Episode Transcript
Host: John Dehlin · Co-host: Margi Dehlin · Guest: Marc Oslund
This transcript is machine-generated and lightly edited for readability. The audio is authoritative. Please excuse occasional errors in names and spelling.
Welcome and Introducing Marc Oslund
Margi Dehlin [00:00:03] Hello and welcome to Mormon Stories, Thrive Stories edition. I am your host, Margi Delin and I am joined by my co host, John De Lynn over there. How you doing?
John Dehlin [00:00:12] Hey, Margi. It's good to be back in the saddle with you.
Margi Dehlin [00:00:16] How are you feeling this morning?
John Dehlin [00:00:17] I just spent five days in the UK at Thrive uk and I have to say those, those post Mormon Brits know how to have a party. So you know, the US Thrivers are going to need to up their game a little bit, especially in the karaoke department.
Margi Dehlin [00:00:36] Oh, it's so good to have you back. And we had a nice walk this morning, didn't we?
John Dehlin [00:00:41] Yeah. I love coming home to Margi and having our walks and talks and watch our shows.
Margi Dehlin [00:00:47] That's right. Bringing it back on home. So welcome. We. If you're new to Thrive Stories, maybe I'll give a brief introduction to kind, kind of the idea behind Thrive Stories. They're shorter interviews, they tend to be one to two hours long. And the idea is to pick an area of thriving after a faith transition. And so you can pick any area. Some sample areas would be parenting or healthy marriage, or finding community or finding purpose. What am I leaving out?
John Dehlin [00:01:23] Yeah, give me a couple. Mental health, physical health, female empowerment, career change. Just any big transition, finding community, any big transition that accompanies a faith crisis, trying to kind of help give people tools and tips and tricks to rebuild and to heal and to grow.
Margi Dehlin [00:01:42] Yeah, that's right. And you can. So you can nominate someone you know, and you can also nominate yourself, and I encourage you to do that, especially if you find yourself watching, you know, the interviews we've done so far and you don't feel like you are represented here, which is very likely because we have only just begun. But I welcome you to, to nominate and to submit so that we can share your story here. We do want a wide reflection of all the stories that are out there, so I welcome you to do that. And we're excited that you are joining us today. And we're just feeling really lucky to have this interview today. How excited are you, John?
John Dehlin [00:02:26] Super excited because we've got Mark Osland in the house, my homie.
Margi Dehlin [00:02:30] Yeah, it's like a. It's a welcome Mark to Thrive Stories and it's a welcome back to Mormon Stories because Mark has done a Mormon story previously. Are we gonna, are we gonna provide a link to that?
John Dehlin [00:02:42] Yeah, yeah. So just for those who don't know, Mark Osland is an amazing human. He, you know, grew up in the LA area, was like a High school base, you know, double threat, at least double baseball football star and, you know, ends up converting to the church and playing BYU as an All American his freshman year at byu. And, and, and then he ends up, through some fun experiences, a seminary and institute teacher. And, and we did like a three part Mormon stories interview. How many hours is it, Mark?
Marc Oslund [00:03:18] I think it's 11 at least. It was a while. Yeah, it was a great take a,
Margi Dehlin [00:03:23] take a deep dive.
John Dehlin [00:03:25] Yeah, it's for sure one of the most important interviews ever and definitely the past few years. People love it. There are already people commenting. Mark's interview was amazing. So I guess people would be asking why in the world would be interviewing Mark again if We've already done 11 awesome hours with him. Margi, why, why you want, why'd you want Mark back? Margi?
Margi Dehlin [00:03:45] I feel really, I felt very moved by Mark's thriving story and I think there's a lot of meaning. And as we all are coping with what it means to be alive on, on the planet, I just find that there's so much that's relatable to Mark's story and that we can really connect with. And honestly, in that thriving portion and healing portion, there's a lot there too. So I really hope you enjoy and let's just welcome Mark, shall we? Thank you for being here.
Marc Oslund [00:04:17] I, I feel so welcomed by you. I mean, we've had such great experiences and it really, it feels like coming home in so many ways. And I'm really here because I trust you both so much with, with my story and what that means. So thank you for allowing me to share it again. Means a lot.
Margi Dehlin [00:04:33] Thank you for that. Well, if we were going to introduce, let's say, to a viewer that really doesn't know you, what would you say? Just a brief introduction to, you know, what it can be, whatever where you live or what you love or who you love, just for them to get a sense for you.
Marc Oslund [00:04:49] Oh, that's so. Yeah, that's a great question, Morgan. Like I said, my, my friend Laura talks about your ability to ask questions and really get to the heart of things. And so I just want to say already, thank you. Like that's a good question.
John Dehlin [00:05:02] And that's Laura Schnell, who also has
Marc Oslund [00:05:04] her own Stories interview.
John Dehlin [00:05:05] So shout out to Laura. We love you, Laura.
Marc Oslund [00:05:07] Yeah, that's it. Thank you. And John covered the bio. I have such a hard time describing my successes because I never want to come across as anyone better than what I believe I am. Right. It's just, it's not in my nature. Yeah. Even when I was doing that, it was forced. So I think what I would say about myself, I just really want to spend as much time as possible with my wife and my three year old.
John Dehlin [00:05:33] Remy.
Marc Oslund [00:05:33] Remy. Remy And Rachel. And Rachel.
John Dehlin [00:05:36] Remy.
Marc Oslund [00:05:37] That's right. We live in Utah county, which is some place I never thought I would live.
John Dehlin [00:05:41] We're.
Marc Oslund [00:05:42] We're buying another home there. So we're, we're anchored. Right. But I'm just so. I love every day I get to wake up and, and Remy comes down, he says, I want you to play with me. And I ask him, how are you? How you doing, buddy? He's like, I'm doing good. I slept through the whole night. So anyway, old soul, can I just say he's great?
Margi Dehlin [00:06:01] Yeah. That just breaks it down, doesn't it?
Marc Oslund [00:06:03] Yeah, that's, that's how I would summarize myself at this point.
Margi Dehlin [00:06:06] Yeah. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:06:07] And you're, you do. You're in software, but you're also a mental health.
Marc Oslund [00:06:11] Yeah, yeah. I have dual roles where I, I do fintech as my day job, but the thing that I wake up feeling passionate about is people. And so mercifully I can blend that in my fintech role where I'm, I'm leading team and helping people that way. But yeah, I just graduated with my MSW from Indiana University and.
John Dehlin [00:06:30] Wait, you're a Hoosier?
Marc Oslund [00:06:31] I'm a. Yep, that's it.
John Dehlin [00:06:32] What the.
Marc Oslund [00:06:33] Crazy.
Margi Dehlin [00:06:33] Wow.
Marc Oslund [00:06:34] So homage to my grandparents who met at IU Bloomington. And so I'm now trying to keep that IU line going.
John Dehlin [00:06:41] There's also some Laker because Magic was friends with Isaiah, who was a Hooer.
Marc Oslund [00:06:46] That's it. So, you know, there's Tyson, right? There's Tyson. And Larry Bird is like, he's, you know, Indiana State guy.
Margi Dehlin [00:06:52] Right.
Marc Oslund [00:06:52] So there's, there's some Indiana nish. But all the roots.
Margi Dehlin [00:06:55] All the roots.
Marc Oslund [00:06:56] That's exactly it.
John Dehlin [00:06:57] But it all comes back to the NBA.
Marc Oslund [00:06:58] Yeah, it's.
John Dehlin [00:06:59] Or the Dodgers.
Marc Oslund [00:07:00] What's it? Six. Six degrees of separate. Is that what it is?
John Dehlin [00:07:02] Like?
Marc Oslund [00:07:03] Yeah, we can do that with baseball or NBA pretty easily, I think.
John Dehlin [00:07:06] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [00:07:06] But yeah, it's been great. And I just graduated feeling really excited. I love, love, love being able to listen to people's stories. Telling my own, as long winded as I am, as you know from 11 hour more podcast is not as easy for me. I'd rather sit and listen and contribute and share. So I love the privilege of being able to hear people's stories.
Margi Dehlin [00:07:29] Yes, I hear that. I hear that. Well, great. So let's just start maybe with the area that you kind of chose for today to kind of think about and to share.
Marc Oslund [00:07:40] Yeah. I wanted to talk in my thriving because I've reflected. I'm like, am I thriving? Right. And in some ways yes, and in other ways not. And I think that's part of being human. But the one area in which I really feel like there's something to pull from is we were talking about this, you know, off the air, but this descent into what I would call religious scrupulosity and then the descent out of that or the ascent out of that. And that is one area when I think about my life now. You know, post, man, I don't know. When did I get excommunicated? In November, I think. So post being excommunicated and tell.
John Dehlin [00:08:18] Tell us why you were excommunicated.
Marc Oslund [00:08:19] Yeah, I mean, there's probably a couple reasons. I wasn't super nice to the leaders of the church, but like, largely because of my. My frustration towards their treatment of queer people, their treatment of people of color, their treatment of women, and all of these social issues.
John Dehlin [00:08:33] And you came on Mormon stories.
Marc Oslund [00:08:34] That's a huge part of it.
John Dehlin [00:08:35] Be helpful.
Marc Oslund [00:08:36] No, absolutely.
John Dehlin [00:08:37] Sometimes.
Marc Oslund [00:08:37] And I wanted my seminary story to be told because I didn't want to just go quietly into that good night. Right. I really wanted the pain and hurt that I felt to be acknowledged. And so Mormon stories gave me a vehicle to be able to do that.
Marc Oslund [00:08:51] And then I started feeling very, you know, how can I. How can I advocate for change? This is a value of social work, is macro level advocacy. And what can I do to change the system, which eventually got me excommunicated? But from that point, I look back and I think that was November of 21, it's now May of 22, and I feel like a different person. And each day I feel like I am one step further away from the pain that I was feeling that was so acute when I was here at Mormon Stories. I was very much in the throes of it. And each day, probably since then and definitely since that excommunication has just been a day closer to healing. And so that is one area that I feel like I could. I could highlight as. As my area of thriving.
Margi Dehlin [00:09:34] Beautiful. That is beautiful. And I love that you bring out this idea of, hey, you know, not. We're not thriving everywhere. And I love that you bring that out. And that's why we only do an area, is we're not trying to be perfect beings anymore. We embrace the humanness. And so this is very. I'm, I'm just really glad you're sharing.
Marc Oslund [00:09:54] It's a great way to summarize that. Mar.
Understanding Scrupulosity and Religious OCD
Margi Dehlin [00:09:55] So if we were going to nest scrupulosity, if we were going to kind of provide some context and understanding for what scrupulosity is, its root, how it shows up, how would you kind of go about it?
Marc Oslund [00:10:07] That's a great question. And again, anyone, feel free to jump in. As, as I'm going through definitions, it's not always my strong suit. But when I think about religious scrupulosity, I want to start with anxiety. And there's a general sense of anxiety that we feel. And anxiety in and of itself is neither bad nor good. Anxiety is information. Anxiety serves a role to tell us that what we're feeling is something worthy of our, worthy of alarm that we need to look at. Right. But when anxiety becomes problematic to your day to day living is when we start talking about anxiety disorders. Right. Uh, some of you might be familiar with like generalized anxiety disorder, which is this again, a general sense that every day you're kind of having this, you're on edge, you're not feeling safe, you're not feeling comfort, comfortable beyond whatever baseline you've established as normal.
Margi Dehlin [00:10:57] Right.
Marc Oslund [00:10:57] And I think that's relative for each person. If we want to go maybe a step further and get more specific, we can then talk. And whether you want to classify obsessive compulsive disorder as an anxiety disorder or not, that's not necessarily the debate here. But as we talk about obsessive compulsive disorder, there's roots of, in my mind, anxiety, where you're obsessively thinking about thoughts that lead to you to feel like you have to act, which would lead to a compulsion, something that you feel like you have to do, or else. And that or else can be any number of things dependent on the individual. And so again, these are diagnosis, these are diagnoses.
Marc Oslund [00:11:35] You talk to a mental health professional that, that works specifically with these. Those are all very important. One subtype in my mind of OCD would then be scrupulosity, which to summarize, would be religious ocd. Right. It's this religious form of I need to get clean. This was, this was mine. And we'll talk. I know about that. I need to get clean. I'm not clean enough. I can't be clean enough. I have to repent. I must repent, I must repent. And so you can See, similarities to the concept of obsessive compulsive disorder, which stereotypically, you'll talk about washing your hands, getting rid of germs, what have you. But that was mine for the religious version of ocd, which we call scrupulosity. How's that sound? John does that.
John Dehlin [00:12:18] It was great.
Marc Oslund [00:12:18] Cool. You have the PhD. You surpass me. I have two master's degrees. Only one is relevant, mental health.
Margi Dehlin [00:12:23] So, yeah.
John Dehlin [00:12:24] Oh, that was great.
Marc Oslund [00:12:25] Great.
Margi Dehlin [00:12:25] We don't do the surpassing here. None of that. Okay. I was gonna ask a question of. Because I feel like something that I understand, but I don't know if it's correct. Okay. So with. With the way anxiety works, and I'm not sure about ocd, does it attack things we care the most about? Is. Is there a correlation or even a connection there?
Marc Oslund [00:12:48] Yeah, my experience, and from the reading that I've done, the answer would be yes. Not always. Right. It doesn't always have to be that way, but I do think that it preys on our vulnerabilities. And I think if it can get in there, you know, if you talk about the crack that we have, it can kind of wedge its way in and then maybe expand sometimes. Right. And as it expands, it leads to this general sense of going deeper and deeper and deeper into that thing. Right. So, yeah, that. That's been my experience.
John Dehlin [00:13:17] And I'll just add, this was always something we had to be careful about because scrupulosity subtype of OCD is. Is most common in highly, you know, high demand religions. So you'll find Orthodox Muslims that have it, Orthodox Jews that have it around, around kosher or Sabbath observance. You'll have evangelical Christians that have it around, you know, morality kind of stuff.
John Dehlin [00:13:44] So it definitely preys on highly religious people and manifests. But religion doesn't cause ocd. You're born. It's a genetic thing. It's a brain thing. You're born with high levels of anxiety. You're born with a proclivity towards ocd. But then if you just happen to be religious, that's the way it's probably often going to manifest. And then the other problem is religions can feed it and make it exacerbated, make it bad or worse.
John Dehlin [00:14:18] You won't find a highly scrupulous Unitarian Universalist. You won't find a Presbyterian who's got scrupulosity subtype. So. But if somebody was raised Presbyterian and they have ocd, well, then it might manifest as harm or as germs or as order. But again, they also won't have their religion making it worse.
Marc Oslund [00:14:42] Correct.
John Dehlin [00:14:42] So it's tricky.
Marc Oslund [00:14:43] Yeah. And I think that you summed it up perfectly. In the way that I envision it is if you think of a flame kind of being led along, let's say there's a little bit of gas that's led along and the flame kind of goes the way in might be religion or whatever else. Right. And then all of a sudden it gets to this thing and it's just this wide open. Just burns brightly. And you'll see from my story, the way in was shame, and then religion fueled that. I just had so many opportunities and so many quotes and so many scriptures that would fuel this default proclivity towards shame.
John Dehlin [00:15:19] Right. It's like gas on the fire.
Margi Dehlin [00:15:20] You had this over fuel situation.
Marc Oslund [00:15:22] Exactly it. Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:15:23] That makes. That makes so much sense. Okay.
John Dehlin [00:15:26] Now that we've given that introduction. Yeah.
Marc Oslund [00:15:28] You're so excited.
John Dehlin [00:15:29] Yeah.
Marc's Childhood and Early Sense of Self
Margi Dehlin [00:15:31] Well, okay, so I kind of would love to start with you as a boy then, if that's okay. So, like Mark, as a boy, what do you remember about you as just a young human? What you loved and what you kind of how you felt in the world as a boy?
