Welcome and Guest Introduction

Margi Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Mormon Stories, Thrive Stories edition. I am your host, Margi Dehlin, and I am joined today by my partner in life and in podcast, as it turns out.

John Dehlin [00:00:11] And in righteousness.

Margi Dehlin [00:00:13] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:00:15] Truth, justice and righteousness.

Linda Barney [00:00:19] Hi over there.

John Dehlin [00:00:20] Hey, Margi. I'm so glad, I'm so glad you're writing. You're driving this one.

Margi Dehlin [00:00:26] Yeah. I'm so happy to be here.

John Dehlin [00:00:28] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:00:29] Excited for today's episode, we have a dear human to me here joining us in studio. Before we begin, just a quick summary of the Thrive Stories project and what it is and how it differs. Thrive Stories tends to be a shorter interview, usually two to three hours around a certain area of thrive. Thriving. What are some examples of areas of thriving, John?

John Dehlin [00:00:57] And only. Only on Mormon Stories is a two or three hour interview short, by the way.

Margi Dehlin [00:01:02] It's relative.

John Dehlin [00:01:04] We'll try and keep it. The two. Yeah. So in Thrive Stories, we try to focus on healing and growth after kind of a religious orthodoxy. So whether it's mental health, physical health, psychological health, spiritual health, relationships. Those are just some of the examples. Parenting, spirituality, sexuality. I'm probably repeating things, but it's just, it's, it's, it's a. It's a traditional Mormon stories faith journey, but with, with an emphasis on growth. That's what I'd say.

Margi Dehlin [00:01:38] That's right. And what we love about this is it tends to kind of challenge this narrative that after leaving, life is especially pain ridden and dismal and heartbreaking. So that's one aspect that we love about it. If you have listened to Thrive Stories and don't feel like your story is represented here, I invite you to submit your own application and you can go ahead and see below in the description box how to do that. But we love as many stories as possible here, so we invite you to submit. But without further ado, we're here to welcome Linda Barney. Welcome to the podcast, Linda.

Linda Barney [00:02:27] It's awesome to be here.

Margi Dehlin [00:02:28] Thank you for being here. So we can begin maybe with asking you about your area. Maybe we'll just start there around what area you kind of chose to explore today.

Linda Barney [00:02:41] Okay. I chose to talk about family relationships and especially focusing on supporting LGBTQIA kids.

Margi Dehlin [00:02:52] Yes. Beautiful. And if. Is there an intro or something you would like to say about yourself or people who aren't familiar with you at all just so they can get to know you a little bit, A little sneak peek into what you love right now in this moment and what you enjoy in life. Okay.

Linda Barney [00:03:13] I have a candle business that I've Been doing for a couple of years now. It's now my full time gig. So I sell candles here in Salt Lake City. Enjoy doing that. I love just. I love to read. I love to play not serious golf. So I play golf by kind of make up my own rules. And if my husband, like gets a birdie or something, I'll say I got a unicorn. So I just kind of enjoy it if I don't have to play by the rules, I guess. I love yoga. I love just going for walks and spending time with my family and

Margi Dehlin [00:03:55] yeah,

Linda Barney [00:03:57] I have some grandkids that I get to see once in a while. And I love, I love doing that and being with my family and.

Margi Dehlin [00:04:04] Yeah, yeah, beautiful.

Linda Barney [00:04:07] Thank you. Thank you for that.

Linda's Childhood and Early Family Life

Margi Dehlin [00:04:09] Well, so if we were going to kind of start with this area around family relationships and kind of parenting LGBTQIA children, could we start with your beginnings? So the beginnings of Linda, what do you remember about your growing up and how. Why don't we start with just what you remember about yourself as a girl? Growing up?

Linda Barney [00:04:40] I was kind of a high anxiety kid. And I had. I lived in a small rural town, northeastern Utah. It's called Neola, if anyone's ever heard of it. Very small, but they did community very well. And if there was a talent show or if there was a ward party or anything going on, everyone showed up 100% to participate and just support.

Linda Barney [00:05:12] And so I grew up in this very small town, very community oriented. They still to this day do community really well. And I love that about where I got to grow up. It's. It's awesome. So I kind of had this community that was really focused and centered around the church.

Linda Barney [00:05:31] I didn't have religious parents. My dad was what they would have called an inactive member, and my mom was not a member. She came from England and married my dad and she, she joined later but was never a member when I was a kid.

Linda Barney [00:05:52] So had this amazing community that very supportive, very family oriented, and our family was really close. But there were times when I didn't always feel safe at home there. My dad had some alcohol issues and so I would tend to feel safer with, in the community. Like going to church with my grandmother, that felt very safe and very, you know, more secure to me, I guess, sometimes than I always felt at home. So I would go to church with my grandmother and hear the nice music and see happy families.

Linda Barney [00:06:39] And what I kind of thought it was supposed to be like was this image that was shown to me and I liked, you know, the feeling that I Got there, all the men wore nice suits and talked softly and. And sometimes it just felt safer.

Linda Barney [00:06:58] So I think I kind of grew up thinking that's what I want to make for myself. And that became, I think at a pretty young age, it became my goal to have a husband who went to church with me. And all of us went to church together and we ate dinner together every Sunday. And, you know, the happy, perfect Mormon family kind of became the ideal for me.

Margi Dehlin [00:07:26] Okay. Yeah. So I'm hearing on a level church offering a haven of sorts, and that you're kind of associating church with safety, something that you may not always feel then at home.

Linda Barney [00:07:42] Yes. My dad, he was really a good dad. I was the youngest. I don't know that I was supposed to happen. I think I was a mistake. And I think my dad was kind of past the point of wanting, you know, to. To be a daddy. But he was a good dad and I. I don't fault him for anything. I know that he had his own things he was dealing with. I just didn't know what they were. I was just a kid, so I'm sure he had his demons and his issues and he was actually gone most of the time. He worked a lot. And everything my dad did for work was like life threatening. He was a firefighter with the Forest service.

Margi Dehlin [00:08:34] Wow.

Linda Barney [00:08:35] He worked for the Forest Service and had to. I don't think they do this anymore, but if there was a bear that got into like, the campgrounds, they would have to kill the. Like, they would have to go kill the bear. And my dad was the one who would have to, like, go hunt the bear. And so I think I got some of my anxiety from just always my dad. And it didn't bother him, like, he wasn't scared, but it always scared me because everything he did was kind of high risk. That's just who he was. Yeah, he did rodeo. He, you know, was a bull rider.

Linda Barney [00:09:10] He did all these crazy, risky things. And for me, as a high anxiety kid, it was just more. More fear, more fuel added to the fire. So, yes, going. And then we had a cattle ranch. My dad was a rancher, so I was scared of that. I was scared of the cows, I was scared of the horses. I was scared of everything. And so church was very much like that community. And that church community was very much a safe haven for me. And it wasn't because anything was really that off. It was just me, my fears.

Margi Dehlin [00:09:44] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:09:44] And then just kind of added to. Huh, that hole. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:09:50] So I'm kind of hearing, too, this idea of your brain, for whatever reason, perceiving a lot of danger and kind of scary things in the world as you're living. And then, you know, church offering some.

Linda Barney [00:10:05] A peaceful. A peaceful break. Yes. And my grandmother was also one of my safe people. My mom and my grandmother were both wonderful mothers. It was like I had two mothers because I had them both right there. I lived next door to my grandmother, and they were my safe people. And it just happened to be my grandmother who took me to church, and that kind of was even more of a safe place. So I'm never not. I'm not. You know, I always felt safe in my home with my mom and knew that I was loved, always knew that I was loved. But it was just. There was that thing presented to me that was like, here's the answer to everything that you're scared of. Here's a way that you can, you know, overcome those anxiety issues and those fears.

Margi Dehlin [00:11:02] Yeah. While the power of a grandparent. I feel like we've had another interview recently with a grandmother playing an important role of support and safety and love.

Linda Barney [00:11:17] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:11:18] As well. So you had a grandmother living next door.

Linda Barney [00:11:20] Yep.

Margi Dehlin [00:11:21] Wow. Do you want to say anything about her, her name, or what she. What you remember about her?

Linda Barney [00:11:27] Her name was Delma, and she was a beautiful writer. She's the reason I wanted to be a writer. I don't think I said that in my intro, but I love to write. I. And so my grandmother was kind of famous around our little town because she was such a prolific writer, and she would write histories for people.

Linda Barney [00:11:50] She wrote all of the family histories of, like, her parents and siblings, and she wrote a lot of poetry. And then she had a friend that together they would perform comedy skits. So they would write their own comedy show, and then they would. Again, it was one of those community things that everybody turned out for that she would put on these comedy shows, and she was, like, funny. She was really funny, really witty, and she was just the most loving person.

Linda Barney [00:12:21] Never talked badly about anyone, never would bring anyone into her house to feed them or help them in any way that she could. Was always, you know, doing stuff for neighbors and the community. And she was just a very stable force in my life, and I'm really thankful that I had her influence.

Margi Dehlin [00:12:45] Yeah, I love that.

Linda Barney [00:12:48] Right.

Margi Dehlin [00:12:48] Bright spots of love. And from your mom, too, it sounds like. Yeah. So did you mention. So you had siblings?

Linda Barney [00:12:57] I had one sister.

Margi Dehlin [00:12:59] So you had. And you.

Linda Barney [00:13:01] Older sister.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:01] An older sister.

Linda Barney [00:13:03] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:04] And then if we were going to Kind of see you in your activities or things that you love to do. Let's just say at home. Your interests or what would we see some of the things that you enjoy doing or.

Linda Barney [00:13:19] I was the indoor girl. Right. My sister was like my dad's boy, and she would ride horses with him and go hunting, and she loved to go fishing and all the things that my dad loved. And I would rather stay home and play with my dolls and play with my Barbies. And we did spend a lot of time outside because it's a small town and, you know, you could go be gone all day and. Yeah, your parents didn't really worry about you. You'd ride your bike around and.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:47] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:13:47] You know, take your lunch with you and just head out for the day and spend all day just, you know, exploring, going in the canal, swimming. It seemed really, like, normal to me to just do that.

Margi Dehlin [00:14:01] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:14:01] And run around and, you know, our parents didn't worry about us because we knew everybody in the town. So something happened. You just go find a neighbor and. And you're fine. But, yeah, it was. It was nice way to grow up. But I did have, like, the. It's a very. Like, it's the. In a basin. Everybody loves to hunt and fish and be out, you know, doing that type of thing. There's a lot of cattle ranches and stuff like that. And all of that stuff scared me. And I know in Elizabeth Gilbert's book, I think it's. In Big Magic, she talks about having all these fears as a kid, and she thought that was what made her special.

Linda Barney [00:14:42] Right. That was like, well, I shouldn't have to do that because I'm scared. And I kind of think I related to that. Like, I kind of think that was me. I thought, well, I shouldn't have to do all those things because it is scary for me. And in a lot of ways, my mom shielded me from that and didn't make me do the things that I was scared of. And, you know, she didn't want me to. To suffer or to be afraid. So she would just say, well, you don't have to help with the cows, or you don't have to, you know, do all those things. My sister would. She wasn't afraid of them. So I was more of an indoor kind of kid. Okay. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:15:20] So I'm kind of hearing, growing up that you experienced a bit of fear and anxiety as a young child and that the church was a rare place, kind of a rare experience for you where you've kind of felt a quieting of some of those things, would you say?

Linda Barney [00:15:43] I wouldn't say it was rare because it was a constant. It was, you know, you had your primary activities every. And they were during the week. Right. They were like on, I don't know, a Tuesday afternoon and then Sundays always go to church with grandma. So it was a pretty constant.

Margi Dehlin [00:16:04] Got it.

Linda Barney [00:16:04] Place of psychological. I knew what to expect there. I knew what was going to happen. And I didn't always feel like I fit the mold because I knew my family was kind of different. Right. My parents didn't go to church and my parents didn't teach me all of the things that other. We didn't have family, home evenings and things like that. Yeah, I never felt like I was really missing out on that, at least not when I was younger. Didn't really register to me or think that that was something that I was missing or lacking. But yeah, it was just how. It's just how it was. But it was a constant in my life for sure, that community.

Margi Dehlin [00:16:47] I'm curious how you experienced parenting, in other words, how your parents parented and what you remember as you were growing up. How would you talk about the way that they parented and then from there the messages that you received about kind of your lovability, what it means to be a family.

Linda Barney [00:17:13] Okay. My dad was very authoritarian. What he said was it like you just, you know, he said jump, you ask how high on the way up

Margi Dehlin [00:17:23] that or that offered you something that you remember being particularly comforting about Primary.

Linda Barney [00:17:32] I remember the song Give said the Little Stream. That's a really old Primary song. But I loved that one. I loved just going to primary singing all the songs I love to sing. I wanted to be a singer when I was five and I. Yeah, kind of didn't have. I didn't have any fear around that. So I would tell if my parents had friends over, we had relatives over visiting. I would say everyone needs to sit down and listen to me sing the song. Like I was. I wanted to be a singer and so I loved the music part of church and was very. It resonated with me. Yeah, I had. I had good primary teachers. I remember being taught how to crochet. Was it Mary Miss that they used to call us? Mary Miss?

Margi Dehlin [00:18:20] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:18:22] So I had this older lady who was like my Mary Miss teacher and she taught us all how to crochet and I don't know how old I was, maybe 10 or 11.

Margi Dehlin [00:18:31] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:18:33] That being a happy memory. And that's going way back.

Margi Dehlin [00:18:39] Yeah. Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:18:41] That's all I Can think of right now.

Margi Dehlin [00:18:44] Yeah. That's great. That's great. Do you have any questions, Sean, about childhood years at all?

John Dehlin [00:18:52] No, I love Gibbs Said the Little Stream. That's one of my favorite primary. Primary songs too. Yeah, good message and I'm just loving. Just kind of small town family.

Margi Dehlin [00:19:03] This kind of. You know, when we think of teens, there's some differentiation, individuation. Developmentally that can happen. But within Mormonism, sometimes it, it's. It can be a little bit slow to do that. Right. So you either can experience that rebel teen, that where obedience doesn't seem to sit well, or you kind of have the compliant where the people really like structure. This is an oversimplification, but I'm kind of curious for you if your parenting, your experience of being parented as you became a young adult, if it changed for you and if your relationship with the church changed or if it was still kind of this place of respite that you regularly kind of got to experience and you know, just take us through kind of your teen years in relationship to the church and to your parents.

Linda Barney [00:20:03] So as far as my parents went, I did not rebel. I was a good kid. I think I again feared, you know, what my dad might do if I did do something bad. But also my parents, I was number five for them. My dad had three children with his first wife and then my sister, and then I came last. So there were. I was the fifth one of my dad's kids.

Margi Dehlin [00:20:29] Okay.

Linda Barney [00:20:29] They were much older than us, never lived, you know, in the home with us. My brother did for about a year, but it was mostly, you know, they were older and had gone and gotten married and gone on with their lives. So I think my dad was pretty much like pretty relaxed about don't, you know, just don't stay out too late. And I didn't have a curfew.

Linda Barney [00:20:52] So if, you know, I got home whatever time my parents knew they could trust me to mostly stay out of trouble. And so I didn't really. I was scared to drink, I was scared to smoke. I was scared to do any of the things that maybe teenagers try.

Linda Barney [00:21:11] Yeah, I was just like not gonna. Not gonna do any of that. I did. I still had that really good community we had. So when I was a kid, there was one ward in our town. And then our town grew enough to split and have two wards, which is still how it is today. I'm pretty sure there's still only two wards there. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's still Only first and second ward, but very close with all of the kids in my ward. So we would have youth activities where we would go boating and have, you know, game nights or movie nights at some leader's house.

Linda Barney [00:21:51] Always had a good time, always was good friends with the kids in our, you know, in our ward. And so I had that foundation. And I, as I got into high school, I didn't love seminary and I slept seminary a lot because I knew I could. That was probably the only thing I did that was sort of rebellious was I almost didn't graduate from seminary because I slept it so much.

Margi Dehlin [00:22:21] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:22:22] So I had to. I remember, like the last few weeks of school, I had to go to seminary every day or they weren't going to let me graduate.

Margi Dehlin [00:22:29] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:22:29] And my parents, I don't think, would have been upset if I hadn't graduated from seminary. That was something I chose.

Margi Dehlin [00:22:36] Okay.

Linda Barney [00:22:37] But I wanted to achieved that. You know, I didn't want to flunk out of seminary. So I ended up having to go, like the whole last two weeks of school.

Margi Dehlin [00:22:47] Got it. Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:22:49] Seemed like a really big deal. But yeah, I had. I just did things with friends. I didn't like, single date anyone. It wasn't really a religious choice. It was just. It was more fun to go with a big group of friends.

Margi Dehlin [00:23:03] Okay.

Linda Barney [00:23:04] And so that's what we usually did.

Margi Dehlin [00:23:06] And were most of your friends members, would you say, like, socializing wise?

Linda Barney [00:23:11] I would say most. I had a few friends who were not. Who were of a different faith, but mostly, yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:23:19] Okay. So I kind of hear overall that you seem to love the structure.

