Ep. 122 “I Am Not Mormon": A Story of Grief, Control & Breaking Free

"I am not Mormon." That's what Audra Phelps told herself in the mirror the night she left the LDS Church — after 10 years of quiet doubt and one policy she couldn't "unhear.

Audra Phelps, founder of Mama Audra and creator of the Reclaimed Program, joins me to share her journey out of a high-control religion: the rigid roles assigned to women, the purity culture and shame around her body, and the pressure to be "an example" from childhood. She opens up about the anxiety and depression that came from living a life that wasn't her own, the grief of losing family and community after leaving, and how she now helps other ex-Mormon moms rebuild their identity using NLP, hypnotherapy, and neuroscience-based coaching.

Topics covered:

• Growing up inside a high-control religion
• How the LDS Church structures women's roles around marriage and motherhood
• Purity culture and body shame from childhood
• The breaking point that led Audra to leave at age 35
• Grieving family, community, and her former self
• Using NLP and subconscious belief work to rebuild identity

This episode was shaped for more than one audience. If you've left the LDS Church, or if you've ever handed your power over to a belief system, a relationship, or an expectation that was never really yours — this episode is for you.

Connect with Audra: mamaaudra.com

✨ BONUS OFFER
Book a free consult with Audra and get 50% off your first individual coaching session — open to any woman navigating a faith transition or leaving a high-control organization. Just mention PODCAST when you book to claim the discount.

👉 mamaaudra.com/oneonone

Connect with The Grief Talk Podcast:
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🌐 Website: vonnesolis.com — books and resources on grief, identity, and finding your way back to yourself.

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Transcript

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Audra Phelps  0:00  
In November 2015, the church came out with a policy that I had a visceral reaction to: the children of gay couples would not be allowed to receive the blessings of the church unless they denounced their parents when they were 18. And I remember the moment I read it, I was like, "I want to throw up. This is not love. This is hate. I absolutely don't agree with this." And because I could now instantly recognize when something comes to me and I don't believe it, in that moment I made the decision. I stood up. I walked upstairs. I went into my bedroom, I shut the door. I took my Mormon garments off because I hadn't taken those off yet, and you're supposed to wear them all the time. I was still wearing them, and I looked at myself in the mirror and I said, "I am not Mormon".

Vonne Solis  0:54  
This is the Grief Talk podcast with Vonne Solis, helping you heal after loss and life's hardest hits. My guest today is Audra Phelps, founder of Mama Audra, where she helps moms unravel old beliefs and rediscover their identity as women and mothers after leaving the LDS Church. Raised in the church, she later moved overseas with her family to work in international schools, building over 15 years of experience in international education and coaching along the way. But it was her own life-altering decision to leave the church that changed everything. Audra found herself sinking in uncertainty, lonelier than she had ever been, and constantly feeling like she was failing her kids. That experience became the foundation for her work today. Helping ex-Mormon moms feel confident in who they are, uncovering beliefs, rebuilding relationships, and giving them the tools to blaze their own path on their own terms.  Okay, so welcome, welcome Audra to the show. Pop in, say hi to my audience.

Audra Phelps  2:00  
Hi, everybody. I'm really happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Vonne Solis  2:04  
Yeah, and audience, if you see a tail wagging, it's not Audra's.

Audra Phelps  2:09  
It's going to pop up. There it is.

Vonne Solis  2:12  
Yeah, her kitty is in on the interview today, which I'm so happy about. Okay, Audra. I have never ever met anyone or spoken to anyone coming from the LDS or any other kind of very you know specific religion. Nothing like that. So as we talk today, and I said in your interview, I know you have your website, Mama Audra, and we're going to be talking about your services. And I just want to clarify that your, most of the clientele that you deal with are women and moms who have left the LDS Church and are trying to, you know, re-identify with themselves, find a new identity, break free from what may be considered controlled thinking. I'm going to let you tell us what kind of thinking and belief system you came from, and that is huge. However, when I read about you and I watched a podcast episode that you did, and I can't remember the name of it, but it was with two ladies, and I'm not sure if they were former LDS or what. It was a recent one that you had sent me to look at, and I think maybe May or something. And you talked a lot about your life over like living abroad in numerous countries. 12 years, nine countries was it? Is it nine countries?

Audra Phelps  3:41  
No. Four.

Audra Phelps  3:42  
Oh four. I was like, oh, okay, yeah, four countries. But what really, and we're not here to talk about that. But it it it piqued my interest as well because I also lived abroad, so I totally identify with the international school system, putting my kids in it, the whole thing. We were in the diplomatic corps, though. But it is very gutsy and very brave of people to pick up and change their life, and it may fit in, you know, you actually making that decision to leave the states and live abroad for a number of years while your new identity was forming. I think that that that helped you maybe in a way, and you can speak about that. So, do weave your international living experience in if it applies today. I really wanted to start out with beliefs forming and being controlled. And before we also get into this, I just want to remind the audience that Audra does do coaching. You are a certified neuroscience-based coach. You are the creator of Reclaimed Program. You're going to talk about that hypnotherapist NLP work. You're this, you're the third guest I've had on that does NLP. And,

Audra Phelps  4:55  
Great!

Vonne Solis  4:56  
Right? So it obviously is taking off and I've done a little bit in it, and it works. It works, NLP. And so audience, this is when we're talking about clearing subconscious beliefs and self-talk in our head that's been toxic for us. And one of one of the guests I had on, who's a bereaved mom and has been doing NLP for 40 years lost her only child. I'm going to be working with her to clear PTSD. And anyway, she did a live demo with me on the show that we did. Her name's Yvonne Oswald, Dr. Yvonne Oswald for anyone interested, and it was really interesting because I didn't tell her what my trigger was, so she was clearing an emotional charge for me, just using NLP, and within three four minutes we finished. Well, my daughter's 21st-I'll call it angel anniversary was just this past Saturday, and we're recording on Wednesday. July 26 was her angel date, and I revisited that memory, which Yvonne didn't know what I was working on, okay? And I was completely detached from it. Isn't that interesting? So it works, and we talked. We talked about how it's the emotional charges that you clear in NLP, so you don't get rid of the memory. You but but we get rid of the charge that's associated with that memory, and so I just want to set that up for the audience because I know it's hypnosis and NLP combined, but also hypnosis is not dangling the medallion in front of your eyes. It's not about that. It's just getting into that state where we can really reconnect with ourselves, even back as far as in utero. But it really did work, and so I'm going to be really brave and clear PTSD from a bereaved mom who recognizes that trauma and has lived that trauma herself. So, so just a shout out to you in working with clients about whatever you're working with with NLP, and we are going to discuss that. What sorts of beliefs or specific things that you work with in NLP. But yeah, I just and I just had an astrologer. His episodes coming out in August 12th. Again, working with NLP and hypnosis. I'm going. Am I supposed to like be getting something about NLP and hypnosis here? And now, Audra, NLP and hypnosis.  I think so.

Audra Phelps  7:23  
Maybe you really shouldn't retire. Maybe you have another another step.

Vonne Solis  7:28  
Yeah. Thank you, Audra. Okay. So I did want to say that, and I want to also just start out saying that I got from your website, mamaaudra.com, that you say that when you left the church, you gave up your built-in support and roadmap to raising your children. Which was very scary for you, and that you spent all of your energy doing what the church had told you to do as a woman.

Audra Phelps  7:57  
Yeah

Vonne Solis  7:57  
Being a certain type of mom, wife, support to family. Happy. Happy, happy, happy. And leaving only the memory of who you once were. So I wanted to start there because even if audience, you are not Audra's specific clientele, having left the LDS and watching this, but you are someone who has been trapped by beliefs or a situation, or even your own thoughts that you have to be a certain way to please others. This episode will absolutely be for you because I do believe what you're talking about, Audra, and I was very impressed with, like I said, the episode you did. And you are a teacher; you've come from an education background, so you completely know how to to teach us that I think that this can apply even beyond the LDS group. Okay? So think of it. Keep an open mind, audience, when we're talking. And even though Audra, I invite you to be very specific about your experience and what others in the LDS may be going through, and trying to I don't want to say escape, but trying to leave or you know, go in another direction. However, you want to talk about that. It's the same, you know, types of beliefs and what we're told and who's controlling us, the events, the people. I think it can be pretty general, generalized, even if one's preference is to work like with a certain type of clientele. Like I might say, I only want to work with the bereaved, but what I teach is for everybody. You don't have to be bereaved to to work with me. And I feel kind of like the same with you, but it's your choice, and that might be your primary target audience. So I'd like to start by asking you who you were? That memory. I really want to know who Audra was, and and then we'll talk about how LDS kind of took that away from you, and you sort of, you know, gave yourself to it. And what were the sort of most harmful beliefs for you? What was going on for you? And then I want to move into the Part Three where we talk about Audra today, and I'm really curious to know if and I hope I don't forget this. So if I do, try and remember it in your head. If the Audra of today dug back into the Audra of early early years, and some of those things that were firing her up have come out, and you're still using them but you see her as your adult Audra post the church. So I'll I'll hand it over to you. So young Audra, who was she?

Audra Phelps  10:57  
Young Audra was who I was told to be.

Vonne Solis  11:00  
Oh really?