Marc Oslund [00:15:50] I've been thinking about that as I, as I again wake up and. And play, you know, play Cars with Faces or Cars Without Faces with my kid. The cars with faces are from the movie Cars, you know, and I, as I, as I kind of just observe him. I don't think he senses there's any danger in the world.
Marc Oslund [00:16:07] And why would he? Right. He's three. But he. He has all of his needs met. As best we can, we. We help him feel loved and safe. And like, I think about all that's happening in the world. Right. That we as adults are aware of. And you think about war and pandemics and Monkeypox and all of these things that are showing up. Remy has no idea. He is in this protected bubble, and he's just this cute little blonde kid that just rides his bike. And we were talking about his little butterfly helmet. And that's, I believe, how I was. I think my parents created that safety, that cocoon, not without awareness of other people.
Marc Oslund [00:16:45] We grew up in a suburb of la, and we were very aware of things that were going on, but it never felt threatening to me and never felt threatening. If you think about the O.J. simpson and the Watts riots, and these are things that I grew up right in. We bordered the city of Compton, and so we're very aware of that.
Marc Oslund [00:17:04] And Again, never felt it. I love sports. My parents gave me all the tools that I could have ever needed to really thrive, whether it be academically or athletically. And they just loved me, they believed in me. When, when parents, you know, kids talk about, oh, I want to be an astronaut when I grow up. My parents like you, you can. It wasn't just a thing they said. They genuinely believed it. And then I believed it too.
Marc Oslund [00:17:31] And so I just approached the world with a very, you know, sweet, innocent, open hearted, generous, kind. Life was very, very good and I never sensed any difficulties. Very privileged in a lot of ways.
Margi Dehlin [00:17:47] Oh yeah. So if we were going to drop in kind of age 8ish, like what are some of. Would it be sports? Did you get into sports kind of young and find. And what sports. And I'm just really want to get this visual of you and your freeness and that sort of sense of possibility.
Marc Oslund [00:18:07] Yeah, I was always a. Thanks for asking, by the way. I was always a big kid, tall, like now I'm six foot five. And I was always a big guy. I was bigger than most of my peers. I never really had one of those growth spurts that all of a sudden I shot up. But you know, I was a little chubby and just again, very naive, sweet, generous. I played sports because it was fun.
John Dehlin [00:18:30] I.
Marc Oslund [00:18:31] My most consistent memory of my upbringing, specifically when I got older, was. Was like coming home, whether it be from practice or a game or driving home from school and at some point or a friend's house and my dad would just be kind of there on the couch watching the Dodgers and having Vin Scully on the tv.
Marc Oslund [00:18:50] It was again just this very joyful. We lived two miles from the beach and so we got to go there and I would play in the sand. Like sports was definitely a thing. Yeah, I played baseball and basketball and football and soccer and. And I was good at all of them and it was enjoyable.
Marc Oslund [00:19:09] But then we had family close. So I'd see my grandma and my grandpa and my other grandma and my other grandpa and we were just very happy, just very happy. And because I was good at sports, that was fun too. And it was just about my body moving and being good and winning hadn't even entered in yet. I just liked playing. Everything was fun.
Margi Dehlin [00:19:29] Wow. So you had that sense of play.
Marc Oslund [00:19:33] Yep.
Margi Dehlin [00:19:33] Being young.
Marc Oslund [00:19:34] Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. I was very inviting and I just, I never thought about any. I was just happy to be existing.
Margi Dehlin [00:19:45] Yeah, it was.
Marc Oslund [00:19:46] I was not even conscious. Conscious of anything other than this is a wonderful life. I love my Friends and my family and my, the food that I ate and the things that I played and all of that.
Margi Dehlin [00:19:55] Wow, okay. What a beautiful place to be birthed from out of that sort of. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:20:03] What could go wrong?
Marc Oslund [00:20:04] Yeah, yeah. Right. And, and, and truthfully, as we kind of flash forward and I think part of my life I've had. I've talked to John about this in different settings, just about my desire to come back to LA. It's not about the geography of LA, although it's nice when it's 70 degrees and sunny. Right. It's about the paradise that was my upbringing. I want to go back to that. And even if I came back to the geography and I lived in the same place, it wouldn't be the same because the carefree nature of life dissolves for all of us at some point. But yeah, the way in which it dissolved for me, I think was a big, A big piece of my life for sure.
Margi Dehlin [00:20:42] Yeah. And I think it's a fundamentally different journey. Right. For people if early in life they have had the privilege and the support and love that you bloom from, then that, that sort of process back. There's a, there's a bit of a touch point. There's a bit of a. You, you kind of have a sense of what you're going for as opposed to people who have a. Traumatic upbringings or. And then from that sense they're kind of creating from nothing. So it's just kind of a different. And it's. I think it's worthy of recognition. Right, that, that there was this beautiful full color existence for you as a young human and varied not just about one thing, but you had like nature and earth and family and body and play and. Right.
Marc Oslund [00:21:32] All of it. You summed it up perfectly. And, and it does matter. The ways in which we start our lives change the outcome in so many ways or the amount of effort that we have to put in to get to that place again. And so very aware of that sense of privilege that I have. And I think we'll talk about that. I think that is one gift that I can offer to the community. I had an upbringing that was completely outside of Mormonism. Even though you'll know from my story, my dad was Mormon. I didn't know that's. And then. So when I leave or get kicked out or however you want to phrase it, I can then come back to that self.
Margi Dehlin [00:22:09] Yes, exactly.
Marc Oslund [00:22:10] Rather than needing to create something that has never before existed, at least in our conscious level. Right.
Margi Dehlin [00:22:16] Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Beautiful. Okay. I have a Little question coming up just with competitive sports. Just because I think I look today at sports, right. And I think even children's sports, it gets competitive and demanding. Really young. Do, do you have a memory of you as a child? Was it mostly play or do you, did you have a sense at that point of this competitiveness or this idea of excellence? And I'm still kind of thinking, not teen, like still kind of child, or was it really pure?
Marc Oslund [00:22:50] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:22:50] For you?
Marc Oslund [00:22:51] I think it started really pure and I think because I was gifted, it became more competitive quickly. When I think about nine, about nine years old is when things. You start having nine and 10 year old all star teams for baseball. Right.
Marc Oslund [00:23:03] And right around that time and this again, we were talking about this off air, but that's when the Lakers, who's a. It sounds crazy. It's like a basketball team, it was just everywhere. They won five championships in 10 years between the ages of nine and 19 for me. And then Kobe Bryant again, this mentality just bled into, I think, so much of what it means to be an Angelino at that time.
Marc Oslund [00:23:28] And so that's when things began to shift. Where I was talented and I saw Kobe win and I saw everybody getting the glory that. And so that's when things started churning a little. Exactly. And then right around that age I had a decision to make, whether it be, you know, club soccer or club baseball. And I chose club baseball. And so it gets a little bit more intense, still fun. I like being with my friends. But each, each day got a little bit closer and more important.
Marc Oslund [00:23:54] Winning became more important and less about the joy of the sport. Although that, that kind of always remained. And so right around that age that you asked Margi, is when things, I think, changed a little bit or at least began to change.
Margi Dehlin [00:24:04] That's right. That's right. That makes sense. Yep. Great. Okay, so take us a little bit into the. You maybe in some of those more teen developmental years and if there were any kind of changes or things emerging, coping wise for you? Because I think oftentimes that's where, yeah, things, things can kind of start churning, as you say.
Marc Oslund [00:24:28] Agreed. And I, I can pinpoint a moment when I think that I really became aware of my innocence and how I was just existing in the world because previously the world was so safe. I had, I think I was gifted at talking to adults when I was a kid because I had no reason to fear them.
John Dehlin [00:24:49] I.
Marc Oslund [00:24:49] Everything was safe for me. And so I was very comfortable, very confident. And then I think about it was seventh grade year when or in between seventh and eighth grade year when I was in the locker bay that we had at our middle school.
Marc Oslund [00:25:05] And I was like I said, always a tall kid, slightly chubby, even though I was athletic. It was just, I wasn't concerned about how I looked, I wasn't concerned about what I wore, my hair, any of those things.
Marc Oslund [00:25:18] And then my friends had these shoes and it's so dumb, I know, but for a kid it wasn't dumb. But these shoes called soaps and they had these little like plastic pieces on the sole that you could run up and you could slide and you know, you could grind on this, the curbs. And they were so cool, right? And I wanted them. They were like the Heelys of, of my, you know, of that time growing up. And because I was so tall, I had at that time size 13 shoes. And I haven't moved past that, but they only made them up to size 12 and so I couldn't get them.
Marc Oslund [00:25:47] And so I was standing by watching my friends, again, so dumb, grind with their soaps on the, like by the lockers and they were having fun. I was kind of feeling like an outsider, which was uncommon for me. I had always felt included by family, friends, et cetera. And then our PE teacher from the year before, who I do not believe there's any ill intent from him, just said, oh, Mark, it's so good to see you. I hadn't seen him for a while, said, it looks like you lost your baby fat over the summer.
Marc Oslund [00:26:17] And I looked at my friends who were away because they were grinding, but they heard it and they looked back at me and they kind of chuckled. And that was the moment of self awareness. When I kind of looked down. I was probably wearing a really dorky Hawaiian shirt, my hair was done really dumb and I knew I was a little chubby. But I became very self aware in that moment. And I felt shame. That was the first time in my life I had ever felt shame.
Marc Oslund [00:26:42] I had no reason to ever feel it before. My, my family was always very inclusive and open. They would want to be there for me. And I immediately knew I never wanted to feel that again. I would do whatever I had to do to not feel that. And I wouldn't tell anybody what I felt. And that's when I started closing off to my family. I stopped talking, I came home, my mom asked me how my day was. Fine. I've never been like that, right. And I, I immediately changed the image of, oh, I can't do this. And so then I started looking what does it mean to be a cool person at the top of the food chain?
Marc Oslund [00:27:15] So I would never feel that. Well, guess where it was. Athletics star, quarterback, star athlete. That's how I was going to avoid this inner sense of all of a sudden not feeling good enough. That's the moment. I believe that that happened for me.
Margi Dehlin [00:27:30] Yes. Okay, so you're put. Kind of what I'm hearing is so you kind of hop on a track. Is that right?
Marc Oslund [00:27:37] That's exactly right.
Margi Dehlin [00:27:38] Of the kind of what it means to be popular, successful, particularly in middle school and high school.
Marc Oslund [00:27:44] Yep, spot on. My eighth grade algebra teacher, Ms. Baldwin, was so good. And. And I would. Then I made a decision that I wouldn't be good at school anymore because school is not cool. Cool people aren't good at that. Even though by default I was. I was talented. And I would go to after school tutoring because my grades started dropping because I stopped caring intentionally or it said that I stopped caring, but I really cared a lot. Right. And I will never forget Ms. Baldwin looking at me in the eyes and she would provide snacks out of her own pocket for people after school and the tutoring and the investment. And she said, mark, I know that you know this and I knew that. I knew it too, but I couldn't let myself know it. I couldn't show that I was good at this and absolutely changed track of what became a priority for me.
Margi Dehlin [00:28:37] Wow.
Marc Oslund [00:28:38] Yeah, that. I mean, I can pinpoint it at that time.
Margi Dehlin [00:28:41] Wow, that is something.
John Dehlin [00:28:42] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:28:43] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [00:28:43] Thank you.
John Dehlin [00:28:44] As we. As we kind of inspect it through the OCD scrupulosity layer number one, it's just interesting that you kind of had an idyllic upbringing. And this comes up even more in your previous interview. So it's like, whoa, that. Well, as a parent, now I'm thinking, wow, I could give my kids an idyllic interview.
Marc Oslund [00:29:02] Sorry.
John Dehlin [00:29:02] Yeah, I could give my kids an idyllic childhood. That doesn't mean they're not going to face mental illness, struggles or. Or have hard times. But also, your introduction to shame had nothing to do with Mormonism or religion in any way.
Marc Oslund [00:29:16] That's right.
John Dehlin [00:29:16] It was independent of that.
Marc Oslund [00:29:18] That's right.
John Dehlin [00:29:18] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [00:29:19] Like, no, I. I had no connection to religion. My dad was Mormon, but I literally didn't know until I told him I wanted to get baptized. Years later, my mom got baptized in a Baptist church and I had one of that, but it was. I would not consider us religious. Even when we said prayers. I didn't even think about the concept of God. So if we talk about, like the trail leading to the flame that just starts burning brightly, it had nothing to do with religion that let it in. But then all of a sudden, boom, you have all the fuel that you need, sadly. Right. To be able to grow and expand on this.
John Dehlin [00:29:52] The other thing, Margi. And tell me if it was you who told me about this research that, like, Olympic athletes, what. Go ahead and finish.
Marc Oslund [00:30:01] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:30:02] I remember reading an article. Oh, I really like to cite things, though. I'll see if I can look it up into. But an article written on a book about Olympic athletes that cited basically large traumas happening in their childhood. And that is the. That was the incident or the impetus that pushed them to this sort of. This level and drive for excellence. Because you like in understanding what Olympic athletes have to be willing to sacrifice, to do, to endure body and even, you know, for their mental health. It's so steep. And so I just thought that tie was so, so interesting. And it made a lot of sense to me.
Marc Oslund [00:30:45] Yeah. And I mean, that's my experience. I. When I think, again, if I, If I'm psychoanalyzing Kobe Bryant, I would say that there's something there for him too. Abby Wambach, who's, you know, married Glennon Doyle. Similar experience with religion being a driver for her. Right. And so my, My lived experience would flesh that out. But I would. I would really like to see that. Yeah. As a therapist, I'd love to see that.
Margi Dehlin [00:31:07] Yeah. So what's so interesting about this is oftentimes within religion and I'm. You're pointing it out here. So of course, culturally too, and developmentally it shows up is that split self idea. Right. Where we all of a sudden move into this place of where we betray who we are at some point and we kind of split. There's that self that we shine the light on and that, you know, may or may not actually be true to us, but we do it to those basic needs. Right. Appro. Social approval. To feel love, to feel acceptance, to feel belonging and then that other self. Right. And that's the.
Margi Dehlin [00:31:47] The things that can be where we don't have cultural acceptance for that shame that that's all driven into the dark. Right. And I think it's just so interesting how that is such a part of the human experience. It's not necessarily religious, but it can be religious. It's cultural. It's all these things. And you had it.
John Dehlin [00:32:07] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:32:07] At this. And this is true to your story too, right there.
Marc Oslund [00:32:10] Yeah. And you know, again, flash forward now I'm a teacher and I think part of the reason I'm a teacher is because I wanted to be with those kids at that age and to, you know, mama bear and protect those kids from what I felt. But every first class or second class, we would talk about the subject of masks and the masks that we put on to protect ourselves from the world outside. And I think it resonated. I think it allowed me to be a teacher that could get maybe to the heart of what kids were experiencing. But I could only do that because that's what happened to me. The way I presented in the world was not the way that I was inside.
Margi Dehlin [00:32:47] Yeah. Okay. Will you do me a favor? I'm kind of curious. So if we were gonna say the part of you, you could either do masks, use that illusion as to like the masked you versus the not masked, or you could do the split self. That split self, that's what's in the sunshine and what's in the dark at this point in your kind of teen.
Marc Oslund [00:33:07] Yeah. Inside I'm, I'm my three year old. I think that's the. He's the embodiment of who I was. Just this carefree, not thinking about consequences of anything. Because I wasn't a bad kid. I did nothing wrong. That's. I was just joyful and just content, I think is. It's the word that Margi I'm looking for every day. That is my goal is to find contentedness. That's what I had. The mask self became one of posturing of trying to get to the top of the food chain. And. And it's really a way to protect that little self and to never ever have that little self feel hurt ever again.
