Welcome and Guest Introduction

John Dehlin [00:00:01] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, Dr. John Dehlin. It is October 26, 2021 and we are super excited to have back in studio again for another episode in our series called the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis. The Margi Weber. Dehlin. Hey, Margi.

Guest [00:00:22] Hello.

John Dehlin [00:00:23] Thanks for joining us.

Margi Dehlin [00:00:24] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:00:26] And we also just always love having my co host, your court jester, Carah Burrell. Carah, welcome.

Carah Burrell [00:00:34] Thanks for having me. I'm really excited for this one. I love anything Margi has to say, but this topic, who doesn't need to hear this? Yeah, so it's gonna be good.

Margi Dehlin [00:00:43] That's kind.

John Dehlin [00:00:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:00:46] So, so let me just give a quick introduction for those of you don't know me. Margi, Natasha, a couple years ago created a podcast called the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis. You can find it@mormonfaithcrisis.com this is not a commercial. This is a free YouTube channel and podcast that's got over 70 hours of free coaching. And we put that out there just because we knew so many people needed help and we could never help them all. But we're always stunned at how many people don't know about this resource and don't use it. And so we decided that we would do, you know, a weekly or every other week episode where we're focused on Mormon stories podcast, not just on deconstructing Mormonism, church history, truth claims, you know, calling the church to accountability, but we would also do regular content focused on positivity, on healing and growth. And that's Margi, that's your wheelhouse. True.

Margi Dehlin [00:01:42] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:01:46] Margi's very succinct. So there's an episode that we did. So let me give a little background. One of the things that kept Margi and I in the church probably 13 years after we lost our faith was parenting. We had sort of bought into the idea that we learned from the church, ironically, that you can't raise happy, healthy kids outside of Mormonism, that if you try to raise your kids outside of Mormonism or outside of a high demand religion that you, you know, that they wouldn't have spirituality, they wouldn't have community, they wouldn't have friends, and most importantly, they wouldn't have morality and they wouldn't be able to become healthy, happy kids.

John Dehlin [00:02:26] Now I know that that's offensive to all the non Mormons in the world and to a lot of people who have left the church and have raised amazing kids, but that was the conditioning in the feelings that we had. So because Margi reads like two or three books a week. And because she's super into self improvement and parenting, Margi went to the best source she could find on parenting. And that source is a woman named Shefali Sabari. S H E Shefali S H E F A L I Sabari T S A B A R Y Shefali Shefali Sabari has at least three books that we love. Conscious Parenting.

Margi Dehlin [00:03:12] It's actually called the Conscious the Conscious

John Dehlin [00:03:14] Parent

John Dehlin [00:03:17] out of Control.

John Dehlin [00:03:19] Out of Control and the Awakened Family. Those are the three books. Carah is going to write those in the show notes right now and, and basically think of it as Secular Buddhism or Eckhart Tolle meets Parenting. It's basically secular Buddhist, a secular Buddhist approach to parenting. And it's called, it's called Conscious Parenting. Now we, Margi studied this in depth. She taught me a lot that she learned. I read some books too. And we put up an episode on the gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis that Care is also going to put in the show notes called Conscious Parenting. It's a three part episode on the gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis that, that if you care about parenting after losing your orthodox faith in Mormonism or after leaving your high demand religion and you want to be the best parent you can, this is the best resource that we know of to help guide, sort of to help present a new framework for parenting.

John Dehlin [00:04:17] So that's there. This episode isn't going to replace that. This episode is to do two things. It's to highlight that that resource exists so you will all go and watch it and if you care about parenting. But also, and now this is kind of a pivot to today's specific episode. I would say that today, this, you know, this month in the lives of me and Margi is a bit of a tender month and I think that's an okay place to start this episode. This episode is called When All Else Fails Emotional Milkshakes. Is that what you're calling it, Margi?

Margi Dehlin [00:04:55] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:04:55] Yeah, Emotional Milkshakes. When All Else Fails, this is not going to be a super long episode, but the purpose of this episode is for Margi to share with you a little bit about her father who passed away about five years ago. This is, I think this month is

John Dehlin [00:05:09] the fifth anniversary of his passing and

John Dehlin [00:05:13] Margi wants to tell you a little about a little bit about her dad. Not for any sort of like self glorifying reasons, but she's going to tell you about her dad and a story about her dad and how that story has influenced her approach to parenting within the context of conscious parenting. And so this episode is called conscious parenting, emotional milkshakes or conscious parenting when all else fails, emotional milkshakes. And it's basically the most important lesson

John Dehlin [00:05:45] that Margi has learned about parenting that she learned from her dad that fits within the conscious parenting paradigm.

John Dehlin [00:05:51] Now, Margi, I'm going to kind of

John Dehlin [00:05:53] hand it over to you and ask,

John Dehlin [00:05:55] is there anything else you would want

John Dehlin [00:05:56] to add about that introduction before we jump in?

Margi Dehlin [00:06:00] Only that within the conscious parenting model, this would be just like you said, like a layer, an overlay over that model around the per. There are different shifts that oftentimes we highlight in conscious parenting. And this would be an overlay over the shift from control to connection. So that's kind of where they have

John Dehlin [00:06:25] no idea what you're talking about. So do you want to set that up?

Margi Dehlin [00:06:27] They may, but this is. It will come, it will appear in the story. Somewhat is just oftentimes in parenting, when we feel desperate, when we feel emotionally overwhelmed with a situation involving a child, we oftentimes our knee jerk reaction is to try to control in some way. And that can mean a lot of different things. It can mean that you're trying to find a consequence for behavior. You're trying to have, have the child go away from you so you can emotionally cool down. It can be that you're trying to fix the problem for the child because it's so painful for you to see them suffering.

Margi Dehlin [00:07:09] It can involve a lot of things. And you'll notice in this story that there's going to be none of that. And that doesn't mean there's not times and places. And I'm going to go into that in a sort of disclaimer kind of way in a minute.

Margi Dehlin [00:07:23] It only means that, you know, for me, particularly at this time of year, I feel a little bit tender as I remember my dad. And I often think I'm gonna get emotional.

Guest [00:07:35] But as a parent, you know, what will my kids remember about me? And this is one thing that I remember about my dad. And I wonder if in this moment

Margi Dehlin [00:07:50] he had chosen, he had chosen control. What, how that would have changed things. So this isn't to say a sweeping thing about this. It's just to give a story about what it meant to me in that

Guest [00:08:04] moment to have a moment of connection instead of control.

John Dehlin [00:08:11] Yeah. Because I think we all raised Mormon, we come by it honestly thinking that rules and control and punishment are the way to raise a kid.

Guest [00:08:24] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:08:24] And Shifali Sabari, in conscious parenting Says connection, emotional connection with your kid is way more important than control. And this story is your best way to illustrate that. Is that right?

Margi Dehlin [00:08:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:38] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:08:39] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:08:39] So take it away. I've got some pictures. I've got some pictures of your dad. And when you're ready, let's show him. But, but go ahead and do your outline and let me know when you want to show some pictures. Okay?

Margi Dehlin [00:08:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:52] Cue to the pictures.

Margi Dehlin [00:08:53] Okay, that makes sense. So before I start, I kind of feel like, you know, that first I want to give a trigger warning because I am going to be talking about myself in high school a little bit and what was going on. And so I will be talking about an eating disorder.

Content Warning and Margi's Personal Background

Margi Dehlin [00:09:13] So I care about the audience and I want to put that out there. So take care of yourselves. If this is not a good time, a good subject for you, feel free to just go ahead and skip this one. So that's the first thing.

Margi Dehlin [00:09:29] And then the second thing, I always, when I'm talking about painful things with regard to myself or my story, I also like to just do a quick, a couple quick disclaimers here. The first disclaimer is around privilege. Just, I think that's an important thing to just sort of acknowledge myself as a white cisgender human being that also had all the benefits of just sort of a stable economic upbringing. And I, I did have two parents that I feel like really did care about our well being. So just gonna put that out there, that I acknowledge that as I'm going to tell this story. Right. And then secondly, just a note about eating disorders that in telling the story, I am not, I just want to acknowledge that the risk and danger of eating disorders is real.

Margi Dehlin [00:10:23] That's something I acknowledge and I acknowledge therapy being a key component to that. It was for me and healing. So I'm not saying anything about that. I did get therapy and my healing took a number of years. And so my story is not meant to say that acceptance is the magic thing that cures eating disorders, cures any type of problem that you're having with your child. So for me, this, this, I really want to say that this is an answer to me oftentimes wondering in my child's, my children's darkest moments, which we've had, I feel like with almost all of our children now, what will they remember? What is it they'll remember?

Guest [00:11:11] And this is something that I remember about my dad during one of my darkest moments.

John Dehlin [00:11:21] Okay, beautiful.

Margi Dehlin [00:11:23] Okay, so to kind of start, I think we're gonna go back and I'm just going to give you a bit of a snapshot of me in high school and kind of where this takes place in the situation. So back in high school, you would have found me competitive running. I started, oh, sorry.

John Dehlin [00:11:46] Let's show some pictures of your dad

John Dehlin [00:11:47] and maybe introduce your dad. So let's show a picture.

Guest [00:11:50] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:11:50] You just look at the picture and

John Dehlin [00:11:51] kind of tell people a little bit about your dad.

Margi Dehlin [00:11:53] So my dad. What would I say about my dad? My dad was like a deeply feeling person, which I view as kind of unusual. He was a very. He was very open with his emotions. He was moved by beauty, so he was moved by movies, music, nature, human beings.

Margi Dehlin [00:12:17] He oftentimes would cry openly in daily moments of life. He was a poetry lover. He was an athlete, really athletic, grew up playing football, played track. He was great at tennis. He was great at just a lot of so very, like in his body and movement oriented.

Margi Dehlin [00:12:40] He was a psychiatrist. So he, you know, went to school at Haverford College and actually graduated, graduated with a major in literature early. He went to three years and then he went to Yale Medical School for his medical training there. And he was a member of the Glee Club, which.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:04] A singing club. He had actually got a scholarship for that. And he used to sing me lullaby songs. He would play with us as kids. A very mindful presentation. Human in our lives. So that is my dad.

John Dehlin [00:13:23] Very fun, very jovial. He loved to play the piano. He would play the piano well into the night. He loved to sing. A very beautiful combination of kindness and love and sensitivity and intellect. A really rare combination.

Guest [00:13:40] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:41] And it was interesting because he really worked with the kind of the darkest things in human nature. He worked with a population that I

John Dehlin [00:13:50] think severely mentally ill. Murders even, Right?

Guest [00:13:53] Yep.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:54] Really with. There were times when he worked with those who were cast offs, who had, yes. In the court system, you know, been given the insanity plea and were locked away. And so it's this foil because he worked with kind of this really heavy kind of content in his life. But he came home and was very playful and very just, I would say, yeah, present. And it's not like he was just light because he always acknowledged, I think, deeper things. But it was just an interesting. A really rare kind of human.

John Dehlin [00:14:36] So the next picture,

Margi Dehlin [00:14:39] I love that picture because I'm looking at him, which is very.

