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- [00:01]
A
Hey, guys, this is Larkin Swain, host of the new Faith Matters podcast called Discovering the Temple. I'm really excited to share this project with you. It's something that just means a lot to me. This is going to be a place where we will be exploring all things temple. We will be having expansive and transparent and even challenging conversations about the temple, exploring everything from the rituals and the symbols, the history, just everything that makes up the temple experience. So if this feels like it would be meaningful to you, I hope you'll meet me over there and follow along, subscribe, join the conversation, and hopefully walk away feeling inspired and reignited on your own personal temple journey.
- [00:45]
B
Hey everybody, this is Aubrey Chavez from Faith Matters. Today we're asking, what do you do when someone you love tells you they're leaving the church? What do you say? How do you stay grounded and connected when the stakes feel high or you're caught off guard? We sat down with two longtime friends of the podcast, authors and researchers Joseph Grenny and Jeff Strong, to explore these high stakes moments when somebody is ready to talk about their shifting faith. Drawing on research from over 500 real life faith transition conversations, Joseph and Jeff uncover something both surprising and sobering. That statistically, it's devout parents and church leaders who are most likely to miss the mark in these conversations. They suggest that this isn't about a lack of love or sincerity, but a consequence of a very natural response to fear. They call this a tui. Talking under the influence. When the amygdala takes over, stress floods the system and the thinking brain goes offline. So what looks like a communication problem is actually a chemical one. And even the most well intentioned among us can say things that damage relationships for years. But it doesn't have to be that way. Jeff and Joseph show us how to recognize when we're under the influence, how to pause before we cause harm and come back grounded and clear so that we can choose connection over control and curiosity over fear. With general conference this weekend and Easter just days away, seasons that bring families together and open doors really naturally for these conversations, we hope that this episode reminds you that you're not alone, whatever side of the conversation you're on, and that these hard moments can become the fertile ground for relationships that are deeper, more honest, and more connected than they were before. And now, here's Jeff Strong and Joseph Grenny.
- [02:27]
A
All right, well, Jeff and Joseph, welcome back to the podcast. We're so delighted to have you. We've had some really powerful conversations with you both over the years and I was looking actually this morning that both of the conversations that we've had around this topic, Messy Families and Tradition versus Change are some of our most downloaded episodes ever. And so I think that there's a lot of pain here and there's a lot of questions around this topic. And I think this will probably be one of our most practical conversations about how these situations play out in families. So maybe, Joseph, we start with you. What do we need to start thinking about when it comes to crucial faith conversations?
- [03:12]
C
Yeah, I think if it's okay, I'll kind of set up a scenario and feel free to throw in other complications as we move ahead. But what Jeff and I got interested in is, is not just the fact that, that people are having these and that they happen occasionally, but that when it matters most, we do our worst. And so these are such high stakes moments because for a lot of us, we think eternity is on the line. And, you know, what higher stakes issue could you have than that? So we bring this anxiety and this feeling to it. So, you know, case in point, a mother by the name of Kendra gets a text from her daughter who says, we want to Talk tonight. So 7 o' clock that night, Kendra gets on and her daughter Alyssa and her husband Chad, they live in Texas. This is like the ideal Mormon couple. So Kendra is so proud of them. Married in the temple, both served missions. She read the Book of Mormon when she was 8 years old. You know, doing baptisms for the dead when she was 12 at the earliest moment possible. And everything is absolutely ideal. Three grandkids living in Texas. And she's expecting an announcement for grandkid number four. But instead, when the video appears, she can see that her daughter is kind of shaking and she's holding her husband's hand. And she says, mom, I just can't do it anymore. I've been living a lie for 28 years. And then she starts to cry. Mom's panicked. Mom's heart is racing. What in the world is going on? She says, we've asked for the church to remove our names from the records. She said, I can't stand being part of such a bigoted organization. And she said, we hope that you'll never talk about the church again when we're around. And we hope also that we can still be included in family events, but that's where we stand. Mom is just livid. She's beside herself. And the next words that come out of her mouth will affect that relationship long into the future. But the problem is that she's doing Right now, a tui, we call this talking under the influence. So you know that it's illegal to drive under the influence. But most of us don't realize that frequently we're under the same kind of chemical inebriation when we're in these high stress, high stakes moments. As somebody that's drunk, we've got stress hormones coursing through our body. We don't know what to say. So the next thing this mother actually says to her daughter is, did Chad put you up to this? Did your husband put you up to this? What kind of monster would tear a daughter away from her family? And her daughter remembers the facial impression. She remembers the inflection, the tone of voice. She remembers those precise words and will take them to her grave. And mom lived to regret it later as well. But what we found in our research, this study that Jeff and I concluded fairly recently, recently by looking at 500 examples of these moments, we found some patterns that we really hope to share with people because most of us do really poorly at these, and doing poorly once isn't a death sentence. There's recovery opportunities as well. But we can do better, and that's what we hope to share.
- [06:05]
D
Thanks, Joseph. I think most of us, in one way or another at least, can relate to a conversation like that. It seems like it's maybe more common than it's ever been. And so this feels like a really timely conversation. Jeff, maybe we could turn to you. Do you want to share sort of an overview of some of the things that you found?
