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- [00:01]
Tucker Boyle
Hi, everyone, it's Patrick Mason. I want to invite you to an amazing event that Waymakers is holding on March 6th in downtown Salt Lake City. Called Interfaith Repair, we've assembled an all star list of religious leaders and practitioners who will teach workshops on a range of topics. You'll gain insights from Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, and a variety of Christian communities, all of which you can implement regardless of whatever spiritual community you call home. The event is all day on March 6, the First Presbyterian Church in downtown Salt Lake. For more information, including a full lineup of speakers, go to Waymakers us. I can't wait to see you there.
- [00:40]
Aubrey Chavez
Hey, everybody, this is Aubrey Chavez from Faith Matters. Today, we are so grateful to share a conversation with our friend, Tucker Boyle, a longtime seminary and institute teacher and the founder of Harmony Road Retreats, a nonprofit creating safe, supportive spaces for people in faith crisis. As a young missionary, Tucker fell in love with teaching. The GOSP knew that he wanted to become a full time seminary teacher. He stepped into that role with his whole heart and years later pursued a PhD hoping to become an even better, more thoughtful teacher. But during his doctoral research into early church history, his certainty began to fracture, and before long, the ground beneath him seemed to give way. His work, his community, his family, his entire life was built around the faith he was now struggling to hold. And for the first time, Tucker wondered if he belonged. He described sitting in church once his sanctuary and feeling his body surged into fight or flight. But in time, he learned that what felt like collapse was really the beginning of a deeper, more conscious faith. Today, Tucker shares how that unraveling became an invitation into transformation. And though the questions didn't disappear, his relationship to them changed. The groundlessness opened into something more spacious and alive, expanding his capacity for love, humility, and connection. So today, whether you're in the middle of your own wrestle, loving someone through theirs, or. Or simply trying to build a faith that can hold complexity, we think Tucker offers language and light for the journey. And with that, here's Tucker Boyle.
- [02:05]
Tim
All right. Well, Tucker, thank you for being here.
- [02:07]
Tucker Boyle
Absolutely.
- [02:08]
Tim
I've been really looking forward to this. And, you know, we've been friends for a while. I think you have such an interesting story and so many great things to share. So I'm really. I'm really excited about this. Not to, you know, place too many expectations on you right out of the. Right out of the gate.
- [02:22]
Tucker Boyle
Gulp. Yeah, exactly.
- [02:24]
Tim
But I do think it would be really interesting for our listeners. In my opinion, you do have such a unique story. Would you mind just giving us a little bit of your background for a few minutes.
- [02:32]
Tucker Boyle
Yeah, you bet.
- [02:33]
Tim
Thank you.
- [02:35]
Tucker Boyle
And tell me if I'm over sharing. Okay. But yeah, so I grew up in Idaho in an LDS family, had an idyllic childhood, ended up going on a mission to Brazil and, and coming home from that mission. Just in love with teaching about Christ. Loved my mission. Fell head over heels for church and everything that the church represented and everything like that. So I was like, what? What do I want to do with my life? And I heard that you could be a full time seminary teacher. So I was like, oh, that is me.
- [03:09]
Tim
Really?
- [03:10]
Tucker Boyle
To the T. I knew when I heard it, I was like, I want to do that. And so I went into that, got hired as a full time seminary teacher
- [03:18]
Tim
and which is actually super competitive. Is that right?
- [03:21]
Tucker Boyle
You know, when I was doing it, they would let anybo. And so I don't know. I remember. So, yeah, I've been doing that for 24 years now, teaching seminary and institutes. And about 10 years ago or so I was serving as a seminary principal and I just kind of started to feel like there's something like I felt like I was hitting like an invisible barrier. Like I'm reading a lot of books. I love to read, I love to learn. And I kept feeling like there's a lot of sameness here. I feel like I need to see from outside of this box. I mean, my whole life was church, right? Every day at work was church. My whole community, all my friends was church. Everything was church, church, church. Lived in Provo, Utah. And it was just my whole life and I loved it. But I kind of had this nagging feeling that maybe I could see from other perspectives that I wasn't currently experiencing. And so I decided to do a PhD at an evangelical university online and learn Bible classes with evangelical pastors. And I was like, I just want to get a different perspective. So as I went through that degree, I definitely got different perspectives. And there were some that were really like, would really challenge, challenge my beliefs and others that were open to hearing what I believed and things like that. And that was a fascinating journey. But as I got to the end of my degree, it was a degree in leadership. And I decided, well, the, the, the chair of the department said, hey, one of you LDS boys, there were a few of us that are going through the program should write about Joseph Smith's leadership style. And I was like, oh, I want to do that. So I, I went to the temple. I went to the Provo temple with my wife and I had Some misgivings because I was like, well, I would be writing about Joseph Smith's leadership style at an evangelical university, and that could have some opposition embedded in it. And there was actually one specific professor, there was a history professor that I was quite afraid of because of what I had heard about him and his reputation and everything and his, yeah, just so much about him. And so I went to the temple because I was like, I'm not going to just lightly decide to do this. So I remember praying there and feeling just a distinct moment where I felt like approval from heaven to move ahead with a dissertation on Joseph Smith's leadership. And so I told my wife, okay, I'm going to do this. And she said, great. And the fears just started to set in. Well, what if I get this guy as my chair or somebody else that's going to be antagonistic? And, and, but I just decided I'm just going to trust that peace that I felt in the temple. And so I started in, I sent a proposal in and I got assigned to that chair that pastor that I had dreaded so much. And I remember I wrote my first chapter and submitted it and it came back with so much red on it. And it said something like, tucker, you are looking through rose colored glasses. You're telling me everything good about Joseph Smith. You need to tell me what his critics said, what his