Growing Up in the Mormon Church

Linda Barney [00:23:25] I did. And I think it, I think it. What worked well for me. There was a part of me that. So I, I didn't like, I wasn't. We didn't have family scripture study. I wasn't told to read the scriptures right at home. But my. I remember getting those little charts in seminary with the little boxes you could mark off for each chapter that you read. And I remember specifically doing it for the Doctrine and Covenants. I would read all the short chapter or the short ones first and then, you know, work my way up to the longer ones.

Margi Dehlin [00:24:00] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:24:00] And that was a really good thing for my personality, I guess, that I loved the structure and the. Here's the chart. Here's how, you know, you can get through all these things if you just tick all these boxes. And that worked really well for me.

Margi Dehlin [00:24:15] Yes.

Linda Barney [00:24:16] At that point in my life. So that kind of got me to read scriptures and be a little bit more interested in Doing that. I was really good at Scripture Chase in seminary. I could get to this, you know, the. I don't know what they call it now. Scripture mastery or something.

Margi Dehlin [00:24:32] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:24:33] But I think they called it Scripture chase. So I had all my scriptures marked up, and I was, you know, super fast at that. And that was kind of a. Something that made me feel good about myself, was that I knew where to find those scriptures when we did. When we did that.

Margi Dehlin [00:24:48] Yeah. Well, it sounds like. Like I'm hearing a good fit. A good. Like the church up to this point is a good fit. And on a lot of levels, you're kind of flourishing. Would you say that's true?

Linda Barney [00:25:02] Mostly, yes. Mostly. There were also the messages that I got that my family also just wasn't quite the norm.

Margi Dehlin [00:25:11] Yeah. Tell us, like, what. What types of. Do you have any memories of that? Or was it mostly in lessons or did it come up socially with friends? Like, how did that. How did you experience that?

Linda Barney [00:25:24] Mostly. So we always had the home teachers come, Right. My parents would let the home teachers visit us, and since my dad was a member, technically, they're still supposed to visit. And I remember more than one time my dad getting in an argument with the home teachers over Brigham Young and saying Brigham Young was a dirty old man. And they would start to argue, and I would be so embarrassed, and I'd be like, dad, you can't. Don't say that.

Margi Dehlin [00:25:54] You know.

Linda Barney [00:25:55] Yeah, but. So I would be a little bit embarrassed about my dad's views on some things, but he didn't really ever say that to me or to us as kids. He would say it, you know, around the people from the ward, if they came to our home. But he didn't, like, teach us any. Anything that he might have known that I didn't know about the church. He never said it was. He was honoring his mother, who wanted us, my sister and I, to go to church, and he was okay with letting her take us and learn the things. And I don't think my dad, like, totally thought the church was false. I think he still had belief on some level. It just didn't work for him and the way that he wanted to live his life.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:45] Okay.

Linda Barney [00:26:45] But I know he didn't like Brigham Young, so that's definitely a. A memory that stuck with me.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:52] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:26:53] And. Sorry, what was the beginning part of the question?

Margi Dehlin [00:26:58] It was just how you experienced some of those messages around your parents either being inactive or what it kind of meant for your family, you know, and family salvation or any of those things that and even, you know, did you ever get a sense for your. What your mom felt? And was your mom a lot like your dad, where just felt supportive that you have kind of these two parents who personally are a little less interested, but are like. But for you girls, you know, having you have your own experience?

Linda Barney [00:27:36] Yeah. I think for her, she didn't feel like she really could say anything. I think it would have been her preference that we did not participate. She came from England, not really religious family at all, but she thought the church was good and taught good things for the most part. She didn't object to anything specifically that she felt was wrong. I just don't think she would have. Like, I don't think she wanted us to get baptized.

Linda Barney [00:28:08] And I did not know that until much later in my life when she told me if she would have been the one to make the decision, she would not have had us be baptized. But it wasn't her decision.

Linda Barney [00:28:20] It was. My grandmother said, I want these girls to be baptized. And my dad said, okay. And my dad actually baptized us. And I remember my dad baptizing me. And my dad was not an active member and he was very nervous. They let him baptize me. But I remember thinking, I don't know if this is going to take. Like, I don't. I don't know if this is really going to count.

Linda Barney [00:28:46] I remember thinking that as an eight year old, because I knew my dad wasn't living what he was supposed to according to the church's standards. So I thought maybe it didn't even, you know, maybe it wasn't even really a legitimate baptism. Yeah, I was a little worried about that. Again, that's the fear and anxiety kind of.

Margi Dehlin [00:29:09] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:29:09] Thought maybe, maybe that didn't work. And just hearing lessons about, you know, eternal families and how you have to go to the temple. And I knew that wasn't something we had done, or I knew my dad wore garments and that he had been through the temple, but none of, like, my mom had not. And then my grandmother, my dad's mom, the one that lived next door, passed away when I was 15. And it was her dying wish for my mom to be baptized. And so my mom went ahead and got baptized at that point to mostly appease the family, us.

Margi Dehlin [00:29:50] Oh, wow.

Linda Barney [00:29:51] And she never really. She tried, but she never really bought into all of it. And it was hard for her. She felt very intimidated by all of the people at church. And she lasted maybe a year, and then we were like maybe a month or two away from going to the Temple to be sealed as a family, when it just all kind of fell apart. And my mom said, no, I'm not going to do this.

Margi Dehlin [00:30:18] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:30:19] And it kind of just came to a halt at that point. And I was really devastated by that because I, you know, I wanted that perfect, little eternal, happy Mormon family. And I thought that we were going to get that, you know, with my mom being baptized. And then we were on our way to the temple and. And we were trying to, like, pray together as a family and trying to do a few of those things that it just never really became our. Our thing as a family. It kind of just fizzled out.

Margi Dehlin [00:30:55] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:30:56] And my mom, you know, I always say she was the ultimate walker. She was like the OG Walker, because she kind of put her foot down and said, I've decided this isn't for me. And we were all putting a lot of pressure on her, myself included, like, just please go to the temple. Just please, you know, just do this for us so we can be an eternal family. And she put her foot down and said, I don't believe it. I don't want to do that.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:23] Wow.

Linda Barney [00:31:23] And I'm proud of her now, but at the time, I was, you know, devastated by that. Yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:29] And did it. Do you remember those feelings of, like, oftentimes worry about your family and being together and that being something that you.

Linda Barney [00:31:37] Yes. And I. I think at some point I learned, you know, that there. If the chain gets broken, there's that lesson of it can be reconnected down the line.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:48] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:31:49] As long as you don't break your part of the chain, you'll be okay and that it will work out in the next life. So I kind of held on to that.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:57] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:31:57] For a long time.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:59] Yeah. Such an interesting. Such an interesting moment for your mom, honestly, as you talk about being eight in the baptism decision and. And kind of really feeling that. That maybe she wasn't totally on board with that, but also had a lot of. Didn't feel empowered to, say, go up against necessarily your grandmother or your dad. But then having it come round to another moment in the future where so

Linda Barney [00:32:30] much is writing, because my grandma was gone at that point, and she was kind of the, you know, the maternal figure.

Margi Dehlin [00:32:38] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:32:38] Of the family. And then when she was gone, which was also devastating because it was like losing my mother.

Margi Dehlin [00:32:45] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:32:45] At 15, and then she could finally have more of a voice, I guess.

Margi Dehlin [00:32:52] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:32:53] And she just really didn't feel it, and it didn't feel right to her. And she stood her ground.

Margi Dehlin [00:32:59] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:33:01] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:33:04] Well, Beautiful.

Margi Dehlin [00:33:05] Is there anything else you kind of would like to add with regard to your experience? It can be around your parents or parenting or love messages around kind of family for kind of your teen years.

Linda Barney [00:33:19] Before we follow you through, I have one story that. So the. The day that my grandmother passed away, I was at girls camp, and my sister. I think I was 15. My sister would have been 18. And my sister came up. It was just up in the canyon just above where we lived, and my sister came up to tell me that she had passed away.

Linda Barney [00:33:46] And I didn't want to go home. I said, you know, I don't. I want to stay here. I want to stay at camp because I loved girls camp. And I think part of me knew, like, if you go home, everything you have to face, like the, you know, the grieving and the. Everyone's crying, and I hated the. The Mormon casserole thing. I didn't.

Linda Barney [00:34:09] I didn't want to go home and eat weird casseroles that other people made. And so I just said, I'm staying here. And my sister was, you know, trying to get me to come home. Obviously, I needed to go home, be with my family. But so I had a young women's leader who said, why don't the two of you go in my tent and pray about it together and then see how you feel? And so we're like, okay, this is not something we ever did in our family. We didn't pray out loud together.

Margi Dehlin [00:34:42] Okay, let's try this out. All right.

Linda Barney [00:34:44] So we go in the tent and were, like, kneeling down, and I said, do you want to say the prayer? And my sister's like, no. Do you want to? And I said, no. And so she said, let's just say our own. I said, okay. So we both said our own little prayer, and then we stood up, and I immediately felt like I wanted to go home.

Linda Barney [00:35:04] I was like, I have to go home. And that was, like, my testimony of prayer right there was like. That was so real to me. That switch in how I felt from wanting to stay to wanting to go was immediate. And I took that as my answer. Prayer is real, and God speaks to me, and this is what he wants me to do.

Linda Barney [00:35:31] And so that's what I did. And I had. That was a. A big testimony, builder of prayer right there. And kind of set me on the path to going deeper into, you know, being a believer.

Margi Dehlin [00:35:45] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:35:45] At that point, and my grandmother dying, I. I had to know if I was going to see her again.

Margi Dehlin [00:35:50] Yes.

Linda Barney [00:35:51] And so I started really praying about that, and you know, trying to be faithful at that point because it was really important to me, the, to see her again.

Margi Dehlin [00:36:02] Yeah, that makes sense.

Linda Barney [00:36:04] So that, you know, was that sealed the deal? I guess.

Margi Dehlin [00:36:08] Yeah. Yeah. How about you, John? Did you want to say something?

The Church, Family Dynamics, and Guilt

John Dehlin [00:36:18] I guess I'm, I guess I'm curious about. I mean, it sounds like in some ways there was a comment that the church kind of holds families hostages. Like we, on the one hand, we're all kind of raised to believe that what. One of the value propositions of Mormonism, or the, the best things about Mormonism is the idea of eternal families.

John Dehlin [00:36:38] Until you realize that that's kind of the default for everyone in other Christian faiths and all the other Christian faiths, everyone's going to be with their family in heaven. And then you realize that what, what's really going on, probably not intentionally, but it, the, the way it works in the church is unless you do exactly what the church wants and says and everyone does it too, what's really happening in the Mormon plan of salvation is that people are being kept from other family members.

John Dehlin [00:37:06] So it sounds like that maybe some of that binding, the binding force was at work in your family or at least in your mind. Is that true?

Linda Barney [00:37:15] Yes, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:37:17] Yeah. Yeah. And that's a tricky thing because it turns out to be kind of coercive when it's sold as the, the, the crowning benefit. Does that make sense?

Linda Barney [00:37:28] Yeah, it's almost like, well, you love your family, right? You want to be with your family forever, don't you? Well, then this is what you have to do. And it, there's no getting around that. There's no, you know, if you want it, these are the things you have to do. And that was maybe that was just the way I took it.

Linda Barney [00:37:49] I took everything very literally because I was not taught in my home by parents who were like, into gospel things. And so the teachings I got were lessons at church and primary and it was all very literal to me.

Linda Barney [00:38:08] And so I knew I had to, you know, step up, take the, almost take the role on of being the righteous one. My sister too, like, she never took it as seriously as I did. I think she could be.

Linda Barney [00:38:26] She could hold the belief a lot more loosely than I could. But for me, I took it very seriously and had to make sure that our family ended up together somehow. Yeah, that we didn't have a break in that chain anywhere.

Linda Barney [00:38:43] And after my dad passed away, much later in life, I, I still held that belief that there, there was going to be someone there to teach my dad and that he would be able to join up with us later. He was. He was going to go ahead and learn what he didn't want to learn when he was here, and then he would come back to the family. That was kind of how I had to think about it.

Margi Dehlin [00:39:09] Yeah, I can totally see that. That's such a good point, John. Especially thinking of, like, children of. Of parents, right, where you don't. You don't really have control over your. Your parents and what they choose to do. And then being able to see other families, you're surrounded by other families where you see. Oh, okay, so as far as a child can tell. Right. Well, but their family will be together. Yes, they'll have it, but I. I don't have it. And it's really nothing that I've done or I can do. And it almost feels like it gives birth to a minimally, like a pressure to create that, you know, but on a deeper level, almost like a wound.

Margi Dehlin [00:39:52] Like a wound where it's sort of like I, like, with all my power, I want to create that. Like, now I know I don't have it, or that's kind of outside my control. So with what I can control, I'm going to do everything I can to have my family.

Linda Barney [00:40:09] Right. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:40:12] The only other question I was going to ask is. We always like to ask. Unfortunately, it seems like, you know, maybe one of the benefits of religious traditions is they help provide a moral code and some kind of boundaries to keep people safe and to keep them from kind of messing up their lives. On the other hand, oftentimes the moral code is. Is dependent upon guilt and shame for sometimes very normative, even healthy behaviors. And so I'm wondering if, you know, through high school, if, if you. And sometimes it's word of wisdom, sometimes it's live chastity, sometimes it's other things, like eternal families. But I'm just wondering if. If you were tethered to the church in any way by. By guilt and shame or if that wasn't part of your, you know, high school experiences.

Linda Barney [00:41:06] I think, yes, I think guilt and shame definitely played into how I chose to show up in the world. So I can't think of, like, a specific story around. Around that. I just remember always feeling guilty if I wasn't doing all of the things. Like, I think the church is very good at finding a lot of different ways, depending on the kind of person you are, that they can create a problem and then that they have the solution to the problem for you. Right. So My problem being, I didn't. I had a lot of fears. I had a lot of anxiety.

Linda Barney [00:41:53] And they had answers for that. They had. Well, you just have to pray. You just have to talk, you know, to God and. And talk to the Savior and. And he'll take all of your pain away. Right, That's. I really wanted Jesus to do that for me. I really loved Jesus. I. You know, we talk about informed consent and how you're not really able to give informed consent at 8 years old because you really don't know what you're signing up for. And I didn't. But I knew I loved Jesus and I wanted to follow him.

Linda Barney [00:42:29] And yet I felt inadequate. I felt not enough at a very young age because I knew my family didn't fit that mold and that we were probably never going to. And then we came really close to getting there. And then, you know, my mom stood her ground and stood up for her own values and her own beliefs and said no to that.

Linda Barney [00:42:55] But I was devastated. You know, I. Again, it was another way that we didn't measure up. You know, we'd been looking forward to this. We'd been telling our friends and the community knew that we were getting ready to go to the temple. And then it just all kind of fell apart. And then I was back to this.

Linda Barney [00:43:17] Well, what it. You know, and as a. A kid, you're just thinking, what did I do? What could I have done better? You know, how could I have been a better kid? So that, you know, my parents wanted to be with me forever. And, and they didn't say they didn't want to. It was just, you know, my mom didn't have that belief.

Linda Barney [00:43:37] And I. I think we all wanted it for different reasons, but my mom just couldn't go through with it. And it. It was devastating to feel like the whole community saw that, watched that happen. And then I'm. I'm just back down to the, you know, the kid whose parents are inactive and, and not. We don't fit the mold.

Margi Dehlin [00:44:06] Yes, I feel that. I feel that so deeply.

John Dehlin [00:44:11] Yeah. Some of the most orthodox Mormons are the ones who grew up in, quote, I don't. The term broken home is offensive. Now, I've learned from people. I grew up in a home that experienced divorce, but people don't like it when I use that term, broken home, because it's basically shaming families that split up, often for healthy reasons. But, but, but definitely, some of the most orthodox Mormons I've ever met are ones who came from homes where there was a lot of stress or division, and that actually makes them more. More committed, which we'll see if that ends up being true for you. I'll just ask really quickly.

John Dehlin [00:44:44] I. I sense we grew up at a similar era in the church. If you're, if you're naming, if you're mentioning Mary, miss. We probably grew up in a similar era. But what messages did you get around being LGBT homosexual, as they would have referred to it back then? So growing up, you know, I'm sure there Spencer V. Kimball and Boyd K. Packer were part of your upbringing.

Linda Barney [00:45:08] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:45:09] But what were you taught about gay people, basically,

Linda Barney [00:45:14] within the community? It was not really talked about at that. At that time, we just didn't really talk about it unless it was a joke. So a lot of jokes around homosexuality. I remembered my dad saying there was someone in. In our community who had, like, made a. Overture of some sort towards him. But this was a person who was married and had a family, and that was, you know, a big taboo thing. But it had happened, you know, way before I was ever around. It was when they were younger. And so if it was talked about, it was as a person having a perverse, you know, condition of something being wrong with them. And they, they, you know, they're predators. They're. They're bad people.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:16] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:46:17] But in high school, I had some friends who were gay, and I knew they were gay, but we didn't talk about. Wasn't ever said out loud. We just kind of. Everyone knew. I knew that these boys were. They only had friends that were girls, and we just knew and that was who they were, and they were good friends, and I loved them, but I never thought to ask them about it or anything like that. It was just not spoken. Yeah, for the most part.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:46:54] So you probably. It sounds like you weren't, like, antagonistic towards LGBT people, but you probably didn't grow up with the best associations about being gay.

