141: Women’s Empowerment in the Church w/ Colleen Kelson Rogers

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Transcript

[00:00] Michelle: Welcome to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon polygamy. I am so excited to bring to you this conversation I had with Colleen Rogers, centering on women learning to become empowered in this church and the struggles that we often experience as. As we journey to that full empowerment and healing that is so important for us to experience. So again, as always, thank you for those who donate and help this podcast. Thank you for those who follow along and listen. This is a good one. Thanks for joining us. Welcome to this episode. I am so happy to be here with my new friend, Colleen Rogers, who I invited to come on to talk to us about this beautiful piece that she wrote called Remnants of Polygamy. And I’ll just share it really quickly so you can see, Colleen has been so kind to, um, let us publish this on our blog on 132problems.org. So if you go there, you can read this gorgeous article that is Colleen’s experience of, I would say. Coming from a place of pain and and um struggle as a woman in the church to coming to a place of deep and profound wisdom that comes through in this beautiful article that she’s written. And so I thought that Colleen had so much to share with her own personal experience, her journey, and sort of her growth and how you’ve managed to gain so much through this these experiences you’ve had that I wanted everyone to be able to hear this and I, I am so thrilled to have Colleen here. So thank you, Colleen for writing this and for coming and talking to me about it.

[01:52] Colleen: You are so welcome and I’m so excited for this opportunity to have this conversation. It’s a conversation that needs to be had.

[02:00] Michelle: It absolutely is. So Colleen and I were just talking about, should we just read through the article or should we just talk about it? And I kind of decided I’m going to go ahead and put the link to the blog um in the description box. So we’ll let people read the article on their own and we’re just going to have a conversation so you can listen to this first and then go read that or. This now and go read that and come back and listen to the rest of this episode whichever way you prefer but um I thought there was so much to discuss here that is so applicable to so many people and again it’s one of those stories that maybe not everyone has the same experiences but it’s so essential to recognize the experiences that other people have even if they’re not the same as your own. And then it’s also I think this will resonate with many, many, particularly women in the church, men and women, but I think it’s just essential. So Colleen, first tell us a little bit about yourself. I know you’ve raised 6 children, you were born in the church. I’ll let you take it away. You tell us.

[02:58] Colleen: Yes, yes. So, um, I, I’ve been married for 41 years and I, we have 6 beautiful children and 4 grandchildren. I, I was actually born in Utah but didn’t live there very long. Um, the company my dad worked for transferred him to northern Quebec Providence. I lived in a little town in Canada that you could only get to by airplane, and I was there for kindergarten and 1st grade and part of 2nd grade. I went to a Uh kindergarten at a Catholic school where it was run by nuns and they only spoke French. Oh wow. And then, and then my dad was transferred to Northern Michigan, the northern Peninsula of Michigan. We live by Lake Superior, uh, the little tiny branch, we didn’t own our own building. We, uh, rented, I don’t know if it’s a Methodist Protestant church building or something like that, um. And then my family moved to northern Minnesota. Again, we’re in a really small branch. We, we drove a long ways to get to church and my brothers and sisters and I, we were the only members of the church at the school that we went to, um, so yeah, my early years growing up, um, church was all about my family and You know, in Canada we had church in our living room because there were no members of the church at all. So, um, so yeah, church is very intertwined with family and those experiences of, of learning to love the Lord, you know, early in my life. And then my senior year of high school, my dad got transferred to Utah and I thought, oh yeah, I get to be around Mormons. This is gonna be so exciting. It wasn’t quite what I expected.

[04:52] Michelle: OK. In what ways just speak to that. Just you have this vision of, you have to share that because I think people experience that coming to BYU or other times,

[05:01] Colleen: yeah, living out in the mission field as, as a child, you know, when I got to get together with other members of the church, it was like. It was like Christmas, you know, we’d have these super Saturdays once a month where we’d, uh, the seminaries we had whole steady seminary and we’d get together once a month with all the other branches from Wisconsin all through Minnesota and we’d have dances and we’d have scripture chases and oh, I, I was committed to memorizing every single scripture, you know, every year with all the curriculum and I just Thrived in that environment and, and I thought I’m gonna go to Utah and there’s gonna be all these Mormons that love the gospel and take

[05:47] Michelle: it just as seriously as I do and

[05:49] Colleen: take it so seriously, yes, and I came in my senior year of high school, that’s a hard time to move, leaving everything you know and all of your friends and Um, everything that’s familiar and being in a small town in the woods with the, the trees and the lakes and the, you know, just out in nature and then going to the big city of Salt Lake and being in a school that Um, my, my graduating class had almost the same population or, or the same number of people as the population of the town I had left,

[06:24] Michelle: OK,

[06:25] Colleen: OK, and It Having seminary during school was a completely new experience and I was really excited to have that. Um, and there were some wonderful people that I met, um, you know. In in my high school class that were good members of the church and others that were good members of the church on Sunday and they weren’t at school and and when you live far away um out in the mission field you don’t see people that are not active or are not living the gospel because it’s such a sacrifice to get to church. Those that are there are so committed and so um. That was one thing I saw in Utah that the people that came uh to church were the same people that might be out drinking or, you know, or whatever,

[07:21] Michelle: yeah. There’s the cultural pressure here that there isn’t, and I, I don’t mean that in a way it is and it’s not as hard. So I think like, like I’ve often been told that my pre and my um experience as well has been some of the very best members of the church are from Utah and some of the, you know, there are a lot of others as well. So it’s

[07:42] Colleen: right, every, everywhere you go you’re gonna find the good and the bad. I just, you know, living out in the mission field, I didn’t see the bad. Yeah, it kind of shocked me as a youth to see that, you know, and And it felt kind of cliish. I remember, um, you know, sitting next to, uh, finding a lunch table that had someone I recognized from my new ward that was the Laurel president. And I sat at that table for, I don’t know, a month or two and tried to be part of the conversations, and they pretended like I wasn’t there. So I, I was kind of rejected. And, you know, I was used to being different from everyone else because it was because I was the only Mormon before, but now I was different from everyone else, and they were all Mormons, you know.

[08:35] Michelle: Oh yeah. OK.

[08:37] Colleen: So the ones that did accept me are the ones that were the Jack Mormons, you know, the ones. That would go up to the girl who got pregnant that year, that, you know, they, they were, they, they were very accepting of me. And I could still keep my standards because I was used to being with people that didn’t have my standards that were doing that stuff anyway, because that’s what I had experienced. It just was kind of a shock to me that that was what I experienced when I came. To find lots of members of the church. So, but I did, I did meet many, many people that were faithful members in my, in my graduating class that were very kind to me. I don’t, I don’t wanna make it sound like. Oh Mormons are terrible

[09:29] Michelle: and it’s different. It’s a different experience growing up and or and, and having both of those experiences would be really, really something. And so, so it must have been not too long after high school that you ended up getting married, was it?