Margi Dehlin [00:33:49] Right.
Marc Oslund [00:33:50] And now, by the way, I see it as a parent, like, no, I don't want my kid to fall because. No, that would be bad. Or I don't want him to make these mistakes because I don't want him to hurt. But I am teaching myself. It's okay for him to have those experiences.
Margi Dehlin [00:34:01] Yeah, absolutely. So, okay, take us kind of from there, so teen years into maybe joining the church and kind of early adulthood mission.
How Shame Shaped His Entry into Mormonism
Marc Oslund [00:34:13] Yeah. So.
John Dehlin [00:34:15] And how it related to shame and scrupulous.
Margi Dehlin [00:34:17] Absolutely. The drive, how that. Yeah. Affected you moving forward.
Marc Oslund [00:34:21] Absolutely. And so for me, I very much felt like I again had the idyllic childhood. In that moment, I realized I never wanted to feel shame again. So I had to get through Top of the Food Chain and watch any teen romance movie. And who's the coolest person at the school, it's the quarterback, right.
Marc Oslund [00:34:39] Fortunately for me, but also, unfortunately for me, I was gifted athletically, which allowed me to have access to all of these things that would protect that little self. If I wasn't good at sports, I feel like I would have had to come to grips with my own insignificance a lot faster. But I could protect and project and just kind of say, nope, I'm going to be the top athlete. I'm going to be the best at this.
Marc Oslund [00:35:04] And it got to the point where I liked winning less than I hated losing. I could not allow myself to lose because I couldn't face the sense of insignificance that came along with that. I couldn't allow myself to not feel good enough or feel popular enough. So I would do things that were outside of the values that my family brought me up with.
Marc Oslund [00:35:27] And I think they're developmentally normal in so many ways. But the reason behind them for me was, was I think what's important here. So drinking or drugs or friends that maybe weren't the best. You know, having sex when you're young, all of these types of things that may or may not be developmentally normal, which I think in many ways they are. But it was the driver to never feel less than. That was the real piece that kind of led me to do those things. And so at this time, I'm. I'm doing really well in athletics.
Marc Oslund [00:36:00] Not the best in academics, but enough where I could have gone to some schools. Stanford did send me my first baseball letter, and I had to send them my transcripts.
John Dehlin [00:36:07] And then I never heard baseball school.
Marc Oslund [00:36:08] They were very good. Yeah. And then as soon as they saw my transcripts, like, see ya. Have a good time at, you know, Long Beach State or whatever.
Margi Dehlin [00:36:14] So.
Marc Oslund [00:36:15] Which is also a good baseball. Exactly. So I had a lot of. I had a lot of real good looks as a baseball player and some from football. Our team had done really well. And right around this time, I had met a girl, and this is part of my. My story that had introduced me to the church. And I saw very little need for it at the time just because things were going really well.
Margi Dehlin [00:36:35] Yeah, right.
Marc Oslund [00:36:37] That mask that I put on, I was thriving at making that mask look really good. And I was getting rewarded for it.
Margi Dehlin [00:36:44] Right.
Marc Oslund [00:36:44] In terms of popularity and opportunity. And so there was little need to reflect on what was underneath. And I move into our senior year excited for the football season. I'm getting looks at for football, for scholarships. I tear my knee, I lose scholarships, I stop getting Looked at, and that's now the opening that makes me think, is Mormonism maybe the way in to find that sense of goodness?
Marc Oslund [00:37:11] Because I knew nobody else knew, but I knew that deep down I wasn't good enough, or at least I believed that. And so now that the mask had cracked a bit, I am now faced with, oh, oh, I'm feeling exposed. What do I do?
Marc Oslund [00:37:26] And Mormonism was right there, kind of in the. In the lurk, just looking at me and saying, hey, you're a child of God. You are love, you are good. And that was my initial introduction to Mormonism. And I think that was, as I reflect on it, the reason why Mormonism was so appealing to me. The things that the missionaries taught were very, I feel like, very broad. You don't get to read the fine print when you're, you know, a convert.
Marc Oslund [00:37:52] And what they taught was beautiful. God loves you. There's people that speak for God today, and they're sharing messages of God's love. Your family can be together forever. All the mistakes that you've made can be washed away. And those messages felt hopeful to me. And so I joined the church and then move forward from there.
Margi Dehlin [00:38:11] The magic of timing, that's it really. That timing seems like it was an important huge. Yeah, huge part.
John Dehlin [00:38:19] And I'm thinking about when Lance Allred, who we've. We've done a Mormon Stories interview with. He became an NBA basketball player for the Cleveland Cav Cavaliers, high school basketball star. He talked about reaching the NBA expecting to somehow feel differently. And he actually became his most suicidal after he reached the NBA, was waiting for some change of inner feeling or inner worth, and it didn't come. And at that point, he's like, whoa, well, if I can't make it, if I can't feel good after I've made it, then am I ever going to feel good at all?
Marc Oslund [00:38:59] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:39:00] And it sounds like Mormonism was almost like saying, oh, I, I see that sports may be tenuous. I, I can't really rely on sports. So maybe religion can be that, maybe Jesus, maybe Mormonism can be that thing I can always rely on.
Marc Oslund [00:39:16] That's exact. That's exactly it. And you'll see parallels to that in my career as a seminary teacher. I still had baseball to fall back on. So I was, I did sense kind of the chink in the armor, like, oh, I am. I'm mortal.
John Dehlin [00:39:29] Right.
Marc Oslund [00:39:29] That's probably. Sports aren't the way out of this. But I knew I had baseball, so I needed something to patch some of the gaps Mormonism filled that role. But okay, baseball, I don't have to completely redefine my identity, or maybe better yet, to come back to this hurt little self. I didn't have to face that. You'll. If you, if you listen to the story again, 11 hours. Bless anyone that listens to it. But you'll see, you know, I tear my elbow and then I go into seminary. So again, timing becomes very important.
John Dehlin [00:39:57] And when you serve a mission like, and you're draft, you're. You're offered to be drafted multiple times. Yeah. And you kind of choose. You kind of prioritize Mormonism and your mission and even BYU over multiple attempts to be drafted into the major leagues.
Marc Oslund [00:40:13] Yeah, I had, I. Yes, you're right. I had people. I remember, you know, the. I think at the time was the Florida Marlins, now the Miami Marlins, the Kansas City Reds were in my house talking about wanting to draft me. This is. This is my dream that I, that I had for a long time of, of having this opportunity. And I kept telling them, no, no, no, I'm going to go to byu. I'm gonna go on a mission. So I get drafted later than I would have, you know, get paid less. It makes the decision a little bit easier. And so, yeah, I prioritize Mormonism. I prioritize byu. I prioritize getting married in the temple, which, you know, has its major benefits in my life, but also not. And so those became decisions that took the place of. Of sports for me, and they became foundational.
Margi Dehlin [00:40:56] Wow. Okay. So Mormonism, in a way, kind of shows up in a time of vulnerability and uncertainty as like a healing balm, like a warm hug. That initial kind of. Is that right?
Marc Oslund [00:41:10] Absolutely.
Margi Dehlin [00:41:11] Your initial look or invitation into Mormonism. So, okay, you've talked about kind of at the root, a little bit, protection, this idea of protecting, you know, this little. This soft, you know, beautiful, innocent, you know, self. And then also I feel like adding a bit of worthy in there. Was the worthy there in the beginning, or did the worthy join up kind of later? Was that kind of part of your process? And did the church kind of meet initially? We'll just say that initial. Both those things. Did it fill the gap for both those?
Worth, Identity, and Mormon Culture at BYU
Marc Oslund [00:41:46] It absolutely did. And yeah, I. I didn't even have the concept of worth growing up because I didn't need to, because it was just this innate sense of, of course I am. Everybody in my life loves me. Everything is going well. Why wouldn't I sense that I am worthy and love? And so the word wasn't Even a thing that I was aware of. And then life happens and, you know, circumstances outside of my control that make me feel broken.
Marc Oslund [00:42:13] And so Mormonism kind of rushes in to fill those gaps. And for the time it did, it gave me a purpose. I am now chosen, and God thinks of me specifically in my moment of need. And the first time I pray, God answers it. And. And wow, out of all the billions of people, he took the time to listen to me. And the missionaries are just here. And how did I meet a family that just randomly moved to our school this year? And all of these kind of cosmic things that you could look at as divine intervention made me feel like these gaps then got patched and it showed my worth.
Marc Oslund [00:42:50] So now I feel like I will do anything to help the church, like this mission, to help other people who were also lacking in worth, to feel like somebody loved them. In fact, there's a BYU, like, video about me from my freshman year at my mission call. And I think in the video, I say, all I want to do is go out to North Carolina where I serve my mission, and let people know that if you feel lonely or lost or hopeless, that somebody's out there for them and God loves them. That that's what I believed Mormonism to be at that time. And so that same kind of naive, innocent whole concept I had growing up, I also sensed from the church at the beginning, too. And that's what was so hard at the end.
Margi Dehlin [00:43:34] Right? That's right. That makes so much sense why it would be so alluring to you and where you would almost feel like a recognition, like, oh, maybe that's it.
Marc Oslund [00:43:43] Correct.
Margi Dehlin [00:43:43] There. There it is. Okay, okay. So how did that change then? How did that evolve and kind of turn?
Marc Oslund [00:43:52] Yeah, and I think the. The seeds get planted pretty quick. This messaging from the missionaries, whether it was intended or not, because it's not them. It's. It's the concepts of sin. Sin is not a concept that we talked about or I was familiar with or even thought of growing up. There was no need for guilt because not only did I not do anything wrong, but if I did, I was always loved by my parents. And so this concept of, oh, I could do something that would make me feel bad or put me at lesser standing in God's eyes. Now think again of all the ways in which I try to avoid feeling not good enough. Now I have messaging. It's this Trojan horse of God loves you, but if you do this, he might not love you as much. And I'm hyper aware of that. Messaging without even knowing that I was aware of it.
Margi Dehlin [00:44:41] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [00:44:42] Subconsciously I was so sin. And again, that's innocent from the missionaries. It's not them. It was just the teachings, the idea that there even had to be an atonement, which sounds beautiful, like God suffered for me. But again, the Trojan horse of it is suffered. Is that the alternative? That there has to be, like, I did something that's worth. Worthy of suffering if I don't have the savior to repent. So that's where it began. Then you go to byu or I went to byu.
Marc Oslund [00:45:12] Kind of blindsided thinking, hey, these people have been brought up in Mormonism their whole life. They know. They are the experts on Mormonism. I've known it for a couple months. So now I'm observing the way in which they talk and the way, the values that they have and the way that they dress. And I'm highly observant. In order to protect that little self, I don't want to get hurt again.
Margi Dehlin [00:45:34] Right.
Marc Oslund [00:45:35] But I'm watching them and I'm. I'm now internalizing the culturalness of Mormonism. And I think I do not know Mormonism the way that I should. So I'm highly prone towards orthodoxy, towards rigidity. Read your scriptures every day. This is the best way to do it. You have to have family. It's all mandate catch up. All of it.
John Dehlin [00:45:55] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [00:45:56] I don't catch up 1,000%.
John Dehlin [00:45:57] You got to get good at it.
Marc Oslund [00:45:58] That's it.
Margi Dehlin [00:45:59] And you have to kind of show. You have to prove. It's like, I'm new at this, so.
Marc Oslund [00:46:02] Right.
Margi Dehlin [00:46:03] Like, definitely adapt all the behaviors, like, stat.
Marc Oslund [00:46:06] That's exactly it. So like rap music, it was just an upbringing. But that's not a thing that really goes around a byu. And if it is, it's looked at like, oh, you guys are kind of sketchy. So that was cut swearing, which again, maybe this ideal or not. But swearing was cut. Being into girls was cut. Drinking was. All of these things were just not. Just not okay anymore. But they were actively bad. They were sin.
Marc Oslund [00:46:29] And I was very aware that all of these really wonderful Mormon girls at BYU were not going to be interested in somebody with my past and my upbringing. Right. They kept themselves clean and pure. That word of pure and worthy. I knew who I was and I knew my past. They could never know that. I get fuel from teachers that say, yeah, if you've repented, you no longer. That self is gone and you are a new creature in Christ. And so that's where repentance became the major focus for me to say I have to repent to get that new creature back so I don't go back to my former sins.
Marc Oslund [00:47:09] Because if you. If you go back, they all come back. Isn't that what the scriptures taught? Right. So that's where. That's where it shows up for me.
Margi Dehlin [00:47:16] Huh. I can so see why you compare it to a flame.
Marc Oslund [00:47:20] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:47:21] Honestly, it's like a fire just heating you. Heating you up. Right.
Marc Oslund [00:47:26] That's it.
Margi Dehlin [00:47:27] So when you think about when, like, do you have a. Do you. I know. Memory. And we can talk about that from. Is. Is tricky.
Marc Oslund [00:47:34] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:47:35] For kind of some of these times. But do you have, like, an emotional memory or connection of what it felt like? Because that is a hustle of all hustles. That right there. That is a lot of. Of energy.
Marc Oslund [00:47:48] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [00:47:48] Going into. Right. How you're showing up. And. And also that read. Right. Which you see, I think, with a lot of trauma. Right. Is you get that sense of how to read a room that you read. Kind of what you become this expert. It's like that hyper vigilance of. So that you're safe in all moments. Right.
Marc Oslund [00:48:06] Very similar. Perilous. Yep. I feel that.
Margi Dehlin [00:48:10] Yeah, you feel that. And so when you think of that, if you emotionally connect to who you were and what it felt like to be you, how. How did it feel like looking back? Like, when you look at that human. Like, do you feel like you were. Was it numb? Was it like this sense of like an empty. Like, what was it?
Marc Oslund [00:48:32] Yeah. The first word that comes to me is exposed. Like, not naked, you know, but like at any moment, somebody could just come and pull. Like, let's say I'm wearing, like, a cloak or pull that off. All of a sudden I'm exposed. Everybody sees, everybody knows. And I could never get it back once somebody knows. Oh, you had alcohol before.
Marc Oslund [00:48:51] At least that's how I perceived my experience at byu. I was done. I was toast. And so I felt like I very much had to be perfect. And if I wasn't, then everybody was going to find out all of the things. In fact, scripture says the same thing, that these things will be shouted from the housetops, from the rooftops. And so as I'm internalizing these messages, I'm just thinking, nope, nobody can ever see this. Ever, ever know what I did in my past to cover the hurt that I had as a kid. So it's now covering. Coverings, you know, it's a lot.
Margi Dehlin [00:49:26] Yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead.
John Dehlin [00:49:29] You know, this. This may be a Stretch. But I just want to export a little bit. Yeah, I. I thought it was funny when you mentioned, like, Kobe getting a championship, because I'm thinking, well, Shaq got one, too. You know what I mean? But. But you. You really connected with Kobe. Is that. Is that right?
Marc Oslund [00:49:44] A thousand percent.
John Dehlin [00:49:44] And Kobe had this idea of a Mamba mentality. Can you explain what that is? And then I want to ask a question.
Marc Oslund [00:49:50] Yeah. For me, mamba mentality was called. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It was excellence in everything. Like, top of the food chain, cutthroat, do whatever you. Whatever it takes to get to the top. Anything. Whatever it took.
John Dehlin [00:50:01] And that's hard in the NBA or professional sports because it's really hard to win a championship. I mean, Charles Barkley never won a championship. Right. Like, really great athletes never won a championship. Chris. Chris Paul still hasn't won a championship. Right. But when you apply that to religious perfectionism, even as hard as an NBA championship is to get, you can at least get it. But I'm thinking, can you ever achieve purity? And if not, what's it like to apply the Mamba Mamba or Mamba Mamba mentality to personal purity?
