Introduction and Catching Up with Brooke Lark

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome back to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, Sean Delind. It's April 9, 2025 and today we are bringing back to Mormon Stories one of the most influential or important interviews that we've ever had in our 2000 plus catalog of interviews on Mormon Stories. We're bringing back half of a couple, the brooke and John McClay interview, which actually occurred 13 years ago, episodes 313 to 316. Today we have back for sort of a where are they now interview. The one, the only Brooke Lark. Is that.

Brooke Lark [00:00:42] That's it?

John Dehlin [00:00:43] Is that your name these days?

Brooke Lark [00:00:44] That is my name these days, officially, legally.

Margi Dehlin [00:00:47] Oh, brilliant.

Brooke Lark [00:00:48] Yeah, congratulations. Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:00:50] And of course we have Margi with us. Margi, I'm so glad you're here.

Margi Dehlin [00:00:53] Yes. Hi everyone.

John Dehlin [00:00:55] And just to give a tiny bit of context, if you have not seen John and Brooke maclay's interview from 13 years ago, or if you didn't watch the immediately preceding interview, I'll just give you a tiny bit of a backstory. Thirteen years ago, John McClay was a church education system teacher, seminary and institute teacher for the LDS Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He was married to Brooke and they had several children. And John McClay lost his Mormon faith as a CES Teacher Institute teacher. And they reached out to us and I believe this was the first video based in person couples interview that we ever did on Mormon Stories.

John Dehlin [00:01:46] If I'm right in my timing, it was around 2011, 2012. And it was such an important interview for so many reasons. One, because John was new out of the CES education system. It was a great story for both of them, but also it was a couple talking about coming out of the church together. And we recorded it in video in my mother's basement in Draper, Utah. And it was influential because so many people resonated with it. Men, women, couples, single people, everyone, for all those reasons. And it was an epic sort of six hour interview. So what we've done is if you haven't checked that out, what we did is we re edited it was released in four parts.

John Dehlin [00:02:33] So we combined those four episodes into a single episode. And just previous to this episode we've re released it all in one episode so you can enjoy that whole thing. Pause this episode. If you haven't watched it, go back and watch it. It's a classic and it absolutely still holds up so many relevant and important topics. And now once you've watched that six hour epic episode, you can come back to this episode which is Sort of Brooke's sort of where is she now?

John Dehlin [00:03:08] Story. And again, spoiler alert. She no longer goes by Brooke Maclay, which means she's probably no longer married to John McClay. She goes by Brooke Lark, which is your maiden name, is that right?

Brooke Lark [00:03:21] No, I actually call it my stripper name. It was a chosen name.

John Dehlin [00:03:26] Okay, okay. And what was your maiden name? Or do you use that?

Brooke Lark [00:03:31] My maiden name was Balaf.

John Dehlin [00:03:32] Okay. Okay. All right. I forgot that. Anyway, so that's what we're in. That's what you're in store for today. It's sort of like. It's partly like rebuilding a new life, not only after leaving Mormonism, but after a divorce. Rebuilding life as a professional single mom and woman. It's also Brooke's own story. And it's also. I want to get into a little bit of the aftermath of what it's like to tell your Mormon story publicly, on Mormon stories, how that impacts you and, you know, to what extent is that a good and a bad thing? And what's it like to. Yeah. To have your story told in such a public way and then to live sort of as a bit of a public figure in that way as well. So those are the things I'm interested in talking about, I'm sure. Brooke, you've got things you want to share.

Brooke Lark [00:04:31] That sounds amazing. I'm here for all of it.

John Dehlin [00:04:33] Yeah. And you, too, Margi. Jump in at any point.

Margi Dehlin [00:04:36] Oh, I will.

John Dehlin [00:04:37] Okay. All right. Okay. So Brooke Lark, last we interviewed, you, you and John McClay were married, and you had just, you know, he had just resigned from ces. Y' all were still married. How many kids did you have at the time?

Brooke Lark [00:04:58] In 2000, you had 4.

John Dehlin [00:04:59] You had 4k.

Brooke Lark [00:05:00] The babies were 8 at the time, so they had just been baptized. And then we resigned a couple of months later.

John Dehlin [00:05:06] From the church. You resigned your memberships.

Brooke Lark [00:05:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:05:09] So John. Yeah, John resigned his job. You guys both resigned your memberships, and you were living in Colorado Springs, Is that right?

Brooke Lark [00:05:18] Yep, that's it. Yep.

John Dehlin [00:05:19] And I remember coming to Colorado and doing a Mormon stories sort of Colorado. I used to do Mormon stories conferences. And I remember coming. Was it to Denver or to Colorado Springs?

Brooke Lark [00:05:35] Yes, it was in Denver. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:05:37] Yeah. And visiting your family in Colorado Springs, I think.

Brooke Lark [00:05:45] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:05:45] You did.

John Dehlin [00:05:46] And then life happened. It does. So I guess I want to start, if it's okay, by saying, what do you remember about the aftermath of doing that Mormon stories interview? Because that was not a small thing.

Leaving the Church and Resigning Memberships

Brooke Lark [00:06:05] No, it wasn't. Well, let's see. Going into the interview, we had resigned John's job as a seminary teacher. And then, like, the next day or a week later, we resigned from the church. And so at the time, John was really struggling to find a job.

Brooke Lark [00:06:24] I mean, we were just deer in the headlights. We had lost our community. We had lost all of our sense of purpose, all of our sense of direction. And at the time, Mormon Story's interview with you was such a lifeline, because it was like plugging into a community of people that knew that we were out here, you know? And so from that, John was lucky enough to get a job from one of the Mormon Stories listeners. I mean, the generosity just pulled, like, flowed forth, and it really felt like this wave of just, like, buoyancy that came in and wrapped us up, and suddenly we felt way less alone. So, yeah, it ended up just being a huge gift to us, as I think about it.

John Dehlin [00:07:17] And by the way, I see John probably every year he'll come to a Thrive event or a Mormon Stories event or something. So, unfortunately, I haven't really been able to have lunch or hang out with him, but I'm on good terms with John. I'm going to just assume you are. And this is going to be something we'll have to be delicate about, because it's not our job to tell John's story in any way. And, you know, he's been a part of your family in one way or another, and probably still is in one way or another. So I want to be careful.

John Dehlin [00:07:52] I'll talk about him here, there, and you may, too. But we always do it with love and respect for John, always. One thing I remember very particularly was that it was hard. This was hard on John in certain ways, in that when you become a CES instructor in Mormon context, it's something you build your whole life around and you give your entire career to. And it's this whole orientation of theology and doctrine and teaching youth and educating people spiritually and religiously. I even went back and looked. He was even sort of on the circuit, like the EFY circuit, like a Brad Wilcox or a John, bytheway, where he was a popular speaker. And you don't just, like, do that for, what, 10, 20 years? How long did he do that?

Brooke Lark [00:08:46] Yeah, it was like 13, I think.

John Dehlin [00:08:49] 13 years. You don't just do that for over a decade and then all of a sudden go be an accountant or a plus. You don't even necessarily have the skills to do that. So one thing that I remember was just how difficult it was for him to find a new career and then that then immediately affects your family because he was the. Wasn't he the primary breadwinner in your.

Brooke Lark [00:09:14] Yeah, we were all into the perfect Mormon family. I was going to be a stay at home mom forever. That was the only plan that I had made for my life. He was going to be a seminary teacher. His dad was a seminary teacher. That was the only plan he had for his life. And so, you know, in those early months, coming out and applying for one job after another, I remember him saying often, like, it's just, it's not my passion, you know. And so how do you go from having this passion that has a feedback loop of like, incredible connection to, you know, being part of the kids and the seminary families and the Mormon families and then that gets eviscerated and it's like, how do you decide what's important next?

Brooke Lark [00:10:02] And, you know, that's a journey that had taken our whole lives to make those decisions. And then when the rug is taken out and, and to be fair, we took the rug out ourselves. It didn't happen to us. We decided that choice.

Brooke Lark [00:10:17] Yeah. I think that you're left for a much longer time. You think it's going to be easier to restart and you start to face all of these questions and challenges that take people years, if not a lifetime to develop. And so, yeah, that, that started to become a loop was like, I applied for a job, but I don't feel passionate about it.

John Dehlin [00:10:45] Yeah. And I should just say that the rug being pulled out happened to you as well, because again, like you said, you were going to be this stay at home mom, living the dream, raising those kids. And so your world was turned upside down. So there's the losing your faith, losing that sense of meaning and purpose. Your husband loses income. You all of a sudden are learning female empowerment and feminism and equality, but your spiritual and doctrinal theological rugs have been pulled and the livelihood

Margi Dehlin [00:11:20] and how it affects relationships. So inevitably, marriages, like, how are you gonna approach marriage now? Parenting, how you're gonna parent now, your sense of identity, and then all the existential things that I think oftentimes it is, you know, it is no small thing. And then you're also, it's in real time. You're still a mom, you still have to pay rent. You still have to, as all of these pillars are down and you're kind of, you know, standing in the rubble of what was a life. Right.

Brooke Lark [00:11:53] 100%. And I say that, you know, I say that all the time, that there is this. It's like this whole moment of freedom. And because I think for so many people who are kind of like in the elect side of Mormonism, you have bought it hook, line and sinker. And so in order to deconstruct it, we both deconstructed it in order to feel safe stepping away from it. We were essentially atheists. I mean, everything had been completely ground zeroed for us. And so then you start to look at things, you know, and have these questions that you have never had, like, well, what is true and what is right? You know, so for the first couple of months I'm visiting all of these different Christian websites and okay, we'll try to become Episcopals, like Episcopalian church. It's got ritual, but it's like loose minded, you know, more liberal.

Margi Dehlin [00:12:53] Yeah.

Brooke Lark [00:12:53] And so what you think is going to be your next step starts to fail as well. And so you're in this state of testing and trying on. But then like I would go to a website and see, like in order to come to this church, we all agree that we have to be saved. All people have to be saved by Jesus Christ. And I'd be like, well, I can't do that because, you know, I've already come out of a one true system and been let down by that controlled system. And so all of a sudden all of these things that you think are going to be next are also being.

Brooke Lark [00:13:26] The rug is being pulled. And so the journey you start to realize is different than you're going to expect in the middle of real life. You're still trying to show up and pay the bills. And I mean, it's a hell of a walk, you know, and unexpected in so many ways.

John Dehlin [00:13:45] Yeah, yeah. And then you add to it the layer of like you just told your personal marriage and life stories to tens of thousands of. I mean, at that point, certainly Mormon stories had tens of thousands of listeners. And there's an element of, I don't know if it's voyeurism or a public spectacle. And I don't know if that was all positive or if there were were there drawbacks to living more visibly in the public eye. Does that add pressure? Does that add complexity?

Brooke Lark [00:14:13] Yeah, that's a good question. You know, I think that if I can look back now, at the time, the overriding feeling that I got from recording with you was just an incredible am of gratitude because the connection was so important to have people hear our story and say, we understand where you've been. Right. Because at the time we didn't have. We only had Mormon contacts, and so we thought we were going crazy. At least we had each other. But then you don't. We literally were in a bubble. We didn't know that other people thought the same or had been questioning the same. And so being connected almost instantly to people who were like, we've been there, we've seen that.

Navigating Marriage During Faith Transition

Brooke Lark [00:14:58] It's the same for us, you know, that was a blessing. I think I can look back now and also remember, though, that there were several weeks, especially after the interviews went live. And, you know, you're in such a state of insecurity more than you can even know because it's taken so long to just take this little step.

Brooke Lark [00:15:19] And, you know, I finally had to ban myself from reading the comments and reading in the Mormon, like, messaging threads because there are always harsh voices. And I hadn't done a lot of, like, inner work to understand that that's them speaking about themselves. And I can offer so much more grace to that. But at the time, you know, when you're just trying to figure out what is the stable next step to be constantly hit by, oh, she talks so much. Oh, yeah, blah, blah, you know, and so you're still trying to process and make, invent a new reality.

Brooke Lark [00:15:59] And so I think the hardest thing was being faced with the gift was being faced with people who understood. And the hardest thing was being publicly faced with a lot of people who didn't understand. And, you know, it's okay, it's okay. But at the time, it was definitely Wooshie.

Margi Dehlin [00:16:17] Yeah. And that totally makes sense to me, especially from this place of, you know, part of the structure is the external listening to people outside you, whether it comes to, you know, your worth, your value, your. But I think it's such a time too where you're trying to connect with something inside yourself, you know, and your own voice. And so even the positive voices, it's still a lot of noise. It's still a lot of voices coming at you, even if they're supportive that in the end can drown out and make you harder to do that connecting that you're so, like, trying to do, which is like, who am I? And how do I, like, source that part of myself?

Brooke Lark [00:17:03] Totally. And I think, you know, one of the surprises is, and, you know, I'm 13 years now into this journey and I laugh all the time because even I remember sitting down with you and thinking like, well, we figured it out. We found the answer. The answer is Mormonism is not true. And it's like, oh, girl, you are hilarious. That is the beginning of like, what now? And it is, it's like, do I listen to this voice? Do I listen to this voice? What part of this do I agree with and don't agree with? And I mean, you are like a baby just picking through things. And so you haven't even learned what voices to listen to because you've really never listened to your voice. And that, that's not an overnight thing because you don't have the skills to do it. You know?

Margi Dehlin [00:17:50] That's right.

Brooke Lark [00:17:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:17:51] That's a perfect metaphor. When you leave a high demand religion or a cult or whatever, you're like a baby.

Brooke Lark [00:17:57] You really are.

John Dehlin [00:17:58] Yeah. Literally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just like, that's just, that's just like you've begun.

Brooke Lark [00:18:04] Yeah. Oh, 100%. Well. And you know, it's interesting, I say all the time that, you know, the first 10 years, like, I remember people saying like, well, outside of Mormonism or outside of divorce, like, you have to give yourself as many years out as you had in, in order to like fully deconstruct. And I remember thinking like, again, like, when we sat down with you, I'm like, no, we've. No, we're doing great. We figured it out. We really figured it out.

Margi Dehlin [00:18:31] We've arrived.

