually rather.

Elisha Lee [02:05:37] Yeah. You know, Well, I still felt unversed. I still. I don't know if that's a word, but I didn't feel well versed. And so I was like, I have got to prepare myself for this. But you're right, I really was looking Back every time I would read the standard works, which went for like, probably 10 years, I did that. And I would see things that I like. The first time I noticed the story of Lot and his daughters getting him drunk and impregnating themselves with his seed. Like, I didn't see these things before. Like, you really don't see them until you, like, read it from start to finish. So I had a lot of questions, but I just. Again, if you start from the perspective that the gospel is true, it's all gotta fit, right? So I had all kinds of, like, just very interesting perspectives to make it all fit. It was like the. I've heard people say, like, like the gold medal of mental gymnastics. Yeah, like you're just doing everything you can to make this work. But this was the first time that something did not fit. This construct of sin was really concerning to me. And we were in California and we had experienced Prop 8. And I have stories that I have not gotten permission to share, but there's a lot on that that was really bothersome.

Prop 8 and the Beginning of Doubt

John Dehlin [02:07:00] Meaning y' all were encouraged to fight same sex marriage as Mormons who are from California.

Elisha Lee [02:07:06] We were instructed to pay money toward the campaigns. We were instructed to call people. We were instructed to knock on doors. And I have a lesbian aunt and her partner who's been together as long as Jamie and I have. And like real people in our real life that are not straight. And that was major conflict and I just did not know what to do with it. Same with race and the priesthood. The 1978 lift on the priesthood ban and double ban.

John Dehlin [02:07:46] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [02:07:47] How did I overlook? I just. You're trying so hard. It's not something that you're rational about. You're just trying to. Anyway, so.

John Dehlin [02:08:03] So you're preparing to teach seminary.

Elisha Lee [02:08:05] So I'm preparing to teach seminary. And I said this prayer and just asked, like, I'm really trying to cleanse the inner vessel. I'm really trying to prepare myself spiritually for this assignment. Or it was calling to teach seminary because it's not a CES paid job in California. It's a calling. It's before school. And so I prayed about this conflict that I was feeling and just asked heavenly Father, can you please help me make sense of this? Because it doesn't make sense to me how this works. And. And I felt this immediate, like, reply, do you really want to know? And that was when my whole. I think something just woke up. Like, do I really, like, would you want to know if the church wasn't true? And I had to actually sit on that for a second. And I made an agreement. Like, yes, I would want to know. I don't think I thought about it again. I really don't. I think it kind of left my mind at that time. Because in my mind, how would something like that show up? Like, if the church wasn't true, like, how would something like someone would just like, knock at my door and say, like, hey, I've got. Like, I have no idea how that would show up. But literally five days later, the CES letter landed in my lap. I mean, it was days later.

Margi Dehlin [02:09:57] Wow.

Elisha Lee [02:09:59] And I think that that was the first moment that that hypnosis exercise from young women's in seventh grade where we

John Dehlin [02:10:13] were

Elisha Lee [02:10:16] indoctrinated to believe that we were chosen spirit daughters, that we're having this mortal journey. And the whole plan is. I don't think it cracked until that moment when I was 40.

Discovering the CES Letter

John Dehlin [02:10:28] Do you mind explaining to Never Mormons what the CS letter is and then how it presented itself to you? Like, what would you say now it was and what you learned from it? Just in summary.

Elisha Lee [02:10:43] Okay.

John Dehlin [02:10:44] And had you heard of it before it arrived?

Elisha Lee [02:10:46] No, I had never heard of it. But keep in mind, this was 2019. Sure.

John Dehlin [02:10:53] It's five years after Jeremy released it.

Elisha Lee [02:10:56] Okay. Okay. And I don't think anybody was making ex Mormon TikToks. I don't think there was short form ex Mormon content. There was long form ex Mormon content from a few of you.

John Dehlin [02:11:08] No, TikTok was pretty new.

Margi Dehlin [02:11:10] It was.

Elisha Lee [02:11:10] Right?

John Dehlin [02:11:10] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [02:11:11] Right. I think at the time it was actually called Musical Ly. I don't even think it was TikTok. Anyway, so I had no idea what I was reading. I was actually sitting on my couch with like, I had like my scriptures and my schedule and my journal, and I'm on my phone and somehow I was on like a living LDS Living article and it linked up to the Light the World hashtag on Instagram. And so I'm looking. Which is a campaign by the church to promote the gospel. To promote the church. So I'm looking through all these pictures and one picture catches my eye. It is a picture of the globe, the earth from space, with a. It's set up like a pie graph with this. I think it's 25% of 1%. And it was with this arrow that said number of God's children that will receive the ordinances necessary to have eternal life. Like, it just took your perspective. Like in the church, you're kind of have a myopic view of the world. So you kind of don't realize really how small we are as members of the church. You kind of think like, this is the Lord's, and look at all these missionaries. We're teaching it everywhere, and everybody's receiving the gospel, and pretty soon every single person who's ever lived will have, you know. And this was just like, kind of put it into perspective real quick. And I saw that, and I was like, that's so weird. So I clicked on it, and it didn't hit me that it was like, anti. It didn't hit me. I just thought, that's interesting. So I clicked on it. And whoever that was, please comment. So I know who you are, whoever you are, please make a comment. So I would love to know who that was that posted that picture of the globe with a pie graph. And she had a link, and it basically said, like, read what changed my life forever, or something like that. And so I clicked on the link and it took me to the CES letter. And I had no idea what I was reading, but I knew what CES was, was. And I started reading, and it did not take long. I think it was in the very first section. I didn't even read the whole thing. I just. I read the first section, and when I saw that, the thing that really got me, no artifacts from the Battle of the Hill, Cumorah. Like, there's older civilizations and there are artifacts. Like some. Something. Something would have been found. Something.

John Dehlin [02:13:52] And just. Just for our. Never Mormons, just because there's going to be new audience members all the time. This guy named Jeremy runnels, back in 2013, 2014, went through the same rabbit hole doubting and questioning Mormonism that Alicia's about to tell us. But he didn't have a CES letter at the time. He had Mormon stories that he was listening to. But eventually he gathered up all his questions about the church, about Joseph Smith's polygamy, about the Book of Mormon and its problems with historicity and conflicting with science, about, you know, other controversial aspects in the church, the priesthood, restoration and exclusive authority and all those things. And he sent it off to a church educator, so C. E. S church education system. He sent a letter to a CES director and said, hey, I've got a bunch of questions. I need the answers. Can you help me? So cesletter.org is where you get both the letter he wrote the CES Church employee, and he never got an answer back because the questions were so significant and unanswerable and problematic that the Church employee just said, I better not answer him at all. So eventually Jeremy Runnels left, lost his faith. There's a whole Mormon Stories episode where he tells this whole story. I highly recommend it. But then he put it all into a PDF, 80ish pages, published it@cslutter.org and now you can read 80% of the biggest problems with Mormon church history, its truth claims, in like a matter of a few hours. And there are literally people who, who have lost their faith in like 5 to 6 hours just by clicking on that link, starting to read and done.

Elisha Lee [02:15:41] So that was a perfect summary. That was a perfect summary. Yeah. I would have just said, like, it's just a laundry list of issues. And what the church has done in response to that was actually what confirmed it for me. So now there are links to what are called Gospel topics essays, which are the official, the official statement on the subject.

John Dehlin [02:16:06] So Mountain Meadows Massacre, Joseph Smith's polygamy, Book of Abraham, Problems in the Book of Abraham, Exaltation. Yeah. Women, Mother in heaven and what really grace in the priesthood.

Elisha Lee [02:16:19] Yes. And what really got to me was learning that some of the historians that originally brought this information to light, we're excommunicated. Right. And now the church is admitting to it. And so it just felt. So I just. There were so many layers of problems and it was all the pillars. Like this is what Jamie always says. It wasn't until he really deep dived and I'll talk about what happened when he came home that day that he realized like, it's all, all of the pillars of my belief. It's like all of them.

John Dehlin [02:16:59] So real quick, let's just do like a couple bullet points. So Book of Mormon, a couple things that stand out were you had been taught what and then you found out what.

Elisha Lee [02:17:08] So here for me, what was the most compelling was to hear people who weren't members of the church and what they really thought about the Book of Mormon. I always thought that, like, I thought it was like, I thought there was something there to it that everybody knew there was something to it.

John Dehlin [02:17:25] Everyone knew it was awesome.

Elisha Lee [02:17:26] Everyone knew. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:17:27] And it was just deceived or afraid to admit it.

Elisha Lee [02:17:30] Yes. So it was Smithsonian. That was really big for me to hear. Like I don't remember exactly what it was.

John Dehlin [02:17:37] Archaeologists, like non Mormon archaeologists think of the Book of Mormon. It's alleged geography and it's fictional. Archaeological and archaeological are right.

Elisha Lee [02:17:47] It's silly. Yeah. It's just made up. Yeah. It's very obvious how made up it is.

John Dehlin [02:17:52] It doesn't represent real history of Native Americans.