John Dehlin [00:14:43] That's you as a baby. That's Margi as a baby.

Margi Dehlin [00:14:45] Yeah, that's at my christening.

John Dehlin [00:14:49] Okay. And then this next photo, you were. You were about to go into your high School.

Margi Dehlin [00:14:53] So that's a little bit about my dad.

John Dehlin [00:14:57] What do they see here?

Margi Dehlin [00:14:59] So here was just meant to say I'm going to just kind of get into a couple, just who I am at this snapshot in time because I think there is a tendency to view things from the external. So if you were looking at the external, Margi, what you would have seen is that I was a top runner in the state of Florida.

Margi Dehlin [00:15:20] I ran both cross country and track. I trained all year round. I was going to early morning seminary. I had to get up early. So I usually got up at around 4:30 to meet at 5:30 for seminary. And it wasn't unusual for me to get to bed at 11. So kind of going to bed at 11pm and getting up at 4:30.

Margi Dehlin [00:15:43] It was just. I worked really hard in school. I feel like I had to work really hard for my grades in my family. I didn't feel particularly smart. I had really smart, really intelligent, like school successful siblings. I did not identify that way. I always felt like I kind of had to really work hard. So I was working really hard at school and then in my home. I was the oldest daughter, so I spent a lot of it was. I was like a very cooperative kind of second mother. I babysat a lot. I cleaned up the house a lot. I did summer camps in the summer to help give my mom breaks where I would teach my kid, teach my siblings and have like a whole curriculum of like, you know, learning and fun and crafts in the summer. Yeah. So I feel like those are the basics. Do you think I left anything out? So nothing really important with the.

John Dehlin [00:16:40] Just to show about your level of.

John Dehlin [00:16:42] I mean, talk about running if you're, if you don't mind. Talk about running cross country and your level of success and then how that developed.

Margi Dehlin [00:16:50] I feel comfortable just saying I was a top runner in the state and that required me training, you know, a good part of the year. And I think, oh, I had just. I, I recently won a Pride award, which is a writing award. Like if you looked at me, if, if you looked at me from the outside, I think people looked and said, what a successful. What a successful child. Right.

Guest [00:17:14] And yet on the inside I was really like disappearing.

Margi Dehlin [00:17:22] And I think that's a key component. That's why I wanted to say those things is I think as parents we can. And this goes both ways with a successful child and with a child who is more independent and comes across as what we might say like the rebel child or the black sheep child. Like there's pain either way. There's loss either way. And it all stems from kind of parents and what they expect of children and how children learn to navigate that. But successful children oftentimes are suffering children.

Personal Struggles: Eating Disorders and Family Stress

John Dehlin [00:17:58] Yeah. So you were suffering.

Margi Dehlin [00:18:01] Yes, and so I was suffering in a lot of ways. I think I felt a lot of pressure. I think I felt a lot of innate, worthy unworthiness that I was trying to compensate for.

Guest [00:18:14] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:18:14] And just trying to grow up and kind of grapple with who I was in our family system, who I was in the world. And I. And amidst that, I developed an eating disorder. And so it started manifesting when I was a sophomore in high school. I feel like it kind of peaked when I was a senior in high school. And this is where the story actually takes place.

Margi Dehlin [00:18:39] So my senior year, I feel like everything was kind of hitting a peak. And as far as, like the outward what the pressure and the outward expectations and all of those things. And I remember kind of feeling this disconnect now I can see this. A disconnect kind of from myself as I was hustling and working so hard and really became, you know, fixated on what I could control.

Margi Dehlin [00:19:11] And I remember randomly one morning waking up for seminary. My dad was always our ride to kind of seminary in the mornings. And I remember hearing something in the kitchen as I was kind of getting ready. And when I came out, my dad

Guest [00:19:31] had made me a smoothie. And he. He just handed me the smoothie in

Margi Dehlin [00:19:40] a very non expectant, like, way. So without expectations, just like, with a lot of love, handed me the smoothie and walked away. And I was like, okay, well, thanks, dad. And I poured the smoothie down the sink and then we went off in the car. Well, morning after morning, he would get

Guest [00:20:05] up and make the smoothie and sometimes he would leave it on the counter and just. He was. He would never pressure me to drink it.

Margi Dehlin [00:20:15] And when he.

Guest [00:20:18] When he handed it to me or when he put it down, his eyes were always soft

Margi Dehlin [00:20:25] and he kind of had like a little stillness there for

Guest [00:20:28] a minute and he would walk away. And morning after morning I would just pour it out. And he knew it. I know he knew that I wasn't drinking it. And after a while, I remember as a teen thinking, what is he doing? Like, he knows I'm not drinking it. Why is he making me the smoothie? And what I did know at the time was I felt close to my dad. What I did know when he was handing it, I felt like, you know, he. He made space for me, but it wasn't until actually years later, when I had a couple teens of my own who were suffering. And my dad finally, you know, he

Margi Dehlin [00:21:18] had a kind of a long illness.

Guest [00:21:20] But when he passed away, it really hit me, in those moments of seeing my teens, what he was doing, doing. And I feel like what he was doing was, you know, like, if I could say what I now, looking back, felt in his eyes, it was, I see you and I see your suffering, and I'm here with you. You're not alone, and you're worthy of love. I felt that. That's what I felt, you know, from his eyes. And so that is something that I don't know, that I got right always when our older two were teens and really suffering. But as I came to really integrate this. This is something I wish I had known and really integrated earlier, which is

Margi Dehlin [00:22:14] why I thought to kind of share

Guest [00:22:16] it at this point.

Margi Dehlin [00:22:19] And I think I've done a little bit better as they've become young adults and had their own sort of. Because it oftentimes, you know, those moments can kind of continue. And with my younger two, I feel like I've been able to integrate that a little better of this idea of when my children are suffering, when they're lost or disconnected from themselves.

Guest [00:22:43] I just. I want them to feel those things. I want them to feel like I'm here for you. You're not alone. And I will be here to remind you of all the things that are lovable and magical about you and me as a parent. I will be here to just remind

Margi Dehlin [00:23:06] you how lovable you are.

Guest [00:23:08] So that's kind of the idea.

Margi Dehlin [00:23:10] And that's why I call it an

Guest [00:23:11] emotional milkshake, because I never smoothie or smoothie.

Margi Dehlin [00:23:14] I never smoothie or milkshakes either.

John Dehlin [00:23:16] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:23:17] Because I don't know what he put in them. I'm not sure they were entirely healthy or whatever, so pick your pleasure. But I never drank them, but they fed me anyway at a time when

Guest [00:23:32] I was starving from those things, from the lack of feeling, those things that he offered me. So. And I just do want to point

Margi Dehlin [00:23:42] out, like, I think it's. It's normal and natural in parenting to show up for the successes or for those moments that your child has accomplished something or feels proud of something or. But to me, this really stuck out

Guest [00:24:01] because this was a moment for me where I felt vulnerable and I didn't feel like I had it all together. And so to have someone show up with that message when you're actually not feeling like you're in the middle of a hustle or in the middle of, you know, where you're not wearing kind

Margi Dehlin [00:24:20] of that armor of excellence that really

Guest [00:24:26] penetrated, that really was able to get through to me in a way that I don't think control would have. They had already had enough of the

Margi Dehlin [00:24:34] control kind of aspects at that point. So, anyway, that's my offering of a story.

John Dehlin [00:24:43] And what.

John Dehlin [00:24:43] What has always been powerful to me about that story is just the. The vision of your dad making the milkshake, giving it to you with full love, and with that love in his

John Dehlin [00:24:55] eyes,

John Dehlin [00:24:57] watching you dump it into the sink. I think sometimes you dumped it out while he was watching you. And then to know that he didn't guilt you, he didn't shame you, he didn't try and control you. And then he would come back the next day and make the milkshake or make the smoothie, and then he'd do it again, and he would just.

Margi Dehlin [00:25:18] It's the show.

John Dehlin [00:25:19] Come back and come back and come back without getting mad, without trying to control and with full love that you felt.

Margi Dehlin [00:25:29] And it wasn't about him in any way. It wasn't like, not in any way was it like, you know, hey, I'm making these milkshakes for you, and I'm using, like, this is money, and you're, like, throwing it away or like, how long does it take? Here I am, like, he never made it about him. It just wasn't about that.

Guest [00:25:50] It was about him seeing me was

Margi Dehlin [00:25:53] about me and what he saw.

Letting Go of Control in Parenting

John Dehlin [00:25:55] Because I think sometimes as a parent, and maybe even as a Mormon parent, we think, as I kind of said at the beginning, we think it's about giving the rules and then enforcing the rules and then punishing if they don't obey the rules. And. And really. And then like, getting angry or frustrated and vocalizing that anger and frustration. And I think teens and adults, I

John Dehlin [00:26:20] don't think that's what they need.

John Dehlin [00:26:21] I think kids know by the time they're a teen or an adult what you want, what's right, what's expected of them. And I think they're just going through the struggle at that point. And I don't think maybe what we don't naturally learn in that control expectation

John Dehlin [00:26:37] paradigm is that that the barometer for

John Dehlin [00:26:42] success with our teens or our kids, or even our adult kids, is emotional connection. Do they feel our unconditional love? Even if they screw up, do they know we're going to love them anyway? Sometimes they're even testing us to see whether we're going to Love them unconditionally, and then do we show up? Do we have that unconditional love?

John Dehlin [00:27:05] And most importantly, we always talk about

John Dehlin [00:27:08] this in conscious parenting. The barometer of successful parenting for me now is over.

John Dehlin [00:27:15] Are my kids comfortable telling me if

John Dehlin [00:27:18] they try marijuana, telling me if they have a sexual experience, telling me if they screw up or lie or make a mistake?

John Dehlin [00:27:28] It's not for me.

John Dehlin [00:27:29] Successful parenting isn't, do my kids not make mistakes?

John Dehlin [00:27:33] I think that was the Mormon paradigm.

John Dehlin [00:27:35] How do I keep my kids from having sex?

John Dehlin [00:27:37] How do I keep my kids from trying alcohol or trying drugs? They're going to do that stuff or not? We, we. We were kicked out of the church years ago. Some of our kids have tried that stuff, and some of them just have chosen not to. And kids are going to do that or not. And so what you have to realize is you nagging them or trying to control them probably isn't going to have much of an effect. Control and criticism and nagging and punishment, right, Is probably just going to make them want to lie to you. Number one, hide things from you. Number two and three, not ever want

John Dehlin [00:28:15] to talk to you.

John Dehlin [00:28:16] And that's what you. That's the consequences of trying to do, control. And that's what Shefali Sabari helped me learn. So what's the alternative? If it's not about create the rules, enforce the rules, and punish and drive

John Dehlin [00:28:30] your kids away emotionally so that they lie and hide and don't ever want to talk to you. What's the alternative?

John Dehlin [00:28:36] The alternative is showing up with these emotional smoothies such that they feel like, man, you know, I'm trying to figure out life, but I know I can

John Dehlin [00:28:45] always talk to dad.