[09:43] Colleen: Yes. So I, after my senior year of high school, I went to Rick’s College in Idaho. It’s now BYU Idaho. And then after one year there, I came home and, um, I got a job and stayed at home where my family was living and then ended up getting married. Do we, do we want to go into the story of how I got married?

[10:06] Michelle: Yeah, I think so. And I think

[10:08] Colleen: it’s, it’s a fun story.

[10:10] Michelle: Yeah, I wanna hear it. And I think it’s good, um, in your article, so you’re kind of filling in some details for me because you were so connected to your family. Like it was your church, your ward was kind of. If your family, right? And so, so that support system

[10:26] Colleen: was so. Well, yes, and I, and I’m a middle child of 7 children. And so I always had siblings and they were always my best friends as we moved, you know, from place to place, they were always there with me. It was that. That they were my security. They were my best friends. And literally, um, well, like when I was born, my, my sister was 3 years old and there my I had a brother that was 2 and a brother that was 1 and I was number 4. So my mom had. 4 children, 3 and under, all in diapers, you know, my, my oldest sister says she remembers changing my diapers when she was 3 years old. So, OK. Anyway, anyway, so yeah, my siblings are my best friends and it all starts with my oldest sister. Um she left our home in Minnesota to go to BYU and she had a roommate who happens to be a sister to my husband. And so my sister met my husband long before I did. She went to her roommate’s wedding reception down in Arizona and met my husband, and she said, you need to write to my sister. And my, my oldest sister Christy, she is extremely intuitive. And she just knows. People always go to her because they’re, you know, they’re like, Christy knows, she knows things, you know. So, uh, Christy told, uh, my husband, you need to write to my sister. And, uh, she went back to Arizona a few months later for Thanksgiving because Minnesota was way too far away for her to go from BYU to Minnesota for Thanksgiving, especially with, you know, winters in Minnesota. So she went to Arizona for Thanksgiving with her roommate’s family, and she said, Have you written to my sister yet? Here’s a piece of paper. You write to her while my sister’s kind of, you know, OK, start that letter now, and I still have that letter to this day, but um. So we were pen pals. I was about 16 years old at the time, living in Minnesota and he was living in Arizona, and we started riding and I guess my family moved to Utah then my senior year of high school, and he was uh getting ready to go on his mission and he came up to visit his sister and her husband in Salt Lake and decided he was gonna meet me in person, so he invited me out on a date and we had our first date and um. And then he left on his mission. And we wrote while he was on his mission. He had a girlfriend that was supposed to be waiting for him. I had a boy that I ended up dating uh for about a year and um he asked me to wait for him while he was on his mission. So both of us had other attachments and we were just friends and we were just riding. He was out on his mission during the time that missions were changed from 2 years to 18 months. I don’t know if you’re, do you, did you ever hear anything about that? You’re younger than I am, so I don’t know. OK,

[13:42] Michelle: I’ve heard just a little bit about it that it was a short term. They just did that for a little while, right? Yeah, OK.

[13:48] Colleen: And, and I, I remember feeling like. You know, looking back on that, I think it was because the Lord did that just for us. OK. You know, it just felt like there was no reason for that, and it only lasted for a little bit of time, but my husband’s mission president, um, told the missionaries, you don’t have a choice to stay out for 2 years. You have to go home. The prophet said, it’s 18 months, it’s 18 months, you’re going home. Um, and we hadn’t written for a couple of months, we kinda lost touch with each other and so, um, I didn’t know he was coming home, but um. I was I had had my year at Rick’s College. I was back home and I was working for the Utah Travel Council in Salt Lake City. I was giving tours of the Capitol building and, you know, helping tourists know what to do when they’re in Utah. Anyway, a fun job. But I woke up one morning and I just had this really strong impression. I was gonna see my future husband today. It’s just like, I’m gonna see my future husband today. I better make sure I look really good. And I just, I just couldn’t stop smiling and I was just like singing and, oh, I’m gonna see him today. I wonder who this is, you know? And I go to work and in between tours and stuff, I picked up a new era and I opened it up and there was an article on New Zealand in there. That’s where my husband had been serving his mission and so I’m like, Huh, I wonder how Elder Rogers is doing. And in he walked to the Capitol building.

[15:35] Michelle: You’re kidding.

[15:37] Colleen: And no, like, right? So I, and so I’m thinking in my head about all those feelings I had and he’s there and it was about lunchtime, so I invited him to go to lunch with me and so we went to lunch and then um My parents had tickets to go see a play, the best 2 years with Elder Rogers, you know, and so I invited him to come that night with my mom and dad. I don’t know why I was going to play with my mom and dad when, you know, I’m just a middle child of 7, and how did they have extra tickets for me to be able to, you know, I, I don’t know what kind of orchestration the Lord was doing behind the scenes, but obviously something was going on because we went to that play and um. Then that night as we, you know, he’s telling me goodbye on the front porch and talking to me. It was really hard to hear what he was saying because the whole time he was talking, I had these words going over in the, in my head. That’s the man you’re gonna marry. That’s the man you’re gonna marry. That’s the man you’re gonna marry. That’s the man you’re gonna marry. That’s the man you’re gonna marry. That’s the man you’re gonna marry, you know, just over and over and over again, I couldn’t even stop the voices in my head. Um, and he was asking me questions and talking to me, and um, what I didn’t know until after we got engaged was, um, he had had a dream on his mission just before he came home from his mission that he came to see me and I was wearing a ring on my finger. And he asked me about the ring. I was wearing a ring that night when we went to the best two years, and he asked me about the ring. And I answered exactly the same way I did in his dream. Well, I’m kind of supposed to sort of supposed to be waiting for a missionary, and he’s like, Well, you really ought to be sure about things like that. And anyway, it was the exact same conversation he had had in his dream. Well, while he was on his mission, and I didn’t know that. But in his dream, the next thing he knew we were married. So, um. You went back home to to Arizona and I was living in Utah. And we didn’t see each other again for, I don’t know, 6 months or something, you know, we had continued to write a few letters here and there, nothing big. Um, but then he came up to visit or I think it was New Year’s, New Year’s Eve, he had called and said, hey, I’m coming to Utah. Can we go out? And I said, yeah, sure, there’s a young adult dance New Year’s Eve. Let’s go together. And then that, that week that he was coming, um. I felt like every boy I had ever known or ever dated. Called me or contacted me or I had a date every night of every week. There were some days I had two dates and I just thought, you know, what is this? You know, it’s the Lord just trying to show me, here’s all your choices. You know which one I picked for you, but I’m gonna let you see everybody anyway. And So I didn’t have any time other than the one night for our dance, going to the young adult dance, and I had to say no to another guy to be able to go to that. But um he wanted to come over the next day and spend some more time with me and I told him, well, I’ve got a date, but you can come over and visit for a while. So he hung out with my family and I, and then when it was getting time for my date to come and pick me up. I had a phone call from another boy who was asking me out on a date. So I was, uh, this was not typical. This was not my normal life, OK? It’s this was not usual. So I’m on the phone with one boy. And my date is at the door, and my future husband’s sitting in my living room. And so I hang up and go shake my husband’s hand. Elder Rogers, it was so good to see you. Thank you for coming over to visit and I leave with my date. Um,