Audra Phelps  11:01  
Yes. So young Audra was, so for your listeners who don't know very much about the Mormon or LDS faith, it's more than just a belief in God. It's more than just going to church on Sunday. It is your entire identity. So from the time I was a small child, when I could have a cognitive thought, I remember being told, "You know, you're going to get married in the temple. You're going to have children. Your role in this life is to bring more souls to the earth, to have an earthly body. That is your divine role: is to be a mother". And so, from a very early age, that was the focus: was getting married and having children. And you know, in the church, there's there's there's a lot of doctrine, doctrine, right? And there's um, so there was a lot of like teachings, lessons, Sunday school, and things like that, and you know, at home as well. And there were oftentimes as a kid, there were things that didn't sit right with me. And any time that I would question or I would say I don't understand that, or that doesn't make any sense, or I don't know if I agree with that. I was immediately told, well, then that is Satan that is giving you these doubts, and so you are vulnerable to him, and so you need to pray more. You need to go to church more. You need to read your scriptures more, so that he can't leave these impressions on you. So my my entire my entire life until I left. I left when I was 35.

Vonne Solis  12:59  
Okay.

Audra Phelps  12:59  
Was me constantly pushing myself down, you know, so burying my thoughts, burying my doubts, burying that intuition. And so when I say who did I used to be, and and my response is, I was who I was told to be. That's why. Because when when the the real Audra was trying to speak through my body and through my heart and you know through those inklings, I would be immediately told, "You just need to be obedient. You don't have to understand how it works. You just have to follow it because you're, you have to prove yourself. You have to prove your worthiness. You have to prove that you're good. You have to prove that you're righteous. Prove that you're lovable. All of those things. And so, from the time I was a small child, it was always, you know, okay, who do I need to be? What do I need to do? And then looking to that external authority to tell me that.

Vonne Solis  14:05  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  14:06  
Right?

Vonne Solis  14:07  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  14:07  
So, you know, when I look back, there were times as a small child when when I questioned, but I would immediately push it back down. I would bury bury my own critical thinking skills, bury my own intuition, and I would just become the prescribed version of myself that I was told would give me, you know, everlasting, eternal life, blessings in heaven, all of those things. Right? The rewards are so big but abstract. They're all about the afterlife, and this life is supposed to be hard. It's supposed to be a struggle. It's a test. You have to prove yourself. And so, really, from a very young age, it taught me that I I wasn't important as an individual. That my feelings, even beyond not mattering, my feelings were, if they were, if they somehow were dissented from what I was taught, then they were wrong, right? And so, so I didn't know who I was. I I was just being who I was told to be. I was doing the things I was told to do, but one of the wake-up calls for me was, you know, I got married very young. I was only 20 years old when I got married because I was following that prescribed path, right? It's all about getting married and having children, and so I got married young. I started having kids right away. I had my first child at 22, and when my youngest, so I have three children, when my youngest was about three years old, I started really struggling with severe anxiety and depression. And I couldn't figure out why because you know, I was doing everything I was told to do. Everything that I was told would bring me happiness and make me a good person and make me a good mom. But I was really struggling to the point where I was having panic attacks almost every night. And hindsight, looking back, I know that that was my body screaming at me. It was, you know, that inner Audra that had been pushed down for so long was trying to come out, and basically saying, "You're in a life that is not your own. And so that that was a real wake-up call for me was the struggle with anxiety and depression when I was a young mom. And you know I went to my primary care physician. I went to my doctor, and he prescribed me antidepressants, and I took them and they didn't work for me. And now I know why they didn't work for me. The problem wasn't a chemical imbalance in my brain that I needed a medication to help me with. The problem was that I was living a life that was not my own, and I was, I had these beliefs installed in me and who I should be, and I was living by that. But those beliefs were not my own, but I couldn't recognize it as that at first.

Vonne Solis  17:38  
It almost sounds like your soul was just screaming, crying out to live the life you really came here to live. I'm a big believer that we can have experiences in our childhood that kind of set us up for what we're going to do later in our adult life. And, so I do want to say when you talk about that child and being told to believe certain things, told to. I mean, every every facet of your life was controlled essentially. And but but in deep inside there, I recognize curiosity and intelligence and independence. Certainly the recognition of individualism. You know? Wanting, wanting, screaming for that piece of you, that energetic piece of you to come out. And it is possible that sometimes when these things are hidden within us, or you know, like basically contained within us, even against our will, our will. Without without going through that, maybe like I'm, I will rephrase it this way: Going through it maybe helps us become even stronger leaders when we finally unleash it.

Audra Phelps  19:07  
Yes.

Vonne Solis  19:08  
Because you understand the depth and the length of time you were, I just want to does it? Do you feel like you were controlled?

Audra Phelps  19:19  
Oh, 100%.

Vonne Solis  19:20  
Yeah, yeah.

Audra Phelps  19:22  
100%. But I didn't recognize it as that.

Vonne Solis  19:25  
Not at the time. No, no, yeah.

Audra Phelps  19:27  
Yeah, yeah.

Vonne Solis  19:28  
But what it reminds me of, and I'm not saying this about the church. I'm saying this for a general audience. Think about those feelings as Audra talks about if you're experiencing anything like that, or have experienced it, and you're feeling a little lost because you maybe have broken free, but it really sounds like abusive. It's very similar to what someone would experience being controlled by a partner. You are just being controlled. Well, let me ask you this: were you being controlled by the church in general, like your partnership, your husband, because he came out, your whole family left the church.

Audra Phelps  20:02  
Yeah.

Vonne Solis  20:02  
And I I know from what you said, your husband took a little longer to adopt you know similar beliefs to you than than what you took, but he eventually followed you, so you're still together. When you're in the LDS, and are there different factions of it that some that would be a little bit more fundamental, and you know everything's chosen for them like even your spouse? Or did you have the freedom to choose your own partner to marry? Even though you were sort of, you've got to marry at really young age? Did you choose your husband, or was he chosen for you?

Audra Phelps  20:35  
I cho, I chose my husband, so they don't do at least in the in the mainstream Mormon Church, you know, there's different, there's some different sects of Mormonism, some fundamentalists and things like that.

Vonne Solis  20:47  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  20:47  
I grew up in the mainstream Mormon Church.

Vonne Solis  20:50  
Okay.

Audra Phelps  20:50  
So um.

Vonne Solis  20:53  
Is that a positive?

Audra Phelps  20:55  
Yeah, it's a, it's a definitely a positive. It's definitely a positive.

Vonne Solis  21:00  
Because let let me just ask this though. Today, today and if I'm not mistaken, didn't you grow up in Colorado? Were you in Colo?

Audra Phelps  21:09  
California.

Vonne Solis  21:10  
Oh, you grew up in California?

Audra Phelps  21:12  
Yeah.

Vonne Solis  21:12  
But would you say well, there's still an offshoot, or maybe the central core of the Mormon Church are they fundamentalists, and these are the ones centered in Utah, Colorado area?

Audra Phelps  21:23  
I think who you're thinking of is the fundamentalists who practice polygamy, which is a very extreme group of Mormonism. Basically, the same beliefs, except they still practice polygamy.

Vonne Solis  21:39  
Okay.

Audra Phelps  21:39  
Which the mainstream Mormon Church did practice for many years, but denounced it in like the late 1800s.

Vonne Solis  21:47  
Oh, okay.

Audra Phelps  21:47  
When they denounced polygamy, then we had all of these offshoots who didn't agree with that decision, so they followed like little little branches of the church, right?

Vonne Solis  21:59  
Right.

Audra Phelps  21:59  
That started their own communities where they practice polygamy. So you're probably thinking of those smaller groups like the FLDS, the Fundamental Church. There's quite a few of them, quite a few of small groups who are mostly in like southern Utah Northerners,.

Vonne Solis  22:15  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  22:16  
Like that area.

Vonne Solis  22:17  
Okay.

Audra Phelps  22:18  
The mainstream Mormon church that has all the big Mormon temples you find all over the world? That's based in Salt Lake City.

Vonne Solis  22:26  
Okay.

Audra Phelps  22:27  
That's the biggest, the biggest, I mean, I I guess you could call call it a branch. I guess it's more like the trunk.

Vonne Solis  22:35  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  22:36  
Of the Mormonism tree.

Vonne Solis  22:37  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  22:38  
So I grew up in the main Mormon church that's based in Salt Lake City. So we didn't have some of those more extreme beliefs like polygamy, but...

Vonne Solis  22:49  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  22:50  
It's, that's the history of the church, and so it's also - it's the manipulation is a little more covert.

Vonne Solis  23:01  
Yeah, yeah. So in other words, so like, is it? Now I want to be delicate how I ask this. So is it and we're just going to talk mainstream Mormon Church today, which I know nothing about because people are really fascinated by the FLDS. Like we're fascinated. If you want to hear like an escape story, it's you know there's documentaries on it, right? So, but so I don't know much about mainstream, but I'm I'm going to ask you: Is the role of the Mormon Church in mainstream to limit women? Because you do a lot of work with women, and so how you were grown, how you were raised, the beliefs you were taught. Basically get married, procreate to get more into the church. That's your job. So that's a pretty limiting construct for a female. This is my role, and it sounds like it's lesser to the male, and so the female isn't as valuable as the male, is he? Is she? In in the in the mainstream Mormon? By that I mean, or is the male taught your job is also to procreate and follow and obey to the same extent that a woman would be required to do that?

Audra Phelps  24:26  
No, the woman's role is much more prescribed, and it's it's just as you described it. Really, you know, it's a patriarchal system.

Vonne Solis  24:34  
Oh yeah. Okay.