Elisha Lee [02:17:54] Right. The deutero, Isaiah deep dive and like the degree of anachronism or like it's almost like if, like President Lincoln had like a cell phone. Right.

John Dehlin [02:18:11] In a photo. Yeah.

Elisha Lee [02:18:12] Right. Like if you saw a picture of Abraham Lincoln holding a cell phone, you would know for sure that that was doctored. And that's how scholars, like biblical scholars,

John Dehlin [02:18:28] like Native Americans, before Jesus is born, believing in Jesus, baptizing in the name of Jesus, Scriptural passages from the New and Old Testament appearing in the New World before Jesus was even born, 19th century evangelical sermons somehow appearing in pre, you know, pre Jesus being born, you know, Central America.

Elisha Lee [02:18:54] Right.

John Dehlin [02:18:55] How could that be?

Elisha Lee [02:18:56] I didn't even get to the portion about there being multiple first vision accounts.

John Dehlin [02:19:03] Joseph Smith's first vision.

Elisha Lee [02:19:04] And there was a prophet that I wanna say it was Joseph Fielding Smith who vaulted some of the conflicting accounts of the first vision. Is that right?

John Dehlin [02:19:18] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [02:19:18] And so anyway, this is all. I'm a little foggy on a lot of these details because frankly, I haven't, like, it's been a while since I've gone over it, but when I read these things and then I saw that the church was actually admitting. Yeah, pretty much all of it. Pretty much all of it.

Confronting Polygamy and Leaving the Church

John Dehlin [02:19:41] What about polygamy?

Elisha Lee [02:19:42] Well, that was the second thing that I dove into. So the first one, Maybe I spent 20 to 30 minutes and I just kind of felt like my head exploded. And then I just thought to myself, I gotta go right to DNC132. I have read DNC132, I mean, at least 10 times over the last 10 years because I've been reading it all the way through. I don't know how I missed that. The word Destroy is used 12 times in DNC 132 by Jesus, referring to

John Dehlin [02:20:16] Joseph's wife Emma, who didn't like his polygamy.

Elisha Lee [02:20:19] Right. And it wasn't just plural wives, it was concubines.

John Dehlin [02:20:23] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [02:20:24] Like he was inquiring of the Lord about Solomon and David's concubines and plural wives. And he is assigning this meaning to Old Testament polygamy as if it is something that God has instituted. I don't think that there are biblical scholars outside of Mormonism that believe that was the case. I think. Don't most just view it as like a foible of these Old Testament prophets? Cultural. Look how problematic it was. This idea that it was going to be necessary for exaltation was Joseph Smith's idea. And it's canonized. There's no getting around that.

John Dehlin [02:21:09] And Jesus is telling Emma, let Joseph have sex with whoever he wants or you will be destroyed.

Elisha Lee [02:21:15] That is literally. That is what it says.

John Dehlin [02:21:17] Read DNC132 if you don't believe me.

Elisha Lee [02:21:21] It's in the canonized scripture. There is no way around that. And so I went from feeling like there were a lot.

John Dehlin [02:21:30] It's crazy. You could read that 10 times and you're your life and never actually pay attention to what it's saying.

Elisha Lee [02:21:35] It's unreal. Also, the plagiarism between the Book of Mormon and the Bible, there's so much there. And I think I just thought, wow, look how inspired that is. Like, it's exact same thing. Like, it should have been like, hello, that's, you know, the likelihood. Anyway, so that's when it all fell apart for me. And I went from not just a fabrication, not just that these things were fabricated, but actually that Joseph Smith was, like, a pretty bad guy. It was just like, I couldn't believe it. So I called my mom. That was the first thing that I did was I called my mom, and she just listened and was like, okay. Like, I'm like, come on, what? Like, I don't think the church is true. And she just, like, very compassionately explained that, you know, she had found a lot of these things a long time ago, and she's here for me when I'm. When I want to talk about it. And, oh, I was probably calling her every day for months and months just to. To hash it all out. And what's really fun about this, I'll share this before I share. Jamie. Coming home from work, I did a search for CES Letter, and your Mormon Stories podcast with Jeremy was one of the first things that came up on my Google search. And so I started listening to that, and I thought that was. I mean, finding Mormon Stories podcast, when you are, like, in the depths of despair that, like, your whole life, as you know, it just exploded in front of you, it is like a drink of water on, like, your thirstiest day. That feels very cliche to say it that way. It was something that I desperately needed in a really desperate moment. The next episode that I found was Donna show alter. And that was when the impacts became apparent to me. And when I listened to her speak about what she described as the carnage that was the result of the 2015 policy that did not allow for children of LGBTQ people to be baptized or serve missions, there was apparently, like, an uptick in unaliving during that time. And as a result of this messaging that the church is giving to its LGBTQ members. And as I listened to her talk about that, that's when I really started to consider all the people that have been negatively impacted. I just happened to be white, cisgender, straight person, still a woman, though. That's true. I wouldn't unpack that for a few years, literally, after my deconstruction. It would take years to unpack that. There was a woman that was making TikTok content kind of at the beginnings of all of that, and she didn't stay on very long. She was a Caribbean woman from black African descent, and she talked about what it was like growing up as a member of the church, as a black woman, a child, believing that she would be more fair the more obedient that she was.

John Dehlin [02:25:19] And she believed her skin would turn whiter.

Elisha Lee [02:25:21] That her skin would turn whiter.

John Dehlin [02:25:23] Yeah. The more righteous she was.

Elisha Lee [02:25:26] And she gave the most heart wrenching presentation video about coming out of her baptism and thinking that she was going to be white.

Margi Dehlin [02:25:43] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [02:25:43] And I was like, I don't know how I didn't know about that. I mean, hearing members talk about how their parents had to sit outside of priesthood meeting because it wasn't just. It wasn't just the priesthood even. It was that they couldn't be sealed, they couldn't go through the temple. Like, this is horrific. And I've never stopped to consider that. For me, it was just like, not only are these fabrications, not only were some of these early founding prophets with an S, not just Joseph Smith, because I feel like it even arguably gets worse after Joseph Smith, but it's harming people, like actively harming people by these teachings. And the Church is doing everything it can to rewrite these narratives, but it's in the Book of Mormon. Oh, to find that the first edition Book of Mormon had been changed. How about that? How about the fact that there was a trinitarian presentation of the Godhead? Like, they didn't really. I mean, they kind of. They kind of curated the belief system over time. And so things that we believe now that are considered just like mainstream Mormon beliefs were curated over time, and they

John Dehlin [02:27:19] changed over time as Joseph's beliefs changed.

Elisha Lee [02:27:23] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:27:24] And that's why you mentioned the LDS discussion series on Mormon stories that goes into all this. But the Doctrine and Covenants we have now, they took out a bunch of revelations and they added a bunch, and they changed a bunch. Doctrine and Covenants has changed significantly as well.

Elisha Lee [02:27:40] Yeah, that's A great. Yeah, that's a great point. Most people don't know that. I don't think most members know that. And that is the drive behind correlated materials. When I was teaching Relief Society, that was really pushed on us. Please, please stick to the correlated materials. Don't share your own stuff. Don't go searching for stuff on the Internet. Just share corporate correlated materials. And this is also the reason that I think there's such an uprising from Gen Xers, because we were taught our correlated materials from our childhood were very specific about the way that the Book of Mormon came about. And what history has shown us is that that was not the original narrative in the 80s. I wasn't taught about a seer Stone. We're to you.

John Dehlin [02:28:32] No, no.

Elisha Lee [02:28:34] Yeah. And so. And I know there were people at that time that knew about it. I mean, if they were really scholars of the gospel and they really knew church history, maybe. But it wasn't correlated. It wasn't what they were spoon feeding us. And as a member of the church, you take what they give you.

Margi Dehlin [02:28:51] That's right.

Elisha Lee [02:28:52] Because it's God running the show. So he knows best. And so anyway, Jamie came home from work. So back to the day I deconstructed. Jamie comes home, home from work. And I just was like, you are not going to believe what I'm about to tell you. And I just said, I've found all this stuff. I've just done this deep dive today. I don't think the church is true. And he just, I started crying and he just held me and he chuckled and I was like, what is that? And he's like, you know, I think I know what you're talking about. I think I know the stuff that you're talking about. Now. He had not fully. I mean, he was only exposed to like Masons in the temple, polygamy, some of the young wives. Those were the things that really bothered him, that jaded him, that made him no longer really devout. But he didn't have all this information on priesthood restoration and the narrative that was sort of retroactively applied.

John Dehlin [02:30:07] Book of Abraham, Book of Mormon history.

