Who Am I Now? Rebuilding Your Identity After Leaving LDS Church with Audra Phelps

And I think that's so important and that is for everybody and I think this is definitely, I know, for even my own journey is really listening to your body because our bodies do speak and there are times where they are screaming out at us and so it really is.

And that's something that I've really had to learn is to learn how my body and i don't think that it's really taught like i think this is something that is starting to come out more where people are actually talking about this and starting to really go or actually our bodies do speak to us and it really is important and i know that's one of the teachings that i do like with louise hay is really listening within

Yeah, it's incredible.

And, you know, when I, for myself, but also with the woman that I work with, after leaving the church and dedicating your entire life to serving others and feeling responsible for everyone else's happiness and having that belief that a good mom and a good wife serves other people and buries her needs and she sacrifices everything.

Those are these beliefs that are given to, well, from the church I was raised in, but also I think most women in society today have that, that people pleasing need, right?

Absolutely.

Because it really has been such a patriarchal society and women are really starting to talk up about that more and go, hang on a second, we have a voice and our voice matters.

Yes.

Yeah.

So for me and the woman I work with, for me at first, it was like, you know, I would go out to a restaurant and look at the menu.

And instead of just being like, oh, I want that, I would ask everyone else at the table, well, what are you having? Well, what are you having? Well, what are you having? You know, I couldn't even decide what to order at a restaurant, let alone anything.

let alone who I wanted to be or who I was.

And so I had to start with the little things.

And I often tell the story of when I was making Thanksgiving dinner, you know, I'm from the United States, so we celebrate Thanksgiving, right? I was making Thanksgiving dinner.

And also there was a lot of pressure in the Mormon household to be like a trad wife, you That wasn't a trend back then.

That was just what Mormons did.

Like, you know, we cooked and we cleaned and we, you know, anyway, we did all the things.

So I was making pie and I was making it from scratch because it's better if it's from scratch.

And so, you know, you have to make the crust the night before and it's all this work.

And I remember being in the kitchen, like cutting up apples and I'm starting to feel really resentful.

I'm like, what? all this work into apple pie i don't even like apple pie well why do i make apple pie well it's my husband's favorite well so i make it every year why don't i make my favorite and then i realized i'm in my 40s and i don't even know what kind of pie i like yeah well I had just served my husband and my kids and put their needs first.

And what do you want for dinner? What do you want to do this weekend? What's best for you that I didn't even know what kind of pie I liked.

So how could I possibly make a decision on should I choose a different career or those bigger life decisions if I couldn't even figure out what kind of pie I liked because I was out of practice.

And so when you talk about like listening to your body, it has to start with those small things because you don't, when you come out of that and you start realizing you've lost yourself.

Yeah.