Welcome and Episode Introduction

John Dehlin [00:00:14] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your Host, John Dehlin. Dr. John Dehlin. It's August 31, 2021, and we are doing something that I think is really cool and exciting here on Mormon Stories Podcast today.

John Dehlin [00:00:31] So let me just give you a tiny bit of background. So a couple years ago, Margi and I and Natasha were working as either therapists or coaches, trying to support people in the post Mormon community, progressive Mormon community, trying to meet all the demand for coaching and therapy. And we realized there's just no way we're ever going to meet all of the demand. Our caseloads were full, we had huge waiting lists, and we realized it is just, you know, not good that so many people need help and we're not able to stretch to meet all the need. And so we decided to just create a podcast called the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis Podcast where we would share, I don't know, 50, 60, 70 hours of our best stuff so that people who couldn't wait in line, who needed help now, or even people that couldn't afford a coach or therapist, could just get all the support they needed.

John Dehlin [00:01:25] So we did that. We ran that project for about, for about a year. If right now you go to mormonfaithcrisis.com click on it, you'll see 70 hours of free coaching with some of the most important topics that you could ever, you know, want or need in a faith crisis. Things like, you know, how to come out to believing family and friends, how to communicate with believing family and friends, how to not ruin your relationships, how to, to come out to your kids, your believing kids after a faith crisis, how to deal with your bishop and your church leadership, how to, you know, healthy grieving, how to manage your anger, healthy sexuality, how to improve your marriage.

John Dehlin [00:02:07] So many really important and valuable sort of episodes that you can just access right now in audio or video form. And we did that for a while. There were a couple problems with it. We. One was because we started it as its own channel.

John Dehlin [00:02:22] We weren't really able to pick up a decent enough size support to continue. So that's the main reason we stopped. There just weren't enough viewers or listeners or donors or supporters. And we just said, we're not going to spend a couple hours a week, five hours a week, prepping, presenting, sharing the content if 100 people are watching it. I mean, a hundred people are good, but we want to reach more people if we can. So we stopped it. We put the content up there. But what we know is over the past year or two, just people keep finding it and they keep finding value in it.

John Dehlin [00:02:56] So what we have decided to do is something really exciting, Margi Dehlin and I, and we think that Tasha, Alfred Parker, possibly other coaches and therapists and the Caraberell are going to collaborate on bringing to you, hopefully once a week, some sort of topic. So on Mormon Stories podcast, we're still going to cover historical issues, we're still going to cover truth claims, we're still going to do the epic sort of family stories of family faith journey stories, we're still going to do current events like we did this week with Elder Holland and, and you know, and Elder Holland's talk and all that. We're still going to do all that.

John Dehlin [00:03:39] We're talking about adding additional content or series of content to Mormon Stories podcast. So what we're going to do is once a week we're going to do an episode that will live stream that's dedicated to healing and growth. So not deconstruction, not processing, not church truth claims, not history. But like, how do you become more healthy? How do you become more happy? How do you have a better relationship? How do you be a better parent if you're a parent? How do you get better mental health? How do you have better, you know, sex life? Whatever it is, we're going to be doing that and you can expect it.

John Dehlin [00:04:20] Part of what's exciting about that is we are also going to live stream it so that Whether you're on YouTube or on Facebook, you can literally interact with us and get free coaching in a live stream environment. Um, so Carah's going to be monitoring the chats. Hey Carol, thanks for joining us and something.

Carah Burrell [00:04:42] Thanks for having me. And have we set up that this is going to be at a regular time? That's the first question is people are loving this idea. Will it be at a regular set date and time?

John Dehlin [00:04:51] Great question. So what we're going to do is it's depend on whether it's Margi, whether it's Natasha, whether we have a special guest and probably their availability. So what we have been doing is several days in advance we, we're going to publish the episode. So what both YouTube and Facebook allow you to do is to schedule a live episode so that you can see that it's been advertised. If you right now go to Facebook and say follow or subscribe or notify and or go to YouTube and say subscribe and notify it will alert you whether it's through email or through the little notification Button.

John Dehlin [00:05:31] We won't necessarily always do it at the same time. We may work towards doing it at the same time if we can work that out with guests. But at a minimum, you'll be notified a couple days in advance so that you can prepare and be here at the right time. And Carah, you know, if we can, if we can do it on, on a specific day at a specific time, we'll try to. Does that sound.

Carah Burrell [00:05:53] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:05:54] Okay.

Carah Burrell [00:05:54] Yes. Make everybody look forward to it.

John Dehlin [00:05:56] Yeah. Okay. So that is kind of what we're planning. I'm just gonna. From the start, we want to pay, you know, we want to pay people like Margi for their expertise. We believe in paying women. We don't. In men and minorities and people of color and all the types of different people. We don't believe in exploiting people's expertise.

John Dehlin [00:06:15] So we want to be able to pay Margi for her efforts. If she comes on, pay Natasha for her efforts. If we have other mental health professionals or experts, we, we want to be able to pay them as well. I don't need to get extra payment for this effort. So this just comes with my job as executive director of the Open Stories foundation and as Mormon Stories podcast host. So I'm not asking for any money, but so what we want to ask you to do is if you like this idea, if you want to see it Continue, go to MormonFaithCrisis.com right now. Click on the donate button.

John Dehlin [00:06:47] This is in addition to the normal Mormon Stories podcast programming. So in addition to your support of Mormon Stories podcast, if you want to see a weekly episode dedicated to healing and growth, go to mormonfaithcrisis.com right now. Click on the donate button. Become a monthly donor. 10 bucks a month. Imagine that, 10 bucks a month for weekly free therapy. And we literally will take your suggestions and do episodes on the content that you request. So you will have influence in shaping the. The content that we offer. That's what we're offering. That's what we're going to do today. These aren't going to be three four hour episodes.

John Dehlin [00:07:24] These are going to be kind of 40 minute topics where we cover an issue. We'll do 30 to 45 minutes Q& A where we can both cover the topic, but also, as coaches, cover topics that you bring up. So it's kind of going to be some free coaching and therapy in addition to the topic that we cover now. Let, let me know. Carah, Anything else before we jump into introducing our guest for today? Any other questions or comments from the

Carah Burrell [00:07:54] audience, just people being excited for the new series. So, yeah, I think everyone's pumped and I really like the idea about this content can really be whatever you guys want to make it to be because we'll have lots of open Q and A sections. And if you are going to be able to benefit from this, please consider donating.

Introducing Margi Dehlin and Today's Topic

John Dehlin [00:08:13] All right, so without any further ado, we're going to welcome our first guest to the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis episode that is integrated with the Mormon Stories podcast feed. And our guest is Transitions life coach Margi Dehlin. Hello, Margi Dehlin.

Margi Dehlin [00:08:30] Hello. It has been a bit, a wee bit of time.

John Dehlin [00:08:34] How does it feel to be a guest on the Mormon Stories podcast live stream?

Margi Dehlin [00:08:39] Oh, well, it's a thing and just a little bit terrifying, but mostly exciting.

John Dehlin [00:08:45] Well, we had you on recently. You. You joined me to interview Natasha during her thing and then you joined. Were you there for Brinley or Leah? Which one? For Brinley? It was a Brinley.

Margi Dehlin [00:08:56] Yeah. And I think I had like a little second in Leah's where I couldn't help myself.

John Dehlin [00:09:00] You hugged Leah or something? Yeah. And I think you hugged Carah during something. Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:09:05] So anyway, yeah, I was editing that today.

John Dehlin [00:09:08] So I guess what I'm saying is, is I always get the comment, more Margi. More Margi. So based on your comments and feedback, we're doing more Margi now. Margi, really quickly.

Carah Burrell [00:09:18] Oh, Carah, I just wanted to ask first off the top, I don't know if you were going to do this. I just want to make sure that you introduce what, Margi, what are your. What's your background? What are you qualified to speak about and your, I guess, certifications? Somebody was asking, is Margi also a therapist like John? How would you describe your. Your background?

Margi Dehlin [00:09:37] That's a great question. So I am not a therapist. I am a certified life coach and I kind of specialize in transitions. So life transitions. And the reason why is because amidst my own process and in working with others, what I've discovered is certain themes tend to come up around transitions of all kinds of. So it can be faith transitions, it can be any type of family transition, like having children kind of graduate and leave or illness is a transition. And what it usually, what you find is it tends to affect relationships, it tends to affect identity, how you see yourself and your sense of purpose.

Margi Dehlin [00:10:24] Oftentimes it touches kind of how you view, you know, yourself existentially. And it also affects marriages. There's usually grief work. And so within all of that, that's where I really feel passionate and love to kind of work with those that I am able to meet with. So that's kind of me.

John Dehlin [00:10:46] And you could just go ahead and say it that we always ask Natasha this and Leah and anyone else. Do you have a website where if people want to learn more, follow your blog, you know, consults you about your work? What's the website?

Margi Dehlin [00:10:57] So the website is beautyinthenow.org okay. I'm also on Instagram. I try to leave little pieces there so that everyone can have a sense for what I do and kind of what it would feel like working with me.

John Dehlin [00:11:11] Perfect.

Margi Dehlin [00:11:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:11:12] Okay. So I asked you to kind of pick the topic that you wanted to cover today. And this happens to be a topic that we both know some things about. I mean, for the, for listeners that may not know, I did pursue a PhD in clinical and counseling psychology. I am a trained psychologist. I don't practice as a psychologist because I'm just way too busy. But I, I spent six years in formal training. I have the full PhD and I have all the training that a psychologist has. I just don't practice that I choose not to. So if it's okay, I will bring a little bit of my knowledge and expertise to bear. You're leading this, but all this is something that we both know a lot about. So I'll be jumping in here and there. Is that okay?

Carah Burrell [00:11:54] I love that.

Margi Dehlin [00:11:55] I want that. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:11:57] And then care. You're. You'll. We'll want you care to kind of represent someone who's been through a faith crisis, someone who is going through a transition. A mom, a wife, you know, and you're also representing. So we want you to feel comfortable jumping in just as a human being. But also we, we would love you to represent the listeners and viewers that may have comments or questions.

Carah Burrell [00:12:21] You're in luck because I am a human being and I also have been through a faith crisis. So that is within my job parameters. I can absolutely do that. And I'll be taking time codes, so hopefully and show notes and putting a lot of these links in there for YouTube for later. So between the websites of margies and all of this stuff and time codes that people want to jump to, we'll make this in information as easily accessible as possible.

John Dehlin [00:12:44] And would it be cool if we can cut little. If they're like little nuggets, one to three minute nuggets that are worthwhile, we can make little tik toks out of that. And then those who follow us on tik tok Our Tik Tok Channel Mormon Stories podcast, it's doing super well. We're almost up to 60,000. Is it 60,000?

Carah Burrell [00:13:01] We're almost up to 70.

John Dehlin [00:13:02] We're almost up to 70,000 subscribers on our TikTok channel. And Carah has been releasing at least one video a week and it's been doing phenomenally well.

Carah Burrell [00:13:13] It's so fun. I was actually editing, preparing for this. I was listening to Leah Young's episode back again, the one that Margi jumped in on that we just discussed editing that back and so it'd be great to have Leah come back on and do another one of these. And I remember the boundarying responses and stuff, trying to make a tick tock for that, the role play stuff. So that was like the most popular part of the EFT weekend. I think when Leah Young spoke, you weren't there for that one. But talking about boundarying and stuff. So this information, people are eating it up. They're loving it. People need it. So let's get it out there.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:42] All right. Into it. Let's get started.

John Dehlin [00:13:43] Okay. So listeners and viewers, get your questions or comments ready and Margi, why don't you go ahead and just introduce the topic and. Or, or.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:53] Yeah, okay.

John Dehlin [00:13:54] Be our guide.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:55] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:13:56] Yeah. And let me know how I can support you.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:59] Sure. Well, I just. To kind of introduce the topic. I have been thinking, John and I do a lot of talking on our. And he had asked me kind of my thoughts recently. And I've been really thinking about this. It's coming up a lot for my clients, it's coming up a lot for myself, for my children. And I'm just, I'm seeing this in a lot of areas. And this is the feeling of overwhelm as it, as it shows up in kind of this, this larger sense in our lives and also where it hits us in, in our lives. Right. And I think where overwhelm tends to kind of show up most is in our relationships.

Understanding Overwhelm and Why It Happens

Margi Dehlin [00:14:40] And so that's where I thought it might be helpful to kind of start today is with a really simple process of showing up for ourselves and showing up for others when we're feeling quite emotionally overwhelmed, dealing with strong and difficult emotions.

John Dehlin [00:15:02] Yeah. And so obviously going through a faith crisis is really traumatic and hard and difficult and painful. And so we want to kind of have that staged in our mind. But also just being in a marriage, navigating a marriage or mixed faith marriage, being a parent and just living life, you're going to have these super stressful moments that you can either Be super reactive to and do damage or kind of be more mindful and present about and. And, you know, not do damage and. Or even strengthen relationships. That's kind of the dichotomy here. And that's the life skill we're kind of trying to set up today. Right?

Margi Dehlin [00:15:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:15:42] Good.

Margi Dehlin [00:15:42] It's this idea of emotional regulation. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:15:46] Does this sound even applicable to your life, Carah?

Carah Burrell [00:15:49] Oh, are you asking because you're my boss?

John Dehlin [00:15:53] No, no.

Carah Burrell [00:15:53] I feel a little bit overwhelmed, Carah, by your.

John Dehlin [00:15:55] No, no, no. You're. You're always super poised in a. You know, I mean, a home, you know, life, family.

Carah Burrell [00:16:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I. I have my own coping techniques that we don't need to get into because they are not kosher. Back to Marty.

John Dehlin [00:16:13] Okay. All right, Margi, so where do we start?

Margi Dehlin [00:16:16] And I was just going to say too. I mean, transition aside, I think being alive and being a feeling sentient being, we all come by this honestly, so no special circumstances needed, I think, you know, but we can also take Covid and we can take kind of the air fires and things going on. Right. Divisiveness in the political. I just feel like. But yeah, this is part of being alive.

John Dehlin [00:16:45] Yeah. So lots, lots, lots of things to be stressing us out.

Carah Burrell [00:16:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:50] No shortage of stressful stimuli. What's a better way to manage it? Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:16:57] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:16:58] Where do we start?

Margi Dehlin [00:17:00] Well, I think it might be helpful to kind of start with where this starts for me, for just a sense of. Yeah. So a little bit of background. Um, I feel like there was a particular time in our history that I've spoken about before, but if I had to kind of describe it, where this was kind of birthed, I would say it was like, during a time of, like, just tremendous tumult, pain and suffering in our. Our personal life.

Margi Dehlin [00:17:40] So I've talked before about kind of towers and how we all have kind of these towers in our lives. We have maybe a faith tower, we have parenting tower. We have maybe a marriage or relationship tower, existential tower. And I would just say this really hit me when I would say most towers were down. And so if I could describe that to you, what that would look like would be, I had four children at home, going to school, so I was in a high output kind of situation day in, day out. And we were in a place of tumult maritally, a lot going on there.

Margi Dehlin [00:18:27] So stress and uncertainty as to how things were going to play out there. We had our own faith kind of journey going on where we were all in different places and Trying to support. Support our kids. My dad was sick. I was spending time every week tending to my dad as he was dying.

John Dehlin [00:18:47] Alzheimer's, Lewy body dementia.

Margi Dehlin [00:18:51] Yeah. So I had a little existential kind of work going on. And it was like. What I was noticing was I just. Oh, can still remember. It was like there was just no grounding for me. I just felt completely groundless. And I really was devoted to my home and to our family. And in spite of that, I was really in this constant cortisol overwhelmed state. I just could not get right. And where it oftentimes would show up would be in daily. Just kind of daily life. So in kind of daily tumult. So here's what I'll say about that was I had some grounding rituals that was. That were birthed during that time.