Brooke Lark [00:18:32] Yeah. And now. And it really wasn't until I would say late 2020 that I actually started to understand, like, pick apart patterns because they kept running into these problems. And I had this like, awareness of all of these patterns that I picked up from cult mentality that I had never even realized was the next thing to pull off. And that was 10 years into this step, you know, so, yeah, it is. You are a baby and you just don't know what you don't know. So you take each step as it comes and you learn a lot of lessons and you go places that you never thought that you were going to go. And the journey is wild and it's

The Decision to Divorce

John Dehlin [00:19:19] also beautiful, you know, so this next portion might be super brief or might be a few minutes. And of course, you, you and John don't owe any, anyone any explanation for like the marriage ending. But. And I'll just say, like, you know, job change, move, financial struggles, entire spiritual, religious worldview falling apart. Like, and then marriage is just always going to be hard to begin with. And not, not all divorces are even failures. Sometimes they're just like, hey, take care, we had a great run, now we're going to go to something else. So with all of that as the. As disclaimers is there anything you would want to share about the decision for y' all to separate or divorce and you don't owe anyone anything?

Brooke Lark [00:20:13] Yeah, for sure, Absolutely. Yeah. I'll only answer what I want to answer, but I'm happy to be an open book. You know, I say all the time that when everything that you knew about your life and yourself falls away,

Margi Dehlin [00:20:30] you

Brooke Lark [00:20:30] are often left with this partner where the thing that brought us together was the church. And so all of a sudden, this thing that had cohesed us was gone. And then we each reacted to the freedom on the other side of a high demand religion in different ways. So for my personality, the freedom was an absolute breath of fresh air. It was like I couldn't try on more ideas or be open enough to different people. You know, I turned quite humanist and it just felt like the world blew up with technicolor magic. There was so much to see and taste and discover and be open to.

Brooke Lark [00:21:14] And my general experience of John going through it was that without the guardrails of the church telling him what to do, it was like he just didn't quite know. He just didn't quite feel this, like, clarity of purpose. Right. And that makes total sense. Like you're born in the church as a boy and you're, you know, top dog, you've got the priesthood, you have all of these special things and then

John Dehlin [00:21:39] a plan, like a clear path to

Brooke Lark [00:21:40] follow and a path.

John Dehlin [00:21:41] Yeah, especially at the ces, you go to byu, you do the CES thing and then you go up the ranks.

Brooke Lark [00:21:47] Yep. And I think at the same time, this is really common in the post Mormon community is you are rethinking everything, you know, like, what do I think about women working? What do I think about politics? What do I think about sex? What do I, you know, and so you're trying to answer all of these questions after being in this hyper limited structure. And, you know, you often see this pendulum swing where people suddenly go from like, as I did, like thinking Sarah Palin was the most amazing person that I'd ever seen to like, holy cow, I think I'm a liberal Democrat, you know, and it's like so strange to be in these two different worlds in this one body and trying to make sense of it and trying to suss through, like, well, this was important, but that was important because of this idea.

Brooke Lark [00:22:34] And so, you know, it leads to a lot of spinning out. It leads to a lot of trying things on. And it was about eight or nine months after we did the interview that John came to me and just said, I'm tired. I want a divorce. And so I thought for sure that it was kind of a joke and that we would get through it. You know, I was like, well, this is just a phase.

Brooke Lark [00:22:58] We'll figure it out. And as we got deeper into the weeks and months after he asked, it became really clear that. But that was definitely the direction that he wanted to move. So, yeah, so we, you know, did the unthinkable again. Once again, another part of my path that I didn't see coming that I was never prepared for.

Brooke Lark [00:23:22] And we filed for divorce, and that kicked off, you know, just a whole crazy era, because that's another thing. Like, I've never known myself as not a Mormon now. I've never. I mean, the last time I was in a relationship was this Mormon relationship. We'd been in it for 15 years. But, you know, I was 19 when I got married. And so you start to realize that you're really kind of emotionally underdeveloped in a lot of ways. And I think, you know, honestly, I think that's probably what it was. We were really emotionally underdeveloped. And all of a sudden, we're in this onslaught of new choices and big changes, and you just start to see greener grasses in other places, and the marriage starts to feel like a tether that is, like, constricting you.

Brooke Lark [00:24:12] You know, I remember saying to my. To my sister on a phone call shortly after John asked for the divorce. I said, I'm heartbroken. And I also feel like I have been weighted down by chains. And it's like, I.

Brooke Lark [00:24:29] I don't want the divorce, but I also don't want to do anything to make him change his mind, because it feels like if I took off these chains, I could finally breathe again.

John Dehlin [00:24:39] So you were ambivalent?

Brooke Lark [00:24:40] Yeah. Yeah. You know, because you don't. You realize, like, this is gonna be the last family picture of our family. Like, we've created this precious, cohesive unit, and that's worth fighting for. And also, we've created this very chaotic world where we're at each other all the time or we're not walking together in some way. And try as we might, we couldn't.

Brooke Lark [00:25:07] We were getting more distant than. More together. And so I actually ended up filing for divorce after a couple of weeks, because going into that, it just. Things started getting a little bit chaotic. We were getting more uncertain, unstable. Money was starting to become more unstable. And so I was like, well, if this is what he wants, then I can't keep staying in the chaos whirlwind. And so I think if anybody asks John, he'll say, well, Brooke filed for divorce. And I always say, well, that's true. And he asked for it. So I think going into the divorce, at the end of the day, both of us really realized that that thing that we had created wasn't going to carry us into what was next for both of us.

Margi Dehlin [00:25:57] That's right. So it sounds like actually, you know, maybe the timelines were a bit different or. But that you each had a realization at some point. It reminds me almost of the raft, the Buddhism raft that. This raft that you spend all those years building. Do you know that story of the raft in Buddhism where you build a raft and it takes years and you're trying to get across this stream and so. And you kind of love the raft. I mean, you've spent all this time on it, but once you make it across the stream, you look ahead and it's a big mountain, and you realize that the raft isn't going to help you.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:35] You're going to have to, like, carry, try to. Are you going to tote the raft, or do you actually. Is it time to actually honor that the raft got you across that thing? You might need something different to get up a mountain.

Brooke Lark [00:26:49] Yeah. Thank you for that, Margi. That really resonates. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I've had a lot of people over the years call. You know, you become the girl that people call when they're in a faith crisis or when they are thinking of divorce.

Brooke Lark [00:27:05] And I think that a lot of people think that they're gonna call me and I'll say, yeah, leave the church. Yeah, get a divorce. And I. I think that I surprise people a lot by saying there are benefits to both directions, and there are just different versions of you. And so the question is, which version of you do you want to meet or need to meet? Do you want to meet the one that learns repair in a difficult relationship, or do you need to meet the one that is outside of this relationship? And so I don't praise divorce. It has been a gift in so many ways. It's been a burden in so many ways. But that's life, you know?

Margi Dehlin [00:27:47] Right.

John Dehlin [00:27:50] Beautiful. Wow. So I guess is there anything you want to share about? Like, how do you tell four kids, Number one, we're leaving the one true church that we raised you in, and then now our family's splitting up.

Telling the Kids and Finding Community Support

Brooke Lark [00:28:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:28:07] And we're both, in some ways, kind of excited about that. Like, that. I imagine that's a. Maybe it's a difficult conversation. Maybe it's a great conversation. Anything you want to share about how you. How you do or don't have that conversation?

Brooke Lark [00:28:21] Yeah, that's such a good question. You know, I have learned, and I certainly have not done everything perfectly, but I think too many of us adults keep things from the children. Our kids, actually. When we told them that we were leaving the church, they thought that we were getting a divorce because we kept holing up in our room, and they could hear us talking and grappling with things, and they thought we were fighting. And to this day, my kids will be like, well, we knew that you were gonna get a divorce. And I'm like, well, we were never. We were actually never having a rift.

Brooke Lark [00:28:55] We had a relatively peaceful coexistence. We just were doing two different things. And so one of the things that I learned from that is bring your people along with you. You know, it's a lot bigger fish to fry when I suddenly go, the family's over, versus. I want to walk you through what's going on. Dad is thinking things. Mom is thinking things.

Brooke Lark [00:29:25] Because I feel like springing anything on kids is just cruel. And so letting them understand how you're navigating things, and this has been true even of my path post Mormonism, is I don't try to hide my adult walk from my children, because I'm not raising kids. I'm raising adults. And so if I don't help them cue into how I'm making decisions, why I'm making decisions, then they're missing out on that developmental stage that helps them understand how I'm processing each of the stages of my life. And we certainly. We don't need to go into heavy detail. Kids shouldn't carry the heavy burdens that I'm never gonna dump on my kids.

Brooke Lark [00:30:16] Like, well, mom can't pay the mortgage this month. Right. So there are things that we protect our children from because as parents, we want to give them a safe world. And also, I try to let my kids in often on the things that I'm grappling with, the way that I'm making decisions. And so, yeah, I think that that's been one of the biggest things. And I have raised just these beautiful, wholehearted children that amaze me with their ability to face problems because we face them openly together all along the way. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:50] Love that.

Margi Dehlin [00:30:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:52] Let me just as kind of a side question before we get to your rebuilding your reconstruction and you discovering a career for yourself, which is no small thing.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:02] And further deconstruction.

Brooke Lark [00:31:04] Yes, as well. It's always deconstruction.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:07] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:31:08] There's one thing that happens with many people that come on Mormon stories or that are public in that sort of, like, there's like a waterfall or an avalanche of people reaching out, saying thank you, or they want to tell their story to you, or they want to thank you for how you've helped them. Or it's old missionary companions or old childhood friends or boyfriends or cousins or aunts or roommates or whatever who come out of the woodworks to say, me, too, or I'm struggling, or. Or they're wanting advice, or they look up to you. Did you experience that sort of avalanche of people either reaching out to you or looking up to you? Did you find yourself in a counseling role with other transitioning or questioning Mormons? What was that whole interaction like for you?

Brooke Lark [00:32:01] Yeah, there was. I mean, for years, my Facebook message messenger was full of people, a lot of people still in, who didn't have someone to talk to, for which I am so grateful, because when I was in and I didn't know who to reach out and talk to, you know, there were little things that, like, there was the I am an Ex Mormon series.

Brooke Lark [00:32:23] And the week that we left, I called one of the men who had filmed an I am an ex Mormon kind of testimony. And, you know, I called him and I said, I'm. I just left the church, and I am freaking out, and I don't know what to do. And he's just this beautiful gay man. And he said, darling, I'm in the garden in San Francisco about to get married. I'm at the top of the aisle. I'll call you at the bottom of the aisle. And he did, and he was just a lifeline. And so there were. You know, there has been this avalanche of people in the church that have reached out, others that were out that just said thank you.

Brooke Lark [00:33:05] It makes our story make sense. But most recently, actually, last year, I was at Red Rocks in Denver at a concert, and I walked in and had my popcorn, and I was sitting down, and I hear Brooke, and there is an entire row of people sitting on the rocks at Red rocks, and probably 10 or 15 people, and they're all waving, and I'm scanning the faces, trying to tell, who do I know? And I don't know anyone. And they're like, we saw your Mormon Stories podcast back when we were Mormons, and now we're all at a concert together.

Brooke Lark [00:33:43] And so there still are little Moments of serendipity and synchronicity and connection. So I think it's been nothing but a gift. I think that connection is always a gift. And then. And so whether I'm connecting to people that don't understand me or who haven't found someone to understand them or whatever, I mean, our stories are what create tribe, right? So yeah, the avalanche came in and it's largely been a gift.

Life as a Single Mother After Leaving

John Dehlin [00:34:14] Were there buckets or categories of stories that you saw reoccurring groups of people or types of situations that you developed particular empathy for or sympathy for or frustration around in terms of harm or impact that the church was having on certain types of people based on all the people who reached and continue to reach out to you?

Brooke Lark [00:34:47] Oh yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, for sure. I think, you know, it's inevitable that when you become a go from a stay at home mom to becoming a divorced, single, non Mormon mom, and you've lived in both structures, you start to see how harmful it is for women.

Brooke Lark [00:35:09] And so a year and a half after I left, I actually started a group called for divorced single moms, kind of Mormon, largely ex Mormon. Almost everyone was. And I think what's particularly heartbreaking about that is, you know, it's women just like me, age 18, 19, 20, who got married and started having babies quite quickly and poured their support into their husband's career.

Brooke Lark [00:35:39] And all of a sudden the husband decides that he's done and they are left. You know, I have one friend, she has nine kids and she hadn't worked since she was 18, working in, you know, this little high school job.

Brooke Lark [00:35:55] And it's like, how do you overnight reinvent a world that can take care of yourself, let alone nine children? And so there is a tremendous amount of empathy for that subset of women. And but, you know, women in general, it's just the structure of the church and the dogma of the church is so hard on, you know, kids growing up gay, just any of those alternate things that aren't the vanilla Mormon life

Margi Dehlin [00:36:31] kind of anyone that falls outside of that box of, you know, the privileged box of being in the church. Is that kind of what you're saying?

Brooke Lark [00:36:39] Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:44] That's powerful. That's great. That's a great segue into where I thought we'd go next. Because. Because I know that John struggled for years to try and find a career that really fit him. That meant that you had to figure out how to help support your family, yourself and your kids. And I don't know, maybe Even John, I don't know. So how in the world. So you were how old when you left the church?

Brooke Lark [00:37:10] I was 35.

John Dehlin [00:37:12] So how does a 35 year old woman, divorced woman, ex Mormon with four kids start to figure out how she's going to help make ends meet in the family that seems monstrously large.

Brooke Lark [00:37:26] It's wild because I think that what you have to understand is you're only like social connections are other moms typically or school teachers. Right. And so your world is quite insular when you're a stay at home mom. At least for me it was. And so for I had been lucky enough. And this is one of the things that, you know, I often feel, I do feel very grateful that while I was a stay at home mom, the one thing that I had was time. So when my youngest kids went to school to kindergarten, I started like applying for recipe competitions and I just want like maybe I could earn $500 a month. You know, I started a blog that quickly started morphing into like food.