- [06:20]
E
Yeah, I'd love to. So, you know, we talked this before, and you guys know the book is coming out here soon. But when we did the initial research on disaffiliation, there were a couple of areas where we felt like we didn't get all the insights we needed. And what happens is, as you're learning, new things emerge, new questions arise. The first one was that as part of the disaffiliation experience, this faith transition thing is a big deal, right? It's a very intense, difficult, deeply personal experience that people go through, and that these conversations that we're here to talk about today are a critical part of that. And so that was what caused Joseph and I to go off and do another piece of research to say we need to understand what faith transition looks like, what it feels like on the inside for the person going through it, and what role these conversations actually play. And then Joseph, as you know, has some great background in this area from another life. But this idea of, okay, let's Identify negative outliers so we can learn what not to do. And let's identify positive outliers so we know what to do. And then let's try to define what that really constructive behavior looks like. And so that really was the impetus for what he and I started to work on. Just a couple of little factoids that came out of, of the, the broader work. So 83% of people that are going through a faith transition reach out to other people. Okay. And the average number of people they reach out to can be four to five other people. And so, you know, I, I feel bad for the 17% that don't because this is a, this is a big deal to kind of try to muddle through it on your own. But the vast majority of people do reach out, and they reach out to a large number of people. Second, about 40% of those conversations go badly. Now, it's important to say, well, that means that 60% go, okay, yes, yeah, yeah.
- [08:23]
D
So, and your sample is Latter Day Saints.
- [08:25]
E
Yes, yeah, it was, it was specifically Latter Day Saints who have been active that are going through a faith transition. A faith transition. And so 40% of those conversations do not go well.
- [08:38]
C
Third, can I interject something on that? Because it's important to parse that. It might sound too good newsy at this point to say 60% go well. The secondary thing that we found is that people select different people to talk to. And it turns out that the ones that tend to go well are the ones with people who aren't particularly devout. So people that don't have much of a dog in the hunt tend to be okay, just kind of listening. Sure, it makes sense and supportive and all of that. So the real tragedy that I. Jeff's taking us to is that the people for whom it matters the most are the ones that are doing the worst. Did you want to comment on that?
- [09:13]
E
Oh, I think that's well framed. So said another way in that 40% that don't go well, an extremely high percentage of those are parents and church leaders. And so somebody that talks to a devout parent, it's twice as likely to go bad. Somebody that talks to a devout church leader, it's five times more likely to go bad.
- [09:34]
D
How do you, how did you define goes well or goes poorly? Is that just sort of like self identified based on the person?
- [09:40]
E
It's a super good question. At the end of the conversation, the relationship is damaged and the individual's desire to participate in the faith community is diminished. Okay, now here's, here's, here's the craziest point to me in all of the research that kind of frames the stakes that we're talking about. Statistically, how these conversations go has a stronger impact on whether the person continues to participate in the faith community than what they actually believe.
- [10:11]
C
And that's a mic drop moment. You gotta marinate that for a moment.
- [10:16]
A
Yes.
- [10:16]
E
Yeah. You want me to say that?
- [10:17]
A
Yeah.
- [10:19]
E
When we saw this, it was like, wow. So statistically, how these conversations go has a greater influence on whether the person continues to participate in the faith community, our community, than what they actually believe. Now, before we move off of this, it probably would be good just to reflect for a second and say, why? Like, what's under that conclusion? So why would that be true? Tim and Aubrey, that the nature of this conversation, if it's healthy and enhances the relationship and creates some trust, that that will help somebody stay in the community. If it's unhealthy and the relationship is damaged and trust is broken, that will likely push the person out of the community. Why? More than belief. More than belief.
- [11:07]
A
We've talked about this with you before, and I think it's something that has stayed with me. It's like what Jonathan Haidt talks about with the Elephant and the Rider. Like, when you. When you feel pushed away emotionally, I think you find logical reasons to back up that emotional experience. And so when you feel disconnection from someone, you love it, I can see totally how it would just amplify the problems that you're already. That are already spinning.
- [11:32]
E
Yeah, absolutely. Tim, did you have any thoughts?
- [11:34]
D
I think I'm similar, but I think just on a. Even you could say a biological basis, you know, community and connection drive much more of our behavior than I think we understand. Like Aubrey said.
- [11:44]
E
Absolutely.
- [11:45]
D
It's at the sort of core of who we are. And then we post hoc rationalize using. Using logic. And so I think if you feel.
- [11:52]
C
Yeah.
- [11:53]
D
If you feel excluded from that connection in that community, almost nothing logically.
- [11:57]
E
Can this work. I'll just give you one. One verbatim from the research that we did, and that is a return missionary said I was okay with the church history issues that I encountered, but it was the culture that drove me out. If I had felt safe to stay in the community and wrestle with all my questions, I would have, but I didn't. I felt like an outsider and I felt ashamed. So I left. Wow.