Audra Phelps  24:35  
You know, as a Mormon, when you go through the Mormon temple, and you and you get married in the Mormon temple, you are told that the woman submits to the husband as the husband submits to God. So the the language is really specific, and you know the church will tell you that you're equal partners. But then if you're if you calibrate to action? The actual action of the church is that the woman submits to the husband as the husband submits to God.

Vonne Solis  25:08  
Okay. That answers it. That answers my question.

Audra Phelps  25:11  
Yeah, yeah. And then you you're supposed to be home. You're you're you're told that your role is a nurturer to raise children. To be a homemaker.

Vonne Solis  25:21  
Okay.

Audra Phelps  25:22  
And you know, when I when I was having kids, I remember saying, because my husband is great with kids. He's an elementary school teacher, right? And I remember I, when I was struggling with anxiety and depression, I remember thinking, I really want to work. I want to work. I need I need something else.

Vonne Solis  25:40  
Mm hmm.

Audra Phelps  25:43  
And I remember saying, "You know, what if, what if my husband stays home with the kids, and I go to work?" And I was very quickly put in my place? I was very quickly told, "No! You would be taking away his divine role of being the provider, and your place is in the home, and that is God's role that is given to you as a woman. How dare you not assume that role and try and take the man's role?"

Vonne Solis  26:17  
Interesting. Because I was going to ask within the mainstream Mormon Church, are women encouraged to stay home or required to stay home? So you're not really, you would find the majority of women not going out and and establishing careers, correct?

Audra Phelps  26:33  
Right, right. And so then, when the women that I work with, when they come to me.

Vonne Solis  26:38  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  26:39  
It's it's like "I, I really desperately want to leave the church", but they're so afraid for a lot of reasons. But one is because they they have no sense of independence. They've only ever been home with their kids, raising their kids.

Vonne Solis  26:55  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  26:55  
You know, giving their all to their children. You're told that you know, a good mom sacrifices herself. It would be selfish to think of yourself. You should always put, you know, your kids' needs before your own. But that, when that happens for years and years and years and years, then the woman loses herself completely. And often, often this kind of starts happening as the children are getting older and they're getting ready to leave.

Vonne Solis  27:26  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  27:27  
Leave the house, and then, and then it's like, oh my gosh, you know, and that's I think pretty ubiquitous. That's not just women who were raised in you know a high-control religion. That's pretty ubiquitous, I think, that women start to really sort of recalibrate as their kids are leaving. But for a woman who has been in this role that she was told was her role from the the time she had a cognitive thought, and now she's kind of at the completion of that, and her kids are starting to leave? And you realize you have no idea who you are, but there's not a plan for you after that. There's not a prescribed plan for you after that.

Vonne Solis  28:07  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  28:08  
And you've had all these doubts, and now you have you actually have time to maybe think and process some of these things, and maybe start to turn inward? It's really scary because you're not you're not used to making decisions for yourself, right? Like when I decided that I was actually going to work, even though I was told that that was not my place.

Vonne Solis  28:32  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  28:33  
When I made the decision to go back to school, I I knew that I needed something for me because those anxiety and depression meds weren't working. And I had I had I knew that it was because, I think subconsciously I knew it was because I didn't have any sense of independence. And so I thought, okay, I'm gonna go back to school and I'm gonna have a career. So I was courageous enough to kind of make that step that went a little bit against the grain of what I was being told. But I chose to go into teaching, and why did I choose teaching? Not really because it was what I was passionate about. I didn't even know how to explore my own passions or desires. I chose that career because it was the most benign job that a Mormon mom could have. Because I would have the same schedule as my kids. I would have the holidays off, summer break off, and so nobody at church would look at me sideways for being a teacher, right? And so, so that's where I think women really, in a lot of ways, are stuck.

Vonne Solis  29:51  
Oh, for sure. Oh, for sure. But you can get again, audience. You can get yourself stuck like that any time, and for whatever reason we give our power over to someone else. Whether it's the church, whether it's your spouse. I mean, I did it when I became bereaved when I lost my daughter, you know, to suicide in 20, 21 years ago in 2005. I immediately became, and that's why your story relates to me even though they're vastly different, because I lost all of my identity. I didn't have a clue who I was anymore, and she was my only daughter. I have a son, but still I had no daughter, and I it just it just took my breath away, and it it it dropped me to to the floor. And so I, when you lose that power, women, and Audra, you're going to know this, like you really are floundering. And I think we have some sense of awareness of what we're doing to ourselves, but just we can't see a way to get out of it. And that was my my situation. Because listen, I had been a single mom, and then I got married, and I had my son, and I didn't develop a career, okay? I never went after career because I really was one that kind of was in and out of being the homemaker because I wanted to be. Not because I, it was expected of me. In fact, it was a a blessing to be able to do that. But it took me years, years to gain my power back. And to be really honest, I am only still gaining it back.

Audra Phelps  31:36  
Oh yeah.

Vonne Solis  31:37  
Okay? I'm really still gaining it back, and I'm in retirement years, you know, and late later retirement. So I, I well, like at any age, it can happen to us, even from just a situation, a life event that we're not expecting. So I'm hearing you, and I did want to ask: So does the church discourage education for women? So, in other words, they you guys women can go to school. You can get, I'm assuming they encourage graduation, grade 12. Two questions: Can you go to main mainstream public schools, or are they Mormon run schools? And second of all, are you today even, are the young ladies encouraged just to go get married and not pursue higher education?

Audra Phelps  32:27  
Marriage is definitely the number one goal. I would say education is encouraged, but for a different purpose than for men. So I was always encouraged to go to college and get a degree.

Vonne Solis  32:42  
Oh, okay.

Audra Phelps  32:43  
But with the purpose of that once you get married and start having kids, if something were to happen to your husband, you would have your degree to fall back on. So it was never with the intention of actually having a career, unless you know something happened to your husband and you had to work. So it was always like like the plan B, the fallback plan.

Vonne Solis  33:10  
Yeah, but but wouldn't they more or less wouldn't the preference be if anything happened to the spouse, go find another spouse, get married again?

Audra Phelps  33:19  
Absolutely.

Vonne Solis  33:20  
And have and have more kids.

Audra Phelps  33:22  
And have more kids. Yeah, and then you know, if you look at like what the things that the church is doing now, there's also Mormon missions, right? So in the Mormon church, they, especially for boys, it's much, it's more of a requirement for boys than for girls. But they they go on a mission for two years where they're sent somewhere to proselyte and convert people to the LDS religion. But just recently, they reduced the age. It used to be that boys would go at 19 and girls would go at 21. Now, why why did girls go at 21 and boys at 19? Because you were told, well, you could go. I guess if you if you're not married by then, then I guess you could go on a mission.

Vonne Solis  34:12  
Oh...oh.

Audra Phelps  34:12  
Yeah, and but now they've just recently they changed that where both boys and girls go at age 18, and when I heard that, I was like, "Okay, well, at least they're making it the same age. But then I thought, "Okay, this is intentional, because straight out of high school, you're not going to college where you're going to be educated and exposed to a variety of different people and beliefs and philosophies and ideologies, right? Right out of high school, you're going on a mission for two years, and then when you're on a mission, and they're I didn't serve a mission, but my husband did. When you're on a mission, they're always talking about when you get off the mission, your goal is to get married and start having kids right away. So now girls can go on a mission at age 18, right out of high school, two years even more surrounded and indoctrinated by the church, right? It really sets in during those foundational years. Their brain's not even fully developed yet, and then as soon as they get home, they're just looking for a husband. They're not looking for a career.

Vonne Solis  35:24  
Yeah. Okay. I was going to ask you also. Do you know, generally speaking, or are there statistics on how many women are trying to, or want to, or have actually left the Mormon, mainstream Mormon church?

Audra Phelps  35:43  
There was a recent statistic. There's a book that just came out on all of these statistics, and I haven't finished reading it. But I, one that I read. That one statistic that I read recently was that out of all the all out of all the active or all the members of the church on the, on the church's records, about 40% have left.

Vonne Solis  36:07  
Wow, wow. 40% women at 18 and over?

Audra Phelps  36:16  
I think this was all, this was both men and women.

Vonne Solis  36:21  
Wow.

Audra Phelps  36:22  
40%. I don't know the breakdown between men and women, but 40% of those who were at one time active, you know, members of the church have left.

Vonne Solis  36:33  
Okay, interesting.

Audra Phelps  36:34  
Associated with the church.

Vonne Solis  36:36  
Okay.

Audra Phelps  36:36  
That's a huge percentage. That's a huge percentage, and I would venture to guess that the that there's more women than men doing that because the experience in the church is so much different for men than for women, right?Women, we're not put in leadership positions. You know, we're not really given a voice. We're not put on the stand, and we're constantly, you know, deflecting to men, defaulting to men.

Vonne Solis  37:06  
I was, it was really interesting because the thought's coming to me, and I don't want to go on and on about this, but I'm setting it up as a context for the community, the church community at large, including around the world. Two things: are they still? So they're still sending the young people on missions to basically recruit other other countries membership as people, citizens into the church, right? So expand the Mormon Church around the world, right? I was thinking when you were talking about age 18 and the guys and the girls go together. Well, okay, maybe it's widening the dating pool, but also, could the women actually marry outside of the United States, or would they be expected, an American Mormon, to marry someone kind of from their home community?