John Dehlin [00:19:54] So I talk about, like, how maybe. Like how you might. How that might have led you sometimes to not be at your best before you implemented some of those rituals, whether it's with me or yourself. Like, Carah talks about healthy coping. So maybe it was how you coped in a suboptimal way for yourself. Maybe that's. Maybe Margi has never coped in a suboptimal healthy way because you're pretty great at coping, but coping with yourself, unhealthy. Coping with me, unhealthy. Coping with the kids, you know, talk about maybe ways you didn't cope great before you started developing this practice.

Margi Dehlin [00:20:33] Okay, well, here's what I'll say. I've always been pretty proactive about coping, but I think we all have times where our coping doesn't cover it. And that's where I found myself. The things that I had relied on up to that point, like morning exercise or. Or a little quiet time, like, I would try and find quiet, it just wasn't. It wasn't enough for what I was facing. And I felt really limited in my resources for whatever reason during that time. And I also felt protective of you, of our family, and who I could turn to. And so all of that created kind of an isolating kind of circumstance, that.

Margi Dehlin [00:21:15] Which led me to be more reactive to my teens, to try and find control in relationships and kind of overcorrect. So that would be normal reactivity. Overreactivity in normal circumstances, if a child was late or if the way it oftentimes shows up, I'm sure a lot of fear came into play and. And reactivity in working through our relationship as well during that time.

Margi Dehlin [00:21:45] I think the thing that really impacted me most was I really. I Think I found myself in a bit of a shame cycle because I thought it must be me. Like, I'm working so hard. I've dedicated my life to these things, and they're. They've all gone wrong and all at once, so it must have to do with something I'm doing. And maybe if I was a different person or I did things differently, maybe I wouldn't be here or I wouldn't. And so then that overreactivity and. And saying things that later I regretted or acting in ways that were not my values. They're not how I felt about my children, nor how I wanted to show up for them.

Margi Dehlin [00:22:31] It. It reinforced the shame. Then I had all this regret and feeling like. And I just felt like, you know, I couldn't get a handle on it. I couldn't get a handle. And so this was birthed from moments and consecutive. I feel like times where I really just felt like what I was doing wasn't working. And the pain and suffering was incredible.

John Dehlin [00:22:58] You kind of reached. Is it fair to say you kind of reached emotional rock bottom with whatever skills and techniques you had used up to that point, and you realized you had to do something differently, implement some new strategies or tools? Is that fair to say?

Margi Dehlin [00:23:13] Yeah, I think I found a sense of. I felt a sense of groundlessness in my life with the things that I had up to that point relied on, that they were not either working anymore or they weren't enough.

John Dehlin [00:23:29] Okay, so where do you turn?

Grounding Practices and Coping Strategies

Margi Dehlin [00:23:33] So from there, I feel like a lot of people kind of grounding practices emerged or rituals, and those are things that I'm not really talking about today, but if you're interested, we can explore that in another kind of session. And. And so what that means, what does grounding mean? So grounding is an effort to sort of connect with yourself in your body, with what you're feeling in a way that isn't overwhelming to you and in a way that you are showing up for yourself in compassion and love and connection to your values at the moment. And those can be really different. If you're dealing with children, it might be different than with this, with a spouse or, you know, so that's how I would define grounding.

John Dehlin [00:24:26] Can I ask you. Can I ask you if I understand it right? Okay, so. So, like, let me just tell you how I'm thinking about it as I hear you talk about it. Like, the way historically it's often manifested for me is like, I'm just being normal, John, in, you know, at work or at home with you and the kids. And I keep hearing, dad, you're acting really grouchy. Dad, you're acting kind of rude and snippy or, or you'd say, john, you're, you're talking unkind to me. I'd be like, no, I'm not. I'm fine. What are you talking about? I'm being kind, I'm being direct, but I'm being nice.

John Dehlin [00:25:01] And I'm not. There's nothing wrong. Why does every. You know, and it's a complete lack of my own internal emotional state and how I'm treating other people because I'm so busy, so stressed, so overloaded that I don't even. I'm not even in touch with, you know, how I'm treating people, but also how I'm feeling inside. And so when you talk about grounding, do you mean behaviors or practices that can help you just pause your day, get to a more externally or internally quiet space and develop some self awareness around, well, how am I really feeling? How am I actually feeling?

John Dehlin [00:25:45] And what am I thinking? What's hurting? What am I sad about? What am I happy about? What am I worried about? And then, and then by understanding your state, that's a good first step to what you can do after that. Is that what you mean? And so that you know, and then you can give examples or did I get that wrong?

Margi Dehlin [00:26:04] Yeah. That encapsulates a lot of what I need. What I would say here. I'm going to make a little bit of a differentiation. Grounding. There are grounding rituals which I brought up, that stemmed initially out of my pain and suffering. They're like yoga, spending time in nature, meditating every morning. Those are examples of practices or rituals that I do every day. I don't wait for things to get overwhelmed. Every day I walk in nature or step outside and do sort of a sensory nature. I incorporate nature every, usually numerous times a day. Right. So those are, those are rituals. I do those no matter what, every day.

John Dehlin [00:26:43] But you do yoga.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:45] Yeah. Right. So I do them regularly as, as sort of rituals that allow me to connect with myself, connect with what I'm feeling in a safe kind of place and to process. This is, this is kind of different from what I'm going to be talking about today, which is.

John Dehlin [00:27:03] Why are you bringing it up? Because it's not the focus.

Margi Dehlin [00:27:06] Well, this is what I'd say, because grounding, the grounding ritual gave birth to my grounding strategy. It was, it was the birthplace for me. By processing and taking a little more time to Go on walks and to hike. I was able to get connected with myself, to see themes. It allowed me to see I was being overreacted with the kids. Up to that point, I actually wasn't even aware of my behavior. I just knew I had a lot of pain and suffering and I was creating a lot of pain and suffering.

John Dehlin [00:27:36] Can I add one thing?

Margi Dehlin [00:27:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:27:38] A lot of people, you know, because you write so well and because you come across as so poor, poised and dignified, and you actually are, people are always telling me, how does Margi, how is she so poised? How's she so graceful?

John Dehlin [00:27:51] And so like I want to add, at some point, you started a daily meditation ritual where you downloaded the Calm app, that's C A L M. You downloaded that app onto your phone and you started doing a 10 to 15 minute meditation. Each morning you'd wake up, you get your phone and you would do a 10 to 15 minute meditation. And I think that along with yoga and nature were really important tools that were really important ways for you to ground, to then develop some of these other tools and techniques. And I just wanted to make sure and mention that. And to this day, if it's in the morning before Margi does anything, she wants to wake up, she wants to get her coffee and she's going to do her meditation.

John Dehlin [00:28:34] And, and if I want to talk to her during her 15 minute minute meditation, you know, I don't, maybe I'll go kiss her while she's meditating, but that's the best to get. Because you don't interrupt Margi when she's meditating. Not because she's mean, but because you want to be respectful to her daily practice. So that's just.

Margi Dehlin [00:28:52] I would look at it like a layering. And so grounding rituals are kind of a foundational. But the grounding strategy that we're talking about today, you, you don't need a grounding ritual to start it. And I really wanted to just sort of be able to submit and present something today that could meet you where you are today. So wherever you are, and we'll give some, some examples later, but it's kind of like this isn't going to remove suffering. It's not going to fix suffering for you, but maybe it will help you from. And we can talk about second arrow, but. But from creating suffering, more suffering as you're suffering. And so this just felt like something that I felt like everyone could relate to is just kind of feeling kind of slapped upside the head sometimes and feeling really reactive.

John Dehlin [00:29:44] Okay, all right. So That's a good introduction to grounding strategies. Where do we go next?

Margi Dehlin [00:29:50] Yeah. So let's look at maybe how it presents without a strategy. Okay, so how overwhelm oftentimes presents for us. That's where I would start. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:30:01] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:30:02] So I feel like how it usually starts is there's like a trigger moment where all of a sudden we feel intensely and usually it's negative if it catches our, you know, our attention. If it's a trigger, it's usually in some. So we'll have a kind of negative rush of fear or irritation or something. But there's this sudden trigger rush of feeling that we react to in the moment. It's not a choice oftentimes it's just. It's like what you were describing. I'm in this reactive state and now I'm. Now I'm irritated. And so how's that out a little bit?

John Dehlin [00:30:37] So you're not talking like that. Keep talking.

Carah Burrell [00:30:41] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:30:41] Anyway, so. So then you're in a. You're reacting now. And it's usually affecting those we love.

John Dehlin [00:30:49] So. So, like, if we're thinking about our space, maybe it's Elder Holland's talk from last week. Maybe you really care about LGBTQ people. And then Elder Holland gives this talk and you start seeing it posted all over social media. Maybe it's general conference weekend and all of a sudden all your believing family and friends are posting memes and general conference talks everywhere. Maybe it's a grandma that reaches out to your grandkids and says, hey, Johnny and Susie, here's a picture of Jesus. I'd sure love to see you at church today. Maybe it's your spouse who's still a believer, telling you that she just paid $5,000 in tithing and that's really triggering.

John Dehlin [00:31:28] Or maybe you're a believing spouse and it's your non believing spouse telling you he just took off his garments and he's not going to be putting them back on. Maybe it's your kid telling you they just became sexually active or want to get a tattoo. Or maybe it's your three year old basically throwing a tantrum in the supermarket and not allowing you to even do the basic things. Are those some of the triggers you're talking about?

Margi Dehlin [00:31:51] Yeah, but I would even say those triggers are oftentimes those are more formative than a lot of the triggers I'm talking about. I think when you're in a state of feeling a lot of stress and a lot of overwhelm, it's like a child is Late, a teen is rude or reactive to you or. It's very daily things that are quite normative to the human experience, but all of a sudden they become really affronting, very difficult to deal with.

John Dehlin [00:32:21] Okay. All right.

Carah Burrell [00:32:24] Yeah. Everyone's just really loving this discussion. And I don't have any particular comments that I wanted to pull out, except for one. The. I'll try to go find. Maybe later.

John Dehlin [00:32:34] No, that's fine. I didn't mean to put you on the spot.

Carah Burrell [00:32:35] Okay. I can't remember who had it, but it was a really great comment about showing up to divorce court and grounding themselves right there then and there. There we go. I learned about grounding just days before, standing at the bar in divorce court. Freaked, repeated. I feel my feet on the floor. I feel my feet on the floor. I feel my feet on the floor. Saved me.

Carah Burrell [00:32:58] So those are. Yeah, definitely those big moments in life that if you put the work in to practice them on the. Like you said, these normative experiences that we all go through daily. Even just yesterday, I. I Probably was gone 12 hours yesterday.

Carah Burrell [00:33:14] Came back at 9pm and my husband was just like, staring blankly at the ceiling when I came home with three or two kids still awake. And I gave him a hug and he needed some grounding. So I'm gonna go text him to turn this on right now because he. He gets quite overwhelmed. Transitioning into.

John Dehlin [00:33:31] Yeah, things Being stay at home dad a little bit.

Carah Burrell [00:33:33] Being a stay at home dad. And he's got. He's got a lot of grounding that he already did in his workplace, that he already knows how to keep himself there. But now he's in a new environment and things are very, very different. Being constantly grabbed and smacked in the face by kids and them always asking questions, interrupting, needing something and stuff. So I think we were talking about, you know, faith transitions and going from one space to another. There's so many different transitions that as human beings, we go through.

Margi Dehlin [00:34:00] So true.

Carah Burrell [00:34:01] Very, very helpful.

John Dehlin [00:34:01] All right.

Margi Dehlin [00:34:02] So true. So, in short, I would say grounding is getting out of your headspace and more into a body space for grounding. Okay. And the other thing, I. I'm glad you mentioned that about sort of that daily life. You know, I look back without the towers falling, and I look back at having four children at home and, you know, basically within 11 years. And that was really challenging. That was. And so I think sometimes we can be really hard on ourselves as we kind of view choices that we've made that we should have this figured out or this is Normal or we chose to be a parent and shouldn't it just feel easier than it feels? And the truth is, is life is hard. It's. It's challenging. And having a sense of compassion for you continually showing up amidst the heart, I think is really important.

John Dehlin [00:35:01] Great. Okay, where do we go next?

Margi Dehlin [00:35:04] Okay, so I kind of feel like we kind of spelled out what happens when we don't have a strategy. Right. Didn't we. Did we talk about rush of feeling? And then we also have reactivity. Oh. But we didn't get to. Normally. What happens after that is when we react, we kind of spread the pain around either to children, to spouses, to whoever's around. It might be ourselves, we might engage in a lot of aggressive self talk. That's really common. So we kind of spread that pain around and then inevitably what happens is we feel regret, shame, guilt about then our behavior. So that's kind of what most of us do without a kind of mindful strategy. And so from there, I would like to maybe and talk about like, basically what the problems are with that.

John Dehlin [00:35:55] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:35:55] And what would you guess some of the problems would be like? I feel like we could probably share.

John Dehlin [00:36:00] I mean, I mean, I. I don't know if this is where you're thinking about going, but I'm thinking about like, L. Ron Hubbard in Scientology. Like, if you think about the auditing that. That Scientologists do, the stuff, that kind of becomes the gateway into Scientology. It's all around reactivity.

John Dehlin [00:36:19] It's just about how much damage we do when we're not present, when we're not connected to ourselves, and when we're reactive. When I. The way I think about it is like you've got your lizard brain in the middle of your brain. That. That is your emotional center, and it's very reactive. It's like, oh, there's a lion. I gotta run. It's your fight flight or freeze system.

John Dehlin [00:36:44] That is your monkey brain. It's literally how you survive on the savannah. And that's a great brain for not dying in the wilderness, but it's not a great brain for like, you know, being a civilized human being. If all you are is like, hungry, eat, feeling sleepy, sleep. Oh, angry me, yell. I mean, you're. You're one step away from the great incredible Hulk, right? Or a gorilla or a dog. You know what I mean? So what is the difference between animals and humans? It's the ability to say, I'm not going to be ruled by my emotional center. I have this other part of my brain.

John Dehlin [00:37:25] That was developed later in the evolutionary process called the cerebral frontal cortex. It's your rational brain. It's called your executive center, your executive functioning brain. And that's where you're like, oh, I'm feeling like I want to punch someone in the mouth, but that wouldn't be very healthy, so I'm going to not do that. Or I feel like yelling at my kids and wife, but that's not going to be good for my values of what type of spouse and parent I want to be. And so what we're talking about here is allowing the right part of your brain to govern your behavior and what techniques you can develop to put space between the emotional reaction internally and the outward behavior.

John Dehlin [00:38:11] And this is where secular Buddhism really shines, because secular Buddhism. And that becomes the foundation for acceptance and commitment therapy, which is what we're going to talk about. Secular Buddhism is all about being in the present moment, not being reactive, accepting what is.

John Dehlin [00:38:29] Not attaching too much to labels and stories and emotions, but instead to figure out what your values are. And by being present in the moment and not reactive, letting the values govern your behavior and not your emotional reactions. So that's my kind of summary of what I'm hearing from what you're laying down so far.

Margi Dehlin [00:38:54] Yeah, I really like that. Can I highlight a few things what you said that I really liked?

John Dehlin [00:38:58] Please.

Margi Dehlin [00:38:59] You kind of highlighted this idea that when we react, oftentimes we don't react in ways that are true to us, true to what we value to. True to who we, you know, our best selves to who we want to be.

John Dehlin [00:39:11] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:39:11] Right. And so our reactions at best are just like you said, like an attempt to protect us based on past experiences or what we've been taught or. Right. It's like a fear response. That's not.