John Dehlin [00:38:14] You were always a foodie, right?

Brooke Lark [00:38:15] Yeah, total foodie. Yeah, I mean accidental foodie. I didn't know that I was. I just needed content to post every day. And so at the time when and John and I came out of the church, I had had a little more success than I even knew was possible. It was the early days of the blogosphere. And so, you know, I thought that maybe I could make $500 a month. And I remember having the conversation with John as we were talking about leaving and I said, you know, I'm making a couple thousand dollars a month. I think that I can float us for a couple of months while you find a job.

Brooke Lark [00:38:51] So I just started kind of throwing out feelers and just saying, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this, I can take pictures, I can blog. And so I kind of started developing a little at home world that could bring some money in, but it was still not nearly enough to actually survive a family. And so when the divorce happened and it was just reaching out to every person that I knew and saying, I'm available and I don't have any history of it, but I can copyright, I can take pictures. I mean it was just like throwing every spaghetti noodle against the wall.

Brooke Lark [00:39:35] And so I think there was a time where the first year in my own home, which was a whole another thing, like I had never called and set up my own utilities, like actually seeing myself as an adult that could do things to take care of my family was this whole new version of me that I didn't know that I could do. And so I didn't believe that I could do. It seems so big at the time

John Dehlin [00:40:03] when you haven't set up utilities before. It seems massive.

Brooke Lark [00:40:05] Yeah. I cried when I called the utilities and I said, can I get these set up? I was so nervous. I thought she would tell me no. And. And she said, yep, they're set up. And I remember crying because it was like I didn't know that I could be a grownup and do things that grownups did. It's such a strange disconnect to talk about now, but it was such a real thing at the time.

Brooke Lark [00:40:27] Yeah. So I just. I mean, I took on everything that I could. I was working around the clock, lucky enough. I was lucky enough to work from my kitchen table so I could still parent my kids. Cause at the time, I mostly had full custody.

Brooke Lark [00:40:43] There was no financial support from John because he didn't have a job. And so legally there was no money that could be ascribed to support the family. And, you know, I would just. I think I had eight or nine clients, and I would just blog and shoot and just tried to hack things together as much as possible. Saying yes to everything.

John Dehlin [00:41:07] When you say shoot to give people a sense for what?

Brooke Lark [00:41:11] I was largely doing food photography at the time.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:14] So.

John Dehlin [00:41:14] Like stills of food.

Brooke Lark [00:41:16] Yeah, yeah. And then that morphed into video a couple of years later. So at the time, the Internet really wasn't video based. And so, you know, I would cook a recipe and I would set it up on my kitchen table and I would use this little craigless camera for $300 and shoot pictures and then upload them for Betty Crocker. And, you know, just felt so lucky. Actually, one of the Mormon Stories listeners was kind enough also to call and hire me for his company, SmugMug. And so I started doing writing for him. And, you know, there have been a couple of men over the course of my life that it was like they just chose me.

Brooke Lark [00:41:55] And he was one of the ones that I can say really changed my life because he helped me understand that I had real world skills. And so all of a sudden, you know, I'm in meetings in Silicon Valley and I'm making money that was far beyond what I could have asked for myself. And I just feel so incredibly grateful because sometimes I think what you do need is someone to say, I see the potential that you can't see. I was sitting behind so many blockages and so many stories that I'd been given culturally that I really needed people to, like, tether and pull me out of that.

Brooke Lark [00:42:34] And so, yeah, you know, hustle, hustle, hustle and grit is really the only way that I know to make it, to make that flip happen.

Building Resilience Through Difficult Times

Margi Dehlin [00:42:45] Right.

John Dehlin [00:42:46] Were there times where you weren't sure you could keep going or we're gonna make the bills, or could make it month to month or could survive juggling, dealing with your own stuff and your kids and being a provider and not always getting what you'd hoped for, you know, like.

Margi Dehlin [00:43:10] And grief and with all that, carrying all that grief. So survival mode. Hustle, hustle, overwhelm and grief.

Brooke Lark [00:43:19] Yeah. There's just such a complexity of everything.

John Dehlin [00:43:23] Right.

Brooke Lark [00:43:23] Because you're dealing with everything. You're dealing with your kids grief, you're dealing with your own limitations that you didn't even know that you had because you were on script and being such a good girl. And now all of a sudden, you're like, thrust into this world that you were not created for, you were not prepared for.

Brooke Lark [00:43:41] Yeah. I remember a lot of times feeling. Shortly after I moved to Utah, I started dating a guy that had never been Mormon, and so all of his friends had never been Mormon. And so, you know, they're 35 and they have never had kids and they have these, like, light, carefree lives and they know who they are and they go on vacations. And I was just so drowning in insecurity, financial insecurity, personal insecurity. I would look at these people who had had real, real lives and think like, oh, my gosh, how did I not see that I'd made all of these choices against my own well being and against my children's well being by being in this, like, controlling church structure and then choosing to leave it?

Brooke Lark [00:44:32] Yeah, I mean, there were definitely. There were definitely some really scary times. And, you know, I think the thing that you don't have is, is trust of yourself.

Margi Dehlin [00:44:42] That's right.

Brooke Lark [00:44:43] I'd always trusted the church. I'd always trusted my husband. And so the thing that I had to learn was that when shit hits the fan, I can just trust myself. But I didn't have that as a baseline knowledge to dip into. And so, yeah, I mean, there were. The day that I moved into my first home by myself, I had $40 in the bank. And I just thought, I. I don't know how I'm going to do this. I mean, it felt like an insurmountable many, many years to get these kids raised.

John Dehlin [00:45:17] Was that with rent or a mortgage?

Brooke Lark [00:45:19] That was rent.

John Dehlin [00:45:20] Okay.

Brooke Lark [00:45:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:45:21] Okay. $40 in your renting?

Brooke Lark [00:45:23] Yeah, $40. And I think I. In the divorce, I ended up taking 30 or 40 thousand dollars of debt. So, you know, I'm. I am zero work experience hacking together this online career, and nobody knew what online careers were like at the time. You know, it was just shooting into the dark, constantly caring for children who also have needs with $40 in the bank. And, I mean, it's just a wing and a prayer

John Dehlin [00:45:54] for those who might encounter those dark moments where they want to give up or they don't think they can make it. But can you think back to how you dealt with those dark moments when you thought you couldn't make it? Like, things that got you through?

Brooke Lark [00:46:10] That's such a good question. You know, I think one of the things that has been rising in my understanding of the way that life works is that feelings are fleeting and they feel true because they're real in the moment.

Brooke Lark [00:46:28] But there are so many other versions of you that can be born in minutes or weeks. And really just trusting that wherever you are, you know, this last year, I've been going through another huge reinvention. Like, just when you think like, oh, I've completely reinvented life, is really good at giving you a reinvention. And so one of the things that I have found is, you know, what I call, like, the lens Click. I'm a photographer, so what am I holding onto? That is. What is the idea that I'm holding that is causing me pain right now? Right? And so, like, in those early days, like, the idea that was causing me pain is I can't take care of my kids, or we're so poor, or other people think, or we're gonna be homeless.

Brooke Lark [00:47:20] That was a big one. Like this, like, I would just get drowned with this fear that we're gonna be homeless. And then I would kind of take the second to shift the lens. You know, Am I homeless now? No. Am I going to be homeless again in the future? I don't know.

Brooke Lark [00:47:38] But what can I learn right now? You know, what can I learn in this darkness? How can it open me up and expand me? And so I think that in that so often what I found is when that darkness hits you, look at the stories that are causing the darkness, because the darkness is really attached to some story that's telling you something about yourself. And then I, you know, and then I'll like, okay, we're going to be homeless. So then I would go, well, what is home to my children? Like, my love, my heart? Are my kids ever going to be without that?

John Dehlin [00:48:14] No.

Brooke Lark [00:48:15] Do we have to live somewhere else? Maybe, but we'll figure it out. Right. And so being able to deconstruct my own thoughts, really look at the ways that I'm creating my own worry or sorrow, has definitely helped me shift faster out of those moments. And I think also, like 2000% find the gratitude. Like, what about this moment right now, even in the darkness can I be grateful for? And that has helped me move really quickly through multiple reinventions when I just stay in a state of gratitude, you know? Thank you for the lessons. Thank you for the lessons. Thank you for the lessons.

Margi Dehlin [00:48:59] So, yeah, it reminds me a little bit different spin, but I feel like it's. What you're saying is sometimes when we're really counting the losses, because if we're alive in any given moment, we're likely processing some. A death or. And a death of something that existed. A belief, an expectation we had, a hope we had. Right. But what I hear with the gratitude thing and another way to just kind of put that is like, are there things being born, though, right now? Like, is there anything I can see that's actually being born as these other things are, you know, dying or I'm losing, you know, this sense of what I've known about them?

Brooke Lark [00:49:44] Yeah, yeah. I think all the time. One of my favorite Bible verses is Beauty from Ashes. And, you know, if you look at the way that nature works, like after a forest fire and everything is black, if you walk, you'll see these little green sprouts.

Brooke Lark [00:50:01] And that has been true time and time again through every reinvention, is there's always a breakthrough. There's always a point where I say goodbye to the person that I was. And that opens all of the space to become this more expansive whole version of myself than I ever dreamed of being. And so, yeah, so all of the hard times, you know, they've caused all sorts of, you know, anxiety and pain and terror, and I didn't think I could do it. And you. You get through the. The sun always rises, you know, and sometimes it takes days and sometimes it takes months. But, you know, again, like being with yourself, learning that you can figure it out, that you start to kind of gain.

Brooke Lark [00:50:55] It's a little bit like weightlifting, right? You start to get more fluent in the hard things in life, and you start to gain skills that get you through faster. And so, you know, if you're there, just be in it. It's okay. And shift the lens and wow, what parts of you is this Awakening. And what parts of you is this gonna grow and expand and make stronger? And it will. It will if you let it.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:23] I love that. That idea of it being, like, loss or deconstruction or. And this is where I think, you know, when we talk about a religious transition or any type of. If you want to say, crisis or is that in some ways, it is like a terrain that you become more familiar with. And I think there's grief there, there's deconstruction there. Relationships are changed, our identity has changed. But the more we are open to the fact that that terrain is part of life. I do think it's like you said, it is a terrain where you're like, I've done this before. I've been here before.

Margi Dehlin [00:52:06] You know, and that resistance that we have to. I think the suffering, it becomes kind of like, you can remember, okay, what did. What did it feel? What have I tried, what worked before? And it becomes something that is like, oh, this is now a terrain I remember, as opposed to, like, feeling lost every time or blindsided the same time in viewing it as wrong, like, you did something wrong. Why is this happening again? It's. No. Nope. This terrain is, like, part of life.

Brooke Lark [00:52:34] Oh, I told. Yes. Amen. Yeah, 100%, you know, and I think, too, like, one of the biggest things as I, you know, I describe it as, like, the layers coming off because, you know, when the last time we sat together, it was like the Mormonism layer had come off, and then shortly after, the marriage layer came off, and they are. There are all these deaths of what I thought I was going to be and what I knew about myself.

Brooke Lark [00:53:00] And there have been so many other layers that have fallen off in the years since. And one of my favorite things about those perpetual deaths and rebirths is I have definitely found a lightness in my step, because I like. It's almost like the more that life throws these surprises at me and the more she gives me unexpected curve balls that take me to the places that I wanted to be, but I didn't know how to get there.

Brooke Lark [00:53:37] I realized that, like, I just. I used to take myself so seriously. You know, I've got to be a good girl, and it's got to look right, and the family picture has to be all matching. And, you know, it's like. It's just so funny now to look back at how seriously I took myself. And I think. I think when you pull those layers off, what comes with it is the gift of lightness, where you can laugh at the way that life looks and still have a deep knowing that your heart is good and that you are gritty and capable. And in that, what I found is that I become wholer, you know, so when I go to the places that I thought I would never be, what I'm actually digging out is a part of me that had blocked understanding what it is to be that.

Brooke Lark [00:54:31] And so all of the unexpected paths on or journeys on my path has kind of opened me up with more compassion, with more understanding. And so, you know, those dark times can really be the gift.

John Dehlin [00:54:51] Love it. Well, as I've kind of watched your career development from a distance, what occurs to me are memories of like, whoa, Brooke's really killing it. Like, you moving into videography, you doing, you know, national or international level super professional high end to the point where you're renting out houses and regularly providing professional videography services for international brands. Like, tell us what career or careers you ended up building for yourself.

Discovering a Career in Food and Photography

Brooke Lark [00:55:29] Oh, yeah, thank you for asking. So one of the funny things about I'm going to be, I'm only going to be a stay at home mom is that I say all the time, like, I didn't have any, like, I hadn't considered myself a career person. So there was no point in time where I was like, I will now build a career. It was just like, how do I pay the bills? How do I pay the bills? So that started as a blogger that turned into a food photographer, you know, and all of these were like, I would run into someone along the way, I would have a manager along the way who would say, you're really good at this.

Brooke Lark [00:56:06] And they'd go, I'd go, oh, I'm really good at this. I should take myself seriously, you know. And so slowly these little like levels of increasing confidence and increasing skills started to build upon themselves. And so food photography turned into lifestyle commercial photography and then that turned into, we just expanded to a creative agency. And so I now run Lark and Co Creative Agency. We do commercial content, content for brands primarily like food gift.

Brooke Lark [00:56:38] Yeah, we, we get a lot of really fun opportunities to like rent out full airbnbs and create full sets and style them and bring in models and, you know, make these really beautiful vignettes for brands so that their products look beautiful. And it's just been a magically fun career. And I think one of the things that I didn't expect and this is one of the things that, you know, I wish for women who are just starting out, it's taken a lot of time, like navigating all of my ideas of what career should look like, not taking myself seriously, and then realizing that when I decide that I'm professional and I engage in a professional way, then the way that I do things is professional.

Brooke Lark [00:57:26] And so one of those things was realizing that I didn't have to hire. I could hire other professionals, but I could also train my children to be professionals as well. So of my four children, three of them have worked full time for me, two have spun off to build their own agencies. And, you know, that has come to me in a way that I feel such an incredible amount of gratitude for, because when I first stepped into career, you know, it's this man's world and we're chasing money and we're chasing success and things need to be pristine. And when I realized, like, actually I can do this the way that I want to do it, I can take care of a lot of people, this can be a gift for my family and it can grow instead of me, you know, making it look one certain way.