Audra Phelps  38:04  
It doesn't have to be from your home community, but you're definitely expected to marry another Mormon. When I was young and looking to get married, it was a requirement that you get married in the Mormon temple, but there wasn't a lot of emphasis put on like how to choose a life partner, how to know if you're compatible. The there was really only two requirements for a husband: he had to have been on a mission, so he should be a returned missionary, and he has to be able to take you to the temple. So he needs to, so the Mormon temple, like you have to do the what are called worthiness interviews in order to go. It's not every Mormon, every member of the LDS Church goes to the temple. You have to have these worthiness interviews. It's kind of like the elite of the Mormon Church go to the Mormon temple, and that's where you get married. So you have to have someone that meets all of those requirements, that's living the lifestyle, that's following all of the rules quickly in order to take you to the temple. So.

Vonne Solis  39:09  
So there may be Mormons that have no access to the temple, is what you're saying.

Audra Phelps  39:14  
Yes.

Vonne Solis  39:14  
And and the more, I don't want to say fundamental, but the more rigorous you are in practicing all the rules.

Audra Phelps  39:22  
You could say more Christian.

Vonne Solis  39:23  
Yeah, Orthodox. Then the the more worthy you are, and the more ax, and the more access you have to the people i power.

Audra Phelps  39:33  
Yes, absolutely.

Vonne Solis  39:35  
Essentially. Let's let's be really clear. I would think that those that are at the temple and the hierarchy at the temple, the elites, the executives of the board, etc., they're the ones that have the power and the shortest commute to God. You know? Because they're the ones that have the access to God on your behalf, and will instruct you as to God's ways through them, but it's really their interpretation. Like, have I got it more or less right? I mean, yes, I know it's the church's interpretation, and maybe even the Bible and all of that. But in the end, man is man, literally and figuratively.

Audra Phelps  40:20  
I always describe it. Now that I've left, I describe, you know, I've been on my own spiritual journey, right? And since leaving, and I have come to the realization that my spiritual relationship with God, or Universe, or Source, or or whatever.

Vonne Solis  40:39  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  40:39  
You know, whatever name you use for an energy.

Vonne Solis  40:43  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  40:45  
That the church was the middleman. And it was like I constantly had to go through the middleman to interpret my relationship with a higher source, and I could, I, I could never have this direct connection. It, it was like everything was interpreted for me. Everything had to be filtered through the church's lens and through what really old white men were telling me.

Vonne Solis  41:12  
Yeah, yeah.

Audra Phelps  41:13  
That that God was saying.

Vonne Solis  41:15  
Yeah. And that's so frustrating. You know, I'm not going to talk about it today and probably ever, but I just feel there have been so many attempts and successes at controlling, wiping out feminine energy, females. Erasing us. Making us powerless. All the constructs around the world and I've lived and travelled in other places. I lived in Pakistan, for goodness' sake, for two years. I mean.

Audra Phelps  41:43  
Wow, okay.

Vonne Solis  41:44  
You know. And it really upsets me and bothers me. But there's, I, but I feel helpless. I feel helpless in in what we can do to recognize this. But so ultimately, when you're talking, and one of the reasons I wanted to really learn more about the church is the control. And again, it's just another way for males to control females.

Audra Phelps  42:11  
Yeah, I agree. I absolutely agree.

Vonne Solis  42:14  
I mean, there's a lot going on in the religion piece and all of that, but let me ask you: How many females make it to the top of the temple clergy, if you will? Probably none in the Mormons. Do ...

Audra Phelps  42:27  
None because all the leadership are men. I mean, women might, women might have sort of like sub-leadership roles with other women.

Vonne Solis  42:36  
Like what? Teaching Sunday school?

Audra Phelps  42:38  
Well, teaching Sunday school, teaching the women's group, teaching the the young woman, right? But women aren't going to have a leadership role that's over the whole congregation.

Vonne Solis  42:48  
They're not going to be man, they're not going to be managing the money. They're not going to be making church decisions. Nothing like that. And one other, one other question I have about the church, and then I'll I'll move on is in the in different church in different churches, like say the Catholic Church or whatever, but how much autonomy does an individual church have interpreting the the Mormon, um the Mormon beliefs, the scriptures, things like that, or is it pretty rigid? And you could go to walk to any church anywhere in the world, and you're going to hear the same thing? So I just really want to know if a lot of this interpretation kinda, kind of is more autonomous, and depending on the men at that specific church, things are interpreted slightly differently?

Audra Phelps  43:44  
I mean, there's very little variation, and that's because, so the church has their headquarters is in Salt Lake City, and they have their own education system. They make manuals for Sunday school. And it's so organized and structured that every single congregation, which in the Mormon Church is called a ward, they should be teaching the same lesson from the same book on the same Sunday.

Vonne Solis  44:13  
Really?

Audra Phelps  44:15  
Yes. So you know you can go to any church and you know what the lesson's going to be.

Vonne Solis  44:21  
Wow.

Audra Phelps  44:23  
Yeah.

Vonne Solis  44:24  
So that that tells me very, that tells me very little autonomy amongst even even the higher ups.

Audra Phelps  44:31  
It is standardized.

Vonne Solis  44:33  
Wow.

Audra Phelps  44:34  
It's standardized so you know what your lesson is.

Vonne Solis  44:36  
Interesting. Your lesson and everything else in life. You know what your life is. That's it.

Audra Phelps  44:42  
There's no there's no room for interpretation.

Vonne Solis  44:45  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  44:46  
And you, it's, they might tell you that you have freedom to choose, but it's it's a manipulative freedom because it's like well you could choose not to get married young, but then you'd be disappointing God and you'd be leaving souls in heaven, you know? And it's like, okay, so I'm not going to choose that.So

Vonne Solis  45:05  
So the young people and possibly even the children are already raised to carry a burden of guilt, obedience, and guilt, and all the other, you know, emotions, the grief that you went through as you started to unravel it all. That begins right from well infancy, but when you can remember from from being a child. And so the child isn't maybe thinking about it, but like you described a bit ago about having this yearning and this curiosity, even though you stamped it down, no, it was there, and maybe a lot of children are like that. So again, I don't know if if you answered. I want to circle back to, are the Mormon children, do they go to public school or can they go to private schools? And if so, wouldn't they be having to kind of juggle ideology from what they're hearing outside the church?

Audra Phelps  46:03  
Yeah. So I mean, I went to public school. There's not necessarily a rule about where you go to school, but I would say a lot of families choose to do homeschool.

Vonne Solis  46:13  
Okay, yeah.

Audra Phelps  46:15  
Choose to do homeschool because they feel like the public schools would expose their children to things that they don't want them exposed to, and would send their child down an unrighteous path. So many many church members will choose to homeschool for that reason. They want, in my view, they want to keep their their kids' world small.

Vonne Solis  46:37  
Okay.

Audra Phelps  46:38  
Rather than expanding their child's worldview.

Vonne Solis  46:41  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  46:41  
They want to keep it small and controlled. They want to control the message that their children get. And so I was, I went to public school, but I was also, you know, I I was very much in it. I didn't, and like especially in science class when the topic of evolution came up, I was the one that would bring in my scriptures to the science class the next day and like try and argue with the teacher. I mean, how arrogant!

Vonne Solis  47:11  
Well, I well, but I would also say what a burden you must have felt.

Audra Phelps  47:16  
It's a burden. It was a burden.

Vonne Solis  47:18  
To share that and prove that you know your church was right, and you're however old you are.

Audra Phelps  47:24  
I was always told that I was to be an example to attract other people to the church, and that you know I, every member a missionary was one of the one of the sayings when I was growing up. And so, if there was something that went against what I was taught at church, I felt like I had this duty, this obligation to correct people because maybe that would bring them into the church if I could change their mind.

Vonne Solis  47:50  
How old were you when this started?

Audra Phelps  47:53  
Oh, I started doing it probably in middle school.

Vonne Solis  47:57  
Wow! I mean, what a responsibility to feel the obedience to that degree.

Audra Phelps  48:04  
It's heavy. It's really heavy, and you oh so then you always feel it always feels like this us versus them mentality.

Vonne Solis  48:12  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  48:12  
And I think part of that too, is you know the church has a really strong social structure, and you know not only do you have what where you go to church on Sunday, but they organize that geographically. Like, so where you go to church, what time you go to church depends on where you live, your neighbourhood. So you're surrounded by the members of your ward all the time. You have activities on Monday nights and Wednesday nights and Saturdays, and you have a calling that keeps you very busy, which is basically a volunteer job in the church that can be anywhere from 10 to 30 hours a week that you're doing.

Vonne Solis  48:52  
And does wait, wait, does that start from childhood also, the calling? Or more from like young adult, maybe teen to young adult, and then?

Audra Phelps  49:01  
Young adult.

Vonne Solis  49:02  
Okay, okay.

Audra Phelps  49:03  
Yeah, yeah.

Vonne Solis  49:04  
I'm just sitting here listening to you, and again, I'm not judging. I'm just sitting here listening, thinking, wow! Like the responsibility would also perhaps ignite that belief of failure in you.

Audra Phelps  49:20  
Yeah.

Vonne Solis  49:21  
If you're not recruiting. And then you fail, if you didn't convince the teacher that your Mormon scripture is right, you have failed majorly.

Audra Phelps  49:30  
Yep. I have failed. Maybe I didn't have enough faith. Maybe my testimony is not strong enough.

Vonne Solis  49:35  
My my God.

Audra Phelps  49:37  
So much pressure, so much pressure, and so, and it takes a long time to uncover that. It took me 10 years of questioning.