John Dehlin [00:39:26] Yeah, the fear, sadness, anger, all the strong emotions, big feels. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:39:32] And so. And that of course reinforces shame. So now you're carrying a lot of shame and guilt, which oftentimes creates. So I love that you brought that to light. And then second is it's a choice. And that's where I really want to highlight is reactions aren't choices, reactions we just do. Right. They're knee jerk. We don't think about them. And so what we're going to practice. And I have. Great. By the way, like, I don't want to say one's bad. This is good because I feel like this in coaching. There's this a principle about practicing. And no matter where we are, we notice how we show up and it's just data.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:18] So you gather data when you're not your best, you gather data when you are, and you try to neutralize it and then just really look at your experience. Right. And what you would prefer. So I really want a lot of love and compassion in this process and to normalize the fact that we all are reactive at times. Okay. But we're introducing this idea of how we're going to choose. We're going to choose to respond. Respond, not react. So with that, we've got a couple steps for when you hit, when you feel sideswiped in a day.

Responding Mindfully Instead of Reacting

John Dehlin [00:40:50] Okay. So how to respond mindfully based on your values versus reacting in ways that might do damage and they don't reflect your values.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:04] And we can share these. Do you want to share them? Yeah, I'll do one and then you.

John Dehlin [00:41:06] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:07] So if I were to start, the first step is noticing. So noticing.

Carah Burrell [00:41:14] Great.

John Dehlin [00:41:15] So these are the steps to how to change. So all of you are wanting to know, how do I do something differently? How do I respond and not react? We're going to now go through six steps, is that right?

Margi Dehlin [00:41:25] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:41:26] Six steps to responding, not reacting.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:29] That's right. So just, just imagine the last time you had a reaction that was not you and that you felt a little bit sad after the reaction. Noticing kind of, wow, I really, you know, overreacted or treated someone, sadly. Right. We're going to go right back to that place and what we're going to have you practice is you're going to notice when you start to feel this sense of being triggered. So you're going to feel really, you may feel really heightened emotionally in that space. You may feel a lot of bodily sensations. You may feel hot in your head, you may feel constriction in your chest.

Margi Dehlin [00:42:05] You may start to kind of clench your fists. You may start to, you know, have a lot of swirling thoughts come up. But it's going to, most likely it's going to come from a place of panic, of stress. All of a sudden you're going to feel a lot of panic, a lot of stress, a lot of heat usually.

John Dehlin [00:42:23] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:42:24] So noticing is first and it's body hits your body first.

John Dehlin [00:42:28] Yeah. Maybe you can think of the noticing as like the fire alarm. Like when we're unconscious, we're just reactive. Once we start noticing, it's like that little ding, ding, ding, ding, ding that's going off. That's saying you are triggered. Like we have that word in our. Like trigger can mean different things. There's trigger Warning that we're about to talk about something sensitive. That's not what I mean. Trigger triggered means you're kind of an animal brain. You're kind of operating from your monkey brain. You're angry, you're afraid, you're nervous, you're scared, and you're triggered right. That limbic system has been flipped on. And unless you are practicing, unless you practice a little bit of awareness and consciousness, where it's like, whoa, my heart's beating.

John Dehlin [00:43:14] Whoa, my adrenaline's racing through my veins. Whoa, I'm nervous. Whoa, I'm shaking. Unless you're. You're being mindful of your state and noticing what you're feeling, you're just going to be reactive. Carol, what were you gonna.

Carah Burrell [00:43:30] And I wanted to bring this home because this is really important to me because we're talking about values. And I really value being a good parent and modeling. Like, I don't want my kids to fight with each other. So I don't want to talk down to them. I don't want to raise my voice to them because I don't want them to raise my voice, their voices to me. And so as you're talking, I'm just thinking of the last time that I really flipped out at my kids, when was a moment in which I had to switch gears. And so when you're talking about what are the triggers?

Carah Burrell [00:43:53] What are the things that lead up to it, I'm assuming a lot of people are going to be like me, where you're doing something on your phone that's important to you, that's involved with work, that your focus is so here. And when you have to just immediately be derailed from what's important to you to what's important to your kids, which is like them climbing on you, getting your attention. Mommy, Mommy, Mommy. And being derailed from something, it's usually has to do with an intense focus. One place being shifted to another place. That's usually where I get out of control. And I. While you're saying that, it's making me recognize how it usually has something to do with a screen or a device in my hand.

Carah Burrell [00:44:29] Just the same way that when we turn off the TV of our kids, if they're watching something, they're intently focusing, if we walk up behind them and switch that off, they're going to react, you know, like screaming monkeys as well. And just like that's part of the human experience to when you are so mentally devoted to something, it doesn't feel good when somebody else tells you to be pulled out of it. You want to make that. And so part of parenting for me is like I gave that up when I had my children. It's like I dedicate that I'm going to re. I'll be aware of my triggers, be aware to be respectful that okay, technically this can't wait.

Carah Burrell [00:45:05] I can, I can focus. I can compartmentalize work time here and when I'm home, I'm just with you and focusing on you so that you don't have to worry that mommy is going to flip out. That's really great.

John Dehlin [00:45:16] I mean what I like about what you just did, Carah. And listeners and viewers, we want to invite you to share your comments right now. In the same way. What Carah, what I heard you just identify is a context wherein you're likely to get triggered. So some of us may be when we're in the middle of important tasks, some of it may be just when there's a lot of stressful stuff going on at work. Some of us, it may be the morning or the evening. There are going to be different contexts where we're more likely to. Maybe, maybe it's when there's a lot of family around some people when there's in laws and lots of kids running around like Carol.

John Dehlin [00:45:50] What I heard is almost like this pre awareness of just knowing what context. Sometimes like for me it was family vacation with my parents before my parents divorced. Anytime we're on a family vacation, dad's gonna lose his stuff and scream. That's just, that's what happened on family vacations is dad would scream and you know, so that's what I heard. Carrie, you just do. Margi, did you want to add anything?

Margi Dehlin [00:46:13] Yeah, it's almost, it's almost this idea of adding a preventative through awareness. You're, you're looking at and I, I really, really appreciate that. And I feel like that's where we get to intentionalize our life too. There's power in that. Once we start observing our patterns of where we get triggered and why, if they happen at the same time of day, around the same situations, then the power becomes. If I were to intentionalize my life and want to strategize and improve it, what could I do differently during those times to help, you know, take it easy on myself and those I love?

John Dehlin [00:46:49] Right.

Carah Burrell [00:46:49] And along with intentionalize, I love. When you guys ever listening to the Gift of Mormon Faith Crisis, you guys talk a lot about deconstructing when you leave the church and your values and so being intentional that like what are your values when you rebuild Outside of the church or whatever, you know, faith transition, whatever stage of life that you're in, it's important to say what your values are and then you know where to be intentional and you know why the purpose behind all of these things, like I was saying, my highest priority is to model good behavior for my kids. And if I don't remember that value is at the forefront of my mind, then things are going to get completely muddled and confused really, really quickly.

Carah Burrell [00:47:26] And just recognizing. Sorry to always bring this back to Mormonism, but like, there's beautiful things that I was taught in Mormonism about the, the strength of family and those bonds and stuff. And that's something I still value really highly. And I still want to really, really maintain good, good bonds and focus on being a good mom to my kids. So this, this conversation is helpful for that reason. For me.

Margi Dehlin [00:47:49] Yeah, I feel that from you. And really what Carah just did too, is bring us almost to the last step, which is connect.

Six-Step Process for Connecting with Feelings

John Dehlin [00:47:57] Yeah. And I worry we're going out of sync. So step one was noticing what you're feeling. So.

Margi Dehlin [00:48:02] Which, by the way.

Carah Burrell [00:48:03] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:48:04] Which by the way, may be hard enough for everyone for a while because we are not, we were not raised in a culture, in family cultures, in a religious culture where we're real great at connecting with our emotions and what we're experiencing. So be gentle with yourselves. This is a practice.

John Dehlin [00:48:21] We've like intentionally been trained, many of us, to ignore our feelings, to suppress our feelings, to pack down our feelings. I think I'm a world class avoider of my own feelings and oftentimes very unaware of what I'm really feeling. And so this first point of noticing what you're feeling, sometimes it's almost like we're learning a new language, which is the language of our own mind and heart.

John Dehlin [00:48:44] So it takes time. But I also think Carah kind of added a step point five, which is understand the contexts that are triggering for you. But then the very next step is to know when you're being triggered. And so just to kind of round that out. Margi, it's your heartbeat, your anger, your blood pressure. Your face may feel flushed, you may feel nervous, you may start acting in a snippy way. Those are all examples of manifestations of signs of you that can help cue you into what you're feeling. Is that, is that right?

Margi Dehlin [00:49:17] That's right. I. I think for most people it's that everything tends to speed up. Yeah, Right.

John Dehlin [00:49:23] Yep.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:23] Your heart, your thoughts, your everything. You just want to react and you wanna. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:49:28] Yeah. Okay, so that's part one is notice what you're feeling. You want me to do part two?

Margi Dehlin [00:49:34] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:49:35] Okay, so part two is a really. A topic I love, which is accepting the feelings, labels, thoughts and stories. So we're talking about four things. Feelings, thoughts, labels, and stories. And this stuff comes right out of Buddhism. Our brain. Our brain does four things really well. It labels things good, bad, ugly, pretty, beautiful, rich, guilt, shame, righteous, dangerous. Like our brain labels things. Our brain tells stories. They're trying to hurt me. They're out to get me. They love me. I'm the best ever. You're the worst ever. You're the meanest person I've ever met. Those are stories that your brain constructs. So there's labels, there's stories, there's thoughts, which is like, huh, I wonder if I'm going to get hurt today.

John Dehlin [00:50:31] I wonder if, you know, the church is not a cult. I wonder if the church is a cult. I wonder if my believing neighbors hate me, if they're gossiping about me. These are all thoughts that you might have in your brain. And then there's emotions. I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm depressed. These are all just. Your brain is like this factory generating feelings, labels, thoughts and stories. That's what your brain does. It's just generating them. And there's. There's a real peril, a real danger in taking any one label, any one thought, any one feeling or any one story, holding it too tightly, taking it too seriously.

John Dehlin [00:51:17] So, for example, you know, let's just say I'm a bad person, right? That's a label. That's a story. You may sometimes make mistakes, you may sometimes have room for improvement, but if you just really like paint on your forehead and chest, I'm evil, I'm wicked, I'm dirty.

John Dehlin [00:51:40] That can start affecting, go ahead, or I'm broken, or I'm broken, right? That can really start affecting how you carry yourself in the world, how you think about yourself, how you react to others. If, if you start believing that your kids are bad, misbehaving little miscreants, right? And you have that story you're telling yourself, my kids are poorly behaved, you can start treating them really badly because you believe too much in the story or in this label that you're telling yourself. If you sort of assume the identity of being a depressed person beyond a clinical diagnosis, but you start having the label of being just sad all the time again, that can drag you down into ways that aren't really helpful.

John Dehlin [00:52:24] So. And then finally if you refuse to accept what your brain is producing. My brain is creating the story. My brain is creating these emotions. My brain is labeling everything. If you try and fight what your brain is producing, you could just make it stronger. There's always this example of the pink elephant where I don't want to think of the pink elephant. Will you think about it more? I don't want to think about sexual images. Oh, my brain is going to generate 50 sexual images as soon as you try not to have one. So there's this idea of learning to accept that your brain is going to be generating all this stuff, stories, labels, emotions, you know, everything.

John Dehlin [00:53:04] And instead of trying to fight it, what if you just were able to say, whoa, my brain is really going crazy right now. And instead of trying to fight it and feel shame about it and defeat what my brain is trying to do, I'm going to just like step into acceptance mode. My brain is generating that thought, My brain is generating that fear. And I'm not going to try and control it. I'm going to just notice it and let it be there and just sort of become the noticer of a really overactive brain. Whoa, I'm feeling really angry right now. I'm feeling really afraid right now.

John Dehlin [00:53:40] I'm feeling really sad right now. If you can cultivate within you the noticer, which is separate from the feeler or the thinker or the labeler or the storyteller, that starts to generate some distance, and that distance becomes your freedom to act differently. Does that make sense, Carah? Does that make sense?

Carah Burrell [00:54:04] That right there, that Eckhart Tolle taught me, that right there was how I stopped crying about my faith crisis and moved on. Because I distanced myself. You said everything. So, so spot on. The noticer of those feelings. And then as somebody who wants to understand why I'm doing the things, just from a psychological perspective, why does anyone do anything? Noticing why I'm doing it and asking myself these pointed questions and knowing that this is my conditioning and that I was raised in this high demand religion and that I have a systems conditioning that doesn't want me to leave, that wants me to stay in a comfort zone, and noticing those feelings were super helpful for me to be able to distance myself from the way I was raised from the systems that I was for so long, you know, maintaining.

Carah Burrell [00:54:51] Like in Mormonism, you're maintaining your mental health within this one system. And if you leave that and you don't have another way for coping and maintaining healthy systems, that alone did it for me. Like that Alone, night and day's difference.

Margi Dehlin [00:55:07] Oftentimes I refer to that as default setting because we don't choose it. It's kind of where we revert back to those same stories, those same. And remember, remember, we're not in our wise mind. So in our argument with our husband, it's like, you're. You're such a misogynist. You're such a. It's. It's the. The programming or things that over time have kind of melded. So I oftentimes talk about it like a default setting or kind of programming. We're not choosing it. It's a result of our experiences and our pain and a lot of our suffering over time. And I just wanted to add one last thing about accepting, because you talked about kind of feelings and stories and labels also.

Margi Dehlin [00:55:46] It can be reality. So, like, this. This helps with children a lot where they're on a whole different time thing and reality thing. And so it can get to a point where we're very resistant to things happening. This is not the time. We don't have time for this. We need to go. Like, we are already late and we are resisting what is actually happening in real time. Right. So a lot of the acceptance is, this is what's happening. This is what's happening right now. Right. That you actually let in reality and you allow it to be. Okay, so this is how it feels to be me right now.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:24] This is how it's going to feel. And so there is a reality piece where we don't want you resisting with what is happening because that makes everything worse for you, for other people. And we compound that suffering then.

Accepting Feelings and Avoiding the Second Arrow

John Dehlin [00:56:38] Yeah, And I think you mentioned the second arrow. This comes from Noah Rashetta, which comes from Secular Buddhism. Great podcast called Secular Buddhism, by the way. But I'll just introduce the concept of the second arrow. It's a story, and it's basically, you know, a king is walking through a forest with an entourage, and all of a sudden, an arrow shoots out of the forest and shoots the king in the heart. And the king falls back, and immediately he's feeling fear and anger, right? He's like, oh, my gosh, I'm gonna die. Are other people gonna attack me? And I'm so angry who shot me? Right?

Carah Burrell [00:57:12] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:57:13] So the first arrow is the pain that life inevitably is going to present to you. Right. But let's look at how the king reacts. The king can react in kind of one or two ways. Let's talk about the less productive way. The less productive way that the king might react is with ego, which is like, who dares shoot me with an arrow? I want to figure out who did this here, you know, servant, shave off some of the wood shaft and go search all the trees in the kingdom to see if we can match someone's actual tree to the shaft of this arrow. And go, other servant, pluck this feather and go find all the birds in the kingdom and.

John Dehlin [00:57:52] And see if we can find whose bird this feather matches with so we can find out. And the king is obviously not accepting the fact that he's been shot with the arrow and dealing with that. He's instead bringing his ego and all sorts of other stories and labels to this problem. That's what, you know, obviously, Margi, what is the king forgetting or neglecting by adding all of this additional story and label and concern to his exact situation?

Margi Dehlin [00:58:23] Probably, I'm guessing, taking care of himself and maybe taking care of the first arrow.