Brooke Lark [00:58:20] That's really been one of the big surprises of my career is that it could become whatever I wanted it to be and it could bless a lot of people's lives. And so being able to shift not just into being a professional photographer and creative agency owner, but like, really looking for opportunities to raise people up in their own skill has just been such a gift.

John Dehlin [00:58:46] So just the types of clients are these social media influencers? Are these, you know, Procter and Gamble wanting to sell head and shoulders? Like what historically and now what are the types of clients that have or now come to you for what specific types of services? Just because I don't know the field quite as well.

Brooke Lark [00:59:08] Yeah. So big name brands. So over the years I've worked for Good Cook, Betty Crocker. We have a local company that's a big beautiful company called Spoonful of Comfort. She does like gift boxes. And so for instance, Spoonful of Comfort. So like basically any company that makes a product, you want to show people interacting with the product.

John Dehlin [00:59:31] For commercials?

Brooke Lark [00:59:32] For commercials? All of the above, yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:59:34] Maybe social media.

Brooke Lark [00:59:35] For social media, yeah. It just depends. So we'll sit down and work with a company and decide what it is that they need. So we'll develop their website, websites, will develop their social feed. We'll train influencers to create videos, we'll create commercial ads. So we have a couple of different teams that do, you know, whatever a commercial brand needs to look gorgeous.

Brooke Lark [01:00:00] So, yeah, it's such a fun career that, you know, and this is one of those Things that I think that as a Mormon woman, I think, man, I didn't have a single human in my life saying, like, you're an artist. So we're going to connect you to other artists. You're good at this. So we're, you know, it's like, because I was not thought of as a career person, my career should be at home. I missed all of these years of connection to that. Connect what is inside of me, naturally, with these careers, because I think that that was one of the things, like, and I see this a lot with the single.

Brooke Lark [01:00:41] The divorced moms that I've interacted with through my Facebook group. You know, they'll come to me and be like, I've never done anything. I don't have any skills. And I'm like, girl, you're a bucket of skills. You just. You've never been told that preparing a Relief society meal for 500 people is. Is a catering company. Right. And so it's like this weird disconnect that it's made me that I've had to learn over the years. Like, the skills that I innately have are viable market skills. I was just never told that I'm a viable market human.

Margi Dehlin [01:01:19] Can I ask you a question about. So it sounds like the little seeds of your passion and profession began kind of even when you were married. It was like the blog and food, Right?

Brooke Lark [01:01:34] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:01:35] So would you say you had a passion for it then? Was that born out of passion? Because I'm curious about this passion side.

Brooke Lark [01:01:43] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:01:43] And what happens when we have a passion for something and then it hits. Survival.

Brooke Lark [01:01:49] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:01:50] And then it hits that you're going to try and make money now out of this thing that you initially loved, probably for its own sake. Like, what would you say about that? What?

John Dehlin [01:02:00] That does ruin your love for something

Brooke Lark [01:02:02] if you have to love.

John Dehlin [01:02:03] Oh, gosh.

Brooke Lark [01:02:04] Those are all the good questions. Yeah. Well, so for starters, I often say that my headspace was that I was so disconnected from my passion because I. And the thing that was supposed to be important was I am a mom, and my children are everything. And so for a long time, I would write things off like, oh, this is my little side thing. Almost like I was embarrassed. And I remember being in a business meeting with a really wonderful manager that has really blessed me and kind of making a little side comment like, oh, yeah, like, my career is just like an accident. And she.

Brooke Lark [01:02:46] She looked at me and she said, this is not an accident. And it was this moment where I was like, oh, I have been. I have internalized Stay small. Stay small. Oh, my little things. They're just little side things. And so, you know, it's taken a long time for me to. So at the time, I would say I actually didn't. I wasn't able to conceive that I had passion. I had a goal, which was to make $500 a month so my kids could go to basketball and dance. Right. And I think I even said this on our. On our first Mormon stories. But. And so I had.

Brooke Lark [01:03:23] When the kids would go to school, I would set up a camera and I would develop these recipe videos. But I wasn't driven by passion. It was like, a little bit embarrassing. It was just this little side thing that I was doing, but it was like I couldn't even connect to my idea of, like, passion. I don't even know if I could connect in my body the feeling of passion, because it was all supposed to be with my children. And so if I was doing things for the kids, that was okay.

Brooke Lark [01:03:53] And that has been a big thing that I've had to pick apart is like, I can do things for everybody else until the end of time, but how do I pull apart those blockages so that I can do things for myself now? And I think it's really only been in the last couple of years that I can even access a concept of my own passion.

Margi Dehlin [01:04:13] That's a big one.

Brooke Lark [01:04:14] It is a really big one. At the same time, you know, I think one of the things that I've learned is there are lots of ways to make money. And sometimes the best ways to make money are not the ways that they tell you. So if I would have gone and I would have gotten a desk job, it would have been. Taken me away from my kids.

Brooke Lark [01:04:33] It would have, you know, it would have limited, kind of capped how much I could make. And so I do feel grateful that, you know, whatever force or accident or intentional picking through opportunity led me to realize that there were kind of, like, more ways to make money that I had the ability to connect with than I had previously thought.

Brooke Lark [01:04:59] To answer your question, yes, working in a passion field has killed me. And so, like, one of the jokes all the time is, you know, people will say to my kids, oh, you must have. Your mom is. So I'm officially now the number one most downloaded globally food photographer.

John Dehlin [01:05:18] Oh, congratulations. Thank you. That's amazing.

Brooke Lark [01:05:21] And so, you know, people will say, oh, to the kids, you must have eaten so well. And they're like, we grew up on Trader Joe's mini pizzas. You know, it's like at the end of, at the end of a day,

Margi Dehlin [01:05:34] shout out trader, like, no shame on anyone. You get by whatever it is.

Brooke Lark [01:05:39] And so. Yeah, but, you know, after shooting and touching and cooking 10 to 12 recipes a day, the last thing I wanted to do was put together a cohesive meal. And the last thing the kids wanted to do was eat like 82 layer rainbow cake, you know, so. Yeah, and so it has its funny little side effects, but it's also been a huge blessing to be able to carve something out that was largely flexible, that I could draw as much financial windfall as I could figure out. And so the path has surprised me in really delightful ways that I hope other people can find their way as well. Because it's pretty amazing to find out not only that you can take care of your family, but that you can build something that matters in the world,

Margi Dehlin [01:06:33] you know, and what I'm hearing from you too, is that the value of those connections, people at the right time. Right. Reaching out and saying things to you or providing you with opportunities to. Yeah. And I think that's a really important thing for us all to remember.

Brooke Lark [01:06:55] Yeah. And in that, I think, you know, again, coming out of Mormonism, I had such a small concept of who should I listen to, what voices should I listen to? And one of the things that I've learned to put together over the years is, you know, listen for the people who are honest and kind.

Brooke Lark [01:07:15] And over the course of my career, the most profound shifts have come from people who are honest and kind. And so, you know, I've had one manager, I tell her all the time she was the beginning of my professional photography career because she would push me and she would say, this is not good, do it again. And you know, the criticism.

Brooke Lark [01:07:42] But when I learned to trust that she was trying to give me feedback, that really helped me accept that I could learn and that I hadn't done anything wrong or I hadn't done anything bad. And so now I actually, I don't look for people who are nice. I look for people who are kind and honest because those two things matter.

John Dehlin [01:08:02] Nice. Let's visit another topic where you can actually keep it really short and say nothing about, or we can go into a branch a little bit. And that's the topic of kind of dating and relationships. So as Mormons, it's sort of don't date until, you know, it's, you know, you're 18 or 19 or 21, and then hurry and get married and then you have sex with one person, your whole life and you stay with that person till you die. And all that's theoretical because, of course, we know that even for orthodox, devout Mormons, things aren't always that simple.

Dating and Relationships After Mormonism

Brooke Lark [01:08:38] I know.

John Dehlin [01:08:39] But I also know that it's probably no trivial, small thing to be a single mom of four kids in the modern era trying to balance a career you're building, but also trying to see to what extent you want to dip your toe into intimate relationships. And what's it like to date ex Mormon people? Never Mormon people. Do I want to even be in a serious relationship? Do I want to get remarried? Is the dating world a nightmare? Like, do I even want to mess with that at all? So for men or women who are listening, staring those possibilities in the face, what would you want to share about that dating and. Or intimate relationship? Whatever.

Brooke Lark [01:09:28] Those are such great questions.

John Dehlin [01:09:30] And you can also say, no comment.

Brooke Lark [01:09:31] Oh, no.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:32] Can I even nest it? Like, if we nest it too that. It seems like you're being given a moment again. We've talked about you trying to connect with your voice, and you're kind of. It feels like maybe for the first time trying to create some type of relationship with yourself, but you also are in relationship with your kids. You've got the professional. And how one balances an emerging sense of a relationship to themself being on their own versus now. Yeah.

Brooke Lark [01:10:06] Oh, that's such a great question, Margi. And okay, so I think that's actually a really good place to start. So my headspace coming out of a divorce that I didn't want, so my partner had asked for it was, I had said earlier, when you leave Mormonism, you're like, well, we figured it out, right? So my headspace coming in out of divorce was, well, I didn't want this. So the answer is, I want a relationship. I need to go find a relationship. It occurred to me very early on in the dating that, like, a mom of four who had never worked, who has. Who's strapped with debt, who has no savings, is not gonna be a super hot commodity. And so I actually came into dating with this. Almost like, oh, I'll be lucky if I'm chosen. Which. That will come back around to that.

Margi Dehlin [01:11:05] Yeah.

Brooke Lark [01:11:06] And so it's a really interesting thing because you're drowning and you. So you're single, you've essentially lost your community through Mormonism. Then you go through a divorce and you lose a lot of married friends. You know, so many people think divorce is somehow contagious. So you're walking that largely alone. Then I'M building a career and then I'm carrying these four beautiful children and trying to stabilize life. And so my first instinct was the faster that I can, can stabilize and just get back to a picket fence family, the better. Now I can look back at that and go, oh, that was not, that was not the answer.

Brooke Lark [01:11:54] The first answer that I should have done that I can see now is I should have said, wow, there is a lot going on. I have been conditioned and raised and taught to like, always access life outside of me, listen to everyone else, serve everyone else, take care of everyone else. And I would have loved to have had the awareness at the time to say, I'm going to take a year or two years to learn how to be alone, to learn how to be in silence, to deal with all of the fears of what if I'm not chosen by a man, you know, to walk the, the path and the journey alone, right?

Brooke Lark [01:12:36] Because it's funny because at the time my headspace was, oh my gosh, I have all of this responsibility and I just would love someone to help and I would love to help someone, right? Like somebody else wants to do this. But now I can look back and go, that's not a really great thing to put. It's not a healthy thing to go into a relationship having too much burden. And so I wish that I would have stabilized myself, but I didn't know at the time because so much of my conditioning was outside. Things validate me, right? And so I hopped back into dating a couple of months after we divorced.

Brooke Lark [01:13:14] I mean, it was, it was a wild and fascinating ride because there are so many adult decisions that you have never made as a 19 year old virgin. So I remember after my second date with one guy, with the first guy that I went out with, I called my gay best friend and I was like, he asked me if we wanted to have sex next time we get together.

John Dehlin [01:13:42] What do I do?

Brooke Lark [01:13:44] And I was like, just panicked. Like, how do I not get an sti? How do I. Like, I had no concept about how to navigate this. And my gay best friend said, it's scary. He's like, it's scary. You're gonna have to accept that connecting with other people in the sexual realm is always risky. There is no guarantee that it's not going to be. And that was a new awakening for me because I think so often, culturally and even in the ex Mormon culture, it's just like free for all, free for all. You know, now there are no rules, but it's like there are no Rules, but there are still adult human consequences.

Brooke Lark [01:14:24] And when you're a baby coming out of this tight controlling culture, these consequences, you still don't fully understand them and you definitely don't have the skills to navigate them. So I had to learn everything from if a man says, I would like to have sex next time and can you get tested? And here are my test results.

Brooke Lark [01:14:48] I should be grateful for that because that's very uncommon. And so, you know, so it was like even learning just these little micro moments of like, who do I trust? What is love?

Margi Dehlin [01:14:59] And that's an example of care. Actually, the STI test is like, oh, good to identify that. Yeah.

Brooke Lark [01:15:06] And that's what the gay best friend was like. He is phenomenal that he's even having. This is a grown up conversation. You've got to learn how to have these conversations. And I didn't know how to have those conversations because I was a people pleaser in every way. You know, all of the women in my life, we cherished their sacrifice, we cherished their sweetness, we cherished that. They just took things and internalized it. I didn't know how to have hard conversations. I didn't know how to be a strong voice, assertive. Yeah. I didn't know how to let someone down. I didn't know how to let a man down. And. And so, yeah, like going into dating, I mean, I was just wholly underdeveloped in all of the adult skills that you need. Luckily, life is really good at handing you all of the lessons that you need to know.

Margi Dehlin [01:15:56] Here you go.

Brooke Lark [01:15:57] Yes. One on top of another, on top of another, on top of another. And you know, I'm still learning a lot of those lessons, but I think too, and we'll talk about this later, one of the biggest things that I hadn't done going into dating was understand my own subconscious patterns. Not just from the church, but from family and childhood and the big one. What happens when you start meeting a lot of different people in that romantic relationship is you continue to just recreate your parent relationships again and again and again and again and go, this must be what relationship is like. And it's like, no, this is what you're like.

John Dehlin [01:16:35] And so do you mean the whatever pattern you're parents modeled for you, you end up repeating in the people you choose to be partners with?

Brooke Lark [01:16:45] Yeah, in my experience that is true. Until you wake up to it.

Margi Dehlin [01:16:49] Until you're conscious, right?