Vonne Solis  49:46  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  49:46  
Like I said at the beginning, I left when I was 35, but I had questioned for 10, consciously questioned,

Vonne Solis  49:53  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  49:53  
for 10 years before that. And so when women come to me and they've they've made the decision that this is not this is not who I am, but then they they don't know the next step. It's like I know what I'm not, but I don't know who I am. So, like one of the first things is like okay, when you were starting to question what was the feeling in your body? What was it that did it feel tight? Where was it, right? And so, getting them to recognize that those feelings is your intuition, the real you speaking to you through your body, and so those feelings that got you to question for so long, and then make the huge decision to leave. You're gonna keep leaning, you're gonna keep leaning on those. You're gonna you're gonna really hone in to listening to your body as you're trying to figure out okay then, what beliefs do resonate with me? What actually feels the opposite of that? What's gonna feel open and expansive like I can take a really deep breath? Then, now you're gonna follow those feelings.

Vonne Solis  51:09  
So I want to let's move into this. So this is important. And as you're speaking, audience, audience, what Audra's saying. Think about it in any situation you're trying to change in your life. You could be living with the most perfect, loving partner, but still keeping yourself powerless. So this is excellent advice, what you're talking to, Audra, because we feel a lot of stress in grief, and in any other situation, we feel all of that tightness, that stress, that anxiety. So listening to your body. But I love what you say. When that inclination, intuition comes, and even though you want to stamp it down, go away, go away. Our feminine intuition is never going away, ladies. We live by it. And how many times does your quote gut tell you to do something intuition, and you ignore it?

Audra Phelps  52:08  
Yeah.

Vonne Solis  52:09  
You always go, geez, I wish I would have listened. I still do that today sometimes, but I'm much, much, much, much better. And when I have that urge, I need to call someone now, or I need to go and do something now. In every situation, it's served us really, really well, and that is largely intuition. Well, I work with angels, and so it's also that for me. But we all have that. But what I really want to emphasize here in this episode is the stirrings of the awakening to the powerlessness that can help any woman, any woman. And I'm not going to let you know, if you're a guy and you're watching this, and you know it, it, and you identify as male, I'll add that. I'm very respectful of of how people are thinking of themselves these days, but at any rate, there are a lot of men that keep themselves down too, and I, I don't, I don't want to talk a lot about that today. But it seems to me that the church equally controls the men; just they have different types of controls, and so as you say, to be good servants for God, but you can ask an awful lot from anybody to be a good servant for God. So it's that stirring of listening and expand on that, Audra, a little bit. So we're going to get into weaving in now, you've you started your Reclaimed program. I do want to ask you to help women identify this connection to their powerlessness, they're urging, they're urging to let their real self emerge. How did that start for you? So you got out at 35, but you said I believe it took 10 years to make the decision, and that's a lot of guts to leave anything that you're raised on, and basically maybe even relying on. So let's weave in here a little bit. When you went and taught overseas with your husband, these were not missions. Was this just an opportunity to become teachers in international schools, and separate from the Mormon Church, nothing to do with the Mormon Church, right? At at this point, were you just sort of emerging into going like something's not right here? I can feel it in my body. I know it started when you're probably what mid-20s. You've got the anxiety, the depression. But what was the turning point for you to take this seriously, even if you didn't act on it yet? But to take this nudging seriously, that something needed to change?

Audra Phelps  54:58  
There were a couple things. I, we moved overseas when I was 33 to work in private American international schools. So I was a high school biology teacher. My husband was an elementary school teacher, and our kids when we moved overseas were ages seven, nine, and 11.

Vonne Solis  55:16  
Okay.

Audra Phelps  55:17  
And we really wanted to travel. We wanted to expand our child's worldview, unlike many members of the church who were trying to shrink their child's experience, we were trying to expand it. And I had been questioning for about seven or eight years at this point. So I was already kind of one foot out the door, but couldn't, couldn't quite make the decision. I wasn't there yet. But, so there was two two things that happened for me overseas. One was we moved to Kazakhstan, where it's like you know nobody even knew the word Mormon there, right?

Vonne Solis  55:55  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  55:56  
There was a very small Mormon church we could go to, but it was like run by missionaries, it was all taught in Russian, so just a totally different experience. But it gave me physical separation of it all.

Vonne Solis  56:10  
Yes.

Audra Phelps  56:11  
And then I wasn't caught up in the daily minutia of church life and who I need to be, and you know, members of the of my ward showing up on the doorstep if I didn't come to church on Sunday and fulfilling my my volunteer calling role, right? So it gave me like breathing space.

Vonne Solis  56:31  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  56:32  
And now my mind could kind of process everything, and it had time to process all of these doubts that I had. And so that physical separation, it was like you know I could you can't see the forest for the trees. Now I could zoom out and I can kind of start to see the big picture of everything. So that was the first thing. The other thing it did to me is, or did for me, was now I was travelling. I was talking to people with all different belief systems. I was visiting these amazing places, and I would feel like I would go to a Hindu temple or a Catholic cathedral or a Muslim mosque, and it would feel spiritual, and it would feel sacred, and it was like, oh wait, this isn't, this doesn't feel how I was told that this would feel. I was told that this would feel wrong and dark, and it doesn't feel that way. And then I would see the followers of these different faiths, and I would talk with friends at the school who had different beliefs, and they were so happy and so content and so convicted in their belief, and I was again like, "This isn't what I was told".

Vonne Solis  57:47  
What were you told? You were told to be, was were you taught that every other religion was dark and wrong?

Audra Phelps  57:55  
Yeah, yeah. That the Mormon faith was the one and only true church. It was the only way back to God, and that Mormons kind of had the monopoly on happiness. That everyone outside the Mormon Church was not really happy. It was all a facade.

Vonne Solis  58:15  
Ohh. Did you, I just have to ask. If you had that belief cemented in you from childhood. So, did you even look at your fellow students as they're just probably pretending to be happy? They're really, really unhappy.

Audra Phelps  58:32  
Yeah, yeah. I looked at everybody that way. But then, after being overseas for many years and becoming really close friends with a lot of people, you know, who weren't even weren't even American, and had totally different cultures and beliefs. I was like, actually, they're happier than I ever was in the church.

Vonne Solis  58:55  
Yeah. So this doubting, I have to go back to this. You said you went overseas at 33. So your 20s, you're busy having babies and giving them their early start. And, but you go to Kazakhstan, and folks, if you don't know where it is, look it up on the map. My husband has worked in all the Stans, okay, so I do know where it is. Anyway, but you are doubting something now. So, so you're are, so what are you doubting in your 20s that you're still not ready to leave the church? But if you're so indoctrinated and surrounded in your, by your ward, and they're controlling every aspect of your life, including your like what you said. When you go to church. Why didn't you go to church? You know, all I imagine every area. And if I did, if I heard you right on that other podcast, they could just come and knock on your door at any time and be very intrusive in your household?

Audra Phelps  59:57  
Yes.

Vonne Solis  59:58  
Members of the of the church. The hierarchy of the church, right?

Audra Phelps  1:00:01  
Yes, yes.

Vonne Solis  1:00:02  
Okay. So imagine, so you never know when you're getting the knock at the door and coming to be inspected or whatever, right? So, what are you doubting? So you're 33. You've moved. You're away from it now, and now you can see your doubts, and perhaps you were connected to those doubts in your 20s. Aware of your doubts, but maybe they weren't as clear as when you got the space. So, what were you looking back, what what were the things brewing inside of you that go this doesn't feel right in my body? This doesn't make sense to me?

Audra Phelps  1:00:38  
There were a lot of things that now were becoming. I was becoming consciously aware of right? And so as I was like, "Well, wait a second. If this wasn't true about us being, you know, the happiest people, and these places should feel dark, if that wasn't true, what else isn't true?"

Vonne Solis  1:00:54  
Exactly.

Audra Phelps  1:00:55  
So then my brain started looking for, well, what else gives me that same feeling of like, oh wait, that's not true.

Vonne Solis  1:01:03  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  1:01:03  
Right? So I'm looking for that. Now this is a feeling that I can associate with of well, that wasn't true so what else isn't true?

Vonne Solis  1:01:10  
Exactly.

Audra Phelps  1:01:11  
And the the church's history with polygamy never sat right with me. The church has a lot of racist policies that never sat right with me. The treatment of women didn't sit right with me. The purity culture, and that was kind of one of the things too, because I was, my two oldest are girls. There, I had a lot of shame about my body, right?

Vonne Solis  1:01:39  
Okay.

Audra Phelps  1:01:39  
And about any kind of sexual feelings. All of that was was very shameful, and I remember thinking, I never want my girls to feel that way.

Vonne Solis  1:01:52  
Oh gosh.

Audra Phelps  1:01:53  
I never want my girls to be ashamed of their body or to feel like if they show their shoulders that they're causing a man to sin.

Vonne Solis  1:02:02  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  1:02:03  
I don't want to pass those on to my kids.

Vonne Solis  1:02:07  
That's taught in that's taught in the mainstream church?

Audra Phelps  1:02:10  
Absolutely, absolutely.

Vonne Solis  1:02:14  
Yeah, but here's a question though. Are you and we'll we'll keep on with these doubts and stuff. But are you sort of expected, even in the mainstream church, to sort of have a very conservative wardrobe?

Audra Phelps  1:02:27  
Oh yeah. So when you go to the Mormon temple, you're given Mormon underwear, which is called garments.

Vonne Solis  1:02:34  
Okay.