Linda Barney [00:47:05] Right. Yeah, it was. I didn't know anybody as far as I knew that was gay, except for my friends in high school. And again, we just didn't go there. Just didn't say it. If it, if it was talked about, it was in a joking manner. Yeah, there were songs, there were jokes. Yeah, they were all bad. And

Margi Dehlin [00:47:27] that was.

Linda Barney [00:47:28] That was it. And then, yeah, hearing talks from church authorities about sexual sin and, you know, reading. I know. I read the Miracle of Forgiveness at some point, and I remember we didn't watch conference in my house. It was not a thing. But I had a little black and white Television. So I. When conference was on, I would go in my room and watch it on my little black and white tv. And I do remember hearing talks from Spencer Kimball that made me feel super just ashamed of myself. If, you know, you know, you're starting to develop sexually and if you have certain feelings and now these men who are in authority are telling you all of those things are bad and wrong.

Linda Barney [00:48:23] So, yeah, that guilt and shame started in the teenage years and. And since I believed everything literally and I took it all very seriously, and then, you know, the anxiety and. And that part of my personality. So it made me work even harder to pray more, read my scriptures more, be, you know, be a better kid other than sloughing seminary, because I don't know why I didn't. I didn't like seminary, I guess.

Margi Dehlin [00:48:52] Yeah. So at this point, then it sounds like you had a moment of almost going to the temple. Right. And then that kind of falls through. How did that. So if we're kind of going to look into young adulthood and maybe you meeting your husband, how did that affect you moving forward as you kind of leave home or, you know, now move into sort of this next phase of life? How did that affect that? And how did it kind of play through? Did you double down? Were you really going deep with kind of. If you kind of take us through, maybe through marriage and you're becoming. At this particular point, what would that look like?

The Book of Mormon Challenge and Temple Marriage

Linda Barney [00:49:45] Yeah. My first year at college, I decided to do Moroni's Challenge. And so I read the entire Book of Mormon and I prayed about it. And I felt like. I felt good. You know, I felt. I think I was. I prided myself on being a very spiritual person from pretty young age.

Linda Barney [00:50:05] Having had that prayer experience at camp and having. After my grandma died, I prayed and kind of got the answer that, yeah, you'll see her again. And so I did the. You know, I thought, well, it's probably about time I took this to the next level. And I remember, you know, I probably had roommates who were also pretty diligent about these things, too, so it could have been their influence as well. But I decided to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. Kind of felt good. I don't really. I don't think it was very profound. It was just the. Yeah, I believe it. Yeah, this is a. This is what I should be doing. This is what I, you know.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:47] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:50:47] This is the right thing.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:48] Yep.

Linda Barney [00:50:49] And because of my dad's alcohol issues, I committed to not marrying anyone who ever drank alcohol at all. In any way, shape, or form and that. So that was one of my main. You have to be a returned missionary and you. No alcohol and pretty much, you know, opposite of what I thought my dad was. That's what I wanted. I wanted someone who went to church. I wanted someone who wanted to live that spiritual life with me. And I met him and we got married, and he was all those things. He was very kind and generous and spiritual, and he wanted to take me to the temple. So my. I. I was married very young. So after one year of college, I got married at 19.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:45] And where were you, Logan?

Linda Barney [00:51:48] At Utah State.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:48] At Utah State. Okay.

Linda Barney [00:51:51] And he was five years older, so he seemed, you know, pretty. He had a good head on his shoulders, and he was stable and didn't like alcohol, didn't like coffee, didn't smoke, and. And wanted to marry me in the temple. And.

Margi Dehlin [00:52:08] Yes.

Linda Barney [00:52:09] So after dating for a year, we got married.

Margi Dehlin [00:52:12] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:52:13] And first big shelf item was my temple marriage because again, my, you know, the rules are you can't go into the temple if you're an inactive member. And my parents couldn't come in the temple, and so they were standing outside and I didn't know why. I was crying the whole day.

Linda Barney [00:52:38] I just cried the entire day. And I was happy I was marrying this person that I love, but I was so sad. And he had his whole family there, most of his family, his parents and some of his siblings. My sister was with me, so she sat where my mom would have been next to me.

Linda Barney [00:53:06] And I just didn't really register to me at the time why it was crying through the entire ceremony. But looking back now, I realized that it was because my parents got shut out. And I feel really bad that they had to go through that and that they, you know, they were still loving and supporting me, but they couldn't be there for that moment.

Margi Dehlin [00:53:35] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:53:36] Was one of the happiest moments of my life. And two of the people that I love the most couldn't be there. So that kind of. It didn't sit well. It was hard.

Margi Dehlin [00:53:49] Like, planted a bit of a seed that just. Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:53:53] But again, I was very much. We'll just run the program.

Margi Dehlin [00:53:57] Yes.

Linda Barney [00:53:58] We had to. We had to keep running the program

Margi Dehlin [00:54:00] to get the formula right, to get the safety. Yep.

John Dehlin [00:54:05] I'm never gonna stop reinforcing to the listening audience the reality that in 2022, parents of. Of children getting married in the Mormon Temple are still excluded. Siblings, parents, grandparents, family friends, aunts, uncles. If you're not paying tithing to the lds Church and. And obeying all the commandments. It says you are denied attending the wedding of your own daughter or son. And the churches, you know, trying to make it appear as though it's becoming more progressive in that regard. But the truth is, to this day, every single day across the world, family and friends are excluded from Mormon weddings. And that's.

John Dehlin [00:54:54] I don't know how, you know, the church will say it's because it's a sacred event in a sacred place, but I honestly don't know any other way to interpret it in 2022 other than a form of coercion to make it so people pay. Pay the church money. And the church is the richest church in the United States, you know, with hundreds of billions of dollars. So I don't mean to hijack your story, but I'm just gonna. I'm gonna keep reminding that until the church changes.

Linda Barney [00:55:22] Yeah. And I agree. And, like, I was so committed that I didn't even let myself understand what it really meant. And I didn't really let myself explore those feelings at all. I just was so ingrained with this is what I have to do.

Margi Dehlin [00:55:42] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:55:43] And it was almost. I feel bad about it now, but it was almost like, well, if my parents wanted to bad enough, they could have been here. You know, they could have gone in and paid some tithing or started going to church, and they could have been here if they wanted to. And that was, I think, how I rationalized it, as crappy as that sounds now. That was kind of. I don't know if I learned that somewhere or if that was just what I came up with.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:15] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:56:16] I think it's a pretty common narrative, though.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:18] Yeah. Yeah. I'm so sorry for that. And I think it's really interesting that on a level, you were so bought into this being your. The solution kind of to your fear and anxiety and what you wanted to create moving forward. And you're in this moment where you're so there, but a part of you still is recognizing that's the part of you that's crying. You know, that on some level, you're still feeling this. This loss. And you know, how interesting that.

Linda Barney [00:56:53] Really.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:54] I know this is obvious, but I do think it's interesting when in this temple moment, you're basically having a tangible experience of the things you've lived about your parents growing up in the church. It's just literally like, here's heaven and you can go in and your parents. Nope, different. And. And the difference is, is you're living that in real time. You're. You're being given an experience by the church where you're actually exper. Experiencing that now where you're having this moment and all these people are included. Oh, but your parents are out, and so you can't have that, Linda. Not for you, not for your family.

Linda Barney [00:57:33] You know, you don't get that.

Margi Dehlin [00:57:35] That's right.

Linda Barney [00:57:36] And there's even a weird moment after the ceremony. They had us go. I don't know if this is what they do for everybody. I got married in the Salt Lake Temple. So they made us go down stairs and, like, the basement. And then my husband was coming down this long hallway one direction, and I was coming the other direction. And then we're supposed to meet up, and then we go up the stairs and out to the people waiting outside. But there was this. There were a few minutes where I didn't know if I was going the right direction.

Linda Barney [00:58:08] I'm walking down this hallway. There's no one. There's no. I'm. I'm like, in the basement corridors of this temple, and I'm lost, and I'm. It's so, like, it's kind of symbolic to me. Like, I just did this thing, and now I'm. I'm alone. I'm totally alone. This is the most important day in my life, and I don't even know where I'm at. I don't know where my husband is. I don't know where anyone is. There's no one there to. Usually there's some little helper there to show you where to go. There was no one.

Linda Barney [00:58:38] And I'm wandering down this narrow, long hallway in this weird building, and. And I'm just like, what is this? Like, what is happening? Why did they have me come down this lung? And finally my husband was, you know, coming towards me. And then. I guess it was cool, but it was weird.

Margi Dehlin [00:58:57] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:58:58] I found that really strange. And it was like, are you trying to instill fear in me that if I don't do what I'm supposed to do, and all of those covenants that I just made, if I don't do those, if I don't live up to those.

Margi Dehlin [00:59:11] Yeah.

Linda Barney [00:59:11] Is this what's waiting for me? This long, narrow stretch of hallway just of me, totally alone?

John Dehlin [00:59:21] Powerful imagery. Did. Did you go through before 19? Before or during 1990? So you would have experienced. Okay, so you would have seen the. The penalties, the death penalties, the. The signs and the tokens that were very graphic that came from them. Sonic Lodge, the slitting of the throat, the disemboweling the cutting out of your own heart, hand, emotions.

Linda Barney [00:59:43] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:59:44] Did. How did that strike you at the time, if you're comfortable sharing?

Linda Barney [00:59:48] I thought it was strange. But again, you look around and everyone seems okay with it, so you just kind of go along and. And do it. And I know a lot of women didn't like veiling their faces in the temple, but I think I was kind of the opposite. I liked being able to pull that veil over my face because I didn't. It was almost like I was leaving the room and I didn't really like being in the room. I didn't like the temple. I tried to make myself like it, but I really didn't like being there. I didn't like most of everything about it. And so when I got to veil my face, it was like I was disappearing for a minute.

Margi Dehlin [01:00:32] Oh, that's so interesting.

John Dehlin [01:00:34] Kind of disassociating.

Linda Barney [01:00:35] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:00:36] Associating, probably. And like a barrier.

Linda Barney [01:00:38] Yes. I'm not even here. I'm in my own space. I'm not here. And that's. I've never heard anyone else who felt that way about it, but for me, it was an escape almost. And I probably didn't think too deeply about what it meant to me as a woman and my position or my relationship to God.

Margi Dehlin [01:01:02] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:01:03] I just thought about, oh, I get to leave for a second. Kind of nice. So.

Marriage, Motherhood, and LDS Family Life

Margi Dehlin [01:01:12] So you're at this point and now you are married and remind me of your. Do you want to name your husband originally for not to. Dave. Okay, so you and Dave are. Are married. You've had kind of a mixed emotion day.

Linda Barney [01:01:27] Do you remember before,

Margi Dehlin [01:01:32] you know, the path of parenting? Do you remember what you expected or beliefs that you had around parenting and how it worked and even your role as a mom? So this would be like the time that you're like the dream. Like, what is the dream? And are you and your husband pretty much on the same page with regard. And now we're going specifically into, like, the parenting area. Do you remember your thoughts at that time, your dreams and kind of how you thought this would all work?

Linda Barney [01:02:05] Yeah, I had a very specific dream of what our family was going to look like and the things we were going to do. We were always going to go to church together. We were always going to have family home evenings, family prayers that my kids. I had a plan. They were all going to live really close by. They were. They're all going to be within, like, five minutes of my house.

Margi Dehlin [01:02:32] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:02:33] So that I could see them and see all the grandchildren that I was going to have could be at my house all the time.

Margi Dehlin [01:02:38] Yes.

Linda Barney [01:02:39] So there was this. Because I grew up next door to my grandmother, and it was wonderful. And I loved that close. Excuse me, that close relationship I had with my grandparents. So wanted my kids to all be close, my grandkids close. We were all going to do all the things.

Margi Dehlin [01:02:58] What were all the things?

Linda Barney [01:02:59] What are some of the things you said you do? You go to church on Sunday. You have family home evening. You study the scriptures. You send your kids on missions. You make sure your kids get married in the temple.

Linda Barney [01:03:13] You pay your tithing. Our kids pay to tithing, and you keep the word of wisdom. And I grew up in a house where there was tea and coffee, and I drank tea and coffee every day. But as I became more committed to this way of living my life, I became pretty strict with the word of wisdom. And it was not.

Linda Barney [01:03:35] If my parents came to my house, they drank coffee and tea. And I didn't teach my kids that that was bad for them to do. I let them see their grandparents have those things, and it's just not something we do.

Linda Barney [01:03:50] So we did. We were going to do it all, and we were going to, you know, make it through that to the finish line, our family intact, all of us faithful, happy, doing everything that we were asked to do.

Margi Dehlin [01:04:06] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:04:06] So with our. We waited a year before we started trying to get pregnant, but we were still in school when we had our oldest son, Michael. And I just had dreams of him, you know, serving a mission. How. How off awesome it was going to be, how proud we would be. You know, he was going to get married in the temple. And when he was 2, I told him, you're going to be a doctor someday.

Linda Barney [01:04:37] And he is. And he did go on a mission, and he did do all the things, and he's still very faithful. And then as our second and third came along, we just kept working the program. And I served in a lot of very busy callings. It was young women's president a couple times, and I was gone a lot. My husband was in bishoprics. He was gone a lot. And it was just kind of. Our kids were used to that. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:05:08] You know, so in thinking about those years and kind of your role as a mother,

Linda Barney [01:05:17] how you've talked a little

Margi Dehlin [01:05:19] bit about this, right. Kind of in your dreams and aspirations for your family and kind of parenting, is there anything specific that comes up with regard to the role of a mother and what it meant to you and what, you know, kind of what your, what you were going for. Would you say you were the engine? You're. You were the engine to sort of make sure all these things were happening. Were you talk to me a little bit about kind of what you remember feeling your primary sort of objectives were in your role as a mother in this family now that you're really trying to create, you know, this Mormon vision really well.

Linda Barney [01:06:05] There was a part of me that took from the home I grew up in was that we're a team, this family, we're a team, we stick together. And as far as the church went, we were going to do everything. And I think I was the driving force of that. I think at least it was my impression that most women were the ones who were saying, okay, now we're going to have family home evening. Right. It's not usually the husband, it's usually the mother who is saying, you know, we're going to have family home evening. Now, I've prepared the lesson.

Margi Dehlin [01:06:38] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:06:38] And my husband, you know, he's more than willing to support, but it wasn't him usually planning it, it was me.

Margi Dehlin [01:06:45] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:06:46] And making sure we all gathered for family prayers. And, you know, I think I was. I'm just. My husband's never tried to boss or control me to this day. He doesn't try. He's always supported. And whatever I've wanted us to do as a family, let's, you know, let's do it 100%. And I even remember saying to him at one point, we had some friends who lived near us, and I remember the wife saying one time, my kids and I are going to the celestial kingdom with or without you, when they got in a fight.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:24] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:07:24] And I thought that was so funny because I was like, you can't get into the celestial kingdom without your husband. Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:29] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:07:30] So I was like, I said to my husband, we were talking about that and I said, if you decide we're going to hell, I'll say, come on, kids, get in the car. We're all going to hell together. We're a team. We're doing this together. And my husband, I guess I looked at him as a priesthood leader who would never do that. He was never going to say anything like that, that we're not going to go to church anymore or we're not going to do these things anymore. I had complete trust that I was married to this upstanding, priesthood holding, strong man.

Margi Dehlin [01:08:07] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:08:07] Who would never lead us astray. He had the priesthood, he had the power of God. And yeah, I had every confidence that that was how our life was going to go. And I think I was, you know, gonna make sure it all happened.

Margi Dehlin [01:08:21] So if we were to drop in kind of previous to your faith transition, is this what we would see then, prior to transition, if we were going to drop in on. Your life is just sort of you and a bunch of callings, your husband and a bunch of callings. This template kind of happening. And now this is before, of course, you know, some of the things happen to kind of make it. So is that what we would see? Kind of this full. Yep.

Linda Barney [01:08:47] Actualization, fully active, believing, LDS family doing. Participating as much as we possibly could in everything. Everything. And I relied on that belief that, you know, the priesthood was real.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:06] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:09:06] And that that was an advantage we had that other people didn't have.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:12] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:09:13] That we were special. We could get blessings. Our kids could get blessings from their dad and that we had an advantage.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:23] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:09:24] We had a. An inside track. Yeah. Heaven or whatever.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:30] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:09:30] Fully believed that.

Anxiety, Safety, and the Pressures of Belief

Margi Dehlin [01:09:32] And did you experience the safety, the feeling of safety at that particular time that you had hoped for?

Linda Barney [01:09:42] I did. I still. As I got. As I got to be sorry. Around 30 years old, I started having health problems. I had three young children and wasn't anything major, like I didn't have a major illness or anything. I just did not feel good. I did not feel like things were. I. I don't know. I just knew I was off. Something was off. And I looked at what I was doing. I turned 30, and on my 30th birthday, I was like, I feel like I'm 50. Which seemed really old to me at that time. Right. Like. Like 50 years old. That's how old I feel.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:27] Right.