Brooke Lark [01:16:51] Yeah, yeah, yeah. The subconscious patterns rule you until you bring them out and look at them and really choose which ones to Keep. And which ones to say thank you and put in the river, you know?

Margi Dehlin [01:17:03] Yeah.

Brooke Lark [01:17:04] Yeah. So dating has been a gift. It has been a wild ride. Mostly it has been an awakening to my own self. What I cherish, what I don't cherish, what I want, what I want to prioritize. And that was a big shift because I was coming into normal, human adult dating with a lot of Mormon stories still attached, because in the Mormon culture, they sounded good, and so I kept them with me. So things like, you know, I remember one of the. In one of one of the general conferences, there's a quote that's like, and I'll have to find this. But it's like, any two people, right?

Brooke Lark [01:17:54] Any two righteous people can make a good relationship. And they. And so I just went in, you know, gangbusters, like, well, whoever I choose to love, we'll figure it out, you know? And I had no concept of, like, what is emotional health? I had no ability to say, like, this is emotionally abusive behavior. I just. I didn't have words.

Margi Dehlin [01:18:16] How attachment can affect how a relationship feels.

Brooke Lark [01:18:19] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [01:18:20] Yeah.

Brooke Lark [01:18:20] And then I'm bringing all of the Mormon female, you know, ideas with me, still thinking that they made me so, like, such a good partner. Like, I'm such a good partner. There's a video of me maybe eight years ago, and they say I had a reality show for a hot minute with NBC, and so they're asking me, what is love? And I said, love is giving another person something that they can't see, that they need. And I look back on that now, and I'm like, oh, good Lord, Brooke. Like, that continues to be this, like, mommy knows best, Mother knows best. I see you. I'll just use my life to pour myself into you.

Brooke Lark [01:19:05] Even the things you can't see. And pour and pour and pour. And now I'm like, no. Love is letting a person tell you who they are and honoring that and listening to what they need and not, you know, doing things under the covers or manipulating or. I don't know. All these little, like, Mormon concepts that I had about what made me a good wife were actually just a really underdeveloped sense of femininity and, like, personal strength. Right? So I had to learn all of those things through dating.

Brooke Lark [01:19:41] There were definitely some of those experiences that I wish that I. My kids didn't have to see. But in, you know, I communicated with them as I learned. And I think that my kids have also had the blessing of learning with me. And so they're all in smart Beautiful, kind, expansive relationships. So there has been damage. And I take ownership of the things that I should have done better that I couldn't see. And also, I couldn't see it. So, you know. Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:20:13] It occurs to me that model of pouring into someone else is kind of a metaphor of depletion. Right.

Brooke Lark [01:20:21] Yeah, right.

Margi Dehlin [01:20:22] For one. For the person that's doing the pouring, and also that the other person is empty of that thing. Yeah.

Brooke Lark [01:20:31] Sonia Johnson in Housewife to Heretic has this story that just absolutely. It's like it blew my understanding of what true love is. And she talks about how within the Mormon system, everybody is infantilized around the woman's sacrifice. So men don't learn to iron their clothes because mom will take care of it. Kids don't learn how to cook because mom will take care of it. And we're so grateful to mom for sacrificing everything.

Brooke Lark [01:21:02] And what I've come to learn is that me being fully empowered is having the ability to also give full empowerment to my children. So I no longer want kids that honor my sacrifice. I want kids that are strong and capable and whole. And so it's really shifted my approach to both the way that I manage and repair it myself and the way that I support my children. I want them to know how to do everything that they want to do and be fully empowered and not have to circle around my sacrifice and always live a half life because I'm pouring into them. Like, they should be able to embody their whole life because I'm raising them for a world where I'm not going to be around. So why would I want them to not be fully empowered? Because I'm always depleting myself, you know?

John Dehlin [01:21:59] Yeah. And you don't always want to run around being depleted. Right. You don't want to be the giving tree that ends up a stump.

Brooke Lark [01:22:05] Yep. Yep, exactly. Yeah. 100%.

Margi Dehlin [01:22:09] Well.

Brooke Lark [01:22:09] And I think what's interesting there is, like, the math of that I have started to learn is like, the depletion can never actually be refilled because it's always gone before anything comes in. But living from a space of strength and wholeness is I actually have so much more to give. And I give it without resentment. I give it, you know, I mean, the amount of resentment I had as a Mormon, you know, and I'm now able to give from a state of complete generosity because I'm always whole up, you know, and so it's like it completely shifts. So you think, like, well, if I'm not always giving Then I'm not a giving person. Well, that's not actually true. When I'm whole, I can be always giving because I do it with, like, pure intent instead of force or exhaustion or whatever.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:02] Right.

John Dehlin [01:23:03] And abundance.

Brooke Lark [01:23:03] Yes, I think.

John Dehlin [01:23:05] Is that right?

Brooke Lark [01:23:06] 100% abundance.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:08] I think, too. Something that I really love about this is the idea that of embodiment of embodying. Actually, it's no gift to children to have a parent that they see who they feel is resentful or giving beyond actually. And I do think so. Would you say one of the things that you've deconstructed is, I think within Mormonism, I think family cultures also have a lot of this for is just, you're more valuable, you're more righteous, even if you don't have needs.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:49] And so I do think, like, one thing for me is just like, feeling the gloriousness of being in relationship with someone who can actually. You're aware of your own needs. It's like a relief to have someone be able to be like, you know, hey, here. And also this idea of, like, to be alive is to have preferences.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:11] We can have preferences. You know, it doesn't make us too much or that we're too. And so have you had to kind of deconstruct some of that small not having needs and even move into this place of like, oh, I have needs and I have preferences. Because to me, that's part of acknowledging our own humanness, aliveness, and embodying to our children.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:37] I actually do have needs. So that may not work, what you're bringing up. And here is something that might. Because I'll be visible here to you in this need. Yeah.

Brooke Lark [01:24:47] And I think, yeah, I used to say, like, I'm so easy to date. I'm so flexible. And so, you know, there was this big moment in my life where I was like, actually, I have been dishonest with myself. I'm actually not that flexible. I actually have very specific ways that I like to wake up and go to bed. So when I'm like, oh, I have very specific ways that I like to do things. I have very specific design that I like in my house. I have very specific songs that create feelings in me that I like. And I'm not actually as flexible as I thought.

Brooke Lark [01:25:27] And what I found when I started to wake up to my own wholeness is I had a huge spin out of a lot of friends because I had a lot of people who loved how flexible I was, but nobody who saw or understood or could support who I actually was. And so, you know, there has been. There's been a lot of many, many very humbling moments of realizing how manipulative I have been in the name of being nice, in the name of being flexible, in the name of being sacrificial.

Brooke Lark [01:26:05] I've had to take a lot of ownership over my own behaviors that have been underdeveloped, emotionality, and really recognizing, wow, I spent so long walking around dishonest to everyone else because I wasn't being honest with myself. But then what is so beautiful on the other side of that? You know, I've heard it called as, like, embracing your villain era. Like, it's okay if some people don't like what I like or the way that I do things, because what that actually has created is this, like, resonance for the people who like strong people, for the people who want healthy relationships. Because what I found is healthy people know who they are and they want you to know who you are. Amen.

Margi Dehlin [01:26:53] Yeah.

Brooke Lark [01:26:53] So it's been a very interesting shift to see my whole social structure change. The types of relationships I attract change, the way that I interact with my children has changed as I get really honest and more and more healthy in the way that I approach not only myself, but people around me.

Margi Dehlin [01:27:17] Yeah. I was going to just say one really quick thing. Did you notice once you were able to. I do think when we're able to kind of claim our own needs or preferences with people, we shift from a place of being invisible. Meaning how do you know someone if you never actually know that they have preferences around going to bed or waking up because they're in a pleaser role or they're trying to. There's an intimacy blocker there. There's a like of wanting to know someone. It's very hard to know someone who either can't see, connect to themselves to know their own needs or claim them, you know?

Brooke Lark [01:27:57] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [01:27:57] And so what I'm hearing is, were you saying, like, once you were able to kind of move into that space of allowing yourself to have needs and preferences, boundaries, all those things. And for others, viewing when other people state that as like, a healthy thing and a great thing, did you experience, like, more intimacy and connection or quality of that?

Brooke Lark [01:28:22] Yeah. Oh, that's such a great question. There is a book called Children of Emotionally Underdeveloped Parents. Yeah. Immature parents love that. And in that I remember. I mean, that book revolutionized it, just like, woke up all. So many subconscious patterns for me. But one of the things that really struck early in the book is she talks about how People walking. A lot of people are walking around with an existential ache, emptiness, loneliness. And because that's the only thing that we've ever known, we think that's the way that life is. But what existential loneliness is is having never been emotionally seen by your parents. And so when I realized that my, like, I had.

Brooke Lark [01:29:13] I was so disconnected from my own emotionality because I had been praised for putting my shoulder to the will. I had been praised for really pushing myself down. Right. And. And so, yeah, it is this whole experience of, oh, my gosh, now not only do I have to listen to myself, but I have to learn how to communicate that.

Brooke Lark [01:29:37] And that often leads to a spin out of unhealthy people because we have these silent agreements, right? Like, I sacrifice, you sacrifice, Right. That's what we do. And all of a sudden, when you're like, I don't. I don't sacrifice anymore, or I speak my honest truth, or I say when something isn't right, or I express a boundary around money or sex or whatever, what I found was there was actually a pretty lonely valley of, like, is it me? Am I unlovable?

Brooke Lark [01:30:09] And some time waiting until I found people who came in. And now, you know, I feel like I have a deeper, more precious tribe than I've ever had. And I couldn't have gotten here if I didn't first learn and hear myself and then trust the expression of that.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:31] I love that so much. It does remind me of, like, there was a moment, I feel like a clearing of the room. Right. And so if people are in that place of, like, that clearing of the room, there were people there, you've changed, you've shifted, and you feel like you're kind of in there by yourself, which I think is important, you know, for a moment to, you know, get comfortable. But it then the people that end up entering bit by bit.

Brooke Lark [01:31:00] Yeah, it's lighter and it's softer and it's gentler and it's kinder than it's ever been. And, you know, I think it's so hard when you grow up in a system that is one way you think, well, this is just the way life is.

Margi Dehlin [01:31:13] It's reality.

Brooke Lark [01:31:13] Yeah, well, the system. This is just the way relationships are. Relationships, you just fight a lot. Relationships, you just whatever. And to realize, like, oh, no, that's not the way it has to be. It's just the way that it has been. And so what do I need to do to awaken my full, honest self? Not only so that I can see myself and you know, get rid of that existential loneliness, but that other people can show me how they love what I truly am.

Margi Dehlin [01:31:44] It's beautiful.

John Dehlin [01:31:45] Love it. Okay, any final dating or relationship do's and don'ts before we move to the next topic? I know we covered excellent stuff. So any. Just think about the single man or woman out there just looking at this world saying, can I even survive any final things, or do we cover the main things?

Recognizing Inherited Relationship Patterns

Brooke Lark [01:32:07] I mean. I mean, my biggest thing, you know, I think one of the biggest and most important things coming out of Mormonism that I've done in every aspect of my life, from reparenting myself to reparenting my children, is like, just remove the shame completely. So wherever you are, wherever you are, it's okay. Be there, because where you are is going to teach you things. So if you've made mistakes, if you're scared of dating, if you jumped in and you keep dating terrible men or women, like, it's okay. It's okay to be where you are, because those things will get you to where you're going.

Brooke Lark [01:32:50] And at the same time, I would definitely say, take the time to learn how to hear your own heartbeat. You know, I had this experience many years ago where I was with a bunch of friends at a festival. We were all in this, like, beautiful little cozy nook, and I left, and I thought everyone was gonna follow me. And I looked around, and none of my friends had followed me. And I had this panic of, like, oh, my gosh, I'm alone. I'm alone in this field of strangers at this festival. And then I kind of had this, like, little moment of intuition that was like, no, wait, you know who you are.

Brooke Lark [01:33:31] Just hear your own heartbeat. Hear your own heartbeat. And. And, you know, it had taken years for me to hear the song of my own heart. One of my friends says, you know, sing the song of Brooke. And it's taken me a long time to learn how to sing the song of Brooke. So I think for people going into dating, like, learn how to learn how to hear your own voice. Take your time. There's no rush. And. Yeah. And then be where you are.

John Dehlin [01:33:58] Love it.

Margi Dehlin [01:33:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:33:59] Did you want to share? You mentioned that we tend to repeat the patterns of our parents. Did you want to share or even name the pattern that you sort of inherited and any awareness or learning that you've done to kind of move out of that, or is that kind of what we already covered?

Brooke Lark [01:34:20] Yeah. No. Well, so I have a podcast out now. It's called Good Mama Magic. It does A pretty good job of kind of explaining this awakening to patterns for me. So for me, it happened in Ayahuasca. I had not understood, you know, when you're raised in a home and when you're raised with the Mormon story, which is family is everything. And I see my mother kneeling. We were doing all of the things that I was told was a good and righteousness family.

Brooke Lark [01:34:55] And then when I was 16, both of my parents left the family and dropped us off at my grandma's house. And so, you know, I clung extra hard to the church for this stability. And what I didn't see until many, many, many years later was that my mother has a really severe personality disorder. And when you're raised with a super unhealthy parent, you're really raised to parent them. And so all of the things. You're a parent, basically, as a kid, you parent your parent. Yeah. And so all of the things that I thought were so awesome about me, like, I'm so responsible. You know, over the years, people would say, like, oh, Brooke, you know, you've been.

Brooke Lark [01:35:37] Your parents abandoned you. You seem to be doing so well. And I was like, yeah, you know, it's fine. I understand that my mom had a lot going on. Like, you offer compassion to your parents before you offer any understanding or compassion to yourself.

Brooke Lark [01:35:52] And so what that means is you continue to repeat that in all of your relationships. So you offer compassion toward the person who wants you to over sacrifice. You offer compassion. Well, I see that they're having a hard day or a hard month or a hard life.

Brooke Lark [01:36:06] And so for me, one of the biggest patterns was that started to really unlock things, was understanding how deeply narcissistic and borderline personality disorder my mom was. And what that finally allowed me to do was understand how I had internalized her insecurities.