John Dehlin [00:28:47] I know I can always talk to mom. And they're just going to love me and show up and support me. They trust me.

John Dehlin [00:28:53] They believe in me.

John Dehlin [00:28:55] And I can always go to them and let them know, man, I, yeah, I was sexually active last night, and it's like, okay, well, what was that like? You know, how did you feel? How did they feel? And you can then, if you have that emotional connection, you're in the conversation, and that's where you can have influence. You only have influence with emotional connection. If you have animosity and tension and you're creating sort of the backfire effect with your kids, not only do you not have influence, but you're probably creating the opposite behavior that you want through rebellion. And so the barometer, the. The needle that you watch is emotional connection. Do my kids feel safe talking to me?

John Dehlin [00:29:40] Do they feel safe being vulnerable with me.

John Dehlin [00:29:43] And that's how, you know. And they may not. Like, some kids don't want that or some kids won't. So that doesn't mean you're failing, because some kids may not want or be able to do that at different points in their life. I'm just saying this is how. This is what I've learned to do to keep my eye on the ball. The ball is no longer, do my

John Dehlin [00:30:03] kids try beer or try a puff of marijuana? It's do my kids feel safe with me and want to talk to me?

Margi Dehlin [00:30:09] I totally agree. And I would add, do my children feel safe connecting with themselves? If my kids are connecting with themselves, with what they love, with what they want out of life, and that's the really, really different from what you and I want, John, then I feel like that they are more likely to be able to create a life that means something to them. And as it turns out, that is really important at this stage of the game. You know, coming out of a pandemic, coming out of a. I just think there is a larger disconnect with teens and young adults, you know, than ever.

Margi Dehlin [00:30:52] And I just see them doing a lot of remapping in their own lives as to what type of lives they want to live, what it's going to look like. And just offering your kids full support to trust themselves, to connect with themselves, and to start exploring. Not even to have to know, but to feel. To feel empowered that they're worth the exploration and they're worth connecting to. So I would just add that. And another thing is this. I did think about this as a when all else fails, but truly, all our kids deserve a sprinkling of this. And it reminds me of. I think it was Toni Morrison who said, you know, about parents, do their eyes light up when you walk in the room or, you know, around their children?

Margi Dehlin [00:31:37] And so all. I just feel like, sprinkle this stuff around. Like, I. I did create sort of some ideas around where this would be particular, particularly helpful. But, like, I just feel like every child deserves to see parents whose eyes

Guest [00:31:55] are completely lit up, lighted up by them. You know,

John Dehlin [00:32:01] it's beautiful. And if you're. And if you're trying to control your kids, if you're disappointed in your kids, if you're constantly nagging your kids and you're caught in this power struggle, they're not going to feel that your eyes are lighting up when they come in the room. They're going to feel like, I'm in the middle of A battle. I'm in the middle of a power struggle and I hate my parents. I mean, I think that's the risk potentially.

Margi Dehlin [00:32:24] Right. And I think overall, and not to go too far into conscious parenting and you know, with the. But what I will say is, you know, if you want to influence, if you want to, to let's just say maximize this idea that you can influence your kids control by nature, not only is it behavior focused so your child doesn't feel seen when you're like, you know, leaning into control, but it is a natural disconnector. A disconnector from you as you use control means because kids are like us. When you have a spouse that's using control on you, how do you feel? How you know, what is your knee jerk reaction?

Margi Dehlin [00:33:10] Do you feel seen? Children aren't different than adults. Their emotional profiles aren't different than yours. And so what you find is that you create this disconnect and then you lose influence. Why? Because they don't trust you. Right? That's, that's what happens. They disconnect from you. You may get a change in the behavior short term, but what you've lost is this direct connection with your child. And what your child has likely lost is a connection to themselves.

The Cost of Parental Emotional Disconnection

Margi Dehlin [00:33:41] And that's the real tragedy. It's not about the parent. It's actually about the child learning to value their experience, first through you and then through themselves. And that's the real loss.

John Dehlin [00:33:56] I love it. So let's check in. We are live streaming to both Facebook and YouTube. Carah, it's so awesome to have care here for a lot of reasons, but one is she's able to monitor the comments. Carol, let's check in with you.

John Dehlin [00:34:09] I want to, I want to invite

John Dehlin [00:34:11] commenters if you have questions, comments, stories.

John Dehlin [00:34:15] We would love to share.

John Dehlin [00:34:16] Take advantage of this live stream to share whatever questions you have for Margi or us or things you want to, you know, lessons or things you want to experience.

John Dehlin [00:34:25] Please share them in the comments. But Carah, what. What are you seeing in the comments?

Carah Burrell [00:34:31] So Robbie and Grace both said that they're crying and really connecting with your story. And Lisa said that she loves Margi and reached out to about coaching therapy by email and that you were very kind and helpful to her and that she's good for now. But that little interaction for Lisa, a total stranger from both of you, was enough to keep her afloat. And I just want to echo that. A little bit of Margi goes a long way.

Carah Burrell [00:34:57] So. And then Madeline said, this is touching to hear. I think that we can have negative or positive sentiments override with what we remember. I have negative sentiments override. Sounds like emotional connection is what can change that. So I connected with those comments and those were just what was on my mind so far that I wanted to read. And yeah, everyone's just really digging this and I think this is invaluable information and something we all need. And we talked even during the retreat about a lot of this is kind of parenting yourself, right? So even if you don't have kids, it's still valuable for everyone.

John Dehlin [00:35:34] When you say parenting yourself, tell. Tell listeners what you mean by that.

Margi Dehlin [00:35:39] I.

Carah Burrell [00:35:39] Well, the way that I connected it, at least you can correct me if I'm wrong, if this is not what you meant when we were at the retreat for people who didn't have kids. Um, that you're listening to this conscious parenting thing and you can kind of understand the pitfalls of your parents, see them as products of their conditioning and see yourself as just a more conscious person, as the way that you interact in the world, even if it's not with kids. But you can still see the way that you were conditioned to act a certain way, what you missed out on, what you need and have a lot of grace for parents of mine that didn't have access to these types of tools and just parent my own thoughts. Just really working through and untangling some thoughts that are not helpful.

John Dehlin [00:36:22] Love it. So Margaret, what is, what is reparenting yourself mean to you in this context, in addition to what Care said?

Reparenting Yourself as a Foundation

Margi Dehlin [00:36:30] Yeah, I loved. I love what you said. I think you really, really nailed it, honestly. I think, you know, so let's use this situation. Let's use something really concrete like how my dad showed up for me in that moment. Let's say you didn't have a dad or even a parent that. That ever offered you that. And that has been rare for you in your life. So reparenting would look like you having a moment in relationship to another human. It can be a partner. It can be yourself that you maybe you feel like you failed on something or disappointed yourself in something and you're hearing your parents voice or you're hearing a really judgmental, aggressive voice in your head about that.

Margi Dehlin [00:37:15] It would be that you show up, that you're able to recognize that voice. You're able to recognize a little bit of where that comes from and say I deserve softness. And you show up as my dad did and you re parent yourself. So you would show up saying, hey, I'm with you. You're not alone in this. You're allowed to make mistakes. You showed up as best you could. You're more than what you do. You're. You know, your value is in who you are. And I'm here and let's, let's like comfort you right now. You deserve a soft place to fall right now, you know, and so that's what that would look like.

Margi Dehlin [00:37:57] And honestly, it's. I'm really grateful I had it with my dad and my dad's no longer here, and so way that he lives on is that I, I do do that with myself now. It's sort of like ideally a parent would show you how, but a parent doesn't have to show you how in order for you to show up for yourself in ways that can feel comforting, in ways that can feel reinforce your own worthiness.

Carah Burrell [00:38:29] Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry. To cry. You know, that phrase that'll. The voice that you speak to your kids in will become their inner monologue. That kind of idea.

Guest [00:38:40] Exactly.

Carah Burrell [00:38:40] And I kind of think of that with what you just said as well, is that parent yourself and the voice that you talk to yourself should be as kind as possible and that you should give yourself the type of parenting in your mind. The lee. The leeway that you're still learning and you're still understanding. And that's what I say to my kids is I go easy on them and I say, it's okay, you're still learning. I'm not mad. And then if I mess up, they go, it's okay, mom, you're still learning. Yeah. The voice that we talk in, you know, I love that. Just a little bit of that kind of love goes a long way. So just going easy on each other.

Margi Dehlin [00:39:13] Yeah, I love that. That's beautiful. I think there's this idea of embodiment too. I think children do watch parents and how. How they handle their own when they make mistakes or when they disappoint themselves or when they. And so I think children are watching. And so there's this idea of also, I want to treat myself well for me, but I also want to treat myself well because I want my children to learn from me that what are mistakes? Things we didn't know yet. I mean, we're built for that. We're made for a lot of things we don't know yet. So this. I even have a little bit of a hard time with mistakes. This idea of mistakes.

John Dehlin [00:39:57] The idea of mistakes.

Margi Dehlin [00:39:58] The idea of mistakes.

John Dehlin [00:39:59] How about. It's just all learning is that what you're saying, it's just all.

John Dehlin [00:40:01] It's all learning.

John Dehlin [00:40:01] There is no sin. There are no mistakes. There's just learning.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:05] That's right. There are things you didn't know that if you had known, you would have done differently. But the point is, is you didn't. You didn't know. And we're all that way.

John Dehlin [00:40:14] I love it.

Carah Burrell [00:40:16] I love it. And another thing that you said at the retreat last weekend that really stuck with me is that word embodiment is just how much of these things that we can know. But if I don't apply it and think of a way to embody it, especially modeling it for my kids, then it's just a lot of nice ideas. And I'm gonna post in the show notes the episode that we did on grounding staying grounded in difficult times. And I've taken a lot of those lessons, the role plays and things that we've done and the things that we want for ourselves to stay grounded in those difficult moments.

Carah Burrell [00:40:51] Saying them out loud when I'm frustrated with my kids. And I'll say I'm feeling really stressed right now and I'm feeling really hot. And I'm gonna go in the other room and I literally like, monologue to my kids what's going on. I'm trying to ground myself and I want to make it so that that's when I ask them to stay grounded, that they know that that's what mom does too. And it's just like natural vernacular of our house. So I got that from you.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:13] I really love that that means so much. I think back to your thing about reparenting too, John, is I think sometimes when we think about ourselves as adults, we don't. We have sometimes less compassion for ourselves as adults, that that can be a barrier. But I think if we could just understand that when we're suffering, a lot of times we're actually children again. You know, we feel a lot of similar things as we did when we were children. It might take us back to times when we were children and we felt the same way. I think sometimes if you can visualize yourself as a child, sometimes in moments where you're suffering, it can turn something on in you that otherwise can feel hard to reach.

John Dehlin [00:41:59] Love it. So a couple comments that Margi, I'm going to read and me, you and Carah can. Can respond. So Grace Johnson writes. Actually, Mark Fuentes writes.

John Dehlin [00:42:11] Great.