Linda Barney [01:10:28] I feel way younger than that now. But at the time, I was like, oh, I feel like I'm turning 50.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:33] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:10:33] And I was scared, and I was still dealing with a lot of the anxiety all, you know. Yeah. And I was starting to have panic attacks in the middle of the night, wake up, heart pounding, feeling like I'm gonna die.

Linda Barney [01:10:47] I was taking a lot of, like, Benadryl to sleep. I was told that it wasn't habit forming. So I thought, it's fine if I take three or four so I can get to sleep. It's, you know, fine if I take 8 Tylenol, 10 Tylenol a day for the headaches.

Linda Barney [01:11:07] Coca Cola was iffy with the word of wisdom, but it was not coffee. So drink a lot of just straight sugar, Coca Cola to keep going through the day. And it caught up with me at about that 30 year mark. And my body finally said, you have to change something. This is, you know, it wasn't functioning how it needed to be. And so my body really screamed out to me and said, something has to change.

Margi Dehlin [01:11:39] Wow. Do you know what's so interesting to me as you're telling your story? It reminds me a little bit of your teen years where I was like, well, you know, it seems like it's working. And then we kind of delved a little bit deeper and you were like, well, actually, is this idea that when we're living the model and when we're trying to have all the. Oftentimes it's not really working. What you have is like the behavior you have, the. If you, if you look at the. The human behavior, it looks a certain way. You've achieved the outcome in behavior, but, like, internally they're suffering still.

Margi Dehlin [01:12:18] So in your teen years, you were talking about guilt and shame and this anxiety around your family being together and feeling safe. Right. And here we have you, like, really doing all the things, doing all the things asked of you. And then slowly there's this. I mean, would you say it this way, that there was a bit of a cost scenario to you doing all the things for you, showing up in this way with what's been asked of you. Is that how you view that?

Linda Barney [01:12:50] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [01:12:51] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:12:51] Like, I was spending a lot of time with other people's kids and going to girls camp, going to all the young women's activities and taking care of. And I. I didn't have daughters, so I loved being with the girls. And, you know, it was hard, but it was. I felt like it was a good sacrifice at the time. But, you know, my kids were, you know, home fending for themselves while I was, you know, off doing all these things with other people's children. And it made sense at the time because I just thought it was what I was supposed to do.

Margi Dehlin [01:13:31] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:13:32] But I can see there. There was a moment where Devin said to me, when are you going to choose me, Mom? When I was, you know, running out the door to another meeting. And that broke my heart.

Margi Dehlin [01:13:48] I so remember those times. Do you remember that, John? I remember those years of callings at the same time as having young children. And that was another family foil where supposedly the church was about family. But I was like, I'm out with other people's children. I'm not actually. Not with my. And I want to be. Actually want to be with my kids. They're little. Yeah. And so. So that was another sort of really. And I was actually very, I remember being vocal about it through our marriage with John where it was like, and, and saying no to calling sometimes or accepting a calling in young women's and being like, you know, hey, but I'll only go to hear this and this because my kids are young, but this, this feeling of like I'm tending to other people's children and other people are

Linda Barney [01:14:39] attending to my children.

Margi Dehlin [01:14:40] That's right. But you're not oftentimes having this sense of like this family time.

Linda Barney [01:14:45] Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:14:46] That you would guess.

Linda Barney [01:14:47] And a lot of times because my, my two youngest sons knew their identity at a very young age. They knew they didn't fit the mold of what a young LDS boy is.

Margi Dehlin [01:15:01] Yes.

Linda Barney [01:15:01] And they were getting messages in scouts and from primary teachers and young men's leaders that who they were was not okay. Yes. I wasn't the one teaching them that. They were getting those messages from the people who were taking care of them in the church.

Margi Dehlin [01:15:22] Yes.

Linda Barney [01:15:22] While I was tending to the young women.

Margi Dehlin [01:15:24] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:15:26] And I'll just say I'm always so mixed about this issue because I, you know, because my parents got divorced when I was younger and their lives got crazy. It was other kids, parents that were my youth leaders that were giving me confidence, that were telling me that they believed in me, that were my seminary teachers or scout leaders. And that was really beneficial to me. And there's this idea that we hear, heard decades ago, that it takes a village to raise a kid. And oftentimes even if you do have parents in the home, you don't want to listen to your parents.

John Dehlin [01:16:01] You want, you know, but you may listen to someone else's parents because they're cooler or just because they're not your parents. So like even this idea of having your parents be busy serving in, in the ward or in the community, for me it's double edged. It's, it's sad for the kids that feel neglected by their parents, but it's also part of what makes the church amazing for many, especially if they're the ones who benefit.

John Dehlin [01:16:27] Or let's just say you have parents that aren't great. Let's say your parents are kind of not great, but, but someone else's parents are and they're willing to volunteer. So it's one of those things that, that for me is mixed. It's not an unambiguous bad, it's kind of an ambiguous sword. Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:16:44] It's good and bad for sure. Because I had young women leaders that I was so close to that they would come to my birthday parties like they were such a big part of my life. And I, I'm truly grateful for that and for the things that they, you know, showed up for me in my life when I needed that stability. But, and I was trying to do that. That's what I was trying to do for, for the young women. And I'm glad in a way that I did. I mean, I regret that it took time away from my family, but there were many or, I don't know, I couldn't even tell you how many, but there have been young women who have come to me. Will you please talk to my parents? I am scared to come out to them.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:30] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:17:30] And I did that more than once.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:35] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:17:36] For some of my. Not at the time, not when they were in young women's. But later as they got a little older.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:42] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:17:43] And they had to come out to their parents, they would, you know, have me talk to him first and.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:50] Yeah. So moving kind of into the suffering during this time, I feel like you've, you've gone into that a little bit. You've got into sort of your, your health.

Linda Barney [01:18:00] Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:18:01] With some panic attacks and having trouble sleeping, having this sense of missing out on some moments or with your own children moving into kind of more of the, your, your children's identities and them coming into their own a little bit. Were there moments of suffering there for you where you were able to tap into their suffering or you were able to see things in your home with regard to parenting them? Specifically

Linda Barney [01:18:39] the incident where Devin asked, when are you going to choose me? That I could feel his longing to have me there. And Devin is my youngest. They're. They are my youngest and they've always been very good at letting me know when I'm falling short.

Linda Barney [01:19:00] Feedback and he was not afraid to let me know. Falling short here, Mom. And obviously that's a child who's suffering when he was. When they were six, they took me in their room and they sat me down on the bed and they shut the door and they said, you're not being a good mommy.

Linda Barney [01:19:23] And I said, why? What am I doing wrong? And they said, well, you're spending too much time away from me, you're working too much and you need to spend more time with me. And I cried. Of course my little six year old child is telling me this. And I said, okay, I'll try to spend more time with you. But it was also because I was, I had gone back to work. It wasn't just church, but I'm sure It was both.

Margi Dehlin [01:19:51] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:19:54] And then, you know, my oldest became very reliable and helpful. He knew how to take care of his brothers. He knew how to do the laundry. He knew how to keep things together. And he probably had, you know, he would have rather been off doing something with his friends a lot of times, but he was, you know, I. I think I probably put a lot on him at a pretty young age because I did go back to work and I had three, you know, children in three different school schedules.

Margi Dehlin [01:20:32] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:20:33] And so he would be there when I wasn't there, when I was. If I was still at work or whatever.

Margi Dehlin [01:20:39] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:20:40] And he probably would have rather been, you know, doing something else.

Margi Dehlin [01:20:45] Yeah. I think that is an interesting. An interesting point. When John, you were talking about, you know, this. This idea of, you know, the collective good people being pulled away from their families to show up for other people's children and this idea that it's kind of mixed. I think it's interesting where you fall because you're the youngest in. In a family, and so that provided you some, I think, num. Like who you are in family. The family system can sometimes affect that experience. So being the youngest, you know, John's siblings were quite a bit older. So it's socialization, and that is exciting. I was the oldest girl, and so for my parents, they were always in leadership positions, and it made me a.

Margi Dehlin [01:21:38] A second mother. I ended up actually babysitting a lot. I don't view, like, a lot of my high school experiences having some of that socialization because I really was really overly responsible in a way and taken care of. So it's interesting to look at that through just sort of where you are in the family, gender, even in some of those responsibilities. But also, in response, what a beautiful moment with your child, though. Like, I just. Thinking of a child at 6. Is that what you said?

Margi Dehlin [01:22:17] Being able to really, on a level, identify a need and speak directly to you about that need. That says quite a bit about them. It says quite a bit about the relationship you had that they trusted you to hear it. Also. I'm just thinking, like, that's a beautiful, beautiful moment.

Linda Barney [01:22:40] Yeah, it was. I was really proud of him, of them for. Yeah, for doing that. Because it does make a difference as a parent. More than anything. I wanted. I wanted to take care of my children. I wanted them to be safe and happy, but I also wanted them to think I was doing a good job. I guess I wanted them to be proud of me. And so Devin letting me know, hey, you're not Measuring up here. Okay.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:12] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:23:13] As a wake up call, Will. And then again, when. When they said to me, when are you going to choose me, Mom? It still gets me. And I said, right now? Yeah, right now.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:28] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:23:29] I think they were the one who went with me everywhere. They were the youngest. There was a five, almost five year gap between Evan and my middle son, Jaren. So they just. I just took Devin with me everywhere.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:41] Yes.

Linda Barney [01:23:41] They were always with me and very attached. Very. Still very attached to each other. But they, you know, were not afraid to tell me. And I'm glad that they weren't afraid.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:54] Yeah. Yeah. It just so reminds me of some of the. The excruciating realities of being a parent. And I think that is one is sometimes, you know, you know, we don't know what we don't know we are still becoming in our parenthood, in our parenting journey, because, you know, we can only parent to the level of, you know, awareness we have. So there's like that. But then there are those moments, too, where on some level you feel like you're giving a love.

Linda Barney [01:24:26] You.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:27] You feel like you're offering a love to your children. But then the feedback loop is like that, but that is not what is being expressed or received on their end. And that can feel. That can feel unsettling, like, hard to reconcile. And we've had plenty of those moments in our parenting journey, too, where here we felt like we were giving this love that was just absolutely. And. But it was being received in such a different way that it was quite heartbreaking to realize that disconnect.

Linda Barney [01:25:04] Yes. Because I was giving the love that I thought that they needed, and I thought I was doing all the right things, but I was giving it my way. I wasn't giving it in the way that they necessarily always needed.

Margi Dehlin [01:25:18] Exactly.

Linda Barney [01:25:19] To be shown.

Margi Dehlin [01:25:21] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:25:21] You know, I'm thinking in my head, well, I'm committing myself to these callings, and I'm giving you the example that I'm faithful. I'm living up to the commitments that I've made and the promises that I've made.

Margi Dehlin [01:25:35] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:25:35] And then I'm being a good parent because I'm showing you how to live up to a commitment. And. And their view was different. Their view was, you're leaving us again. You're spending time outside the home, not with us. You know, that's a very different feeling for them.

Margi Dehlin [01:25:59] That's right.

Linda Barney [01:26:00] Needed to see it from their point of view.

Margi Dehlin [01:26:03] Right.

Linda Barney [01:26:04] Devon was able to show me that.

Margi Dehlin [01:26:05] Yeah. And so interesting, too, with regard to LGBTQIA Sort of that they're being put into a place where they're going to receive messages that maybe even for you in particular, you wouldn't have offered. So then they're actually having exposure now to. And that is another sort of, I

Linda Barney [01:26:29] would guess, a piece.

Children's Journeys and Coming Out

Margi Dehlin [01:26:31] So if we were going to kind of go back that way, I'm kind of curious. And we'll move maybe now into some of those. Some of your children now in their journeys and catalyst, maybe a catalyst, you know, what made all of this change, what made your journey sort of shift in the way that. And maybe I'll just go ahead and give a bit of a trigger warning at this point just so that people watching and listening can take good care of themselves. Because we do care about you.

Margi Dehlin [01:27:09] That some of what we'll be talking about does involve suicidality and, you know, attempts of. Of suicide. And so if you need to take breaks or if that's. Just take care of yourself in any way that you need to. As we kind of shift now into things that actually many, many people I feel like are experiencing presently. So I was curious for you if during their growing up years with. And it's, I feel like two of your children.

Margi Dehlin [01:27:46] Is that right? Identify lgbtqia. Do I have that right? Did you have any glimpses of any, you know, clues, identity? Did you have any sense? I guess is what I want to say.

Linda Barney [01:28:00] I think I did, but I didn't want to know.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:04] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:28:04] Because when Jiren did come out to me, I was, I say that I was shocked but not surprised.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:12] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:28:12] Because on some level I did know.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:14] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:28:14] There were obvious signs. All of his best friends growing up were girls. He felt much more comfortable with friends who were girls. And there were times where I'd like even bought him a shirt that said, she's just a friend, I promise. Which, you know, that should have been a wake up call for me, but I really, I kept my head in the clouds. I was so focused on my perfect family and all the things that had to happen to achieve that that I just kind of ignored all of the other signs that were there. Yeah, they didn't. Devin and Jaren both, they played sports because their dad wanted them to. They didn't really love playing soccer or basketball, but they did it.

Margi Dehlin [01:29:06] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:29:07] To make him happy. But I remember we put Jaren in a, in a basketball camp actually. Was it Jiren and Michael, I think, both boys, my two oldest, and it was every day would drive them to this basketball camp for a week. It was a week long thing. And Some famous basketball player was the guy running. And I can't remember. I don't know enough about sports. I can't remember what his name was. But, yeah, some famous basketball guy that lived up in northern Utah and he was running the camp and Jaren would be out on the court in his big oversized jersey that they gave all the kids to wear, and he would be twirling with his jersey instead of watching for the ball or trying to catch a pass or whatever.

Linda Barney [01:29:53] He was, like, twirling and just having a great time. He was, you know, loving this flowy dress thing that he got to wear. And the coach would say, jaren, quit twirling. And it would just be like, I'm having way more fun, like, just dancing around.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:15] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:30:16] Than getting into this sport. You just didn't care for it.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:21] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:30:22] But I just thought it was cute.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:23] I didn't. Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:30:25] You know, it's just. That's just my little boy. That's just how he was very. He loved, you know, music and singing and dancing and performing, and he wasn't into sports, so it made sense to me.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:43] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:30:43] That he would rather twirl than go get the ball.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:48] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:30:48] But it didn't, you know, the coach was frustrated.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:51] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:30:52] So, yeah, things like that, that probably should have been signs to me, but honestly, even I. Even though I had had friends in high school who were gay, it just didn't register in my mind that wasn't going to be our story because my boys were going to go on missions and get married in the temple and have children and follow the plan.

Margi Dehlin [01:31:17] Right.

Linda Barney [01:31:18] So I did not know.

Margi Dehlin [01:31:21] Right.

Linda Barney [01:31:21] On some level I did, but no.

Faith Doubts Begin While Son Is on a Mission

Margi Dehlin [01:31:25] So when. When did things kind of change? What was the catalyst for. Yeah, things changing as you.

Linda Barney [01:31:34] For me, for my faith journey. I started to change drastically when my oldest son went on a mission, and it was really super hard for me to let him go. I was. I'm very attached to all my children. So having him leave for two years and not being able to speak to him and not having any access to him for those two years was really hard.

Linda Barney [01:32:00] And the MTC experience was awful. And they had told us, you know, don't. It was at. That they made some announcement at some point about don't bring your whole family to the mtc. Right. Like just mom and dad and. And I think it was more intended to be like, don't bring your whole extended family. But we took it as just, mom and dad need to go to the mtc. So we took Michael to the MTC and It.

Linda Barney [01:32:31] I was mad. I was so angry, and I didn't really understand why at the time. I just knew I was mad because they were taking my son and I wasn't going to have access to him for two whole years.

Margi Dehlin [01:32:43] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:32:44] And I remember they're playing this nice music as you walk in this big room, and there's places to sit while you wait. They're showing a video on the screen. I don't remember what the video was about. It was probably something about missionary work. And there's music playing, and I can see now how manipulative it was. And I felt angry.

Linda Barney [01:33:05] I think I felt angry because I felt manipulated by what was happening. And this sweet little elderly sister missionary came up to me and said something to me. And I just remember thinking, I just want to punch you in the face.

Linda Barney [01:33:20] You're taking my son. And I felt guilty about that. I felt bad that I was so angry. But it was a turning point for me because I thought, okay, so we're doing this. We're sending him. He wants to go.

Linda Barney [01:33:37] He's going to go teach people, and he's going to come back in two years, and I'm not going to know anything about anything. And at that point, I started getting up every morning at least an hour before I got my other two up for school, and I would study whatever gospel stuff I could get my hands on. I would go to Deseret Book, and I would just buy armloads of books, and I would study institute manuals that were from byu. You could sometimes buy those at Desert Book. There were, like, the manual for different classes at byu Institute classes. I would study those. I would study the Sunday school manuals.

Linda Barney [01:34:18] I studied the. Whatever the missionaries taught from. Was it Preach My Gospel or whatever that manual was that they used in the early 2000s. I studied that thing front to back. And I just started to really go deep into doctrine because I was so afraid that my son wouldn't be able to relate to me and I wouldn't be spiritual enough when he came home. So I really jumped on that and hit it hard. And hours of study and taking notes.