John Dehlin [00:58:27] Right. And so in the story, the king spends so much time worrying about and trying to investigate who might have shot him that a second arrow comes out of the forest and. And kills him. Right. So the first arrow represents the inevitable pain that life is always going to confront us with. The second arrow represents the additional pain and suffering that we add to our life situation by reacting to situations thoughtlessly, not based on our values. And so accepting. That's where acceptance comes in. If we accept we've been shot with an arrow. I'm angry. The church isn't what I thought. My spouse still believes. President Monson gave a talk that I hated.

John Dehlin [00:59:07] President Holland gave a talk that I hated. My parents are never going to respect me again. Whatever that first arrow is, if we can just accept it and deal with that and not react with story and label and emotion, then we're not adding additional suffering to the situation at hand. And so that's where acceptance comes in. And that's what you mean by the second arrow. Analyzing how is our reactivity, trying to prove that the church is true, trying to email everyone in the ward that they need to get out of the church. Trying to force our kids to respect us by grounding them. Right. Yelling at our kid, our 3 year old, to like, you know, behave in the grocery store. All those things add additional suffering to the initial pain and frustration we already have. Is that what you wanted me to talk about?

Margi Dehlin [00:59:58] Yeah. That's so good. Okay. And in that way also, he could have taken cover, he could have strategized to get out of harm's way. Kind of wise minded, made some decisions to.

John Dehlin [01:00:08] To prevent Staying alive.

Margi Dehlin [01:00:09] Right.

John Dehlin [01:00:09] Like, isn't his first goal to stay alive as a king?

Margi Dehlin [01:00:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:13] Not to die bleeding out as multiple arrows come into him?

Carah Burrell [01:00:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:17] Is his first goal vengeance and revenge, or is his first goal saving his life? Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:00:23] Right.

John Dehlin [01:00:23] Yeah. Okay, so that's. Number two is acceptance of noticing.

Margi Dehlin [01:00:26] We have accepting. And you kind of introduced the third.

John Dehlin [01:00:29] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [01:00:29] As you were talking.

John Dehlin [01:00:30] What's the third?

Margi Dehlin [01:00:31] Or you.

John Dehlin [01:00:32] Or you can do it. Okay. So the third point that I already introduced is holding your feelings, labels, thoughts, and stories loosely.

Margi Dehlin [01:00:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:40] There's no such thing as a true story. This is Mormon Stories podcast. There's no such thing as a true story. How many of you have had a fight with your spouse where you're both in the exact same argument? You're both eyewitnesses to the argument. You think one thing was said and done, and your partner thinks a totally separate thing was thought or done? There's no such thing as a true story. There's only perspectives on story. There's no such thing as a true emotion. If I hate Margi, if you and I are fighting and I feel like I hate you, and is that true? Do I really hate you, or is that just what I'm feeling in the moment when I'm really frustrated? Why are you smiling?

Margi Dehlin [01:01:15] Oh, just enjoying you.

John Dehlin [01:01:19] When you feel like you hate me, is that true or is that just what you're feeling?

Margi Dehlin [01:01:24] It is not true.

John Dehlin [01:01:24] Yeah, it's just what you're feeling. Right. So labels, thoughts, feelings, stories, hold them loosely or they will control you. They're like chains that bind you. If you're convinced that your kids are disrespectful, you're going to treat them that way, and that's going to bind you. If you're convinced that your spouse, you know, is a. Is a dogmatic believer who is. Is. Is blinded and, you know, brainwashed. If you hold those labels tightly, that's going to ruin your ability to have a healthy relationship with your spouse. So hold your labels, thoughts, stories, and feelings loosely. That's. That's rule number three, which Carah kind

Margi Dehlin [01:02:10] of spoke to, too, when she was talking. Because it's this idea, when you express yourself, I am feeling anger. I am not angry. I'm feeling angry. Like that language matters. How we talk about and being an observer to our emotions, which is a skill. I mean, these things, you know, they may be simple. This idea of noticing, trying to accept reality, accept our feelings, and. And then creating a space where we actually are a little bit separate, and there's a bit of Distance. There. There's. It may be simple, but they're not easy. Okay, so we acknowledge that, and that's why this is something to kind of practice. But moving on from that, let's.

John Dehlin [01:02:50] Let's check really quick with our. We have. We have some listeners both on YouTube and Facebook, some of them that have even, you know, shown some support our way. So. So, Carol, why don't we check in with our commenters and viewers and just anything you want to just say to kind of represent them.

Carah Burrell [01:03:08] Oh, yeah. Make Today Amazing. I think he was in my TikTok live stream a little while ago, and I was telling everyone to donate in my TikToks. When I'm not working for Mormon stories, I'm still on my live streams telling people to still donate here. So they. They listened. And he said mostly as a thanks for Matt's episode.

John Dehlin [01:03:27] Oh, you brought him here by. By advertising this episode?

Carah Burrell [01:03:30] That's what I'm trying to say.

John Dehlin [01:03:31] Oh, thank you.

Margi Dehlin [01:03:32] Thank you.

Carah Burrell [01:03:33] Yeah, no sweat. And he said mostly as a thanks for Matt's episode. Y' all are saving lives. Keep it up. So that's the first Super Chat that I wanted to read.

John Dehlin [01:03:42] So he donated again. On. He donated on. You're saying he donated on YouTube? There's this feature on YouTube if you want to support this programming. If you like it, YouTube's got a feature called Super Chat where you can click on the. The little dollar signs and throw, you know, a few bones our way to help pay for care, to pay for, you know, the operations, etc. So a huge thanks to. What's his name again?

Carah Burrell [01:04:06] I lost it. I'm sorry. It was a screen name.

John Dehlin [01:04:09] A huge thanks to Make Today Amazing for supporting the program.

Carah Burrell [01:04:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:04:14] Yeah. Anything else you wanted to share? I guess. Facebook also has a feature called Stars. So if any of you are on Facebook and you want to support this program, you can always do that through Stars. And that's just a way that we can kind of keep the lights on. It's just a way you can show support in addition to becoming a monthly donor. So I didn't want to just throw that at you. Care. Is there anything else or should we just jump back in?

Carah Burrell [01:04:40] I just wanted to read. I like Chris's comment that says, I was shocked how when I started to try and practice this, I had to carry a little notebook around to even recognize my emotions. Actually write down what made me happy, sad, or angry. And going back to what you were saying about being the noticer of your emotions, and if that's what you need to do to practice that. I think it's worthwhile.

John Dehlin [01:05:01] I love it. So that's a tip from Chris. Bring a notebook to, to write down the thoughts and the feelings that you're having. Like a little journal, like an emotion journal. That's a great tip, Chris. Thank you.

Carah Burrell [01:05:12] Yeah, I. And to add to that, I think on our phones, you know, I'll have like a notes app where I'll take notes of different things. Just yesterday I started taking my husband when I got home. Like I was saying, he was like, just destitute. Like, please, Carah, I need your help now. You know, and he was tired and I wanted to take a note of what his triggers were in the moment. I just. It's funny that we're having this conversation because it was just last night and unfortunately, I think too often we are the noticer of other people's emotions, not our own. And so I took down a little thing of like, like Aaron's triggers are when I work 12 hours a day and he is very tired, he does not have energy at the end.

Carah Burrell [01:05:49] I need to make a special note of that, like, you know, and to be the noticer of our own emotions first and how I can like be better observant of his boundaries. Apparently I shouldn't come home at 9am if he's watching this, I'm going to get in trouble. I wasn't actually working, Arian. I took a nap.

John Dehlin [01:06:03] A.m. or P.M?

Carah Burrell [01:06:05] you know, I came home at 9pm last night.

John Dehlin [01:06:06] Okay. P.m. you said a.m. okay.

Carah Burrell [01:06:07] I mean I worked from 9am to 9pm but it's because I took like a three hour nap on the couch back here. He did not know that. Now he will anyway. But yeah, I just wanted to add that like I think as human beings we're way too observant of other people's needing for correction and not our own. But what we can really measure is how we best show up.

De-escalating Distress and Connecting to Values

Margi Dehlin [01:06:26] So yeah, so the final two.

John Dehlin [01:06:29] So grounding's next. That's number four, right?

Margi Dehlin [01:06:32] Yeah. But I'm gonna kind of. Okay, I'm gonna make a little bit of an amendment, but trust me. But what I would just say, so the final two. And I wanted to say for many people it's good common for people to kind of struggle a little bit with creating space with emotions. I think for at least my clients, I feel like the noticing and the accepting are a little bit more straightforward. Sometimes that space and creating space can be tricky. And for those that find in this kind of self exploration process that it's tricky.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:06] Sometimes grounding helps with that. So that's the next step is some type of grounding short exercise you can do on the fly. So we're not talking about a yoga session, we're not talking about a full fledged. But what we are talking about are some like proven techniques research wise. So breath is the number one.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:27] So if you can kind of do breathe in, breathe out, you kind of want several cycles in the moment of that where you're, you know, really kind of trying to slow down the speed up. For me personally, I combine breath with a visual because I'm highly, I'm a very visual person. So for me, I slow my breath and I focus on kind of this fact as I breathe in that I'm a tree. I know it sounds probably really strange, but I love trees and so it works for me. So I visualize myself as a tree and when I breathe in, I visualize like my body is the trunk kind of goes up into branches and the air goes up through the tree and it goes down through the roots and it just helps the breath get me out of my head better.

Margi Dehlin [01:08:14] And then I visualize whatever's happening is this storm. But I'm a tree and I'm fixed and I'm solid and I'm grounded, right? And on some level, you know, when a storm comes for a tree, you're flexible enough, you kind of move, but there is no threat, there is no harm going on. So that really helps me get grounded. Those are a couple kind of quick techniques, but you can also kind of explore on your own. But breathing is a very popular one. A visual really helps for me and I really like grounding is a way of showing up for yourself in love and compassion when you're distressed.

Margi Dehlin [01:08:55] And this is important to me, like I can get choked up about it because I think oftentimes for many of us growing up, when we were distressed, when we felt negative emotions, when we voiced a sense of like a differentiation, a different opinion, we were abandoned, we were left alone, we were disciplined. Literally. Timeouts are like you're on your own, you're experiencing something and I don't want anything to do with it, right? So. And that's kind of where we come from. And so grounding is a way back to ourselves, where we're showing up for ourselves in a difficult moment and we do it with love and compassion.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:34] So grounding is for you and it's a way of showing up for yourself when you're distressed and trying to kind of emotionally regulate and Calm back down. Does that make sense?

John Dehlin [01:09:44] Beautiful.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:45] So that's the grounding stuff. And then I'm going to skip. Skip a step and bring it up later. Okay. So the last step, I would say, in this series is connecting to values, which we've talked a little bit about. And the values are going to be probably different situations.

John Dehlin [01:10:03] Five and six are values.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:04] Yeah. So I'm bringing up. I mean, you can do it if you want. I thought it would be complicating because I like steps to be really short.

John Dehlin [01:10:12] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:12] Like four or five steps for a brain versus six or seven steps. But yeah, we can talk about that because. So you're going to choose your respective values in the moment. So if you're talking with your husband, what are. Or you're noticing like Carah did. Oh, I'm noticing. Like I get, you know, I get triggered or reactive in this scenario. So it's a child. How do I want to show up? Which she did. She was like, I don't want to talk to my children in ways that, you know, ultimately I don't want. Yeah. What do you want to say?

John Dehlin [01:10:44] Oh, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I just. When you were ready, I had something.

Carah Burrell [01:10:48] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:10:49] When you were finishing your thought, I was going to add some.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:51] So connecting for your values in the moment. If you're with a child, what's important to you? What's important to you? When you're working with your children, what do you want them to feel? Is connection important? Do you want them to feel a sense of emotionally safe with you? Whatever it is, I want that to be your driver. I want that to be the thing that informs your choice, how, what you choose then from no matter what you're feeling, we're going to have you actually act. Act according to your values. So. And that may be different. Right. Because if you're talking to your husband, maybe the values there, according to your, you know, whatever your situation is, maybe it may look a little bit different than for your children.

Margi Dehlin [01:11:34] But being able to connect with whatever situations are coming up on a daily basis, what those values would be that you want to kind of inform whatever choices you're making.

John Dehlin [01:11:44] Yeah, so what I. Normally, when I talk about values, it's basically what are the most important things in your life that you value, getting really clear on those and realizing that those need to be kind of identified, prioritized, and. And then, you know, acted upon. So a value is not like, I don't have premarital sex. That's not a value. A value is not I don't drink beer. That's not a value. Right? A value is not.

John Dehlin [01:12:15] I wear modest clothing. None of those things are values. Yeah, a value is literally something you value. I value physical health. I value emotional health, mental health. I value fun. I value kindness. I value my marriage. I value my. I value being a good parent. So these are things that you value in your life. You need to be able to list them, rank them, because maybe you value financial security, but also maybe you value parenting most. So, like Karen, your situation, you are on your phone because you're trying to do your work, but it's. But you're home now and your kids come up to you and they've been missing you all week and they are wanting some connection time.

John Dehlin [01:13:05] Values would help you go, oh, my gosh, I'm feeling angry. I'm feeling angry that my kids are bugging me now. I'm going to be present in the moment and say, whoa, I don't want to be reactive. Wait, what are my values?

John Dehlin [01:13:18] I actually value being a parent as a higher value than sort of like doing this job that John asked me to do right now in this moment, when I've already worked 30 hours in the week. Values would help you say, time to put my phone down. Time to give my kids some attention or Aaron some attention or whatever. Because in this moment, you know, my marriage or my kids are more important to me than that extra task that I'm being given. So values provide you with direction and motivation. They help you know how you want to behave and in what direction you want to be moving.

John Dehlin [01:13:56] Values are never a destination, they're always a journey. You never arrive at being a great spouse or a great parent or being, you know, financially well off. You're always moving in the direction of any one of those values.

Margi Dehlin [01:14:10] Values.

John Dehlin [01:14:11] So that's my little introduction to values.

Margi Dehlin [01:14:13] Yes. And I think that makes a lot of sense for, like, life values, which can be very clarifying for people in rebuilding. I think it's really helpful, though, to go a level deeper for people to really think about. And I feel like Carah did a great job with an example of this.

Margi Dehlin [01:14:31] So, yes, we value parenting, but in your, you know, as you're looking at, however old your children are, what are the values day to day or things you want them to feel? And. And that's next level. So, for example, it may be like, we can do this together, John, like, what are our parenting values? Our parenting values, I'll say a couple, I think, are connection over control.

Margi Dehlin [01:14:59] That's a value. We want to connect with our kids, and we'll move and sacrifice control. And if it means we can connect with them. And I think we value being emotionally safe for our children. So no matter what they're going to kind of tell us. Right. We value them feeling safe with us. So our responses have to feel safe. Would you add any other values?

John Dehlin [01:15:24] Yeah, yeah. Like, there's a whole episode on the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis about conscious parenting, where we draw on the work of Shivali Sabari, her book Conscious Parent, or the Awakened Family, or Out of Control, where she helps us understand that connection is way more important than control and punishment. And so, yeah, so we've shifted our parenting from like, what's the rule? And what's. You broke my rule. You defied my. You were disobedient. I'm going to punish you. Frankly, that's the model we learned in Mormonism and in the church and we shifted to.

Margi Dehlin [01:15:59] And in our own families.

John Dehlin [01:16:00] Yeah. In our own families of origin. What we've shifted to with our kids is our biggest goal is that our kids feel comfortable telling us what they're thinking and feeling, that they feel intimacy and connection with us, because otherwise they just shut us off, ignore us, and want to lie to us. And we don't even know what's going on. So we measure being a successful parent by does our kid want to tell us what they're thinking and feeling? That's how we know we're. That's how we measure whether we're being connected parents versus punishing and controlling parents. And so those are our parenting values. Connection over control.

Margi Dehlin [01:16:37] And there's value in having values around. So parenting may be a value, but getting clear about what those values will look like in the day to day, what you want your children to kind of feel.