- [12:28]
A
So can I ask you a really practical question about what this looks like? Because I think from a. From a devout perspective, the. And this is. I Feel like this is just in the air. Like this comes up in Sunday school lessons, that there's this. There's this understanding that for a conversation like this to go well, you need. The person you're speaking to needs to know where you stand, quote, unquote. And so I think that people may define going well, like, well, I held my ground and I made sure that they knew that I still love them and I'm not moving. And I can see that that's coming from probably a lot of fear, but also some integrity. They want to own that they're not being swayed. They're here and they're going to testify a little bit. And so could you, like, give us some more context about how that is received?
- [13:16]
D
Love, but not support.
- [13:17]
E
Yeah, I actually think that's such a good segue into how do we do this better?
- [13:22]
C
Right.
- [13:23]
E
Because what you've just articulated as part of the psychology that causes us to do poorly.
- [13:29]
A
Right, yeah.
- [13:30]
E
And so, you know, I've given you a few statistics on this, but the last thing I would. I would say before I kind of kick it back to Joseph is that conversation is a skill that can be learned.
- [13:43]
C
Right.
- [13:43]
E
And there's a mindset component. Right. What, what, what's my. What should my mindset be? And then there's some skills that we need to learn as well. And so maybe Joseph can talk a little bit about that.
- [13:52]
C
Yeah, yeah. And let me throw a second scenario in that I think will help us play this out, because I want to push a little bit on the. It all comes from a good place
- [13:59]
E
theory,
- [14:01]
C
and I'm part of the problem.
- [14:03]
E
You know what this is? This is us, right? We're just real people right now having a real conversation, defaulting to what we think and what we've been taught to think. And this is kind of a counterintuitive thing that we need to disrupt.
- [14:17]
C
So we've got a former priesthood leader, a young men's leader named Tad, and he hears that one of his former young men is on his way out of the church, and so he seeks him out and literally just aggressively comes at him and says, you know, who do you think you are? What mortal sin are you committing that is really behind what's going on? It's not about these things you're making up about church history or doctrine or whatever it is. It's what did you do? And of course, Paul, thinking that he had this affectionate relationship with him in the past, is feeling violated and assaulted and attacked and all of this. And at the end of it. The final line that this guy delivers his former priesthood leader is, do you think you're smarter than Henry Eyring? Do you think you're smarter than Neal Maxwell? Do you think you're smarter than Hugh Nibley? Do you think you're smarter than. So that's the approach. So, you know, you walk that back. And Tad's a great guy and part of this is him feeling a responsibility to save a soul. So, you know, that part is true. But now let's all be honest with each other. When we're in these moments where we're under stress and threat, our motives shift. So one of the skills, one of the problems that we have in getting through this in a healthy way is acknowledging that I'm also not coming from a good place. Any outsider looking at what Tad is saying right now would say your motive is not to save a soul exclusively. This is also about punishing, this is about bullying, this is about coercing, this is about. And one of the fastest ways for us to be liberated of a negative motive is to admit we have it. And so one of the skills we find in people who are more self aware in these moments is a consciousness of almost being a third party observer of my own behavior and saying, based on how I'm acting right now, raising my voice, making judgmental statements, accusing somebody, and so forth, based on how I'm acting, what does it appear that my motives are? Because if I just ask, what do I want right now, I'm going to want to justify my approach. But if I look at my behavior and I kind of reverse engineer it back into what must my motive be, then I'm going to be able to admit, no, this is bullying, this is punishing, this is trying to be right, this is trying to win. And none of those are going to get us to a Christlike connection with another human being. And so what we found in these moments, going back again to Alyssa and Kendra, the first thing we got to get good at doing is realizing that we've got our hand on a rip cord at all times. When I'm talking under the influence, the best strategy is to create an off ramp. It's to get out of that conversation as fast as you can, do it in a way that's validating. So if Kendra in that moment had been able to muster the presence of mind to say to Alyssa, alyssa, I'm having a hard time right now and I want to take a little while to process this, and I know what you've been going through is probably just an enormous amount as well. And I want to show up right for you. Can we talk later? And then just get out of it? Get out of it, because your problem right now is not electrical, it's not cognitive, it's chemical. There's stuff happening in the physiology of your body that you cannot overcome. And so the first thing we'd encourage people who are listening today is to just have in your back pocket this little script for how to exit a conversation so that you can go out and do some internal work and then come back in a way that you really want to come back, because you do, because that's in you too. But let's just not fool ourselves into saying this is all about integrity and standing up for the faith. There are lower things going on in these motives, too. In these moments too.
- [17:41]
D
Yeah, that. The. Did you say Tad or Ted?
- [17:44]
C
Tad.
- [17:44]
D
Tad. Yeah. That scenario resonated with me because I've been sought out a few times by church leaders to have these types of conversations. I haven't sought out those conversations, but through the grapevine or whatever, we'll hunt you down, maybe.
- [17:58]
C
Yeah, we're gonna find you.
- [17:59]
D
It's happened multiple times and it's never been a. It's never been a good experience. In fact, I would. I don't want to be dramatic about this, but I feel a lot of things when I enter a bishop's office these days because I've been unwilling participants in those and unwilling participant in those traumatic. Yeah, I hesitate to use the word trauma, but like there is something still happening for me in those scenarios. And as I processed those, I think. I don't know, I wouldn't say that I felt bullied, but I do now believe that what the other party in those experiences was experiencing maybe more than anything else was fear. I think they were afraid that I would. And I think in some ways there's a love that goes along with that. Sort of paradoxically where they were afraid for my eternal destiny. I also think they were afraid of. Of not living up to their own responsibility.