Marc Oslund [00:50:39] Yeah, it's not a stretch at all. That's. It's very similar where if I'm going to be the top of the top in athletics or, you know, academics took a backseat at the time, but still, that same concept, it absolutely applied to religion a thousand percent, where I'm now spending all of my effort trying to show that I'm worthy. And as much as we talk about in the church, like, each calling is not a hierarchy. You're not moving up. I absolutely felt like I had to move up. So I think I started as like, a second counselor in the Elders Quorum presidency. And so looking at byu, so I thought, okay, cool.
Mission Life and Internalizing Unworthiness
Marc Oslund [00:51:10] Like, I'm not, you know, the Sunday school president, but I'm not the president. What? There must be something inside of me, Right. That is not good enough, that the bishop saw that prevented me from being the Elders Quorum president. And then on my mission, like, I was a district leader really early. Again, these things don't matter now. But they felt like they did. Zone leader for a long time. I was never the assistant. And I'm like, what. What am I doing? Right?
Marc Oslund [00:51:34] And these things. Absolutely. It fed this idea of I need to keep doing more and more and be more zealous and more Mormon and more forceful in my discipleship, and I need to repent more and more and more and more because there must be Something that I did that I'm not yet clean from.
Margi Dehlin [00:51:52] Yeah, yeah, good question, John. Yeah, it makes, you know, as you're. You're talking, it reminds me of. And I know you. I feel like you'd made a different comparison. But that comparison usually that I use, which is very similar in nature to what yours is just this idea that there's like this basement inside us, a dark room. And that's where we kind of, for a lot of us growing up and through the years, that's where we kind of put the things, the things we're ashamed of or the parts of us that are, you know, a little. And we just kind of cram that room and lock that door.
Margi Dehlin [00:52:27] And I see two things. I see you really, you know, shifting into this relentless, aggressive pursuit of perfection. And that's behavior that's very much like action shown. And then like, gotta keep a lock on. Like it's bursting that room and you're like, gotta, okay, another lock. Okay, another board. Another. It's gotta be secret. It's gotta, you know, and you have that sense of like, no one can know. And there's effort that goes into that as well. Right.
Margi Dehlin [00:53:01] So that is just something that is really like, emotionally I feel, I can feel so much for that. Just the effort of both those. And then what's not taken into account. The more we go to those extremes of hide that. And then it's all about the hustle. The behavior is we are abandoned.
Margi Dehlin [00:53:22] Like our inside, our internal. Who we are gets left not considered. We're completely. We could be in pain and suffering. We have no idea. Because our, you know, our focus is on these other, these other places in that armor.
Marc Oslund [00:53:37] That's right.
Margi Dehlin [00:53:38] That we have to keep on kind of at all times.
Marc Oslund [00:53:40] Brene Brown talks about that.
John Dehlin [00:53:41] Right.
Marc Oslund [00:53:41] With the armoring up and the weight of it and the burden of it and the heaviness of it. And mine was, if you want to use the armor metaphor, it's going to the temple and putting on the whole armor of God. So I'm now at the temple multiple times a week or I'm reading. I have to start my day by reading scriptures. And it was idolized too, in Mormonism, reinforced. It was. So again, you watch this BYU little. It's like a three minute thing about my experience. And they're talking about me reading scripture in the dugout. And me, I remember vividly being on a road trip in Kansas and waking up because we had to leave early.
Marc Oslund [00:54:15] And it's 4:30 and I'm like, No, I have to read my scriptures to start the day. That has to be the first thing I do on my mission. Just like the constant racking of my brain for what am I doing? Why are we not getting more converts? And it must be me, because exact obedience brings miracles. And so if I'm not being. If I'm not seeing the miracle of a thousand people joining the church, I must have done something. So now I'm just racking my brain over and over and over. I think the best example of what my scrupulosity became is on my mission. You know, there's these rules.
Marc Oslund [00:54:49] And I was again, the phrase that we had, and I think a lot of people had, was be exactly obedient, right? Exactly obedient. Everything I would read the missionary handbook. I did everything by the book. We would wake up at 6:15 instead of 6:30. So I could pray for 15 minutes, so I could have a full 30 minutes of exercise. Because if I didn't, we weren't going to see miracles that day. Right?
Marc Oslund [00:55:08] But the best example is we got home from a long day. It's just knocking doors in humid North Carolina. And you know, we start our daily planning at 9:30 because we got home from teaching people. And then I have to go, you know, get clean because it's. I feel like a swamp because North Carolina is so humid. And I finally get done. I probably had some food for the first time in a while. It's now 10:20ish or so. Bedtime's at 10:30. I was saying a prayer, trying to thank God for all the things in the day and ask for help in the next day. And I look up at the clock, it's 10:31, which is a minute after.
Marc Oslund [00:55:44] And the immense sense of guilt that I had, I'm so sorry. And immediately just repent for the fact that I was late for bed. But the irony of this is this treadmill, okay, so I'm repenting because I'm late to bed, but as I repent for being late to bed, I make myself more late to bed. And then I have to repent for that. And when does it ever stop? It never stops. And then my mission president, bless his heart, he was so, I think he was so hard on himself, but he was hard on us. And he's asking us to search ourselves for all of these things that we've done.
Marc Oslund [00:56:13] And we talked about this, I think a bit on my original Mormon story. And I'm just searching myself for, okay, I know that I drank. Did I repent? Of that. I got baptized, though. But, okay. I told this to my stake president, and he's like, if there's any question, you need to talk to me. And so I'm just, like, searching myself for what I could need to repent for.
Marc Oslund [00:56:35] And it just leads to just this overwhelming sense of I am just. I'm either going to get burned or cursed or excommunicated or whatever else because I'm so disgusting inside. Right. I could never be good enough for God.
John Dehlin [00:56:48] Right.
Marc Oslund [00:56:49] It was so tragic.
Margi Dehlin [00:56:50] It is so tragic.
John Dehlin [00:56:53] And does that start to wear on your mental health?
Marc Oslund [00:56:54] A thousand percent. I mean, on your mission. Oh, man. Every. I still feel so fondly about North Carolina. I was telling Rachel just a couple days ago, I'm going to visit. She's like, I don't really want to. I'm like, well, North Carolina was a huge part of my life. But when I think about the feeling I had every day when I woke up of just fear, I don't want to be doing this today.
Marc Oslund [00:57:19] I had never felt that before. I don't feel it now. I felt it when I was teaching seminary towards the end. But the contrast of when I wake up now and my little boy is just like, hi, Dada. And the joy I feel from. I do not want to do this today.
Marc Oslund [00:57:38] But yet I couldn't stop. Because if. If I was late to exercise, then God's gonna punish me for the rest of the day. Like, it's just. It was so draining.
Margi Dehlin [00:57:49] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [00:57:50] So draining.
Margi Dehlin [00:57:51] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [00:57:51] I forgot I. I think I mentioned I, like, felt so guilty about remembering songs. I would hear people in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where rapper J. Cole is from, and they had these huge cars with these 22 inch rims and play music that I was very familiar with. And I would find myself singing along to these rap songs. And I felt so bad that I remembered them. I must not have repented enough because God forgets. How could I remember that? I started begging God to take away my memory. And I mentioned, like, my memory sucks. I don't know if it's because of that or what, or if I'm just getting older and I didn't have enough carrots or something, if that's supposed to help my brain. But Rachel's like, we grew up in the same high school. She's like, do you remember when this happened? And I don't remember it.
Margi Dehlin [00:58:34] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [00:58:34] And for a long time, I felt like that was a miracle from God because I had asked to not remember all of these things I had done wrong. So yeah. Long story short, the drainingness of it. Heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy.
Margi Dehlin [00:58:46] Yeah. So I feel like you've expressed so well, like, emotionally, some of the. What would I say, like, the costs and the damage with sort of religious orthodoxy. But if you were going to kind of spell out, hey, here's how religious orthodoxy in particular wasn't serving me in. In these times. You've kind of mentioned seminary mission in those kind of times. What would you say are some of those. Those key points that come up for you?
The Harm of Religious Orthodoxy on Mental Health
Marc Oslund [00:59:22] You know, the best way I think, for me to describe that is in the images of the students that I ended up teaching, who I looked at with this awe and just joy, who I just loved being around. And for the first time I. I saw myself reflected back at me what had happened to me when these beautiful kids who again, we just love so much, were like, I don't feel good enough. And there's the mirror. And I'm like that. Me too. And I didn't have words for it. So it's the not enoughness. In fact, I wrote it down. I was. I was with a client. I wrote it down. It's chronic not enoughness.
Margi Dehlin [01:00:00] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:00:00] Is what I would describe. And it feeds in every way. You're not enough. There are religious. With religious Orthodoxy, you have 400,000 commandments you have to keep. You can never keep them all.
Margi Dehlin [01:00:14] It is literally, you're set up to fail.
Marc Oslund [01:00:16] Absolutely.
Margi Dehlin [01:00:17] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:00:18] From the beginning. And you can try, but like, I would do so much throughout the day to be so good as a Mormon person. But you know what? I didn't index that day. Dang it.
John Dehlin [01:00:28] Index what?
Marc Oslund [01:00:29] Names for the temple.
John Dehlin [01:00:30] Oh, yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:00:31] I didn't do it. Or I didn't do my. Even though I did home teaching a week before, I didn't do it today. There was never enough.
Margi Dehlin [01:00:37] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:00:38] And that chronic not enoughness is, I think, the way that religious orthodoxy harms people.
Margi Dehlin [01:00:43] Yeah, absolutely.
John Dehlin [01:00:45] And then just with the. With the stuff I've learned about OCD and anxiety disorders specifically, and the obsessive compartment of the OCD is that there's a. Almost a psychological fact that if you're trying to keep your thoughts pure and not have dirty thoughts, but then the church is saying, don't have that thought. Put that thought away. Say a hymn, repent. It's a psychological fact that that attempt of trying to not have a thought or a feeling makes the thought and feeling happen more. And so not only is it hard to be pure and perfect, but the religious instruction that for a non ocd Non anxiety ridden person is just like, oh, try not to have that thought.
Margi Dehlin [01:01:34] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:01:35] For an OCD person who's worried about pure thoughts and purity, you try extra hard not to have the thought, which then makes you have the thought two or three times more. And you can get in this spiral downward of attempts and efforts towards mental purity that can literally become almost deadly. Yeah. So. So talk about if that sort of attempts at mental pureness and then the exacerbation thereof.
Marc Oslund [01:02:03] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:02:03] If that was part of your.
Marc Oslund [01:02:04] No, absolutely. And you think of these like slow days of tracting and knocking doors in. In the South. Right. And it's humid and we're just knocking. It's 11am and nobody wants to ever talk to Mormon. Nobody wants to talk to door to door salesman anyway. But especially when you see Mormon missionaries coming by. It's just this general sense of I have a lot of time to just be in my own mind. And when my mind is just bringing up normal things. Like again, the, the tune of a song that I used to like, I think of Kanye west, who's such a big deal. It still is, but a big deal for somebody growing up in the late 2000s.
Marc Oslund [01:02:39] I'd have a song come up and I'd be like, no, I. I don't want to think that God, please forgive me for having this thought. I'm so sorry. And then I'd be like, okay to sing I'm a Child of God. And it's just this. But then it showed up again. I'm like, go away.
John Dehlin [01:02:50] Yes.
Margi Dehlin [01:02:51] And it's just this constant exhaustive cycle.
John Dehlin [01:02:54] And then every time someone sings I'm a Child of God, you've now made that association in your mind. So now anytime I'm a Child of God is sung as an example, that might pull the Kanye's song back.
Marc Oslund [01:03:06] Why? It's Sunday. Why am I thinking of this? Like I'm supposed to be focused. Right. It's a similar concept in meditation where you try really hard to just observe your thoughts, but. But you get folk. You can beat yourself up for not being just neutral.
Margi Dehlin [01:03:21] That's right.
Marc Oslund [01:03:22] And so that's what religious orthodoxy did there too, where I'm like, I didn't have. I didn't choose to have this thought. It just showed up.
Margi Dehlin [01:03:28] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:03:28] You can just let it go. But clinging so tightly.
Margi Dehlin [01:03:32] Right.
Marc Oslund [01:03:32] Was just so, so, so it was that that was the problem.
Margi Dehlin [01:03:35] And probably also being taught that you are accountable for your thoughts, which is a teaching, you know, that is deeply problematic at the core because we all know we don't choose our thoughts.
Marc Oslund [01:03:46] That's right. It's literally in contrast to mental health.
Margi Dehlin [01:03:50] That's right.
Marc Oslund [01:03:51] A correct mental health approach would say you don't have control over your thoughts. Thoughts, it's okay. It's neutral. They show up, and their information, you do with them what you will. What you do next is up to you. But then with religious orthodoxy, if a man even has a thought in his heart. Right. Then he's committed adultery. Or if your right are. They offend you, then pluck it out. And that is in this antithesis to mental health in my mind.
John Dehlin [01:04:12] Right.
Margi Dehlin [01:04:13] Yeah. Yeah. So you've shared a little bit, some moments of deep suffering, right?
Marc Oslund [01:04:18] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:04:19] I feel like already just the exhaustive nature and how heavy it would feel to wake up at certain points. Right. In your life, particularly on your mission. Are there any other moments of suffering that you haven't shared that you wanted to or you think are important to share?
Marc Oslund [01:04:36] You know, I think it's most acute on my mission. And then things start getting better because I allow myself to have coping skills. Like, again, I could have a phone or I could.
Margi Dehlin [01:04:44] Yes, yes.
Marc Oslund [01:04:46] Which is really. Which is really the torture of a mission.
John Dehlin [01:04:48] Right.
Marc Oslund [01:04:48] Where at the time I could only talk to my parents, you know, once a week via email and twice a year. And I needed.
Margi Dehlin [01:04:56] It's like no support system at all.
Marc Oslund [01:04:58] You think about my upbringing, and I told you about how idyllic it was, and all I needed, man, was just to call my mom and dad. I just wanted to talk to them, but I couldn't because that would make me disobedient or I wouldn't get miracles or God's testing me or whatever. And all I needed was just them to be like, mark, you're good.
Marc Oslund [01:05:20] Because that was the only message they ever shared to me. Even after, you know, I tell my mission president all these bad things, and he's like, well, we're gonna have to see if. We'll check with the 70 to see if you have to get sent home. And I, like, tell my dad via email, and my dad is. You'll. You can listen to the Mormon story, but my dad's just hustling to do anything to help me know that I'm safe and loved and it's okay and I'm not a bad person. And so, yeah, that's the dissent that is the strongest moment there.
John Dehlin [01:05:47] And obviously people can go back and listen to the long review, but I'm guessing what you're referring to there are like, well, there's the dynamic of Mormon missionaries going on a mission with sins. And I say that in air quotes that they haven't repented for. That's kind of one level of why you might get. Because non Mormons might be thinking, why would you ever get sent home from your mission? You're a volunteer for Heaven send you home. Well, one reason you could get home, get sent home is if you, like, had sex before your mission and you didn't confess it. And then you get out on your mission and you tell your mission president.
John Dehlin [01:06:25] But then another form of scrupulosity is when you're always seeking for internal purity, and you can even start inventing sins that you may not have even committed. And by the way, I'm going to have, Jen, that we've done a couple episodes on Mormon stories about scrupulosity. And. And, you know, the very first one we did was there was a missionary who would brush up against, like, the mission president's wife. And then in his mind, it's like, well, maybe I did that on purpose. Maybe I molested her. Maybe I touched her. And then he would confess that to the mission president, I think I groped your wife.