Elisha Lee [02:30:09] Oh, it just goes on and on and on. And so initially he thought that we would continue to take the kids and just kind of be like it would just be a component, like the salt on the meal instead of the meal itself, like you were saying. I think that's a great analogy. Like it's just gonna be a component. Look how awesome Mormonism is. Look at all the awesome members of our ward. Look at all of Our awesome friends. See how successful they are. I mean, he's not saying this, but just really think about it. Like, come on. It generates all this, you know, good families, good families. Look at all the practices that are attached to Mormonism. You know how much a youth camp is. If you don't do it at BYU, you. It's like $3,500 to do a speech and debate camp at UCSD. I found out this year. I'm like, are you freaking kidding me? The church has all these perks for its members. You got an ancestry membership. You've got these inexpensive camps. Your kids, from a very early age are taught to stand up in front of a group of people and give a talk. They're taught to not fear. You can take on the world. You're special. You're more. It's like, It's a lot to walk away from. Until you really start to understand the harm, it's difficult to walk away from all of that. I feel bad mentioning all of that, but it is the reality from someone who is newly deconstructed, to look at everything that you're walking away from, it feels like a jump with no bottom in sight. But it does. It feels really, really scary to walk away from that.

Margi Dehlin [02:31:50] Yeah. I also think, you know, it takes time to develop that paradox. Right. So I think, do you feel this way, that initially, when you read through something like the CES letter, it punctures a hole? You definitely fill out your perspective, your reality, in a way. But I think it takes a while to have that list of all the good things that the Church offers. I'm not saying that they don't, but I'm saying the opposite of everything you say you just listed is also true.

Elisha Lee [02:32:31] Absolutely right.

Margi Dehlin [02:32:31] And it just takes a minute. So it feels like you're walking away from all. All these good things, even if you're connecting with harm. Right. And the harm is enough to. To be an engine.

John Dehlin [02:32:42] Right.

Elisha Lee [02:32:42] To have you leave.

Margi Dehlin [02:32:43] But do you find that it took more time to kind of fill out the fact of, like, okay, the camps. That's a perk, but tithing also. So we likely paid for that and then some. Or, like, it just takes a minute for you to actually see all these good things. You're like, oh, and the opposite of that is also true.

Elisha Lee [02:33:04] Yeah, it's good.

Margi Dehlin [02:33:05] It's awful. We don't pay, but actually, we actually do pay. We get all these things for free. And why am I out working hours and hours a week as Relief Society president? You know what I Mean, it just takes a second for. It's almost like for everything to come into full focus.

Elisha Lee [02:33:22] Yes. And that's why it's. That is why you kind of become more nuanced as you walk away from it. Because. Because you're able to. First you have all this stuff you wanna hold onto, then you kind of shift into, well, I hate it all. It's all just bad, bad. Like, I can't believe. Look how much it's harmed people. It's true. It is true how much it's harmed people. But I feel like the more I unravel it, the more I'm able to hold those polarities, that two things can really be true at one. And I think that's one of the gifts of the faith crisis, is learning that two things can be true at once. Multiple things can be true at once. Right.

Margi Dehlin [02:34:12] And sometimes the good of the church that we tap into correlates heavily with privilege. The good we experience. Right, so you mean. So do you find that too?

Elisha Lee [02:34:26] Absolutely. I think that this was really the start to me. I mean, I feel like I. I had a liberal education. I went to a Cal State school for my bachelor's. I feel like I had a lot of progressive ideas that probably, like, didn't fit with everything, like the. You think of, like, Mormon orthodox, so you don't think of, like, a progressive mindset. But there were a number of leaders that I had during my adult life, Relief Society presidents, that had a more progressive approach. And I really tried to embody that. And so the idea of privilege was something that I had visited before, but I didn't really unpack it until after my deconstruction. And I really realized that there's this kind of ideal archetype in the church. And that if you're that person, extroverted, you know, you keep the rules. You like the rules. I mean, cisgender, straight, white. I mean, I hate to say that, but it's like coming to terms with that, like, you had a good experience. Cause this church was built for you.

Margi Dehlin [02:35:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:35:46] Or married or from a parents who were married. Right?

Elisha Lee [02:35:50] Yes. Oh, that's a good point. So even in childhood, just that little thing that I had, that was off. And there's so many healthy families that have divorced. Like, there's so many blended families or

John Dehlin [02:36:04] marriages still intact that are super toxic for everyone involved. Right?

Elisha Lee [02:36:07] Yeah, exactly. So I had experienced that. And so that was my chase. Right. It was my chase for belonging, my chase for acceptance, my chase for being that correct archetype.

Margi Dehlin [02:36:23] That's Right.

Elisha Lee [02:36:24] Yeah. And so you just. My heart goes out to people that are not within. They're not able to fit into that box, and they're just doing everything they can to bend themselves to fit in that box. So many gay members of the church that are just like, I know the church is true. I just can't live it right now. Or I. You know, I just want so badly for those to deconstruct or to at least visit these materials, I think, and. Or if you have a child that's lgbtq, just to go, this has the potential to cause. To cause a disruption in our family. Let me just make sure that I know what I believe. Let me see what it is and investigate that.

John Dehlin [02:37:10] Yeah. So where. What happened after you told Jamie? What'd y' all decide to do?

Faith Deconstruction and Finding Community

Elisha Lee [02:37:17] We were.

John Dehlin [02:37:17] How do you react?

Margi Dehlin [02:37:18] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [02:37:19] So he was very loving in his reaction initially. He told me that he didn't really desire to dig any deeper and that he liked enough of the cultural aspect aspects of it. Of course, there's so much privilege at that time that he had an impact. Right. So a lot of what we've been talking about here, like, you don't realize you can't see it until you see it.

Margi Dehlin [02:37:43] Right.

Elisha Lee [02:37:43] And so he wanted to continue to take the kids to church. And I. I mean, I'm just sitting here, like, just comparing my perspective from last week to where I am today. I'm like, how can I argue with that? Like, we. This is what we signed up for, you know? So I thought, I'll go with you to sacrament meeting. Church had just been bumped down to two hours, so I was like, okay. I don't know. I just figured this is just gonna be a struggle. But he did, like, he obviously knew a lot of this stuff before I did, and look how patient he was with me. So I am just gonna give him whatever space he needs. That's fine if you want to keep taking the kids to check church. I hadn't unpacked. What a division the church is for a family with a part member family. I had not begun to unpack that, so I just figured we'd continue. And there's a lot more in between. But basically, Covid hit.

John Dehlin [02:38:44] Okay.

Elisha Lee [02:38:46] Right. So 2019, November 5, 2019, is the date that I deconstruct, and Covid hits mid March of the following year.

John Dehlin [02:38:57] I don't know if this is tied, but I associate the emergence of TikTok and Covid is kind of happening around the same time.

Elisha Lee [02:39:04] Totally. Yeah, absolutely. Everybody was on their Phones. Right. And you've got this great new app where everybody's dancing. And then one day, One of the TikTok accounts pops up.

John Dehlin [02:39:16] Ex Mormon TikTok.

Elisha Lee [02:39:17] Ex Mormon TikTok. I think it was, like, Madison or Aunt Lydia or someone. And I was just like, whoa. Like, she's talking about the temple. And I was just like, you have got to be kidding me. Like, I. And I just. I just got sucked in for hours just listening to them talk about their temple experience. Experiences. So I've got Mormon Stories podcast on during the day, and I've got ex Mormon TikTok at night. I mean, there really were just a handful of people. Mitch, who does the voices.

John Dehlin [02:39:57] Yeah, he's been on Mormon Stories.

Elisha Lee [02:39:58] Yeah. Mitch.

John Dehlin [02:39:59] He would imitate past Mormon prophets.

Elisha Lee [02:40:01] He's so good. Yeah. He does the cutest imitations and. Yeah. So I just. I got to the point that I was like. I had made a post on Facebook, and I had been asked by some of my local leaders not to post anymore on Facebook. And I think it was coming from your deconstruction.

John Dehlin [02:40:25] Right.

Elisha Lee [02:40:25] It wasn't really even a post. It was actually just a comment on someone else's post. But I had linked the CES letter, and someone had reported me, and. And so we had a visit, and it was really. I think it was from a loving place. Like, I feel like this leader was very compassionately looking into our faith crisis and what had compelled us to step away from the church and wanted to know, as a bishop, like, what there was to this. Cause it was kind of the first of this that he had experienced. And I think that the phone call in from, like, someone in our stake, maybe it was multiple people. I don't know that I was sharing anti Mormon content on the Internet. I feel like it was almost coming from a place of protectiveness. Like, you're about to get.

Margi Dehlin [02:41:20] Like, you're playing with fire.

Elisha Lee [02:41:22] Yeah. Yeah. And so I just thought, well, nobody's on TikTok. I mean, I'm gonna make some videos there. Like, I think it'll be cathartic to just talk about it. Yeah. Maybe, like, connect with, like, a few hundred people, maybe. Right. You know, I had no idea. I had no idea how many people would be deconstructing during COVID Yeah. And so before I knew, it was just thousands and then tens of thousands. And now I'm just like. I feel like I could almost, like, I feel like my work there could be done. There's so many amazing creators now. You've got the girls camp Podcast and Alyssa. Yes, yes. I mean, so many. Just amazing creators. A lot from that Gen Z or like the younger millennials and. And it's just such a cool place and I don't know, I love it. I feel like there's something for everyone in the deconstruction space. You've got your humor, you've got people making videos that are making fun of things that harmed them. Educational, you've got educational, you've got Julia, who's just very historically based. And I feel like even active members of the church can learn from Julia's content. Analyzing Mormonism. Mormonism think.