- [18:57]
E
Sure.
- [18:58]
D
And this reflects on me if I'm not able to. If I'm not able to save you. Yeah. And I think it's. But I agree with your, your broader point, Joseph, that when your body is full of whatever chemical comes along with that fear, it's typically not going to lead to a good. A good result.
- [19:14]
C
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, this, the, this Tad story has a nicer future to it as well because Tad was self aware enough to replay that conversation for years. And it took him three years to finally seek out Paul and pull him aside and tearfully apologize for that moment. Not because Tad doesn't have a testimony and Tad doesn't wish that he could share the faith with him. All of that was still true and all that was still fine. But he realized he didn't show up in that moment in the way that Paul needed. And it ruptured a relationship. And if it ruptures the relationship, it's a bad all in itself. Because if we can't walk away with a feeling of love and compassion between the two of us, then something went wrong and we ought to be replaying that. It was interesting because when Tad was able to seek him out later, one of the things he acknowledged was that he worried that because Paul and Tad's son were close that this would start in exodus, that it would weaken him. Furthermore, when he talked to Paul, he acknowledged that he had been going through some doubts himself. And so this poked a little bit at some things that were unresolved inside of him. So there was a lot of noise in the system when this was happening. And so the first thing it's important for us to understand is we shouldn't hold on to self justifying claims of our motivations. Recognize we're animals and we're subject to those same natural man kind of experiences when these things happen. And so the first thing you've got to do in these moments is just take a breather, pull aside. What we found also, and we can talk more about this later, is then there are three things to do while you pull aside to kind of get yourself prepared to come back in a way that you're going to feel great about. And none of them, absolutely none of them, require you to compromise your faith. And so the beauty of this positive deviant group that Jeff and I found is that they found a way to be true to what they believed, but still have a robust conversation that led to a deeper feeling of intimacy and trust than they'd had before. And isn't that what we all want?
- [21:07]
D
Yeah.
- [21:07]
A
Okay. Just to put a really fine point on it before we move on, I would love to just hear very simply, what are you checking in with in yourself to know if you're regulated? Because I think it's really sneaky. Like I, I, I was just thinking, just last week I was, or this week I was stuck behind an awful car accident for two hours and I found myself looking for, in the days after and, and during the accident, looking for what happened. And I, there was A part of me that was hoping it was someone being reckless and irresponsible because that felt safer to me. It was like if everyone wore their seatbelts and they were following the rules and there was a tragedy. Then, like, I feel so vulnerable.
- [21:47]
E
Then all of a sudden, your formula isn't bulletproof anymore.
- [21:50]
A
Yeah. And so there was this, like, weird, like, unhealthy thing that was happening. And I think that. I think it's similar. Sometimes you just want to know that somebody is doing something wrong. And so of course that's what happened. And I'm still safe, but, like, that feels complicated and probably not super accessible in the moment. So. So, like, how do you. How do you figure out what's going on in your. In yourself?
- [22:12]
E
Let me. Let me jump into kind of brain chemistry on this for a second, okay? And so this is something I've had an intuitive feel for, for a long time. And then I read Faith after doubt by Brian McLaren and he talks about this in depth. And then I started reading the scriptures and seeing new connections because I spent a lot of time looking at fear and what scriptural wisdom there is for us around the idea of fear. But one of my favorites is just where the Book of Mormon talks about the natural man as an enemy to God, right? And we generally think about the natural man as our selfish or indulgent tendencies, right? You know, it might be our desire for, you know, material things or sex or gratification or whatever it might be. And that, in fact, is true.
- [23:03]
C
Right?