John Dehlin [01:16:50] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:16:52] I was just gonna add, if you don't mind expanding this to the further context that so many people are struggling with is I think, between EFT this weekend and a lot of conversations that I know you guys have on. Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis is about making people feel safe. If you are on different places of faith journeys between your believing family, believing spouse.

John Dehlin [01:17:12] Great. Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:17:13] And so we were. We were putting it in the context of parenting. Um, but even still, every relationship needs to have safety, and that. That's a higher priority than. I'm right. You're wrong. Going back to what you're talking about labeling. I'm the ex Mormon, you're the faithful Mormon, and we're never going to get along dismantling those Labels and putting safety as a high priority.

John Dehlin [01:17:33] Yeah, we're going to actually do a couple role plays in just a second where we talk about this. But you bring up such a crucial one. You know, you lose your faith. There's a part of you that wants to scream it to the world, to your spouse, to your parents, to your siblings, to your children.

John Dehlin [01:17:48] But what do you value? Do you value being right over having a healthy, strong relationship with all those people? If all those people are orthodox believers and you're shoving your newfound doubts and questions in their face, you may be historically right, but you may be damaging those relationships. And so, Carah, that's a great example of. In a faith crisis, when you're dealing in mixed faith environments across different scenarios, knowing I value a healthy marriage, a connection with my parents, my kids, trusting me, I value these friendships or my siblings. I value intimacy with them over, you know, me being their historical teacher and me forcing my new perspectives historically upon them.

John Dehlin [01:18:41] Having an understanding of those values can make all the difference in terms of how you act when you learn a new historical tidbit or feel triggered by some meme that somebody posts somewhere. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:18:53] And this is where I think life is brilliant, because where your suffering is, this is probably where you will look first. So if an example is like, you may have no. No problem with your parents, but the in laws are really problematic. So having a sort of set kind of thing for the grandparents may not work because they're really different. So being able to really just notice what's coming up in your life or notice if you're having frequent interactions in your marriage, then looking at your marriage and saying, you know, where can I grow and what do I want to offer? What are my values for the marriage? Do I want to apologize more easily? Do I want to listen more? Do. And. And really looking situation by situation and really intentionalizing and curtailing your approach and your values to meet where you're suffering and where you're really kind of feeling triggered and overwhelmed.

Carah Burrell [01:19:50] Yeah. And I'm gonna be a little bit of a weirdo because I. I make the sense of. I. I feel like I have a life hack in my brain where I just need to pretend things are like a movie or something to make my brain focus and do it. And as you're saying this, I don't want to start crying, Margi, because every time you're here, I start crying. But, like, in a real context in my life, that's really important because I think a lot of couples struggle with getting off of their phone and connecting throughout the day. And it's probably my husband's number one complaint about me is that I'm on my phone too much and.

Carah Burrell [01:20:20] And I feel like if somebody were to watch me, if there were aliens watching, trying to observe what are my highest values, they would think that me being on my phone is my highest value, that my connection with my husband is probably not my highest value. Like, that's. If somebody were a noticer of me, that's what they would have nothing else to conclude. You know what I mean? So I still, I think of things in those type of terms. If. If somebody else were to notice those things, I should be the first one to notice them as well. And if someone were to observe the situation and they were to categorize my values, I want to make sure for sure, like, I can.

Carah Burrell [01:20:54] I can. I can think to myself what my highest value is, but what am I actually projecting? What am I actually doing in. In real life? So no matter what, I could list on paper, I could discuss with my husband, but it doesn't mean crap unless it actually is coming to fruition, and it's being actually borne out with the way that I interact and stuff. So as you're just discussing this, I'm just realizing how much more like, you can talk a big game all you want about, but it doesn't really mean a lot unless you. Your relationships improve because you're putting these and implementing them and putting them into place.

Margi Dehlin [01:21:29] That's right. The values are there to drive your choices, to drive your behavior. And I'm so glad you mentioned that, actually, because it's really important when we do the values, let's say we're looking at our relationship with our spouse. We tend to, I think, with our programming, get aspirational really quick. It's kind of what we do at the first of the year with goals. Like, we have such a goal mindset

Carah Burrell [01:21:54] where it's like, well, I. I should

Margi Dehlin [01:21:55] be doing this and I should be doing. And I just. I just. That that is not a way to move forward. And so we have to be really clear about what feels. Honoring it means. I would. I want this for myself. I want to offer this. It's important to me because I want to create this. That's a really different place from, like, I'd really love it to look like this. And then it could be like this. And I know this couple over there, and I think we could. And that's not what I'm talking about. Get out of something sort of that aspirational. Goal setting mind and really kind of sink in to your needs and desires and like what would really feel honoring to you.

John Dehlin [01:22:36] Yeah. Because values are never shoulds. Like as members of the church, we were told what we should value and sometimes we did and sometimes we didn't. Sometimes we just went kind of went through the motions. But what we're talking about here is really developing self knowledge and choosing values that excite you, that gets you motivated, that you want to accomplish, not that you should accomplish because someone told you that you should be caring about these things.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:03] That's right. Should is no way to live. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:23:05] Don't stop shooting all over your face.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:07] We've done that long enough.

John Dehlin [01:23:10] All over.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:11] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:23:11] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:13] All right.

John Dehlin [01:23:13] Okay. So that's the overview.

Carah Burrell [01:23:19] Yeah.

Role Play Introduction and Parenting Scenarios

Margi Dehlin [01:23:19] So we're going to move into I think some examples now or a little bit of role playing. And again like the point of the role playing hopefully is to allow you to see language that what language is used and sort of the process in action. And I want to just be clear, it is not to relieve the suffering. So if we look at a tantruming child, we may not like our actions, may not stop the tantrum. It, it may make that more likely. But it's not to alleviate the circumstances. It's to not add a second arrow. So I just wanted to be clear about that. Yes.

John Dehlin [01:23:58] So we're going to talk about, we're going to role play three scenarios. Now we know you guys love role play. Leah Rowley, like that. Carah's talked about some role play, you know. No, I'm just joking.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:09] So who's Leah?

John Dehlin [01:24:10] Role Leah Young. I did some role playing with Leah.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:15] Oh, she was here.

John Dehlin [01:24:16] People really like that.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:17] I remember that.

John Dehlin [01:24:17] We do. Natasha and I have always done some

Margi Dehlin [01:24:20] role play in our notoriously bad at role play. But I'm, I'm gonna do my best here. I'm gonna really try and it's so

Carah Burrell [01:24:26] good for like exemplifying these, these good points and stuff. So I'm looking forward to this.

John Dehlin [01:24:32] So we're gonna do three scenarios. The first is a tantruming child who doesn't want to get ready for school care. I don't know if that's relevant to your life or not. You may even want to be the tantruming child in the, in the role play. Oh, that's going to be the first one. The second one is a teen who comes home late in their curfew. And then the third is going to be talking to a believing spouse about vulnerable subjects like elder Holland's talk. So those are going to be the three role plays that we do where we basically try to apply the six principles we just laid out to this scenario in kind of a role play. Does that make sense?

Carah Burrell [01:25:15] And maybe Carah like wants three free therapy and wants to ask her own at the end. I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:25:21] Yeah, or maybe listeners and viewers will have some issues or questions or topics. We have to end kind of at five today, but we'll see if we have time to entertain your questions or comments or scenarios as well.

Margi Dehlin [01:25:33] And I think we thought about doing a couple like one using the Act 3 strategy and then one, well, actually not using it first. Right. Doing kind of the reactive model first and then using it with the strategy. Is that right?

John Dehlin [01:25:49] Are we still in the role play? We'll first model a reactive non value centered approach and then we'll rewind and model a more value centered approach. And so one of us is going to be kind of the, the parent or the adult and the other is going to be the kid or the teen or in this case the believing spouse for the, for the third scenario. Does that make sense?

Margi Dehlin [01:26:14] Yes. And when we do use the act model, are we trying to show the steps or just be in the moment?

John Dehlin [01:26:22] We'll refer to them but try and stay in role play mode as much as possible.

Margi Dehlin [01:26:28] Okay?

John Dehlin [01:26:29] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:26:29] All right, we'll give it a go.

John Dehlin [01:26:30] Okay, so what's the first scenario? In the first scenario we've got a parent and a tantruming child. Margi, you're going to play the role of the parent.

Carah Burrell [01:26:40] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:26:41] And I don't know, Carah, if you feel like playing the, if you feel close enough to your children to play the role of the tantrum child or

Carah Burrell [01:26:48] if you want role I was born to play baby. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:26:51] So you want to be the tantruming child.

Carah Burrell [01:26:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:26:53] Okay. Just don't be too hard on Margi.

Margi Dehlin [01:26:55] So how old, like should we do reasoning or not reasoning child? Are we doing like a five to seven year old? Are we doing really young? Let's do five like a five year old. So reasoning and emotions are in there. Okay.

Carah Burrell [01:27:08] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:27:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:27:09] And you're in trouble, Margi, because Carah has special words for her own children.

Carah Burrell [01:27:14] Speaking of labeling that I shouldn't label them.

John Dehlin [01:27:17] If she's channeling her own children, they're going to be a little challenging according to Carah. Beautiful, wonderful children and, and so emotional,

Carah Burrell [01:27:26] so difficult, so non reasonable.

Margi Dehlin [01:27:29] So the first time we go through it's just reacting, right?

John Dehlin [01:27:32] Well, you're gonna. Yeah, you're you're there. You're gonna be in a scenario. Care's gonna react. You're gonna. I'm gonna suboptimally react.

Margi Dehlin [01:27:39] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:27:40] She's gonna feed off that to show how that probably isn't gonna.

Margi Dehlin [01:27:43] So this is. This is very normative.

John Dehlin [01:27:45] And then we'll back up and. And. And try it more. And this is all. This is all fun and experimental.

Carah Burrell [01:27:50] Should I do my daughter's speech impediment too, or. No.

John Dehlin [01:27:52] Whatever you want. Yeah, whatever you want. Okay, so, Margi, you're. You're at the grocery store or. No, no, Getting ready for school. So it's the morning.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:00] Leaving. We're trying to leave. And I'm trying to get you out the door. Okay.

Carah Burrell [01:28:05] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:05] Okay. Make you have a name. What's your name?

Carah Burrell [01:28:10] My own daughter's name. Oh. All right.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:12] Care. All right, Come on, Carah. It's time to go. We gotta go.

Carah Burrell [01:28:16] No, but I don't have the shirt that I want to wear because my sister's wearing the shirt. I want to wear that shirt.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:20] Okay? We. We can't do this right now. Like, we're late already.

Carah Burrell [01:28:23] No, she has a shirt that I want. I'm not leaving because she has the cool glitter one on it. I want a glitter shirt.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:28] You can wear that one tomorrow. We're going.

Carah Burrell [01:28:30] No, I need the glitter shirt. If I don't have the glitter shirt,

Margi Dehlin [01:28:32] I won't look good. Okay? And now I would probably bodily, like, help her out the door and get her in the car and I'm screaming.

John Dehlin [01:28:40] So pretend like you're doing that. Screaming. Screaming, like, just act it out.

Carah Burrell [01:28:45] Okay. Come on.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:46] All right, now we're going.

John Dehlin [01:28:48] And you're grabbing her.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:49] Okay, we've gotta go.

John Dehlin [01:28:50] She's doing what?

Carah Burrell [01:28:51] And I'm just screaming my head.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:52] Shut the door. And I get in the. I'm not gonna drive.

John Dehlin [01:28:56] I think we all and just doesn't

Carah Burrell [01:28:59] stop screaming until I make some type of, like, deal or something.

Margi Dehlin [01:29:03] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:29:03] It'll be like, bribe them or.

Carah Burrell [01:29:05] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:29:06] Okay. So we all know what kind of the child meltdown is. Okay.

Margi Dehlin [01:29:09] And maybe in the car you're like, we'll get. You can wear tomorrow. We'll let you wear tomorrow. You can wear tomorrow. I'll find it and we'll put it out. And you're kind of, like, trying to kind of make it better on the way.

John Dehlin [01:29:18] Okay.

Carah Burrell [01:29:18] Yeah, that's still a pretty good reaction to be.

John Dehlin [01:29:21] Yeah, you didn't. Yeah, yeah, we didn't have enough anger and screaming. And shouting. Should I do another physical abuse? No, it's okay. But people get the picture.

Margi Dehlin [01:29:27] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:29:28] Okay. But Margi, go ahead and pull your paper out if you want. You want to follow the steps. Don't feel like you can't. You know, we want to.

Margi Dehlin [01:29:35] They're not going to be able to see me, like, grounding or. But do I show that?

John Dehlin [01:29:38] Just talk it through.

Margi Dehlin [01:29:39] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:29:39] You know, just do your best, but just feel free to use a paper to guide you. Okay, let's do that again. So we're going to rewind now and we're going to have the same scenario with Margi working to be a more mindful parent. Okay. Okay. And Carrie, you can still react, but maybe we can just see if your reaction might change a little bit based on how Margi responds.

Carah Burrell [01:30:02] Okay?

John Dehlin [01:30:02] Okay. Okay.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:03] Okay. Come on, Carah, it's time to go. We gotta go.

Carah Burrell [01:30:05] I haven't picked out my shirt for today. I want to wear the one with the glitter on it.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:09] Oh, I'm sorry. It's really time to go, though.

Carah Burrell [01:30:11] But the one with the glitter on it, if I'm not wearing the one with the glitter on it.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:14] I don't want this one.

Carah Burrell [01:30:15] I wore this one yesterday.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:16] So I'm going to pause and notice I'm starting to feel stressed because we're late. I'm feeling overwhelmed. I've got a lot of incoming stimuli from a child that keeps talking, right?

Carah Burrell [01:30:26] There's screaming going on.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:27] I'm going to notice my own heart rate, the fact that I'm feeling really stressed and panicked and things are starting to kind of heat up for me. Right? And so at that point, I'm going to accept in my brain, I'm going to look at like, okay, I might even say to you.

John Dehlin [01:30:46] You can even narrate your brain.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:48] Okay. So I most likely would be like, this is happening right now.

John Dehlin [01:30:52] And I might even talk into the mic, just.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:54] I might even say it, like, to you, like. Okay, let's just take a second. Come here. Let's sit down for a minute. All right. What's going on?

Carah Burrell [01:31:01] I don't have. I want to wear the shirt. I'm not wearing the glitter shirt. That goes up and down.

Margi Dehlin [01:31:07] Okay, now I'm quiet enough. I'm accepting this is happening. I'm gonna. I'm probably gonna be a little bit late, but I have a child. I love having a problem in front of me. That's. That means something to them. May not mean a lot to me, but it means a lot to them. And so I'm Going to take some deep breaths, and I'm going to remember, you know, that I'm solid and I'm okay, and I'm feeling overwhelmed right now.

John Dehlin [01:31:32] And maybe it won't be the end of the world if you're a couple minutes late or even 10 minutes late or even 30 minutes.

Margi Dehlin [01:31:38] But I'm going to take some deep breaths, and I'm going to feel a little bit calmer. Right. And I might actually, during this, when I'm taking breaths, get down to your level and look at you in the eye and maybe take your hand and touch you.

John Dehlin [01:31:51] So kind of model that. Act that out.

Margi Dehlin [01:31:57] Right, Right. So I'm going to touch you, and I'm going to reach out, and this is going to be a bit of emotional connection, which is also going to soothe me, and it may soothe you. And at that point, I might do it. Okay. And I can even say, what do you want to breathe with me? Breathe with mom for a minute. Okay. So I can tell you're stressed. What are you feeling right now?

Carah Burrell [01:32:18] Everybody is so mean to me, and I didn't get to pick the shirt, and I never get a picture that I want to wear, and I'm always in trouble, and I am just really sad. And I also am really, really, really, really bad.