Linda Barney [01:34:57] I have boxes of journals of all the things I studied and became very, very serious about gospel study, not what they were necessarily teaching in Sunday school every week, although I did study that, too. I was going above and beyond and studying everything I could get my hands on.

Linda Barney [01:35:18] And at the same time, my boys, you know, they're figuring out who they are. My two youngest, and I'm so caught up in trying to be the Spiritual giant and learn everything that I can. At one point, Jerry came to me and said, mom, you know, you always used to write in your journal. Do you have the journal entry that. About when I came out to you?

Linda Barney [01:35:46] And I said, I don't have that because I wasn't writing about my life. I was writing about what I was studying. And that was all I was writing in my journals. That was my. It almost became an obsession.

Linda Barney [01:36:02] I had to just learn everything I could. And when Jaren came out to me, I didn't write down that experience, but I went back to find that date and it was just whatever I was studying at that time.

John Dehlin [01:36:18] I'm curious what your goal was in studying, you know, like, I mean, as soon as, as soon as you started describing your in depth studying and buying all the books, I'm thinking about becoming a seminary teacher and how I lost my Mormon faith 20 years ago. So I'm thinking, oh, but I'm wondering, like, were you trying to make sure the church was true? Were you doubting? Were you. Was it just a manifestation of wanting to learn it better so you could know what your son was learning? Like, what, what was your. Why. Why was your reaction to your son serving a mission to triple down on your studying of church history and the gospel and stuff?

Linda Barney [01:36:58] So it wasn't studying church history.

John Dehlin [01:37:00] Okay. I was studying theology and doctrine, kind of.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:04] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:37:04] Okay.

Linda Barney [01:37:06] And if it was a Deseret book, it was okay to read. Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:10] So

Linda Barney [01:37:14] just wanted. I just wanted to not be an idiot when my son came home. And I wanted him to be able to talk to me about the things that he had experienced and learned. And I wanted to be able to say, hey, I've studied this. This is what I've been learning. I don't think I was doubting at that point, but I was definitely using that as a way to avoid thinking about some things. And I was definitely becoming more. I was reading a lot of apologetics. I didn't know that's what it was at the time. I was just reading Terrell and Fiona Givens and, you know, the God who Weeps and Stephen Farrell, and I was reading apologetics. I just didn't know that I was.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:58] Yeah, a couple, A couple things that I find interesting about this experience is. And some of this is really true in life just in general, but it's interesting in the religious context too. Of it was kind of your goal to get your, you know, oldest son to a place where he goes on a mission and, and much like kind of your wedding day where it was, it was beautiful. But like you. It was. It was this pinnacle moment, you know, and you keep. You have these pinnacle moments that you look toward for forever or they're supposed. They're supposed to be filled with meaning and filled with.

Margi Dehlin [01:38:43] And then you experience them and it's sort of like not what. Not what I pictured or not what I thought. And sometimes, like, it sounds like what I'm hearing you say. You can correct me if I'm wrong. It's just sort of. You worked for this. This was part of the whole, you know, sacrifice and role of mother and part of the, you know, formula of getting them to this place. But then you experienced it in a deeply conflicting, even personal loss way. And I think that can be really confusing. Did you experience it as confusing?

Linda Barney [01:39:24] Yes, it was definitely. This is the thing I've been working towards all of this time. And then you get there and it's almost like it's a mirage. It was an illusion. It's not anything that they told me it was going to be.

Margi Dehlin [01:39:39] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:39:40] And, you know, it sounds great in theory to send your. Your son away and let them do this. And he really did want to go, and he loved his mission, and I would not take that away from him. But it changed him. He came home a very different person. And there was almost a while there that I couldn't penetrate for a long time. And I. That's what I was afraid would happen, you know, and it happened anyway because he just. He'd had different experiences than I. I wasn't ever going to be able to know what that was like. I didn't serve a mission. I didn't, you know, but I didn't want that bond with him to be broken.

Margi Dehlin [01:40:27] Yes. That's what I feel from you.

Linda Barney [01:40:30] That is.

Margi Dehlin [01:40:31] And just. That is what I feel is just on a level, realizing that if he was going to college. Well, yes, he'll have his own experience, but you can still contact him. You can see him. You can share in it. You can.

Linda Barney [01:40:46] Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:40:47] But this type of situation where there's no contact, going to a different place, highly controlled. Right. I. I totally can see this idea of just, will I lose him? Will I lose this sense of connection? Almost you having a sense of That. A sense of like two years is a long time.

Linda Barney [01:41:10] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:41:11] Of not seeing, connecting. And especially during a developmental stage of life. Right. Where we're still forming our brains and our. And you having a bit of a sense for actually the potential impact of that.

Linda Barney [01:41:25] I had to give up total control, and I'm pretty much a control freak, especially when it comes to my kids.

Margi Dehlin [01:41:32] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:41:32] And the only thing that kept me sort of sane was that he got sent to California. So I just kept saying, well, we can go get him if we have to. It's drivable. Yeah, you know, we can go there if we need to.

Margi Dehlin [01:41:47] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:41:47] So yeah, so I started doing that, the deep study the, but not gospel, like not history. I didn't care that much about the history of the church, so I was more trying to get gospel knowledge and get closer to Christ. And the more I learned, the more I focused on Christ because the more I figured out things were weird, like things didn't add up about the doctrine. And so I just kept focusing on Christ.

John Dehlin [01:42:22] I was just going to add, you know, I just Recently I had this aha moment and I don't remember who shared it with me. Someone shared with me this idea of identity appropriation that we've heard a lot in modern years about cultural appropriate appropriation.

John Dehlin [01:42:40] But, but there's this idea of identity appropriation where a high demand religion can actually create or overtake someone's identity. And you know, a kid, when they're a teenager, like a kid and a teenager, they're kind of exploring. But one of the, one of the fair criticisms I think of Mormonism and specifically of Mormon mission is it's, if there's anything truly potentially culty or cult like about Mormonism, it's the Mormon mission experience. Experience. You can't be alone unless you're in the bathroom. You can only read like five books and they're pretty extreme books. You can't listen to any music other than like church music. You can't watch movies and you're just, you're giving 17 hours a day to the church and then you sleep for two years.

John Dehlin [01:43:29] Can't, you know, up until recently you couldn't even call home but twice a year. And you know that you, I think it's been pretty much demonstrated, especially now in, in the modern era, that Mormon missions are less about bringing people to the church than they are about cementing the identity of Mormons and their allegiance to the church.

John Dehlin [01:43:54] And that's when a kid can basically just lose any sense of who they really are and become exactly what the church wants them to be in terms of their beliefs, their worldview, their spirituality, their identity. And, and sometimes I, I, I saw you kind of tearing up and getting emotional, but sometimes a kid will go on a mission and you never, you never get their true self back because they become what the Church wanted them to become. And they get lost in the process.

Margi Dehlin [01:44:27] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:44:28] Definitely feel that. I feel like he's still, he's still loving and we are still close, but there is still. Th. Those very formative years were taken away from me and given to someone else, given to an organization, not a person even. And he still won't talk to me about my faith transition. He still doesn't want to talk about it. Still hard for him.

John Dehlin [01:44:59] So it drove a wedge between. Ultimately, it ended up driving a wedge between you and your own child, Is that what you're saying? Maybe.

Linda Barney [01:45:05] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [01:45:07] Yeah.

Linda Barney [01:45:09] And it wasn't, it's not his fault.

John Dehlin [01:45:11] No. You raised him in the church, right?

Linda Barney [01:45:15] Yeah, I, he, that's not.

John Dehlin [01:45:17] No, I'm not trying to rub that

Linda Barney [01:45:18] in, but no, that's exactly what he said to me. Like, this is what you taught me. And I, I can't, I can't deny that. I did teach him that and I did train him to do those things. So I don't believe it anymore. But he is still being faithful to the things that I taught him.

Margi Dehlin [01:45:38] Right. And he's having his own, his own journey with it. I'm curious with your younger two, you know, tell me a little bit, if you don't mind, about their journeys and how it affected your parenting and kind of, we had that drop in moment. We, we have your system at work. We now have your older son and you having an experience now where we can kind of see, oh, moments of disconnect with like the church and this model, I think, that you were kind of following for safety and for your family to be together and for all the things. Right. But with your younger two, at what point did this parenting model you had been using change? At what point did it break down and what did it with the younger two?

A Son's Hidden Suffering and Mental Health Crisis

Linda Barney [01:46:42] Jiren always kept most of his suffering to himself, so he didn't let on how much he was really suffering. He was very good at making me think everything was fine. He was getting messages in young men's classes and at scout camps and things like that that were, that who he was at his core was not acceptable. He knew he was gay from a very young age. But I think he at one point went to his dad and said, I think I might be gay. And his dad basically said, I don't think you are. I think you're, you're just, you're fine. He never approached me with that until he was in college.

Margi Dehlin [01:47:34] Okay. And that's your middle, our middle son.

Linda Barney [01:47:38] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [01:47:38] Jared.

Linda Barney [01:47:39] And he at the, at that Young age when he knew, this is what he's told me after the fact, when he knew that he was gay from, like, I don't know, four or five. And he's getting, the message is, well, you have to go on a mission. All of the boys go on a mission, you know, and we, we didn't say you have to go, but we would talk about when you go on your mission. Right?

Margi Dehlin [01:48:03] Yeah. When, huh?

Linda Barney [01:48:04] It'll be such a fun time. You're going to love it. You're going to learn to love the people. And we always talked about their missions as if they were just going to happen. And so he. He developed a narrative at a very young age, and he's worked this out in therapy that he would just take his own life before he had to go on a mission.

Linda Barney [01:48:26] That was his solution in his child's, like, mind, well, if I die when I'm 18, then I don't have to go on a mission when I'm 19. And that was something he never verbalized to us, but it was in his mind somewhere. That was the plan.

Linda Barney [01:48:48] So as he gets to be 18 years old, he's had his first year at college at byu. He didn't enjoy byu. He didn't like the hypocrisy there. So he ended up transferring to the University of Utah. And it was his first semester there.

Linda Barney [01:49:07] And I had been texting him. He had. Well, a few months before that, he had come to me and said he was suffering from depression and he wanted to get some medication. So I took him to the doctor.

Linda Barney [01:49:20] And I was the kind of mom that I always went in. The doctor in, right in there in the room with them. Even when he's 18, I want to be in the room. They go, the dentist. I'm right there next to the dentist chair. Like, I'm right there.

Linda Barney [01:49:33] And he said, mom, you can't come in this time. And I said, why? And he said, you just can't. Just can't come in. So I waited in the waiting room, and he came out with the prescription in his hand. And I didn't feel great about him taking medication, but he's 18. He can make that decision.

Linda Barney [01:49:54] I was kind of on my health journey, and I didn't like the idea of taking, you know, these powerful drugs, but he said that's what he felt like he needed. So as we're driving in the car to get the prescription filled, I was like, well, why? What's going on? Like, can you tell me how this started? Like, why do you Feel like this whole depression thing happened.

Linda Barney [01:50:18] And that's when he said, because I'm gay. And I think he used the words, I have same sex attraction, because I think he thought that would be easier for me. And I said, okay, you know, this is news to me. I did not know. But, you know, I'm trying to grapple with all this in my mind. And of course I still love my son and that my kids are awesome. There's nothing they can ever do to make me not love them. So we talked about it a little bit, and I remember saying this thing that I really regret.

Linda Barney [01:50:56] Wish I would never have said it. And he actually didn't even remember it when I brought it up to him. But I said, I hope you have a testimony, because you're going to need it. What a terrible thing to say to your kid who just gave you some really important news about who they are.

Linda Barney [01:51:17] And all I could think of was, I hope you have testimony of the church. Why? Why did that have to be the first thing I thought of? You know, that's so cruel. But that was my conditioning. That was what I had been conditioned to think was the answer to everything. So.

Linda Barney [01:51:43] So we got him on some medication, and a few months later, he was in his apartment. All of his roommates were out of town. This is the part where people can go get a drink of water if they need to.

Linda Barney [01:52:00] And I had been texting with him. It was a Sunday. I knew he was taking anxiety meds that day, and I didn't want him to drive home. He was going to come have dinner with us, and I didn't want him to drive home if he was taking his anxiety meds. So I'd been texting and asking him how he was doing, and then he kind of stopped texting for a while. And we went into Sunday school.

Margi Dehlin [01:52:24] And

Linda Barney [01:52:27] I remember feeling like my chair was electrified. Like I just wanted to get up and jump out of the room or jump up off the chair and run out of the room and call Jiren. But I didn't. Again, I'm being faithful. I'm doing all of the things that I'm supposed to do. And so I stayed in that chair, and I didn't go check my phone. And then as soon as Sunday school was over, my husband checked his phone, and he had a voice message from Jiren. And he said, don't be mad. He said, dad, don't be mad. I took all of the pills I had in the house,

Margi Dehlin [01:53:09] and

Linda Barney [01:53:11] I fell asleep. And then I woke up and realized I Don't want this. I don't want to die. I don't want to do this. And I called 91 1, and they're taking me to the emergency room. And so we're just trying to figure out, what do we. What do we do?

Linda Barney [01:53:31] We had to go find Devin. He was in his, you know, coming out of his class, and we are screaming down the freeway towards Salt Lake City, but we don't know what hospital that he had been taken to. He didn't tell us in the message.

Linda Barney [01:53:48] And I remember getting my phone out, and I couldn't remember how to use my phone. I didn't know how to dial a number or look up a number. I was just in a panic, and I was screaming at my husband to drive faster.

Linda Barney [01:54:09] And my husband took my phone and called 911. I don't know how he thought to do this, because I would have never thought to do this. He called 911 and said, Our son was just picked up and for a suicide attempt. And he's being taken to a hospital. Can you tell me which hospital they're taking him to?

Linda Barney [01:54:29] And they said, university of Utah. So we get to the hospital, we're told to wait in the waiting room. And we waited about an hour. And I've never had a moment in my life that brought me to my knees before. Before then.

Linda Barney [01:54:50] But I collapsed onto the floor, and I was in between the two doors where you walk in to the waiting room. And just then, one of his best friends from high school walked through the door, and she just sat down on the floor with me and put her arms around me.

Linda Barney [01:55:10] And I don't know who called her. I don't know how. I don't know. I don't know how anybody got there that day. But she just sat with me in that moment, and that was very beautiful thing for her to do.

Linda Barney [01:55:28] And then the nurse came out, and her poor little Devin is like 13, 12. 13 years old, and he's witnessing all of this when he doesn't know what's happening to his brother. And the. The nurse came out and said, Jiren said, you're okay with medical stuff?

Linda Barney [01:55:50] And I said, yes, I worked in the medical field. Like, I. I'm okay with it. And she said, well, you can come back. Just you. So we went back into this room where they had him, and when you take an overdose, they give you charcoal to neutralize all of the things that whatever you swallowed. So he was covered with black charcoal.

Linda Barney [01:56:19] It was nightmarish, and he was pretty out of It. He just kept saying, I'm sorry, mom, and I just kept saying, I love you, and I'm glad you're still here. Yeah, it was the worst day, but also the best day because my son almost died. He did come very close. He did fall asleep. We don't know for how long,

Margi Dehlin [01:56:54] But

Linda Barney [01:56:54] he woke up, and he was able to call for help, and help was able to get to him. And so it was the best day as well as the worst day of my life. So that was probably the biggest turning point for me in the way that I viewed all of these things that I had been working towards, this eternal family. It was the ultimate goal. It was everything. And I don't know if I'm allowed to swear.

John Dehlin [01:57:35] Yeah, yeah, whatever is authentic.

Margi Dehlin [01:57:36] Mm.

Linda Barney [01:57:38] I just said, fuck eternity. I don't care about that anymore. I care about my son being healthy and being happy and being alive right now. That's all that matters. And that became my focus from that day on. And I lost my belief that there was some better life after this, one that I had to hold out for. None of that mattered anymore. All became nothing. It was just nothing. It didn't mean anything if I didn't succeed in helping my son have a good life right now and live his best life and find happiness now. So, you know, we started our healing journey as a family and helping Jaren heal at that moment. And then two months later, Devin came to me. We didn't really tell Devin anything at that time. I don't even know if he knew Jiren was gay at that point.

Margi Dehlin [01:58:54] Point.

Linda Barney [01:58:54] Because we were still figuring out how. What this all meant and how to navigate all of it. So I don't know for sure, but I don't think that Devin knew that we. That Jiren had gone through this because of the stress of being a gay man in Utah. I just don't think he knew. They knew.

Linda Barney [01:59:22] A few months later, Devin came to us and said, I think I'm. I think I'm gay. And we honestly were just reeling. We were still trying to help Jiren recover. As a singer, the last thing you want is someone to shove a tube down your throat. It destroys a lot of. And they don't do it gently, right? They.

Linda Barney [01:59:48] I don't know if they do it on purpose, but they don't make. They don't make the emergency room experience comfortable for a suicide attempt, but I think it's because they don't want you to come back next week, you know, the same way. So they don't make it Soft and comfortable. It was very brutal.

Linda Barney [02:00:10] And he was still trying to learn how to swallow and eat and keep food down, and we were still dealing with all of that. So when Devin came to us and. And gave us this news, all we could do was say, we love you.