enemies said. You need to look at it from multiple angles. And immediately like, you know, my fears came up. I was like, I can't read that stuff. I've never read that stuff. And so I had this chair saying, in order to move forward, you've got to dig into that. And this, what I felt like was an answer from God saying, move forward with this. So I was like, okay, God, here we go. And I started to dive into deep research, primary sources and things on, on Joseph Smith and early church history and things. And the black and white mindset that I had at the time started to take some hits, right? I had this certain narrative of how everything was like my whole world was just built around we're the good guys and other people are the bad guys. You know, binary. And as I did the research, it, it just got less. And I just got less and less able to hold that black and white mindset. And at the time, I was in my homeward bishopric and remember feeling like, okay, so how do I, how do I even represent my own experience right now? I was asked to lead a fast and testimony meeting one Sunday and I was like, okay, I'm going to be Authentic. I don't want to get up there and testify of things that right now I'm questioning. So I got up and I said, right now I'm doing a graduate degree on Joseph Smith's leadership and early church history. And it's way more complex than I ever thought it was. But I believe that God can help us get through difficult things, things that seem impossible. And that was the end of my testimony that day. And I went and I sat down feeling really good that I'd been authentic and, you know, hadn't misrepresented anything. And somebody in the ward got up and said, there's no reason to doubt anything about early church history. And all of a sudden, for the first time at church, I was like, oh, my goodness, do I belong here? That was the first time in my life that I'd really asked that question. And the next person got up and said something similar, and I didn't like. It was so foreign to me because church had always been my safe place. It had always been the place that I go to get strengthened, that I go to get, you know, fuel in the tank for what I'm. For what I'm doing in life. And as I sat on that stand, I started to feel further and further from this congregation that I love these people that I loved, because I was wondering, is what those people said, what everybody's thinking right now. Do they want me to go if I'm going to have questions? And it was super hard. And from that point, church turned from the warm bath to a cold shower. And I would have to, like, talk myself, you know, into. Well, not talk myself into going. I was committed to going, but talk myself into having a positive mindset and. And trying to have an open heart and trying to go with love. And it just became really challenging and really difficult. Meanwhile, I'm, you know, teaching every. Every day in seminary. Like, it was really strange time because I have words for it now that I didn't have for it back then. Right. I've learned about faith crisis. I didn't even know what that was. I've learned about the nervous system, human nervous system in fight or flight. You know, I knew what that was, but I didn't understand that. When I'd walk into the church building, I would go into fight or flight mode, and I would feel like I was under attack. I was not safe. And nobody around me would have thought that. I mean, everybody's acting just the same as they always have. But my. In my body, I felt absolutely unsafe there. And that went on for quite a while, and I didn't know how to navigate it. And I would feel that, you know, in my work setting and things like that. And so life got re. Went from being this really safe, Everything is clear. Like, my whole future is clear, my whole path is clear to, like, everything's in question. Because I knew people who, you know, when one spouse would question, it shook the marriage and things fell apart. And I knew people that when they had questions and experienced doubt, they eventually stepped away from their job. And I worried, am I going to be able to support my family if that's something in my future? And I knew people who, you know, just stepped away from people who doubted and had questions. And I was like, everything in my life that gives me safety and security and meaning is at risk right now. Like, there was. There wasn't anything to hold on to
- [11:52]
Melissa Inoue
that resonates just so deeply for me. This place that was the most comforting turns inside out kind of. And it can be so disorienting. I think that was so much of what was difficult for that experience for me that I just. I didn't even understand what was happening. So I thought it must mean something about my worthiness. So it's just layered with shame and guilt, which drives it underground. And anyway, I. I just really resonate with that feeling of being in fight or flight when you get to church. So how do you go from such an acute experience of discomfort to something that's more like what you're experiencing now?
- [12:29]
Tucker Boyle
Well, it got acuter after that, really. Okay. And maybe I'll share something that came to mind as you were describing that, um, I'm picturing, like, a sea anemone or sea urchin. I don't know which ones are the spiky ones.
- [12:42]
Aubrey Chavez
Yeah, yeah.
- [12:43]
Tucker Boyle
But, like, I had lived inside it. Like, I was inside and the spines were protecting me for so long, and then all of a sudden I popped out and I'm like, wait, I want back in. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I can't get back in there because I'm holding questions and I want to be. I want to honestly hold the questions, but I want that safety in there, and I can't. I didn't feel like I could do both. I remember being in the religion section of the BYU library doing some research there. And during my research, I kind of felt like I had these pillars of my beliefs that I would hold to. And as I would do research, they would dissolve one by one. One. And I remember this certain day when so many of these pillars had. Had Dissolved in front of my eyes. And there was one pillar left, and I was just protecting it. Like, if I lose this, I don't know what's left. And I remember the moment that all of a sudden I felt that last pillar just go. And it was like, psychological freefall. I was like, wait, what's left? And I looked up from this book that I was reading, and I looked around, and I saw these senior missionaries that were serving faithfully in the BYU library doing family history research. I saw these college kids. I thought where I was sitting at Brigham Young University, I thought all of this, and. And this question came up, like, are we all wasting our time? And it was so dark and scary. And that question just kind of echoed. And I walked off of campus that day, and that question just kept echoing in me. And through days at work, in church, the question just kept echoing.