John Dehlin [00:42:11] Now I feel bad about getting after my kid for sneaking my laptop to play Roblox. I don't know if he's joking or if he's serious. But I mean, there's this idea of like catching your kid, you know, looking at their phone they shouldn't, or being

John Dehlin [00:42:28] on the Internet after hours, or even catching your kid looking at porn, you

John Dehlin [00:42:33] know, which is like every Mormon parent's nightmare. What would you say about, you know, someone like Mark who feels like they've been reactive with their kids when they find their kid actually doing something wrong? So there's kind of what he should think about his mistakes in the past, but then there's how we might approach finding out now. If we catch our kids, quote, catch our kids doing something wrong, quote, wrong.

John Dehlin [00:43:00] How do we.

John Dehlin [00:43:01] How might we approach that now? Any thoughts on that? Oh, wise Margi?

Margi Dehlin [00:43:06] It's messy, isn't it? I just feel like it's innately. It's innately a messy endeavor, this thing of parenting. So I'm all about softness. I think there's a reason why conscious parenting is parent focused and not child focused. So I think in this case, first of all, understanding, you know, what went off in you for yourself when you found your child, I think with the computer or. So conscious parenting is not anything goes. There are enlightened boundaries, you know, that are usually around things like safety for the child or. And they're very age appropriate. And the difference is how you navigate those. So in this case, maybe I would just say, you know, repair.

Margi Dehlin [00:43:57] If you feel like that went in a way that didn't, you know, let's just say, represent your values or what type of relationship you want to have with your child, you can go back in. And part of conscious parenting is a nice, well done apology for whatever you feel. It could be like, I feel like I was really reactive in that moment and I want you to feel safe with me. Can. Can we talk about the computer and let's talk about kind of how we want that to go. What are you feeling about it? What are. This is kind of an enlightened boundary work, but there is always room for repair.

Margi Dehlin [00:44:35] I find children. An apology goes a long way with children acknowledging what's yours to hold. And I think it's a key component to just emotional maturity, honestly, as parents. So never hesitate to go back in, lean back in with your child, apologize, and then use some enlightened boundary principles of where you hear your child, you validate what was going on for your child. Your child actually has a valid perspective that you can hear, and then you share yours and then you actually are. You move into kind of more conflict resolution or how to kind of navigate some type of compromise moving forward or some type of boundary where kind of, at best, both of you are heard.

Margi Dehlin [00:45:21] And that doesn't mean that your child gets the computer. That just means your child gets to be heard and validated for their experience. And then you decide, you know, on some level, is this an enlightened boundary? Is this something that, you know, you really need to boundary, or is this something that on some level you can just connect with your child? And that's the art of it. I wish there was, like, something more hardcore, but there really is an art to it where we as parents know our children best. And yeah, it's hard.

John Dehlin [00:45:51] It's hard. Grace writes, since leaving the church, I know my parents still love me, but my dad has never looked at me the same. Once I shared a spiritual thought and saw a look in my dad that I don't usually see anymore.

John Dehlin [00:46:09] So what happens when you're.

John Dehlin [00:46:10] You have a faith crisis as an adult and your parents are still believing, and now you see that the. The glimmer in their eye has gone away and they no longer see you like they used to. What would you say to Grace?

Margi Dehlin [00:46:26] And I don't have to answer all these. You guys are extremely wise.

John Dehlin [00:46:30] You're the guest. I'll jump in. But you take the first step and you all.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:34] I feel like Carah would have amazing things to say as well.

John Dehlin [00:46:37] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:38] About this. I mean, what I would say is that's. That's loss. That's to be grieved. And, you know, that's no small thing. And I think, you know, that kind of represents another shift in conscious parenting around the external, where we really validate. We really are kind of reinforced and programmed to value external validation, approval.

Margi Dehlin [00:47:06] How people view us, people pleasing is. It's all a way to feel love. And to feel love we don't have for ourselves, honestly. And so the shift from external to internal, this is now a practice for you where hopefully you're gonna. And it's not easy, where you're gonna simultaneously grieve someone who's alive, grieve a relationship in the way it used to show up, and also start practicing providing yourself some of that love that you used to look to your dad for. And I don't say it sounds simple, and it's anything but simple, but you deserve that. And I've heard, like this, it's super trite, but this idea that you're.

Margi Dehlin [00:47:50] The longest relationship you'll be in in your life is your relationship with you. So I think in Mormonism, particularly as women, we outsource and we're all about our relationship with others and it can feel out of control. Then you're always dependent on these people who are outside of you and how they view you or if you're showing up in the way they want. And that can feel like rocky waters. But if you can lean in and start going internal, you can create quite a calm sea for yourself of the love and how you know yourself and how you understand, you know, where your wounds are and why they're there. And it can offer you something quite beautiful.

John Dehlin [00:48:34] I'll second that. Like when I think about Richard Rohr,

John Dehlin [00:48:37] R O H R We can put

John Dehlin [00:48:39] a link to that in the show notes. He's got a book called Falling Upward and he talks about the first half of life and second half of life.

John Dehlin [00:48:45] Think of it as like Pleasantville.

John Dehlin [00:48:47] Before, you know, everything was black and white and then it turned into color. The Truman show before Truman knew he was in a fake reality. And then after or the village, you know, when people were in the village thinking it was a 15th century village. And then you know, there's. Before you're awakened and after and before you're awakened, of course you depend on your parents for your ego and your sense of security and safety and self confidence. Because as an infant and as a toddler and as a child and as a teen and even as a young adult, where else are you going to get that?

John Dehlin [00:49:24] Hopefully you're going to get that at least in part from your parent.

John Dehlin [00:49:27] So it's natural for us to have our sense of confidence and sense of efficacy tied to our parents view of us.

John Dehlin [00:49:36] It's natural. And that's one of the gifts. That's why we call, you know, the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis Podcast.

John Dehlin [00:49:44] The Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis Podcast.

John Dehlin [00:49:46] That's the whole theme of this series in this show is that there is a huge opportunity here.

John Dehlin [00:49:53] And I'm just repeating what you said,

John Dehlin [00:49:55] Margi, but the opportunity is that yes, it's disappointing to have your parents downgrade you. In their eyes, you're no longer Nephi, you're no longer the righteous, spiritual, valiant one in their eyes. But that's not true. What's true is it's. It's an incredible act of integrity and courage to not just lose your faith, to have the courage to investigate, to find out what's true, to have your entire worldview fall apart. And there's a bunch of people who go through that and then they never have the courage to actually tell Anyone. And so they just suffer in silence or they don't have the privilege or the ability.

John Dehlin [00:50:33] But, but the, you know, for courageous people that come out to their parents, that come out to their friends and family and say, I can no longer do this. I no longer believe this, those are all acts of courage and integrity, and they're to be honored and respected. Now, if your parents can't conceptualize your behavior that way, that's because they. You've kind of left them behind in terms of emotional and intellectual maturity. You've surpassed your parents. And at that point, it's probably not best for your ego, for your efficacy, for your sense of self to be tied and dependent on the views of someone more, you know, less emotionally and intellectually mature than you.

John Dehlin [00:51:20] So the gift of the faith crisis is you can, over time, get a coach, get a therapist, watch some podcasts, find some good friends. The gift of the. One of the gifts of the Mormon faith crisis is you get to disconnect your source of light, your source of strength from these now emotionally and intellectually immature people. And you get to plug in to a better source for your emotional,

John Dehlin [00:51:51] you

John Dehlin [00:51:51] know, for your efficacy, self efficacy, and for your self confidence. And the best source of all. This is why Jesus said the. The. The kingdom of God is. Where? Where is the kingdom of God? Jesus said it. Jesus didn't say the kingdom of God is the Holy Ghost running around. It's not our Father in heaven. Jesus didn't say the kingdom of God is the church of blah, blah, blah. Carah. What, what, what did Jesus. Where did Jesus say the kingdom of God is found?

Guest [00:52:21] Within.

John Dehlin [00:52:22] Within.

Margi Dehlin [00:52:23] I feel like I'm in Sunday school again.

John Dehlin [00:52:24] I know I'm being

Carah Burrell [00:52:28] Sister Burrell.

John Dehlin [00:52:32] Yeah, yeah. The kingdom of God is within. And what that means is just what you said, Margaret. I'm just repeating your brilliance. The kingdom of God is within the. Britney, Whitney Houston, Carah. This is Carah's favorite, you know, 80s cheesy pop, the greatest love of all. Carah, where's the greatest love of all? The greatest.

Carah Burrell [00:52:53] I'll do the singing. It's inside the greatest level that no heroes but that you found that the greatest love of all is inside of you.

John Dehlin [00:53:04] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:06] And that sounds cheesy and it sounds almost glib, like it's pop psychology, new age spirituality. But I can say it's true for me. Like, I love my mom and dad. I love my mom and dad. And if they were to come to me today and say, john, I'm really

John Dehlin [00:53:23] disappointed that you got excommunicated from the church. And I really think your podcast is not doing good in the earth. I would say, mom and Dad, I love you so much.

John Dehlin [00:53:35] How's your health?

John Dehlin [00:53:36] How are you doing? And thank you for your opinion.

John Dehlin [00:53:40] I love you, and it would not

John Dehlin [00:53:41] affect me in the slightest. Now I'm 52.

John Dehlin [00:53:45] I'm, you know, 20 years into my faith crisis, so I've had some time and I've done a little work.

John Dehlin [00:53:50] But you can get there, dear listener and viewer.

John Dehlin [00:53:53] You can get to the point where

John Dehlin [00:53:54] you just kind of emotionally pat your parents on the head whenever they don't have that gleam in their eye whenever

John Dehlin [00:54:00] they're not looking at you like you're their star child. And you can just kind of grin

John Dehlin [00:54:04] at them, emotionally pat them on the

John Dehlin [00:54:06] head, say, I love you, mom and Dad.

John Dehlin [00:54:07] I know you're doing the best you can.

John Dehlin [00:54:09] And then you go to your partner or your friends or yourself and you

John Dehlin [00:54:13] say, I am so good. I am a bad, bad expletive. I'm amazing. I know who I am, and I'm no longer reliant on my parents for a sense of confidence.

Carah Burrell [00:54:27] Right on. Yeah. The. The. Too long didn't read of that to me is Tildor. Yeah. Is the focus on what you've gained and not what you've lost? And everything that you guys just said, I think it needs to be, like, repeated and, like, with some new age music behind it, it's like a meditation. Because I think we're, like, having some ESP here, because I also think that's. You guys just said the exact things that were also in my mind.

Navigating Faith Transitions as a Parent

Guest [00:54:53] And.

Carah Burrell [00:54:53] And I'm trying to think of literal times just in the last couple years that that happens with, you know, my parents being really disappointed that I'm not blessing my baby or that I don't take my kids to church. And like John said, it's kind of like, yeah, I know that's your value system, but I am. I'm focusing on what I've gained. I've lost the approval of my parents, but what I've gained is more profound than that. Even though it's fun.

John Dehlin [00:55:17] Foundational, what have you gave care?