Audra Phelps  1:02:35  
And they're well, they're very modest. It used to be until just a few months ago, that it was a sleeve for women, which meant you could never wear a tank top, and then the bottoms went all the way to your knee. So you weren't supposed to have shorts or a skirt that went above your knee. So modesty is still a huge thing of women covering up.

Vonne Solis  1:03:01  
What a horrible thing to add that add that, ladies, to the list of things that we do to ourselves. Oh my god, and are done to us, you know?

Audra Phelps  1:03:12  
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I'm starting to recognize these things that are feeling like, oh, that feels untrue, just like that other thing felt untrue.

Vonne Solis  1:03:21  
Okay.

Audra Phelps  1:03:22  
It's the same feeling, and I don't want to pass this on to my kids. I don't want my daughters to have shame around their body or normal, you know, sexual feelings and have shame around it. And um...

Vonne Solis  1:03:35  
It really sounds like your kids are a motivating factor for you.

Audra Phelps  1:03:39  
Yeah, they absolutely were.

Vonne Solis  1:03:41  
Like really, like enlightenment. Thank you, kids.

Audra Phelps  1:03:45  
It was. Because, and then I started to realize, you know, you start to look back on all your life decisions, and you realize that you didn't ever make a decision that was your own. And I remember thinking, I don't want my kids to feel like they have to follow what I tell them, or they have to follow what a religion tells them. I want my children to feel free to choose whatever life or belief without shame or judgment. And I felt like if I chose something different, I would have shame or judgement. And when I ultimately, when I left the church, I did. I lost a lot of family members. I lost friends. I lost a community, and I thought I don't, I don't want my kids. I would never do that to my own children if my child chooses a different belief than what I have?

Vonne Solis  1:04:34  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  1:04:35  
That's their life path, and so I never wanted my kids to feel that. And staying in the church would would not allow me to give my children that freedom.

Vonne Solis  1:04:46  
God, that must have been heartbreaking struggling with that, and having your children knowing that the expectation was the requirement, the order that they be raised the same way.

Audra Phelps  1:04:59  
Yeah.

Vonne Solis  1:05:00  
And you know what it's doing to them. Of course, you're not going to see that if you fully, truly believe this for yourself. But you clearly didn't believe.

Audra Phelps  1:05:10  
Right. Exactly. But that was that's a lot of kind of the guilt tactics that are used. As I was questioning, was you're going to destroy your child's salvation. Think about the kids. How could you do this to your family?

Vonne Solis  1:05:23  
Wow! Wow! Well, this is going on. Now, you get to Kazakhstan. You're being introduced to other cultures. Finding out there really are people who are happy in the world. They're not all evil, and not not all religion is the dark arts and all that stuff. So, do these? Does your sort of reflection now and thinking just start to evolve more and more, and you find yourself just naturally making decisions for yourself? Gaining bits of power back? Like, tell us, walk us through that process. How, from 33 to 35 you found the courage to actually walk away from the church?

Audra Phelps  1:06:05  
At that point, it became there was actually one very clear moment for me when the church made it pretty easy for me to be honest. In November, well, in November, because I had gone through this 10 years of questioning, and now I was starting to see things very objectively, and I was starting to tune into myself.

Vonne Solis  1:06:24  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  1:06:24  
I could recognize things that felt like I didn't believe them.

Vonne Solis  1:06:28  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  1:06:29  
In November 2015, the church came out with a policy that I had a visceral reaction to.

Vonne Solis  1:06:36  
Okay.

Audra Phelps  1:06:36  
it was a very anti LGBTQ policy.

Vonne Solis  1:06:41  
Okay.

Audra Phelps  1:06:42  
And I remember the moment I read it, I was sitting in my living room in Kazakhstan. I think it came through in an email or something, and I remember reading it, and it was framed as love and protection of children, but it was against children of gay couples in the church. That they that the children of gay couples would not be allowed to receive the blessings of the church unless they denounced their parents when they were 18 years old.

Vonne Solis  1:07:17  
Well, actually, this raises a question: Was the Mormon Church? Is the Mormon Church accepting of the LGBTQ community in general, or not at all?

Audra Phelps  1:07:29  
Not at all.

Vonne Solis  1:07:30  
So how would that policy? Why would they even need that policy if they don't really let them into the church anyway?

Audra Phelps  1:07:36  
Well, so the kids didn't have to be gay, but let's say their parents were gay. So now they have this policy that says basically you can't be a member of the church if you have gay parents unless you're 18 and you denounce your parents.

Vonne Solis  1:07:51  
Oh, I got it. This is from people wanting to join the church. Oh. Oh.

Audra Phelps  1:07:58  
And it was framed as something that it was not. It was framed as protection of children and out of love. And I remember the moment I read it, I was like, I want to throw up.

Vonne Solis  1:08:11  
Okay.

Audra Phelps  1:08:12  
This is not love. This is hate. I absolutely don't agree with this. And that so my reaction was so strong, and because I could now instantly recognize when I don't believe something? When something comes to me and I don't believe it? In that moment, I made the decision. I remember very clearly. I stood up. I walked upstairs. I went into my bedroom. I shut the door. I took my Mormon garments off because I hadn't taken those off yet, and you're supposed to wear them all the time. I was still wearing them, and I looked at myself in the mirror and I said, "I am not Mormon". And that moment was really powerful I felt. It felt like the whole world opened up into a million stars. Like I just felt light and airy and expansive, and so I was like, "That's it, that's it. I'm done. In this moment. I'm walking away."

Vonne Solis  1:09:19  
So I just I I want to just so it's like that was the straw that broke the camel's back, as some of us say. There is a moment, a watershed moment, audience, when things - when we're ready for anything, and even for positive. Like this is very positive, but there is that watershed moment that all of the stuff we question, and that's tapping into your authenticity, okay? Which a lot of people, yes, there's a lot of people that talk about authenticity. The word used to be one I respected so much. I still respect it, but I'm very careful how I, I believe we need to be really careful how we use it. I don't throw it around lightly, but there is no other word for our authentic identity, our authentic true self, which is our spirit core. Who we are, what we are in energy at our absolute core. And I believe every single human is born into this planet with a pure heart. I do. It's just it changes. Different things can change it. So that's just my belief, and it helps to think of ourselves for those that are struggling with this energy, where we all just come as energetic beings, and and what is this, and then go on your own journey to figure that out for the rest of your life, essentially. But when you're tapping into that and in the physical, so what I was hearing from you and envisioning is, I didn't realize that the women are required to wear the Mormon garments.

Audra Phelps  1:10:51  
Women and men, yeah.

Vonne Solis  1:10:52  
Oh, that's essentially your underwear, right?

Audra Phelps  1:10:54  
Yeah.

Vonne Solis  1:10:55  
That's your underwear. So that's as close as you can get to your body, your absolute body. That's, it's almost like a barrier.

Audra Phelps  1:11:04  
Yeah.

Vonne Solis  1:11:05  
It's the prison. The garments - I saw them as a prison, because the fact is, that's the first thing you did is you ripped them off. And as long as you're in those garments, and you know, looking at yourself, right over the years and questioning, those garments are the physical manifestation of what that boundary you can't yet cross. So they literally needed to be removed, and I what just wonder if the challenge is less so, or is another way to say it, magnified by the garments as opposed to someone who wouldn't need to be even wearing, like wearing  them, wearing. Its symbolism, essentially, right? You're wearing the symbolism of it. Oh my God, I didn't realize you had to actually wear the garments.

Audra Phelps  1:11:53  
Yeah, all the time, day and night.

Vonne Solis  1:11:56  
Day and night? And this is the mainstream church people.

Audra Phelps  1:12:00  
Yeah.

Vonne Solis  1:12:02  
Okay. Wow. Just well, congratulations.

Audra Phelps  1:12:06  
Thank you.

Vonne Solis  1:12:07  
No, seriously, I mean that. Like, good for you. That's the Audra that she was as a little girl when she wasn't obeying, right?

Audra Phelps  1:12:17  
Right. Honestly, it's coming coming back to myself. So.

Vonne Solis  1:12:21  
Yes.

Audra Phelps  1:12:21  
Like I knew what I wasn't, but now it's been 11 years of, "Okay. Then who am I?"

Vonne Solis  1:12:28  
Yeah, that's the that's the fun journey, though, and I'm still trying to figure it out. I'm 69. Okay?

Audra Phelps  1:12:34  
Yeah, I'm still figuring that out, too. Every day, every day something new comes up, and so that's now my passion of reaching back to to women who are at that precipice. It's like they're standing on a mountaintop, and they're like, there's an infinite numbers of paths to take.

Vonne Solis  1:12:53  
I know.

Audra Phelps  1:12:54  
And they're so used to someone telling them all the time where each step is going to go that they're frozen in fear and they're struggling with grief because everything behind them has just been washed away.

Vonne Solis  1:13:11  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  1:13:12  
There's no stability. There's no support system, right? And you don't even know who you are. So this person that you were told you are. You know, like I said in the beginning. I, I younger me was who I was told to be. Now I don't have that anymore.

Vonne Solis  1:13:30  
Yeah, yeah. It's it's scary.

Audra Phelps  1:13:34  
You have freedom, but the freedom is unfamiliar, and so your nervous system is freaking out.

Vonne Solis  1:13:40  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  1:13:41  
Because there's no pattern in your brain for how to do this because all you know is to just listen to what you know your church leader or your parent or whoever is telling you to do. And so you can be frozen in fear, and then you're grieving the past self, the past life, and you don't know how to move forward, and so that's what I help women do now: is build what's next. Just let's just figure out what the next right step is, and then we'll figure out the step after that.