[20:04] Michelle: That in the fire under him, I bet like like I have the competition,

[20:09] Colleen: right, he knew that I had a date and everything. So I got home from my date that night. I walked into my house and my mom said, Colleen. You’re supposed to marry Lamar Rodgers. I’m like, I know. I don’t know how this is gonna happen. He lives 700 miles away and anyway. And he has a girlfriend and whatever anyway, so that there was that second witness from my mother and um

[20:43] Michelle: she ask at this point, did you feel in love with him? Were you like crazy about him or were you kind of just, I know that that is supposed to marry him.

[20:51] Colleen: I know that I’m supposed to marry him. It was I know that I’m supposed to marry him. I mean, he has beautiful blue eyes and yeah, yeah, he was very pleasant to look at and, yeah, there was some, you know, infatuation, Twitter painted. I don’t, I don’t know, but I didn’t know him well enough to be in love with him. I mean, I, I knew he loved the Lord and To me that was enough, you know, who cares about anything else? He loves the Lord. My mom had tried to keep him at my house till I got home from my date. She wouldn’t give him his coat. He was at my house the whole time I was on a date till 5 minutes before I got home. Oh no, so I had just missed him. Um, and then I didn’t see him again for another couple of months. He invited me to come to Arizona. So I got some of my college roommates together and we flew down to Arizona my first time in Arizona. February in Arizona is wonderful when you get frizzy, oh beautiful and this the citrus blossoms, the sunshine, everything was just gorgeous. So we went down to visit him and stayed at his house and um. We went for a walk on Sunday afternoon and maybe the first time we had ever even been alone. I think we had had 6 dates spread out over 3 years, so not much. Um, we went for a walk down by the Mesa Temple and he had it in his mind he was just gonna try and figure out how I felt about him. And the spirit told him to propose, and he did, and I accepted because I had known for 9 months or so that I was supposed to marry this man. So, so he was in shock and I was in shock. We came back to his house and he didn’t want to tell anybody till he had talked to my dad, so he called my dad up and asked permission and my dad was totally clueless. He’s like, who is this? Um, he had no idea. Anyway, so he just said, well, you asked her? Yeah, well, what did she say? Yes. Well, then, yes, I give my blessing and she said yes. So, and then two months later we were married and so I left, I left my family and I moved to Arizona and I didn’t know anyone there. I didn’t so that 2

[23:29] Michelle: months, that 2 month engagement, were you back in Utah and you back in Utah? OK, so you even had phone calls. OK,

[23:40] Colleen: so spread out over 3 years and some letters and now we’ve got a few phone calls going on. And yeah, it was an arranged marriage marriage by God.

[23:51] Michelle: OK,

[23:51] Colleen: the help

[23:51] Michelle: of

[23:51] Colleen: my sister with the help of.

[23:54] Michelle: So, OK, yeah, OK, so that’s why you were so, so when you because you wrote about when you went to Arizona being kind of in shock, like no foundation really of right, OK,

[24:07] Colleen: I think when we’re younger it our identity isn’t it kind of tied up with, with our family and And the people who know us, they, like, we kind of get our identity as a reflection back from the other people that know us, right? Especially when we’re young and no one knew me. His family didn’t know me. He didn’t know me, you know, I, you, I. I became a nameless um I don’t know. I don’t even know how to,

[24:41] Michelle: Lamar’s wife,

[24:42] Colleen: right? I was Lamar’s wife. We lived, we lived in, um. His parents’ backyard in an apartment went to his parents’ ward so where everyone knew him, where he had lived his entire life, and I was just Lamar’s wife. I had no other identity other than that’s who I am, and I didn’t even know what that meant and I totally lost my identity. I didn’t know who I was, um, and that was before the days of, you know. Internet or cell phones or we had snail mail, so we’d get a family letter that would go around to each of my siblings and they put their letter in and take their old letter out and they’d send it to the next one. So it’d take about 6 months to get around um before I’d get news from home and oh it was lonely. It was lonely. I remember crying myself to sleep at night because I was so. So homesick and so alone um just. Not having anybody that knows you, you know, and at that age, do we really know ourselves, you know, I don’t know. Some people might. I wasn’t, I wasn’t that secure at, I think that I married at 20 I don’t think I really, I thought I knew myself, but when you’re thrown into a completely different environment, um, without any security or um. Yeah,

[26:15] Michelle: yeah, nothing

[26:16] Colleen: familiar off balance for sure, that’s really off the balance.

[26:21] Michelle: Yeah, that’s really interesting because, yeah, I remember I got married at 20. Our stories in some way are a little, I, I felt like my marriage was arranged by the Lord as well. And so, but yeah, it was a little bit of a different story. Yeah. And, and, and, uh, and also, uh, difficult adjustment period, you know, cause it’s, but I wasn’t as far away from home as you were. And so, so that’s really, um, like I, I just, I relate to a lot of what you’re talking about. And I think in some ways maybe your um unique. Experience kind of set you up to not have the.