Margi Dehlin [02:00:27] Just.

Linda Barney [02:00:28] Just be a kid. Just go enjoy your life and don't worry. We love you, you know, no matter what. Just go have fun. Be a kid. And that's honestly how we dealt with at that time, because that's all we were equipped to do.

Processing the Crisis and Searching for Answers

Linda Barney [02:00:49] So. And I did talk to Devin about that, and he said, mom, it was actually probably okay, because I knew that I was loved and I knew that, you know, that you guys were gonna be fine, and I could just kind of go off and do my thing, and I didn't have to worry about upsetting you or, you know, causing grief. So he said it was probably it. It wasn't as bad as I was thinking, like, oh, I just abandoned my child. And they're telling me this, and all I can say is, you know, it's okay. Just go. Go live your life. We can't deal with it right now. But for Devin, that. That worked fine according to him. Them.

Margi Dehlin [02:01:35] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:01:36] So

John Dehlin [02:01:38] I want to join, I think, Margi and. And our listeners in thanking you for being willing to share something so personal. And I'm sure you have consent from your children, so I want to also thank them.

Linda Barney [02:01:50] And this is my part of the story. Their story is there to tell, and I'm only telling my perspective.

John Dehlin [02:01:58] Sure.

Linda Barney [02:01:58] I don't have the right to tell their version of it.

John Dehlin [02:02:02] This is a point I like to kind of check in with you about one issue, if it's okay. I started Mormon stories in 2005, and then Prop 8 happened in 2008, and. And then I just started noticing deaths by suicide in Utah. Kind of like happening very frequently to, like, kids who love drama in high school kind of thing in the obituaries. And.

John Dehlin [02:02:24] And I stumbled on an article saying that youth suicide in Utah between, like, 2008 and then beyond started to skyrocket, become twice or three times the national average. And that was a big motivator for me to study what I studied with my dissertation and to do my TED Talk, which got me ultimately excommunicated. But the reason why I'm bringing all that up is because as as many Mormons and Post Mormons started speaking up about not only the church's really problematic LGBTQ policies for decades, but also the rising outrageous suicide rate for specifically young Mormon men, In Utah, the church started reeling at the bad pr.

John Dehlin [02:03:13] Whether it's the. The movie Believer that Dan Reynolds and Tyler Glenn were in, or even this recent movie, Mormon no More, that came out on Hulu. But the church has gotten a lot of bad press about the suicide epidemic and amongst LGBT youth. And so in response, starting several years ago, the church, the Mormon Church, started offering apologetics around this by saying, well, we don't really know the statistics and maybe it's the altitude. And they came out with the. The studies showing that it's the Rocky Mountain region, that it's Idaho and Colorado and Utah, that it's the altitude. And then just Even recently in 2022, they've come out with some study that says that non LDS LGBT kids raised in Utah have better.

John Dehlin [02:04:06] No, sorry, Mormon LGBT kids raised in Utah have better mental health outcomes than non Mormon LGBT kids raised in Utah. And basically the. The Mormon Church really wants to say that it does nothing to contribute to death, suicide attempts or death by suicide rates in, in Utah or in the church. And so I just want, I love to give everybody, parent or LGBT kid from Utah, a chance to respond to the church's attempt to deny that their policies or their doctrines, their theology, in any way contributes to suicidality in Utah. Is there anything you would want to say in the churches? The Mormon Church's attempt to deny that it has any connection to your son's

Linda Barney [02:05:03] suicide attempt, I would say had everything to do with how my son felt on the inside about who he was, because the messages from a very early age were contradictory to who he felt he was. Both of them felt they were. And there's such a pressure to conform. And many boys do conform for a long time. They go on missions, they get married to a woman. They do everything thinking it will somehow get better at some point. And I'm really thankful that my sons, my kids were able to say.

Linda Barney [02:05:55] Jiren was able to say, I'm not going to do the mission thing. He'd already told us he wasn't going on a mission before the suicide attempt, and we were okay with that. He, you know, finally told us it's not going to happen.

Linda Barney [02:06:10] But that programming, programming that started at age 4 or 5 that said the answer to your problem is you just end your own life, and then you don't have to disappoint anyone, and then you don't have to teach something that goes against who you are at your core, and who teaches that, teaches that what you are as a person is unacceptable. There's a way to not have to do that, and that is you just stop living. I think a lot of boys get that message that

Margi Dehlin [02:06:54] we.

Linda Barney [02:06:55] We emphasize the next life so much. And we even hear parents say, it's better that you. That you would die than lose your virtue, or it's better that you would die than give up your faith. Right? That's a very common message that is out there. And it's not coming from any other source. It's coming from the organization, the religion, and that is definitely the message that my kids both got.

John Dehlin [02:07:29] And if it's okay, I'll just add two quick things there. There are many viewers and listeners saying this would be a good time to mention maybe the suicide hotline. And I'll just recommend the Trevor Project as a great resource for LGBT youth that are feeling in any way suicidal.

John Dehlin [02:07:50] The Trevor Project.org and we just put a link in the comments. So please, if any of you feel the need to get help, the Trevor Project is a great resource. And then the only other thing is I there. There's a really important study out of, I think it's San Francisco State University, but it's called the Family Acceptance Project, and it's done by non LDS researchers.

John Dehlin [02:08:16] But what they found is that highly rejected LGBTQ youth are by their family. So if you're LGBT and you feel highly rejected by your parents and that could mean anything from kicked out of your home to being told you're a sinner or bad or unworthy, that. That. That who you love is. Is bad, any of that, you're three times more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior. You're three times more likely to engage in legal drug use, and you're eight times more likely to attempt suicide.

John Dehlin [02:08:55] And that's. It's called the Family Acceptance Project, and it. It's a really great non LDS resource that just really overlays well with this scenario. Because how. How can an LGBTQ Mormon kid these days feel highly embraced and supported by their orthodox Mormon parents? I mean, unless the parents aren't really believing Mormons, that the best they're gonna experience is feeling like they're a massive disappointment to their parents.

John Dehlin [02:09:27] And at worst case, they're gonna feel they're gonna be kicked out of their home or, Or. Or rejected in more extreme ways. Does that seem right to you?

Linda Barney [02:09:36] Yeah, it does. And the thing is that we would not have rejected Jaron, but that was the message that he got because of all of the things we were trying to do. We were trying to live the gospel, we were trying to run that program and get to our, you know, eternal family.

Linda Barney [02:09:55] And there was no other way he could have interpreted that. If he had, you know, been able to voice how he felt from a very young age, we would have figured it out. There's no way I would reject my son, my. Any of my kids for any reason.

Linda Barney [02:10:13] And I've told them that, and I thought I had conveyed that. But the message that they get from the community and from the. The church at large is that that is not acceptable. That it's not a choice. It's not a choice you get to make.

Linda Barney [02:10:33] Right. It's not. That's just not an option. And if that's who you are, and you know that's who you are, then you automatically are out and there's no hope in that. And it's messed up. But that's. That's how it is. That's. That's the messaging.

Margi Dehlin [02:10:57] Yeah. As.

Linda Barney [02:10:58] As much as they want to say, you know, and an individual. Families may do great, but the church as a whole does not do great with that. And we can see that from the statistics that you just quoted.

Margi Dehlin [02:11:17] Yeah. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing that. I do feel like there are these moments in parenting where through witnessing and experiencing the pain of our children, it's like our heart completely in that moment. It's like it's either, I don't know, walls are knocked down or it's completely reconfigured. Just like you're talking about where it's like in the moment, it's happening.

Faith Disruption and Leaving the Church

Margi Dehlin [02:11:55] Things are happening inside you that are shifting forever, where you just don't see. You don't see things the way used to. You used to. You know, it's like an immediate perspective, just like you were saying with kind of describing, you know, eternity versus just now, you know, and making that trade and realizing don't care. Right. At all. Not a concern. What we care about is. Is kind of the now so deeply, just so deeply resonate with that. I'm curious, you know, from that point where there were there any other things that kind of. It feels like at this point,

Linda Barney [02:12:44] your

Margi Dehlin [02:12:45] beliefs, this kind of parenting, a lot of the parenting kind of core principles you were acting on are now kind of dissipating. Would you say that's fair, like crumbling, mostly gone.

Linda Barney [02:12:56] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:12:59] So is there anything you want to add to what you have before we shift to the rebuild and kind of what that felt like? Is there anything you wanted to say or add or do you feel quite.

John Dehlin [02:13:14] Yeah, that's a pretty quick Disruption of your beliefs and your faith?

Margi Dehlin [02:13:20] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:13:20] Is there anything you want to say about that process? Did it, did it then begin to extend into church history? Did you go through a deconstruction process where you had to kind of like study things and learn about things? Is there anything you want to say about that?

Linda Barney [02:13:37] So, interestingly enough, I did not learn anything about the history and the truth claims until after I had left the church. Oh, I. So that event happened. It was a total shift in our whole family. But for me, it was a shift away from that eternal view of our family and into. We focus on keeping everybody here, keeping everybody healthy and happy.

Linda Barney [02:14:08] And so I figured out eternity wasn't really a thing. And then I figured out the priesthood wasn't real because we would go to our priesthood leaders and we would ask for guidance and counsel. We have two gay sons.

Linda Barney [02:14:29] the time, Devin hadn't come out as non, binary or queer. So they were two gay sons. Nobody had any wisdom to offer us. Nobody knew what to do with us. Nobody had dealt with this before. Not a bishop, not a stake president, no leaders at all that could offer any assistance. We were totally on our own and they would just hand us a pamphlet basically and say, do your best.

Linda Barney [02:15:08] And so that started me thinking about what's so great about the priesthood. Then if. If there's no wisdom from these men who are supposed to be our leaders, who are supposed to be. Have some kind of answers, you know, if they don't have the answers, then who does?

Linda Barney [02:15:30] And then we had a situation where my husband was having some issues with pornography. And it was, at the time, for me, devastating about. It affected how I felt as a woman, how I felt in my marriage. I. How I felt about him as a man and a priesthood holder. And I started to think if the priesthood was real, that wouldn't be an issue. Right. I.

Linda Barney [02:16:08] I'm very close to God. I study all the time. I learn I'm close to Christ. Why am I more spiritual than these men who say they have the power of God? And at that point I realized they don't or they wouldn't do those things. It wouldn't even be an issue. But it is a huge issue for men in the church.

Linda Barney [02:16:33] And so then that kind of fell away, the belief that the priesthood was even a thing, that it was even real. I realized that, I guess I had thought I picked this really great man who would take me to the temple and always be faithful, and he had the power of God. So he was never going to do anything that would hurt me. But he did. He did hurt me. And I realized I just married a regular guy, a human. A human being.

Margi Dehlin [02:17:14] Go figure.

Linda Barney [02:17:15] This man with special powers who had special discernment or was above anyone in any way. I started to see myself as the spiritual person. I kind of, you know, I was like, well, I'm more spiritual. I'm. I'm the spiritual leader of this family, not him. I thought that for a while, because I was doing all of this work to get close to the Savior and to just focus on the Savior. And it became after a while. So Jiren's suicide attempt was in 2010, and it took me another five years to leave. It was a slow exit, but there are things. Like figuring out the priesthood wasn't real was a big one.

Linda Barney [02:18:08] And then I started to be able to give myself permission to try other things that maybe I had always, always felt were forbidden. I remember a friend and I were going to a. Like, a dance party thing that her daughter got us tickets to, and we were supposed to dress like mermaids, and we had glitter in our hair and on our face and, you know, wearing cute outfits. And she said, don't judge me, but I'm not wearing my garments tonight.

Linda Barney [02:18:41] And I said, why would I ever judge you for that? Like, I don't. That doesn't matter to me. You do or don't, you know, I don't care. And then I thought, is that an option? Like, can you just not wear your garments if you don't want to? And it made me start thinking, well, it's my body.

Linda Barney [02:19:01] Maybe I can decide that for myself. Maybe I will see if that's something that. And I started to feel the shame that came with the garment, the covering up your body from your neck to your knees. And I was very. I realized I was very disconnected, my body.

Linda Barney [02:19:26] And I. You know, my body had always been so faithful to me. I. I talk about my body like it's a different person sometimes. It's almost like if you look at everything your body does for you, all that it does without your even thinking about it, your heart is beating, your lungs are breathing, your blood is pumping, your body is taking care of you constantly.

Linda Barney [02:20:01] It's a thankless. It never gets a thank you. It just whatever you give takes it, and it extracts every nutrient and every ounce of energy that it can get, and it just keeps working for you because it loves you. I feel like.

Linda Barney [02:20:18] And here I was just covering up in shame this amazing thing that had always taken care of me. And I was taught to cover it and to keep it covered and to treat it as it was something shameful.

Linda Barney [02:20:36] And I started to think about that in a different way. But again, it was a very slow process. And as my faith unraveled in the church, I clung more tightly to the Savior because I thought, well, if I lose my faith in the church, that's one thing, but if I lose Jesus, I, you know, I don't know, I don't know what will happen. So I know I said to Jaron, at one point, Jaron came to me and said, no, mom, I'm an atheist. I don't, I don't believe in God. I don't believe in Jesus as, you know, the way we're taught about him. I think he probably lived, but I don't think he's the Savior person.

The Exclusion Policy and Its Personal Impact

Linda Barney [02:21:23] And I remember saying, you know, okay, that's, that's fine. I was a little disturbed by that, but I understand. Like, I understand. And then I, I, a few days later, I think I said to Devin was sitting and eating a snack in the kitchen and I suddenly became really upset about this whole idea of not believing in Jesus because it was so important to me.

Linda Barney [02:21:48] And I said to Devin, do you believe in Jesus? Because your brother doesn't. That's very serious. It's like, I need to know. And Devin's like, yeah, mom, sure. I, yeah, Jesus is cool. Okay. So I could hold on a little bit longer and.

Linda Barney [02:22:13] Started to have a problem with the things that I, I was teaching primary and I started to have a problem with a lot of the lessons. And I wouldn't teach a lot of the things that were in the manual. I would teach about love and acceptance and how we treat people.

Linda Barney [02:22:30] If there's someone who's different than us, how do we treat them? You know, things like that. I wouldn't give the lesson always that they were wanting me to give. There was a time when we were sitting in the big primary meeting and I was with, I taught with another sister and they were having the kids come up and put stickers on a, it was like a Coca Cola shaped bottle and name. They could say something that they did that was nice, that Jesus would be proud of them for doing.

Linda Barney [02:23:04] And once they, and they got to do that a few times every Sunday. And then once they got the bottle filled up with stickers, then they were going to have a soda party with the bishop. And I looked at my partner and I said, so now we're drinking soda for Jesus.

Linda Barney [02:23:23] Like, does that seem weird to you? Like, this is what we're teaching our children, just be good and do nice things so Jesus will be happy. And then you get to have soda. You get a soda party. And I just found that icky.

Linda Barney [02:23:41] And so when they released me from primary, they wanted to give me a different calling. And I said, no, I think I'm done with callings. And then I. The November 2015 policy came out, and I was done at that point. Could not get on board with that.

Margi Dehlin [02:24:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:24:07] So that was 2015. November 2015 was the end of your exclusion policy.

Linda Barney [02:24:12] That was where I said, I think I'm done here.

Margi Dehlin [02:24:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:24:16] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:24:17] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:24:18] Seven years ago.

Linda Barney [02:24:19] Yeah. And that's when I started telling people at church. I would say. They would say, can we come visit teaching, or, you know, whatever you talk about at church. And I would say, you know what? I think I'm okay. I think I'm on my way out, was how I would say it. And they would get very upset and say, what do you mean? I said, I don't think I'm doing the church thing anymore.

Margi Dehlin [02:24:41] I think I'm.

Linda Barney [02:24:42] Take a break for a while, step back, evaluate things. But when I. I didn't make an appointment to get my temple recommend when it expired, and my husband was very sweet, and he made the appointment for me. He really wanted me to, you know, keep going, of course.

Linda Barney [02:25:03] And so I went and met with the bishop, and I said, I just think President Monson got it wrong. I just think he's wrong. That's all. It's not right. What he's doing is hurting people, and it's harmful. And I disagree.

Linda Barney [02:25:20] And I got pretty good at telling priesthood leaders how I felt about things. When Devin came home crying from seminary more times than I can count. And I had to go meet with, you know, the. What do they call him? The superintendent or the president?

Linda Barney [02:25:41] The priesthood guy who is in charge of the seminary. He was also our stake president. And I sat him down for an hour and I told him everything that he was doing wrong. Because I just thought again, I had this feeling like I'm the spiritual one, right? I'm.

Linda Barney [02:25:59] I have more spiritual power than these men, obviously, because they're not. They don't get it. They're hurting my kids. That. The thing that. That. That the teacher was saying was about gay people in seminary. We tolerate, but we don't accept.

Linda Barney [02:26:18] And Devin said, so now I have to be tolerated, and I can never be accepted. So I went and met with him, and I said, I will be taking Devin out of seminary. This is why These are all the things you're doing wrong.