Carah Burrell [00:55:20] The sense that I get to raise my kids and with values that are important to me and going to be important to them and not, like, you're saying, an outward structure that they're going to have to live up to for the rest of their life. I didn't bless my son with all of these blessings that he would serve a mission and marry in the temple where I just had his life laid out for him, that it literally when I left the church, just realizing my brain and my life was in my own hands and I could figure out my values and lead with empathy and

Carah Burrell [00:55:47] evidence that gave me a high, just realizing how much power I had and so gaining that is so, so intensely wonderful that while it does hurt to have your parents lose the gleam in their eye for you, it really is 20th on the list of things that I think about now because of what I've gained.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:08] Yeah. That's beautiful.

Guest [00:56:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:56:11] Do you feel the same way now, Margi?

Guest [00:56:14] I do.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:14] And I. I would also just kind of pose this question. You know, when you were doing all the things and you had the gleam in your dad's eye, how seen were you? Like, how much do you really know you? Because I know for many people within that paradigm, they never felt seen, though. You know, like that you're praying and showing up on Sunday and your children are being baptized and you go to the temple. I, you know, that's not being known for you. That's not like someone being intimate with you or, you know, sharing your invulnerability with you. So it's also important to be clear with that, too, that it. What exactly you're losing. And then lastly, I'm going to really botch this, but hopefully I'll get the sentiment. Have you, have you read Untamed by

John Dehlin [00:57:12] Chance by Glennon Doyle? We talked about it. We talked about it last night.

Margi Dehlin [00:57:16] Did you in.

John Dehlin [00:57:17] In the interview feel like.

Carah Burrell [00:57:18] I have, because people quote it all the time.

Margi Dehlin [00:57:20] There's this one part that I. That I think of. We'll add that in the show notes where it's basically. And I'll provide it gendered. And then I'm going to degender it because I don't think it has to be gendered to be powerful. But where she basically says, when I stopped being an obedient daughter, it was the moment I became unempowered woman. So the moment you stop being this obedient child is the moment you become an empowered human. Right.

John Dehlin [00:57:50] It's like growing up, basically. Sometimes a faith crisis is just growing up. It's becoming emotionally healthy and mature. Is that what you're saying?

Margi Dehlin [00:57:59] Yeah. And this is a practice. It's not something. So just like Carah was saying, you're. This shows up as you having feel. Maybe you visit with your dad and those feelings are in you. He doesn't look at me the same. I'm noticing this. And then it's you learning to reframe in the moment, bit by bit. How you want to interpret and frame that happening takes time.

Fear and Growth in Post-Mormon Parenting

John Dehlin [00:58:23] Love it.

John Dehlin [00:58:25] Beck writes.

John Dehlin [00:58:26] I definitely feel as though postmormonism, the fear. Okay. I definitely feel that post Mormonism, the fear in my parenting has reduced immensely. It has allowed me to lean into my 15 and 8 year olds autonomy. I trust them to know themselves and their needs more. Thank you, Beck, for sharing that.

Carah Burrell [00:58:48] Love that.

John Dehlin [00:58:49] And I want to say that's terrifying for many Mormons. This I, you know, because we were

John Dehlin [00:58:54] all raised as Mormons.

John Dehlin [00:58:56] Most of us were raised as Mormons. But the last, you know, the natural man is. What? What's the natural man?

Carah Burrell [00:59:01] An enemy to God and has since Sister.

John Dehlin [00:59:03] Sister, Bro.

Carah Burrell [00:59:04] Oh, sorry, I forgot to raise my hand. Since the beginning and the foundation of the earth.

John Dehlin [00:59:08] Yeah, yeah. We're taught that. That our natural selves are an enemy to God. We're taught that the last thing we should do, like imagine an LGBTQ kid. Are they taught in Mormonism to like, figure out their sexual and gender identity and to, to follow that? No, they're taught to suppress it, to

John Dehlin [00:59:26] hide it, to pack it down.

John Dehlin [00:59:28] We're taught to ignore our internal intrinsic selves and we're taught to figure out

John Dehlin [00:59:34] whatever the church teaches and follow the prophet.

John Dehlin [00:59:38] Follow the prophet.

John Dehlin [00:59:39] So because we're all conditioned that way

John Dehlin [00:59:42] now that we're parents, even if we're now no longer believing the church, this idea of learning to have our teens and even our children develop the ability to listen to themselves and trust themselves, this is not intuitive for us because

John Dehlin [00:59:59] for so long we were taught to

John Dehlin [01:00:01] ignore and pack down ourselves and that our very core selves are evil. So, you know, number one, congratulations back. But number two, what would you say, Margi, to that, that post Mormon parent that's like, I'm terrified to tell my 16 year old, whose brain isn't even fully formed yet, by the way. Let's just say from a psychological standpoint, our brains aren't fully developed till they're 26. So if a parent says to you, I'm not going to trust my 16 year old to listen to themselves. They may go get drunk and crash a car or get addicted to whatever or get someone pregnant. What would you say to a parent that's terrified to teach their teen to

John Dehlin [01:00:41] learn to listen to themselves?

Margi Dehlin [01:00:43] Well, first of all, I'm not arguing with any parent. Like, I, I am here to hopefully just provide ideas and whether they resonate or not, I like, I'm gonna have, you know, people go internal too. So I don't think I, I mean, are you saying just idea wise what I say to that?

Margi Dehlin [01:01:06] Because I think that's real and people should show up where they are. I mean, I can provide a response of, you know, kind of what's lost there. And what's lost there is this idea of a parent actually realizing the fear and anxiety that they have.

Margi Dehlin [01:01:30] It's, it's, again, it's parent centered. So conscious parenting is about it being about the parent that the parent actually is, has been a sponge, taking in all these messages about how scary the world is, how depraved we are, how what a. At what a loss we are to navigate it without some type of external savior who can reach in and make it all right. So you come by it honestly. That's, that's what I would say. And fear and anxiety as drivers. It's no way to live. Not for a teen and not for a parent.

John Dehlin [01:02:05] I love it.

John Dehlin [01:02:07] My. You know.

John Dehlin [01:02:08] And Mark goes on to write,

John Dehlin [01:02:11] how

John Dehlin [01:02:11] do you enforce boundaries, especially when your kids are trying to provoke you emotionally?

Margi Dehlin [01:02:18] Enlightened boundaries.

John Dehlin [01:02:19] Yeah. And I just want to say this and then I want to hear you respond to Mark, but the, the point of conscious parenting. So let's just go back to that question I, you know, asked you about like, can you trust your 16 year old?

John Dehlin [01:02:36] What if they crash their car? What if they try drugs?

John Dehlin [01:02:38] What if, what if they have sex?

John Dehlin [01:02:40] Conscious parenting isn't saying that your kids

John Dehlin [01:02:43] won't make those types of choices.

John Dehlin [01:02:46] They probably, many of them probably will. And what we have to retrain our brains to understand is that that's developmentally normal and sometimes even healthy. We just did this amazing episode, Carah,

John Dehlin [01:02:58] last night with, with this amazing lesbian couple that, that knew they weren't really

John Dehlin [01:03:04] attracted to men, you know, in their late teen, early 20s, married men, anyway, had several kids and then later realized after, you know, into their 30s, that they were actually attracted to women. Right. And what, what we kind of concluded from that episode, Carah, is how wonderful would it have been if they could have just dated girls in high school and figured out for themselves who they were attracted to? They could have saved their eventual husbands and their children and themselves and old people a lot of time and a lot of pain. And so sometimes that experimentation about, like, how do I develop maybe a healthy relationship with, with alcohol or how do I develop a healthy relationship with, with sexuality?

John Dehlin [01:03:53] That's. Teenage years and young adult years are the time to do that. And if we take that away from our kids, sometimes it stunts their growth. And I don't think we get that at all. And because we have this orthodox Mormon mindset of purity.

John Dehlin [01:04:07] And so I think the point isn't that conscious parenting will keep your kids from making mistakes. They will or won't make mistakes. They will or won't make some of these choices that you have previously viewed or that you were taught to view as mistakes. And they may or may not suffer. They. They probably will because suffering is inescapable in life. So bad news, good news, bad news is your kids will suffer. They will suffer, and conscious parenting will not keep them from suffering. What it will do, though, is, like I said before, it'll maybe make it less likely they'll hide things from you, less likely that they'll lie to you. And if they make mistakes that harm them or that cause them suffering, they will want you in that conversation.

John Dehlin [01:04:52] Right?

Carah Burrell [01:04:53] Yeah. And the only thing I have to add to that is Sal said something last night that we never came back to that really stuck out to me that she talked about in her teen years is that for the church, she found, she said, safety in repression for her sexuality. And as we know, with the backfire effect, there's so many things that we think in the church, we will find safety in repressing them. But if you're not able to talk about them in healthy ways, whether that's masturbation or porn or gender identity, sexual orientation, myriad of different things, there is no safety in repression. It's going to come out in either an unhealthy way, or you're going to live a really long, unfulfilling life hiding secrets and hurting the people that you care most about.

Carah Burrell [01:05:34] You know, going 10 or 15 years in a marriage and then having to come out to your husband that you've been repressing something really long ago. So, yeah, well, it's super difficult as, like, I feel like John was describing in our Mormon culture. It's really difficult to get off of this purity model, of just this don't do it model. It's harder to get to work, to actually lean in. Like we always like to say, and do the hard work and. And be emotionally vulnerable with your kids and have these discussions. But it just comes back to that whole, like, choose your hard. Like, either one's going to be hard.

Carah Burrell [01:06:05] There's not safety and repression. Something's going to happen that's going to be hard one way or the other. Or we could do this hard thing over here, and I choose that one.

Margi Dehlin [01:06:11] So, yeah, I love that. And I would also just say, you know, that distrust that you feel and the things you say about a 16 year old brain and your child feels that. And it's much harder for a child to trust themselves when the people that are, you know, most present in their life are looking at them as depraved and looking at them as untrustworthy. Yeah, if. If what you're showing your child is, I'm feeling so much anxiety for you in this situation, how are they supposed to trust themselves? How are they supposed to feel?

John Dehlin [01:06:42] Because that says I don't have confidence.

Margi Dehlin [01:06:44] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:06:44] It's not. That says you should be very afraid.

Margi Dehlin [01:06:46] Me most that has ushered me through this life has no belief in me and is feeling all this anxiety that I may or may not feel at this point. And I love Natasha with regard to when she talks about this idea of sexual purity as something that, you know, when you have an experience, it's like you, you have the purity taken away. Why aren't we looking at it as experience gained? Why is it not like some of those experiences that are normative, developmentally normal, that insights are gained that make it much less likely that once they hit college or once they're out of the house in this restrictive environment, it plays out in ways that are all the more dangerous.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:26] Like why are we not looking at it as like, this is valuable insight for you to have and it's at a time that I can offer you support, like I'm actually in your life to kind of help, you know, walk you through it and to provide emotional support for you if you need it. Versus. And then lastly, how does love feel for you when it's a list, how does it feel for you when, when you know, in this case, and this is something I'm still working on because you know, we start from, in Mormonism is like don't drink, don't smoke, don't, you know, be sexual in any way with another human.