Margi Dehlin [01:32:42] Thank you for sharing your feelings with me. That feels sad. That would be sad for me, too. So right now you want to find this shirt? What shirt do you want to wear?

Carah Burrell [01:32:54] My sister's wearing it. I want her to take off that shirt, and I want to wear that one.

Margi Dehlin [01:32:59] Because you love it. You love the shirt. Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:33:02] It's got the sparkles that go up and down.

Margi Dehlin [01:33:05] I want you to be able to wear this shirt. I don't think I can take it off your sister's body to have you wear, because I think that probably would hurt her feelings. I wonder. Oh, I wonder if, you know, on. I don't know if they're.

Carah Burrell [01:33:26] She's a lot bigger or could wear

Margi Dehlin [01:33:28] it or that's a whole other thing. But I would say I. I really hear what you're feeling and wanting to wear that shirt, and I'm not sure I can do that for you today, but that's something that I hear and feels hard and can. Is there a way that we could kind of make it better? Is there another shirt that you would feel better about that's sparkly like hers, or that would make you kind of feel special that we could pick out real quick before we go? Because I would love you to love the shirt. You're wearing today.

Carah Burrell [01:33:56] Will you play the game with me where you put it on really fast and I get to speed it up or slow it down and I get to tell you how fast or slow to put it on?

Margi Dehlin [01:34:06] I would love to play that game with you. Let's go do it real quick. Can we? Yeah. So something to notice about that is it slows way down. Like I felt much slower and I had to resist kind of wanting to fix it, which is a total part of my personality where it's like, let's get you a shirt like your sisters real quick. Yeah, right. Which is not the point. The point is just to kind of stay where you're connecting with the feeling and you share the feeling. And it's like, I really understand why it would feel that way. And what can we do so that you feel special?

Margi Dehlin [01:34:39] Do you have a shirt like that? Could we try another shirt? How can I help you? And actually, five year olds are amazing at answering oftentimes. How can I help you? How can I show up for you? What do you need? And then we have a child. You were amazing at sharing your feelings. So that's an amazing five year old that can say, I'm sad about this, I'm upset about this, I'm. And you just want to validate the fact all those feelings, I get that.

Margi Dehlin [01:35:06] And then from there, if you can get a child to tell you what they need, that's golden. Then you're raising someone who has their own voice and can voice that in their relationships. Here's what I need. And it becomes just. Yeah, yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:35:19] I think that's really interesting that you said that you're not trying to fix it because that is. That's the most difficult thing. That's what your job is as a mom, is to fix it. Problem, fix it, probably fix it. But if your higher value is not being there on time, that's a fix it type of problem solving situation. Your higher value is your child feeling safe enough to connect, to actually tell you what the problem is.

Margi Dehlin [01:35:39] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:35:39] Because it's coming out as a tantrum. But there's going to be something else underneath there and maybe it's a lack of connection.

John Dehlin [01:35:44] One other downside of trying to fix everything as a parent is that you never allow your kids to develop their own skills at emotion regulation. Sometimes kids have to deal with being sad or being angry, disappointed or being disappointed or not getting their way. If you always fix everything, they literally don't develop the skills to regulate their own emotions, to sit with their own Sadness or anger or disappointment and frustration. And that's one of the reasons why you don't want to fix everything as a parent.

Carah Burrell [01:36:13] Yeah. And I think as adults, we are so quick to jump to the logic of like, okay, little kid, I know that you're six years old, but I, I, I fall into this trap all the time where I'm trying to talk to my kids like, as if they understand logic. And I did a. Nicholeen Peck has this great program called Teaching Self Government that I did with my husband a while ago. And one of the most helpful things that I learned in that program was she just described the difference between once your child goes into the emotional state, talking logic to them is like talking Russian to them. You know, it's like humans.

John Dehlin [01:36:40] True. That's true for humans.

Carah Burrell [01:36:41] Yeah, humans. Yeah, exactly. Or adults.

John Dehlin [01:36:43] That's true for adults.

Carah Burrell [01:36:44] Logic. When my mom's emotional, talking about the church, whatever it is, I'm trying to talk logic. I'm staying calm. If I can tell she's gone to an emotional place, pretty much conversations over from there, and, and there's no logic to be found. So I find that really that's probably the most helpful thing is you're going to want to fix it. You're going to want to say, logically speaking, this shirt right here is the same, or logically speaking, we're going to be late and that's going to be bad or whatever. But if they've already gone to that emotional place, it's it, we have to be smarter. Again, back to the modeling. We have to be smart enough to like, then not get emotional, to then not go to a place where we're thinking just, we're not thinking smart, we're thinking.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:22] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:37:22] And implementing the things that you just mentioned.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:25] Yes. So the values, I didn't mention the values that I connected to in the moment, and I probably should have, but the values that I implemented there were emotional connection, which I hope that came through this idea of, I'm going to lean into your emotional connection. I'm not going to lean away or punish you or leave you alone. So I'm going to lean in and provide emotional connection. I want to validate your feelings because they're important. Right. So I'm going to say, I understand that. I could see that. I would feel that way too. And then there comes like a sense of kind of showing up, how can I help you? What can I do? Right. And, and that on some level is like telling a child you're in it with them.

Carah Burrell [01:38:07] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:38:07] Yeah, right. They're not alone in kind of figure it out. I'm going to stuff you in a van and you're going to arrive at school and be left with whatever that was. It's like, hey, we can do this together. And by doing it together we're going to rewire and you're going to become more creative and you're going to be resourceful to solve some of these issues for yourself when they come up.

Carah Burrell [01:38:25] Yeah. And I just wanted to read a couple comments that just came in. $50 from. I can't pronounce that. I'm sorry, I'm terrible. But they said I needed this so much today. Thank you all for your insights and wisdom. I am feeling so much more prepared for the tumult that I'm sorry about it. Pronouncing words on the spot. Tumult that my life is at. At the moment. Much thanks. Hearty heart, heart, heart, heart.

John Dehlin [01:38:51] That's Emerzella Immerselia am Roselia.

Carah Burrell [01:38:54] Sorry. Another 15 from all kinds of adventure. Thanks for the super chats, you guys. And everyone's just saying how this is helping them understand how to be a better mother. And yeah, these are.

John Dehlin [01:39:07] I like Donnell's comment. He says this helps me understand how to better mother myself.

Margi Dehlin [01:39:13] That's a really interesting.

Carah Burrell [01:39:14] That's.

Margi Dehlin [01:39:14] Oh, I love that point.

John Dehlin [01:39:15] Perspective, Donnell. Thank you for that. Okay, so I loved. That was a great role play. That was the first one. Good job, Carah. Good job, Margi. I loved how you practiced noticing what you're feeling, accepting your feelings in the situation you were in, holding your thoughts and feelings and your stories loosely. Grounding yourself, Margi, and then getting in touch with your.

Margi Dehlin [01:39:40] You can bring your child into grounding.

John Dehlin [01:39:42] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:39:42] And that can be helpful. Like breathe together.

John Dehlin [01:39:46] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [01:39:46] Yeah. Co regulation.

John Dehlin [01:39:47] And then acting according to your values. So let's try it again with scenario two. Carah, do you want to be a teen or Margi, do you want to be the teen? Do you want to be a teen? Okay.

Role Playing Teen Curfew Conversations

Carah Burrell [01:39:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:58] Okay. So this is the scenario. Now I'm going to play the dad who's strict and stern about curfews. The curfew is midnight and teen Carah is now arriving at 12:30. She had some change in plans with her friends. She decided to go somewhere else. She didn't text and let us know. It was actually in this case, not a super unhealthy decision. It was just like things went long. They changed some plans. She didn't let me know and she came home 30 minutes late and we're going to start with me sort of being a reactive, stern parent, and I'm going to kind of lay it down. Is that all right, Carrie?

Carah Burrell [01:40:39] Yeah. Yeah. I was such a good teen, though. This is like so hard for me to act out. I'm going to get out my phone too, because I have to like, really play the part.

John Dehlin [01:40:47] So you come home. I'm. I'm waiting up for you. So here's my stern face waiting up. You walk in the door.

Carah Burrell [01:40:55] Hey, dad, I'm home.

John Dehlin [01:40:58] Hey, can you please come here and sit down? Please?

Carah Burrell [01:41:02] Actually, I have. I have to go respond to like this email from school right now. I have to go do something.

John Dehlin [01:41:06] I need you to come sit down. This is important. Sit down.

Carah Burrell [01:41:11] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:41:13] Okay. So do you remember our agreement on what time you're supposed to be home?

Carah Burrell [01:41:19] Like, I don't know, 12, 12 to 1 or something.

John Dehlin [01:41:22] You know, it's 12. We've talked about this a million times. What time is it right now?

Carah Burrell [01:41:28] I don't know. I don't have my phone on me.

John Dehlin [01:41:30] What time is it? You're holding your phone right now. What time is it?

Carah Burrell [01:41:34] 12:35.

John Dehlin [01:41:36] All right, so you're late. So. So like, why in the world were you not home on time?

Carah Burrell [01:41:44] Like, we started the movie a little bit late and we had to run out and get snacks first.

John Dehlin [01:41:49] Hey, wait, but. But we've already established this.

Carah Burrell [01:41:52] It's like 35 minutes. It's 35.

John Dehlin [01:41:54] Yeah, but we established this. 12 o' clock is the curfew. You're not.

Carah Burrell [01:41:58] I could be out doing so many worse things right now. And I was watching Princess Bride with my friends. Yeah, but come on.

John Dehlin [01:42:04] It's a. It's a matter of integrity. It's. Honestly. We made an agreement.

Carah Burrell [01:42:09] Okay, but that was an agreement you told me to make. I don't want to make that agreement. I think my curfew should be one.

John Dehlin [01:42:14] Listen, you broke the rules. This is serious. This could affect your life in the future.

Carah Burrell [01:42:20] I don't even have time for this right now. I actually.

John Dehlin [01:42:22] Give me your. Right now. Give me your phone right now. I'm taking your phone away. You are grounded from your phone.

Carah Burrell [01:42:29] Are you kidding me?

John Dehlin [01:42:30] I. Give me. Give me your phone right now. Give me your phone.

Carah Burrell [01:42:33] I'm getting. Mom, Mom, Mom. Dad's yelling at me.

Margi Dehlin [01:42:36] John gets up and takes the phone out of the teens hands.

John Dehlin [01:42:41] This is not a real thing. That actually has happened in our past. Anything else, Carah?

Carah Burrell [01:42:48] My mom did take my phone once and she hid it in her garment drawer, so.

John Dehlin [01:42:52] Okay, Carah, how Are you feeling channeling your teen self in that conversation?

Carah Burrell [01:42:57] Well, for one, I felt, like, powerless. But you also try to front, like you're not powerless. And that's obviously. That's Teenage Life 101, that you're just pushing your boundaries.

John Dehlin [01:43:06] And then how did you feel about me as I was acting, how I was acting?

Carah Burrell [01:43:10] I feel like you just don't get me and you don't understand that, like, my friends are a really good priority. And I'm sorry that, like, I don't, like, check in with you every two seconds. About what? My plans are changing, dad. Like, I'm playing with my friend. I'm hanging out with my friends. Like, I'm not always thinking about, like, every minute that I'm not home.

John Dehlin [01:43:27] And your level of like. Or love or lack thereof for me, connection. What. What was our. How are we doing on.

Carah Burrell [01:43:34] You're, like, annoying as AF and I can't wait to go to college, and I don't even have to check in with you ever again.

John Dehlin [01:43:41] Okay, so that's not. That's not the way to handle it. Right? So let's back up. Let's do the same scenario, but let's try to do it with. With these. These steps involved. Okay, so I'm gonna start. I'm gonna start a little bit out of order because, okay, It's. It's. It's 1210, it's 1215, it's 1230, and she's late, and I know it. And I'm the parent there sitting there. For me, this kicks into play before she ever arrives. Does that sound right?

Margi Dehlin [01:44:17] That's such a good point.

John Dehlin [01:44:18] Yeah. Because I'm sitting there and I'm noticing that I'm getting angry. I'm noticing that I'm looking at the clock. I'm noticing that I'm getting pissed off. I want to text her or call her and yell at her. And if I'm being a mindful parent, that's where the work begins. And I say, oh, I'm feeling my heart beat. I'm feeling my blood pressure increase. I know I'm about. I'm pulling out my phone. I'm starting to text something severe and mean. I don't want to be that way. And, oh, now I know she's about to come in and she's about to, you know, we're about to have a conflict.

John Dehlin [01:44:54] So let me start by grounding myself. I'm going to take deep breaths. I'm going to be aware of how I am. And when I come in, I'M going to be super calm and loving. And a lot of this work is before she even enters the room. Because I also want to get in touch with my values. Okay. I know she's safe. I hear her coming in the front door. What are my values? What do I care about most?

John Dehlin [01:45:19] I'm glad that she's safe, and I want to have a good connection with her. So as she comes in the room and as I'm wanting to scream, I'm going to get calm. I'm going to be centered, and I'm going to. I'm going to act in a way that's grounded in my values of being glad she's safe and that I want to maintain healthy connection. So let's. So now, Carrie, you walk in the door.

Carah Burrell [01:45:46] Hey, dad, I'm home.

Margi Dehlin [01:45:48] Hey.

John Dehlin [01:45:50] Hey, come here. Can we. Can I have five minutes? Can I just have five quick minutes?

Carah Burrell [01:45:55] I have to actually go do something for school right now, so I.

John Dehlin [01:45:57] Listen, can I just. If it's okay, just. Can I just sit down for just one second? Okay. And I promise this will be fast.

Carah Burrell [01:46:03] One second.

John Dehlin [01:46:04] I just. Okay. What?

Carah Burrell [01:46:06] I'm just agreeing. Okay. You got one second, dad.

John Dehlin [01:46:08] Okay. Okay. I just want to say I'm so glad you're home. You were a little bit late. I was worried about you. I love you, and it's 30 minutes past our curfew. I'm sure there's a good reason, but I just want you to know that I'm so glad you're safe. Did you have a good time? Tell me. Will you just share with me just a minute about. Did you have a good time? What'd you do?

Carah Burrell [01:46:27] Yeah, we actually watched Princess Bride, and we rewound the part where it's just like a cardboard stand up 15 times. And, like, I knew that we were going to be home at, like, midnight, but we were just laughing, having so much fun. Yeah. And, like, Sarah brought her boyfriend, too, and they're really cute together, and I'm. I think that he is really good for her. And I can't wait to, like, show you all the cool pictures that I'm going to post on Instagram later.

John Dehlin [01:46:51] Oh, I'm just. I'm so glad you're home. I'm so glad you had a good time, and I love you. Thanks for coming in. Hey, listen, is it okay? It is. It is past the curfew. It's not a big deal. Let's talk about it tomorrow. Just kind of. It's probably best you just get to bed. I'm Glad you're home. Have a good night. I love you. Glad you're home. And. And we'll. We'll talk tomorrow. Is that okay? Is that all right?

Carah Burrell [01:47:19] Okay. Yeah. Thanks, dad.

John Dehlin [01:47:21] Okay, so now. Now she goes to bed. This is at the market I talked about ahead of time. Why would you want to discuss curfew or issues around the curfew right before bed? She's home. You know, she's safe. You don't want to be in the moment and you don't want to risk a conflict right before bed. You probably won't sleep as well. She won't sleep as well. So one of the things Margi and I decided is in this scenario, we're going to have the conversation about curfew the next day when you're more calm, when they're more calm and there's no need to do it right before bed. So fast forward now. We're the next day. We've been more mindful, and it's. It's. It's, you know, the afternoon after school. Hey. Hey, care. Sweetie, can I talk to you just for a couple minutes?