Vonne Solis  1:14:15  
They sort of teach you in grief when you when you first get into like grief from loss. Well, everything's a loss, but you know when we lose something, it's not restricted. Grief is not restricted just to human loss. So this is your loss of identity, loss of a community, loss of of a belief system, loss of of structure, and other losses for you. But it's I've always I always looked in my very earliest grief, I have the ability to put my hand out and help the next person along, just grab it. Come on, just grab it, and we all do that. It just forms this amazing chain of empowerment and support for those of us because we do need help and we do need guide, you know, guidance to take the steps that we are required to take. We have to take a step. You don't want to just fall off the cliff. I mean, you can when you're flying, and that's fine as long as you got the wings. But man, you got to get those wings to get off that cliff. I once had an astrology reading about 2015, and she did a reading for me, and she said, and I'd been in my bereavement 10 years at that time and she said, Vonne, "Your future is just amazing. You're going to be just flying, you know, flying off a cliff into God's world", and I was like, "Well, how's that going to happen? How's it going to happen?" And sometimes you can be in that also, and you can be in God's world, and you can be flying off that cliff and not even recognize it. But I'm just saying, there's so much to overcome that you're a blessing. Sort of a little pun there, but you're a blessing to help women coming up behind you because you figured out the steps that worked for you, and they may or may not work for the next person. But all we're here to do for those of us is just say, well, this is what happened and worked for me. Some of this might might work for you, and if you want to try something else, I'm here to still hold your hand, and that's what I found so powerful for anybody guiding the next along. I'm particularly sensitive, though, and fond of the feminine energy here, and specific support for the feminine energy here because only us as women know what it feels like to be, um I don't know-just pu=shed down, held. You know, like this effort of of eons of patriarchy, patriarchal societies pushing us down, making us invisible, taking our rights away, not having rights about to begin with, like all of this stuff. We need to be really kind to each other sisters, and supportive of each other. And there's a little problem with that still too, but that's another day, another topic in knowing and recognizing it's okay to support each other, so kudos to the work you're doing. Fabulous. One thing I want to just point out is, and by the way, are you writing a book? We need a book, please.

Audra Phelps  1:17:11  
You know, I've had several people ask me that, and so I'm I'm started brainstorming some chapters, like how to maybe organize it. Yeah, I think there was there will be a book coming soon.

Vonne Solis  1:17:21  
An easy way, you know, record, get all the podcast episodes you've had, everything you've ever said on episodes, and you know, organize it all so that you can put it into AI and and start making AI do chapters.

Audra Phelps  1:17:36  
Why not?

Vonne Solis  1:17:37  
So seriously, it's a thing. Oh, it's an absolute thing. But at any rate, what I want to just say and and to round this off, so you leave the church at 35. I'm guessing having minimal Mormon temples around you and influences in the ward around you gave you the space to breathe, and and that's all you needed. And you you needed that two years, but it didn't take you another 10 years. So it was like you made the decision, and so right after that that happened. So we can finish off with Part Three now. How long? You leave the church at 35. You tell your husband. So at this point, are you kind of just not going to the Mormon church that was closest to you in the Stans, and your husband is still going, but now you feel safe enough to go, "I'm not. I'm not attending. I'm not attending church anymore". And what was?What were the kids doing? Going to church or not, you know?

Audra Phelps  1:18:36  
We gave them the choice. So when my husband said, "I'm gonna, I'm not ready to leave yet. I'm gonna. I'll offer up to the kids if they want to go. So I said, okay, that's you know that's fair. If he was going to church, he would say, you know, "hey kids, do you want to come to church with me or do you want to stay home with mom?" Our two youngest were always like, I'm staying home with mom. I don't want to go.

Vonne Solis  1:19:02  
Okay, interesting.

Audra Phelps  1:19:04  
But our oldest, who was 13 at the time, you know, she had a little bit more time in the church. A little bit more of that conditioning. A little bit more of that guilt and shame if she didn't go.

Vonne Solis  1:19:15  
Yep.

Audra Phelps  1:19:16  
And she still had the "should". "I should go", right? And so she, we would say, no, I I want to go to church. So my husband would take her to church.

Vonne Solis  1:19:24  
Okay.

Audra Phelps  1:19:25  
Yeah. But that only lasted for a few months, and it kind of fizzled out. And then about a year later, my husband came to me and said, "I'm done, too".

Vonne Solis  1:19:36  
Interesting. So again, kudos that you guys stayed on the same page, and and I'm hoping and it sounds like you're strong, a strong team because you you need your partner to be a team member when you're going through tough stuff like this. So when, how how soon after that you just came back to the states in June?

Audra Phelps  1:19:56  
Yeah, I did. I'm newly back. Yeah.

Audra Phelps  1:19:59  
Where? Where are you located?

Audra Phelps  1:20:01  
So now I'm in Washington State.

Vonne Solis  1:20:03  
Okay, I'm in BC on Vancouver Island.

Audra Phelps  1:20:05  
Oh, we're so close.

Vonne Solis  1:20:06  
Yeah, hi, we're neighbours. I'm in Central Vancouver Island. So where are you in Washington? Where are you?

Audra Phelps  1:20:14  
I'm in a very small town called Ocean Shores.

Vonne Solis  1:20:17  
Okay.

Audra Phelps  1:20:17  
Right on the Pacific Coast. Yeah.

Vonne Solis  1:20:20  
Yeah. See me too.

Audra Phelps  1:20:23  
Isn't it great?

Vonne Solis  1:20:24  
Yes! So your life has started new. So I'm I'm guessing from 35 leaving the church to now coming back to the States, and you've started your business, which we're now going to talk about. That had to be exciting. Was it exciting? A time of finding Audra?

Audra Phelps  1:20:44  
Super exciting, super exciting. You know, it's interesting because when I first left, because I was overseas, I wasn't surrounded with it. I could kind of hide from it for a long time.

Vonne Solis  1:20:54  
Uh huh.

Audra Phelps  1:20:55  
And you know, the the grief of loss of family and things like that only showed up like when I would go home to the U.S. I was able to avoid it for a long time.

Vonne Solis  1:21:06  
What family did you lose?

Audra Phelps  1:21:08  
I lost a couple of siblings, and my relationship with my parents fundamentally changed as well.

Vonne Solis  1:21:16  
Are they still in your life, your parents, but it's a changed relationship?

Audra Phelps  1:21:21  
As of just recently, no, they are not. So, yeah. So, so grief is it's a real thing, and it's not just it's not just a cut-off at one time. Sometimes it's more like a slow death.

Vonne Solis  1:21:35  
I'm very sorry to hear that. Did you expect did you expect that disconnect to happen? That severing?

Audra Phelps  1:21:41  
I didn't. I didn't, but I would say my journey in the last 11 years of healing and finding myself and becoming really clear on who I am and what I believe? It has, my response to the final severing of the ties? I've been really, it has shown me how far I've come. It has shown me that I no longer have the need to be who someone else wants me to be. And that I'm so secure now in who I am that my love for myself is enough.

Vonne Solis  1:22:21  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  1:22:22  
That I'm not dependent on the love and acceptance from anyone else, even my own parents. But that takes a long, long, long time to get there. You know, it was it was 11 years really since I left. 11 years of, you know, the waves of grief and trying to reconcile grief and trying to reconcile until until it just faded away essentially. But yeah, so now I'm I'm back in the U.S. and and full-time working with women who are in these stages. Stages of grief, the mom guilt, the who am I? That, and you know one of the one of the biggest things is what I call your inner Mormon critic. So like uncovering that. Those those things that are so automatic in your brain, those responses that are so automatic that you don't even think about them and being able to recognize them when they pop up  because suddenly you're feeling shame or guilt or constriction, and then you know, wait a second. That means there's a belief there that's not aligning with who I am that probably was given to me.

Vonne Solis  1:23:30  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  1:23:31  
How can we use some NLP strategies and start to work with the subconscious mind to uncover that hidden belief and reprogram something that you choose that feels aligned to you.

Vonne Solis  1:23:44  
Yeah. When I was talking to Dr. Yvonne Oswald about this, and she just abhors self-talk. We we had a discussion about self-talk. It doesn't work, and the reason self-talk doesn't work is because as soon as you say it, you're conscious of it, and you're already fighting the idea. And, and Yvonne says that, and you probably agree with this. If you can consciously absorb what I am saying to you when she's feeding the NLP language, then it's not working. You, because I was saying she she goes so fast when she does her work with you to you know change your beliefs, and almost like a an auctioneer, you know. And I I told her I was trying to do something, follow her on a YouTube, and I said my mind just got so mixed up, I had to stop. She said, "Good. That's what I want". So I'm just pointing that out because some people might think it's well, we'll just do affirmations and change our thinking. Yeah, no. It does not work, and not not those deep, deep-seated beliefs that are now parked in your unconscious. And you might, might have to be unravelling them for a few more years. And I'm sure that you understand that and are working and have ways to do that yourself, but in a lot of things, we don't even know what we believe anymore. We don't even remember. We've been programmed.

Audra Phelps  1:25:07  
We've been programmed. Because your beliefs, your values, your identity, that all lives in the subconscious level.

Vonne Solis  1:25:13  
That's right.

Audra Phelps  1:25:13  
And then your conscious level is your thoughts, your behaviours, your emotions.

Vonne Solis  1:25:19  
Yes.

