At Last She Said It

The pandemic that interrupted attendance for all members forced an unprecedented change in our personal church habits and activity. It blurred the distinction between work, education, church, and family lives. Many saw the shift to "home-based, church-supported" as a prophetic precursor to this change, and leaned into the opportunity presented by it. For some normal attendance has now resumed, whi...

How we communicate with other Church members can be as important as what we're trying to say. Women are at a disadvantage with less freedom and opportunity to speak truth to those in authority. Even when we do get the floor, sometimes things as innocuous as pitch, accent, and personal style determine whether we're listened to or dismissed. In this conversation, Cynthia and Susan explore ideas and...

In this conversation, artist Caitlin Connolly talks about her experience manifesting the unseen "in large scale and present" in her painting, In Their Image. It's a conversation about a divine mother we've been missing, and daring to bring her into existence for ourselves. "I have found that what I am trying to learn about womanhood…and the divine feminine…has come through women. And will continue...

"If history shows that patriarchy is bad for women, and data shows that girls and women fare better when they can see themselves at every level of leadership in our churches, schools, and societies…why do LDS women and men continue to cling to old ideas that deny history and data?" On this episode, Cynthis poses this question and others in a discussion detailing the list of possible opportunities...

What do you envision when you think about a next life? Happiness? Answers? Judgment? Question marks? There are as many images of the afterlife as there are people to imagine it. But for some Latter-day Saints, the official picture painted at church doesn't feel entirely hopeful or comforting. To kick off Season 5, Cynthia and Susan unpack the idea of "sad heaven," an eternity spent with empty chai...

In Episode 84, Kajsa Berlin-Kaufusi joined us for a conversation about how we approach scripture. How much is literal? How much is metaphor? This bonus episode contains additional insights from Kajsa focusing on a specific Old Testament story. It's an illustration of how considering the origin and larger context of a specific text can inform the ways we think about it now.

We received numerous requests for our thoughts around some of the messages delivered at General Conference. In this bonus episode, Cynthia and guest Sherry Macnab get real about their experiences raising LGBTQ kids. It's a vulnerable conversation about the perils of bringing up any kids in a church where they will almost certainly be exposed to some harmful messages.

Who's stopping you? From doing what you want to do, believing what you want to believe, praying how you want to pray, feeling how you want to feel about a thing, or making a choice you want to make…who's stopping you really? In this season finale episode, Cynthia and Susan revisit the theme of personal spiritual empowerment, share wisdom from listeners, and add a P.S. to their conversations from S...

What do we believe? In 1842, Joseph Smith penned 13 answers to that question, explaining the basic doctrines and practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We all know his Articles of Faith. But there's a deeper question that sits at the center of each woman's faith life: What do I believe? Lyric Montgomery Kinard joins Cynthia and Susan for a discussion about personal vs. insti...

Sometimes it can be hard to talk with other Latter-day Saints about church things on which we don't agree, even if we have an otherwise close relationship. Is it possible to understand a person whose experiences have been very different from our own? Jeralee Renshaw joins Cynthia and Susan to discuss practical approaches for handling tricky topics in ways that can create space for a diversity of i...

Whether it's a scripture story or symbolism we encounter elsewhere, it can sometimes be difficult to separate the literal from the metaphorical at church, especially if our personal interpretation seems at odds with that of many other members. But what if we just can't 'believe' something the way it's being presented on the surface? Can we become comfortable setting aside narratives that no longer...

Where can we turn for peace? When we're trying to find it, peace can feel elusive. But can we learn to create it for ourselves? What about when we're experiencing big changes in our lives, our relationships, or our faith? In this conversation, Cynthia and Susan discuss ideas, tools, and tactics for taking more ownership of our personal peace.

We experience all kinds of discomfort across a lifetime, but how can we know when we're in the type of liminal space that may have the potential to lead to big growth? Can we find clues about where to go next in the messages our minds and bodies are sending us? And is it possible to ever become okay with feeling uncomfortable? Cynthia and Susan explore the idea of reframing or repurposing some dis...