- [14:42]
Tim
Can I ask, too, at this time, are you. Do you have someone that you're confiding this in? Are you, like, really going through it alone?
- [14:48]
Tucker Boyle
No. After that experience in my ward, and I'm not blaming anybody because I know that the people in my ward were doing it from sincere. A sincere desire to hold a line and keep safety in the ward. But I closed up. I didn't even tell my wife. I didn't tell anybody at work. It was just all me on my own. If I remember your story, Tim, you had a time. You know what that's like, when you just like, no, I can't risk the relationships.
- [15:22]
Tim
Yeah, it was a couple years, and then eventually, you know, eventually talked to Aubrey, and I feel like the majority of. Of it we went through together, and that was extraordinarily helpful. But the. The alone. The alone time is very, very scary.
- [15:34]
Tucker Boyle
Yeah, it was very scary. And as time went on, I. I would just get up in the morning and I would read my scriptures and say my prayers, and I would go to the temple and I'd go to church, and all those things that I knew, you know, we were supposed to do to keep the spirit. And then I would dive into the research, and it's just so hard to describe the how. It was kind of tearing me into pieces. I would lay in bed at night, not being able to get to sleep and just feeling a sense of doom and then finally fall asleep and wake up in the morning, and that's the first thing I would feel is the sense of doom. Again, I was like, I don't know even how to move forward in life.
- [16:14]
Tim
Can you elaborate why. On why there was a sense of Doom for you? Like, what was. What was at stake?
- [16:20]
Tucker Boyle
I felt like my marriage, my family, my job, my connections in the community. Like, I couldn't think of any relationships that I had that this wouldn't affect. I just couldn't imagine everything. Life. Yeah, really, really scary time. And as I got near to the end, I was. I was projecting a lot of my anger and difficulty on this chair that was making me do all this research. And I was still holding to some hope that, hey, when this is over, everything's going to go back to come back together and it's going to be okay. But I remember one morning getting up and just being so angry at this chair. And I remember kneeling down and having scriptures going through my head. He that has the spirit of contention is not of me. But is it the devil who is the father of contention? You know, sometimes having scriptures memorized isn't the most comforting thing in moments like that. But I was like, I know, I know I have this spirit of contention right now. And I felt. I felt a lot of shame with that. But I was like, I don't know how to let go of this. I don't know how to get out of this. And so I hit my knees and I was like, heavenly Father, just take this. I don't know how to get rid of this feeling. And I remember going to work that day and putting a talk on by Elder Uchtdorf. And he said at some point in this talk, he said, if God is with us, who shall be against us? And the moment I heard that line, I had this experience that I don't know how to explain. It was almost a little bit out of body experience. But I remembered getting that answer in the Provo temple. And I saw myself in these dark moments doing research. And I felt like God was saying, tucker, I was here the entire time. I never went anywhere. I asked you to step into these spaces. And as dark as the darkness was, that's how light, the light felt in that moment. I just felt full of light and love. I remember sitting in a stoplight and looking at a Maverick gas station, thinking, that is the most beautiful gas station I've ever seen. That guy pumping gas, he looks like the nicest guy I've ever seen in my life. And I drove to a seminary building, and every person I saw, I just loved them completely. Just thought they were such beautiful creations. And, um, there is an account of Joseph Smith's first vision when he says, after the first vision, I. I think it's the first time he wrote it. Down in 1832, where he says, I was filled with love for many days, and for about three or four days, that was my life experience. I just loved everybody and everything. And. And it was unbelievable. I told my wife, I said, hey, I will do this dissertation for the rest of my life if I can feel this close to God. And she said, no, you won't. You're going to finish this dissertation, and we're going to be done with this. Right? And. But I really did feel so full of light. And the. The wild thing was, like, none of my questions were answered. I still had every question, but for some reason, they took a different position in my mind. And I'm not saying that the questions weren't important or weren't big or weren't even foundational, but I was filled with love for some reason. Not anything I did to deserve it, but that gave me some hope. And after a few days, that. That feeling kind of faded, and I went back into the complexity and it was very hard and finally got to the end of my dissertation, graduated and came out of it like, whoa. That was. What was that? And for a small time, I was. I was like, that was just. The devil. Like, the devil had me for a while. I was just trying to put language to it. And then I read a book about faith crisis, and I was like, oh, my goodness, I've been through a faith crisis.
- [20:32]
Tim
Which book?