Carah Burrell [01:48:05] Yeah. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:48:06] Okay. Hey, listen, you and I agreed that you'd be home at midnight, and I was really worried about you. I didn't want to make a big deal about this last night. Can you just tell me? I know that you value your word. Usually you're home on time, and so can. Can you just tell me what happened, just so that I can understand?

Carah Burrell [01:48:28] Yeah, like, we were just watching and, like, re. Watching parts of the movie, and we had to run out and get snacks and stuff, and we just ended up talking a little bit later than I thought we were going to. I'm sorry.

John Dehlin [01:48:40] Okay. Thank you. Thank you for apologizing. Thanks for letting me know. What can we do? What do you think we can do if this happens again? Just because I was sad, I was afraid. I was worried that something might have happened. Were you in a wreck? And I was just starting to feel sad, and. So is there anything we can do if this happens in the future so that I won't be there, sad, wondering what's going on and kind of worrying about you?

Carah Burrell [01:49:10] Do you want me to just call you if I'm gonna be late? Like, I don't know. Do you want me, like, set a timer on my phone for midnight? And I can't always promise that I'm gonna, like, be done. Exactly. But I guess I can just, like, keep you updated. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:49:24] Would it be all right if, like, even if, you know, you're looking like it's likely you're gonna be late. So Even if it's 15 or 30 minutes before, can you kind of try and remember that and let me know ahead of time? Maybe let me know what you guys are doing so that if you're going to be late, I can know that you're safe and I can just not. Not be super worried. Would that be all right?

Carah Burrell [01:49:44] Yeah, but, like, there's really nothing to be worried about.

John Dehlin [01:49:48] Why?

Carah Burrell [01:49:49] Because, like, we. We're not doing anything bad. So is it, like, really important to you that I'm, like, right there at midnight every single time?

John Dehlin [01:49:58] I know. I know you. I know you're, like. I know you're just having fun, and I. I know you are smart and make good decisions. So. So, yeah, like, we'll have it. We'll.

Margi Dehlin [01:50:07] We'll.

John Dehlin [01:50:08] We'll be in touch. I do believe curfew is important for a lot of reasons we've talked about. It's mostly about your safety. There's drunk drivers out. There's people that sometimes wish you ill. So I do feel like a curfew is important. But, yes, I want to be flexible when you're safe and. And yes, if you'll agree to kind of let me know and communicate when things are going to be different, we can have some flexibility there so that I'm not worried and so that you're safe and that you can have a good time if, you know, if. If there's some extenuating circumstances. How does that sound?

Carah Burrell [01:50:39] Okay. And, yeah, I'm sorry that I didn't tell you earlier, and I know you have to get up early for work, so I'm sorry.

John Dehlin [01:50:46] All right. I love you, sweetie. Have a good day. Thanks so much. You're the best.

Carah Burrell [01:50:50] Love you, papa.

John Dehlin [01:50:51] Okay. All right, Margi, what's your assessment? Anything you want to add, change, or amend to that?

Margi Dehlin [01:50:57] Oh, I'm curious. What values you. You commented there.

John Dehlin [01:51:00] So the values. Connection over control, connection over punishment. Like. Like emotional connection. I was being vulnerable, so I, you know, I believe that intimacy, emotional intimacy is what we want in all our relationships. So I need to model that if I want to get it. So me dropping into not anger, but what was underneath the anger, which was me recognizing my fear.

John Dehlin [01:51:28] Hey, everyone, it's John. I am super sorry for that. For that problem. Carah had a technical glitch on her laptop, and she is rebooting her laptop now. We'll make sure that we use a better computer next time. And hopefully. Can you guys just really quickly comment and make sure that you guys can hear what I'm saying. And what we'll do is get CARE rebooted and we'll just continue this episode right now with. With this camera and this microphone if we can.

John Dehlin [01:52:05] So, okay, so they're saying that it's back. And so. All right, so, Margi, what were you going to say while CARE is getting the computer rebooted? What were you going to say?

Margi Dehlin [01:52:22] Well, I was curious about the values.

Carah Burrell [01:52:24] So you.

Margi Dehlin [01:52:24] Did they hear that part? The values that you go ahead and

John Dehlin [01:52:27] just pretend they didn't.

Margi Dehlin [01:52:28] But they did.

John Dehlin [01:52:29] Did not.

Margi Dehlin [01:52:30] That they did not. So tell. Well, I was going to tell you. Tell me the values that you.

John Dehlin [01:52:35] Okay, flip it around. Okay, so the values. The values that I was caring about in the moment were, most importantly, connection, emotional connection. But also, as I was saying when it all canceled out, is vulnerability. Like, we all know that in relationships we want a healthy emotional intimacy. And we know that healthy emotional intimacy, sort of vulnerability, Personal vulnerability is a requirement. Requirement for emotional intimacy. So to explain what that kind of means is when I. When I act like I'm perfect and I'm strong and everything's good, you may not really feel emotionally connected to me. You may not really feel like I'm someone you trust, I'm someone you want to connect with.

John Dehlin [01:53:27] You may not feel like that's really compelling or interesting to you. Whereas if I act emotionally connected, where I say I'm sad, I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling disappointed, I'm feeling sad or frustrated, that helps you connect with me in a way where if you want to bring me my laptop, I can just boot mine up.

Carah Burrell [01:53:51] Yeah, I have wondered if it's a charging issue. Hold on one second.

John Dehlin [01:53:55] So if I show emotional vulnerability, that's a way to connect, to emotionally connect with my kid. And so in that. In that conversation with Carah, I dropped into. I was afraid. I was afraid that you were hurt. I was afraid that you were sad. And. And that helps her connect with my emotions instead of being just super defensive and creating the backfire effect. So some of my values were emotion, emotional connection, vulnerability and empathy. Showing empathy for her situation and not having control, not creating the backfire effect. And. Yeah. And just wanting her to be a happy, healthy kid at the end of the day. Margi, is there anything you want to add to that?

Margi Dehlin [01:54:44] Yes, and just talk for a second. You did such a good job, by the way. You should have, like an award or something. But one thing that I noticed about. There were a couple. Couple things I noticed about what you did. And a couple things to note is just, you know, oftentimes I think there's a tendency to hold our children to maybe a bit of a different standard or treat them in a way that like if we were treated that way we wouldn't love it. So you know, something to consider is how often they're late for curfew and if it's a one time thing, do we, you know, to what extent extent we want to really blow that up versus just kind of ask what happened and show a bit of understanding because that happens to us quite a bit too.

Margi Dehlin [01:55:27] And so there's a level of kind of humanness and just kind of putting ourselves in our children's shoes or our teen shoes can be helpful. And then yeah, I really, I just appreciated kind of how you worked it through as well. One thing I would say also about you know, when you're going to go to sleep, you know, not talking about kind of those also we're oftentimes not our best that late at night. So we're not really, you know, in our wise kind of good energy place. We may be tired, we may be and so we're. Timing is actually an important thing to consider in relationships and it'll come up for our last kind of example as well.

John Dehlin [01:56:13] You can hang up with that now and we've got you back. So now you can just talk normally.

Margi Dehlin [01:56:23] Okay. Yeah, I was just bringing up the idea of timing. Right. So late at night versus the next day when you've had a good night rest. Good night's rest. And so I loved that you, you kind of implemented that as well. And we'll bring it into our last best example as well.

John Dehlin [01:56:38] Yeah, and we, we apologize to our, our viewers and listeners for that glitch. We'll make a note in the edits to, to try and fix that a little bit. But we're sorry for that disruption. We're getting our systems perfect for this sort of multi stream live event.

Carah Burrell [01:56:54] I honestly think it comes down to we probably bought a charger from China that wasn't brand name or something and

John Dehlin [01:57:01] wasn't a good charger.

Carah Burrell [01:57:02] I don't know. Literally just made my laptop out of nowhere. Just I don't know what happened. Sorry guys.

John Dehlin [01:57:08] Thanks for your patience and we'll go, we'll go ahead and go to the last scenario. Hopefully that scenario was helpful. Carah, really quickly, how was that for you as a teen that, that second. Do you, do you just mind sharing really quickly just your emotion around.

Carah Burrell [01:57:23] Yeah, I like how you, you Added there at the end about, you know, you were putting your highest values and your highest priorities and at the forefront of your mind when it's easy to go emotional and think about yourself and that you want to be committed to keeping the world. Yeah. And that there, there's obviously that's a good value to have is like, you know, your house has structure and values to it, but those structure and values honestly can never be implemented if the child doesn't feel love and connection in the first place. So that's something that can be built upon. So as a child it feels like it could go, it could go south too.

Carah Burrell [01:57:57] It could also make you feel like, oh, my dad, he's kind of like a doormat. So maybe you can speak to how to make sure that the child is actually feeling connection and not like I can just take advantage of like, you know, there's, there's strict commitments. It sounded like you said, okay, next, tomorrow we're going to have to talk about what we need to put in place so that this doesn't happen again. So the child knows that there's love there, but that's not something they can push around necessarily.

John Dehlin [01:58:20] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:58:20] So.

John Dehlin [01:58:20] And Shivali Sabari talks a lot about healthy limits.

Margi Dehlin [01:58:24] They're called, they're, she kind of refers to them as enlightened boundaries.

John Dehlin [01:58:28] Right. So you do have to have boundaries. It's not anything goes. But at the same time, if you are, if, you know, I learned kind of the patriarchal rules and punishment sort of model and that just breeds resentment and, and opposition. It teaches kids to lie, it teaches kids to hide things from you. It teaches kids to resent you and sometimes it encourages rebellion. And so, and so that's, you know, not what I want. So you want to find a way to maintain the emotional connection. Treat them like they are kids who want to behave. Treat them like they're kids who want to do what's right, treat them that it's okay to be reasonable and flexible as a parent, that their health and well being and fun is just as important as the rule.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:16] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:59:17] And, and just, and it's hard, it's painful, it's difficult. But it's worth the extra effort to maintain that connection because what you don't want is the kid to get in danger or to be in trouble and they lie to you or hide things and get themselves in more danger because they didn't feel comfortable coming to you when something was going on. Is that right?

Margi Dehlin [01:59:38] That's right. And I would just add if you Notice in any area you're having repeated. So this isn't a one time thing, but you start having curfew issues of, you know, chronic lateness, or. Then that, of course, would be more of a conversation, like a deeper conversation where you're going to connect with them about kind of what's going on, what they're feeling, what they're resisting with the. And trying to see if, you know, either you can come to an understanding or share your feelings or have kind of a different way of going about it or. But the extent to which you can allow the teen to feel like their feelings matter and that they have a buy in to their own life, it tends to work better than you kind of just giving ongoing requests and commands. That makes sense.

Navigating Mixed-Faith Marriage Tensions

John Dehlin [02:00:32] Okay, we're kind of running up at our time limit, but we've got one more scenario, so let's. Can we try and do it kind of quickly? Is that all right?

Margi Dehlin [02:00:40] Sure.

John Dehlin [02:00:40] Okay. What's this scenario, Margi?

Margi Dehlin [02:00:43] So we decided to do a marriage scenario, and I think the one we chose was a mixed faith marriage scenario where staying in the relationship is the value. So you want to stay connected and committed in this mixed faith marriage relationship. And that's important because I think depending on different people, different issues can be have, you know, different value or weight. So we're giving that as kind of a clarifier before we begin.

John Dehlin [02:01:18] So the scenario is Elder Holland gives his talk last week that, you know, many perceive as being hostile to LGBTQ people. You, Margi, are playing the non believing Mormon spouse who is a mama dragon and fiercely defensive of her LGBT kids or family members. You're angry and upset at Holland, and I'm your male believing spouse who you want to unload on, at least in the first scenario. Is that right? Yep. Okay, so you read the talk. I walk into the room and let me have it in the bad scenario.

Margi Dehlin [02:01:58] Did you hear? Did you. Have you read it? Have you seen.

John Dehlin [02:02:02] What are you talking about?

Margi Dehlin [02:02:03] I cannot believe it. Like, they've done it again. I do not understand how church leaders can just over and over and over again go after the LGBTQIA community.

John Dehlin [02:02:14] Wait, wait. Sit down. I don't even know what you're talking about. What happened?

Margi Dehlin [02:02:17] Why don't you just. It's your church. This is. This is how. You're the ones paying tithing. You're the one paying tithing. You're complicit in this. You should at least know kind of what they're doing. I'll give you a moment. Why Don't I just give you a moment to get up to speed, to see what hate speech they've said?

John Dehlin [02:02:33] Okay, listen, you using words like hate and you don't.

Margi Dehlin [02:02:37] Just you watch. Just you watch. Okay, I'm not. This is not an exaggeration. Just take a minute.

John Dehlin [02:02:43] I don't even know. Why don't you have it even.

Margi Dehlin [02:02:45] Why don't you go ahead and see what your tithing dollars are, where they're going?

Carah Burrell [02:02:49] Go ahead.

John Dehlin [02:02:51] Let's go ahead.

Margi Dehlin [02:02:51] I'll watch.

Carah Burrell [02:02:52] Go ahead.

John Dehlin [02:02:52] Why would you bring tithing into this?

Margi Dehlin [02:02:54] Just know. Just know it. The church is a cult. You pay the church, you complete. It is like you said. It's like you're saying it.

John Dehlin [02:03:05] You're. You're making it sound like I.

Margi Dehlin [02:03:08] How is it not true? How is it not? How are you not supporting?

John Dehlin [02:03:11] I haven't even seen the talk yet. But you know that I don't always agree with everything that's said.

Margi Dehlin [02:03:16] It doesn't matter. You're paying them anyway. It doesn't matter if you agree or not.

John Dehlin [02:03:20] But tithing doesn't always necessarily go to one specific thing. We don't even know.

Margi Dehlin [02:03:25] You attend, you support, you're complicit. Well, you know, I'm done. Our kids are done. We're out.

Carah Burrell [02:03:33] We're out.

Margi Dehlin [02:03:34] You're gonna have to figure this out.

John Dehlin [02:03:35] As intolerant as you're as intolerant as the people you say are intolerant. What?

Margi Dehlin [02:03:40] That's my.

John Dehlin [02:03:41] Okay, that's bad. Good job. Carah, what do you give Margi in terms of a rating for her 15

Carah Burrell [02:03:47] Golden Globes, five Oscars. Somebody said earlier, before, I think I lost the stream, that they came in in the middle of us fighting and they were like, what's going on? So, you know, that's how people are gonna feel. Be like, oh, did they turn on the camera?

John Dehlin [02:04:01] Brought the heat. Okay, that's obviously not. Not the way to do it. So, Margi, do you want to now take us through a more centered approach and you can both act it out and then narrate your process with the six points we've tried out line. Take us through each of the points as they affect. So now you've. You've read the talk. Is there some pre work you want to do before we're even together?

Margi Dehlin [02:04:23] So I am a mama dragon for real. So I would probably say I have some work to do before I come to you.

John Dehlin [02:04:29] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [02:04:30] And it's. It's going to be some tough work, you know, so maybe beforehand I'm Going to do a lot of noticing, noticing the extent and the intensity of my emotion. I'm going to show up for it. I'm going to accept that as much as I. I really don't want to let. That I'm resisting this, that it happened, that these things were said, that this is my reality, that I'm feeling this way, that I'm deeply uncomfortable, that it's causing suffering to, you know, endless, amazing human beings out there.

Margi Dehlin [02:05:06] So I'm going to accept a lot of suffering going on because of this. And it's. It's a reality. So I'll practice a lot of statements of, like, this is what it feels like. You know, right now this is happening. This is the reality internally. You're doing this internally, Practicing probably throughout the day. Like, I'm gonna guess that I'm gonna. I'm gonna do this till I get to a point of, you know, doing the grounding practices, where I kind of feel like I have a sense for how I'm going to go about having a conversation. I might even have a strategy of how I'm gonna come to you and

John Dehlin [02:05:40] how you prioritize how you come to

Margi Dehlin [02:05:42] me based on what the values. But I'm gonna ground myself first. And grounding. I may need to do a little extra, but I'm gonna start with the breathing. I'm gonna start with, you know, the. The tree metaphor. I may do some actual grounding rituals in there to help me, because I may need a little extra for this one. Um, and then I would probably say I'm gonna start.