[26:55] Colleen: That this experience set me up for those future experiences,

[27:01] Michelle: and, and really if you’re married at 20, and I guess for most um young women who got married without serving a mission, our first experience at the temple was the day before we got married, right? And, and then you go and it’s the shell shock of like kind of weirdness, um, I, I, I, you know, and then, and then also you are. Just told some things about yourself as a woman. That that you’re trying, I, I was so much like you and just, I want to be so faithful. I wanna, you know, and, OK, that means obeying my husband, and that means looking to my husband as the spiritual leader and you know what I mean? Like, like we’re we’re not given a direct access to God. We’re given, we’re turned this way to, to rely on and it really That I just think that is a challenge for a lot of us anyway, and I know it’s different now, but I’m speaking about the experience that we had. So you,

[27:59] Colleen: yeah, what it was in the past, and my only desire was to be a good righteous woman to follow Christ and being told, what that means is to submit to a husband and to give your authority over and to um. Yeah, to allow him to rule over. Um, yeah, and I think I wrote in my paper that um Because of the wording in the temple and how it used to be. I mean, it was 1983 when I went through the temple, and the wording, you know, it was. It’s just problematic, you know, yeah, you know, anointed to hear our husband, not to hear God, um. And to, to be told that our husband is to rule over us and that we give ourselves to our husband and he doesn’t give himself to us and

[28:58] Michelle: We to his counsel’s

[29:01] Colleen: counsel,

[29:02] Michelle: right? Yeah, when we are young like this, and I like that you talked about identity because we’re trying to figure out who we are, and I don’t think you do know who you are at 2 because you don’t, I, I didn’t know what my talents were, my spiritual gifts, my weakness like, like I just wasn’t aware of it. I remember the first time I was, um, substituting in primary and speaking to the children and I was like. Oh, I have a talent for this. Do you, do you know what I mean? And that’s like, or, or, you know, you think you have in your mind what a good Mormon woman is based on the training you’ve had in young women and your little bit of experience in relief society. And I had in my mind what it meant to be a good woman, what I needed to be, right? And then you’re smacked in the face with Your weaknesses, your differences, your, you know, and, and, and the ways that you maybe don’t please your husband, I guess like I’ll just talk about because I’ve talked about it before in the podcast, but I have, I didn’t, I wasn’t diagnosed with ADD ADHD, but

[29:59] Colleen: it’s I haven’t been diagnosed with it either,

[30:02] Michelle: but I wasn’t diagnosed until my 5th child was a teenager. And he was diagnosed and so I was diagnosed in my 40s.

[30:10] Colleen: Yes, I had 40s. My children tell me I have ADHD. They’re the ones who diagnosed me. So

[30:15] Michelle: and how I explain it is like my brain, it, it doesn’t have like a default operating mechanism that keeps going like other people’s brains do, you know, like if I’m not. Actively thinking, where am I putting my keys? OK, I’m putting them there. Remember that that’s where I put them. Click, then I will not know. I, you know, and still to this day I lose things all, and that’s just one or if I’m out working in my garden, that’s the only thing I’m doing and I don’t have the ability to remember I’m supposed to be doing some, I’m supposed to go pick a child up, or do you know what I mean? But so what it meant was I had zero ability to keep a house clean and organized, and my husband’s mom is OCD and like very, um, you know, like she, she’s not OK if, if, if things aren’t facing the right way in the cabinet, you know? And, um, and so that was a shock, a culture shock to both of us. But, you know, and I guess I’m just using that example because I’ve used it before, but that really was one of the main things that made Me feel like I was not worthy. I, I was

[31:18] Colleen: not

[31:19] Michelle: enough. Yeah, I was just massively flawed and insufficient, not worthy of love, not right, because I wasn’t living up to the expectations of my husband, which meant I wasn’t living up to the expectations of God, which was also the expectation I had in my mind of what a good Mormon woman was and what it meant to have worth, right? And then you add to it, like how Awful my pregnancies were, how sick I would get, and then I, and I, I was such a good mom and such a good wife. Now as I look back, I’m like, I’ve been such a good wife, but I never felt like it, and I think in some ways my husband didn’t think that I was, you know, like. Because we weren’t speaking the same language and we didn’t have the same expectations. So sorry for the sidetrack, it’s just, it’s a painful setup,

[32:02] Colleen: not a sidetrack, not a sidetrack at all. This is the typical experience. I mean, I, I mean, I can’t say everybody has that experience, but it’s difficult. I, I think that there are more LDS women on antidepressants, antidepressants than any other, um. of society and I, I, I, I’ve actually seen studies and looked at where Utah has the highest um Prescriptions for antidepressants, it, it’s this toxic perfectionism we have this expectation that we put upon ourselves, um, unintentionally and, and what we get, you know, just from the culture and from mother-in-laws that our OCD in their house is always perfect and so we always feel like, oh, I’m never good enough, you know, I experienced that. I have a mother-in-law with lots of expectations and bless her heart, wonderful woman, but. I was never as good as she was, you know, I could never keep

[33:01] Michelle: well, and then our husbands think, why are you not like my mom like, what’s wrong with you? You know, you don’t love me. You’re not trying, you’re not, you know, uh-huh,

[33:13] Colleen: it just it’s hard. I remember when I Got married, my mother-in-law, um, teaching me how to pack lunches for my husband and, and how to fold his clothes and stuff like that. Um, yeah, the expectations, you know, we serve

[33:30] Michelle: them

[33:30] Colleen: at the judgment.

[33:32] Michelle: Yeah, and, and so I didn’t, I, I don’t want to like it’s not to criticize anymore, it’s just sharing our experience, right, like we’re talking about it casually, right, everyone’s just

[33:42] Colleen: trying their best, yeah, but, but how many. We’ve had on ourselves.

[33:49] Michelle: Yes. And how many nights of crying ourselves to sleep and how many days of what’s even the point? Why am I even doing this? Like why do I even have to keep going? Do you know what I mean? Like a, a real hopelessness and a desire to just not even have it continue, you know, like it, it does lead to that place too often.

[34:12] Colleen: It does, it does, and I, and I, I think that it sets us up for, um, you know, I don’t know if you wanna call it PTSD or complex trauma or something because um Because we go in, we go into this place of shame if I’m not enough. Um, I don’t know if you’ve read much of Berne Brown’s stuff, but she talks about shame and how it initiates, um, fight, flight or freeze, you know, it triggers our, our nervous system and um And I think that um. Experiences like that where the expectations and feeling like we never measure up um cause us to go into that. Well our nervous system is constantly wired and we’re just like, I gotta be perfect. I gotta be so good. I’ve got, uh, people are watching me. What are they gonna think of me? And I, I don’t know if I’m good enough and, and I think that shame, um, Grows the, the more we are silent and, and don’t talk about things and the more we have uh the self judgment or the more we’re listening to the judgment outside of ourselves, you know, other people’s voices that judgment from others and, and the. Yeah, and just having the silence, like the secrecy of our, our pain, um,

[35:42] Michelle: and our shame

[35:42] Colleen: yeah it gives it more power. Britney Brown talks about empathy and, and, um, talking about, you know, breaking the silence and the secrecy is what. Takes away the power from the shame. So that’s why I think this conversation is so important to have. Um, we need to be talking about these kind of things, um, and not just Sweeping them under the rug.

[36:13] Michelle: And I have to say I have to the other side because I’m certain that I contributed to other people’s shame because I also had the areas where I felt so good about myself, right? Like, like the things I, the, the calling. I was able to serve in really successfully and my family that I was raising so well in their matching dresses on Sunday and their little suits and ties looking all perfect and the way I was raising my children and do you know what I mean? Like

[36:41] Colleen: I like, yes, 100%.