- [20:34]
Tucker Boyle
Bridges by David Osler. Yeah. And it gave me language that I didn't have before. And I told my wife and relatives, I've been through a faith crisis. And they were like, what? Why didn't you tell us? And I was like, what? Well, I was just so scared. I didn't know. I thought I was broken. And of course, I felt like maybe that was the end of the story, but that was the beginning, and church was still challenging for me. And around this time, I started to read voraciously about faith crisis and started to notice that faith crisis isn't unique to our church. It's, you know, it's developmental phenomenon that comes when we, you know, start to see things in whatever institution or organization, nation or whatever, that we're part of that. We're like, oh, I didn't see that before. And we have to grapple with new realities. And. And so I started to read and read and read, and I was like, okay, so this is good for my mind. But I still wasn't finding the peace. You know, I had that experience for a few days with light and love, but that was. That was gone. And then I started to practice meditation. And I remember it wasn't the first time I tried, but pretty soon there was just this stroke of grace, I guess. But I remember one morning just wanting peace so badly. And then all of a sudden, like in my meditation, I was able to step back from my mind and see the tortured tucker and observe them and just watch and to see the feelings and know that they're there and they're real and watch and to experience, at least for a small moment, a different part of me, or maybe not even a part, maybe the whole me. And see the tucker as a part the. The Persona, the ego that I had created to navigate the world. And I was filled with love and light, and it was so beautiful. And I was. And after that meditation, after that experience, I was like, this is my path. I want to learn about what just happened. It. You know, that closed. And I went back into complexity. And then I was like, oh, I want to get back to that experience. And I started to read and study more. What was that? What is that? And, you know, I started to read all kinds of authors from different faith traditions and things. And. And what I call that is harmony and experience with harmony. And there's a lot to unpack with the word harmony. But sometimes I'll use a music analogy, I think I've shared it with you, of, um, going through, you know, faith journey. We might say we start out in melody, and that's a phase where we learn to sing the songs, right? We learn from our community. We learn to sing the notes and sing in unison, and it feels so good. And there's that solidarity and strength in it. And we all need melody like humans we need it. We need that support and structure and community. And sometimes we may get into a situation, like I did, where we experience dissonance, and the melody does not feel like the melody we once thought it was, right? We're outside of the sea anemone or urchin or whatever that is. And that dissonance can be so difficult and challenging. And there is a space that I would call harmony that honors the melody that can't exist without the melody. There's no such thing as harmony without a melody. But that harmony comes as we find harmony in our inner world. It's not because we changed the outside world, we changed the melody, or we changed other people to make it the way we want it to, but harmony starts to come online when we can work within ourselves. And that's. Ever since that experience and those things, it's been my Passion to. Okay, what is this harmony? How do I find it and how do I maybe help others that are struggling in dissonance to find that harmony?
- [25:13]
Melissa Inoue
Thank you so much for that. My dad is a musician and he's always loved that metaphor. And it is something that has worked for me in every season of this experience. That, because it, because it honors the melody, like you said, like, you need the structure of the scales and of the, of the original melody. Like there's something there that really matters. And, and I think that has, I think in the moment it's. It's been hard for me to digest that experience. But quickly I can look back and see like, okay, this has all been good for me. Like, every stage, the dissonance has been good. The melody was totally, is totally necessary. And, and then I can start having these experiences with harmony. But it, and so nothing can be dismissed. And, and it's not a waste of time. Like, I think that was my big question too. Like, was this. Was all the effort a waste? And was all like the, the, the will. Was it all a waste? And I think that's the gift of that metaphor, that it's all integrated in there and useful in some way. And the, the wrestle is like figuring out how to do it because. And I, and I think this is my question for you too, that when you're experiencing the melody in this way that it's like so fruitful and beautiful and working and like you don't need something else. I feel like discernment. It feels like kind of a recipe, like, you know, the ways to get answers and, and it just. If for me, it felt like it just always worked and that felt like something I immediately lost. And so I love that you're talking about meditation because it feels like you found this new way to, to recognize what was good and right and, and you found a new path. But I would love to talk about that in between space when you just are kind of floating where all you know is what doesn't work. And it's hard to find something to trust. It's. It's hard to find a new way to, to discern how God is connecting and speaking with you. And so I'd love for you to just talk about what that, what that looks like.
- [27:14]
Tucker Boyle
I think I needed to have a critical limit experience. Eckhart totally talks about how sometimes those are needed in order for us to break out of our, our egos and see from outside of, you know, this, the structured personality that we've built to navigate the world. And I was searching for all kinds of ways to find peace. And I think I just tried so many doors to find peace and they were all closed. That I. I needed that, like, intense pressure of hitting the limit and feeling like there's nowhere for me to go, no way out. That my mind kind of let go and let me out in a way so that I could see the mind from outside of it. And I. For me, this all connects to Jesus. Like Jesus when he uses the word repent. You know, we've. We've had 2,000 years to add meaning to that. But the Greek word in the New Testament, anyway, he wasn't speaking Greek, but is metanoia. Right. Meta. Beyond. Noya. Mind. So the way I see it is go beyond the mind. Yeah, right. And so Jesus is like, go beyond the mind. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. And for me, he was saying, it's right here. But you have to step back from the ego, from the smaller self. Which I don't think I could have ever done without a critical limit experience. Because I was going to try any door that kept me in my ego as a solution, but every door had to close before.
- [29:06]
Tim
Yeah, I think.
- [29:08]
Tucker Boyle
Yeah.
- [29:08]
Tim
The scary thing about that, potentially is that, like, somebody I feel like could be listening to this and be like, okay, so the way out is to have a critical limit experience. Like, I'm thinking that in order to make myself feel better. But if you're, like, if you are feeling better, you're not going to have the critical limit experience, sort of by definition. And so maybe the comfort that you find is just like, this is gonna really hurt. Like, this is gonna be really dissonant and like, not trying to force your way out of that in. In the immediate moment. And maybe. And maybe that's okay. You know, I'm. I'm trying to, like, find some light in the. At the end of the tunnel for somebody that's, like, feeling it really acutely.