Brooke Lark [01:36:31] And so I was walking around thinking the world was the certain way, but I was creating it because I was engaging in it from a state of, like, deep insecurity. So, you know, one of those things. And this leaks into so many aspects of life. But one of the more recent things in recent years was recognizing that healthy people don't have to speak cruelly, especially about their loved ones. Right. So in my family, you would leave the room and, you know, that mom would go, oh, my gosh, did you see Brooke? And so. So I thought, you know, it's this cheap intimacy, like, oh, we just.

Brooke Lark [01:37:15] We speak the truth about each other. So a best friend or a child would leave the room, and it's just pick Pick, pick, criticize, criticize. I know better. Didn't you see that? And then they come back in the room, and it's a different version of you. And, oh, I love you so much.

John Dehlin [01:37:31] Reminds me of White Lotus if you've seen this before.

Brooke Lark [01:37:34] Yeah, totally.

John Dehlin [01:37:35] The three female friends and all. Yeah.

Brooke Lark [01:37:37] And every relationship in my life was like this from the second that I was in the womb. This is how my aunts are. This is how a lot of church relationships that we drew to us were. So then this was all of my friend relationships.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:51] So then it reinforced to you, likely that this is the way it is.

Brooke Lark [01:37:55] Yes. This is all I knew. And so it wasn't until I made. Actually, I reconnected with. His name is Ry King. He was one of our EFY counselors, and I was at Pride, and all of a sudden he was there, and I was like, rai.

Brooke Lark [01:38:16] And so we reignited as friends, and I started to realize that he was the one person that I knew. It didn't matter what room he was in. It didn't matter if I was in the room or not. My name would be spoken with kindness. And it kind of revolutionized this concept of my own understanding of self. And so I had to start really looking at how I had normalized all of these things that I had been given, because, you know, the childhood oxygen that you're breathing, you can't see it. You're just breathing it. And so you think that's. That's what the world is. And so I really had to start to own the unhealthy patterns that I thought were normal.

Brooke Lark [01:39:03] Speaking cruelly in the name of honesty, being dishonest with myself or with partners, which I thought was kindness, but it was actually manipulation. So learning what healthy behaviors were, learning what unhealthy healthy behaviors were, and then learning the names to call them so that I could then start to pick them apart and relearn a new version of myself that didn't need to include those things.

Brooke Lark [01:39:32] Yeah. So that's. So that was like an awakening to these patterns that I just thought were normal. And it's been pretty revolutionary. You know, I'm sure there are still more that I'm unconsciously working under, and I'll find them when I find them.

John Dehlin [01:39:44] That's amazing.

Brooke Lark [01:39:45] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:39:46] Yeah. That's a lot of work.

Spirituality and Mental Health After Faith

John Dehlin [01:39:49] Excellent. Okay, fun. Let's turn to a topic that we've covered a bit on Mormon stories, but can be controversial for some, and I'll just give a disclaimer. Like, sometimes, because in Mormonism, pornography is Such a big issue. When we talk about how to talk better about pornography, I always get these comments like, you're endorsing pornography. And I'm like, just because I'm trying to have healthy, content conversations about things doesn't mean I'm endorsing or not endorsing something. And psychedelics often is the same sort of thing where I just, you know, psychedelics are kind of everywhere these days, in and out of active, faithful Mormonism. Like, I'll never forget a bishop who told me that his stake president took him on like a psilocybin journey, like a faithful, active stake president taking a bishop on a psychedelic journey as faithful Mormons.

John Dehlin [01:40:40] And I don't think. I think it's more rare than normal for an ex Mormon these days to not have some sort of psychedelic story. So we've talked about it quite a bit of Mormon stories. But having said that, this is not an endorsement or a non endorsement. It's just like, I know that psychedelics is an important part of your journey. And again, as an observer, once psilocybin and other types of psychedelics sort of came on the scene in Utah, I saw the emergence of. I don't know if it's Steve and Sarah Urquhart or others.

John Dehlin [01:41:18] I remember Gandhi, the BYU professor, psychology guy, was talking about it for a while. But there sort of came this psychedelic movement within Utah and within ex Mormonism that has led to like, I don't know, Rolling Stone article and even a church, at least one church, if not several. And I know that you have been a part at some level on some of these things that I'm talking about. And I'll just say, as a final thing, this is kind of more of a spirituality and a mental health question than anything.

John Dehlin [01:41:50] Because if I were to sort of start over and just start at a high level, I'm guessing that you're not, like, back in a Christian church again. I'm guessing that you're not having a traditional view of deity. So I won't ask those questions. But what I will ask is, what is spirituality for you now? What is mental health for you now? To what extent have psychedelics played an important role and or other philosophies or lifestyles? Talk to us about Brooke Lark's mental Health and spirituality in 2025.

Brooke Lark [01:42:25] Okay. Oh, I love it.

Margi Dehlin [01:42:26] It's like your toolkit.

Brooke Lark [01:42:27] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:42:28] And I'm guessing your podcast touches on this too.

Brooke Lark [01:42:30] Yeah, it does.

John Dehlin [01:42:31] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:42:31] Yeah. So

Brooke Lark [01:42:35] one of the things when I started stepping away from Mormonism, so, you know, Burned it to the ground all the way. So, like, when we sat down with you, I think that I could comfortably say that I identified as atheist, and I assumed that that would be the way it was from there on out. Right. It was like I'd figured it out. I'd put all the pieces together. Mormonism wasn't true. Obviously, nothing else made sense. And so ground zero, atheism. And, you know, I started listening to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and

John Dehlin [01:43:10] Hitchens and Harrison Dawkins, and they made

Brooke Lark [01:43:12] perfect sense to me. And so that was kind of the walk. And that didn't feel lonely or sad. I mean, there was definitely a loss. But what I started to see and started to practice was what I call life fluency. And so.

John Dehlin [01:43:33] Life fluency.

Brooke Lark [01:43:34] Life fluency, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:43:35] Fluency with life.

Brooke Lark [01:43:36] Yeah. And so what I realized is life has all of these. These experiences, just like there are all of these countries. If I go to a country and I learn the language, then I expand who I am. I am a wholer version of myself because I can now speak in the language of the culture, so I can understand, like, these little idiosyncrasies about these other places and these other people.

Brooke Lark [01:44:03] And so the first couple of years coming out of Mormonism, I really felt like I just wanted to become as fluent as possible in as many ideas and, like, cultural or religious ideologies as possible. So I studied Buddhism.

Brooke Lark [01:44:22] I got into meditation. I learned a bunch of new hobbies that I'd never done. And I just. I really wanted this journey of, like, well, this thing isn't capital T. True, but if I learn it now, I can speak in that language if it applies to different times or seasons of my life. And that has largely been a gift because, you know, it's like, I can speak in English, I can speak in poetry, I can speak in Shakespeare. I can speak in shamanism. And so I feel like in that seeking and not placing boundaries on what's good or what's bad or what's right

John Dehlin [01:45:03] or what's wrong or a single source of truth.

Brooke Lark [01:45:05] Yeah. What I am allowed to do or what I've been able to do is, like, open up parts of myself in connection to the human experience. So I understand why parts of different religions resonate with people. And so it has created a. Of sense space, of more compassion in myself and for myself and more connection with kind of humanity being this, you know, this great tribe that we're all part of.

Psychedelic Experiences and Spiritual Awakening

Brooke Lark [01:45:38] So with that said, I didn't have a spiritual awakening, and I didn't expect to have a spiritual awakening until ayahuasca, which I fell into after hitchhiking away from an experience abusive marriage. So this is what my podcast is about.

Brooke Lark [01:45:56] So I came into psychedelics through ketamine. I was married to a combat vet with ptsd. And in really frantically trying to save our marriage, which had become incredibly difficult, we found ketamine therapy. And it had been such a blessing to him. Like, literally we would walk in with one Persona and we would walk out with, with a peaceful, like peace filled, calm Persona. And I was just like, this is the closest thing to a miracle that I've ever seen. I mean, it literally was like raising from the dead this version of him that couldn't walk around the world without the medicine.

Brooke Lark [01:46:38] So I started in some nonprofit work and started connecting soldiers to ketamine. Thought it was just a beautiful gift to see these men who were debilitated from PTSD actually be able to re engage in life again. And after a couple of months of doing non profit work, the ketamine doctor came to me and said, you know, Brooke, if you're going to be like connecting people to this medicine, you really should have the medicine and experience what it is so that you know what it is that you're bringing people to. And I was like, I am so stable. I am so healthy. I don't need medicine. Like, ask anyone. I am the stable one.

John Dehlin [01:47:21] I am the medicine.

Brooke Lark [01:47:22] Yeah, exactly. And he was like, well, I think that you should do it. And so he took me in, he had giant beanbags and laid me on a bean bag and shot me with an intramuscular ketamine dose. And 20 minutes later I came out of that experience and was like, is this what it's like to live in a brain without anxiety? Like, I had no clue that I had only been functioning under anxiety. Like high level anxiety was just my go to. And I had never known anything but. Right. And like it makes sense with the childhood that I had, with the parenting that I had, that anxiety would be the. This system that I was running under.

John Dehlin [01:48:11] And sometimes it's a brain type.

Brooke Lark [01:48:13] Yeah, yeah, for sure.

John Dehlin [01:48:14] Personality type, Brain type.

Margi Dehlin [01:48:15] Yeah.

Brooke Lark [01:48:16] And so that was. That was such a powerful experience that I ended up getting on prescription ketamine and started to have these like massive unlocks where not only on ketamine are you actually experiencing yourself in all of these different ways. Right. So it's a dissociative. So my mind changes the way that it thinks. So now I'm able to think in new ways I'm able to look at problems in new ways and unlock them. And it really. It really was the beginning of. Well, and then ketamine, also, after the actual experience regrows neural pathways for up to 24 hours, over 20 trauma pathways. So I'm literally starting to feel this healing version of myself.

Brooke Lark [01:49:07] But then I'm going back into this incredibly difficult marriage and going back into, you know, this world of who I am. Like, I'm so sacrificial. I'm so people pleasing. And so it sort of become this, like, strange disconnect where I could start to access a version of me that no longer made sense with the world that I had created.

Brooke Lark [01:49:30] And so that really started to wake me up to, like, making different choices that were more aligned with, like, healthy emotional behavior. And then, of course, what that did is it started to spin everything out. So shortly after I ended my marriage.

Brooke Lark [01:49:53] Well, so what happened is I was out hiking on the Colorado trail. We'd been married for a year, and he went into just an absolute emotional tirade. And I was out in the middle of the wilderness. And I thought, I don't know that I'm going to get home alive. And so in a state of protecting myself, I just said, I'm going to walk home. And so I literally hitchhike home, hitchhiked home, filed for divorce, because, you know, it was just like, I'd gotten to a point where I realized the relationship was not getting better, it was unraveling, and it was getting more dangerous for me to stay in. And a week after that, I got a call from Senator Urquhart of the Divine assembly, who said he's been on

John Dehlin [01:50:43] Mormon Stories just for those who are Mormon Stories geeks.

Brooke Lark [01:50:46] Oh, yeah, he's so great. He's so great.

John Dehlin [01:50:47] Sarah has two, by the way.

Brooke Lark [01:50:49] Oh, and love them both. And so he called and he said, hey, you don't know me, but I'm, you know, former Republican Senator Steve Urquhart, and I'm looking for speakers for a psychedelic conference, and I'm wondering if you could.

Brooke Lark [01:51:05] Your name was given to me by people who know that you've been advocating for ketamine. I was like, yeah, absolutely. I'm in the middle of a divorce. I would love some. Something to do. And just before he hung up, he said, can I ask you a question? And I said, yeah. And he said, have you ever tried ayahuasca? And I was like, no, no, I haven't. And he's like, well, consider. Consider this. She's calling you. And two Weeks later I was in a ceremony. And I would say that that single ceremony was the complete pivot from atheist open hearted Brooke to really opening this portal of spirituality and spiritual connection that I would have never guessed could be part of my life.

Brooke Lark [01:51:53] And it's been, it's been a really beautiful shift to be back in touch with some of these things that I had said goodbye to with Mormonism. Right. So ritual and deep connection with something higher than myself. So, yeah, so I would say right now my spirituality is largely connected to indigenous belief. So I believe in the sacredness of Mother Earth.

Brooke Lark [01:52:21] I believe in the sacredness of all of us as like we're all here living together and we're connected to the ancestors who brought us before and we're here sharing this time together. And so a deep and abiding respect for all people and for all ways. You know, I don't think that all ways are correct, but I think that all ways can bring us to truth in some forms. And so I no longer have like a black and white idea of what spirituality is, but I do think that there's source within each of us that if we can tap into it, that intuition is connected to something.

Brooke Lark [01:53:01] I don't know what it is, but accepting that as part of my path has, I think softened the edges that, you know, it's like coming out of Mormonism, you kind of put these walls up because you're so afraid. Like you feel like you've been duped and I'm not going to get duped again. And so I think that there was like hardness to the atheism phase that has melted away. And it's been kind of welcome to re. See myself as the child of something.

Brooke Lark [01:53:31] And it's offered a humility that I didn't have in my hardened, protective atheist phase. And I feel like, you know, I'm softer now. I'm more open to lessons now. I feel like my underwriting force is a state of gratitude and. Yeah, so whatever that's called, that's what it is.

New Rituals and Spiritual Practices

Margi Dehlin [01:53:57] I love it when you, you mentioned ritual. Right, that, that what, what are some rituals, some examples of rituals that you are enjoying now and what do you feel like? You know, it, it brings you.

John Dehlin [01:54:12] Yeah.

Brooke Lark [01:54:12] Oh, this is so good. Well, you know, one of the things that I think is so beautiful when you have the one way and then you have nothing and then you come back into it from maybe like. Yeah, like an indigenous or shamanic background or the plant medicine. Right. Like these are like ancient, ancient medicines. And, and so it's like having that combination of all of those things in this body, in this brain, has awakened like a reverend Irreverence to ritual.