Margi Dehlin [02:06:06] And I'm gonna also separate from my emotions and kind of find my. My center and not wear that storm when I come into you. So I'm not gonna be a storm. I'm gonna separate from the story, from all that suffering to the extent that I can feel like myself. And I'm gonna think about what I love about you and what I want for our relationship and how I can use those kind of values to drive me forward in a really hard situation. And then at that point, I'd probably.

John Dehlin [02:06:38] And what are the values?

Margi Dehlin [02:06:39] The values I'm going to go for are. I'm going to go for vulnerability over anger. I'm going to go for emotional connection and curiosity. And I'm gonna go for.

John Dehlin [02:06:57] I would probably do some advocacy if you want some. Some, you know, some social justice kind of advocacy. That could be.

Margi Dehlin [02:07:04] I think that's going to be later. I think we're gonna have a conversation.

John Dehlin [02:07:07] I'm just saying value, too.

Margi Dehlin [02:07:10] Yeah, I'M gonna say emotional safety.

John Dehlin [02:07:11] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [02:07:12] Is the third.

John Dehlin [02:07:12] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [02:07:13] So that's how I'm gonna go about it. And it's gonna probably start.

John Dehlin [02:07:17] Are you gonna do it right? When I walk in from work and I. I'm, like, having timing, so. And I walk in from a long

Margi Dehlin [02:07:23] day, so we've talked already about timing, and this is going to be another thing. So when we have really emotional storms going on or this hits deeper, this is a value for us that is, you know, particularly intense. You know, in addition to kind of trying to really be in a place of wise mind, we're going to ask our partner if it's a good time. So I'm going to say something to you probably like, hey, I have something happened today. I'm not sure you heard about it with Holland, but I was curious if it's a good time to talk to you about that if you're in a place where you.

John Dehlin [02:07:59] So you started the role play?

Margi Dehlin [02:08:01] Yes, now I've started.

John Dehlin [02:08:02] Sure. Yeah. Yeah. What's going on? I didn't even hear about it. What's going on?

Margi Dehlin [02:08:07] Well, yeah, so Holland basically made a statement with regard to a valedictorian kind of speech and really said some hurtful things. And I just was curious about, like, what you feel about what you've heard.

John Dehlin [02:08:25] Well, actually, I haven't even seen it yet, but I can tell. I mean, I can tell just by your. Your face and your. I'm curious. What. What happened?

Margi Dehlin [02:08:37] What.

John Dehlin [02:08:38] What's your reaction? What are you feeling?

Margi Dehlin [02:08:40] Yeah, you know, I think I just. I'm gonna get all emotional. I'm not even in the. Oh, my gosh. I think I just feel tired of it. I think I feel tired of, you know, the hate speech. And it makes me feel scared for, you know, human beings all around that are hearing these words and feeling unsafe and feeling wrong and feeling broken and feeling like, you know, not good enough. And it. It just. It makes me want to do something. It makes me feel uncomfortable with where we are and maybe where I am in maybe my association with the church through you. But it's just hard. It feels really hard.

John Dehlin [02:09:30] Oh, sweetie. I'm so, so sorry that. I mean, just seeing how sad you are. I'm so sorry that the. The church that I love is making you feel so sad. That makes me feel sad. I'm so sorry.

Margi Dehlin [02:09:46] Yeah. And I know it's important to you, and I know you find a lot of value in it, and it's not about me wanting to take that away from you, but I Do think I may have to. We may have to have some hard conversations about the way we approach things, whether that's tithing or these messages or, you know, how I interact and how we talk to our kids. Like, I just feel like this.

John Dehlin [02:10:12] Well. Well, now I worry that what you're saying is you want to keep the kids from church or you want to make me stop paying tithing. And I'm. Now I'm getting a little worried because I. I know you're sad, but you know that I love this church and I believe in it. And I. Paying tithing is a principle I believe in. I've covenanted. Covenanted to pay tithing. And I want my kids raised in the church or at least having exposure to the church. Are you. Are you saying you're wanting to change that?

Margi Dehlin [02:10:39] No. I would never force you to do anything. I think so.

John Dehlin [02:10:44] What are you saying?

Margi Dehlin [02:10:45] I think that for myself, I'll be making some changes, and I think I would really appreciate us coming together with regard to our kids so that our kids can feel safe.

John Dehlin [02:10:56] Well, now I'm worried. What. What types of changes are you talking about?

Margi Dehlin [02:10:59] I don't actually know yet. Maybe that's something we can talk about together. I mean, one example might be tithing where I differentiate our tithing and I. Maybe where you give it to the church. Maybe I'll be taking, say, half and give it to encircle or maybe some. Some places that I feel more aligned with. That's just an example.

John Dehlin [02:11:23] Are you wondering if that's something we could talk about?

Margi Dehlin [02:11:26] Yeah, like have a conversation about. That would be really, really. It would mean a lot to me.

John Dehlin [02:11:33] What about the kids, like, attending church? Are you trying to make them stop attending? Are you proposing something else related to the messages they might hear?

Margi Dehlin [02:11:42] I mean, maybe we could use it as a check in with our kids to really understand where they are.

John Dehlin [02:11:47] What do you mean?

Margi Dehlin [02:11:49] Well, I don't know that we know our children have come out. We don't know if they're LGBTQA ia So it might be a great time to kind of check in or to really talk. Use our. Our Sundays when they come home to kind of talk about the things they've heard and be very clear about what we think about that.

John Dehlin [02:12:10] But are you going to try and, like, persuade them to not believe? Are you going to try and, like, challenge their beliefs and their faith?

Margi Dehlin [02:12:17] No. Their relationship with the church is theirs. So what, maybe that we just kind of talk openly about the messages that they're hearing and how they feel about them. Especially around that issue.

John Dehlin [02:12:31] Well, I appreciate. I. I know this is upsetting to you, and I'm. If I'm being honest, I'm upset too. I did hear a little bit about it and I was afraid to tell you, but. Oh, I'm so sorry you're upset and I appreciate that you are being so respectful in the way you talk to me about it. And I'm afraid of change and I'm. I'm torn because I angry at the church, but I also love the church. And so I appreciate you giving me kind of the space and the safety to kind of feel both. I don't feel attacked and cornered and having to defend and react some things that maybe I don't fully support.

Margi Dehlin [02:13:08] I'm so glad you shared your feelings with me. It makes me feel less alone when you do and it makes sense to me why you feel the way you do. And I. I really believe that we can come together and do something that feels best for both of us and

John Dehlin [02:13:22] that validates both our perspectives.

Margi Dehlin [02:13:24] Yeah,

Carah Burrell [02:13:30] I was like the end of Full House.

Margi Dehlin [02:13:32] I know. Serious music came on. That's good.

Carah Burrell [02:13:35] It was good, right?

John Dehlin [02:13:37] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [02:13:40] I could just say the third party observer who did not know. And I'm just learning a lot of these things for the first time today, what it came across like again, if I was an alien observing the human race and two people who are trying to have the healthiest marriage possible, the first thing I would notice is that look like you had the highest value being vulnerable and that like respecting her openness and vulnerability. And quite honestly, it looked like, John, that you were expecting that you could tell she was angry and that she was trying.

Carah Burrell [02:14:11] Like you could tell that, like she. You could tell what her value was. And like by respecting her, respecting you, that increased your level of respect for her just within that, like. Like this really. This really beautiful mutual agreement to keep things as positive and respectful. And yeah, I thought that was. That was like a really beautiful way to approach it and your values came across.

John Dehlin [02:14:40] Thanks, Carah. And thanks, Margi. And I will say that if you watch the Gift of the Mormon Faith Faith Crisis podcast and specifically the Faith Crisis retreat that we recorded, one of the things we've been teaching for years is that a mixed faith marriage is actually an opportunity to strengthen your marriage, to get better at practicing emotional vulnerability and healthy communication. And it actually can make your marriage better, believe it or not. So it really is an opportunity to develop some more intense skills.

Margi Dehlin [02:15:09] Yeah. A couple quick things is just. I don't know if you guys noticed in the middle of the conversation, it got a little bit heightened where John was like, well, are you going to take over? Are you going to ask me not to go? Are you going to. And that's very common to have kind of moments in conversation where there's a little bit of a rise in intensity or you can kind of tell that someone is starting to feel fear or. Right. Like they kind of need. And John Gottman talks about observing. You know, he's a. Who. How would you describe Josh?

John Dehlin [02:15:45] Marriage therapist. Researcher.

Margi Dehlin [02:15:47] Yeah. Like at the forefront of sort of can predict kind of divorced through watching couples for. Yeah. A really small amount of time, these repair attempts. So I don't know if you noticed when you started to get kind of climb, I became. I really tried to say, oh, no, no, no, I would never. And you kind of soothe and you bring it back down, feel safe.

John Dehlin [02:16:08] That's right what Carah was saying.

Margi Dehlin [02:16:10] Yeah. So noticing. But noticing those kind of. And being aware in conversation where it starts to climb will help you kind of bring it back down and know that that's just kind of completely normal.

John Dehlin [02:16:21] I love it. All right, well, the technical glitch that we had kind of made us run a little bit longer than I wanted. We really wanted to keep this under two hours and we wanted to be able to incorporate questions and comments. We're not going to totally be able to do that today, unfortunately. But I do want to summarize the six points that. That we've just outlined as a way to close. Do you want to do that really quick, Margi?

Closing Reflections and Listener Appreciation

Margi Dehlin [02:16:44] Sure.

John Dehlin [02:16:44] Do you have the. So what are the six things? How to stay grounded during chaotic moments. To summarize, they are. Tell us again one more time.

Margi Dehlin [02:16:53] It's kind of notice your body, your feelings, your what's coming up for you. And it's usually distress. And then practice acceptance, accepting that not only are your feelings happening or stories may come into your brain, but this reality is accepting that this is your reality right now, so you're not fighting. And then the third step is creating a little bit of distance for you to be the observer of your emotions so they're not like tied to your core being or identity. It just gives you a little bit of space to kind of do the next step, which is grounding. And you can do that through breath, work through visualization, find what works for you.

John Dehlin [02:17:35] Nature walk, meditation, step outside, taking a

Margi Dehlin [02:17:38] time, time out, whatever you need to do. Go for a drive and then know

John Dehlin [02:17:43] your values and then figure out what

Margi Dehlin [02:17:45] your values are connecting to your values. And let your. The values lead you to your. Your response and your how you act.

John Dehlin [02:17:55] I love it. Well, Margi, this has been a really fun first episode. I'm sad about the technical glitch, but you are lovely and I'm. I'm really grateful you were able to, to share this with us today.

Margi Dehlin [02:18:08] I hope it was helpful. And just from me to you, if life is feeling harder, if it's. If you're having moments of overwhelm, just to say it's not about you, it's just about being alive in this moment. And I'm just sending you support and love. And I hope that this is helpful in some way. Know I'm doing it too.

John Dehlin [02:18:32] I love it. Really quickly, Margi, if someone wants to reach out to you to thank you or to, you know, consult you on anything, again, how do they reach out to you? How do they find you?

Margi Dehlin [02:18:41] I would probably say I'm on Facebook, so occasionally I get messages that way or Beauty in the now I have a way that you can contact me directly. Site beautyinthenow.org okay.

John Dehlin [02:18:52] And on Instagram.

Margi Dehlin [02:18:53] And on Instagram, it's just Margi Delin as your Instagram. Okay.

John Dehlin [02:18:57] Any final words?

Margi Dehlin [02:18:59] I think that's it.

John Dehlin [02:19:00] All right, Carah, any final words before I kind of close this out?

Carah Burrell [02:19:05] No, this was really. I mean, I love it when things are like, I get paid to work here and do things that are incredibly beneficial to me in my everyday life as well. So I will take a lot of these messages home with me. That sounded like the end of a church wrap up talk. I am so sorry.

Margi Dehlin [02:19:21] Apply them to my life.

Carah Burrell [02:19:22] I will apply them to my life. But I will thank you. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:19:26] And I'll just say, thank you, Margi, for coming. Thank you, Carah, for making this possible. And let me just end with just a couple really important things. Those of you who donated in the super chat on YouTube or donated through Stars on Facebook, your donations help keep us alive. So thank you for that. Whenever you see these live, shout out, what's that?

Carah Burrell [02:19:46] One more super chat from Lee Mortensen. Just want to say thanks.

John Dehlin [02:19:49] Yeah. Whenever you see us live streaming and you want to support us that way, that's one way you can do it. I also just want to invite you guys that if you value this programming, there's a donate button if you. So we want to do a weekly healing and growth sort of coaching session on Mormon stories podcast where we talk about healthy sexuality, mental health, you know, dealing with believing family and friends, raising healthy kids, stuff that's about healing and growth, not just about deconstructing Mormonism and all that stuff. So this is in addition to what we already provide on Mormon Stories podcast. So what we want to do is ask if you support this additional type of programming and you want to see continue, please consider going to mormonfaithcrisis.com click on the Donate button.

John Dehlin [02:20:37] Become a monthly donor and the funds will go to supporting the Open Stories foundation, supporting the podcast, paying for Carah's time, paying for Margi or Natasha's time. It's not going to pay for me. I'm good. I don't need any additional support. But just know that you know your donations will make this programming continue. And as long as we know that you value this type of programming, we'll do it more. So look for us to do one of these about every week coming up in the future. We would love your feedback. So if you want to email us if you want to make comments on the blog post when this is posted or on the YouTube channel or on the Facebook feed, we would love to hear your comments about what other topics.

John Dehlin [02:21:14] Carah, maybe you can monitor the the comments on YouTube or Facebook. I'll monitor the emails and we'll take your suggestions on other topics to cover in the future as coaches or therapists. And then yeah, feel free to email us@mormonstoriesgmail.com to give us your feedback. Feedback. Please share this with anyone you want. Subscribe to us and please rate us. If you can go to Apple podcast app give us a positive review. We have haters who give us one star reviews having never listened to us just to bring our rating down. Same with the Mormon Stories podcast Facebook page. On YouTube or on Facebook we have people giving us negative reviews.

John Dehlin [02:21:55] Please give it us positive reviews. Give us 5 star reviews if you like this stuff that'll help bring up our ratings and you know, just spread the word. Subscribe on on TikTok, follow us on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, wherever our social medias are following us, subscribing to us, Twitter, turning on your notifications and then spreading the word. That'll help us do this in the future. And in the future we're going to have less processing time and teaching time and allow more time for your questions and comments and feedback. We're going to be learning at this as we go. We have the technical glitch but in the future we want you people who joining us, who join us through the live stream either on YouTube or Facebook to know we want to hear your comments. We want to hear your questions and we want to incorporate your feedback. So plan on that in the future. Anything else?

Carah Burrell [02:22:43] Carah, thank you so much to everyone who donated. And we had a lot of people just being really grateful in the comments and not so many questions to integrate, but super amazing that so many people are commenting and joining and adding just this Mormon Stories feels like a family. I know you guys are technically a family, but this Mormon Stories in the lineup of just different types of podcasts to their, you know, weekly podcast listening routine. So thank you everyone. We'll keep bringing you good content.

John Dehlin [02:23:15] And Margi, we love you. We hope to have you back.

Margi Dehlin [02:23:17] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:23:18] Thanks for joining us. Keep up the good work. All right. All right, everyone, thanks so much. Thanks for joining us on Warm Stories. You guys take care and we'll see you all again very soon.

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.