John Dehlin [01:07:00] And he'd go to his wife and say, did he grope you? And she'd be like, no, he bumped up to me. We were taking a photo. And he. But in his mind, he was manufacturing sins because he was just so worried that maybe there was something he didn't mention, maybe there was something he didn't repent for. And maybe. And so if you get the wrong leader who doesn't understand scrupulosity, they might take that as a real sin when really you haven't done anything wrong, according to this.
Marc Oslund [01:07:29] Yeah, what are you hiding? Right? Why can't you remember? Just tell me. Tell me everything. And that's exactly what happened. And for me, I knew for a fact I was as obedient as I could be.
Margi Dehlin [01:07:38] Right.
Marc Oslund [01:07:38] I mean, I still was not good enough, but I knew that I wasn't doing any big things on my mission. But I'm making up things. I'm like, okay, I know I've talked to this bishop and this state president, this bishop, and. Over excessive repentance. But I'm wondering, like, okay, I'm. I'm. I know I did that, but did I really? And did I tell him everything? And what about this little detail?
John Dehlin [01:07:57] Exactly.
Marc Oslund [01:07:57] Making it all up? And then I. I'm asked to write letters and. And to confess, and people are like, what is this? Like, what is. Why did you send Me this letter baffling. Right. Just out of the blue. So.
John Dehlin [01:08:08] And then, and then the scrupulous people get. Get punished because there's a ton of missionaries that just lie or hide things, but they don't, they don't take it too seriously.
Marc Oslund [01:08:17] Yes.
John Dehlin [01:08:18] And they have a great mission and they're AP or whatever. They have baptisms, but they just start sweating the small stuff. But if you have scrupulosity with the anxiety, you're getting punished for your over honesty.
Marc Oslund [01:08:31] Yes.
John Dehlin [01:08:31] Whereas other less honest missionaries are having a great time.
Marc Oslund [01:08:35] That's exactly right.
John Dehlin [01:08:36] And.
Marc Oslund [01:08:36] And it's, it's exacerbated as well. And we're talking about orthodox religions with the idea of the second coming. I'm like, I better get this right. Because he could come at any moment. It's like Santa's watching you. Right. Checking his list twice or whatever. I felt that way all the time. And the world is wicked and we got to make sure we're clean. And so it just built. It's just. There is so much fuel for something that wasn't caused by the church. It's not them that caused all of these thoughts. But man, I had all the ammo that I just turned inward.
John Dehlin [01:09:06] Right.
Marc Oslund [01:09:07] And it was me that was doing it.
Margi Dehlin [01:09:08] Right.
Marc Oslund [01:09:09] Facilitated by a couple maybe well meaning others, whether it be leaders or not. But it was me who did it to me. Or at least that's how I felt. Right.
Margi Dehlin [01:09:18] Oh, got it.
Marc Oslund [01:09:19] You see what I mean?
Margi Dehlin [01:09:20] Because structurally, it seems like there was a lot there to. There was a lot of fuel in structure as well as content, right?
Marc Oslund [01:09:27] Absolutely.
Margi Dehlin [01:09:28] At that time.
Marc Oslund [01:09:28] Absolutely.
Margi Dehlin [01:09:29] A thousand percent came from the church, though. Okay. Okay. So before we. So now I feel like we're kind of at the part where we're gonna kind of go toward change. Is there anything though that you've left out so far that you kind of. You feel like you wanna share before we do that and kind of make that.
A Pivotal Turning Point and Leaving the Church
Marc Oslund [01:09:48] No, I think we're in the pivot point. I think we're in the right spot there.
Margi Dehlin [01:09:51] Okay.
John Dehlin [01:09:51] Because you went from mission back to byu.
Marc Oslund [01:09:55] Yeah. Injured all the seminary, the whole process.
John Dehlin [01:09:58] And you became a seminary institute teacher and all of that. Everyone needs to go watch that.
Marc Oslund [01:10:01] You're nice.
John Dehlin [01:10:02] Yeah, for sure.
Marc Oslund [01:10:03] Yeah. The story is super intriguing and all of that, but in terms of like the depths of my scrupulosity, I think that was the lowest point. Without recognizing it, the general trajectory was still fairly low. So if you have a baseline level of my unhappiness and at my Mission. At my worst, I'm right here. I'm not anywhere close to where I was when I was whole. But then there's this kind of middle ground that's a little bit lower. A lot lower than what I should have been, but better than my mission. That became my baseline where I'm just generally not feeling good enough. But I'm still happy because I have friends and I have, again, sports I can watch, and I have Rachel, who I love being with. And all of those things that kind of mask some of the. The sadness that I felt so acutely.
Margi Dehlin [01:10:46] That makes sense. Okay. So your resources are kind of. Your connections are back up, and that kind of boosts you. Okay, so if we were going to go back, I know you made the analogy of the stair. Right. The descent. Where are we right now before we do the pivot?
Marc Oslund [01:11:00] I think we're. Man, we're right in that low point of, like, I am just not enough. I'm never going to be good enough. I don't see a way out because it's. It's this treadmill of how can I ever be good enough for God?
Margi Dehlin [01:11:13] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:11:14] And for everyone. And I think we're right at there. And then I'm starting to see my students have the same thing. And I think that's the first stairway up out of that.
Margi Dehlin [01:11:26] That's right. So the students are. Okay, wait. I just had one last question before we do the pivot, please, because I think this is an important kind of. How do you feel like your scrupulosity and your own. That armoredness and that room, even coming off your mission, how do you think it affected your relationship with Rachel? Right.
Marc Oslund [01:11:45] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:11:45] That idea of love and what you share and what, you know, what's lovable. How did that. How did that impact that?
John Dehlin [01:11:53] Yep.
Marc Oslund [01:11:54] It's. I mean, truly, it was. It was tragic. And I wouldn't say I was gaslighting Rachel and making her pretend like her memory wasn't real, but she would tell me things about what happened. Maybe I was unintentionally gaslighting her because I had to gaslight myself and tell myself that, no, I was not at that party, that my wife, who we grew up in the same classes and the same schools from elementary, middle, and high school, she's like, no, I literally saw you with that person. Like, how are you going to say, no, I wasn't there? What do you mean?
Marc Oslund [01:12:24] And so just the general sense of, that's really weird. Why are you lying to me about this thing? And then my intensity with Religion I had to impose onto her. Right. I had to do it because, you know, my mission president promised. He used the Marian Romney where it's like, if you read the Book of Mormon every day, not one of your kids will ever leave the church.
Margi Dehlin [01:12:45] Right. Yes, that's right.
Marc Oslund [01:12:46] And so Rachel, who is a very normal and very healthy person, even with religion, I'm now saying you're not good enough because you're not reading every day.
Margi Dehlin [01:12:55] And our children are at stake.
Marc Oslund [01:12:56] Right. And that's my point where I'm like, rachel, I don't just want to do this to be a jerk. Like, do you not love our future kids enough to do this? And so the wedge that drove it was just, I mean, so grateful for Rachel that she was able to get through that. But it was like, looking back, it's such an unfortunate start to the relationship. It's so unfortunate. And I think that's probably an understatement.
Margi Dehlin [01:13:20] Yeah. And did you have a sense for an awareness at that point for some of these things that were going on? Did you. Did you have a sense? And were you making kind of a conscious decision, for example, when it came to vulnerability and what you shared, or were you still unconscious, kind of under the. And really coping still just sort of surviving? Yeah, you could.
Marc Oslund [01:13:44] I think at this point, I become conscious of the fact of what I'm hiding.
Margi Dehlin [01:13:48] Okay.
Marc Oslund [01:13:48] And I know exactly what she's talking about or referencing, whether it be a party or a girl or whatever. And I'm choosing to not tell her.
Margi Dehlin [01:13:57] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:13:58] Because I don't even want to look at it myself.
Margi Dehlin [01:13:59] That's right.
Marc Oslund [01:14:00] You know, I don't even want to look at it myself.
Margi Dehlin [01:14:02] That's right. Okay.
John Dehlin [01:14:03] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:14:03] Thank you for that. Thank you for asking that.
Marc Oslund [01:14:05] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:14:06] Okay. So let's talk about the impetus of change. And kind of, was there a moment or something that came up that allowed for you to see this in a different way or to connect these dots in a different way that moved you in it?
Marriage, Grief, and Facing the Faith Transition
Marc Oslund [01:14:20] Yeah, absolutely. And funnily enough, Rachel and I talk quite a bit. We like to go on walks. Ours are usually in the evening, especially when it's nice and summer, and we'll talk about different things. And one of the things that we've talked about is we, would we be here right now if I wasn't a seminary teacher? Like, would I still be Mormon? Would I. How would things be? And there's no way to know, but if I wasn't a seminary teacher, I can tell you I wouldn't have had a Lot of the experiences I did where I'm again doing everything I can to be the perfect teacher, and then I get blindsided with, you are in trouble because you said, dude.
Marc Oslund [01:14:54] And I'm like, what? Like, that's not. I understand. Like, okay, cool. If I, I don't know, was drinking with a student, that would be something that you would be mad at. But, dude. And I don't know what it was that allowed me that. I actually do. Now that I'm thinking about it. It's the students.
Marc Oslund [01:15:12] It was being with them and my deep love for them that gave me some power back because I started challenging teachings. Not even firmly at first, but little things, dumb things that I didn't think mattered. Like, I don't. I couldn't even give you an example, like swearing. It's like, hey, it's not ideal to swear, but you're not a terrible person. You're not going to go to hell. You're okay. Right?
John Dehlin [01:15:36] So is your, Is your teaching so fast forward. You. You. Your baseball career kind of ends, you get injured, You. You finish being a BYU baseball player, you marry Rachel, and you get a job as a seminary institute teacher in Utah County.
Marc Oslund [01:15:53] Correct.
John Dehlin [01:15:54] Belly of the beast.
Marc Oslund [01:15:55] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:15:55] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:15:55] And now you're seeing these students every day at high schools. Like what? Pleasant Grove, Pleasant Gr. American Fork. Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:16:02] I was at A.F. pleasant Grove, O. Canyon Jr. Tippanogas and Provo.
John Dehlin [01:16:06] They.
Marc Oslund [01:16:06] They. They didn't like me in seminary, so they kept moving me around.
John Dehlin [01:16:08] Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And all this is chronicled in. In his interview. But maybe try and paint a picture for how you're seeing these issues of worthiness and law of chastity and purity emerge with the students as you're starting to try and take care of them.
Marc Oslund [01:16:26] Yeah, that's a great point. I, you know, and I was talking to a teacher, you know, who's still one of my friends, about the differences in some of the general challenges that kids at Tippanogos High had versus kids at Pleasant Grove High, at least when I was teaching. And like, the kids at Tippanogos had things that I was more familiar with in my upbringing, like, oh, they'll, you know, they'll drink or they'll do drugs or whatever, and they're just generally like, seminary doesn't make sense. At Pleasant Grove, which is where a lot of this started happening for me, the overwhelming sense from those kids was they just weren't enough.
Marc Oslund [01:17:00] It was almost every kid, and they are exceptional. Like, so good, so zealous, so obedient. To the Mormon teachings, all of these things, and observing them talking to me, whether that be in class, raising their hands and sharing after class, coming into my office and saying, I don't feel good enough, and now watching myself be mirrored.
Margi Dehlin [01:17:22] Yes. You're seeing yourself in them and recognizing.
Marc Oslund [01:17:26] That's it. And, you know, that protector that I developed for myself, but not healthily. Right. My protector was to try to be really cool. I could now use that skill of protecting the vulnerable and actually do it to help kids.
Margi Dehlin [01:17:39] Yes. I love that.
Marc Oslund [01:17:41] That's where it all came from. So, John. Yeah. People saying that and watching this, like, amazing young man who's like, I don't feel good enough to go on a mission because I did this thing. And me seeing myself, like, no, I never want you to feel that ever. And so I became protective of them, and I started gaining those muscles that eventually began to protect myself.
Margi Dehlin [01:18:04] That's right.
Marc Oslund [01:18:05] But it all started from them. So I will say, flashing forward, the only tragedy about my whole process out of Mormonism is those kids that are still believers, wonder if I love them still. And I'm like, I will never stop caring for you.
Margi Dehlin [01:18:20] You.
Marc Oslund [01:18:20] Right. And anyway, that because they were the one, they saved me, they brought me back to myself.
Margi Dehlin [01:18:25] That's right. It's. It's kind of like, in a way, the love that you felt for them and what you saw in them, it. It came back to you. Right. And it was able to kind of puncture some of that armor that was actually disconnecting you from yourself. Right?
Marc Oslund [01:18:43] That's exactly right. One of my first. In fact, my very first little tattoos, a little smiley face on a cancer scar that I had and is from a student. The very first one that I really felt like I saw so much goodness in, and she couldn't see it in herself. And I became. You know, I'm friends with her parents, and I had this tattoo in particular, this very first little smiley face. I would draw Sharpies to try to make happy things from my little cancer. But I wanted her to do that because of that critical moment in my life. That was the time that I started seeing it reflected in others and finding myself again. And it was through caring for these individuals that just meant so much to me and to Rachel that we genuinely cared about them.
John Dehlin [01:19:25] Wow.
Margi Dehlin [01:19:26] Okay. So that kind of pierced and created a crack in that veneer that allowed for some change to happen. Is that right?
Marc Oslund [01:19:35] That's right. So from there, seeing the kids and just wanting to advocate for them eventually made me feel very passionate in a In a similar way. So we talk about mamba mentality when it comes to, like, repentance. It was similar then. In my protection of students and the ways that I wanted them to feel safe and welcomed, I was nowhere near challenging lds, like, LDS teachings at all. At that point, I was challenging cultural things like, do we really need to stress about kids being five minutes late to class? Does that really matter? What about this test that they have to take? Does that really matter?
Marc Oslund [01:20:08] And devotional. I remember, like, Quentin Cook gave a devotional saying along the lines of, what is wrong with millennials for not having kids? Right. You don't have enough faith. And at the time, we were trying to have kids, and we weren't. And it was just, no, like, don't say that. Stop hurting people. And so it was very much these kind of starting to protect in that regard that got me originally on the hook in seminary. And they started seeing, hey, this guy is not falling in line as we want, even in small ways, that eventually led me to say, you know what? I have given up my life for the church.
Marc Oslund [01:20:45] I've given up my family, my friends, the music I liked, the way that I talked, my hometown, my baseball career. All of these things had been given up for the church. And I'm not good enough. I am not doing this anymore.
Marc Oslund [01:20:57] Wow. I'm doing everything. And we wanted to have a kid. We couldn't have kids. We had a miscarriage. I have cancer. What? Like, nope, nope, no more.
Margi Dehlin [01:21:07] Wow.
Marc Oslund [01:21:07] And so that's when it all started changing for me at that point.
Margi Dehlin [01:21:10] Yes, yes. I recognize that it's kind of that inner limit. You kind of hit this inner of like, nope, not anymore.
Marc Oslund [01:21:19] That's right. Going to therapy and having a therapist for the first time reflect back after telling him all the things I felt guilty about and him just saying, I don't think you have any sense of worth. And immediately I knew that was accurate. I sensed it. And it felt like he spoke to that void that I'd been trying to cover. But I was like, okay, what do we do with that? Right?
Margi Dehlin [01:21:42] Yes.
Marc Oslund [01:21:43] And as I kept going and developing this sense of worth and then teaching that to the students first, I didn't believe it. For me, it was for them. I believed in their goodness first. And the more I started teaching it and seeing it reflected in scripture, so the stairway out was, maybe they're good. Maybe God is okay with us. Like, that was the stairway out. And things changed for me at that point. Once I started seeing their worth, then I started reclaiming My own.