[36:45] Michelle: Like, look at me, I’m the good Mormon mom combined with the, I’m So worthless. I’ll never measure up, right? But we all do.

[36:55] Colleen: That’s why we over overperform in those callings and how our children look and their hair has to be perfect and their outfits do have to be matching because that matters and they, we all have to be sitting so nice in church. It’s because we feel that, that lack of self-worth and we’re trying to prove it to ourselves and to everybody else that we’re worthy of Of love, of acceptance, whatever, right, yeah,

[37:26] Michelle: we are earning, we are earning our worth. We are earning our right to exist, right? And, and I, I do want to say this probably. Has probably exists just uh just societally everywhere, anywhere, do you know what I mean? I don’t want to be hard on our culture. I think in some ways we do get extra doses of it, you know,

[37:48] Colleen: and it was universal thing,

[37:49] Michelle: yeah, I, yeah, but I think it’s a little, it’s heightened, not even a little bit heightened, it’s very heightened in our culture in some ways, but at the same time, I do know that um. I also, like, I don’t want to be too hard on the church. I know you don’t either, because I also remember lessons going and like being taught beautiful ideas by older mothers that I, that totally became part of my home. And, you know, like, like that was, that was the good and the bad. So sometimes I would get great. Um, skills or great connections, and then other times they would have relief societies on all the best ways to organize your dish towels and all the best and, and, you know, and it was just like I don’t want to come and just feel bad about myself anymore, you know, so it’s, but we still go good and bad. I was at everything,

[38:39] Colleen: right? We got to get better. We’ve gotta try and perfect ourselves. But in all this perfecting of ourselves, are we somehow denying the atonement of Christ in some way? Absolutely

[38:51] Michelle: that’s I’ve been thinking about that as we’ve been talking that if the lessons were teaching us to love ourselves and maybe we’re doing better now,

[38:59] Colleen: but I think we are. I, I’ve, I’ve seen improvements. I mean, there’s still, but yes,

[39:05] Michelle: but teaching us to like things that I had to learn on my own from the Lord, right? Like to magnify my um. My strengths while trying to minimize my weaknesses rather than spending all my time on my weaknesses and learning to love one another and each other in our strengths and in our weaknesses and have empathy rather than judgment and all of those lessons that we need to apply to ourselves and to our fellow man. But anyway, let’s go back to your story so you can kind of, kind of take us through this, and I think I jumped ahead on to some extent.

[39:35] Colleen: Oh no, that’s fine, that’s fine, um. Yeah, I’m just trying to think, where do I want to go with my story. I, it, it was hard, those first. few decades were hard. I was, I was either pregnant or nursing or um for so many years, for so many, you understand, you have lots of children and The effect on our physical body and our emotional body and um our mind and our You know, your body doesn’t look the same anymore. You don’t feel the same anymore. You’re motherhood changes women, um. And fatherhood changes men, but motherhood changes women in far deeper ways, um, far deeper ways, and.

[40:25] Michelle: And when we’re not, right, when we’re not connected to our worth and trying to understand what’s my worth and all of a sudden, oh, is my physical appearance my worth because I don’t recognize this body I now have when I’m 8 months pregnant, right? Or this body that I now have after I’ve had 5 children, right? Like, am I still, do I still have worth, right? It’s trying to figure out. What our worth is,

[40:53] Colleen: what is my worth? And, and, and since we’re starting out kind of young, not really knowing our worth, and I wish that was something that’s taught more or wish, I think it’s taught, but Do we know how to internalize it and really get it into us, um. Until we have those experiences that challenge our worth, I don’t know if we can learn it, you know, thank goodness for experiences, right? They give us the wisdom. But yeah, as, as a young mother, um, I felt good about myself with being a mother most of the time, um. But it was hard in a lot of other areas. I, I felt impressed to home school my kids and um. And that was a challenging thing, living in Arizona and having a husband that didn’t think that was a good idea, and his family didn’t think it was, all of his family lived there, so I was with his family and um Yeah, it took me it took me a year of Trying to talk my husband into it because I couldn’t do it without my husband’s permission because I can’t do anything without my husband’s permission because I wanna be a good wife. I want to be Christlike. I want to be righteous, so I’m not gonna do anything if my husband doesn’t want me to do. It didn’t, didn’t matter that I felt within my very soul that it was the right thing to do, um, and that’s, that’s a problem, you know, if we are. Rejecting our own promptings, our own intuition, our own inner knowing, you know, I think that’s a gift that a lot of women have that inner knowing of what’s right and and what needs to be done and.

[42:44] Michelle: Particularly as a mother because you care so much. And yeah, and the, the weight of it because you’re like, I know that this is what my children need. I know, and not doing it is so painful because you are out of alignment with God and with your children, right? You’re Like that has to be an amount of

[43:05] Colleen: alignment. It does not feel good at all.

[43:10] Michelle: And then the combination of, wait, am I supposed to believe my answers, but I, how do I, like, how do I make this, you know, because for me, I’ve had those experiences with my bishop and my husband and my like, who has to be in line here for me to be able to follow God,

[43:25] Colleen: right? Well, and unfortunately, um. For me, and I don’t know if it happens for other women, I would guess it probably does. We, we go, I, I went to the place of it’s me that’s wrong. It’s not my husband that’s wrong. It’s not my bishop or my leaders that it’s, that are wrong. It’s me that’s wrong. Something’s wrong with me. I’m not hearing the Lord. I don’t, I So I really don’t even know how to hear the Lord. Apparently, apparently I, I’m not capable of revelation because what I’m feeling is opposite of what I’m being told by the men in authority over me, my church leaders and my husband, so it’s me, something’s wrong with me. So just more shame and I think that. That shame really disconnects us from God and our ability to receive answers and our ability to access the atonement if we are stuck believing the voice of the adversary that we can’t hear the Lord, we’re not, we must not be worthy to hear the Lord and that all of our thoughts and everything must be wrong. It blocks us from hearing the Lord. Yeah yeah it’s, it’s. Yeah, it just is a bad situation. Yeah. So I wish we would teach more, um, teach the, the young women to trust their gut instincts and the spirit, you know, and, and to, um, follow that even if it isn’t the same as what somebody’s told them in authority.

[45:12] Michelle: Yeah, that is such a challenge. And I think both men and women go through that. I’ve talked to men as well who have had their difficult experience of realizing, oh, it doesn’t align. It’s supposed to just line up perfectly like blocks stacked up my bishop, my state president, my area authority, the general authority, the prophet, God. They’re all going to say the same thing and it’s, you know, and it’s really hard to make sense of that when it’s not lined up perfectly, right?