- [29:43]
Tucker Boyle
Yeah, it's. There's a paradox here that we want to comfort people, but the comfort isn't what gets us where we need to go. Yeah. I even think of, you know, God. However people see God as a loving God, that is like, there is only one way that you're going to see from outside of yourself. And your. Yourself, your smaller self has to break, it has to crack in order for you to escape from it in some way. And so I don't know. I don't know if there's. Yeah.
- [30:20]
Tim
And for you, that was over the process of years. It sounds like it was for us.
- [30:24]
Tucker Boyle
It doesn't have to be years. I don't know that there's a prescription for time for my story. Like, my story is just my story. I think maybe I needed to break because I was so rigid and something needed to shatter. But I know, friends, that there wasn't any critical limit experience, and there's flexibility, and they just kind of moved and bent with it. I didn't have that capability in me. I was black and white. I was like, this is the way it was. This is the way it is. And so, you know, I. I don't know. I don't have all of the answers to that. But I do think that their timelines aren't the same and individual circumstances vary. And anybody who's out there suffering, I just. Just want to extend. There's hope. And like Aubrey said a moment ago, all of it is worth it. All of the suffering is leading. And, you know, Elder Maxwell years ago said that our suffering carves out a receptacle for our joy. Right. And that doesn't comfort you when you're carving. Right. But at the end, there's always this moment where we turn back and see it.
- [31:36]
Melissa Inoue
I mean, and I think having a map, you know, trusting that there's good growth in this space and that nothing has gone wrong. Yeah, all that all by itself, I think, just can relax the intensity a little bit so that you can keep feeling your way forward. Would you talk about, though, just. Can we talk more about emotional regulation generally? Because I think there's. There's kind of like this. There's the arc. There's. There's this really big picture where you recognize you're on a serious journey and your faith is evolving and it's fluid and changing all the time. But then there's the experience of walking through the door on a Sunday and. And feeling your body in fight or flight. And so how can we literally calm our bodies down so that you can be in a space with community and with your family, even while you're figuring all of this out?
- [32:25]
Tucker Boyle
Yeah, that's a great question. And I think everybody that. That's listening, that's in this space, whether or not they. They've stayed in the church or they. They've left, are going to be in these situations where it comes up.
- [32:38]
Melissa Inoue
Yes.
- [32:38]
Aubrey Chavez
Maybe it's not.
- [32:39]
Tucker Boyle
There's a time to practice. It might be in chapel, might be talking to family. It might be old friends. It might just be sitting on your own remembering something from the past. Whatever it is that's Going to come up. Because our body holds things for us that we haven't processed yet and keeps giving us more chances to let them go. Right. And for me, church is like, the best place to do inner work because that's where I formed my ego. So what better place to work on it?
- [33:11]
Tim
Right?
- [33:12]
Tucker Boyle
Um. Man. But that I'm. I say better place. That makes it sound like this is a good time. Right. But it can be really challenging. But for me, I'll just. I'm still learning. I. I'm not somebody that's arrived anywhere that has all the answers. Sorry. That'll be your next guest. Maybe. But this is what I do. Like, when I feel those things coming up, I've learned to feel what fight or flight feels like in my body. Right. I feel it in my belly, and there's like a heat and discomfort that comes up with it, and then it spreads. And I've learned that my nervous system doesn't respond well to my pep talks, to, like, it doesn't speak English very fluently. Like. Like, let's say I'm sitting in a setting where somebody says something, and I feel that coming up. Maybe they say something that hurts somebody I love. That's not in that meeting. Right. And so it starts coming up. Well, I've learned that saying, forgive them. They know not what they do. Like, you know, like, trying to, like preaching to my nervous system. It hasn't been super productive for me. But what I have learned is the nervous system responds to simple acts in my body, like deep breathing. So let's just take an example. I'm sitting in a setting where somebody says something, that feeling starts rising up, and I'm like, oh, fight or flight. Hello. I even have a name for my nervous system that's maybe super nerdy. I call my nervous system Ned because Ned notices every disturbance. Right? That's an acronym. I have all these names for my inner parts, which I know is super nerdy, but it's a good time. But. But I'll be like, oh, hey, Ned. Yeah. You're trying to protect me. Thank you. And then let's breathe through this. I'll just say that inside my head, right? And then I'll just take a deep breath, and on the out breath, I'll slow it down. I'll have it be twice the length of the in breath. And the nervous system speaks breathing. I've learned, like, deep breathing when I can't say forgive them and I know not what they do. I can breathe with it. I can feel my feet on the ground, even right now. Maybe we can all do this together. Whoever's listening, just feel your feet and notice that there. Notice that you are actually safe right here, right now. Even though your nervous system may be sending you messages that you're not, you can just be in your body and inhabit this moment from body awareness, rather than getting in that story in your mind that's kicking up those reactions. And for me, it takes a few breaths, and I'll start to feel my feet. I'll start to feel life in my body, and then I'll feel the nervous system start to come down. There's actually a theory, the polyvagal theory, you've probably heard of it, where it talks about the three different states. The ventral vagal is that open connecting state where we can connect with others. We can. Can connect with God, feel connected to God. And so for me, I've just learned. Oh, what state am I in right now? Oh, I'm not in the. The open connecting state. So I just need to take care of my nervous system and get us back here. And maybe a side note is that for me, faith crisis. I think a lot of my original faith crisis experience was a nervous system crisis. Whoa.