Margi Dehlin [01:22:13] That's so interesting. So again, it's kind of other related, that which you extend to others. You do that first and then it kind of then comes back to you.
Marc Oslund [01:22:23] That's it. It.
Margi Dehlin [01:22:23] Okay, so we're gonna. I'm gonna pause that for one second and ask you for a moment, just because you brought us to this place of. And not that it happens in a moment. I think grief and loss, it happens as we live. Right. That we're always kind of doing it, but at. At. You know, take me through maybe that piece through today. Just the grief and loss part of what that's looked like for you and what it's involved.
Marc Oslund [01:22:51] Yeah. I mean, the way that it event. It worked its way through as I continued to advocate for kids, but also advocating for me at the same time. It eventually led me to this place of a lot of sadness, hurt, betrayal.
Marc Oslund [01:23:07] I mentioned earlier about the fine print of Mormonism. Then all of a sudden I start realizing, wait, not only have I given up all of these things, but I have damaged myself because of the fine print of Mormonism. I've told others, like, the very fact that I live here in Utah is a tangible evidence.
Marc Oslund [01:23:27] Right. That I have given something up. And for a long time I was like, no, I want to get back to California. I want to get back to California. And that I had to process all of that. I had to process all of it. And it was tragic. The loss of my just general sense of goodness, giving up of my family and straining relationships, the harm that I did to my wife at the beginning of our relationship because I was so scrupulous, the harm that I did to myself, the pressure that I felt to get married young, to have kids at 24.
Margi Dehlin [01:24:00] Right.
Marc Oslund [01:24:00] We didn't have Remy until we were 29, but I felt like, okay, like we're old. And that's. That's crazy. It's crazy. And so all of that had to be felt and grieved. And as I was grieving that I didn't know who to turn to. So that eventually led me to speaking here on Mormon Stories and then out on social media, which further perpetuated this divide. Because as you talk negatively about the Mormon Church, I. I'm aware it's coming from a place of pain. People distance themselves. And I get it. I'm. I'm not the easiest person to hear when I'm in an angry place.
Marc Oslund [01:24:37] And that's a grief. And now I'm isolated and alone. And here in Utah, obviously I have Rachel and my little boy but my family lives in Georgia. Her family lives in California. My friends are in California or they're teaching seminary.
Marc Oslund [01:24:51] And so I'm like, how do I. It's all grieved. It all had to be grieved. And it took basically the entirety of 2020 and into 2021 to really grieve.
Margi Dehlin [01:25:01] All of that to grieve. And what did it look like? What does grief look like for you?
Marc Oslund [01:25:05] Oh, man. I don't know if you're familiar with the Enneagram, but I feel like it describes this process for me really well. I would consider myself@enneagram8. When I'm at my hole, I'm. I become a two. I become very caring by default. I'd like to challenge things and systems, and I think that's fun. When I'm not at my best, I become a five, which. A negative version of a five, which would be very isolated, very. In my mind, very.
Marc Oslund [01:25:32] I don't want to talk to anyone. I just want to be in this inner quiet world. And I don't want anyone in. I just want everybody closed off. I want to be very logical. But it's not logical. Right. And eventually that leads to a point where I don't feel excitement doing what I do. It leads to a point of depression. Right. It leads me to this moment when I realized, wow, I am not significant here in this state. I'm not significant in the world. I'm not going to be anybody important. And that's a grief. And it's moments of depression and kind of silence, isolation, and then just tears. Eventually it finally comes out, probably after weeks or months of me pretending I'm okay.
Margi Dehlin [01:26:16] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:26:17] And it's just. I can't carry it anymore. Right? I can't carry it anymore.
Margi Dehlin [01:26:21] Yes. Yep. Grief and loss, I tell you.
Marc Oslund [01:26:28] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:26:29] I think what's hard about grief and loss is oftentimes we're doing it as we live, you know, and so we're in relationship or we're parents or. And we're here and we're grieving things in the here and now, but we're also grieving all the past selves we might have been. And. And so you have this sort of retroactive loss. It's really difficult to describe or to connect with, with people because I think culturally we don't do a great job of grieving. And, you know, so it's very much about, like, basically, conceptually, it's like if you lose a person, if a person dies, you know, but that's about how we talk About.
Marc Oslund [01:27:06] Yes.
Margi Dehlin [01:27:06] Grief and loss. And so that, I think, compounds the isolation.
Marc Oslund [01:27:10] Absolutely. And because we don't have words for it. And I, I would even say it's demonized in a lot of ways in orthodox Mormonism to feel strong emotions like anger or, or grief. I, I think you have a time limit on grief in Mormonism. Let's take a, A loss of a person. Most people understand that you're going to be sad if you lose your spouse. And I think most Mormon people are very generous. They give the casseroles, they prepare the, the funeral. They are very gracious up to that point and maybe even a week or two after. And my experience is most people start thinking, okay, cool, like, we're going to be together forever. So you're done now, right?
Margi Dehlin [01:27:43] That's right.
Marc Oslund [01:27:44] And we don't talk about grief. We don't want to embrace grief because, again, we have that nice outlet of eternal life. And so we are never given the tools to express grief, even with things that are clearly things that need to be grief. Like, like a death of a person. So then the death of an inner. Of an inner life.
Margi Dehlin [01:28:02] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:28:03] I mean, there's absolutely no words for that. And I know you've mentioned before, Margi, but this concept of wintering.
Margi Dehlin [01:28:09] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:28:10] Like, I think it's a great visual. I'm a Californian. We're used to the coldest days are what, 55, and the warmest days are 85.
Margi Dehlin [01:28:17] Like perpetual spring and summer.
Marc Oslund [01:28:18] Right.
Margi Dehlin [01:28:19] Well, that's where we are.
John Dehlin [01:28:20] Right.
Marc Oslund [01:28:20] And so I come up to Utah, and even when I was playing baseball, we were traveling. We were in Texas and Arizona and California in the early spring, which is still winter here. And then I quit. And all of a sudden I'm faced with February, which is my birth month. And I'm like, this is the heart of winter, which I thought was spring. I have no clothes for this. I don't know what to do at this time. I don't have any activities I enjoy. And I feel like that is the symbol of how we treat our grief.
Margi Dehlin [01:28:45] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:28:45] We don't have the ability, the information, the tools to be able to grieve the winters of our lives, to get through them. Health with, with health and, and wholeness.
Margi Dehlin [01:28:57] That's right.
Marc Oslund [01:28:58] So I've had to learn those tools as well.
Margi Dehlin [01:29:00] Yes. Yes. Thank you for that.
Marc Oslund [01:29:05] Yeah. Thanks for asking.
Rebuilding Identity After Mormonism
Margi Dehlin [01:29:06] Okay, so let's get maybe to a little bit of the rebuilding. Does that sound good?
Marc Oslund [01:29:11] Absolutely.
Margi Dehlin [01:29:11] And kind of move into now we're walking kind of back out.
Marc Oslund [01:29:16] Yes.
Margi Dehlin [01:29:16] A Little bit, yes. So what kind of. You. You kind of started us. And I paused you. Right. You kind of started with the seminary students again. Right. And seeing them as whole and seeing them as having worth, regardless of. Of, like these minute decisions that they're. That they're making. What were some of the other steps? Crucial kind of building.
Marc Oslund [01:29:38] Thanks for asking. And the biggest one is the students. And then it was therapy. Right. And having somebody reflect back my sense of insignificance. And then I think a couple of the next big steps that I took. So again, if you're talking about doctrine leading you in, doctrine had to lead me out, too. And it was this concept of it's okay not to know.
Marc Oslund [01:29:59] That was a big step for me because everything felt so certain and so sure, including the sense that I'm not good enough, I'm not going to make it to the celestial kingdom. What have you. Taking a step back and saying maybe all the things that you think you know, you don't actually know allowed me to then question and say, well, what are some of those things? Then the next step out is, are people really, like, are 99.99% of the world. That's. I mean, we were talking about the percentage of Mormon people or active Mormon people with 0.901% of the world or two, or whatever it is, is God that bad that 99.99% of the world is going to suffer?
Marc Oslund [01:30:39] Well, if I don't, if I'm questioning what I know, that doesn't seem very logical. And then the next step out is, you know what? I think God is going to save all of us. I think if God exists, the only God worth worshiping is one that's going to redeem everyone.
Marc Oslund [01:30:56] And then it's seeing the goodness of people. And there's some catalyst moments that I had on all of these subjects, you know, beginning. And we've talked about this on the episode where I become like this progressive Mormon, largely stemming from things that the Givens taught, which. Which we're pulling from teachings of Brigham Young, some of the positive ones, which is that Quakers are going to be saved and Methodists and Roman Catholics and Jews, and everybody's going to make the celestial kingdom.
Marc Oslund [01:31:22] And that became foundational as I'm sitting on this bench in San Francisco, looking at the diversity of the human experience, literally just encapsulated here on this bench, thinking we're all good, and then seeing that from my students and being like, they're all good, and then being like, I'm good, God's gonna say, why wouldn't he love me? Look at what he's done for me.
Marc Oslund [01:31:42] And then again, I don't know what it is about travel. It's that Mark Twain quote, right? Like, travel's fatal to prejudice and bigotry. I also wonder if it's fatal to orthodoxy too. But I was sitting on that bench and I read that Givens quote. And then the next year we were back in San Francisco because we didn't have kids, so we could travel, right? Which is one of the perks. And we could travel with kids too. I'm just. Anyway, but I was reading. I woke up early one morning and I just couldn't sleep. And it was maybe 4am and I had this book. I don't even know how I found it.
Marc Oslund [01:32:11] I think it was, like, Richard Rohr, who was a progressive Franciscan priest, who had mentioned this Jesuit author named Greg Boyle. And I had this book called Tattoos on the Heart. And it was about, you know, these gang members in la, where I'm from. And I will. I will never forget. It's dark. Rachel's sleeping. There's, like, a huge box of this delicious pizza that we loved over in San Francisco. And I'm reading in the dark, kind of with my phone light, and I read this first chapter of Tattoos on the Heart, where it's talking about this gang member who, if you look, based on what people do in this life without any context of their background, somebody who murders somebody or somebody who does things along those lines is probably not deemed a good person.
Marc Oslund [01:32:55] And Greg the priest is talking about this individual who, you know, they're at this. This place in. Wherever they're at in la, which is maybe an area I wouldn't ever have ever gone to as a privileged white man, you know? And he needs to go get some cash for this guy, and he leaves him in the car. And he's like, hey, you took the keys. Like, what do I do? Do I listen to music? Like, what do I do? He's like, just pray, you know?
Marc Oslund [01:33:19] And anyway, he's like, okay, sure. And he, like. He kind of rolls his eyes. Greg's gone. He gets the. Some money for this guy because he's helping him out and comes back to the car, and he said something changed when he walked into the car.
Marc Oslund [01:33:32] And he ask the guy as they're driving along, he says, hey, you prayed, didn't you? He's like, yeah, I did. He's like, what'd you talk about?
Margi Dehlin [01:33:42] You know?
Marc Oslund [01:33:43] He's like, I was just talking to God, you know, it's my homie or whatever. And he's like, what does. What does God think about you? And he kind of gets quiet for a sec, and he says, God thinks I'm firme. And he says to the homies, that means could not be one bit better.
Marc Oslund [01:34:02] And I'm reading this at, you know, not probably 5am in San Francisco and thinking, if God could tell this gang member who we would look down on again, generally, but we. We shouldn't. It's the whole point of the book.
Marc Oslund [01:34:15] And God can say, that person could not be one bit better. What does that mean for me? And so if that's the image that I had of God, the stairway keeps going. I'm saved, I'm loved, I'm good, I'm whole.
Marc Oslund [01:34:29] And any message that was contrary. This is where everything changed. Any message that is contrary to that, I am now going to resist that message, which eventually led me out of Mormonism.
Margi Dehlin [01:34:41] Right, right.
Marc Oslund [01:34:41] Because there's too. There's too much fuel. And I realized it had burned out. And I would resist any message that told me I wasn't good enough. And I just found so much of that in Mormonism.
Margi Dehlin [01:34:52] Yes. Yes. Okay. So to bring. To connect that back to, let's say, scrupulosity. Right. And how you're kind of. It feels like on some level, rebuilding, reframing belief. Right? Yes, a bit.
Marc Oslund [01:35:10] Yes.
Margi Dehlin [01:35:11] How. How. And having therapy. Let's not shortchange that. And also, you know, those experiences with. With seminary kids, those are kind of the things that you've listed so far. How does that now affect your scrupulosity?
Marc Oslund [01:35:26] Great question. And for me, if I don't know all the things I thought I knew, and God is more merciful than I thought he was, and I'm more worthy than I believed myself to be, now I can start maybe testing God, not in a rebellious way, but I think one of the best examples of this is when I'm having a really terrible day at Pleasant Grove. And I had not said a swear word since I had joined the church. I told myself I wouldn't. You know, if somebody's scrupulous, like, they're pretty good at honoring their word, even if it's at their own, you know, the sake of themselves.
Marc Oslund [01:36:00] And I'm driving home, and I just had, like, this. This sense of just let it out. And I knew exactly what that feeling was. It was like, just let all of those swear words that you needed to say because of all that you were going through and because I could Say, maybe I don't know things, certainly, and maybe God's going to be more merciful. I allowed myself to finally do it. The whole car drive home, I'm just swearing. Not just to test it, but to let out the feeling of I needed this. This relief. We know studies say if you swear, you dip your hand in cold water.
Marc Oslund [01:36:31] Have you seen these? You dip your hand in cold water. Those that swear can have their hands last in the pain of cold water longer. It is given to us as this relief, this release valve. I'm swearing all the way home and I get done, and the general sense was I feel a lot better.
Margi Dehlin [01:36:46] Ah.
Marc Oslund [01:36:47] And I'm like, wait, I should feel worse now.
Margi Dehlin [01:36:50] Right?
Marc Oslund [01:36:51] And I'm like, if I don't feel bad, maybe I could watch this YouTube video. And it was never bad things by any measure. It was just a YouTuber that would swear. Well, maybe I could not have to be so stressed about going to the temple. And maybe I don't have to, like, like, be as diligent. And, like, I would still read every day. Of course, because you're Mormon, you have to. But I wouldn't feel so stressed about it.
Margi Dehlin [01:37:15] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:37:15] And so I began.
John Dehlin [01:37:17] What's.
Marc Oslund [01:37:17] What's this? What do the scriptures say? Like, to prove God, Prove me now here with. I'm like, hey, I'll. I'll see if this is real. And every time I did that, I felt better.
Margi Dehlin [01:37:27] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:37:27] Until eventually it led me to, like, questioning the teachings themselves.
Margi Dehlin [01:37:31] Right, Got it.
Marc Oslund [01:37:32] So, yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:37:33] Okay. And then at this time. So it sounds like during this rebuilding phase. Right. You're doing a lot of exploring too. You're trying out some new things with the swearing and with the. And then noticing kind of what your experience is and how you feel. So how. How did this time, also, I'm curious, affect that shame room? Like, what. What was happening down there?
Marc Oslund [01:37:58] Yeah, that's a great question. I. I think the fundamental. It was this fundamentally altering, like, vision altering experience of realizing that gang members were worthy of love. That it was. It just came by extension that I'm like, of course I would be too.
Marc Oslund [01:38:19] And it was almost like the shame, it was still there. I heard the messages of, like, you should feel bad about that. But I didn't feel it in my gut anymore. I had. I don't know if you want to call it a mantra or something that I could use to be like, no, if he's loved, I'm loved. I'm okay.