Brooke Lark [01:54:51] So I think the most healing rituals that I found are. One is play. So I host. I'm beginning. I now have a studio in Sugar House. We host these nights that I call panacea nights. And they are a gathering of friends that get together to not take ourselves seriously. And so the ritual is. We do art together. We dance together.

Brooke Lark [01:55:20] Sometimes we'll hop a. Which is a tobacco. Native American tobacco. And, you know, there's just a. There is something so beautiful to saying as adults, like, we're going to get together and remind ourselves that we have childish hearts and that life can be soft and that we can show up for each other in that space.

Margi Dehlin [01:55:43] It's like your karaoke, babe.

John Dehlin [01:55:46] Play is a ritual. I love it.

Margi Dehlin [01:55:47] Play is a ritual.

John Dehlin [01:55:48] I dig it. I dig it.

Margi Dehlin [01:55:49] I mean, it makes a lot of sense.

Brooke Lark [01:55:51] Yeah. And really taking time to schedule. To schedule that very specific time and following a template, you know, it. It is a ritual that we gather for, I would say, let's see, other rituals are. Hape has been a really beautiful ritual to add to my life.

Brooke Lark [01:56:14] I have been doing quite a bit of shamanic studying. I'm working to be a psychedelic integration coach. And so learning the rituals of other cultures and trying them on, but then again, not taking them too seriously. Right. And so I was just running with some friends through a hape ceremony. And we were laughing because, like, my dog was coming out and humping one of them while we're doing the ceremony. And, you know, somebody said at the end, like, that was a really beautiful ceremony. And I was like, it was the most chaotic ceremony ever. But maybe that was. The point is, like, to remember that the sacred can also be soft and that, you know, these deep, beautiful moments in life where we cross over, whether it's from childhood to adulthood or recently into menopause.

Brooke Lark [01:57:04] Like, all of these moments make us remind us that we are part of, you know, something bigger, which is like, this experience of human life. So, you know, even as small as, like, I wake up, I have my coffee. That's a ritual. It's a ritual.

John Dehlin [01:57:26] One true ritual. Coffee.

Brooke Lark [01:57:28] And I, like, I allow myself to just sit and be with it for 25 minutes of just being in a quiet room with myself, walking my dogs is a ritual. You know, it's like these things, tiny little things that just. And I think rituals so often that are so worth it to repeat are the ones that remind you of joy and delight, at least for me.

Margi Dehlin [01:57:52] Right.

Brooke Lark [01:57:52] Because I realize that the things I hold onto are the things that I become. So when I hold onto and repeat the things that bring me joy and delight now my life is a joyful ritual reminding me of how big and beautiful life can be.

Margi Dehlin [01:58:06] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:58:08] Yeah. Isn't it weird we've gone from coffee is evil to coffee is like a mandatory, daily, beautiful, enlightening ritual?

Brooke Lark [01:58:16] Yeah. Our neighbors in Colorado Springs were atheist. You know, he was like a biology professor. And I remember his wife saying, jeremy will go to sleep early so that the next thing is coffee. He'll be like, it's 7pm if they go to bed now, the next thing is coffee. And I never understood it until, you know, years later. And I was like, it's 6:45. If I go to bed now, the next thing is coffee. Isn't that true?

Margi Dehlin [01:58:42] Or it's like the minute my cup is, I'm done. I'm like, now I have to wait till tomorrow. Tomorrow it's like, it's over.

John Dehlin [01:58:51] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [01:58:52] It was really good, though.

John Dehlin [01:58:53] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [01:58:54] Well.

Brooke Lark [01:58:54] And I think even that, like, you know, we've modernized the ritual, we've corporatized the ritual. But, you know, I think all the time, like, this cup is a cup that people for many, many cultures from many, many years, for many generations has sat and smelled this smell and taken it into their body and felt the vibrancy of it. And so it does. It feels really connective, not just to quiet moments, but, you know.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:25] Yeah, that's right. Yeah, for me too. Hey, it's a little impermanence moment as well, where you're kind of. You get to the end and you're

John Dehlin [01:59:32] like, yeah, no, all good things must come to an end.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:35] This is how. This is how we live.

Brooke Lark [01:59:38] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:38] You know.

Brooke Lark [01:59:39] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:40] Surrendering. Yeah.

Brooke Lark [01:59:41] Yeah, I love that.

John Dehlin [01:59:42] While we're. Before we leave the topic of psychedelics, can you also give just a public service announcement for the risks or the dangers or the things to look out for? Because just like, you know, I'm never like, all porn is good for all people. And, you know, of course there's ethical concerns and issues and traps and problems and if. And, you know, I don't know why I keep mentioning that, but same thing with psychedelics. Like, are there things people need to watch out for? You know, beware of downfalls, problems?

Brooke Lark [02:00:16] Yeah. You know, I think if you consider that psychedelics are a tool that helps you make wiser decisions. So the first thing is who is wielding the Tool. There are people who want to shoot you to the cosmos, and there are people who want you to have a gentle toe dip experience.

Brooke Lark [02:00:37] And you need to suss out the energy of what they're trying to give you. Because the tool in different hands becomes different things. Always making sure that the person that is introducing a medicine. So I always say every medicine has a different personality. And it's like meeting a new friend. Like, what does this new friend, you know, and you'll go to a party and some friends wake up the excited part of you, and some friends kind of turn you off. And so it's like you don't ever want to schedule a week long vacation with someone you've never met. So always coming into medicine in like small ways with someone who treats you kindly, treats the medicine with respect. That would be thing number one.

John Dehlin [02:01:29] Because you're in an altered state of consciousness where you're not in full control of your capacities. So you're vulnerable to abuse. Am I wrong?

Brooke Lark [02:01:37] Absolutely. And that is the second thing. You hear it all the time in psychedelics culture. Set and setting is everything. So you know, if you're at a loud concert with heavy metal, you're gonna have a very, like more of your brain is lit up. So you're gonna have a very different experience than if you're on a soft fur blanket with puppies around and you know, kind people like, same medicine, two totally different versions of you. And so you really have to ask yourself, like, what do I want to wake up? Do I want to wake up? More hardness than which Lord knows, I don't know why anybody wants to wake up.

Brooke Lark [02:02:17] Hardness. The world itself is hard enough. So looking for soft spaces and soft people and soft experiences. I really believe that when we, too many of us don't have enough softness and. And so understanding that psychedelics can be a way to acquaint with lightness and play and softness and certainly shadow comes in. You know, you often have to deal with hard things or hard truths about yourself, but you want to do even those things in the most nurturing of spaces, with the most nurturing of people. And so, yeah, trust yourself.

Brooke Lark [02:02:58] There are definitely people. I've had a couple of shamanic interactions where I was like, oh, that was not healthy or safe. And so I've gotten a lot better at not just like, sure, whatever, but really choosing with intention. What is it that I want to experience more of in life and then making sure that the people align with that.

John Dehlin [02:03:24] Who would be safe to have this experience with.

Brooke Lark [02:03:27] Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:03:28] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [02:03:29] And from what I've learned, what I know, which is limited, but about the research around psychedelics, particularly in fields of mental health, is that some prep work can be ideal. And this idea of. I think you mentioned it in your. But this idea of integrating the experience is actually part of the benefit and part of the research that they're seeing. It's kind of the package. Would you say that as an ideal?

Brooke Lark [02:04:02] Yeah, absolutely. So I had my first shaman said, the moment that the medicine calls to you, so when you decide or when it's invited or you'll start to notice, like, you know, boy, I'm hearing people talk about ketamine a lot, Right. So now the medicine has called. So the journey starts then. And so you're actually in the medicine being prepared.

Brooke Lark [02:04:26] So often you'll find, like, hard things will start to come up then when you're in the medicine, we say the medicine is the medicine, but the people are the medicine. So what each person brings is also awakening or, you know, healing things when you're in the state of medicine. But then by far the most important part is now what. Because you wake up to all of these. These things, and just taking them on face value is not necessarily the best way to kind of expand yourself. Right. So I've expanded my mind with this experience. Now the experience is done. How do I take that and expand my heart?

Brooke Lark [02:05:10] And so that integration part is like, how do I take the lessons that I've learned and walk forward as a new person? And. Yeah, so each of those phases is vital to be aware of and to be surrounded with people that you trust.

John Dehlin [02:05:28] Yeah, beautiful. All right, well, Margi, I want to give you a chance to ask any final questions of Brooke that you want to ask. And, Brooke, I want to make sure and give you the final word to share any stories or messages or experiences that you want to share before we. Before we end. I don't mean to put you on the spot, Margi.

Margi Dehlin [02:05:48] Yeah, no, I have a couple, actually. So one question that I have is just your journey or how you would talk about coming from this place. I think where Mormonism is kind of about the perception of certainty. I think it's not really certainty, but we believe it is certainty.

Margi Dehlin [02:06:14] And then I think one of the things that, you know, we kind of come to when we travel through and transition and deconstruct is groundlessness. This idea that, you know, there is uncertainty at all times in being kind of human. What has your.

Margi Dehlin [02:06:32] How do you feel? Is that true to how you view it now or how Would you talk about, you know, your process of. Of moving, shifting it away from this sense of, like, certainty. I know what reality is. And this transactional way of living into this space where there's a lot of mystery, there's a lot of unknown, and quite frankly, we're all vulnerable.

Brooke Lark [02:06:58] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:07:00] Wow.

Brooke Lark [02:07:01] That's. I mean, that really is the journey. Right? And I think for me, the, you know, doing a lot of, like, ego work, like, realizing how much my. My ego wants certainty and how. And feeling my body clench around, like, trying to find answers and trying to be right and. And then I. And experiencing myself in a state of certainty actually kind of makes me a dick.

Brooke Lark [02:07:29] And when I have, as I have learned to pull those layers and soften and relax and, like, ride and trust the waves of life and trust myself on those waves, I'm softer. I'm more open. I'm more open to learning. I'm more grateful. And so, yeah, you know, I think in my podcast, I talk about.

Brooke Lark [02:07:56] So the podcast, it's nine episodes. It's basically like an audiobook. And it starts with me hitchhiking away from it. Abusive marriage. And then I land in this Ayahuasca journey. And as I'm driving to this Ayahuasca journey, you know, I've been told this medicine is the mother. And I'm like, I can't wait to finally be held in the arms of a mother and rocked and have someone tell me she understands how hard I've loved and how much I've loved. And she sees me.

Brooke Lark [02:08:25] And the first thing that happens in that Ayahuasca medicine is basically this powerful feminine force, comes and goes. Are you ready to see how you've been doing this to yourself? And it was such a tough pill to swallow that I was in charge of my life, of everything created and even, I mean, coming out of an abusive marriage, you're like, no, it happened to me.

Brooke Lark [02:08:51] And the medicine was like, no, you allowed it. And one of the moments was. She took me back to a moment on the trail, the Colorado Trail, where I'm being screamed at and things are being thrown and I'm terrified. And she's standing next to me, and we're watching this unravel as if I am there again. I can see little blades of grass. And she's standing there, and she says, look at this. She says, you say that you're love and you're letting this happen.

Brooke Lark [02:09:27] Why are you letting it happen? Go. Stop it. And it was this moment, you know, where I could feel my ego be like, but, but I am love. And it was like this complete self ownership of like, look at what you're creating, look at why you're creating it.

Brooke Lark [02:09:43] And in that moment there is such a tremendous, like humbling and acceptance of myself as the creator of my life. And you know, man, that does a number on your ego. It just does a number on your ego when you start to realize, like, wow, I thought I was this and now I realize I was this. And so, you know, really coming to own my path, coming to own the pain that I've caused, whether it's with my children or with friends or, you know, whatever, because I've been erratic and unintentional or reactive or insecure or black and white or judgmental, right? Like all of these things that I was creating to be certain and to be confident or whatever, when I finally owned that those things were creating pain and causing pain, then I was able to access the space of humility where I can be in a constant state of learning and so I can be ungrounded and know that it doesn't matter where I am, I'm in a state of learning.

Margi Dehlin [02:10:58] I see.

Brooke Lark [02:10:58] You know.

Margi Dehlin [02:10:59] Okay, so I now can I ask you a follow up about. Okay, so when you're having that experience. Experience where you're with the mother figure and you're in the desert and she's saying you're creating your. Or creating this or allowing it. Allowing it or what did that mean? Because do you. So do you now not feel like there are people who, they're coping or their mental kind of their energy, you kind of get in their orbit and it's like, yeah, does kind of happen to you where you're like, that's gonna take some energy and some to just kind of get out of that now? Or like, what do you mean? Just because I want to be really clear with abuse and situations of abuse. Like for you. What did you hear in that?

Brooke Lark [02:11:53] Yeah, well, so the way that the, the journey with that went is it was almost like Scrooge. So she takes me to that moment and she says, look at what. Like why are you allowing, you say your love. Why are you allowing this?

Brooke Lark [02:12:12] And then she said, go pick yourself up. So I went and I said, no, you can't treat me like this. And I picked myself up and I, all of a sudden I kind of came into my heart and then I was in another experience and Now I'm a 16 year old little girl and this is all in my podcast, so I won't go into details for Anyone who wants to listen to it. But I'm laying on the ground getting bitten by fleas, and my mom comes home from a date, and she's drunk, and she just kind of starts speaking cruelty to us. And you know, the medicine ayahuasca says, look at you.

Brooke Lark [02:12:49] Who in this room stays with you? And I was like, well, myself. And she says, go pick yourself up and tell yourself that you're going to be okay.

Margi Dehlin [02:12:58] Got it. So what I'm hearing is kind of interrupting the cycle, interrupting

Brooke Lark [02:13:09] the feelings of sadness because I had placed so much of my superpower is that I can take it. Right. My superpower is that I have a strong constitution. That actually happened as well. Yes. Resilience. And so that actually happened. The third visit was as soon as I picked myself up. I'm in my daughter's room, and I can hear me yelling outside with. We're having another fight with this abusive relationship. Relationship. And I'm watching my daughter curled up in her bed and sobbing. And the mother says, why are you letting this happen to her? Right? You say, your love. You're letting this happen.