- [23:03]
E
But it's also anything that takes us away from our capacity to self regulate in a constructive way. And so I believe that the natural man in us, the spirit, manifests through our bodies, right? That's the only way it can. And I believe the natural man is your amygdala and your entire system of dopamine and adrenaline secreting hormones, right? Now, what does that part of your brain exist for to keep you alive, right? So that's where your fear response lies. That's where your sexual desires lie. And those are all the things that keep you alive, and they're important. And so the Book of Mormon didn't teach that you should kill the natural man. It said you should put it off and you should make it subject to the governance of the Holy Ghost, right? I think the Holy Ghost operates through your prefrontal cortex, right? Where your powers of reasoning, judgment, moderation, self regulation lie. And so here's what I would tell your listeners. I would say when that moment arises, recognize in yourself the response that's occurring biologically and it's probably your amygdala is just firing hard, right? So it's filling you with the fear response, which as Joseph talks about, shuts down your brain's capacity to think because all you're trying to do is self preserve and it's self preservation. It's not preserve the other person, it's preserve yourself. And so how does that translate if you're a parent or a church leader? Look, I've been a bishop, I've been a mission president, and when people have come to me and I didn't have the right frame of mind, your initial reaction is exactly what you guys were talking about. It's look, I need to fix this person. Not for them, but for me. Brian McLaren talks about the reason that we don't handle this stuff well is the minute that you show non conforming behavior in a group, the group automatically feels threatened by you because they don't see you as safe anymore. Right? And so if you're a bishop or a parent and somebody breaks ranks, right, it's okay, I've got to fix them. Not for them, but for me and for the group that I'm responsible for, my family or my ward. And so immediately it becomes a mindset of fixing and containment. Okay? And it's not in the best interest of the individual, it's you operating from a perspective of your best interest and what's in the best interest of the group that you're presuming to be in charge of. So I'm not going to use his name because I didn't clear this in advance, but somebody that I love deeply, who was a counselor to me in the mission presidency and who I've known for 30 years, he's a dear friend of mine, was a stake president, and he was a relatively new stake president and a really, really prominent family in the church, decided to leave the church. And so these were really devout people, very well known, capable, you know, connected, and he felt that he should go visit with them. And so he did. And so he drove over to their house, went in, and they started a conversation. And it became evident to him pretty quickly that they were clear and convicted in their points of view and they were going to leave the church and there was no persuading them to do otherwise. And he shared with me through tears, you know, 10 years after this had happened, that when that became clear to him, he felt the need to contain them. And so he wagged his finger at them and he said, if you're going to Leave you just go ahead and do it, but don't take anybody with you on your way out.
- [26:56]
C
Right?
- [26:56]
E
And 10 years later, he had profound regrets about that. And he went on to say, I just feel like if I would have validated them as human beings, even though he disagrees with their conclusions and expressed my love and support to them and then shared with them, regardless of what they believe, that they are a part of the community and we love them and we want to maintain our friendship with them. That things might have turned out differently now. Maybe they would have left, but it would have been with very, very different trajectories going forward.
- [27:27]
C
All of us. I'm sure everybody listening to these scenarios has been in some version of them before. And so what we found that makes that sort of 3 inch movement that he's describing, from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex, that gets us out of natural man and into a place where the spirit can guide us, is just four things. So the first is the taking a timeout, take a breather, give yourself a pause. Because it's a chemical problem you've got to solve, and that means it takes a little while for that stuff to wash out of your system. And then there are three pieces of work to do while you're pulling aside. The first is just to feel the feelings, because unexpressed feelings don't die. They go into the basement and lift weights, and when they come out, they're bigger and better and meaner than ever before. And so just pulling aside the way we read in the scriptures that Elijah did and Nephi did and Jesus did, and Joseph in Liberty jail did and so forth, just connecting with what's going on inside of us. Because there is no authenticity without authenticity in myself, without connecting with me. So articulating, naming the feelings. So if Kendra, this mother whose daughter just dropped the faith bomb on her, was able to pull aside for a moment and say, you know what? I feel hurt, I feel scared. Oh my gosh, I feel betrayed. That's in there too. Just articulating those is really important work because that takes you to the second step, which is fixing your story. Those emotions don't arrive fully formed inside of us. They're generated by a story we tell ourselves. And so how do I get to a feeling of betrayal? It's this tribal thing that Jeff is describing. So obviously I'm feeling that she owes me loyalty, that she owes the church loyalty because of what I've done for her. Just articulating that helps me learn to fix the story to say, wow, is that how I feel? Does she owe me something? Does she have to pretend some allegiance to my faith because I raised her and no, that's not who I want to be. And finally, mom can articulate a story that she wants to have. I want her to make her own decisions. I want to support her in her judgments. This is my daughter. I love her. She gets to a different story that helps move her to a different set of emotions. So if you see how important this work is, feeling the feelings, articulating them honestly, and then being able to extract the story that's generating these, that takes us to the last piece of work, which is just finding the right motive and coming from the place I want to come from. If in that final moment, when I'm trying to get to the right motive, I ask the question, what was I acting like I want? Or what do I feel like acting like I want and being honest with myself that I just want to shake her, you know, and I want to drag her back to church. I want to pull her away from her husband. Wow. There's a desire in me to coerce, and that's not who I want to be. What do I really want? What do I really want? I want to not think I want her in the church, that's true. But even more important than that, I want her to want to be in the church. And the path I'm thinking about will not get me there. What I really want is to understand what's going on with my daughter. We'll always land there eventually if we just ask these questions. And what we find in the examples of the savior, of people who handle these moments well in our positive deviant conversation is that's the overriding motive that takes us to the place that is most likely to. To not intensify their doubts, to not chase them out of the very community that could still connect with them in some healthy way. And so moving through those three processes, feeling the feelings, fixing the story, finding the motives, is the work to do. And then when you come back at 7 o' clock the next day to have the next conversation with your daughter, the way it's most likely going to begin is, tell me what's been going on, what's on your mind, and I need to fix nothing. And I've surrendered nothing. I'm still able to say, well, I have different feelings about the church. How do we navigate this together? You don't want us to talk about it, but we're a praying family. How do we do that now we have great conversations about how to cohabitate in a world that we want to cohabitate in. Yeah.