Marc Oslund [01:38:36] So it was something that I was aware of, but it didn't send me into that spiral like before. And then the actual experience of not feeling sad, in fact, home evening. We would always try to force. I would always try to force. It was not we. It was always me trying to force home evening with me and Rachel. And I was like, it's not working. Like, it makes us angry. We fight about this. Let's just not. And then we were happier.
Marc Oslund [01:39:01] That shouldn't be right. And so having the lived experience of I'm actually happier when I'm not forcing myself to do these things was huge. I started listening to the music. I started listening to rap again. And I'm like, this makes me feel happy.
Marc Oslund [01:39:19] I felt happy. And I connected back to this, like, former childhood self that just liked these things. And my lived experience was one of joy.
Margi Dehlin [01:39:28] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:39:29] Even though the messaging was you should feel bad, I. I had too visceral of experiences to say I should feel bad anymore.
Margi Dehlin [01:39:37] Do you know what this is reminding me of that I see is that I don't know if it's true, but, like, it's something that just is occurring to me. It's just that, like, on some level, the. The thing, all the things that make you you. You know that when we're in these places of survival for whatever reason, and we're. We're coping and we all just cope, it's. It's really rare to, like, really be conscious and choose your coping. We, most of us, we come upon our coping literally just trying to survive. And a lot of that is in childhood and teen years, but, like, throughout our lives.
Margi Dehlin [01:40:14] Right. Is that it? There's some coping that makes the human disappear and you just become the coping, you know? And that's what I see. Like, I see as you're saying, like, oh, and I'm starting to listen to rap and I'm starting to do is like, you're a self again. It's like you are starting to emerge. You the person, like, beyond the behavior, beyond, you know.
Marc Oslund [01:40:40] Yes.
Margi Dehlin [01:40:41] Behind all that coping, there's the human. There he is.
Marc Oslund [01:40:44] Yeah. Like, he's back.
Margi Dehlin [01:40:45] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:40:45] And I. I know individuals will say, like, you know, Mormonism doesn't want you to be a drone, but I don't. I don't see any other way. If you are being an orthodox Mormon, I don't see how you can't be a drone and just be this box. There's no room for creativity. There's no room for expression. You know, pink hair is demonized. Tattoos are demonized. And these are small things. But. But where's the Self there. If you can't listen to music that swears, you've now cut out a whole swath. And I'm not saying that swearing is the. I know we're talking about that a lot, but like, there are other ways to find self expression outside of that, but it limits your choices.
Margi Dehlin [01:41:25] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:41:25] If it's not modest, if it swears or whatever else. Right.
John Dehlin [01:41:28] And if we want to go to the other extreme of the least trivial, there's personal revelation.
Marc Oslund [01:41:34] Yes.
John Dehlin [01:41:35] And what. What is the undeniable rule in Mormonism if you get a personal revelation that. That is contradicted by what the brethren.
Margi Dehlin [01:41:46] That's right.
John Dehlin [01:41:46] Say is true? What's the answer?
Marc Oslund [01:41:48] Oh, man, you're gone, dude. You're in trouble.
John Dehlin [01:41:50] It's. It's the brethren. Brethren trump Personal revelation. 10 out of 10.
Marc Oslund [01:41:55] Everything. Everything. I mean, that. And that was the lesson that I ended up learning. I think we talk about this quite a bit in our. In our. Our episodes where I broke the taboo rule of Mormonism, which is obedience and deference to authority, when I reclaimed my own autonomy.
Marc Oslund [01:42:12] And as I did that, I started realizing I don't want to belong to an organization that will not allow me to be autonomous. And if I am, then they will kick me out. That's unhealthy. And again, I'm watching that with my students and I'm. And then I'm like, what am I doing?
Marc Oslund [01:42:29] And at that point, if you can question everything and God is more loving than you thought, now I have this floor that's way higher. So if I fall, I'm like, good. Either God is love and I'm safe anyway, or God is not and I don't care, or God doesn't exist and I'm fine. So now I'm able to challenge the institution. You break all these taboo rules. I start trust, trusting my own intuition that says, yeah, it's okay for me to watch a YouTube video with a guy that swears I'm now opposed to the church. I'm like, okay, cool, we'll do that. We'll be opposed. And that led to all of 2020, which is me just, well, mamba mentality.
Marc Oslund [01:43:03] I'll go heads up with the church. And they win, of course. How do you beat them? But I was not letting myself betray myself any longer.
Margi Dehlin [01:43:10] I was done. That's right.
Marc Oslund [01:43:12] I was done with that.
Margi Dehlin [01:43:13] Yes.
Marc Oslund [01:43:15] Thank you.
Margi Dehlin [01:43:17] That's beautiful. Okay, so I feel like we've. We've kind of touched on some of your victories. Right. You've shared some of these Moments of just emerging are there. What were kind of the. Some of the hardest aspects of rebuilding for you?
The Hardest Parts of Leaving and Moving Forward
Marc Oslund [01:43:33] I think there's a few. I think the first one is having to now come to Rachel and not be. I was never sheepish. Sheepish about it. Like, I'm so sorry. It was having a more awareness of the impact my scrupulosity had on her and having to rebuild on that and be like, hey, I know. Because I was highly anxious that it created a sense of stress whenever we did things that were totally okay, like shopping on Sundays, if we had to get ice cream or something. And now having to rebuild that and still going through the process of rebuilding that. That was a big one. I think about as I'm expressing my hurt watching individuals separate themselves from me and having to make peace with these relationships that were founded on, I believe, more than religion, were actually founded just on shared belief. And that was a really hard thing.
Margi Dehlin [01:44:24] Absolutely.
Marc Oslund [01:44:25] Because you lose your community, you know, and that. That was really hard because I genuinely still love so many of these individuals. And then I think about, I mean, shifting careers and having to go. I still love teaching. I told Rachel at some. I hope we hit the lotto so I could just teach for fun, because I still miss every day. I thought social work would fill maybe that void of being with the students. And don't get me wrong, I love it. I love private practice therapy. But there's an energy that comes from being around teenagers that is special. They're so honest and good and real.
Marc Oslund [01:45:04] And maybe I'm unique in loving teenagers, but I love them and I haven't gotten that back. And then rebuilding with my mom, who was always right about Mormonism not being the best for me, but I had to learn that for me. Yeah, we were in a car ride. They live in the south now. We were on the way, I think, to Alabama because we were going to Alabama football game. And my mom was just like, she was right. And I had to tell her that she was right, but I didn't want to. So we've had to rebuild that and.
Marc Oslund [01:45:31] And then finding out what I like. Who am I? What. What things? Okay, I used to like this music, but do I still like that? And I used to drink, but do I still like drinking? And like all of those pieces that I have to now figure out as an adult, that's hard. So all of those things were.
John Dehlin [01:45:49] Were there.
Marc Oslund [01:45:49] And my privileges, at least I had some semblance of a self before Mormonism that I could come home to a lot faster than Many people.
Margi Dehlin [01:45:56] Right, yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:45:57] So I think those are all contributors to some of those difficult parts of the journey.
Margi Dehlin [01:46:02] Yes. Yeah. I hear a lot of reckoning in there.
John Dehlin [01:46:06] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because if the church isn't your authority, how do you claim authority? And can you even learn to feel comfortable having permission to be your own authority? That's one thing I hear all the time.
Margi Dehlin [01:46:21] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:46:21] And then the second is if sports aren't your worth, but then religion isn't your worth, but then is a job, is it even being a dad.
Margi Dehlin [01:46:30] That's such a good point. I kind of want to go back to that. Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:46:33] Where does worth come from?
Marc Oslund [01:46:34] Yeah, yeah, let's go back to it. I. There was a moment you could also
John Dehlin [01:46:37] just replace religion with something else.
Marc Oslund [01:46:39] Absolutely. And you know where it was? It was. And I was talking to Laura about this quite a bit. And Rachel, just as I'm posting, I'm thinking, well, maybe I can. Maybe I could be an influencer and I can take down Mormon church that way, you know, and as I spoke out about these things, I lost followers.
Marc Oslund [01:46:54] And so now this is another reckoning of. Wait, my. My hometown is the size of Salt Lake Lake, right? That's my hometown. It's a random suburb of la. And I thought I was making it as someone who is significant in LA. I thought right as an 18 year old. But I was significant here. Of course I could come to Salt Lake and just walk into being somebody who is relevant and made like I was a big deal here. And as I sensed that that was never going to happen, now I'm like, I literally don't have a foundation. It's not sports, it's not religion, it's not a job because I wasn't super passionate about my job. It's not being an influencer.
John Dehlin [01:47:31] Where.
Marc Oslund [01:47:32] What is it? Yeah, what is it? And there was some sad moments when I just had to name. And once I did, this is the acceptance, commitment, therapy part. Right. Where once I could name what I was avoiding, which is I don't feel like I'm that significant in the world. That was hard to name. Hard to name. But once I did, then I could find my own significance from within.
Margi Dehlin [01:47:55] Yes. I so relate to that.
Marc Oslund [01:47:58] Right.
Margi Dehlin [01:47:58] Especially from this like, excellence, you know, that kick of being special. It hits the other way. Right. Of just having to be the best. And this, this sort of whole excellence thing where there is a relief that comes.
Marc Oslund [01:48:12] Yes.
Margi Dehlin [01:48:13] That in our own insignificance.
Marc Oslund [01:48:16] That's exactly what I felt once I could face. We were talking about the Monster under the bed. Once I could look at that thing, I then realized that it wasn't actually a monster. It was this teddy bear that was actually a gift that was there for me to see and be like, you don't have to be significant. You can just live your life and be present. And my values at that point changed, where I'm like, you know what? I just want to be content. That is my. That is my. I don't know if you call it a value, but it's definitely a goal. It is. I want to be content with the life that I have.
Margi Dehlin [01:48:49] Have Beautiful.
Marc Oslund [01:48:51] I want to be present with the now as much as I can.
Margi Dehlin [01:48:54] Yes.
Marc Oslund [01:48:54] Watching my kid, being with Rachel, even at my job, being present. If I can do that, that is a life that I want to live. And that. That became my. My new North Star of just being. Hey, I'm here and I'm living.
Margi Dehlin [01:49:08] Oh, I love that so much. I love that and relate to that so much. And I feel like, for me, that came from the death of someone.
John Dehlin [01:49:16] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [01:49:16] You know, but it comes to us, I think, in its own way, and it can look different for. For every person. But that. That idea, for me, it rings so true to. To my own story as well. This idea of, like, what brings me alive because, you know, daylight's burning here and, you know what. And then how do I do that? How do I access that part of just what it means for me to feel like I'm fully alive and I want to be here, you know?
Marc Oslund [01:49:46] Yep.
Margi Dehlin [01:49:46] And that is a beautiful. Just. It's a beautiful work.
Marc Oslund [01:49:50] Yeah. And it's hard and invigorating and beautiful, and, you know, it feels like things smell differently and they taste differently. Right. Tasting gelato, for instance, when you're present with the joy of gelato tastes different than when you're just doing it mindlessly.
Margi Dehlin [01:50:05] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:50:06] Life becomes vibrant.
Margi Dehlin [01:50:08] It.
Marc Oslund [01:50:08] Including the tragedies of life. I think you feel everything deeper.
Margi Dehlin [01:50:12] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:50:13] But that's the beauty. That's the human. Human. Human has become my synonym for the word sacred.
Margi Dehlin [01:50:18] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:50:19] I don't say sacred as much, probably because of religiousness, but the human, I think, is a. Is a holy word.
Margi Dehlin [01:50:25] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:50:26] And embracing the human and the mess and the ugly and the mistakes, and I don't feel guilt now. It's. It's str. I mean, I maybe guilt, but definitely not shame. I don't. I don't feel. My North Star is my own goodness. So now I feel free to make mistakes and not be condemned, and I can own them. More freely. Rachel's still. She knows it's still hard for me to own them fully, but as I embrace them more fully, I. I just sense. No, it's okay. This is human. I am good at my core. Mistakes are human. That's okay.
Margi Dehlin [01:50:59] That's right. Oh, so maybe no shame room.
Marc Oslund [01:51:02] Yeah, it's there. It's still there, but it's.
Margi Dehlin [01:51:05] So is it there? And is it open, kind of open door? Do things still go in there and then pass out? Or how would you. How would you express.
Marc Oslund [01:51:14] It feels like a dusty part of an attic. You know what I mean? It's just there. Like, I know that it's there. I know that it exists. I know if I. I could maybe get there at some point. But the home that we live in or the home that I'm living in is one of the. Of the inherent goodness of myself and the goodness of the world. It's too beautiful to want to go up to the dusty attic. You know, I know it still exists, of course, but I don't. I don't take visits there. I don't have need to go there. I don't see the value of that dusty corner of the attic anymore. You know, I want to live in the joy and the light of. Of my home, of this goodness and the excitement of being alive.
Resources and Tools That Helped Him Heal
Margi Dehlin [01:51:53] That's right. Oh, that's so beautiful. Okay, what resources? Let's. Let's so things that have been really pivotable, pivotal, and important for you. What are some of the things that come to mind?
Marc Oslund [01:52:04] Yeah, so as you kind of. If we talk about this staircase out, I mean, it depends on what stage you're at. The givens were important for me because they provided this. Hey, it's okay to think a little bit differently, but I think as we're talking about healing, specifically post religion, that book, Tattoos on the Heart or the whole series by Greg Boyle, because it's couched in religious language. But he's not.
Marc Oslund [01:52:29] It doesn't feel dogmatic. Right. He's a priest. So that was fundamental for me in realizing my own goodness. I think about the work of Brene Brown, all of it, just every one of her books, talking about shame and giving it a name.
Marc Oslund [01:52:44] I didn't have a name for that word that I was feeling. And so giving it a name and then the tools to be able to get out of it, empathy and connection being first and foremost. And as you tell your story, this is so healing. In fact, we've talked about this, John, and I've told this to clients There is something healing about sitting here and being able to tell the length of your story and just have empathy and connection in response. I tell my clients, hey, if you ever want to have just a really long session, like three hours, you just talk, and I just listen and I validate.
Marc Oslund [01:53:17] I'm glad to do that because that connection and empathy is so necessary. That stems from Brene Brown. Kristin Neff. The work of self compassion gave me the next steps. So if Brene is talking about what happened to me and ways to connect Kristin Neff and this book, Self Compassion, then give me the skills of what do I actually say to myself when I want to visit that shame room?
Margi Dehlin [01:53:40] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:53:41] And then closely related, and I think threaded through all of those is this concept of mindfulness, whether that be through formal meditation or yoga or any form of just being present. If you can't recognize the thoughts that you're having, you can't create a new narrative.
John Dehlin [01:53:57] Right.
Marc Oslund [01:53:58] And so as I've practiced meditation, it's allowed me to be aware of those shameful thoughts and then say, that's not my thought.
Margi Dehlin [01:54:07] That's right. Which is really programming in a lot of. And it's not really us, is the thing.
Marc Oslund [01:54:13] That's right.
Margi Dehlin [01:54:13] Right.
Marc Oslund [01:54:14] And so this neutrality, this compassion, this general sense of. Huh. Interesting. Neutral words have become so redeeming. A lot of times I'll tell clients that instead of being like, I love myself, you could just say an objective truth, which is, that's not a very nice thing to say to someone. That's a step out. Before you begin to believe in yourself, you have to at least acknowledge that you're not feeling good enough. I also recognized my scrupulosity showing up with my meditation practice. I have to do it every day. I didn't do it for 10 minutes, and then I started breaking. I recognized it so much earlier. I said, nope, I'm not going to meditate today. I am going to break this.
Margi Dehlin [01:54:56] Oh, that's so valuable.
Marc Oslund [01:54:58] So all of those were tools, I think, that were fundamental for me.
Margi Dehlin [01:55:02] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:55:02] Getting out.