[45:38] Colleen: And yeah, how about we heard that when things are directed by the spirit, it’s unanimous. So why is it not unanimous, right? Right in this whole line that you’re talking about. There that it’s all over the place. What are we supposed to do, you know, right?

[45:55] Michelle: How can we, uh, whose voice is correct, like Joseph Smith said, right, which are all of these voices try to, yeah, and I want to have compassion also for the men brought up in this because they, I know my dad was taught the old, um, like I think we’re making the connection that a lot of this is handed down to us from polygamy, right? And so we’re going to make those connections. I know that. All of it, but much of it is. And for the men, right? That’s your article, Remnants of Plymy. And for the men, they often were taught that they are the steward of their home. They are accountable for the behavior of their wife or their wives and their children, right? So for them, like, for them to go, oh my gosh, my wife is these ways and I can’t make her be different. And I feel like my worth is taking a hit

[46:45] Colleen: because if they like a failure.

[46:48] Michelle: And judgment is coming on them and they’re getting voices about, you know, and so, and this, we’re struggling as much as the only wife, you know, and I hear from men, how, how that’s why it’s so important to have more than one wife, so your wife can’t control you. But what they mean is, so your wife has no empowerment. It’s so that you can just punish the unfaithful wives and the faithful wives reward them. And, and I think that’s where this This competition between women and our lack of sense of worth and sense of identity gets revved up because this is handed down to us in our DNA and, you know, and, and in our training and in our culture that we have been, you know what I mean, we just get a double and triple dose of it because of where we are coming from as a people.

[47:38] Colleen: Yeah, well, I don’t know, I don’t know if you know much about the epigenetics, right? Yeah, yeah, like, so, yeah, um, people that had, um, ancestors that were in the concentration camps, Jewish people, they find the same, um, marker in their DNA for the trauma as if they lived through the concentration camp and it

[48:00] Michelle: felt incredible.

[48:03] Colleen: How many people in the church don’t have ancestors that came from polygamy? I think the majority of us have it in our DNA that trauma marker in the DNA. That I, I think that might be part of why we struggle so much as LDS women to have any sense of self-worth and values like we, you know, it’s, it makes it really hard, but polygamy in its very nature devalues women. I mean, because how can you share your husband with other women and not think. I’m not enough for my husband.

[48:41] Michelle: I, and what I realized

[48:43] Colleen: was I’m not on my own. I’m not enough.

[48:47] Michelle: Well, and then we bring in things like, well, speaking of epigenetics, I recommend the book The Body Keeps the score. That’s a really as well, yeah, and so that’s a good one to help us understand. But in your article you write about some of the painful judgments that you heard from women about your Figure or about your, you know, your boyish figure or whatever it would be. Do you want to, yeah,

[49:13] Colleen: sure, I’ll talk about. So I was serving in a release society president this one experience that I shared in my paper, and, um, you know, I was in charge of the meeting and there were women in the kitchen. Um, preparing the food, and I went to get them to come in for the opening prayer and I walked through that kitchen door, and a woman looked up and she said, I don’t know why Lamar married Colleen. She doesn’t have any butt or any boobs. And I just kinda Well, um, so she

[49:43] Michelle: didn’t know you were there. She, she said it was,

[49:45] Colleen: she knew I was there. She, she saw me walk in, so she, she was pointing out my, my complete lack of, I don’t

[49:55] Michelle: know if that’s better or worse,

[49:57] Colleen: like, but she is this, yeah, and no judgment for her. She’s someone who came. Um, from a background of trauma herself where there was a lot of criticism growing up and a lot of painful things, and I’m able to say that now, but that night when it happened, it was, it was just reinforcing um that my value is in my body and And my body is deficient. My body is deficient. And so how do I have value? If that, that’s the only thing men care about is a woman’s body, not about her mind or her thoughts or her feelings, but her body.

[50:39] Michelle: But there’s one kind of body that’s acceptable.

[50:42] Colleen: There’s only 11 acceptable body, and um.

[50:45] Michelle: Yeah I think it does. It again makes our work, so the thing that I wanted that that that where my mind goes to because when I really came to understand. Polygamy, where, where I was shocked at how naive I was, was what I didn’t understand about the experience of that because like he, like she said, I don’t know why Lamar married Colleen, right? But the fact is he did marry you and he was your husband. If your husband had other wives, Who had, do you know what I mean, if you’re actually competing with your husband, yeah, like then the inferiority, the insecurity, that I’m not enough, my house isn’t clean, and I’m actually competing for my husband’s love. Actually, directly, and I know that a lot of polygamists try not, you know, now try to do it better, but I know that like in like Brigham Young would name a daughter after that, you know, the men would name the babies when they would bless them. The moms didn’t choose the name. Yeah, and it was kind of a public either, um, compliment or a put down if if the father would name the baby after the mother. It was like this woman deserves to have a child named after her or this woman doesn’t deserve to have a child named after her.

[52:01] Colleen: I didn’t know that those

[52:03] Michelle: kinds of and I can’t speak that it’s universal, but I know that I have read different accounts of these of these things. And so when you recognize how hard it is for us to find our worth and to be equally yoked into to come to make marriage work where you both are invested equally as opposed to. The man has all of these has different wives, and the women are the are trying to compete for his love and what tools do you have, right, especially when you age out, when you get older and

[52:35] Colleen: and he’s talking. Yeah, no longer have children. What’s your worth anymore,

[52:39] Michelle: right? How does a 50 year old woman who’s who’s menopausal compete with the new 16 year old that her husband just married, right? Like, it’s, it’s devastating when you come to understand.

[52:51] Colleen: No way you can compete with that.

[52:53] Michelle: No. Like, and why does a 16 year old have to come into that, right? Like, like, it’s just It’s just horrible. So that’s why I think that we have this sense of what’s my worth so magnified is because we are, we are carrying the trauma of our ancestors. Our husbands are also carrying the trauma of our ancestors, and then our culture hasn’t yet grappled with this, you know, like. We haven’t yet adjusted it sufficiently,

[53:22] Colleen: not sufficiently, but we’re, we’re getting, we’re making a dent in it by, by using our voices and, you know, your, your platform, the 132 problems is, you know, by small and simple things or great things brought to pass, and I, I just see the Lord’s hand in this and I just thank him, you know, for having a hand in this, in bringing to light. So much of the darkness that has been experienced culturally for us that is still impacting us today, um. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we can’t, you can’t change something if you don’t know that it’s not it, and I think it has to be the women’s voices because they’re the ones that, um, not that the men aren’t carrying the pain, but um. It’s kind of the status quo for them is not so uncomfortable, right? Yeah, they, they aren’t even aware that things are imbalanced, you know, that, that they aren’t equally yoked. It, it, it’s, they just, not, not to be judgmental, and there are many men who are have awareness, but I think it’s a little bit harder for them to. To grasp that awareness of the imbalance and and the effect and impact it’s had on their wives, so. So yeah, I think it’s right that it’s the women that are standing up right now.