- [31:27]
D
I think one of the tricky things about this for me, and it may not be tricky for everybody, but what's coming to mind is I can imagine someone going back as processing, okay, what do I really want? And, you know, getting to. Yes, I want, like, in your example, you know, my daughter to be in the church. I want for there to be no empty seats around our celestial table. I want for her and her husband and their children to have no seats, empty seats around their, you know, celestial table. And so I can see myself sort of like telling myself that's a. That's a good and virtuous desire. And. And then I'm imagining them hearing this conversation and kind of saying. And kind of saying, okay, so I'm gonna. I'm gonna, like, I'm gonna pull back on the way I would have approached this because I want those things for them. And so I'm gonna handle this in a way that I still have an agenda for them.
- [32:16]
E
I'm just gonna be sneaky.
- [32:17]
D
I'm very sneaky about it. I'm gonna pull the old reverse psychology, you know, in order to do that. And there's something.
- [32:23]
C
And they'll never suspect it. Right, exactly.
- [32:25]
E
Tim, you actually, we. We talked this once before, but of course they know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [32:33]
D
That's the thing. That's the thing. How do you. So how do you. How do you address that very nuanced point where I still kind of have an agenda, even if I feel like I've purified my intentions?
- [32:43]
E
Yeah.
- [32:44]
D
And you. And you're going into this conversation, and you want it to be authentic in a real way.
- [32:49]
E
Well, you know, I'm really glad you brought that up because. Because I think if you go back to the root of the problem, it's. It's our fears and anxieties. Right. And if you start there and then you kind of reverse engineer to where are those coming from? It's because in our head, we have a certain belief about the eternities and what it takes to get there the way we want to get there.
- [33:11]
D
Exactly. Right.
- [33:13]
E
And so I think an important thing is to acknowledge that there are times when things that we believe come in conflict. Right. Good Principles. Right. So the principle of agency, which is part of what Joseph is illustrating here, agency, love, respect. I mean, the entire foundational doctrine of our theology as Latter Day Saints is the war in heaven, which was fought over the principle of agency and Lucifer was cast out not for rebellion. He was cast out because he sought to infringe on the agency of man. Okay, so do we believe that or do we, we believe I can manipulate my family to the celestial room, celestial dining room table together.
- [33:53]
C
Right.
- [33:54]
E
And if, and if those things don't fit in a given situation, how do we resolve that tension?
- [34:00]
C
Right, right.
- [34:01]
E
And that's, I think that's what you're asking. Exactly. You know, I wish I had a great answer, but the answer I have today is that I lean on my faith in God. Right. I just say, you know what? I, I, I, I say, I've said this before, but I love the scripture where Nephi says, I, I do not know the meaning of all things, but I know that God loves his children. And so in that moment of tension, the way I resolve it is I say, well, there's this and there's this, and I don't know how they work together. And so what am I going to choose to believe? My own understanding of the theology or my deep abiding faith that God is good and that I can trust him?
- [34:38]
D
Yes.
- [34:38]
E
The end.
- [34:39]
D
Love that.
- [34:40]
E
Right. And that buys you years. You know, Joseph gave a beautiful presentation on the allegory of the olive tree. And isn't the learning there sometimes? The answer is patience and waiting.
- [34:54]
C
Right.
- [34:54]
E
And I can wait for a really long time if, if the basis of my waiting is that I trust God.
- [35:01]
C
Right.
- [35:01]
A
I think also in this, in those reflection moments where you're trying to figure out what the stories are, another thing that you've, we've talked about before, Jeff, is this idea of myths that we maybe are subscribing to and just not challenging. And, and I think one of those is that we do know the right answer for our kids, that we do know that this path that, that we've taken or that we think they should take is correct. And it feels like when you study the scriptures, like, that's just doesn't seem to be true at all that, you know, God finds people on very broken paths, not because their hearts had changed and they were searching. I mean, Paul was on his way to persecute Christians and Alma the Younger and, and that's the God that we believe in. And I think it, it helps me to real, to really start to hold those stories a little looser and wonder if maybe this very windy, meandering path is exactly what's needed and nothing has gone wrong.
- [35:58]
E
You know, my son went on a mission back in 2013 and he was so excited when he got his mission call, he was in California at school, called me at my office in Salt Lake and just exuded just so much joy and excitement about being called to serve in Japan. And fast forward, we have his farewell. I was his bishop, so I presided over his farewell. He gave an amazing, amazing farewell talk. And a few days later I got an email from him and it wasn't P day and he was in the mtc and I was immediately worried because he was sending me an email and it wasn't P Day. And I open it up and there it is. I'm coming home and I'm not doing this anymore, right? It was so similar to the example that Kendra that, that Joseph shared. So I literally sat at my desk and I just felt myself going numb, right, and the blood draining from my body. And I could, I don't know why, but I knew he knew this isn't just about his mission. He's done, he's not going to be part of this anymore. And I still have that email and I still have the email that I sent back to him which was a terribly sincere, well meaning, misguided, unwise and utterly ineffective email. And so that is what you don't want to do. And my son is doing great and we have a great relationship and we've learned together over the last, you know, 13 years. Now let me give you a better example. So I have a dear friend who got the same email, but it was a phone call because missionaries were allowed to call home on P Day. It was a phone call from his son who had been out for an extended period of time on his mission and said, I'm coming home, I'm not doing it anymore. And my friend and his wife had the same visceral, fear based, amygdala driven response that I did. But they had a chance to step away because the phone call ended and the son didn't come home immediately. So they had time to process and they followed all of the steps that Joseph, they took a breather, they stepped back and really examined their feelings and their motives. And then they had a chance to re engage again. And it's been a while since their son came home. And I asked him the other day, how's it going? And he said, great, he's doing really well, he's doing fine. I said, can you tell me what you learned from it? And he expounded to me wisdom that was just profound. And he said, the first thing that I did when I took a breather is I got on my knees and I started to pray. And the prayer that I uttered was, how do I turn my son to repentance? How do I get him back on the right track? And he said, the spirit rebuked me. And he was so humble. And, and he said, the spirit told me, this is about him, not about you. And, and what you're asking me are things that tell me that you're after validation. You're after something in this, and you're not willing to respect and honor his role in all this and what ultimately he needs to progress.