Linda Barney [02:26:33] You need to fix it. So I got pretty good at speaking my mind after I realized that the priesthood really didn't have any authority over me. Started pretty much saying what I thought and I told him President Monson had it wrong and he gave me recommend anyway and so did the stake president. But I think I went back to the temple one time after that and then just decided, no, I can, I can't do this anymore. I walked out, threw all of my temple clothes away in the garbage.

Margi Dehlin [02:27:11] Just.

Linda Barney [02:27:13] I know that probably is disrespectful to some, but it was one of those things that I just had to immediately once I decided it had to be gone. And there was a point where when I first started my exit, Mor Stories had a retreat up in Park City. It was a three day retreat. I don't remember what year it was, but I convinced my husband to come to it with me.

Linda Barney [02:27:47] And I remember John teaching about scrupulosity. And I just. A light bulb went off in my head and I thought, that's what I've been doing for about five years now. I've been clinging to this idea of this savior who was going to fix everything for me, take away my pain, make me whole. And it had become an obsession.

Linda Barney [02:28:16] And there was even like really weird journal entries where I wanted to bathe in the blood of Christ because that's in a scripture somewhere. And I really thought that sounded beautiful on like that's crazy, right? Like that was where I was at.

Linda Barney [02:28:37] And after I learned that a few weeks later, I walked into my house, came in the door and I just saw there were pictures of Christ everywhere in my house and quotes about Christ and pictures of the temple, and quotes about the temple and other scripture quotes. Just every wall had something and I just started taking everything down off the wall and I put it all in the back of my car. I called my friend and I said she was still active member.

Linda Barney [02:29:13] I said, hey, I have all these pictures. I'm getting rid of them right now. Do you want them? If not, they're going to the di, but they have to be out of my house right now. And I think I even tried to explain what scrupulosity was to her, but she, she didn't really understand, but she said, yes, I'll take pictures. So I took them over to her and then I waited for my husband to come home and he, you know, was like, where's all the pictures?

Linda Barney [02:29:43] I was like, well, they had to go. And he wasn't very happy with me because I had spent a lot of money on these pictures of paintings I'd saved up, you know, save up my points at Desert Book.

Linda Barney [02:29:57] But I said, you. You have to look at it this way. You can have pictures on your wall, or you can have a happy, healthy wife. That's where I was at. And I had to, like, I had gotten to the point where I didn't even bother to pray to the Father. I just went right to Jesus, talked to him directly.

Linda Barney [02:30:16] And you know how people sometimes see Jesus's image in, like, a piece of toast or something? I was seeing, like, if there was steam on the shower door, maybe that was an outline of the Savior's face, and maybe that was him telling me, he's here.

Linda Barney [02:30:35] So I realized after learning about that, that it was almost like mental illness. Like, I had taken it too far trying to hold on. I had gone too far. And I had to say, one of us has to go, and it's going to be you, Jesus, not going to be me. So right then I let go of my belief in. In that.

Margi Dehlin [02:31:03] Yeah. Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:31:09] So kind of weird. But I'm really glad that. That I attended that. I met some amazing people who are still my friends to this day at that Mormon Stories retreat.

Margi Dehlin [02:31:20] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:31:20] And that was the first time I had said out loud, I think, to my husband that I didn't believe anymore that I wasn't going back. And I think at one point I told him, if I stay in this church, I will die spiritually. And I believe I would have if I tried to stay. It just wasn't healthy. It wasn't good enough for my kids, and I didn't want them to stay in that. And I encouraged them to go live their own lives exactly the way they wanted to in a way that would make them happy. And then after a while, I realized it's not good enough for me either.

Margi Dehlin [02:32:01] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:32:02] So why am I trying to hang on?

Margi Dehlin [02:32:04] Yeah. It's so interesting, the process of transition, particularly when it comes to, you know, towers falling and what tower for, you know, certain people? What goes down first and which towers, Whether it's marriage, relationship, children, like, identity and kind of how we show up to love them and. And then how it plays out, you know, because it's almost like dominoes, and there are things that are in common that you see when it comes to this process of the wreckage that, you know, is our lives at one point. And it's also really just deeply unique and also, you know, extremely personal. And it's Just interesting that it's both, you know, that. That kind of paradox. But to hear a little bit of your. Your process and the domino effect and what started it and kind of where it went. Yeah, it's been. It's so interesting.

Linda Barney [02:33:21] But there was no way that I was ever going to choose the church over my kids.

Margi Dehlin [02:33:27] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:33:27] And I felt like I felt pulled in two directions for a long time. I felt on one hand, I have my grandmother who raised me in this religion. I have pioneer ancestors who sacrifice so much. I have my husband, I have my oldest son, but I also have my two other sons and my mom and other people on this other side. And which way do I go or do I just stay in the middle?

Margi Dehlin [02:33:53] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:33:54] And I felt pulled in both directions for a really long time. But ultimately, I wasn't going to choose the church over a relationship with anyone in my family. And that's kind of what I felt like it was if I stayed. I was choosing to keep following this pattern that I'd been given that had really been helpful to me when I was a kid. It really worked for me then.

Linda Barney [02:34:25] It got me. It helped me to feel safe at a time when I didn't always feel safe. And, you know, following that path got me to some good places. I met my husband. I had three beautiful children. And I don't know if those things would have, you know, happened if I had not been following that.

Linda Barney [02:34:49] That pattern that was set for me. But I could also see where it was going to lead into a fractured, not a fractured family, because our family was going to stay together, but we were. I would have been a fractured, not real person trying to live something that I didn't agree with anymore, that I didn't see as useful or helpful. And if it could reject people as awesome as two of my kids, then it wasn't good enough for me either.

Margi Dehlin [02:35:25] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:35:29] So that was what ultimately made the decision for me. And knowing that I still felt like the spirit was leading me out. The spirit, what I would have called the spirit back then was telling me to go, to get out, and not whispering, screaming, telling me to leave and telling me that my spirit was going to die or what I would have identified as my spirit at that time. Yeah, I didn't have a choice. I didn't feel like I had a choice. And I felt like it was the spirit leading me to the choice I made to leave or that what I had to do to survive, I guess

Margi Dehlin [02:36:18] save yourself,

Linda Barney [02:36:21] even to the point of letting go of that most important ideal of a Savior realizing that I couldn't. I couldn't be anyone's savior. And I couldn't give my. Give that responsibility to someone outside of me either. I couldn't expect someone to take away all of my pain and fix everything. That was just an illusion.

John Dehlin [02:36:52] So.

Rebuilding Life and Loving LGBTQIA Family Members

Margi Dehlin [02:36:54] So if we kind of shift a little bit into rebuilding now, and this idea, particularly about rebuilding in the way you're showing up and loving. Right, so loving your children, what has that looked like for you and what has it been like? And you can kind of start where you want. We could kind of go with some things that are. Have been victory kind of moments in rebuilding. We can also. Or you can begin kind of with challenges, things that have been kind of harder in that process. But what has it meant to you to rebuild? What has it felt like to rebuild, particularly in this parenting and showing love and showing up for particularly LGBTQIA children?

Linda Barney [02:37:50] Well, my kids have always been really good at teaching me, and I had to learn. They had more to teach me than I had to teach them. And so just listening and letting them lead and asking questions. And the first time I went to a bar at all, except for when I was a kid, and I would go with my mom to try to bring my dad home, which was always dark and scary, was when Jaron was performing with the Book of Mormon on tour, and we would travel to as many cities as we could to see him perform.

Linda Barney [02:38:38] And it's a wonderful show. You guys should go see it. If you haven't seen it, I know you have, but people watching. So we had gone to see him perform, and it happened to be his birthday that week. And there was a tradition in the cast that when it was your birthday, you kind of found a restaurant or a bar where the whole cast could come after the show and have drinks and mingle. And that was like the celebration.

Linda Barney [02:39:05] And he invited my husband and I to come, and I said, I've never been to a bar. He's like, mom, it's. It's fine. Like, you're going to be fine. I was out of the church at this point, but I still had never been to a bar.

Linda Barney [02:39:18] So we go to this bar, and it's not dark or scary. It's very nice. It's very beautiful, in fact. And the entire cast of this musical, very talented, very beautiful people are there, and they're asking questions about me, and they're asking me about my life, and they're interested in what I do.

Linda Barney [02:39:41] And they were just the most. They couldn't have been more Gracious. And all of these ideas that I had of bars are bad. Bars are scary. People who drink are bad. It's not true. Like, I was just blown away by how good these people were.

Linda Barney [02:40:01] And I felt really proud to be there and support my son and to not be. You know, if I had still been Mormon, I would have probably been so weird about it. You know, I can't go. Maybe I shouldn't go.

Linda Barney [02:40:20] Because you're afraid of what, what are the implications of that? You know, what does it look like to other people? And I was just so proud to say, I'm just so glad to be here in whatever space you want to be in with you. And I felt like that was.

Linda Barney [02:40:42] I felt proud of myself for doing that and for being able to overcome that judgment that I had had up until that point. We were able to go to New York City to see Devin perform in a drag show for the first time. When they, when they started doing drag, they lived in New York City and now live here in Salt Lake. But so we were going for a visit and we just got off the plane and dropped our bags and headed to this gay bar somewhere. And in New York, Manhattan, I guess.

Linda Barney [02:41:22] First time in a gay bar. You know, I could have been totally freaked out, but again, it was just like, I'm here supporting my kid and it was so fun. And, you know, all of those hang ups that I would have had were just.

Linda Barney [02:41:41] I could see how dumb. How dumb that was. Marching in the pride parade with Devin and seeing the love, the overwhelming amount of love that was there that day. I'm just blown away. Things like that that you just don't get to experience if you stay in a little bubble.

Margi Dehlin [02:42:06] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:42:07] The way I had.

Margi Dehlin [02:42:09] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:42:09] Because I was so afraid of all of those things. I was so afraid of what the implications or what it might look like to someone and just to be able to let all of that go and just let the love and support be what leads us.

Margi Dehlin [02:42:28] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:42:28] As parents.

Margi Dehlin [02:42:30] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:42:34] A few weeks ago, there was a. An all ages drag show at the Galavin Center. We went because Sequoia Devin was performing and it was beautiful. These little children, all they saw were beautiful princesses, you know, up on the stage and they were dancing, running around and having a great time. And it just gives me hope that there are people out there who get it and that they're teaching their kids that you just. That it's just about love. And it's not about any rules, it's not about any formal structure that you have to Follow? Yeah, you just love and support and show up and be humble, unteachable.

Linda Barney [02:43:26] Like, isn't that what we're taught in the religion? Like, to be humble and teachable? And yet I don't think we're very good at practicing that. When it comes to our LGBTQ communities, we tend to tell them what we think or how it should be, especially when we're very dogmatic in our beliefs.

Linda Barney [02:43:50] We're not willing to listen to their side of how things are or to give them any benefit of the doubt or to listen. And I've really learned how to open. Open myself to different points of view, different experiences of other people.

Linda Barney [02:44:16] Everyone's experience is valid, and we can learn from everyone. And I wish we would try harder to do that. I wish they would have missionaries go and listen to what other people believe instead of just talk about what they believe. Maybe spend two years learning about other people's cultures and religion and what a different experience that would be if we were willing to do less talking and more listening.

Margi Dehlin [02:44:46] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:44:47] So that's what I've tried to do, is my kids are actually really intelligent and good at. They're very patient with me, and they're very good at letting me know and correcting me when I need it. And I do need it. I do make mistakes, and they're willing to show me when they're patient. And, I mean, that's amazing to have that much patience with a parent who's, you know, been. I was in a cult for a really long time, so it took me a long time to unlearn a lot of the patterns. And I kind of compare it to a brain tumor that I think it's called a glioblastoma, has little tendrils that go everywhere, and they're very hard to operate on. That's how I felt my deconstruction process went. There's pulling the tendrils out one by one and removing them as you go. You find more things and more things that need to be unraveled.

Margi Dehlin [02:45:59] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:46:00] And my kids were really patient with me as I went through that process. But what a gift it is to

Margi Dehlin [02:46:09] have a parent who is open and listening and aware and willing to change. I mean, that's. That's a gift. Yes, that's a gift. So are there any things that you want to mention in the rebuilding process? Those were some beautiful moments of sort of victory and just beauty. And have there been aspects that were particularly challenging for you that you want to mention, or did you experience. You've shared You've shared a fair bit about kind of some grief and loss as you've gone. And I really felt that even with the Jesus, you know, that there was loss in that, that kind of, you know, and you were holding so tightly to kind of that hope of one

Linda Barney [02:47:05] last sort of,

Margi Dehlin [02:47:09] does anything come to mind? And if not, that's fine, too.

Linda Barney [02:47:13] Just letting go of these ideas that I could save anybody. I think that was the last thing that I had to. Well, probably Jesus was the last thing, but that idea that with my mom superpowers, I could save my kids.

Linda Barney [02:47:30] And I think a lot of parents fall into that trap. Well, if they would just listen to me. If they just knew what I believed, if they just would follow what I know is true. And I want to say to those parents, don't do that.

Linda Barney [02:47:46] Please don't do that. Your kids know what you believe. You've taught them. They know. And your church, you don't need to explain to them why you're standing. You don't have to stand up for your church. You don't have to defend your church because they have a building full of lawyers to defend them.

Linda Barney [02:48:11] You need to defend your kid. And that's what I decided at a certain point was just, this church doesn't need me, but my kids do, and I'm choosing them. And I'm choosing to be, from this point forward, the best parent I can, the most supportive, the biggest cheerleader that I can be.

Linda Barney [02:48:39] And I've had regrets, but I think, again, my kids have been forgiving and. And very patient with me. So I think that just that struggle of giving up that old thought of, I can. I can do this, though. I can save everybody. I can make it all work.

Margi Dehlin [02:49:00] Yeah, absolutely.

Linda Barney [02:49:02] That's really hard to let go of because then you're. What?

Margi Dehlin [02:49:06] You're just.

Linda Barney [02:49:07] You're just not powerless. But it's. It's almost like you're just in free fall. And you have to trust of what the future is going to bring. You don't get to know you. If you let go of that eternal perspective of where we're all going to be together, we're all going to, you know, be together in the next life. This is the plan. When you let go of that. And you just have to trust that the way you're loving is going to be enough to keep that connection.

Margi Dehlin [02:49:43] Yep.

Linda Barney [02:49:44] With your kids, there's no guarantee that I don't think there's anybody that's gone, that's died and come back and said, yeah, you need to Keep doing these things because it's true. It's all. It's, you know, you really have to do it.

Margi Dehlin [02:49:59] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:50:00] No one's come back and said that. So we don't actually know. We do know what's here right now. And to me, that's way more important that your kids know that you love them today.

Margi Dehlin [02:50:15] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:50:16] Now you support them today.

Margi Dehlin [02:50:18] Yeah. If we were going to think about. Because with all this change, as you talk about the tendrils and kind of feeling like you're, you know, pulling them out, and that doesn't come without a level of intention and a level of effort. So if we were going to talk about some resources or practices that have grounded you or helped you in this process of doing something that for many of us will be a life's work. Right. Are there things that come to mind? So that would be. It can be books. It can be things you do to ground yourself or that you find, you know, are healing. Just any resources, any practices that for you have been particularly valuable.

Practices and Resources That Helped in Rebuilding

Linda Barney [02:51:17] Any book by Tick, not Tick, Not Han, just read them all.

John Dehlin [02:51:24] He just passed away, right? Just. Just. Just a month or two ago.

Linda Barney [02:51:27] It was a few months ago. I think he's one of my heroes. I think just opening, opening up myself to when I finally allowed myself to start reading stuff that I didn't find a deseret book, I found like, oh, my gosh, there's so many wonderful teachers out there.

Linda Barney [02:51:44] So definitely Thich Nhat Hanh, definitely Eckhart Tolle. The New Earth and the Power of Now. You can never read that one enough. Michael Singer, the Untethered Soul is a big one for me. There's a book called White Hot Truth by Danielle laporte. It's amazing. That was a big help to me. And letting go of a lot of the beliefs, I was still holding on to practices. I practice yoga, which is a good way to connect with the body. And again, I think what I learned, I became a health coach And I around 2012, after I started, you know, I was on that long health journey and started really honoring my body.

Linda Barney [02:52:32] And I think yoga is a really good way to do that, to connect with your body and, you know, ask your body every day, what do you need today? How do you feel? What can I give you? Because it really does have a thankless job. And we put our bodies through a lot, and they really are communicating with us. If we listen, your body will tell you. And if you're taking it too much for granted and you're not letting it have rest or not letting it have proper food and enough water, it will definitely let you know.

Linda Barney [02:53:08] So listen to your body and tune into it. That's the most amazing way. And the quickest way to come into the present moment is check in with your body.

Margi Dehlin [02:53:19] Yeah, so true.

Linda Barney [02:53:21] Your breathing or the five senses, what's going on. Your body is never anywhere else but right here, right now. It's our mind that carries us off into the future. And then we start experiencing stress, anxiety, fear, or it will get bogged down in, you know, thoughts of the past and start feeling frustration and anger, guilt, shame. But the body is always right here. So whenever we get in those. Whenever we get bogged down in those emotions, the body is the way back to. To where we are right now. It's pretty profound.