Loving Children Beyond Rules and Judgment

Margi Dehlin [01:08:01] Don't we have all these don'ts that we see people through and we judge our children through? Well, how does that feel? Like, how does it feel being you in a love relationship like that when you know you're being held to that, does that feel like love to you? That to me, you know, is something that. It disrupts me. It disrupts me truly seeing and loving the human being in front of me and realizing that we do that outside Mormonism too sometimes it evolves into like go to college or getting married or that our kids should have children. But I have just found tremendous, a tremendous freedom and a larger Love in being able to really be a little bit more aware of the lists I have with regard to, like, expectations or, you know, what it should look like for another human in my life for me to feel safe, for me to feel like they're whatever, healthy and to really watch that.

John Dehlin [01:09:06] Love it. Reading the comments Matthew Shakespeare, my. My friend with lots of honeys. With lots of honey and honeybees. Matt. Matt is with us and Matt wrote excellent episode. I needed this today. Love you people. Shout out to Matt Shakespeare. He and his wife Elizabeth have an amazing episode and just want to call people's attention to that. So, so many great comments and questions. I do want to share one. Kelly Sparks Salt Schley writes, my daughter says she will never forget that I immediately supported her when she came out to me as gay when she was 14. If I'd followed my upbringing, I couldn't have done that.

Guest [01:09:52] Beautiful.

John Dehlin [01:09:53] That's awesome, Kelly. Congratulations.

John Dehlin [01:09:55] And that's just the example.

John Dehlin [01:09:56] Kids will remember those moments, that we trust them. I know that recently Winston, our son, just decided he wanted a motorcycle. That is my worst fear.

John Dehlin [01:10:05] If I have obsessive compulsive disorder, it's

John Dehlin [01:10:08] around the safety, the physical safety and probably the emotional safety of my kids. And I wanted to fight him. My emotional reaction was, no, fight it, resist it. And I just knew that was going to drive him away. He would probably get one anyway, go ride with his friends, go buy one and hide it. I just knew that my only choice was to support him and accept him. And, you know, we get.

John Dehlin [01:10:31] Because he was. Because we.

John Dehlin [01:10:33] I think we respected that choice of his and we stayed emotionally connected with him. We asked him to take some safety

John Dehlin [01:10:39] courses, which he did.

John Dehlin [01:10:41] We asked him, you know, to get

John Dehlin [01:10:42] licensed, which he did. And he's been willing to talk to

John Dehlin [01:10:47] us and connect with us and help reassure us that he's doing his best to stay safe.

John Dehlin [01:10:52] Now, that doesn't mean Winston won't eventually get an accident.

John Dehlin [01:10:56] Accidents happen. But I do think that.

John Dehlin [01:10:59] I do think we handled that better

John Dehlin [01:11:02] than we would have a few years ago. What do you think, Margi?

Margi Dehlin [01:11:05] Likely that is true.

John Dehlin [01:11:08] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:11:08] And we're still in the process of that. I think that's. It's a tough thing. We all walk with that vulnerability of our children in life and, and losing our children every day, whether that's whether they drive a car or with whatever they're doing. And so, you know, a motorcycle definitely, definitely amps that up. And he's going to be 18 in a couple months and yeah, would we

John Dehlin [01:11:33] Rather him learning motorcycle safety while he's

John Dehlin [01:11:36] in the home or have him leave

John Dehlin [01:11:38] home angry at us that we were so controlling and we never even had the discussion about motorcycles.

Margi Dehlin [01:11:43] And every child's different here. Winston has always been a fierce, like a human with a fierce will who has a lot of reaction around control. And we have learned when we have trusted him, leaned in for conversations and centered around connecting. He does an amazing job. And so learning to just sort of where he is wanting us to back off, learning to back off and let him take it has actually really been amazing for us.

John Dehlin [01:12:16] Kathy writes. Please more.

John Dehlin [01:12:18] Margi, this is wonderful. Thanks. So thanks, Kathy.

Margi Dehlin [01:12:24] Yeah, thank you. That's lovely.

The Emotional Milkshake Framework Explained

John Dehlin [01:12:26] So, Margi, this has been a great episode so far.

John Dehlin [01:12:27] I know that you have to leave at some point. So are there, are there some final points you want to make? So Margi's got a few more points she wants to make and then we're going to come. But we're going to do this weekly or every other week. We're going to have Natasha on more, but there'll be more. But Margi, what are some final.

Margi Dehlin [01:12:42] Yeah, I thought it might be helpful to kind of identify the components of emotional milkshake. So let's say. So I can do that first. John, or I can say when we would use them. Do you care which order? Go ahead.

John Dehlin [01:12:59] So this is the components of emotional.

Margi Dehlin [01:13:00] Yeah, like if a parent is noticing, okay, I am in this place with a child or I do really feel like I want to make this a practice in my parenting with my kids. How would I go about that? Some things that I just highlighted from the situation with my dad that I felt was kind of being in a presentation and grounded place.

Margi Dehlin [01:13:24] So that means on some level, you're not thinking about a ton about the day, you're not emotionally processing something heavy that you yourself are kind of in the moment and feeling emotionally grounded, that you're in a state of acceptance.

Margi Dehlin [01:13:42] So you're not in a place of fighting what's happening. So this goes to. With my dad, I clearly was in a place of not eating. He was in a place of accepting. He. What he was doing was not fighting me on that. He was offering something.

Margi Dehlin [01:13:59] So being. Being in a state of acceptance with whatever situation you have with your child, that connection is the focus. Not fixing, not sharing your opinion about what the child is doing. This is hard, not sharing a concern with your child. It's literally connecting with your child's experience and having space for that.

Margi Dehlin [01:14:24] Another part is active listening. So if your child does decide to share that you're in a state to listen and to participate in a way that's. That's very, very safe. So communicating emotionally. Safety, emotional safety within that where you can validate their desires and their experiences. And then lastly, the intention of that and to really connect with the intention when you are going to have this experience is I am here to remind you how lovable you are.

Margi Dehlin [01:15:01] That's what I want this to be about. So there's just no mistaking every action, every thing I say, what I do. It's centered around that value. So those are just some. Some kind of guide posts as to, like, what you're looking for when you decide to show up with an emotional milkshake. And usually that's our presence in some way.

John Dehlin [01:15:26] Yeah. So like learning to be present. Like there. There were several questions in the comments about, like, what if I'm triggered? What if I'm angry? What if our kids are angry?

John Dehlin [01:15:34] What do I do if I'm flooded?

Margi Dehlin [01:15:37] That's great. Yeah, that happens. And so we always take care of ourselves because it allows us to take care of those we love. So, yes, if you are emotionally flooded, let's do that one first. If you're emotionally flooded, please take a break. And that would look like, if you're driving home with your child and there's a meltdown or things start to go awry, it would look like this, Hey, I really love you. I'm noticing that, you know, right now, emotionally, things are rising for me and I really care about you and I care about this conversation. So I'm going to just take a break. Let's just listen to some music for a bit and I'm going to come back to you when I'm in a place to really give you the time and attention that you deserve.

Margi Dehlin [01:16:17] That's an example of a break. Yes. And then go do things as you can to soothe yourself, comfort yourself, you know, as you can. Oftentimes we have a lot of things going on, but take that break and then you're. You go back to the child.

Margi Dehlin [01:16:33] Usually within the same, like, don't let it drag on for the child. Try and kind of circle back. If the child is having an emotional breakdown, then what you can say is, hey, I'm noticing. I don't want the you you are. But I'm noticing things are getting heated. I wonder if we shouldn't take a break. I really care about this conversation and I care about you. So let's just take a break for now. And you know, you go do something that you want to do, I'll do something. And let's do this in a way where we don't hurt each other. Because I don't want to hurt you. I really care about you.

John Dehlin [01:17:08] Yeah. And we all just have to understand kind of basic brain structure. You know, we have. Let's just say there's two main brain regions that are relevant here. The amygdala, which is the emotional center of the brain. Call it the lizard brain, call it the monkey brain. That's the brain where the fight, flight,

John Dehlin [01:17:28] or freeze center of the brain. And then we have the cerebral frontal

John Dehlin [01:17:33] cortex, or the executive functioning part of the brain, which is where we're calm and we're rational and we're logical. Right.

John Dehlin [01:17:39] And if you know anything about the structure of the brain, when your amygdala

John Dehlin [01:17:42] is triggered, when you're triggered into fight,

John Dehlin [01:17:45] flight, or freeze mode, your IQ drops

John Dehlin [01:17:48] something like 15 to 20 points, and it drops.

John Dehlin [01:17:52] You are dumber.

John Dehlin [01:17:54] And so if you argue with your kid, if you. If you find yourself getting trapped and

John Dehlin [01:18:00] caught up in anger, in.

John Dehlin [01:18:02] In fear and in argumentation, you're dumb at that point, and you're just going to probably likely harm your relationship with your child.

John Dehlin [01:18:13] And so that's where things like mindfulness

John Dehlin [01:18:15] meditation, secular Buddhism trains you to be

John Dehlin [01:18:19] more aware when you get emotionally triggered

John Dehlin [01:18:23] so that you can cut that off and stop it before you do the damage.

John Dehlin [01:18:28] Right?

Margi Dehlin [01:18:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:18:29] And that's the idea is stop, pause, call a timeout with your kid, and guess what you're doing. Carol, when you talked about this, about reparenting. Right. Breaking the cycle, what is a better gift you can give your child than to model for them? Not that you never get mad, because guess what, they're going to get mad and upset in their lives. So what's better than being a parent that never loses their temper? That's not the goal. The goal is not to never get angry and upset as a parent. The goal is that when your kid sees you getting upset, they see you catch yourself, they see you stop, they see you calm the F down, and they see you call time out and say, I love you so much that even though I'm worked up, I notice that I'm upset.

John Dehlin [01:19:21] Even though I'm worked up, I'm going to pause, go take care of my emotions, and then come back and talk to you later when I can do so in a healthy way. You model that you're not only not doing damage to your kid, you're not only not. You're not Only not violating the emotional intimacy and the emotional connection that you have with your kid.

John Dehlin [01:19:41] You're.

John Dehlin [01:19:42] You're teaching them through embodiment to take care of their own emotions in a

John Dehlin [01:19:47] healthy way at a later time and cares nodding.

John Dehlin [01:19:51] So I know that I just said something good. What?

Carah Burrell [01:19:54] I have a seven year old, a five year old and a one year old. And it's me and Aaron's everyday life trying to get the behavior that we need out of our kids without yelling at them every single day. And I think the biggest thing that's helped me in the last couple months is just accepting, it's literally since our grounding episode, accepting that one. Yelling at my kids is pretty much not an option for me because it's water on a grease fire is what I have to keep reminding myself. Especially with my 5 year old. If she wants to be late to school because she wants to put on the socks she wants to put on, no amount of yelling at her will make her go faster. It will only make her fall on the ground and cry. And so I have to figure out a way to get creative with.

John Dehlin [01:20:33] Slows you down more, right?