Revelation is a big word for Latter-day Saints. We use it to describe foundational tenets of our faith like personal revelation, continuing revelation, and prophetic revelation. But have a conversation with other members and you may find you don't think about revelation in exactly the same ways. What kind of revelation do you rely on most, and why? Cynthia and Susan discuss this question and other...

For a Latter-day Saint woman who has suffered sexual abuse or other trauma, church can feel triggering. If the abuse involved leaders or fellow members, finding a path to healing within her church community may be even more difficult. Bergen Hyde joins Cynthia and Susan to discuss situations and experiences that can make church unsafe. It's an emotional, enlightening glimpse at some of the incredi...

Helping kids navigate the gap between a quickly changing world and a slow-to-change church is a real challenge, especially if many answers aren't clear cut for a woman herself. Sherry Macnab joins Cynthia and Susan for an honest conversation about their experiences as Latter-day Saint mothers. The feelings, pressures, desires, questions, and decisions—it's all fair game in this frank discussion be...

How do you envision God? Or do you think of Heavenly Parents? How much control do you believe They have over what happens to us on earth? These are questions we may not spend much time thinking about until old ideas stop working. Being forced outside a God-box can be scary, painful, liberating, faith saving—it's different for everyone, and the answers may change with our experiences. The good news...

Latter-day Saint women hear motherhood described as their highest, holiest calling from the time they are young girls. But not all girls grow up to be mothers. Some don't get the opportunity to have children, and some don't choose to. Is there a place in our doctrine, our teachings, or our culture for women to just be...women? Whole, complete, fulfilled, and enough, with no specific role spelled o...

Who has authority over your relationship with God? Who has control over your spiritual life? And how do you approach the Divine authentically, and for yourself, when you've spent your life being handed a script for that? The answers may seem obvious to some, yet many Latter-day Saint women feel they lack permission to step outside the language and practices they've been taught, to seek God in new...

We get asked a lot of questions, but one thing we knew from the outset of the ALSSI project was it couldn't be about answer-giving. The kinds of questions to build a podcast around don't have simple answers. Of course, we think a lot about all of your questions, as well as our own. So in this episode, we're taking a stab at some listener questions and offering our personal answers. (Your answers m...

What is it about God's generosity that's so hard to trust? In this episode, Cynthia and Susan discuss The Parable of the Laborers, in which Jesus turns the idea of fairness on its head with a story that disregards the rules we insist are so important. It's a reminder that the kingdom of heaven runs on grace, and all our careful scorekeeping and human expectations of scarcity will someday be confou...

If you ask a Latter-day Saint woman what she keeps on her metaphorical faith "shelf," there's a good chance polygamy will be there. It's largely unacknowledged in our current church conversations and teachings, a historical wound that continues to fester in our doctrine, making it easier to ignore than to heal. Many friends and family members can't even share their true feelings about it with each...

In this conversation, Cynthia and Susan explore belief and behavior in an attempt to answer a listener's question, "Are you women true believers?" There are a lot of markers members use to figure out where other members sit on the spectrum of testimony and church engagement. We judge not just beliefs, but the language used to express them. But if we really must vet each other's faith, a better que...

Resentments form when we get angry at a person, institution, or situation. For many Latter-day Saint women, denying themselves and putting others first is a default setting. But when we live to please others, we often end up pleasing no one—even ourselves. As a follow up to Episode 65 on healthy boundaries, C.A. Larson joins us for a conversation about resentments. Understanding what they are and...

If you asked a Church member for a short list of words or ideas that are central to our lives as Latter-day Saints, there's a good chance worthiness would be on the list. We talk about worthiness, we teach about it, we speculate about it in others, we answer a list of questions to certify it in ourselves. But what does it really mean? Could changing the way we think about worthiness improve our ab...