- [37:05]
Aubrey Chavez
Really?
- [37:06]
Tucker Boyle
And the nervous system crisis is just. I didn't. I wasn't aware of it. I didn't know what was going on in my body. And I attributed the feelings I was feeling to having lost faith because I wasn't feeling the spirit. I'd walk out of a meeting and somebody would say, that was so powerful. And I was like, whoa, what did I miss? What's wrong with me? And it's because in fight or flight, we can't connect to people. We can't connect to God. Our body is trying to survive something, not open up and receive something.
- [37:38]
Melissa Inoue
Yeah.
- [37:38]
Tucker Boyle
And so. So as I've become more aware of my nervous system, it's like, oh, I can connect to God and others when I'm in that relaxed state, but I've got to learn how to get myself there. Wow.
- [37:52]
Melissa Inoue
So, yeah, that is so helpful. I've never thought about it like that. And I. That is completely my experience. Yeah. Like, the connecting part shuts down, so you feel isolated and it's like this spiral.
- [38:05]
Tucker Boyle
Yeah.
- [38:05]
Melissa Inoue
Like, it feeds. It feeds more. More like intensity in your body.
- [38:09]
Tucker Boyle
Yeah.
- [38:10]
Melissa Inoue
That's so interesting. Yeah, that's very helpful.
- [38:13]
Tucker Boyle
Yeah. And it's really interesting to me that the stories in my head were that I was far from God.
- [38:22]
Melissa Inoue
Yeah.
- [38:22]
Tucker Boyle
Right. But I would, like, God never went anywhere, but I was far from Being able to feel those things that I attributed to God's presence. Right. And so, yeah, my heart and mind goes out to people that are in that fight or flight. Right. For many reasons, not just faith crisis. There are a lot of reasons that put us in that space. And it's easy to tell ourselves the story that God is distant. Yeah. When it's just a nervous system state. Yeah.
- [38:55]
Tim
Fascinating. I wonder. And this is. And this is going back to your story a little bit, but I wanted to close a couple loops. You mentioned that while you were in faith crisis, you sort of expected and hoped that you'd eventually come back to where you were previously. Like, you'd get back inside of the sea urchin.
- [39:10]
Tucker Boyle
Right.
- [39:12]
Tim
I guess I have two questions related to that. And the first is, what is your church experience today when you go for a couple hours on Sunday? Like, are you back in the comfortable. Like, do you. Is it. Is it nourishing now? Or how do you feel in that moment?
- [39:28]
Tucker Boyle
That's a great question. My church experience is nourishing for different reasons than it used to be. Church is a place for me to practice, love, practice following Christ. I was called to be a YSA bishop just after I received my PhD, and so I was still in the wrestle with all this stuff, and I would have these triggering moments when I'm sitting on the stand as the bishop of the ward. Right. And I've never been back inside the sea urchin, but what I've learned to do is honor and love and see the beauty of that stage. I have a bunch of journals from years past that I read through of when I was in that place. And it's just so beautiful. I'm so grateful for the growth, for the safety, the security structure and everything there.
- [40:26]
Tim
Yeah.
- [40:26]
Tucker Boyle
So. But I don't experience myself inside that.
- [40:30]
Tim
Yeah.
- [40:31]
Tucker Boyle
Yeah.
- [40:31]
Tim
Well, your. Your metaphor works quite well here. Right. Like, when you're in dissonance, you can't. You can't stand the melody. And when you're in harmony, like, you're not singing the melody, but you. You can appreciate it.
- [40:43]
Tucker Boyle
Oh, yeah.
- [40:43]
Tim
And. And appreciate that others are singing the melody. And it's necessary, actually.
- [40:47]
Tucker Boyle
Absolutely. Like, I. We have to have the melody or there's no harmony.
- [40:52]
Tim
Yeah.
- [40:52]
Tucker Boyle
Yeah.
- [40:53]
Melissa Inoue
The.
- [40:53]
Tim
The second question that I have related to this is, I think what's interesting to me, at least in my experience, both during melody and dissonance, the same questions were the ones that I thought mattered. So, like, is the church true? Was Joseph Smith a prophet? Should I stay in the church? Things like that, like very different experiences as it related to those questions, but they remain the same.
- [41:17]
Tucker Boyle
Right.
- [41:17]
Tim
And I think the question. And I know that that question is important to many people, so I don't want to dishonor it.
- [41:24]
Tucker Boyle
Right.
- [41:26]
Tim
But there are other questions, you know, primarily around my own living of the Gospel of Jesus's teachings that have become elevated in their importance. I would say that my questions probably are less intellectual and they don't have answers. I would say in the sense that, oh, I could write. I could write this down and get
- [41:51]
Tucker Boyle
an A on the test.
- [41:52]
Tim
You know, they have more to. I think they have more to do with what it looks like to live a meaningful life full of love and light, you know, But I'm. I don't know if that's been your experience either.
- [42:04]
Tucker Boyle
That's absolutely my experience. My questions. I've become very passionate about transformation, about inner work. And my questions are more like, what is this moment asking of me? What is. What would it look like to drop all of my resistance inwardly and live this moment completely? What, you know, the. Like Jesus, take no thought for the morrow. What would that look like if I really lived fully in the now? These are the type of questions that are. That are stir my passion.