Carah Burrell [01:20:34] And it slows us down five times more. And I'm an adult, I'm smart. Smart enough to know that. And so I figure out other creative ways to do it and I play a little game, you know, with the. This is a great tip, by the way. This is just me adding a great tip. I invented this a couple years ago. I asked my kids if they want to do it fast or slow. And then they get to choose whether it's putting on clothes or doing the dishes with me. Whatever we're doing is if we do it slow, I do it in slow motion and that makes them laugh.

Carah Burrell [01:20:59] And then if they say fast then I go and it just, it distracts them. Everything to kids feels like it needs to be novel, it needs to be new and interesting. And the main way that it makes they like to make things interesting is to make it difficult and to make it like have a fight and have force. But if I make it into some type of fun game, that's the novelty that they crave out of me and Aaron. But the point that I just wanted to make is I have to accept my worst fears as just going to be part of the game every single day.

Carah Burrell [01:21:30] I accept that we might be late to school and that's not the end of the world. Every single day I'm like. Because no matter. Yelling will make them be on time. So I'm going to let this take as long as it takes. And they're going to understand that, like, the more important thing is the connection. And the more that we connect, the faster that they go. When they're ready for school, no amount of we wake up at this time. This needs to be done. Screaming and yelling, everyone get out the door. It's never worked. It never will work. So I've just accepted whether it's, we're gonna be late for school or we were gonna go out shopping, but the stores are closing because you're having this tantrum.

Carah Burrell [01:22:03] I just am accepting we're gonna have to do it another day. Like, it's not the things that get me frustrated and frazzled with my kids. It's because I worked it up in my head that it's like the end of the world. And I have to remember it's not the connection, the emotional connection that just being there with them, all the things we talked about, that's the foundation. And then everything else is just kind of, you know, peripheral. Yes.

Margi Dehlin [01:22:24] I so relate to that. I really remember when my children were young, this idea of if there was any type of agenda they could feel, bam. It was, like, over. And then as they got older, it was like, if there was any type of expectation. Now, some of my kids did better with, like, what would I say? Not better. Some of my children worked with expectation to their own inner life detriment. So there was a cost no matter what. So I have children that. With. With that sort of external expectation. It was like, nope. Oh, there's an expectation. Definitely not now. You've lost it, right?

Carah Burrell [01:23:03] Totally.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:03] And then I had children that were, like, all about the expectation to the point that, like, they were dying inside, you know, and neither, like, we don't want either of those rights. So children, I just feel like, on a basic level, are always asking us to love bigger. Are always asking us, like, do you love me now? How about now? Is your agenda more important than me now? Can you see me now? Or is getting to school more important? Do you see me now? Or is it really that you want me to be great at school? Do you see me now?

John Dehlin [01:23:35] Haven't you said. And I'm sure this wasn't a. This didn't originate with you that are. Maybe this is Shefali Sabari who said this, that our children are our greatest spiritual practice.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:47] That was Eckhart Tolle.

John Dehlin [01:23:48] I don't know, is it marriage or children?

Margi Dehlin [01:23:49] Do you remember that? Carah, did you ever listen to the Oprah?

Carah Burrell [01:23:53] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:53] Okay.

Carah Burrell [01:23:53] I listened to it three Times.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:54] Yes, I know. Oh my God. That's something you can just always be. But in one of those episodes I remembered a woman calling in about. I feel like it was like a toddler and just saying, oh my gosh, my child.

Carah Burrell [01:24:08] I remember.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:09] And the meltdowns and the tantrums and I'm losing it all the time. And I want to live this way. I want to live the way you're talking about. I want to, yes, all. Yes to all the principles. And I can't make it through my morning, you know, with this child. And Eckhart Tolle was just like, I just loved his answer because it was like that child, that child is your spiritual teacher. That's all you. That, that's enough. That's more than enough. Your relationship with this child right now, I loved that. This idea of it's in your life, it's not on Sundays, it's not outside your life that you're going to find kind of that growth and that, you know, insight, it's inside it.

Carah Burrell [01:24:52] Yep, those podcasts are life changing. I'll put those in the show notes as well.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:56] That's a great idea. Well, lastly, should I go over some of the situations that might.

John Dehlin [01:25:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:25:01] So what's this section?

John Dehlin [01:25:03] Situations? The what?

Margi Dehlin [01:25:04] Some. So for here it's like, when would you use an emotional milkshake? And by the way, emotional milkshakes can show up. Like right now, we do a lot of one on one times with our children. Um, we have, you know, three independent kind of young adult children right now and a child about to leave home. So right now it's we, we do some family activities. But a lot of times it's John taking out a child and it's me spending time one on one with a child. And just the intention is to be fully present, to listen to and to communicate how much we love and trust them to find, to kind of find their way in life. Right. So that structure is really a flexible one. And it can also just be in like little moments in the day.

John Dehlin [01:25:51] Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:25:51] With children at home. So it's a super flexible structure. What I would say is some ideas that came to me about when you might want to, to use this in particular. In particular, this idea of an emotional milkshake would be with teen and young adults as they differentiate from you. So particularly when they're choosing things that may include different values than you, where they are absolutely individuating from you. Right. That's a great time to do emotional milkshakes. Another time would be anything because they're supposed to.

John Dehlin [01:26:30] Like, we don't understand that part of the job.

John Dehlin [01:26:33] Like, literally, if you could call a

John Dehlin [01:26:35] developmental stage in life a job.

John Dehlin [01:26:38] Part of the job of the teenager

John Dehlin [01:26:40] is to separate, learn and practice separation from the parents.

John Dehlin [01:26:45] Because by 18, they're going to be leaving. So why not have 15, 16, 17. Be them practicing separating while they're under a safe roof? So it's their job to separate. So that's a great time to practice the emotional milkshakes because as soon as they leave the house, they're doing whatever the freak they want and you can't control it anymore. So why not have them practice with their training wheels while you're connected to them emotionally? So it's a great.

Margi Dehlin [01:27:15] And where you don't create deprivation. Imagine like a household where there's no sugar and then it's like, oh, you're going to go out on your own. Like, what's that dynamic?

John Dehlin [01:27:25] Or just eat sugar all day long as a pilot. Taco Bell, they'll just eat Taco Bell

Margi Dehlin [01:27:29] all day long as opposed to sugar is. Yes, it's. It is part of life. So, yep, as you're growing up, you're going to have some of those experiences and we integrate those into you kind of growing up. And not only is it like the job of children, but for me, it's an indicator of health. If. If I have a teenager that's individuating and I don't relate to this myself because I did not individuate. Like I. There's this thing about trying to take care of your parents, be something for your parents as a teen that actually isn't really developmentally healthy. But for many of us, that's what we did.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:05] So it can feel like abandonment. It can feel very scary as teens move away or do that thing where they shift away and then kind of sometimes shift in and then shift away and then shift in. Is it. It can feel very unsettling. But to me, I always look at it as like a success. You have a child that is actually like able to individuate and feel themselves without feeling like they have to take care of you. And that's actually what we want. We want children that are not taken care of.

Guest [01:28:37] Parents.

John Dehlin [01:28:38] I love it.

John Dehlin [01:28:41] Okay, well. Oh, go ahead.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:43] Okay. So the next one is when the relationship with your child feels distant, strained, damaged, or in some sort of control dynamic.

Maintaining Connection During a Child's Crisis

John Dehlin [01:28:53] So that so many times kids cut off their parents when they're depressed or really in distress.

John Dehlin [01:28:59] That's when they, they.

John Dehlin [01:29:02] They're angry at Their parents. They cut off their parents and they're in there in real distress. And that's when you feel like they're beyond being reached. It's kind of like that book with the mom who holds the kid in her lap.

Margi Dehlin [01:29:13] Love you forever.

John Dehlin [01:29:14] Yeah, it's kind of like that, right?

John Dehlin [01:29:16] What does the mom do in that story?

Margi Dehlin [01:29:18] Yeah, I think the idea is repair here is sometimes in control dynamics. Your child loses trust in you. And I think. So the idea is in all these cases that some repair needs to happen. The emotional milkshake doing that consistently can provide kind of some of that repair. Another, another time is when your child is suffering just like I was suffering. And I know my dad could see it. My dad was a psychiatrist. After all, he treats people with eating disorders and knew he could not treat me, his daughter. And I know he probably really wanted to.

Margi Dehlin [01:29:58] So it's just him identifying my suffering and, you know, being able. This was the thing that he chose to offer. Another situation that I thought would be really interesting. I'm curious if you guys agree is just if you have a child that in any way their brain or behavior is outside the system. I just feel like this would be really helpful because to me that just means the way they show up in the world at point some school or in your home or they're going to be viewed likely as a problem because that's how we kind of do it societally. And so really providing children with a lot of will or, you know, high energy attention, you know, neurodiversity, whatever it is, providing them these moments of absolute love and magic in your eyes for them. Any thoughts about that?

John Dehlin [01:30:52] Yeah, I love it.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:54] And then lastly, I have. When your child is disconnected from themselves, which happens as children grow up, it's very common in teens to be able to identify certain times of life or young adults where your children are struggling either with coping or struggling with connecting with themselves. And this can be particularly difficult because they can feel like they're not reachable for you and they're not reachable for them. So this is. That's another time for that. And then lastly, anytime you feel like you've tried all the things and nothing's

John Dehlin [01:31:30] working, all else fails.

Margi Dehlin [01:31:31] That's right. So we'll just come full circle. When all else fails is also another time to kind of where this might be a helpful kind of tool. So I hope this is helpful.

John Dehlin [01:31:44] It is. And you're so heartfelt, you're so lovely. So many people in the audience are just like. More Margi. Margi all the time. Just give Mormon stories over to Margi.

Carah Burrell [01:31:55] That's basically I wanna Margi all the time Margi.

John Dehlin [01:31:59] It all comes back to 80s music. Everything comes back. Everything comes back to it.

Margi Dehlin [01:32:04] That is true. So much does, so much should.

Audience Questions and Practical Advice

John Dehlin [01:32:09] So some of our Facebook commenters, Jen was asking. No, Karen Auger was asking for us

John Dehlin [01:32:16] to post more content about conscious parenting.

John Dehlin [01:32:19] Carah did that. And we're going to have shownotes.

John Dehlin [01:32:21] For those of you who are joining

John Dehlin [01:32:22] us after the live stream, show notes are already up on YouTube.

Carah Burrell [01:32:25] On YouTube.

John Dehlin [01:32:26] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:32:27] And also on the blog post.

John Dehlin [01:32:28] If any of you come to this

John Dehlin [01:32:30] audio or video later, either check the show notes on YouTube or go to

John Dehlin [01:32:37] the blog page for this on MormonStories.org

John Dehlin [01:32:39] and we'll have links to Shefali's books, to our previous episode on the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis for conscious parenting. That's part of why we do this is to just tell you to freaking go to MormonFaithCrisis.com and watch the 80 free hours of content we've already shared because there's so much there that would be helpful.

Carah Burrell [01:32:59] There's links to that right now to the Gift Mormon Faith Crisis. So I made it very easy. You have no excuse.

John Dehlin [01:33:04] Thank you.

Margi Dehlin [01:33:04] It should be right there.

John Dehlin [01:33:05] Thank you.