Margi Dehlin [02:43:02] I think it is analyzing Mormonism.

John Dehlin [02:43:05] Before jumping over your work, you've posted hundreds if not thousands of videos around ex Mormon themes or Mormon themes. And I don't want to jump over that because you're so sweet. Is it so own thing to make the decision to be an influencer or to raise your voice in a high demand religion, knowing that there might be consequences? So can you just talk a little bit about that decision? The types of content you've tried to cover on your channel and what that has been like to both raise your voice and to receive responses from the community?

Elisha Lee [02:43:46] Yes. Before I do that though, do either of you remember it's a concept that the more you learn, the more you less.

Margi Dehlin [02:43:55] The less you know.

Elisha Lee [02:43:56] The less you know?

John Dehlin [02:43:57] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [02:43:58] Do you remember that's called. It's like something with a D. I can't remember anyway, but that's what happened to me. I started posting about like Mormon history and what I realized is that there's just a lot there. And the more I learn, the more I realize, like, people have dedicated their whole lives to learning and understanding Mormon history. And so at some point I decided that I was probably not the best authority on that. And I really started to shift into talking more about just the deconstruction experience and what it's like to unravel your identity when your entire identity has been Mormonism. What it's like to get back into, in touch with your inner voice, what it's like to kind of watch the movie again. So doesn't waking up to a faith crisis feel a lot like the ending of Sixth Sense where you're like, what? He was dead the whole time? Sorry, that was a spoiler. But you're just like, what? We gotta go back through this. We gotta watch this whole thing again. Even the stories of my ancestors, I need to read them again from the perspective that I have now. I mean, you know what I'm saying? And so that's what I kind of started to lean into. I think a lot of the content that went very viral in the beginning was about some of my theories behind the new temple, the temples being built, and what I still theorize that it was for polygamy. And the concept of eternal families was kind of convenient. A lot of people were dying of malaria at that time, and it's like, well, here's a solution, because so many people are dying and we've got all these. But as I was sharing those things, there was a lot of thoughtful consideration, even from like the ex Mormon community. And kind of just enough where I'm just like, you know what I think really where my wheelhouse is, is just connecting with people. I'm not a historian, and what I need know is that it's really difficult waking up to a reality. And there are so many parallels for people. They wake up to a faith crisis, and they also wake up to being neurodivergent or they wake up to their sexuality for the first time in their life. And there's so many things they wake up to the reality that, like when people start to decide construct that the church is like a narcissistic organization, it has many of the same features as a narcissistic relationship or a family system or a family. A toxic family system or a. Would it be called like a high demand family system or a narcissistic family system?

Margi Dehlin [02:46:55] Or enmeshed? Yes.

Elisha Lee [02:46:57] Enmeshment. Yes. Then they start to wake up to problems in their relationship. And so these are the kinds of things that I like to talk about now. These are the things that we've gotten into on our deconstruction series, talking about our relationship and talking about the red flags in our relationship. Like, we've all got red flags. Really. The key is, are you willing and able to recognize them? You know, these things are kind of determine where your relationships are going to go. After your deconstruction, are you and your partner willing to look at some of the harmful elements of your programming, the ways that you've been programmed to think and interact with each other? Roles have we chosen? The roles in our family are those roles that have been assigned to us by our culture and the expectations of our culture. You know, just diving into all of that. And a lot of it is connecting with resources, teachers, deconstruction spaces, like Mormon Stories Podcast, but also like Esther Perel, talking about boundaries within relationships, finding out what codependence looks like. There's just what it does. The deconstruction for me, was less like just the opportunity to step outside of the box. And there are a lot of people that I have found in the deconstruction space that have stepped outside of the box, but they haven't gone anywhere because they're scared. And all this content online is an opportunity for people who maybe left the church 10 years ago to start start looking at things and to start unpacking them and to start reevaluating the decisions that they've made in their lives. I think a lot of the decisions that we've made aren't that different from what we did in the church, but they're for entirely different reasons. A lot of people don't partake of substances, but it's not because of the word of wisdom. Right. It's because. Because you've chosen that because it's a health parameter or it's better for your mental health or better for your relationship. So as we start to access resources and give ourselves exposure to new ideas, new thought leaders, and we kind of start applying some of those things in our lives that can be really powerful. And that's where we start to discover the gift of the faith crisis. And we start to realize that it doesn't have to be the crisis point, it can actually be the resolution.

Margi Dehlin [02:49:52] Right, Right.

Elisha Lee [02:49:53] And really a gift.

Margi Dehlin [02:49:55] Yes. And what I hear also in, like, kind of behind what you're saying is, you know, I think it would be easy to say kind of the opposite of being Mormon is just to do everything on the other side that Mormonism kind of said not to do. Right. And that would be like the healing path. And for some, I think when control is a key component, you may have to do that for a minute. But what I'm hearing from you is actually, because we've lived in this conditioned personality, like. Like we've literally been formed, our personalities, our identities, unconsciously. That, like, healing for you is involved choice, actually. Conscious choice.

Healing, Shadow Work, and Psychedelics

Elisha Lee [02:50:49] Yes, exactly. Right. Because the decisions before were already made. Yeah. Like, if you're locked in, all the decisions are made. This is why deconstruction is so hard. Because now you gotta conscientiously decide what you're gonna do, what you're gonna do with your marriage, what you're gonna. I mean, it's. And it can be messy. Don't you think?

Margi Dehlin [02:51:13] Yeah, absolutely.

Elisha Lee [02:51:14] There's a lot of messiness. And I just think, like, don't make any big, drastic decisions right after your deconstruction. I think we just have to be careful with. I just think There it's like, it's so tricky because it's like you need exposure, you need to explore. How do you do that? I'm going to tell you. Within the realm of deconstruction, in terms of your sexual relationship or just sexuality in general, even with self, there's a lot that can be done within your marriage. Like, there's a lot that you can do together to explore that without, like, opening your marriage or, like, there's a lot you can do to blow up your life. Right. I don't want to, like, sugarcoat that. Don't you think?

Margi Dehlin [02:52:13] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [02:52:14] And so I think that it's really tricky, isn't it? Because you need that exposure. You need the experiences, the life experiences. But it's like, how do we do that without blowing our lives up? Right. You know?

John Dehlin [02:52:26] Right.

Elisha Lee [02:52:27] So it's like the risk.

Margi Dehlin [02:52:29] The kind of the risk assessment for me, if I were going to describe, like, I've always liked this visual of, you know, transition. What it feels like oftentimes is like, you know, those snow globes, it's like when you shake up the snow globes, but the snow are like pieces of you and your life, and it's like they're everywhere. And it just takes a minute to let some of it settle. Like, let some of it, like, you work through, you grieve. Maybe you reframe, maybe you let it completely go. Maybe you. You know what I mean?

Elisha Lee [02:53:06] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [02:53:07] But, like, that's what it can feel like. And so in that state, it's like, just take a little care.

Elisha Lee [02:53:14] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [02:53:14] Just take care of yourself. So if we were going to ask you about this second theme that you identified, how your faith, transition, or however you would talk about that saved your relationships. How so?

Elisha Lee [02:53:33] I feel like I'm able to just see my people for, like, who they are. And I wish that didn't sound so cliche because I have. You know, we've all heard that before. Just love people for who they are, but really, truly, to love them for who they are and just see them for who they are and not try to change them, like, just to celebrate the things. And as a parent, you may not entirely agree with everything that your child is doing, but to understand the boundaries of a healthy relationship or to know that that person is learning through their autonomy and to be able to look at the people that I love and really just celebrate the experience of their life journey and what they have chosen, that's probably.

Margi Dehlin [02:54:33] It kind of reminds me of connection over control a little bit.

Elisha Lee [02:54:39] Right.

Margi Dehlin [02:54:39] Letting go of the Control aspect and leaning into, like, how do I connect with you? How do I know you? How do I love you as you are?

Elisha Lee [02:54:47] Yes. Because we no longer have this system telling us this is the one right way. So anyone who isn't doing this, whether it's because they're ordering coffee, decaf at breakfast, or because they don't want to participate in the Nauvoo project at the temple, like, we don't have to constantly be holding everyone to this caliber because I think we can continue to do that even in the deconstruction space. There's a lot of criticism, a lot

John Dehlin [02:55:17] of, yeah, new orthodoxies.

Elisha Lee [02:55:22] Yes. Yes. New expectations, new. Yeah, there really is. Yeah, there really is a lot of that in the deconstruction space, which is predictable. Look at where we came from.

Margi Dehlin [02:55:33] That's right.

Elisha Lee [02:55:34] And do you think that the more binary we are before, like you sometimes end up still binary afterwards, but you just have different positions, you know, not a lot of room for diversity of thought. And I think we have to get to the point that we can poke holes in anything. Poke holes in our political system, poke holes in ourselves. What are my red flags? What are my toxic traits to be able to see this, but this idea of virtue that is so instilled in us in Mormonism, I think there is still a desire for that after leaving the church, but it's different. It's this idea of one right way, but on different terms.