- [42:47]
Tim
I love all that.
- [42:48]
Melissa Inoue
So one thing I really love that you've written about is that is the way you've differentiated between our religious lives and our spiritual lives. And so I just. Because I think I've kind of used those interchangeably.
- [43:02]
Tucker Boyle
Right.
- [43:03]
Melissa Inoue
And so I'm curious how you see both of those things. Like, what do you. What you do both of those things separately, have to do with transformation? And do you see a useful interplay?
- [43:13]
Tucker Boyle
Oh, yeah, Great question. So this, and these are just my definitions, but sometimes I'll talk about the religious journey, the spiritual journey and the faith journey. And the religious journey is that journey where we learn a religion, we learn the, the norms we learn the beliefs, we learn the community we learn. It gives us the structure and direction as we start into this religious journey in our lives and participate in the ordinances, the covenants, things that really help us and give us direction and speed in our life. And that religious journey is vital. Right. It's. It's the melody that we've been talking about. And some experience their religious journey as always intertwined as their spiritual journey. And there's no diversion between the two. And sometimes the spiritual journey may. You may start feeling called to, like, step into a space that you don't like. I, in my personal experience, it was like, go into these sources that you've always been told not to go into. And that was really disconcerting because I had never felt called out of the religious safe space that I was in. But those listening, maybe you've had a moment where you just feel called into complexity, into dissonance, into a space. But there's something deep within you that is calling you there. It's a little bit like Elsa and frozen to, you know, into the unknown. Right. That's the. The spiritual journey. And our minds want to say it's either the religious journey or the spiritual journey one's. Right. I mean, you got to leave the religious one behind and go with the spiritual one at this point. Right. Either or that's what our minds want to do with it. But it's actually the tension between the religious and spiritual journey that provides a lot of the growth there. Right. And so we can hold both of those. Not saying you have to stay with religion or anything like that, but the tension there is a growth zone, potentially, and I would call that a faith journey is how I learned to hold my religious journey and my spiritual journey. And the. How those are pulling me maybe in different directions, it feels like, but maybe they're just pulling us to grow bigger. Wow.
- [45:44]
Melissa Inoue
So I guess the question I really want to ask you is why you stay? Like, is that part of it? Like, if the. If these primary questions. I want to say primary questions, if those have stopped feeling so front and center for you, what is it that keeps you anchored here?
- [46:03]
Tucker Boyle
Great question. Just love. I. I just love the people. I love my religious journey. I love. I love God, I love Christ. I love the structure. I love the. The direction that I've gained. So that's alive for me. Another is discomfort. Like, the challenge feels like. So growth producing to me right now. I think Melissa Inoue said something like. How did she say it? I stay because it's the path of most resistance. I think she said something like that. And I said earlier, I'm passionate about transformation. I mean, I feel so much growth in staying at the same time, that's my path, and I don't feel like projecting that on anybody that's listening. I continue to find God in my participation in the church and deep truth. And I continue to find value in the restoration. Restoration, scripture. There are levels that keep unlocking, experiences that keep coming through that. And I'll also say that. Remember that question I asked in the BYU library? Are we all wasting our time? What comes to me is that, no, there's. Whenever we're Doing something from love. It's never wasted time. And that's what I've come. This is a community of love. This is, we're all practicing love, so that's never a waste.
- [48:02]
Tim
I'm curious when you think about, you know, this discernment process that you've been through and, you know, figuring out what, what it is that you've been called to do, it's so interesting, your story, because you are, you're still at ces, you know, you still attend church.
- [48:17]
Tucker Boyle
Yeah.
- [48:17]
Tim
You've also started this organization, Harmony Road, that helps people who are in faith crisis. So I'm curious if you maybe could paint the picture, I guess a little bit of a two part question. If I'm curious if you could paint the picture of what it looks like being who you are now, both as a, both as a CES employee, you know, working with, working with young people in an official church capacity and, you know, in your Harmony Road, you know, helping people who are experiencing faith crisis. Like, what is all that? What does all that actually look like?
- [48:53]
Tucker Boyle
Yeah, I mean, I teach seminary and I teach institute and I absolutely love my job. It is amazing. I love being with the youth and young adults and I. That looks different than it did. I mean, I'm not the same person that I've always been, but I'm passionate about helping people find their own spirituality, find God, find their own connection, find their way forward, find belonging. Like, maybe some of my gifts have shifted a little bit. Like, I think I was really good earlier on with structure and form and like get, everybody get in the get, get lined up, right. And, and now it's more like who's, who's feeling left out, who's on the edges, who's struggling, who's hurting, who's feeling that? This is difficult and I feel called to the margins. I mean, one thing for me is like, remember that part of the story when I was sitting on the stand in church and all of a sudden I didn't feel like I belonged anymore. Like, one of the things that happened for me after that when I would go to church and sit on the stand is I would see people that I had never seen before. And by that I mean, you know, somebody would be giving a talk and say something like, oh, yeah, we just moved into the ward, we've got two kids, we know that like, when we keep the commandments, everything works out or something like that. And I'd look out at the audience and I would see a divorced person and I would see a broken family And I would see people that I didn't see before and my heart would break and I would feel called to do some of that reaching out work. And so that's what, that's where my heart is, is. I guess I might say it this way. I had to be marginalized before I could see the marginalized. Like when I. And when I say be marginalized, I'm not trying to play a victim or anything like that. I just had never felt like I didn't belong before, and so I couldn't see it. So that's a passion of mine, is how do we help people that are struggling? So I, I teach classes and institute about overcoming pornography through Jesus Christ. That's a passion. I know that's a, A space that a lot of people are hurting in. I want to help there. And, and I teach classes, a class called Mindful prayer and Meditation, where I help people find that peace, inner peace, when things are rough. And then I teach seminary classes too, just at the, you know, the front of the battle lines in high school. And it's so fun. The kids are amazing. So I just, I find just great joy and value in just being there with people and trying to create a safe space.