Brooke Lark [02:13:53] And then all of a sudden, I'm in a alleyway beneath a street lamp, and the ex husband is throwing insults at me, and now my mother is throwing insults at me. And then the grandmothers start appearing. My grandmothers from all the way back start appearing and throwing me their unlived lives and their sorrows and their worries. And I keep. And I'm starting to get sick, but I say in my head, I've always had a strong constitution. And the medicine says that's not a good thing.

Brooke Lark [02:14:25] And what had to be interrupted for me is that it was not a superpower to be sacrificial. It's a superpower to stand for what I truly believe.

Margi Dehlin [02:14:36] Got it.

Brooke Lark [02:14:37] And to speak against cruelty and to speak again. Right. And abuse is complex. There was this moment in trying to end that relationship where, you know, you look at the stats of women, it's like your chances of being killed just skyrocket during when you're leaving an abusive marriage. So I am not saying that there is an easy. And unfortunately, too many women don't get out. It's devastating. And also, if you keep dipping in the same pattern, if you stay on the same hamster wheel, you're never going to get anything but that hamster wheel. That's right. And I didn't have a story that could escape me from it because I kept in this airtime resilient.

Margi Dehlin [02:15:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:15:22] You could take it.

Brooke Lark [02:15:23] All right.

Margi Dehlin [02:15:25] You know what? It remind. It reminds me a little. I know I brought this up last podcast. I feel like we did, but it's internal family systems work.

Brooke Lark [02:15:32] Right.

Margi Dehlin [02:15:32] With parts where it's almost like you're coping as a child, what you learn to do to survive, those parts of you. And if anyone knows parts work. It's like the parts are coping. They're things that emerge to help you survive. And you are the. You're like the current fully embodied, but it's like sometimes our parts take over. And that's kind of what I'm hearing. It's like within your relationships, it was like, you're coping. You thought yourself was your coping, and your coping was actually a barrier to you accessing yourself. Yeah, right.

Brooke Lark [02:16:12] And I had surround myself with people who celebrated that.

Margi Dehlin [02:16:15] Yes, it was like praise, and you probably got validation for it, but it actually was a barrier to true health that you wanted to live, experience, give.

Brooke Lark [02:16:29] And that was a really big aha moment, you know, going into the medicine, thinking, oh, I'm gonna be held in the loving arms of a mother.

Margi Dehlin [02:16:37] That's right.

Brooke Lark [02:16:37] And all of a sudden, this powerful, like, forceful, honest, like, woman appears. And I had never known woman to be like that. We have stories for that. You know, we have mean names for that. And so for me to finally be confronted with a different idea of what womanhood could be, what motherhood should be. Right.

Margi Dehlin [02:17:05] Because in many ways, she's advocating for you.

Brooke Lark [02:17:07] Yes. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:17:08] And that's what sometimes advocates advocating as a mom can look like is actually. Yeah.

Brooke Lark [02:17:15] And it's. I mean, it's changed the way I parent my children. You know, I drove home from that medicine journey and went straight to my child and said, I am so sorry I have not been mothering you. You have been, you know, coming along on this journey where I have been walking around like a child. And so I am going to take ownership, and it is time for you guys to take ownership of your path. And I really attribute that to healing some of my relationships with my children because, you know, it re entered respect instead of, like, dominance and control. And I'm a mother. You do it because that's the way it's like we are now honored as whole and strong individuals instead of people who have to sacrifice to be part of a system.

Margi Dehlin [02:18:09] Yeah. Thank you for explaining that.

Brooke Lark [02:18:10] Thank you for such a good question.

Choosing a New Name and Identity

Margi Dehlin [02:18:12] Taking a moment and I don't know, another, maybe the last question I'll ask is just with regard to your name, like the name that you. You chose for yourself because through this interview, I'm just gonna say, like, you know, lark. When I think of I love birds,

John Dehlin [02:18:32] are you the bird person?

Margi Dehlin [02:18:34] And, you know, when I think of a lark, it's this voice that, like this little that you can pick out, it's light like that. You're. It seems to embody a lot of what you. You have actually shared. I feel like here also air flight, like, just so many things about it. But do you want to. If there is significance to the name, is that something you would. You would want to share?

Brooke Lark [02:19:03] Yeah, it's such a great story. I would love to share it. The very first holiday after divorce that I had to drop my kids off. So it was going to be Christmas and I wasn't going to be with my kids, and I drove them from Colorado to. To be with their dad. And I mean, adjusting to this, when you, you know, your whole life is your children and now you're going to be alone for Christmas, I mean, it was just devastating. So I dropped them off in Utah, and I'd gotten a little Airbnb in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. I cried the whole way there. And when I opened, when I knocked on the door, this little old lady, her name was Rachel, Wind in a white eyelet, antique nightgown, opened the door and just took my crumpled, weeping body in.

Brooke Lark [02:19:53] And, you know, and, I mean, I could not stop crying. And I told her everything that had happened. And she said, oh, this is hard. She said, in the 60s, when divorce was very stigmatized, I woke up and my husband was gone. And she said, I realized that I was it. I had to figure something out. And so she crunched the numbers and, and realized that the only way that she could do school during the day and pay for it was to become a stripper at night, because, I guess night babysitting was cheaper. So she became a stripper. And she said, as part of that job, what they have you do is pick your name.

Brooke Lark [02:20:28] And the way that you do it is every day you wake up and you write down your favorite words, your favorite poems, and your name will pick you. And so, you know, I kind of sat on this and I thought, oh, I kind of like that idea. And so a couple of months later, I moved to Utah. And I was like, I think I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna pick my stripper name. So I painted a whole wall in my house with blackboard paint. And every day I would just write, you know, authors names or whatever little ideas or funny words that I liked. And one morning I Woke up with the sound of music song repeating like a lark that is learning to pray.

Brooke Lark [02:21:07] So I wrote lark down and looked up Lark. You know, the symbolism of lark is. It's like the invitation into a new morning. And I loved that idea. And so I just thought, oh, Brooke, Lark, huh? And it just stuck like that. It was like the name just. It came in, it picked me.

Brooke Lark [02:21:30] And so the really beautiful thing about this is it was just my pen name for a long time. And then in the divorce, you know, this thing that it could have been. It sounds so awful, right? Like, Brooke got into a one year marriage that turned absolutely abusive and, oh, she really messed up. And, you know, that experience really was just one of the greatest gifts of my life. And it culminated in the divorce papers.

Brooke Lark [02:22:01] My attorney said, you can pick any name and make it legal. What would you like it to be? And I said, are you serious? I can just make it Brooklark. And he said, yeah. And so it was kind of this beautiful moment where that name that had chosen me kind of solidified this experience that woke me up to a new version of myself that could start to heal the patterns that had kind of afflicted me through life. And so, yeah, so it's officially legally Lark.

Margi Dehlin [02:22:32] I love that.

John Dehlin [02:22:33] Yes.

Brooke Lark [02:22:34] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:22:35] Yeah, so it's B R O O K E L A R K L

Brooke Lark [02:22:39] A R K. I love that.

Margi Dehlin [02:22:41] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:22:42] Beautiful. All right, well, before we end, is there any other message or story or plug you want to offer or several before we.

Reflections, Gratitude, and Where to Find Brooke

Margi Dehlin [02:22:52] Anything you wanted to share?

John Dehlin [02:22:54] Yeah, anything and all things.

Brooke Lark [02:22:56] Well, first, I mean, I just want to thank you because you truly have changed my life. You know, like, When I think about, boy, it was so scary to step away from the church and to be connected. I think one of the things for, with you was that you hold a space of such open mindedness. And so it didn't matter if we'd stayed, it didn't matter if we'd gone. You, you were open to the story, you know, and I think that that became a really important part of my path, was just allowing the humanity of people's stories, whether they resonate or not. Not so. Thank you.

Brooke Lark [02:23:43] Because, you know, you, through this beautiful podcast, have connected me to so many voices and so many people and really to, you know, the next round of community that we didn't know we could have. And to you, Margi, because I know that supporting this is a life, you know, it's, it, it takes a lot and you've just done it so beautifully and to See, the way that you guys have nabbed, navigated, it has been profound because you've been through a lot of change too. So thank you.

Brooke Lark [02:24:14] I would say if people would like to hear the story, it's on Spotify or Apple, wherever you get your podcasts. It's a nine episode podcast called Good Mama Magic and it's the story of how I hitchhiked, hitchhiked away from marriage, lost my religion and found the mother. So that's what that is. And for anyone who is interested in play as a ritual or, you know, kind of accessing some of the healing work that is light hearted and fun, we'd love for you to check into some of our Panacea nights. So we have so Panacea we're launching this year. It's a 40 plus community to kind of mark the crossroads of midlife.

Brooke Lark [02:25:01] So make Midlife a ceremony and you can find details about it@brooklark.com so we do everything from dance parties for 40 year old women or 40 plus to dating nights for 40 plus. But they're all rooted in this concept of like play as a ceremony, but also like connection as a ceremony. So if that resonates with anyone, I'd to love to have him come play with us again. Brooklark.com would be where you find it. And if you see me at a concert, say hi.

John Dehlin [02:25:36] Beautiful.

Margi Dehlin [02:25:37] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:25:38] Thank you. That was beautiful. And let me just return that too. I don't know why this image has stuck with me for so long, but when John Larsen was ending the Mormon expression journey, I did a live interview with him at the Community of Christ building. Not the one downtown, but the one kind of in the Cottonwood Heights kind of area.

Brooke Lark [02:26:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:26:07] And I was up there on stage and I looked down and I saw you in the audience. And I don't remember you sitting with anyone. I remember you sitting alone. This would have been after your divorce and a million, you know, and I kind of would just, I could not look at you. And a million thoughts would come into my mind because at that point, you know, my life was busy, your life was busy, and you know, we weren't in contact. But a million things went through my mind about like, I wonder how Brooke's doing. I wonder what's going on.

John Dehlin [02:26:37] And it was a moment in time where I just thought, I have not reflected enough on the price that people pay when they come on Mormon stories. Of course, I hear a lot about how they appreciate being able to share their story, how they appreciate being able to connect with others.

John Dehlin [02:27:01] But, you know, there's always a price that's paid, too, in terms of faithful relationships that get compromised or challenged or because you're a whistleblower or a truth speaker publicly. But also the stress and the burden of expectations or gossip or judgment.

John Dehlin [02:27:24] And it's always. And then, you know, of course, when I heard that you and John were getting divorced, I'm like, oh, how much of that is because they did a Mormon stories interview? You know what I mean? Like.

John Dehlin [02:27:38] Or like, how much is just the burden of all the things they had to carry? How much of that kind of is mixed in? And, you know, I've learned not to take responsibility for things that I know aren't mine. But at the same time, I've also.

John Dehlin [02:27:54] One of the reasons I like these where they now episodes is because I don't think any of us fully understand what it is like to share your story with the world, the good and the bad. And the truth is, every episode, I say thanks to our donors that make Mormon stories possible. But really, the people that make Mormon stories possible are the people telling their stories. And that's you. That's you, that's John. That's. So, you know, literally thousands now of people that have been willing to make that sacrifice or face that courageous choice and sometimes careless or reckless choice of just saying their story publicly.

John Dehlin [02:28:39] So you have been an important, very. You and John have been very important parts of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people's lives and their journeys. And none of this Mormon story stuff could have happened without you, Brooke, and people like.

John Dehlin [02:28:57] So we. Margi and I want to return that thank you to you. Thank you for being one of those people that shared your truth with the

Margi Dehlin [02:29:08] world, not just once, but you came back and did it again.

Brooke Lark [02:29:12] I'm so grateful for all the good

John Dehlin [02:29:15] and challenges that accompany that.

Brooke Lark [02:29:18] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:29:18] Thank you.

Brooke Lark [02:29:19] Yeah. Well, and just to answer, you're like, if you have ever been worried, you know, one of the things about the effects, one of the things that I think has been the biggest blessing of leaving the Mormon Church and stepping away from black and white is I say to my kids all the time, there is no right or wrong. There's just what happened and the story we tell about it. And, you know, this is such a snippet into a moment in life. And I feel so grateful that we were able to capture that snippet because I might have forgotten some of the things that we spoke about in the experience, but it's like every. Every step of the journey. I've been grateful for the good, the bad, the ugly, and it's all created like a deeper walk through life. So thank you for being part of that deepening.

John Dehlin [02:30:09] Love it.

Margi Dehlin [02:30:10] Yeah. It has just been such a pleasure. So valuable.

Brooke Lark [02:30:14] Thank you to.

Margi Dehlin [02:30:16] To sit with you in this moment and just share. So thank you for that. And I just have to say, you are magic. You are magic, really.

Brooke Lark [02:30:26] Thank you.

Margi Dehlin [02:30:27] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:30:29] All right, so the website's brooklark.com that's Brooke with an E. The podcast is good, Mama Magic, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check all that out, please. Also, we want to keep doing these where are they now? Sorts of things. So if you're a past Mormon stories interviewee, John McClay, if you are feeling really called to tell us where you are now or any past Mormon Stories interviewees, we would love to hear from you. If there's a particular past interview that you would like to hear from, you can email us@mormonstoriesmail.com or leave a comment in this thread. We read every comment. We'd love to hear nominations and we can reach out to people you really want to hear from.

John Dehlin [02:31:20] We're going to do one on Jeremy Runnels soon, hopefully, and we have others in mind. But if you like this series, let us know. And if you or someone you can think of would be a good fit, we want to hear from you as well. We always appreciate those who can subscribe to this channel on YouTube or on Spotify, who can like these episodes and share them because that helps the algorithms share them far and wide. And then, of course, I'll say it again, we can only do this because of our donors. So huge thanks to the monthly Mormon Stories donors who make all this possible.

John Dehlin [02:31:59] And if you want to become a donor, a monthly donor, you can go to MormonStories.org, click on the donate button to become a monthly donor. Big thanks to Brooklyn and Julia and everyone who makes Margi and all these people Maven who make everything possible behind the scenes as well. So that's all I got, Margi.

Margi Dehlin [02:32:18] Yeah. Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:32:20] All right. Thanks again, Brooke. Good luck. Good luck with everything and stay in touch.

Brooke Lark [02:32:25] Absolutely. Absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:32:26] All right. 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.

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