Margi Dehlin [02:54:00] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:54:00] So I do that every morning. Ground. Well, I do yoga at night, but I do the connect with my body in the mornings. And I have a meditation that I do that I kind of invented myself. It doesn't really.

Linda Barney [02:54:16] I don't know if anyone would even call it a meditation if they saw me do it. They'd probably think I was a little bit crazy. But I do a walking meditation and I drink coffee while I do it because I really like coffee. And so I love that. It's a way to look forward to my meditation if I know I'm going to have that pleasure pairing there.

Linda Barney [02:54:38] And I just do. I just check in with the body. I check in with what's going on with emotions. I do a loving kindness, send loving kindness to my friends, my family, people I love, people I don't love. Just send it to everyone and remember that.

Linda Barney [02:54:57] I always have to remember, or part of my meditation is remembering that since I don't believe in a God or a higher power of any sort anymore, I think there's still something that we can connect to. And I just call it source, call it the source of love or source of life or whatever to me is just source. And I have to remind myself that I'm connected to the source and I am the source of all love, all light, all peace, and all compassion.

Linda Barney [02:55:34] And it never runs out. So if I feel like I'm running out, I know that that's an illusion because I'm the source and I'm connected to the source. And so I try to start my day with that every day so that when the fear creeps in or when the anxiety wants to take over, or when the emotions are really big, that I can return to that I just remember that connection. And Then I thank my mind

Margi Dehlin [02:56:14] for

Linda Barney [02:56:14] being intelligent and for being willing to update when new information comes. And I also thank my mind for telling me all the scary stories because I know it's just trying to keep me safe. And then I can just laugh and just go, oh, that's a scary story that my mind is telling me. I don't have to believe it and I can just keep moving forward.

Margi Dehlin [02:56:41] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:56:41] And then I thank my heart for being big and soft and loving and open and it even gets more of all of those things each time it gets broken. I thank it for that. And I thank my body for being the portal to the present moment. Thank my body for sustaining and supporting the life that I am and working so hard for me. And then I usually just end with my intentions for the day, which is to be a space of love and light and calm for whatever arises. I usually spend 30 minutes, 45 minutes, depending on how much time I have in the morning. But it's a practice that has gotten me through a pandemic and a faith transition and.

Margi Dehlin [02:57:31] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:57:32] A son being in a four car pile up and a lot of other things that come up. Just life.

Margi Dehlin [02:57:38] That's right.

Linda Barney [02:57:39] I always have that as a, you know, to begin my day with.

Margi Dehlin [02:57:44] I love that. I love that. And you mentioned kind of yoga at night and. Or in the evenings, I think you said.

Linda Barney [02:57:52] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:57:52] And does that just sort of vary that practice based on what your body,

Linda Barney [02:57:56] what you feel for your body, or

Margi Dehlin [02:57:57] do you have a set practice that you enjoy?

Linda Barney [02:58:00] I have pretty much set routine. Again, my brain likes routine. And I had a friend who taught yoga years ago. She was in my ward and she was really good yoga teacher. So I always went to her class and she taught us just a. A flow. I just follow the one she taught us and I vary it depending on how I feel, but it's mostly just stretching and tuning into my body and it helps me, really does help me sleep a lot better if I. Yeah. And that's what keeps me doing it is. I know if I do that that I will be able to sleep better. So that's my evening practice.

Margi Dehlin [02:58:45] That's lovely.

Linda Barney [02:58:47] Beautiful, simple, but it's. It works for me.

Margi Dehlin [02:58:50] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:58:51] And then just checking in with the people that I love and, you know, having that connection. If I get that every day or

Margi Dehlin [02:59:03] two

Linda Barney [02:59:07] and just letting people be who they are, meeting people where they are. We're not all on the same journey. I have a mixed faith, family, and we've written a family manifesto that everyone contributed to or at least Approved of that. We try to follow you just show up, love each other, you know, cheer each other on.

Margi Dehlin [02:59:32] Yeah. And

Linda Barney [02:59:35] try to follow that and just connect as often as we can. And that keeps me grounded.

Margi Dehlin [02:59:41] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:59:41] When I start to feel like, you know, I want to start doing some of the crazy things again, I just check in with someone. It's usually one of my kids or.

Margi Dehlin [02:59:53] Yeah.

Linda Barney [02:59:53] You know, a friend.

Margi Dehlin [02:59:55] Beautiful.

Linda Barney [02:59:56] That keeps me grounded. And that to me is more spiritual than trying to develop a relationship with someone I can't see or hear or who lived thousands of years ago. That's just not real enough. That's not a real connection for me. It just didn't work out for me. Works for some people.

Margi Dehlin [03:00:20] Yeah.

Linda Barney [03:00:20] I think some people are. Will. Are able to be really light hearted Mormons and just take it all very lightly and hold the beliefs loosely. I wasn't one of those. And the way I was doing it wasn't gonna end well anyway. Probably because I was very, you know, serious about it all. So having this much more relaxed approach and having it be based in what's. What I can experience right now has been much more helpful. Yeah. To me.

Margi Dehlin [03:00:59] Yep.

Linda Barney [03:00:59] A healthier.

Margi Dehlin [03:01:01] A healthier template. Yes. Yeah.

Linda Barney [03:01:04] Did that answer the question?

Margi Dehlin [03:01:06] Are there any. Do you feel good about that? Are there any other things you would add resources? You did an amazing job.

Linda Barney [03:01:13] Thank you.

Margi Dehlin [03:01:15] So with regard to practices or I sometimes will follow up again just where there are lists just because for people, sometimes they'll be like, oh.

Linda Barney [03:01:25] But it was, I would say, as far as a faith transition, there's so many good books and resources, Mormon stories. Just go start listening and learning. As far as a parent is concerned, if, if, if there's a parent who has a child who is brave and comes to them and gives them this very important information, please don't say I love you anyway or anything like that. That's not good enough anymore.

Linda Barney [03:02:00] Celebrate your child. Make it a party. And this is what Jiren asked me to share. Please don't make it about you and make it a sad thing. Don't make it a funeral. Make it, make it a party. Make it a celebration. Because they're coming to you and they're entrusting you with this very important piece of who they are.

Linda Barney [03:02:23] And it's not everything about them. It's just one thing, but it's an important thing. So celebrate that and just let them know how loved they are so that they want to stay here, that they want to keep participating in life.

Linda Barney [03:02:45] That's. It's just what I wish I could convey to people if they don't get anything else from anything. I said, yeah, take that with you. And. And if you're not a parrot, maybe you're a relative or a friend.

Linda Barney [03:03:02] Same thing. Celebrate that. And that's, you know, an awesome thing that they just shared with you, and it's not about you, and it's important that they know that. That's just one more awesome thing that I know about you now.

Margi Dehlin [03:03:23] That's right.

Linda Barney [03:03:24] Just one more awesome thing. There was a point where I was living it very much like a trial, and Jaren said to me, mom, stop living this like it's a trial. It's just a thing. And I actually got that message, and that made sense to me. It's not everything. It's just a thing, and it's a really awesome thing. And I kind of feel bad for people who don't have LGBTQ kids. Because it's awesome.

Margi Dehlin [03:03:52] Yeah.

Linda Barney [03:03:52] It's fun.

Margi Dehlin [03:03:53] Yep.

Linda Barney [03:03:54] And we've grown so much closer together as a family because we've been through the things we've been through and because we've let everyone be who they are. I wouldn't want that fake version that I was trying to make happen. Yeah. I wouldn't even compare to the real family that I have today.

Margi Dehlin [03:04:17] Beautiful. That's beautiful. I think the irony in all of this is, you know, in our story. You know, in your story, you could have come to us at a time in our stories where, I mean, when I think of John's the ally within talk in our minds, we were giving that talk to other people's. To other people. And so it's beautiful if a child comes to you, but almost if your children are young, part of it is to maybe hold it in your mind that you may be thinking about other people's children or it not happening to you, but as we were giving that talk, thinking we were giving it to other people's children, we had LGBTQIA children. So if you are in the church, I would probably take the stance and assume I. I have one. Yes. And parent from there and just be

Linda Barney [03:05:26] a safe space so that when they're ready to talk about it and they're ready to tell that story, that you're the one they come to.

Margi Dehlin [03:05:33] That's right.

Linda Barney [03:05:35] They know that they're safe to tell

Margi Dehlin [03:05:37] you that they have all the odds in their favor to live. Yes. And to love and have joy.

Linda Barney [03:05:44] And they might have different messages coming at them that tell them they're not enough or that they're not acceptable. But they're not going to get that from you.

Margi Dehlin [03:05:55] Yeah.

Linda Barney [03:05:56] And, yeah, that's the most important thing is that. I mean, I don't know the statistics, but I know that kids who have supportive parents live a lot longer and don't attempt suicide nearly as often as those who don't have that support.

Margi Dehlin [03:06:13] Yeah, that's right. It's a tangible place to start that has. Just like John was citing earlier.

Linda Barney [03:06:21] And you might have to step out of your comfort zone and you might have to go support a drag show in your community or go support a queer art show or something that you've never been to before and it might

John Dehlin [03:06:39] make you feel uncomfortable or gender identity transition.

Margi Dehlin [03:06:42] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:06:43] Maybe.

Margi Dehlin [03:06:45] Perfect.

Linda Barney [03:06:46] Those are all things that are amazing opportunities for you to learn and grow and expand and update.

Margi Dehlin [03:06:52] That's right, update.

Linda Barney [03:06:54] Be willing to update. My mom is 85 years old and she's. She gets it and she's amazing, and she's an amazing ally for my kids. And there are people half her age who don't get it and who try

Margi Dehlin [03:07:09] to,

Linda Barney [03:07:12] you know, make it. Be there from their point of view only. And my mom just gets it and she's always willing to update her information and her views.

Margi Dehlin [03:07:23] I love to hear that. That's so. That's so inspiring.

Linda Barney [03:07:27] Yeah, she's a huge ally to my kids, and she's probably the one that taught them how to lip sync, taught Devin how to lip sync so that they could be the amazing drag queen that they are today.

Margi Dehlin [03:07:39] That's right.

Linda Barney [03:07:40] They love their grandmother. They love everything about her. They love drinking tea with her. And. Yeah, she gets it.

Margi Dehlin [03:07:50] That's right. It's about relationship.

Linda Barney [03:07:52] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:07:53] So beautiful. So if. If we were going to ask you, Linda, about the parent, you were kind of pre transition and all that, you now, like the thriving model, you know, the. The thing that made you sort of fill out the form and write out what it means to parent and who you are now compared to then and why it's thriving. What would you say the differences now?

Reflections on the Journey and Final Thoughts

Linda Barney [03:08:28] I think I always thought of myself as like the warrior mom. The warrior. I don't know if that sounded like warrior. The warrior mom. Like, I was gonna save all of us. I still had that, like, yeah, we're gonna make it. All of us together. We're a team. We're doing this. But it was all about what I wanted, what I thought, what I'd always been taught was the right thing.

Linda Barney [03:08:57] And that was, you know, I was going to make that happen. And now as a mother, I'M still a warrior mom, but I'm a warrior in that I will fight to the death for my kids to be exactly who they are and to live their lives exactly as they want to. Whether it's my oldest son who is a. Is a doctor and is a believer and is a faithful member of the church, I will fight for his right to be that and to do that, because that's what he believes and he wants to do. And I will fight for my other two children to be the most amazing performers, drag queens, if they.

Linda Barney [03:09:44] Whatever they want to do and achieve, I believe that they can do it. And I. I'm their biggest cheerleader. And I don't. I no longer try to make it about me or make it my version of what our family should look like, because again, that wasn't real. And it wouldn't have been. It was like you said, every. Every moment that I got to the thing that I thought I was working for, it was a house of cards. It was. There was nothing there.

Linda Barney [03:10:17] Each time I got to was an illusion. And that was going to be the same way. That whole eternal, perfect family that I was working towards was never going to happen. It was never possible. But the family that we have and the children that we have who are now adults and living their lives and doing amazing things in the world, so much better than anything I could have dreamt up or that the church could have dreamt up for me or for us.

John Dehlin [03:10:50] Yeah.

Linda Barney [03:10:51] It's just better letting them, Watching them be who they are and just loving and supporting. I go to as many shows of my kids that I can. And I've told my oldest, if they would let me come into the emergency room and clap and cheer for you, I would, but they won't let me. But I'm just as proud of him as I am my other children. And I just want to be their biggest cheerleader and support them and help them.

Margi Dehlin [03:11:22] Yeah.

Linda Barney [03:11:22] Have amazing lives.

Margi Dehlin [03:11:23] Yes.

Linda Barney [03:11:25] All the yeses. They're all very healthy and happy. Jaron's doing great. I don't want anyone to worry. He's. He has an amazing support system and he's living an awesome life and doing amazing things in the world. I don't think I followed up with that after the tragic story. He is doing very well. Yeah. They all are.

Margi Dehlin [03:11:53] Thank you for sharing. I don't know, I was thinking back to that story you told. I think it was Devin, right? Devin at 6. That. What a foreshadowing story. Because your story is that it's going to make Me cry. But it is that. It's kind of your kids, you know, saying on some level, see me. Be with me. Don't. Don't go off and be with the church or be with. Can you show me love? Can you. Can you show it to me? You know? And it feels like, you know, on a deep level. On a deep level. That's what you. That's what you did. Do you see that?

Linda Barney [03:12:43] Yes. And it just feels so much better doing that.

Margi Dehlin [03:12:49] Yeah.

Linda Barney [03:12:49] Than trying to make it into some artificial structure that was never going to feel.

Margi Dehlin [03:12:59] Yeah.

Linda Barney [03:13:00] Like anything. Because it wasn't real. It was make believe. There's a song in Dear Evan Hansen that I sang a lot, played a lot, and sang in my car when I was going through my faith transition, where he talks about. None of this was ever real. It was. It was. What's the name of the song?

Margi Dehlin [03:13:19] I feel like John would know.

Linda Barney [03:13:20] John knows.

John Dehlin [03:13:22] Is this at the end when he's.

Linda Barney [03:13:24] It's after he gets found out that he's been faking the whole time. And he just basically says, like, this was all a sad illusion. It wasn't real.

Margi Dehlin [03:13:34] Yeah.

Linda Barney [03:13:35] And I feel that. I felt that, and I. My kids showed me.

Margi Dehlin [03:13:43] Yeah.

Linda Barney [03:13:43] What was real.

Margi Dehlin [03:13:44] They woke you up.

Linda Barney [03:13:45] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:13:46] Waking you up from the dream. Yes. Yes.

Linda Barney [03:13:48] They woke me up. They still do. If I need awakening, they will continue to help me.

John Dehlin [03:13:56] It's. Words fail.

Linda Barney [03:13:58] Words fail.

John Dehlin [03:13:59] Yeah.

Linda Barney [03:13:59] That's a perfect faith transition song. If you don't. If you haven't listened to it, please listen.

Margi Dehlin [03:14:04] One final resource on our way out.

Linda Barney [03:14:07] Just listen to the whole show. It's really good.

John Dehlin [03:14:10] It's a. There's a movie out.

Linda Barney [03:14:11] I haven't seen the movie.

John Dehlin [03:14:13] Yeah.

Linda Barney [03:14:13] But. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:14:14] If you can't see the.

Linda Barney [03:14:16] See the movie.

John Dehlin [03:14:16] If you can't see the musical.

Linda Barney [03:14:18] Musical.

John Dehlin [03:14:18] See the movie.

Linda Barney [03:14:19] Or just listen to the musical. You'll get the whole story from.

Margi Dehlin [03:14:24] Yeah.

Linda Barney [03:14:24] Just trying to make something from, you know, from out. Out of what? Out of nowhere. Out of nothing.

Margi Dehlin [03:14:35] Yeah.

Linda Barney [03:14:36] And trying to make it be something tangible and real when we have what's tangible and real right here. Check in with your body. Check in with your people. Get off your phone for a sec. Get your head out of all of the books you're reading or, you know, all the crap you're studying like I was, and connect with real people. That's probably the biggest thing I've learned,

Margi Dehlin [03:15:02] is just right here, right now.

Linda Barney [03:15:05] Be here, be present. It's pretty amazing right now.

Margi Dehlin [03:15:12] Well, thank you for this gift, Linda. Honestly, thank you. Thank you. Right here, right now for this gift of you and for all that you've shared in this interview. My mama dragon heart honors yours.

Linda Barney [03:15:25] Thank you. So it was fun.

Margi Dehlin [03:15:28] John, any final?

John Dehlin [03:15:29] No, just Jen and I are here texting back and forth about how many like amazing quotes and how much wisdom has come out of this episode. You're super wise. If you're not life coaching, you should be.

Linda Barney [03:15:43] Just my kids, they mostly coach me.

Margi Dehlin [03:15:45] That's right.

John Dehlin [03:15:47] Well, thank you so much because this is amazing.

Margi Dehlin [03:15:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:15:51] And again, thanks to your family for being willing to allow you to talk about their story. Yeah. This is going to help a lot of people.

Linda Barney [03:15:59] They're excited and I'm, I'm really excited to talk with you both and it's been fun.

Margi Dehlin [03:16:08] Well, thank you. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Thrive Stories. Keep thriving. We'll see you soon.

John Dehlin [03:16:16] Thanks everybody.

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.