Margi Dehlin [01:55:03] That reminds me a little bit of exposure. Yeah, yeah. Where you're kind of exposing yourself to.
Marc Oslund [01:55:08] Absolutely.
Margi Dehlin [01:55:09] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:55:09] Which would be the swearing or the watching of a YouTube video that was crude or rap music.
Margi Dehlin [01:55:14] It's.
Marc Oslund [01:55:14] It's the same process.
Margi Dehlin [01:55:15] That's right.
Marc Oslund [01:55:16] I didn't necessarily have anyone to coach me through that, you know, and that's not.
Margi Dehlin [01:55:20] But you intuitively kind of went there, right?
Marc Oslund [01:55:22] Absolutely. And I. I would have then called it revelation.
Margi Dehlin [01:55:25] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:55:25] That revelation was what was leading me There. But again, the staircase becomes so helpful because it's the way out. Okay, well, I have to start with religious language. God has to inspire me. Okay. He inspired me to do this. And then I start questioning. I'm like, was that God or is that intuition?
Margi Dehlin [01:55:38] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:55:39] And then I realized. I mentioned. I hope everyone's seeing this visual of descending into this miserable place, of not being good enough, and then ascending into home. But the beginning and the end were both. I'm a good person who's worthy of love.
Margi Dehlin [01:55:53] That's right.
Marc Oslund [01:55:54] The difference is the experience that I had and how deep and profound this is, because I've experienced those. The. The depths of not feeling that.
Margi Dehlin [01:56:02] That's right. And also I think maybe where it's coming from, that in the beginning it was outside of you, and then where you are now, it comes from inside of you.
Marc Oslund [01:56:13] That's right.
Margi Dehlin [01:56:13] And it's not. It's not based here. A lot of it. While it became. It may not have felt that way in the beginning, but it became so dependent.
Marc Oslund [01:56:22] Yes.
Margi Dehlin [01:56:22] On things really beyond a reality that's not real.
Marc Oslund [01:56:26] That's right.
Margi Dehlin [01:56:27] Right. You'd have to, like, not be a human to live to. To have that type of worthiness. That is. Right. Because you have to be perfect.
Marc Oslund [01:56:34] Absolutely.
Margi Dehlin [01:56:36] You know, to the end, where your worthiness now, it's not dependent on. Right.
Marc Oslund [01:56:42] Like, I. I've had. We were talking earlier, like, this has been a crazy couple weeks for us where we've had. I've had a job offer for something I really like and. And a new home that we're buying and selling ours. And I graduated from school. And all of these things have been great, but the joy isn't in those things. The joy is in the presence, in the daily moment, the extrinsic reward of this. Again, I'm trying to embrace the joy of it, but the real substance of life and the joy of life is these daily moments of just the laughter of Remy or even the sadness of Remy. That's what I now. And it feels very intrinsic. We're born alone in the world and we die alone. And so that's who I have to be with myself. And I have to love me first for anyone else. Right.
Margi Dehlin [01:57:31] That's so beautiful.
John Dehlin [01:57:33] Thank you.
Margi Dehlin [01:57:33] It's so true. Yeah. Before we kind of end, I was hoping also to have you. Just because we talked about it a little bit before. And I love. I love this as being kind of a piece, and I think it was a piece too. But talk a little bit about the Bernay Brown into the. You know, how important it is to kind of accept our stories, to go under the bed, to go and really look at and accept. And I think there's power in that, and then there's power also from that shift away and not being defined by our stories. But I don't think we can ever do that until we have actually, on some level, really gone to the place of. Will you talk about that?
What He Hopes to Offer Others in Transition
Marc Oslund [01:58:15] Absolutely. I. And I fully agree with you. I. I don't think we can make substantive change, like, at a core level, without being able to know what's driving us. I just don't. I think that you can make little patchwork things. And you see this in my story where I become a seminary teacher and I do all of these things that I think will help, but ultimately it's never addressing the root.
Marc Oslund [01:58:35] I talk about this quite a bit with clients because obviously I see it in myself, but I see it reflected in so many people that are working through the whole Mormon process and the normalization of. It's okay to feel like there are things that you don't want to look at.
Marc Oslund [01:58:53] It's okay. That's language. I think Brene Brown would agree with. Like, this is human. Human is to feel shameful and to feel ugly and to feel not good enough and to feel all of these things. And then courage is being able to take these things and name them what they are.
Marc Oslund [01:59:11] Once you can give these things a name, that was. That was it for me. So think of 2020, when I want to be, like, an influencer and I realize everybody's leaving, distancing themselves from me. I had to name insignificance when I was teaching seminary, and finally I was not feeling good enough. I had a name. Not enoughness.
Marc Oslund [01:59:32] Everything has to have a name. And once you have a name, then you have power over that thing. The therapy phrases. Name it to tame it. Right?
Margi Dehlin [01:59:39] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [01:59:39] But if you won't even look at that underneath, at that thorn underneath, then it's gonna find a way to manifest.
Margi Dehlin [01:59:46] That's right.
Marc Oslund [01:59:47] And so this is foundational. It is. And like you mentioned, Margi, it is hard work. I also tell people, hey, you know, that that's there, and we'll get there when you're ready for it. When you're ready for it. And it happens for all of us on our own individual times, and that's all. Okay.
Margi Dehlin [02:00:02] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [02:00:03] And then it happens. And when it happens, it happens, I think, really beautifully and painfully. Really human.
Margi Dehlin [02:00:09] That's right. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. And I Love the piece. I think the after.
Marc Oslund [02:00:16] Yeah.
Margi Dehlin [02:00:17] Of that as well. First of all, I think it's super important that you. You brought up the point of on your own time. I think that is really a Kiki truth. And also. But you, you know, something that I think looms large before you look is all the fear around it. If you're going to survive it, if you can, you know, just what will be there. It just. Everything looms large about that. You know, But I think what we underestimate at what will be is who we'll get to be after we look. That we. That we get to be the people. We get to have the truth that we looked at that things and it changed us in this way.
Margi Dehlin [02:01:00] And you know what? We. We. Maybe we survived and maybe we did even more. Maybe we actually feel like, you know, more human because of it or more connected because of that thing to other people or to. And I think that's the piece that sometimes, you know, isn't as clear.
Marc Oslund [02:01:16] Yes.
Margi Dehlin [02:01:17] When we're going to look. But it's there.
Marc Oslund [02:01:20] Yes. And to speak to that as I've embraced that very thing, Margi, I've come to this realization like what. What do I offer? Right. Other than my own presence is. Are there things that I can offer the. The world or the community? And I've gone very micro with it. Like the individual that's right before me.
Margi Dehlin [02:01:38] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [02:01:39] Maybe I'm not going to change this whole broad system of something that I believe is harmful or wrong, but if I'm sitting here with this person, I'm fully present with that person. What can I offer? One of the answers that I have had for me is I kind of have a general idea of what life can look like without Mormonism because I had it before.
Margi Dehlin [02:01:57] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [02:01:58] And so I can offer that as hope.
John Dehlin [02:02:00] Hey.
Marc Oslund [02:02:00] I know you feel like you are in the throes of it and I know this finding of yourself again is so hard, but I am living evidence that you then can get out of this thing and you can find a sense of self that is joyful and beautiful and fulfilled and happy and. And purposeful.
Margi Dehlin [02:02:18] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [02:02:18] And I. That has become one thing that I feel like I can offer back.
Margi Dehlin [02:02:22] Yeah. Right.
Marc Oslund [02:02:23] To the community. So. Absolutely. As you embrace these things, you then find the. The way out is also what you can give back.
Margi Dehlin [02:02:30] Yes. I see that so much in who you are.
Marc Oslund [02:02:34] Thank you, Margi. It's so kind.
Margi Dehlin [02:02:35] Yeah. Do you have any final.
Closing Reflections and Finding Contentment
John Dehlin [02:02:38] I'm just loving so much about this. Like the whole. You started out feeling Unconditional love and self worth.
Marc Oslund [02:02:44] Earth.
John Dehlin [02:02:46] It's very Joseph Campbell ish. You know, you start out at home, but then you got to go on your adventure. Like Luke Skywalker, you go on the adventure, you got to go slay the dragon. But the hero's journey always leads you back home. But it's home with that experience and with that wisdom that you didn't have when you started out at home.
Marc Oslund [02:03:08] That's right.
John Dehlin [02:03:09] But you end up at home.
Marc Oslund [02:03:09] That's right.
John Dehlin [02:03:10] And then the extent to which you can bring to your people the wisdom that you gained through your adventure, it just seems like you're kind of doing that.
Marc Oslund [02:03:20] Yeah, it feels that way.
Margi Dehlin [02:03:22] That.
Marc Oslund [02:03:22] That is what I feel now. So the thriving beyond religion again, if we think about all the ways that I'm still struggling with my own life and just being human, this is one element that I feel like. I actually do feel like I'm beginning to thrive here. I'm beginning to thrive in. I knew where I came from. I know where I am. And now I can. Can tell this story and be able to say, yep, we're in this together. So I very much feel that, John, for sure.
John Dehlin [02:03:46] And maybe someday you will return home to. To your la.
Marc Oslund [02:03:49] What part of La. Torrance. Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:03:52] Who knows? Maybe you will go back to Torrance and bring something back to Torrance.
Marc Oslund [02:03:55] You never know.
John Dehlin [02:03:56] Right.
Marc Oslund [02:03:56] But that's the thing. And, and now as I'm present, I'm like, hey, can I find contentedness here? And, yeah, we're. We're settling even more here in Utah. So, yeah, let's face it.
John Dehlin [02:04:05] Salt Lake's pretty awesome.
Marc Oslund [02:04:06] Salt Lake is great. Like, we, we have really liked it. Rachel loves it. And, and, and again, using that as a symbol. Right. I'm learning to find home here.
John Dehlin [02:04:15] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [02:04:16] And after all of this, would I have maybe chosen this? I don't know. It's hard to say. But I'm here and I'm happy with where I'm at here.
Margi Dehlin [02:04:23] Right? That's right. Yeah. Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:04:26] Another part of what I love is, you know, it seems like the value proposition of Mormonism, when you join it or when you really get into it, is the certainty. Is the feeling special? Is the feeling elite, feeling better than everybody? That's the knowledge about the afterlife, that Jesus has got your back and that there's a loving heavenly father, that all that certainty is like the value proposition, which you could argue is an illusion. The whole thing's an illusion. And that's kind of what Noah Rashad argues is, you know, in secular Buddhism, that. That certainty is the illusion.
Margi Dehlin [02:05:03] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:05:03] So when you. When you flip it and after all you've learned, you come back to, like, acceptance that I'm nothing. Like, that's like. So how do you. You go to. You go to, you know, imagine like being a missionary, knocking on the door. I have a message for you today.
Margi Dehlin [02:05:20] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:05:20] And the message is that you're nothing.
Marc Oslund [02:05:22] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:05:22] You know what I mean? It's. It would be hard to lead with that or that life doesn't matter.
Marc Oslund [02:05:27] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:05:29] Who knows what happens?
Margi Dehlin [02:05:31] Or leading the place. Life is suffering.
John Dehlin [02:05:32] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [02:05:33] Buddhism.
John Dehlin [02:05:33] Right.
Margi Dehlin [02:05:34] That's right.
Marc Oslund [02:05:34] Exactly.
Margi Dehlin [02:05:35] To lead with that is. But when you practice it, that's what's hard, is sometimes the things that you hear and they may, you know, at face value, feel very depressed, but when you live that thing and you actually start applying and then you notice what it brings you. Like, life is suffering. Having that as opposed to like, suffering is personal. Like, I must have been the one to do something. You know, it can be avoided. So it's my fault or right that the life is suffering is such a beautiful.
Marc Oslund [02:06:07] It's. It's redemptive.
Margi Dehlin [02:06:08] It is.
Marc Oslund [02:06:09] It changes you. It fundamentally. In fact, I would even say getting the. The thought I had when you were speaking John and Margi both was, you get to the top of the mountain and then you realize it's the wrong mountain.
Margi Dehlin [02:06:20] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [02:06:20] I'm like, cool. Yeah. I'm elite and I'm special and I'm all of these things. I'm like, wait, that's not the goal at all.
Margi Dehlin [02:06:25] Yeah.
Marc Oslund [02:06:25] The new goal is this idea of contentedness. In fact, it's the.
John Dehlin [02:06:29] The.
Marc Oslund [02:06:29] The journey is the goal. Right?
Margi Dehlin [02:06:31] That's exactly right. Yes. The presence part. Oh, it's been such a gift. Thank you for your offering today. Thank you for trusting us with your story. Thank you for all the pieces that you shared.
Marc Oslund [02:06:44] Thank you, Morgan. Your. Your kindness and warmth is so redemptive. That's. That's an intentional word. And it's felt, I think, by anyone who listens to you. But it's why I feel safe here. It's why I feel like I can trust you with my story. And I'm glad John can be along for the ride, too. We've had some good experiences, which helps. But, Margi, you're just. Goodness, just so wonderful. So thank you. I'm truly honored. I mean it.
Margi Dehlin [02:07:11] Thank you so much for this and thank you for being with us, joining us today. And we'll see you next time for another thrive stories.
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.
Join Margi and John for our next episode of Thrive Stories tomorrow, Tuesday May 24th, at noon (MST). Marc Oslund will be joining us in the studio! Marc spent most of his young adult life and the entirety of his time in the Mormon church trying to fit in. After converting to Mormonism, Marc’s tendency to be hard on himself grew into scrupulosity–a form of religious OCD that made his self-worth plummet. Marc began to believe that he was never good enough–a belief that took a steep toll on his mental health. After years of suffering, Marc acquired skills that aligned with principles of innate worth, shame resilience, mindfulness, self-compassion that allowed him to overcome his scrupulosity. This episode conveys Marc’s experience ending the hustle to find worth and the lessons learned in the process of coming home to himself.
Disclaimer: although Marc is a mental health professional and therapeutic principles are conveyed in this episode, this not meant to be considered mental health treatment or professional advice.
Thrive Stories is a new podcast series where Margi (alongside John or Jenn) will be interviewing a member of the community twice per month. The interviews will be shorter (1-2 hours), story-based, but will be focused on a particular aspect of healing and growth AFTER a Mormon faith crisis (thus the THRIVE name). They will happen on Tuesdays at noon (MST). Some examples of areas of thriving include: Family Relationships, Healthy Boundaries, Finding Community, Finding Meaning/Purpose, Dealing with Grief/Death, Religion after Mormonism, Health Sexuality, Parenting, Improving Physical Health, Identity, Health Marriage/Relationships, Secular Spirituality, Word of Wisdom 2.0, and Women Finding Their Own Voice after Mormonism. If you would like to nominate someone you know who would be a great candidate for a THRIVE interview, please nominate them (or yourself) HERE.
Show Notes:
- Marc’s MS series
- Scrupulosity MS Episodes:
- Lance Allred MS episodes
- Redefining masculinity with Lance Allred
- Tattoos on the Heart
- Greg Boyle Book Series
- Brene Brown Book Series
- Secular Buddhism
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One Response
Really enjoyed this episode. Leaving the LDS church was huge for my mental health. I have moderate OCD (undiagnosed until adulthood) with anxiety and depression, and I think I really latched onto the LDS church when I got active as a teen, with its defined life plan and steps to perfection. However, no matter what I did, it was never enough, and every sin had me yelling at myself in the mirror for being so disgusting. When I left, one of my kids was 10, and a couple years later started showing signs of more significant OCD/anxiety/depression. Fortunately, he never got to Young Men’s and had all the shaming lessons. Mental health is hard enough to deal with without adding religious perfectionism and guilt on top of it. So glad we are all out.