Margi Dehlin [02:56:23] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [02:56:24] Do you see that?

Margi Dehlin [02:56:24] Uh huh.

John Dehlin [02:56:26] How would you say it's. What are some other ways you feel like it saved your marriage or improved your marriage?

Elisha Lee [02:56:33] Okay. So being able to see my husband, I had. I was kind of wondering if I would mention this, but I'm not sure if I would. But I did do after my deconstruction. And I don't think think everyone should do this. I think you have to be really careful with it and I think you have to maybe be considerate of some of the potential dangers. But I did do a small dose of psychedelic for a healing journey after my deconstruction. And when I had that experience brought a lot of things into focus for me. And I don't think that it is necessarily that for everyone, but that's where my brain, it was very healing for me. It was psilocybin that I used and I did it under a controlled environment with someone that was there watching and it was beautiful. And what I saw during that experience that changed my relationship with Jamie is that when he came in to where I was laying, I felt like this calm, loving, comforting presence walk into the room. And I was like, what is this? And it was almost just like I was viewing him as a soul. Like I don't know how else to describe it. And I know that sounds very Mormon

John Dehlin [02:57:51] versus a cog in a system. Right? Cog in a machine.

Elisha Lee [02:57:54] A soul, Yes. I saw him as just like who his essence is. And that's what I meant when I was saying I'm able to see people for who they are. Like, I may not like things that he does from time to time. He certainly feels the same way about me from time to time. But if you can see someone just for who they are at their core, like we've all got baggage, we've all had difficult childhoods to some degree for one reason or another, nobody's life is perfect that compel us to have shortcomings. It was like I just for the first time just kind of of like just none of that existed. It was just seeing him as like this, this person that I just loved. And the probably the thing, if Jamie were here, he would probably say that he just didn't feel all the expectations. It was kind of like just a lot of expectations were dropped after I deconstructed. There was so much that I was constantly like expecting and I was trying to do it in the most non confrontational way. Well, what does that do? It just makes you kind of passive aggressive. I mean there's all kinds of problems with that. And after deconstruction, I think I just really. I feel like I was just able to kind of drop the expectations. I never thought that the issues that we had in our marriage were like I. I just never realized how much of it was like my gospel programming. I didn't see it. And now it's just like this weight has just been lifted for both of us. And the pressure on our family was for my emphasis, constant emphasis on the gospel. The gospel, the gospel. And like losing that. There's just so much beauty that has emerged that was just kind of suppressed by my intensity for the gospel.

Margi Dehlin [03:00:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:00:07] Beautiful.

Elisha Lee [03:00:07] Does that make sense?

John Dehlin [03:00:09] Sure does.

Margi Dehlin [03:00:10] How about shadow work? How has that played into your marriage? Well, we could say yourself, your relationship with yourself and also in particular in your marriage too, and how you view things that might be perceived as threats in your LDS kind of brain, in your Mormon brain. Do you want to talk about that? If you noticed a ripple effect?

Elisha Lee [03:00:38] Yes. So shadow work. I feel like. So much of this is realizing that the expectations that we have for ourselves and for the people that we love were programmed into us from this very precise playbook of what you could be and what you should not be. And there was a night that we went to this, like. Believe me, I have a lot of criticisms over the spiritual kind of practices. I view it in a very nuanced way.

John Dehlin [03:01:23] Way.

Elisha Lee [03:01:23] But I have played around in. With things like. Well, the psychedelic journey was one of them. But another was a sound bowl practice that we did. And one of the things that the. That the woman, the sound bowl healer, is that what they're called, asked us to do was to write something down that we wanted to release. And so. So we just wrote it down on a piece of paper and I had the. I felt compelled to write down purity culture and put it. And she burned it. And then we did this whole sound bowl. What is it called? A sound bath. We did a sound bath. There was, like five of us there. And so we did the little burning and then we did the sound bath. And I felt something new emerge in me after that. It was just a new way that I viewed my body. It was just. I felt different in my skin. And I really think that it was sort of touching on that shadow work of taking this aspect of me, my sexuality. And the shadow of that is the purity culture. I mean, that's the part that is demonized, or the sexuality is the part that that's in the shadow. And to burn that. I felt a new connection to myself. I felt like. I don't know, I just wasn't. I just felt different that day. It's just weird and I don't know. Like, it's gotta be totally placebo. Right? Like, you're taking this concept, writing on it on a piece of paper and then releasing it. So there's something in your brain that's working through this. Like, we are. We are willingly releasing this. Like, you don't have to hold this in the shadow anymore. You can release it. And so that was big for me. And also just kind of like the shadow parts that were like my exuberant, opinionated, like, bitch self. Like, that's in there. Like, we all have that.

Margi Dehlin [03:03:36] Having passion or having.

Elisha Lee [03:03:38] Right. Or like. Like the features that we would associate with someone being a bitch.

Margi Dehlin [03:03:43] Right. Like, I would have this anger or feeling really strongly.

Elisha Lee [03:03:47] Yeah. Yeah. And I. I feel like I worked with that as well. I. I think that these are all things that I. Yeah. Have definitely. I mean, this is a work in progress. I am far from, like, arrived, but I'm working to. To a healthier place. And I Just think that these are like fun modalities to visit.

Margi Dehlin [03:04:09] Yeah. And they help. What I'm hearing too, is that they. There are different ways for you to process. Right. This idea of releasing. And I do think it's one thing to, you know, a therapy, a cognitive therapy. Right. Doing it more through whatever journal, thoughts, emotions. But also body. There is an aspect of body processing too. Right. Where we've stored. Shame.

Elisha Lee [03:04:39] Oh, my God. Where we've stored.

Margi Dehlin [03:04:41] And so that's kind of what I'm hearing when you are mentioning like a sound bath or it's all kind of reflecting and trying to process, trying to let go and release things.

Elisha Lee [03:04:53] Yeah. And I know you know so much about this, Margi, but probably the most impactful thing that I have visited through this healing process is sensory awareness and learning that I can get in touch with how my body feels in any given emotion. And that has been huge for both Jamie and me learning. In fact, I feel like Jamie's done a total 180 on his perpetual state of anxiety. He was just always in a state of anxiety. And I did some sensory work with him and just helping him identify, like, where that sits in his body, what it looks like, where he's felt it before, what was the time like early on. What's the first time he remembers feeling that in his body? That has been huge for this process. Just learning to get sensory awareness is probably one of the greatest, I think coaching tools to help people get back in touch with. With their body because you've been so disconnected for so long. Also integration work. So taking two conflicting things and talking about bringing them together. And we see it a lot, I see it a lot in the coaching space for people who have certain health goals. But they suddenly envision themselves as they're like their body is changing and they get scared because they have a narrative about being bad if they're too hot or something like that. And so they've got this, like, conflict that's happening. And so integration becomes really important for that. And I think for women who were raised in a church system, sometimes dumbing ourselves down, playing small, wearing clothes that are not going to show your body or like expressing your. There's sort of a fear of expressing yourself because you don't want to get yourself into trouble. Especially if you're someone that has a background anything like mine. If you've ever sat in that bishopric chair, you're like, that is never going. Or that, you know, the bishop's chair, that's never going to happen again. I'm Never gonna let that happen again. And so these kind of conflicts can happen within ourselves. And so sensory awareness, integration, shadow work, these have all been really powerful healing modalities for me. And the psychedelics were too. But I do say be cautious. Therapy is one another is that I think is arguably more powerful than anything, which is just connection with others who have gone through the life events that you've been through. And so that's kind of the way I view like the online deconstruction space. It's like, like someone said the other day, we deconstruct loudly so you don't have to in silence.

Margi Dehlin [03:07:56] Nice.

Elisha Lee [03:07:56] Like that is so it. Yeah, I like that. And that's what you guys have provided. So after I deconstructed, I called my mom and I shared with her the Mormon Stories podcast. And that has been life changing for her because. Because it was 27 years from the time that she started to find this stuff until she could actually listen to people who were talking about this experience. Oh, wow. She said, I used to look around in sacrament meeting and think, nobody here knows any of this. Like it's just mind blowing. Like you have this. It's like finding something out about someone that you love. Like something that they've been hiding but nobody else is. And you have to keep it to yourself. Cause no one wants to hear it. And she went for so many years that way. And she just loves the podcast. She's always listening to Mormon stories Podcast. Hey, Alicia's mom, Gloria.

John Dehlin [03:08:53] Hi, Gloria.

Margi Dehlin [03:08:53] Hi, Gloria.