Audra Phelps  1:25:19  
But those are all products of your identity, beliefs, and values. So that's why positive affirmations, while well-intentioned, they don't do the change work that you need.

Vonne Solis  1:25:30  
That's right.

Audra Phelps  1:25:30  
You have to get down to the subconscious level. It's like

Vonne Solis  1:25:33  
Yeah

Audra Phelps  1:25:33  
it's like trying to pour a new, fresh cup of coffee in a in a dirty coffee cup, right?

Vonne Solis  1:25:40  
Oh yeah.

Audra Phelps  1:25:41  
It's not going to work. It's going to taste gross. You're going to want to throw it out, right? So, the being able to change your beliefs at the subconscious level is like cleaning out the coffee cup first before you put in that you know, and you have to have a new a new belief in there before you think those affirmations are going to be helpful.

Vonne Solis  1:26:02  
Yeah. And what's really interesting is like you already know and come from understanding anyone who's leaving the LDS Church. You already know what those beliefs, how they've been conditioned. So that's a huge advantage. So two questions. I want to round this out now and stop. But one of the important messages I feel you have is about stopping hiding our truths to ourselves, okay? So it's essentially like you kept secrets for many many years. So we've already talked a little bit about this throughout the episode, but what you want to leave people with? I'm going to encourage people to go to your website mamaaudra.com and look at all your services you have. If you happen to be watching this or listening to this, and you are someone who has left the LDS Church, obviously Audra is going to be your go-to place for for help and guidance, but also for those who are just listening to this and taking inspiration. What do you think the one or two main things in terms of damaging, damaging things that just telling ourselves lies. Holding those secrets within. What do they do to us, and how can people recognize that they really are lying to themselves?

Audra Phelps  1:27:36  
Yeah. You know, I I always kind of like we mentioned in the beginning, I always tell people to listen to your body, and if something feels constrictive, then there's a belief there that doesn't align with who you are.

Vonne Solis  1:27:49  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  1:27:49  
And if you're, if you're hiding something. If you're you know these secrets or you know or your your doubts, if you're hiding those things and constantly pushing them down, they're gonna get stuck in your body. They're not gonna feel good.

Vonne Solis  1:28:07  
Yeah. Yep.

Audra Phelps  1:28:08  
And, and also, who are you protecting by doing that? So there's probably some kind of a belief there that other other people are more important than you. That it's your job to protect other people. It's your job to make sure everyone else is safe and happy. And so, part of that might be, you know, to keep the keep the peace. Women are peacemakers. Keep the peace. That the peace is more important than your contentment or than that you know your your own feeling of comfort. So you you often sacrifice your own comfort for someone else's. So pay attention to your body when these things are happening. And anytime there's something with your children, or you know, with a conversation with a family member, or whatever it might be, and you feel this instant like constriction? Let's start poking holes in that. Like, there's very few decisions that have to be made right away, and so journalling is super powerful. Like, sit down with a journal and start asking yourself really good questions. So NLP is great because NLP is all about really good questions and asking them quickly, so you can get to the subconscious level. It's the automatic reaction without your conscious mind thinking through it.

Vonne Solis  1:29:33  
Yeah, yeah.

Audra Phelps  1:29:34  
You know, like when I work with clients, it's not me telling them what belief they should replace it with or what belief they should uncover. It's me asking really good questions, so they can uncover it themselves, and then they can find a new belief that feels good to themselves. One of the first things you can do is when you feel that constriction and you're feeling uncomfortable, and maybe there's a little bit of fear, fear of doing something wrong. Or, or fear of what other people are going to think, is stop yourself and go. Okay, what's the emotion attached to this? What is the emotion that I'm feeling?

Vonne Solis  1:30:12  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  1:30:13  
Okay. What is the belief that is giving me this emotion? And a lot of times, the belief has something to do - it's really common for the belief that has something to do with the definition of a good mom, or the definition of a good wife, or the definition of a good woman.

Vonne Solis  1:30:29  
Well, I would think that's quite related to the church thinking.

Audra Phelps  1:30:32  
Exactly. So then you go, okay, I have this definition that a good mom always sacrifices for her children, or whatever the belief might be that's coming to you, or a good mom or a good wife submits to her husband. This is the belief that is causing me this emotion that's making me feel constriction in my body. And then you can go, okay, but if it feels constrictive, do you really believe that? Okay, when did you decide that? When did you decide that that was your definition of a good wife?

Vonne Solis  1:31:05  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  1:31:07  
And then okay, usually it's when you were a child, and then you go, "Well, who gave that belief to me? And if it didn't come from you, and you're feeling constriction, then it's not a belief that's yours. And so then it's about starting to poke holes in it because your brain sees beliefs as an absolute; they are 100% true all of the time. So if we want to rewire that belief, then we need to start poking holes in it. So go, okay, is that always true?

Vonne Solis  1:31:36  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  1:31:37  
Is there ever a time that that's not true? Can I think of someone I know who doesn't live like that, but they're still a good wife? So you're finding evidence for that belief not being true, and now the rewiring is starting to happen.

Vonne Solis  1:31:52  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  1:31:53  
Now you can start to clean out that old belief, and you can go, okay, well then if that's not true, let what belief can I replace it with that actually feels good and it feels expansive and light?

Vonne Solis  1:32:07  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  1:32:07  
That that's kind of the first, and it's a process, and you have to do that a lot. I'm still uncovering beliefs all the time when I feel that constriction, and I go, okay, I'm going to sit in my journal for a while and figure out where this is coming from.

Vonne Solis  1:32:19  
Yeah.

Audra Phelps  1:32:20  
You know, this is sometimes a daily process.

Vonne Solis  1:32:24  
Oh, for sure. And listen, I just really want to like thank you for coming on the Grief Talk podcast. And again, for my audience in general, understand there's a huge component of grief to to this leaving, leaving something behind. And I was just thinking when you were talking about having the family connections severed. I mean, you've lost parents. What's it like on your husband's side? Are his parents in your life or not?

Audra Phelps  1:32:53  
They are. They are. But it's a it's a a taboo topic we don't talk about.

Vonne Solis  1:32:58  
But I guess what I'm asking is if your kids have some grandparent influences, because what I was going to say is, when you think about what you have to give up for you, you're also maybe severing it for the grandparent, grandchild, which might be necessary. I mean, there's huge ripple effects in loss, in any type of loss. But the flip side is, it's an opportunity to rebuild. Whatever we're losing gives us an opportunity to rebuild. And so, folks, if you're just starting out in changing your life, I know. I get how scary it is. Tiny steps. That's all I can say. Tiny, tiny steps to get started. And for those that maybe are in a position that can work with you as a coach, can hire a coach, work with a coach. I don't know. When I when I go back and my life got all altered in 2005. I, there was a lot of things I tried, a lot of things I did. I took it step by step. I was so confused. I didn't understand really what I was stepping into. Sometimes I felt like there was no ground under my feet, but I also had faith. And if you have faith in something? To me, faith is anything that you can rely on. It can, it may or may not be Christian. It may or may not be God. I had great faith in angels, and I trusted the angels and God to guide me without it being a fundamental presence in my life. But you said something really important: when it's your own true, genuine beliefs, your body doesn't react. Okay? You feel good. You can trust yourself, and you can trust a higher power. I do think that I couldn't have gotten where I am today without a higher power. So, for those that are on a spiritual trek, Audra, it sounds like you're on that spiritual quest as well. I've been at it since I was 25, so a long time. And you know, we'll we'll never have all of the answers. But that's what the journey is about. Just being open to curiosity and open to trying things, thinking things, and learning from others. Which is really why I do my podcast is because I love doing this. I love, love, love giving a platform to people to you know learn from, to inspire, to support each other, and so in that vein, I really, really appreciate connecting with you, Audra. Thank you so much for that connection with me. Again, folks, you can go and learn more about Audra's resources, but Audra, do you want to just let folks know when they go to your site, mamaaudra.com, what they're going to find there in terms of how you can help them with resources?

Audra Phelps  1:35:49  
Yeah. So I have a program called Reclaimed, which is for women after they've left the church. That's, it's a group coaching, one-on-one coaching program with a curriculum. It's an eight-week program. That's really transformational for people that want a deep dive and they're really ready. I also have one-on-one coaching, so we can go at your own pace and work on things a little bit more slowly and targeted. So, and there's some online classes as well too that you can do asynchronous if you're also maybe not ready to talk to someone yet. So jump on there, see what's available, and reach out if you have questions, too.

Vonne Solis  1:36:30  
Yeah, because I was just gonna say, I bet there's not a lot of literature how "How to Leave the Mormon Church".

Audra Phelps  1:36:35  
No, there's none.

Vonne Solis  1:36:38  
Well, well, wait, there's your book, you see?

Audra Phelps  1:36:40  
Yeah, there you go.

Vonne Solis  1:36:41  
How to Leave the Mormon Church and Thrive. I'm just teasing. No disrespect to the Mormon Church. If anyone here is Mormon and and is really offended? No. Great respect to anybody's beliefs. It's when they start to feel wrong and inhibiting and constrictive, restrictive to you in any situation in your life, from anyone or any situation, you are not in sync with your authentic self and what you came to the planet to really do and who you came here to be. So take a deep dive within. See, see if you've got to correct any beliefs. Thank you, Audra. Thank you so much. Did we, did we touch on everything? Is there anything that you wanted to add to this, or are you good?

Audra Phelps  1:37:25  
I think we're good. Thanks so much.

Vonne Solis  1:37:26  
Awesome. Thank you.