- [39:28]
D
Yeah.
- [39:28]
C
Right.
- [39:29]
E
And so, and so he, he listened and he took a huge step back. But there was one problem, Aubrey, and it's, it's the moose on the table. He still wanted what he wanted.
- [39:39]
C
Right.
- [39:39]
E
And what he wanted when he was honest with himself, is he said, I wanted the validation of being that family. I wanted the validation of being that father. All my kids went on missions. All my kids married in the temple. Everything went according to plan. And he said, I realized that's what was driving me, and I couldn't. It wasn't as easy just to say, well, I'm just going to set it as, you know, that doesn't really matter to me. I'm just going to set it aside. And he did something that was so, so important. He didn't pretend and he didn't try to fake it because he has too much honor. So he sat down with his son and he said, I need to tell you what's going on inside me.
- [40:25]
C
That's beautiful.
- [40:27]
E
And you have to know because it's gonna leak out, and I'm not gonna be able to stop it.
- [40:34]
C
Oh, my God.
- [40:35]
E
And when you see that, you need to know where that's coming from.
- [40:38]
C
That's so beautiful.
- [40:40]
E
And you just need to be patient. Right? So I said, how's it going? And he said, he's so patient. He's so patient.
- [40:50]
C
Right.
- [40:51]
E
And so you have, you have a young man and his father that are in this wrestle, but they're together. They're in, and it's going well. And, and so in my case, based on my brilliant handling of the situation, my son left for six months, and we didn't hear from him.
- [41:09]
D
Left.
- [41:09]
E
Left our home, left our family.
- [41:12]
C
Right.
- [41:12]
E
And, and certainly left the faith community. And, you know, look, I, I, I don't. I'm not a person that believes in regrets, so I don't look back on that and say, oh, what a terrible mistake we made. And I wish that hadn't happened. Oh, my gosh, we learn so much from that.
- [41:27]
D
Yeah.
- [41:27]
E
Right. We learn so much from that, and it brought our family together much closer. And we learned lessons we could have never learned if it had been the non messy version.
- [41:37]
D
Yeah.
- [41:37]
E
Right. So you have a bad version. And we learned and we have a good version. And they're learning, too.
- [41:43]
D
Yeah.
- [41:43]
B
Yeah.
- [41:43]
D
And I, I thank you for sharing both of those stories. I think they're both very helpful. And I think it, for me, it's important to emphasize I want to live in a world, too, where it's not contingent on. We had. We had the happy ending in the story. Because a lot of people I know are listening and they're saying. Saying, well, I feel like I did a pretty good job and that wasn't my. That wasn't the end of my story.
- [42:00]
E
Yeah.
- [42:01]
D
You know, ours was ours, at least so far appears to have worked out differently.
- [42:05]
E
Well. And I think the happy story is my family.
- [42:07]
D
Yeah.
- [42:07]
C
Right.
- [42:08]
D
Thank you for saying that.
- [42:08]
E
Because it's been 13 years and we're doing great and my son doesn't participate in the church. I don't anticipate that he will anytime soon, although I've learned not to predict the future. We have a great relationship, and I. I like the journey that my son is on.
- [42:23]
D
I love that.
- [42:23]
C
Thank you.
- [42:24]
E
And oh, my gosh, we have learned so much together as a family. And so I've told Joseph this. I can't look back on that now and say, well, that was a mistake.
- [42:36]
C
Right.
- [42:37]
E
In fact, my friend, the positive deviant, he said, jeff, it's so clear to me that if my son hadn't come home, we would have not learned the things we needed to learn as a family, and God would not have been able to root out of me.
- [42:53]
C
There it is.
- [42:54]
E
The bad things.
- [42:55]
C
There it is.
- [42:56]
E
That were a problem. So he looks at his son. My son served for a period of time, and that's how long he was supposed to serve. And then he came home early, and he was the catalyst for making me a better person and leading our family through this incredibly developmental process.
- [43:15]
D
Joseph, you had such a strong reaction when Jeff was sharing the story about the dad saying, this is what's going on inside of me. I need you to know that's going to leak out. I want to know what's going on in your head because you have such expertise about how these conversations can go. When you heard that, what are you thinking?