Elisha Lee [03:08:55] That's right. And it's been such a gift. Okay, here's the other thing I wanna say. If you are deconstructing right now, and you are the first, you're kind of a pioneer. And so there will be people that are going to join, join you and they will talk to you about it if they're aware of your situation. So that's one of the benefits of sharing it. It's kind of like coming out of the closet. I don't think that you have to. I think you get to decide how you're going to do that. Choice, choice, choice. Everybody gets to decide how they're going to deconstruct. And so you don't have to share, but if you do, there will be others and there will be surprises. There will be a lot of surprises. Isn't it crazy how many surprises there

John Dehlin [03:09:40] are who maybe you don't believe or who are out that you didn't know

Elisha Lee [03:09:44] that and people that you would have never imagined, like could have never guessed and It'll happen. It's happening. I mean, it's.

John Dehlin [03:09:54] Oh, after you, other people will start to doubt or leave that you would have thought, ever would have.

Elisha Lee [03:10:00] Absolutely. And now you're going to be a place, a safe place for them. So I just think the more time goes on, the more and more people are deconstructing. Right now, to me, it feels like there's a mass exodus from the church. And I know not everyone feels that way, but from what I see in my home, like I do, I think a lot of people are waking up.

John Dehlin [03:10:21] And it's not just the Mormon Church. It's a lot of Christian churches in 2024.

Elisha Lee [03:10:26] Yeah, yeah.

Rebuilding Identity and the Wicked Metaphor

John Dehlin [03:10:27] So looking at your outline, I just want to give you a chance to make sure there's anything else you wanted to say about a certain items. You have this idea that the construct of sin is not compatible now with the loving, conscious Father in heaven. Did you already address everything you wanted to say about that?

Elisha Lee [03:10:42] Yeah, that was kind of during that prayer when I was like, I was diving into all this spirituality, still Mormon, trying to make it all fit together. And, yeah, it just didn't really seem to fit because this idea of, like, a father who's like, you cannot come into my house if you are drinking coffee, does that sound like the kind of God that you always thought? I mean, I always thought of Heavenly Father as being, like, this very loving, conscious. And that's not a description of a conscious parent. That's a description of, like, a toxic, controlling parent. So, yeah, it just. It didn't fit.

John Dehlin [03:11:19] Making sure.

Margi Dehlin [03:11:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:11:20] Did you talk about what the musical Wicked meant to you?

Elisha Lee [03:11:24] I didn't talk about that.

John Dehlin [03:11:26] For those who are Broadway fans or for those who are looking for a good metaphor or a good theatrical experience to help them feel Wicked was important to me in my faith deconstruction. So I would love to hear you articulate.

Elisha Lee [03:11:40] Oh, I love that it was important to you. It has been so huge and the movie's coming out and I'm so excited. Excited about the cast.

John Dehlin [03:11:46] Yeah. So it's good timing.

Elisha Lee [03:11:47] Oh, it's great timing. Okay. So after I said that little prayer and said, heavenly Father, can you help me understand the construct of sin? Because it does not make sense to me. I immediately felt the reply, do you really want to know? To which I responded, yes, after a pause, after a really serious consideration, I. I had some work to do in New York, and so I took my daughter with me and we went to the show Wicked. And I know that at that time, I was still really a believer because I was questioning my daughter about whether or not she was wearing her garments lovingly. Of course. I was just like, I just want to bear my testimony about the garments. So I was still really believing at that time. It's not like I was, you know, going around with bare shoulders, Heaven forbid.

John Dehlin [03:12:42] Like Margi.

Elisha Lee [03:12:45] Look at both of us, Margi.

Margi Dehlin [03:12:47] Wicked. And.

Elisha Lee [03:12:48] Oh, my gosh.

John Dehlin [03:12:50] Oh, my God. I mean, I'm seeing your shoulders too.

Margi Dehlin [03:12:51] It's fine.

John Dehlin [03:12:53] It's really both of you.

Elisha Lee [03:12:54] Oh, it really is. It really is. So I took my daughter to this show, Wicked, which was probably the fourth or fifth time I had seen it live. And the moment that Elphaba came out onto the stage, the Wicked Witch of the west, seeing her in her young state, she comes onto the stage and she drops her suitcase and everybody's clapping because most people know what Wicked is about. It's about the wizard of Oz, and it's the true story of the Wicked Witch of the west and how she became Wicked. Really, it was all a misunderstanding. The whole world thinks that she's this awful, awful person, but the reality is that she just saw behind the curtain and nobody else did.

John Dehlin [03:13:41] And she saw the pain being caused by marginal groups like the flying monkeys, and she wanted to advocate for those who are marginalized and suffering as a result.

Elisha Lee [03:13:51] I gotta go back and see the show, man. I really gotta go back and see it. Now that I've deconstructed, I thought about

John Dehlin [03:13:56] LGBT people and doubters as the animals, because the animals used to have a voice in the land of Oz, and then they lost their voice because the wizard had targeted them. And so I thought, when I was going through my faith crisis, I thought about intellectuals, gays, feminists, LGBT people as the animals who lost their voice. Anyway, keep going. And Elphaba felt sympathy for them because the wizard targeted them. Them as the enemy.

Margi Dehlin [03:14:24] And there's an implied people of color.

John Dehlin [03:14:27] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:14:27] Oh, for sure is green.

John Dehlin [03:14:29] Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. I forgot that.

Elisha Lee [03:14:30] How is this story not literally written about a Mormon apostate or Christian apostate? Any kind of apostate. Right. It really, really feels that way. Well, at this point, the last time I saw the show, I hadn't deconstructed any of this. I was still a believer, but I'd had that prayer, and. And so it almost feels like it was the first part of that deconstruction where I saw her and I just came totally emotionally unglued. I mean, I was just bawling watching her up there. Like, people just don't understand. They just don't. They just don't get it. Like her story, to see it from her perspective, it makes all the sense in the way. And the fact that she was villainized, it's just. It's so obvious. And looking back on that now, I wonder if there was a part of myself that realized that she was telling my story and I just didn't know it yet. Like, she's telling the story of the wicked apostate. And I don't. I didn't know why I was. Was so tearful during that whole show. I mean, the whole remainder of the show, I was just in pieces. And then that was on Saturday evening, I want to say, and I think it was a Tuesday that I found the CES letter right before. They were just days apart. So I really need to go back and revisit the show because there's so many symbols. There's the wizard, there's. I mean, just the whole story as it unfolds, it's just very cathartic to think about it now. So I can't wait to see the movie.

John Dehlin [03:16:17] Yeah. But also, as Elphaba raises her voice, she gains her power. And then she's demonized by the community for telling the truth and for sticking up for those who are marginalized. But she becomes her full empowered self.

Elisha Lee [03:16:32] In the church, we're kind of like, we have this idea that things are really fair and that they always work out. If you do the formula, you're gonna get what you put in. Like, you're gonna get a resolution. Like, you're gonna have eternal life. One of the difficult parts of deconstructing is realizing that it's gonna be. At some point you get to where you're like, it's gonna be impossible. It's gonna be super hard either way. I'm either gonna have pick your hard, pick your hard. I'm either gonna have. I'm gonna lose people, but I'm also going to gain the most profound connections that I've ever had in my life. Because it's gonna be the first time that you've lived as yourself. Yeah, like discovering yourself and then being able to meet people as yourself is really powerful. So it's gonna be difficult. There's not like a. There's not like an easy resolution for it. Sometimes we just have to live with the reality that, I mean, there's spaces now that I show up that people don't want me there. Not to play a pity party. I know you guys Know that better than anyone, probably in this space. It's really difficult showing up at events where, you know, people don't want you there. Do you know what I'm talking about? Him out.

Margi Dehlin [03:17:52] Absolutely.

Elisha Lee [03:17:53] So that's really tough. Really tough. But would I exchange the value of the relationships that I have now to have that back just to kind of be like in good favor with everyone? Like, I'm a people pleaser. I don't like it when people are mad at me.

Margi Dehlin [03:18:11] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [03:18:12] But I mean, people hate me now. People that I love, loved you. I mean, you know, that's really difficult to know that you're the worst thing that a human can be is an apostate in their eyes. So it's challenging. So, yeah, that wicked. I feel like touches on all those themes.

Margi Dehlin [03:18:32] Yeah, absolutely.

Elisha Lee [03:18:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:18:35] It also makes you stronger when you learn to not care about the voices of the people that don't really care about you.

Elisha Lee [03:18:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:18:41] It also strengthens because you're no longer vulnerable or catering to their opinions of you, which is a blessing.

Elisha Lee [03:18:50] It's a blessing. I always say blessing. It's a hashtag blessing. Just cause the word blessing kind of insinuates this father who like, blesses some people but not others. So hashtag blessing. But doesn't it help to have a support system of some kind?

John Dehlin [03:19:04] Oh, yeah.

Elisha Lee [03:19:06] So we say that. We say, oh, it's so nice to live authentically. But if I'm talking to someone who's 18 and they're the only one in their family that's deconstructed, those words may not be as helpful because if they don't have any support at home, it might be better for their mental health for them to. I mean, how do you deal with that? Like, with that kind of complexity?

Margi Dehlin [03:19:31] Right, Absolutely. So your first theme was around your identity, being more Mormon. I'm curious how you would talk about. How do you feel like you're rebuilding your identity first of all, kind of all the time. And what has rebuilding looked like so far?