[54:54] Michelle: I, I also think that one of the problems that we have culturally and traditionally is a lack of women’s voices, right? Like how many years was it before a woman ever spoke publicly to men in general conference or, you know, like that’s our whole history. And just barely did women start giving prayers in general conference. So in a way, even the men who are awake, um, still women, women’s voices are absolutely essential talking about these issues like they’re at and about all issues, but this is an issue where I feel like God is bringing women’s voices forward. I’m so thankful for that.

[55:33] Colleen: Me too, and it well it It is, it’s not just a woman’s issue, but it is a woman’s issue, so it needs to be women’s voices. I mean, we’ve had so much of our lives where the men have been the spokesman, even for us that it

[55:48] Michelle: telling us who we are. I’m telling this

[55:50] Colleen: are, yeah, at the pulpit telling us how wonderful we are, and, and I remember just feeling like it’s kind of patronizing, like they’re patting me on the head and saying, oh yeah, you, everything’s OK, you’re just wonderful, we love you. And then why don’t I feel that, you know, it just, it felt, it felt hollow to me. There wasn’t anything to back it up because the reality was we aren’t equal. We aren’t allowed a voice. We are. I read something, um. I think it was from at last she said it and they were talking about how they are trying to make an effort and make girls a little bit more a part of things and, you know, that the boys get to pass the sacrament and you know, and so, well, let’s have the girls greet people at the door, you know, and, and there was a comment from a woman who said, We don’t need more work to do. We have enough work and we make more work for ourselves than we ought to be making for ourselves. What we need is a voice. It’s a voice that’s been missing, not the work. We are working, working, working all the time, and in so many of my callings, I felt like um. That was what I was doing. I was just. I’m not a slave, you know, that’s not the right word, but when you’re under the authority of men in leadership and they’re telling you what you can do and what you can’t do, and you’re just following orders that they don’t always, some are good at supporting, but I’ve had some callings where I haven’t been supported. I’ve been told what to do and then all the support is taken away and I, you know, work myself into um the nervous breakdown practically.

[57:41] Michelle: You know, I That’s where I wanted to go next to talk about because you have served in the you’ve been the president of every auxiliary.

[57:50] Colleen: release this at a young women’s primary president of all of them. I’ve served in state leadership. I’ve been a temple ordinance worker. I mean, I, I’ve done all of it and I’ve had some wonderful experiences and I’m so grateful and I wouldn’t be who I was without all those wonderful growing experiences, but they haven’t all been pleasant. Some of them were more damaging to my self-worth.

[58:13] Michelle: Uh, and I think that is such a challenge to, it just, it comes up for different people in different ways at different times, right? But again, these experiences need to be understood by, um, by our leaders. My state president has been so wonderful about bringing women’s voices in and you know, so I so appreciate the leaders that do that and I. And I, I wish there were more of that. I hope there will continue to be more of that and at the same time there is a structural problem as well that we need to recognize and acknowledge and deal with because so many and I’ll let you I’ll let you speak to this, but so many women who put their heart and soul into their calling only to be told. No, you can’t have that person you, you feel so inspired to have in that building, or you, I know, I, I mean, as the primary president, just a little taste of it, but like having nursery and primary workers be so low priority and you just go and they all of a sudden are called into something else that you didn’t even know and you. You don’t have people in the nursery and you have to wait weeks and months to get new, do you know what I mean? And you, you’re like, I

[59:19] Colleen: have communication. It’s not always communicated and you aren’t always allowed to be a part of the decisions for the organization that you lead.

[59:29] Michelle: Right, right. You’re just, you’re just subject to like, like I have my answer of who to call or, you know, or what this should be, but I can’t just act on it. I have to submit it to the men and then wait and then get their approval, wait on them. And sometimes it’s urgent or sometimes, you know, and so I have a lot more experience

[59:46] Colleen: than my children are in need. of consistent, loving teachers

[59:52] Michelle: and I’m sometimes on Sunday running to a class saying, can someone please come into this class because I don’t have anyone. Do do you know

[59:59] Colleen: like, oh yes, I have been there. Yeah,

[1:00:03] Michelle: I just have a little taste of it, but you have much more. So do you want to speak to that because I know a lot. A lot of women who are just these amazing women who are able to accomplish these things and serve in these callings and yet get more and more and more depleted as they are doing so much service

[1:00:21] Colleen: rather than being energized and filled with the spirit, they’re being beaten down sometimes, I guess. Yeah, I don’t, I I guess it’s in my paper. I can talk about it a little bit. I, I just don’t want to get too revealed anything that would be hurtful for anyone, you know. Um, I, I was called as a steak camp director. Um, I had just been released as a ward young women’s president, and, um, the previous camp director was just made a release society president in her ward and so it was a little bit of a Last minute, not, I mean, there was like, I don’t know, 4 months till girls camp, so um and they told me that I could make any changes I wanted to make and they set me apart and And some of the things that had been put in place beforehand, um, they had decided that the girls weren’t going to get to sleep with their ward members. They were gonna split them all up according to age, and I had prayed about that, and I knew the girls because I had been serving with the girls for years. None of the girls were comfortable sleeping with people they didn’t know. And not only in my own ward where I was familiar with, but the girls in the state. I, I was, I knew them all well enough, you know. And it wasn’t what they wanted. And um Anyway, and praying and pondering and uh the, the whole story of shepherds and hirelings um came to my mind that we need to have shepherds and not hirelings. We need to have places where people are comfortable. We need to have um the girls sleeping in the cabin with their mothers or the young women’s leaders where they’re known and where they, anyway. And so I brought it to uh. To the state leaders and asked, you know, if we could have it changed, and they said, well, we’ll take it to the high council and we’ll discuss it.

[1:02:34] Michelle: So again, I’m just gonna point out I’m sorry, this is a woman called by inspiration to serve young women. With your empathetic motherly connection saying I feel this need. I’m praying about it. I’m receiving inspiration and revelation and then I’m bringing that to my leaders and the council of men are going to talk

[1:02:54] Colleen: about men men behind closed doors without the input of a single young women’s president from any of the wards or even from the state young women’s presidency. Um, Right, and they came back and said, no, this is what we need to do. Well, and my husband was in leadership and I knew he was in those meetings and he said it wasn’t unanimous. And I’m like, see, it wasn’t directed by the spirit, you know, I’m like, Uh, but, but I, I was, I was still in such a wounded state. I, I couldn’t be in a place of power and say um, Yeah, I couldn’t stand up for myself and for the other young women, and instead I went to all the wards and tried to talk all the young women into this and try them how to be. To follow the leaders and support their leaders. So you, I did that. I got that and I have, I have been heartbroken about that ever since instead of teaching them to. To have their own revelation and to value their own feelings and their, their own thoughts and and with the, you know, the whole push for the youth to be in charge of their programs. How is it OK for men to decide what the girls are doing, you know?