- [43:33]
C
And your initial question that set us in this direction stays with me, which is, does my positive engagement in a conversation with a loved one require me surrendering Some of my devoutness? No, absolutely not. And so does it also mean me saying I don't believe that some of the beliefs that I have would make your life happier? No, you don't have to do that. All you gotta do is be willing to be authentic about when it's showing up in the conversation exactly the way. That's what I think is just so absolutely beautiful about that. And so if I have an agenda, just put the agenda on the table. The difference between manipulation and authenticity is covertness. It's when the motive stays covert, hurt. And so manipulation is any strategy that loses its effectiveness when the target becomes aware of it. And so as soon as I let you know, I'm about to mention three things that are going on in the church. Yeah, it works, doesn't it? I'm about to say three things that are going on in the news today about the church. Because I'm hoping that plants a seed spirit, shakes you up and brings you back into the church. If I announce the motive, if I announce that motive in advance, you're going to go save it, dad.
- [44:40]
E
You know it's not going to work. Work.
- [44:43]
C
If I don't say it, you're still going to suspect that that's what's going on. I've had the same conversation with one of my sons who's not in a great place in his life right now and is also outside of the church. And we both know that we have a tendency to recruit. He knows he'd like to recruit me into his at least more of a tolerance of his point of view. And he knows that I would very much love to have that celestial table fully inhabited now, not sometime in the abstract future. And the way we've gotten through this relationship and have a tremendous feeling of trust is that we update those temptations to manipulate on a regular basis. And we call each other out on it when we think it's there. And so it's fair game and it works great.
- [45:28]
E
Love that this is such a powerful principle that Joseph is sharing with us. And part of what I've learned, and some of it's been through hanging out with him for a while, is when you take things out of the basement and you put them on the table, they no longer have the power to control you.
- [45:45]
C
Right.
- [45:45]
E
You leave them in the basement and they will control you. And you don't even know they're doing it.
- [45:51]
A
Yeah. And it seems like somehow becomes a connecting experience. There's this transformation that happens. Maybe it's just because it requires so, so, so Much vulnerability or humility to be that honest. But it feels like however ugly it is, it, it can be connecting when you, when you can share it with the person that, that you're having that experience with.
- [46:12]
E
Yeah, we've spent a lot of time talking about this from the perspective of you're the devout one and somebody comes to you, okay, what if you're the other person? What if you're the one that's going through faith transition? What, what should you do? Right. To improve your chances of being healthy and working through your issues and ending up in a good place? And so we ought to kick that around for men.
- [46:37]
A
Yeah, yeah. And maybe that's kind of where we can, where we can end like Joseph, is this the exact same. Are these the exact same steps, no matter the side?
- [46:46]
C
Yeah, I'll comment on that in a couple of ways. But I have to say in advance that I do so tenderly because when you're the one person in the out group and not the in group, it's asking so much more of you to show up in a way that, that is healthy and leads to a better conversation. So really the burden is, is on those of you who are in the majority in a population to try to do this work. However, some of the people that we interviewed together for this did say they had regrets as they were exiting about how they manage things. And they came across aggressively or judgmentally or rudely and could have handled things better and so good on them that they're reflecting after the fact. But I think that if you're in that circumstance, the best thing to do is to give yourself a breather before coming in. Make sure that you surface your own emotions, make sure that you find your own story and that you fix your motive too. And then as you enter a conversation, I think one of the things my son does particularly well is he sets ground rules before we begin. So if we're going to move into a tender topic with each other, it's okay for one of us to head to the door. We agree on that in advance and we're forthcoming about the motives that we think might creep in, in that conversation before we begin. So I. One in particular of these interviews, I think that was particularly self aware about. It was really good about saying, I think what I would have done when I went to my father and had this conversation was to just ask him, are you okay hearing my story? Because that's all I want to do. I don't want to hear anything back. Maybe sometime in the future I will, but I'D like to share my story with you. And just that agreement, most people having made a conscious and overt agreement, are capable of keeping it and managing their emotions through that. That and you've also signaled to them in advance that they better put their big boy pants on because this one's going to be kind of tough. So, yeah, there are things to be done. But as we found in the research, the sad news is that those of us who are more devout tend to do worst in these moments and the burden is on us to try to get a little better. And the upside of this is not just that the conversation goes better, it's that we become the people that we're here that we're supposed to be becoming. I think that's why we live in such a heterogeneous world. I mean, God could have created a great PR campaign that had 99% participation in the church. He knows how to create an influence strategy. That's pretty he didn't. For whatever reason, he wanted heterogeneity gene. And I think it's because these moments are the crucibles of our souls. These moments where we have divergent issues between human beings are the the moments where we have a chance to become.
- [49:26]
A
Thank you both so much. This is so powerful and it feels like it's a place that touches all of us in one way or another and it feels so practical. So we're so grateful for your wisdom here.
- [49:38]
D
Thank you both.
- [49:40]
B
Alright, thanks so much for listening. We hope that you enjoyed this conversation with Joseph Grenny and Jeff Strong. And if this episode resonated with you, we hope that you'll share it with someone you love and remember. You can check out more@faithmatters.org.