John Dehlin [03:19:51] And you mentioned Mormonism as sort of like being a cheat code. I want to hear what you mean by that as you answer Margi's question.

Elisha Lee [03:19:59] So I was going over my outline with Jamie. I was like, is there anything that you can add to this? And he's like, yes, like the church is like your cheat code. And it's going back to that conversation about like, your decisions are already made.

Margi Dehlin [03:20:11] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [03:20:11] You know what's coming. And Jamie's a programmer, so his like, thinks in terms of. Anyway, so it is like A. It is like a cheat code and less decisions. And that feels good. There's a lot in, like, being indoctrinated kind of feels good because you're not constantly having to make decisions about everything. Like, a lot of those decisions are already made. And in terms of rebuilding identity, getting back in touch with who I was before a lot of this started. So before that, that hypnotic meditation that we did in young women's. To remember the pre existence and all of that. Like, who was I before that? Like, what did my youthful self like? And I would love to hear that. Well, I feel like the greatest gift that my parents gave me was exposure. There was just. There was so much room for questions. And beyond that, like, just the things that we loved. Like, I love music and I love dancing, and I love. I just. That's all the kind of stuff that I just ate up as a little girl. And revisiting that has been very healing. I'm super lucky that I have a partner that loves those things too. So we're like, um, next weekend we're taking our adult kids to a festival with us. And like, some of the old. Some of our, like, youth from that have also deconstructed are meeting us there and we're doing this whole festival thing

John Dehlin [03:22:02] and like, with music and.

Elisha Lee [03:22:03] Yeah, it's like. It's like a rave. Yeah. Which I would have thought of as, like, so bad, but it's just beautiful. Like, I don't know, just like getting dressed up and makeup and the whole outfit and going and listening to music and we play music all the time in our house. I did not mention that Jamie and I danced professionally when we first got married. That was how we met. And so we're kind of going back and revisiting that as well. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:22:32] You're picking up like an earlier self.

Elisha Lee [03:22:35] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:22:35] As a couple.

Elisha Lee [03:22:36] And Jamie keeps saying, you are who I thought I was marrying right now. Like, this is what I. This is who I thought I was marrying. And then when we got married, it just got serious.

Margi Dehlin [03:22:49] Yes.

Elisha Lee [03:22:51] And now, I don't know, I just feel like there's more value for humor. We don't, like, try to. I don't know, we just giving our kids more freedom. Like, just the way we talk about or think about even, like swear words and like, just. I don't know, just everything is so different now. And also, there's a lot more room in terms of parenting, like, for. I'm trying to help my kids see that mistakes are okay. We've just pushed for so long not to make mistakes.

Margi Dehlin [03:23:30] Perfectionism.

Elisha Lee [03:23:32] Yeah. And so that's kind of hardwired from a very early age. And so. But it's been fun to see, like our youngest kid who hasn't had all the indoctrination and just like kind of just viewing, I don't know, just so many of life's experiences through that new lens.

Margi Dehlin [03:23:53] Yeah. More curiosity.

Elisha Lee [03:23:55] Curiosity is big, but yeah. Building the new identity is like exploring exposure. It doesn't have to be like, you don't have to blow up your life, you don't have to blow up your marriage. You can incorporate new things. You can try things in a new way. You can also learn to be more autonomous. So Esther Perel gives a lot of great detail on what healthy boundaries look like. Just because your partner is feeling a certain way doesn't mean you have to feel that way too. Can you have differences of opinion? Do other people have. Do their, like, how you incorporate others into your relationship? Like, I feel like there isn't as much like jealousy. Like, I wouldn't have wanted to hear my husband say that another woman was like, beautiful. And like, I just feel like so much of that has been reworked now. Like, we're so much more comfortable with each other and there isn't. What's the word when you're like, is it enmeshment? Enmeshment. Like you're just kind of like a codependent sort of nature. So we've been able to unpack a lot of that and I feel like that's been huge in developing your identity because I realize a lot of my identity was fused.

Margi Dehlin [03:25:13] Yes.

Elisha Lee [03:25:13] And it was trying to match the expectation of the church, which I felt like my husband been. That should have been his expectation. But I was, I leaned really heavily into that traditional wife role. And yeah, I guess I'm lucky that I'm married to someone who was willing to let that go so easily.

Margi Dehlin [03:25:37] Yeah. Yeah, that sounds.

Elisha Lee [03:25:39] Yeah, sounds lucky.

John Dehlin [03:25:44] So this has been amazing and we're so loving and grateful for your courage and your wisdom and your vulnerability. You were gonna talk about your grandfather.

Family Funerals and Warren Jeffs Parallels

Elisha Lee [03:25:59] Yep.

John Dehlin [03:25:59] And Warren Jeffs to close. Let's close in a light way by talking about something having to do with your grandpa and the flds. True.

Elisha Lee [03:26:11] Okay, so here's the background here. Love this. We're gonna try to make this as light hearted as possible. I know it doesn't feel.

John Dehlin [03:26:17] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:26:20] So

Elisha Lee [03:26:22] I have FLDS relatives that are still in Colorado City, Hildale area.

John Dehlin [03:26:28] And for those who don't know, that's fundamentalist Mormons. That are polygamists practicing today?

Elisha Lee [03:26:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:26:33] Think Amish, but practicing polygamy who believe in Mormon stuff.

Elisha Lee [03:26:36] Yeah. The one that I have connected with the most is someone who left the FLDS faith. And so it's been interesting to talk to him. He's a child of my grand. He's one of my grandfather's younger kids from when he left to go to Colorado City. So it was interesting getting his perspectives. And I think ultimately what I've taken from this is that this narrative that grandpa left to go to another religion is not actually accurate. What happened is that he discovered that there was a religion that was practicing more of our doctrine and our beliefs than we were. And he.

John Dehlin [03:27:23] Or being more true to Mormon doctrine and history and theology than modern Mormons have evolved. Is that right?

Elisha Lee [03:27:30] Yeah. And it was kind of the takeaway for him. The LDS Church was kind of an apostasy because we stopped living the law of plural marriage, which in early Mormonism was such an integral part of the religion and necessary for exaltation. And like, if you read back through like numerous prophetic statements, I mean, it was necessary. Three. Three wives.

John Dehlin [03:27:55] Joseph died for polygamy. Four. Stop.

Elisha Lee [03:27:58] Yeah, full stop. Yeah, yeah. And it wasn't because women were losing their wives or women were losing their husbands and they had no rights to property. No. A lot of his wives were young,

John Dehlin [03:28:09] like 14 year old girls.

Elisha Lee [03:28:10] Yes, yes. So integral part of Mormonism. My grandfather left his family, which was like the most devastating decision of his life. And I feel like he never really kind of got over that. But it was his hope and his belief that his decision to go with the FLDS was going to seal his family for eternity. It would ensure that they could be together again. And so talking to my uncle, he mentioned that his dad would talk about the kids a lot and that he would talk about his. His first wife, even though she didn't follow him. Bless her. Thank you, Grandma Pearl, for not following to. To Colorado City. I just think about all the opportunities that we would have missed out on. I mean, I. I want to hold space for my loved ones who have differing beliefs, but that's one that has been really harmful to a lot of people. So Grandpa lived and died there and his family didn't really have much communication with him after that. I guess a couple of the siblings did and probably saw from his perspective that this was really necessary. Like, from his perspective, not that they agreed with it. Everybody believes that he was really making a wrong turn, but to him, this was what the scriptures taught. And this was the only way to ensure exaltation for him and his family.

John Dehlin [03:29:52] That's what the founder of Mormonism taught.

Elisha Lee [03:29:54] Exactly. So I did not attend his funeral. He died in 2001. I was at Benchmark Bookstores just, like, a month ago. And Brian Buchanan, who's been here on the podcast.

John Dehlin [03:30:11] Love him.

Elisha Lee [03:30:11] Yeah, love him. He started asking me a little about that, and then he asked me. I said, well, yeah. Oh, and here's a fun side note, Brian. Warren Jeffs, the incarcerated prophet of the FLDS Church for child abuse, he actually gave my grandfather's eulogy when he died. And he didn't bat an eye except to just say, do you know what day it was? And I'm like, the day? Yeah, the funeral service. Do you know what day it was? I'm like, well, I can pull up my familysearch, and look, I'm still really into family history. So I've got my familysearch app on my phone. I pull up the date, and he goes back to his computer, and he kind of waves me over. I go over. He has literally, a tape recording of my grandfather's funeral service, including.

John Dehlin [03:31:03] How did he get that?

Elisha Lee [03:31:04] They keep records of everything he said. This is why it was so easy to convict Warren Jeffs, because they keep record of everything.

John Dehlin [03:31:12] They record everything.

Elisha Lee [03:31:13] They record everything. And so he pulls this up for me. Sure enough, Warren Jeffs gives the eulogy during my grandfather's funeral. And there. There's a point during the. When he's talking that he uses the exact same words that were used by one of our family members when we announced that we were leaving the church.