- [52:02]
Tim
Yeah.
- [52:02]
Tucker Boyle
So thank you.
- [52:04]
Melissa Inoue
One last question, because I know you spend so many hours of your day with youth. I, I know that we have a lot of parents who are listening who are probably feeling anxious because they haven't experienced any of, they haven't experienced their own faith crisis, but they're witnessing it in their adult children or their teenagers. So I'd love for you to just leave us with, like, what would, what do you want them to know? And like, what, what do you want, what do you want them to know as witnesses? Like, who, who are seeing that someone they love is experiencing these things, but they, maybe they don't know what it feels like themselves. Like, what's the best way that they can be, like a loving presence that will allow more harmony as opposed to something anxious making that is trying to bring the certainty back.
- [52:52]
Tucker Boyle
Yeah.
- [52:52]
Melissa Inoue
You know?
- [52:53]
Tucker Boyle
Yeah. It's such a hard space. I mean, I've, I've been that type of parent. Right. Where I was so panicked that I needed to keep everybody, you know, the, the flock in a huddle. And I understand that. And that comes from just the most sincere goodness. Place of goodness. And I, I guess my response is what we talked about earlier with the nervous system. Like, sometimes as a parent, you know, we want our kids. Okay. This is the safe space. If, if your child is experiencing it in an unsafe space and we're trying to kind of get them back into that unsafe space that creates even more tension in the child. And that might. Just because the parent doesn't understand what's happening in the nervous system of the child. Right. And so it might be as a parent, I think, I think maybe like what times have I felt my nervous system, when have I felt unsafe in a group, when have I felt, maybe even seen an organization, been part of an organization? And all of a sudden your view of that organization, organization shifts and now it doesn't feel as safe to you anymore. See if you can experience in your body what your child is experiencing. And I think once we experience and we feel what our children are feeling, there's going to be a degree of understanding and compassion there. And I don't know if you can do that just by listening to me, but maybe just listening to the child without trying, you know, to get them in a certain place or to do a certain thing. And I know that's easier said than done. That's easier said than done because the parents come in from a place of panic for the child and the, the parent as well has a nervous system and goes into fight or flight when it sees that, you know, someone's going astray. So if we can learn to take care of ourselves, you know, slow down, breathe, notice what's happening in our bodies and come to that place where we're open and connecting and then seek to open and connect with somebody else, maybe we can move forward together.
- [55:23]
Tim
Let me just ask one, one follow up question because I can imagine someone hearing that and it's very practical advice, but I think the intellectual response to it is that I can't just let it go. To use another Frozen song.
- [55:36]
Tucker Boyle
Yeah.
- [55:37]
Tim
Because, because like the stakes are too high. Do you know what I mean? Like our eternal family, like we're keeping our flock here together because that's going to dictate what it looks like in the next life. And that has eternal implications.
- [55:51]
Tucker Boyle
Yeah.
- [55:52]
Tim
So I think I, I can see very easily someone saying, yeah, that's all good, but like this is an exception to the rule because it's too important to just, to just let it go like that. How would you?
- [56:03]
Tucker Boyle
Absolutely. Well, what I fall back on is my experience and understanding of God and God's love and connecting to God. When I start with the love of God in my thinking and experiencing and then come to looking at a situation, it looks a little bit different. When I start from a place of fear and panic and then come looking at it, it looks very different, right? So maybe it's a similar response. If we can get ourselves in out of that fight or flight response, out of that fear, out of that panic, out of the what if, that what ifs. And we know, you know, Paul says God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. And that's my experience. Like when I slow down, I open myself up and I connect to heaven. I've never felt panic emanating from that realm. I've never felt fear coming from there. And so whatever I need to do to get myself in that place and then move toward others, I feel like is going to be most productive.
- [57:19]
Tim
I love that.
- [57:21]
Melissa Inoue
Thank you so much that it is so powerful and everything from this conversation, this is just really beautiful and resonates on a deep, in a deep place. So thank you.
- [57:31]
Tucker Boyle
Yeah, you bet.
- [57:32]
Tim
Thanks, Tucker.
- [57:33]
Tucker Boyle
Yeah, you bet.
- [57:35]
Aubrey Chavez
All right, thanks so much for listening. We really hope that you enjoyed this conversation with Tucker Boyle. If you or someone you love is navigating a faith journey, you can check out tucker's organization@harmonyroadretreats.com Tucker created these retreats to offer the kind of support and community that he needed. Spaces where you can feel less alone, where you can connect with others on the the road and explore practices that cultivate inner harmony and peace. He has retreats coming up in both March and April, so you can check out the details on the website. Thanks again for listening. And remember, you can check out more@faith matters.org.