Carah Burrell [01:33:06] And then if you want really are like, what should I listen to after this? I need to go do the dishes. I posted a link in the show notes to the Eckhart Tolle podcast with Oprah. Life changing John. John told Bill Real about it. Bill Real told me about it on this podcast. I've told other friends, Mormon friends as well, and it's changed their life. It was exactly what I needed. Leaving the church instrumental in all of the growth. The woman that's before you today is because of this podcast series and a

John Dehlin [01:33:32] lot of Eckhart to show. What else do you need to know?

John Dehlin [01:33:35] What else?

Guest [01:33:36] What else?

John Dehlin [01:33:36] If that's what made Carah Burrell, then I'm interested.

Margi Dehlin [01:33:40] We all should be interested. We all should be interested.

John Dehlin [01:33:43] I love when Margi looks at the camera like breaks the fourth wall or whatever.

Margi Dehlin [01:33:48] And Carah Barrell.

Guest [01:33:50] It's true.

John Dehlin [01:33:51] No, like, seriously, I don't want to insult Mormons or the Mormon church or believing Mormons. But like we were all told, go to the temple more and more and more and you'll finally figure out what it means and you'll derive more value from it when it comes to Eckhart Tolle in his book A New Earth and that, that series between Eckhart Tolle And Oprah, that's actually true.

John Dehlin [01:34:13] The more you watch that, the more

John Dehlin [01:34:16] value you'll derive from it. Or the more you listen to the Eckhart Tolle book A New Earth.

John Dehlin [01:34:20] Like we've.

John Dehlin [01:34:21] How many times do you think you've

John Dehlin [01:34:23] read A New Earth, Margi?

Margi Dehlin [01:34:24] Like, not enough still.

John Dehlin [01:34:26] Yeah, And I come back to it every year and I learned something new every year. And it's just, it's the type of thing where you don't just learn it.

Margi Dehlin [01:34:33] It's.

John Dehlin [01:34:34] If you continually re immerse, it's kind of like what we thought or were taught the scriptures would be. And maybe for some people the scriptures really is this. For me it wasn't. But with something like A New Earth, with Secular Buddhism podcast, the more you expose yourself to the content, even in small doses, kind of like microdosing content, the more value you're going to get for it for not just weeks or months, but for years and for decades on your.

Carah Burrell [01:34:58] Yeah, just like your brain is going through different stages of development. And I've told people, everyone that I've told about, you know, different podcasts, Eckhart Tolle, whether it's Mormon stories or whatever, you understand that some people are not ready to absorb information at certain stages in their life. And so just like in the journey that our brain goes on, we'll pick up different good nuggets along the way. And that's how I view that podcast series. I listened to it three times and I felt like I learned something completely different every time I listened to it. Cuz I was just at a different stage of what my brain needed at that point.

John Dehlin [01:35:28] I love it.

Margi Dehlin [01:35:28] Yeah, I so relate to that.

John Dehlin [01:35:31] All right, well Margi, you're lovely. Thank you for sharing, sharing info about your sweet dad. And I know his five year, the

John Dehlin [01:35:39] anniversary of his fifth year of passing is a tender time for you. So you're a sweetheart. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:35:45] This felt like a nice way to kind of honor him. So thank you for hanging with me to do that. I do want to just say a final thing about parenting. Maybe before is just, you know, parenting is inherently vulnerable and if it feels that way and if it brings up a lot of fear and anxiety, you come by that honestly for so many reasons. Pick your layer. Whether it was religion, your family upbringing, culturally were reinforced because we are a Judeo Christian culture still largely. So yeah, be gentle with yourself. And then this idea about conscious parenting is the healing of yourself through relationship with your child. And I think just an offering that you deserve, that you deserve the time and attention to heal yourself and minimize damage to your children in the process.

John Dehlin [01:36:47] I love it.

John Dehlin [01:36:49] Well, thanks, Margi.

Margi Dehlin [01:36:50] That's all, that's all we got.

John Dehlin [01:36:52] Thanks, Carah.

Carah Burrell [01:36:53] Yeah, and thanks for the super chats. We got a super chat from.

John Dehlin [01:36:58] Which is a donation on YouTube. Right?

Carah Burrell [01:36:59] YouTube, yeah. People being so sweet and donating to support the podcast. Thank you, Catherine. And thank you. This blind chick talks for your donations.

John Dehlin [01:37:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:37:12] And thanks Carah, for waking up early.

John Dehlin [01:37:14] We stayed, we had a show until late last night.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:17] I wouldn't change a thing. You are hard working people.

Carah Burrell [01:37:21] So look forward to Lena and Sal should be coming out next week. They came out once, they're coming out again on a farm series episode. But we did a really long good podcast with them last night and I probably got home at like 11pm wow.

Closing Thoughts and Support the Podcast

John Dehlin [01:37:35] Final plea. And this is really important. There are many people who can't afford

John Dehlin [01:37:42] to support Mormon Stories podcast or this series and that's why we give this away for free.

John Dehlin [01:37:47] No guilt trip if you're not in

John Dehlin [01:37:48] a position to support this content. However, if you value this content, these videos, these podcast audios, if you value

John Dehlin [01:37:57] this content and you are in a position to support us, we, we like to pay are our people. We like to pay Carah, we like to pay Margi, we like to pay

John Dehlin [01:38:08] Gerardo, we like to pay Natasha.

John Dehlin [01:38:10] All of this equipment and these resources are expensive. So if you are in a position and we lose donors every month because people fall on financial hard times or they lose interest or people just move on and we always need to replenish

John Dehlin [01:38:28] those who drop out.

John Dehlin [01:38:29] And so if you value this content and if you want to see it continue, we need your support. One way to support Margi or me or Natasha doing this positive faith sort of healing and growth content is to go to MormonFaithCrisis.com and click on the donate button there. And if you could become a monthly donor or a monthly subscriber to the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis content series on Mormon Stories podcast, we'll use that money to pay people like Natasha link like Margi to come on and share this positive content on Mormon Stories podcast. Because we do get that criticism, that feedback Mormon Stories is too negative or all you're doing is tearing things down.

John Dehlin [01:39:12] We don't like that feedback and we're trying to provide positive, constructive, forward thinking content to help you heal and grow after Mormonism. So if you want to put your money where your mouth is, if you value that content, please go to mormonfaithcrisis.com click on the Donate button. Become a monthly donor and we'll be able to keep bringing Margi and others like Margi on. That's how you can support us. It's all tax deductible in the U. S. It all goes through the More of the the Open Stories foundation. We're transparent in our finances and 100 of your donations will go towards this type of content. So please step up and support us. You can also Support us@mormonstoriesgmail.com but we

John Dehlin [01:39:52] need your support to keep this going. So thanks for your support if you

John Dehlin [01:39:56] already support us and if you don't, please become a monthly donor. And also you can always donate through the super chat feature on YouTube. It's a little dollar sign in the chat window. Click on that and you can donate. And there are other ways to support us. You can subscribe to us on all the platforms, Facebook or YouTube or Instagram or on TikTok. You can subscribe to us.

John Dehlin [01:40:22] You can, you can comment, you can link to us. You can share links with other people.

John Dehlin [01:40:27] You can give us positive reviews on Apple podcasts because we always have haters tearing us down there on Apple podcasts or on the Mormon stories podcast Facebook page. That's a way you can support us. If you can't afford or even if you can, that's another way you can

John Dehlin [01:40:43] support us to keep this content alive.

John Dehlin [01:40:47] Anything I'm forgetting, Carah,

Carah Burrell [01:40:51] thanks for watching.

John Dehlin [01:40:52] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:40:53] Be good to each other.

John Dehlin [01:40:54] Be kind to each other.

John Dehlin [01:40:55] Love each other.

Carah Burrell [01:40:56] Differentiate. Embody, embody.

Margi Dehlin [01:40:59] Be good to yourselves. Be gentle.

John Dehlin [01:41:01] Yeah, because yourselves. And email us at Mormon stories@gmail.com if

John Dehlin [01:41:05] you have any feedback you want to share.

John Dehlin [01:41:06] We like constructive feedback. We like feedback that says, hey, here's some things I love, here's some things you ought to consider fixing, and here's some specific examples of how you can make things better.

Carah Burrell [01:41:18] Time codes are really helpful.

John Dehlin [01:41:20] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:41:21] Because sometimes people like John, I hate what you did here in this episode or John, Carah, blah, blah, blah. Well, if you can provide us with actual time codes of like in this moment, this thing John, you said, or

John Dehlin [01:41:31] this thing that Carah said or this

John Dehlin [01:41:33] thing that Margi said, it was off putting or I didn't like it. If you can give us specific feedback, we can fix that kind of stuff. If it's just like, I don't like John, I don't like you, or John, you talk too much or John, Carah, I don't like her and she talks too much, that feedback doesn't really help us. The more specific and constructive your feedback, the more we can learn and grow because this job is effing hard. Is this job hard, Carah?

Margi Dehlin [01:41:56] This job is so hard.

Carah Burrell [01:41:59] I'm not like a coal miner or anything. I don't. Everything's relative in terms of, like, mental stress. To put out this content and read all of the comments and, you know, be like, do I suck? I don't think so. So it's a very mentally taxing job. The Delins know I'm just. The Burrells are entering into the space, and so it's definitely mentally taxing. So compliment sandwiches are what we should be looking for.

Margi Dehlin [01:42:25] So that's.

Carah Burrell [01:42:26] Layer it in with some love, too.

John Dehlin [01:42:28] But also be specific. Don't just say, I hate all that you're doing and I'm going away now,

John Dehlin [01:42:34] taking my toys and going home.

John Dehlin [01:42:35] Give us constructive, specific feedback where we can change and give us time to learn and grow, because we're all in process and Mormon stories is always in flux. So we're trying new things. We're adding new voices. Give us time to learn and grow. Don't just like, oh, sorry, you made

John Dehlin [01:42:53] a change, so now I'm quitting.

John Dehlin [01:42:55] How. How helpful is that?

Carah Burrell [01:42:57] Not helpful at all. And I think you should just donate if you have the means to do so and if you can at least just share this content and hopefully glean what you can from it and everything.

Guest [01:43:12] It's just.

Carah Burrell [01:43:13] It doesn't matter.

Guest [01:43:14] Just.

Carah Burrell [01:43:14] We're working on it. You guys just, like, support us on this trajectory forward. Just know that things are moving forward. We don't need too much criticism. Just a little bit. Not too much.

John Dehlin [01:43:24] And Margi, will you come on again?

Margi Dehlin [01:43:26] Yes, I'll come on again and again

John Dehlin [01:43:28] and again and again.

John Dehlin [01:43:31] We love you.

Carah Burrell [01:43:32] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:43:33] All right.

Guest [01:43:33] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:43:34] All right, everybody, take care. Thanks for joining us. We love your comments.

John Dehlin [01:43:38] It always make things. Makes things better.

John Dehlin [01:43:40] So be good to each other. Love everyone.

John Dehlin [01:43:43] Take care and we'll see you guys all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast.

John Dehlin [01:43:48] Bye, everybody.

John Dehlin [01:43:49] Bye.

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.