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [03:31:38] For with all the truths you could

Video Clip 1 [03:31:40] learn,

Video Clip 1 [03:31:44] if you do not have that path to eternal life, as the prophet Brigham Young said, all there is left is death. In the great day of Judgment, there will only be two judgments, One unto eternal life and the other unto eternal damnation. And the prophets through all the ages have delivered this same message to the people.

Elisha Lee [03:32:24] He said, there's only two decisions to be made in this life. You either choose eternal life or eternal damnation and death. That is all there is, Just the two choices. And those were literally the words of one of our loved ones that we've since kind of lost our relationship with because we left the church. I mean, it was one of those relationships where the book closed. When we announced our departure, they were

John Dehlin [03:32:52] saying the same thing. Warren Jeffs was saying the same words.

Elisha Lee [03:32:57] And even though this was just a month ago and I'm like, five years out of my deconstruction, I cannot tell you how much confirmation that gave me that. That it's just. It's all made up. I mean, it just really reminded me, like, you can see that what kind of organization that is. It's the same doctrine. It's the same. And so to hear those same teachings. Yeah. Same belief, same scriptures. And if we can see how problematic Warren Jeff's is, we should be able to get a nice of how problematic Joseph Smith would have been. And Brigham Young and John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff. You know, you just keep going.

John Dehlin [03:33:40] The Venn diagram between Joseph Smith and Warren Jeffs is like 98%.

Elisha Lee [03:33:45] It's, like identical, isn't it? Yeah, it's very, very similar. And I asked my uncle about him a little bit. I'm like, what are your thoughts on Warren? Because he's an apostate, too. And he said, I think he's smarter than people realize. He said, I don't think the general population realizes how smart he is. I thought that was interesting. I never thought of him as smart, but, yeah, interesting for sure. But, yeah, just hearing that portion of the recording, I just went right back to that text message from that family member that we love so much that said, of course I am disappointed. You have chosen eternal captivity and death. That's what you have chosen. So of course I'm disappointed for you and your kids. And that's what he believes. Cause that's what the Church teaches. That comes right from the scriptures.

John Dehlin [03:34:40] That's Mormonism.

Elisha Lee [03:34:41] Yeah, totally. Totally. And so is our beautiful family that we've created under those teachings and all the other things that come with it. Like. Like, it's just so wild and complicated and beautiful and messy, and I feel like I'll spend the rest of my life making sense of it, for sure.

Margi Dehlin [03:35:00] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [03:35:03] Deconstructing.

Elisha Lee [03:35:04] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [03:35:06] Seriously, unraveling.

Elisha Lee [03:35:09] Yes, that's right.

Margi Dehlin [03:35:10] Unraveling and rebuilding.

Elisha Lee [03:35:12] Yes, yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:35:13] Hopefully we're. If we're alive, we're doing it.

Elisha Lee [03:35:17] Yeah, exactly. Richard Rohrer, I think it was, that said you'll spend the first half of your life building it and the second half of your life taking it apart. Love, Richard Rohr.

John Dehlin [03:35:27] Yeah.

Elisha Lee [03:35:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:35:30] Well, beautiful. Well, today has been amazing. Why don't you tell people really quickly how to find you on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram?

Life After Mormonism and Where to Find Elisha

Elisha Lee [03:35:37] Yeah. So if you're looking for deconstruction content, we've got the Faith Un Unraveled TikTok and Faith Unraveled Instagram. I do check my Instagram DMs. So we've had people sending requests for episodes, and we are going to get back to doing new episodes probably in the fall. And we've set up a deconstruction series on YouTube, which is very specifically to help people through the deconstruction process. So it's just a free resource on YouTube, and if you type in Faith Unraveled, it's there. And I'm not sure where we're going from here with it, but if it continues, I would love to have you guys on, maybe talk about some of the deconstruction tips from your perspective. So maybe we can chat more about that.

John Dehlin [03:36:26] Of course.

Elisha Lee [03:36:27] But yeah, I think there's so many great sources out there. I think, like, we mentioned, you know, girls camp podcast and Alyssa and you guys. And like, there's so many. I almost hate to start down the deep dive. But Julia, from analyzing Mormonism and LDS discussions are two great ones for just getting historical perspectives, and I feel like they're less threatening than mine. I feel like with my content that I put up on TikTok, I get emotionally charged with stuff and I respond to comments. And so sometimes responding to the comments can feel kind of like I'm getting in the dirt a little. And I do think that that will eventually have to come to an end because it's really tough responding to that. I like to respond to comments from the active members because I know that if they're saying it to me, you know that people are getting these conversations. I'm very privileged in that my parents are incredibly supportive. Even my dad, who's, like, believing still, like, so supportive. Like, nobody's trashed. Like, I don't know. I'm lucky that way. So I know other people don't have it as lucky. So when those kinds of people come into my comments, I'm like, man, this person could have a kid who's deconstructing someone is dealing with this personality. And so I want to respond to it, and so I do. But it does feel a little weighty at times. So I don't know if I'll do it forever, but those are the platforms. So faith unraveled on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. I'm going to be getting back into doing some coaching courses through alicialeigh.com that'll probably be coming in, like, the coming, coming year. But I'll have some new things that have evolved from my food community because I've deconstructed a lot of my food concepts as well. It's really just the notion that there's one right Way I feel like I've deconstructed that concept.

Margi Dehlin [03:38:32] Right.

Elisha Lee [03:38:33] And unfortunately, it pretty much impacted every area of my life.

Margi Dehlin [03:38:36] Yes.

Elisha Lee [03:38:37] Including my career. So the way I even think about food is different now. So there will be new programs now that I've gotten to this phase of my healing, and I feel like I'm ready. You go through deconstruction and you kind of emerge like a new person. You're just like, where do I fit? I don't know if I agree with that anymore. Right. Sometimes you don't know until you get face to face with it.

Margi Dehlin [03:38:58] That's right.

Elisha Lee [03:38:59] So it can be challenging, but yeah, anyway.

Margi Dehlin [03:39:02] Absolutely. The tool of deconstructing, it can keep on going and going where you see it everywhere.

John Dehlin [03:39:09] You see it every.

Margi Dehlin [03:39:09] Deconstructing.

Elisha Lee [03:39:10] Yes. And I see it with so many people. They're like, oh, I would have never gone to dental school or I never would have done this. I would have done that instead. But, you know, your life's not over till it's over. You gotta. You gotta just remember, like, there's still. Even if you're in your 40s, we have people listening today that deconstructed at 70. I know. Like, you cannot believe, like, going that long and then waking up to this stuff. But they're there. There's so many of us. But you're not. You're not gone till you're gone. So just keep exploring it. Life is so beautiful. There's so much to experience.

Margi Dehlin [03:39:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:39:48] Beautiful. Beautiful. We appreciate you. Thank you so much.

Elisha Lee [03:39:54] I appreciate you guys more than you can imagine.

John Dehlin [03:39:56] Oh, likewise. Thank you. Thank you. And just to end, we want to thank all our donors that make all this possible. We couldn't do this without you. So if you are a regular donor to Mormon Stories of the Open Stories foundation, thank you. If you're not and you value this content, we just want to say we lose donors every month and if people step up to replace the ones who had stopped, we're able to continue. So. So if you value this content and if you want to see it continue, we would love you to show that support by going to MormonStories.org and becoming a monthly donor by clicking on the donate button. We just re renovated our website. We're going to be adding enhancements to it. We just renovated our studio. Hopefully you like the new look and feel. We have lots of cool things we want to do in the weeks, months and years ahead. We just did an amazing, amazing series with Matthew Harris about the priesthood and temple band. Julie's going to be carrying the torch for LDS discussions. And there's so much more we want to do. So please, thanks for everyone who supports us. Please support us if you can@mormonstories.org and Margi, thank you so much for being here today.

Margi Dehlin [03:41:13] My pleasure. Thank you, Alicia.

Elisha Lee [03:41:16] Oh, I loved having you, Margi. I'm so glad we got to sit here, the three of us. I also just have to say, as someone who has been making content just as a passion project for the last few years, unfortunately, if you can't be reimbursed for the time that you put into something like this, and especially a project of this caliber, it does eventually come to an end. You can't. You can't do, you know. So I am right behind you on encouraging members, you know, to get to, you know, make it possible for you guys to continue this.

John Dehlin [03:41:52] Thanks to Jamie as well. We love you, Jamie. And yeah, and also we'll just give a quick shout out to Julia, who does so much important work for us. To Gerardo, to Maven, to Brooklyn, to our board. Board, to our co hosts. We couldn't do without you. So thanks to everyone for making this possible. Check out Faith Unraveled in all its iterations. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. Email us@mormonstoriesmail.com for your feedback. If you want to become an interviewee, there's a process. Go to the website MormonStories.org, click on the Apply to be a guest and you can finish. Fill out the form, record a video, and we'll consider you to be a guest. That's how it happens. So be good to each other, Be kind to each other, and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, everybody.

Elisha Lee [03:42:49] Love it.

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