[1:04:29] Michelle: And it’s something so intimate and so like the girls feeling safe and feeling comfortable where they’re, and you, so I just want to pause on this for a second because as a woman, you had decades of experience in leadership, right? Served in all of these callings and as a mother, you were really clued in and knew these girls, and you know the voice of the Lord. And so you, I, I just have to like process this because it’s so, it’s so symbolic of so much of this. You’ve received an answer on behalf of the young woman. You were called by inspiration.

[1:05:07] Colleen: I told no opportunity to follow through

[1:05:11] Michelle: and then you felt this is important and I know it’s so easy for people to hear this and say, oh why does it matter? which is probably why a lot of the high councilmen thought right this isn’t that big of a matter.

[1:05:22] Colleen: Yeah, well some of the boards are too small. They need to have more people, so let’s do it.

[1:05:27] Michelle: And we want the girls to make ties throughout the state and, you know, like they’re thinking in their way

[1:05:32] Colleen: logically for them coming from a place of logic,

[1:05:37] Michelle: so what should have happened, I just, I guess I’m just amazed by you. You had been taught that as a woman, and I relate to this, and it is, you cannot explain to people how painful it is when they haven’t experienced it. As a woman, we are taught. To be small, to, to magnify our calling, do all of the work we’re supposed to do, but when a leader is speaking, we’re listening. Right, that’s, that’s like, like I think that it’s, yeah, when, when the leader is telling us, they, they represent God. I’ve been told that by leaders. This person sitting across from you is a representative of Jesus Christ, so you listen to them just like you would listen to Jesus Christ, right? And, and they’re telling me something that is in my direct stewardship that goes exactly opposite what I know from

[1:06:25] Colleen: God. Contrary to everything you know.

[1:06:30] Michelle: And then you’re put in this. Awful situation of do I be a horrible bad woman and argue back or stand up, you know, like, I’m thinking of talks from different leaders, like, I think it was Elder Ballard that told us, we need your voices, but don’t speak too much. Do you know what I mean? Like,

[1:06:49] Colleen: don’t speak

[1:06:50] Michelle: too much. Yeah, like, what does that mean? You know? And so what

[1:06:54] Colleen: does that even mean? Yeah,

[1:06:56] Michelle: like you need my voice as long as it’s. And then I see, you know, and so as

[1:07:00] Colleen: long as my voice is saying, yes, sir, whatever you say, sir, yes, keep using your voice to say that, please, but don’t say anything contrary to what we’re telling you.

[1:07:11] Michelle: So you turned in without you didn’t have the ability to say, OK, this is what we need to do for camp. So I’m just letting you know this is the decision. You had to go in a submissive posture saying can we do this? And then it was taken from you.

[1:07:25] Colleen: And, and crying because I felt already. Almost unrighteous for questioning the decision the men had made, so I’m going in there and I’m shaking and I’m, you mean when you’re going to, when I’m going to talk to the state president to see if we can do something different, and I, I, I, I’m crying and I’m shaking and I’m like.

[1:07:52] Michelle: This is just not right,

[1:07:54] Colleen: begging. Begging for them to reconsider.

[1:07:59] Michelle: Oh my word. And so even with that, they were like, we will take it to the council of men. You can’t speak on behalf of what your inspiration is. I’ll say, oh, our count director’s feeling like this. Oh no, we think it’s better this way. That’s, you know what I mean? That was probably the decision. And then it comes back to you and you are not empowered enough to be able to say that’s not right, and this is my calling and this is how it needs to be. And then you would have to be the one

[1:08:27] Colleen: I

[1:08:27] Michelle: had to do to implement what you knew was wrong and would hurt the girls.

[1:08:32] Colleen: You just like the women in polygamy that went to teach the other women, this is right. This is what you have to do. This, ah, will save you if you allow your husband to marry more than one wife, then. Yeah, this, this is what you have to do if you want to be a righteous woman, you have to do this. So it’s the same experience happening today. It’s not with wives and polygamy, but the same pattern, you know, I did that. I was just like Eliza R Sau going out and talking to other women and. To polygamy, you know,

[1:09:13] Michelle: I’m thinking of, I’m thinking of the mothers. I’m thinking of my great, great, great grandmother, whose 17 year old was given away, right? Like the mothers in polygamy now that have to tell their daughters, like, please marry that 40 year old man because my salvation depends on it and yours does, right? That’s like. It’s mothers don’t want that for their daughters.

[1:09:36] Colleen: How is that different than what I experienced? It, it might have far less reaching consequences.

[1:09:43] Michelle: It’s not

[1:09:44] Colleen: does

[1:09:44] Michelle: it,

[1:09:45] Colleen: does it have far less reaching consequences? What did those young women learn from that experience? They learned you submit to the men. If the leaders have something that they tell you to do, even if you know you don’t want to do it and you feel it’s wrong, you do it anyway. I helped teach that.

[1:10:05] Michelle: Oh. And you’re teaching them your feelings don’t matter, your experience doesn’t matter, you feeling safe doesn’t matter. You, what you want doesn’t matter, right? Just like, because, oh, and then you, oh, Colleen, how, how about that,

[1:10:19] Colleen: how many of those young women have been sexually abused? I mean, statistically they say maybe one in every. 3 or 3, yeah, is that what they say 1 and I don’t know, but, but that’s, that’s like what’s known and reported. And when you live in a culture where um women are taught to give their authority over to men and not to question men. It, it grooms them to be abused, you know, if they have a man in a leadership position that’s over them, whether it’s a father or an uncle or a grandfather or, or a bishop or something, you know, things like that happen. I’m not saying men are bad at all. These are bad men that. That love to be in the church because the women are very submissive and the children are very submissive. I mean, it’s a great place for pedophiles because we’re taught to obey, you know, obey others rather than obeying that inner voice within ourselves. I mean, that’s a recipe for it

[1:11:23] Michelle: right?

[1:11:23] Colleen: All kinds of terrible stuff, right?

[1:11:25] Michelle: Yeah, we don’t have built into the structure checks and balances. We don’t have a way to protect ourselves, prevent that because also, you know, I’ve spoken about this before, but when bad things happen, like leaders are also in this structure where they have to obey their leaders and they have to, you know what I mean like. If your bishop doesn’t,

[1:11:45] Colleen: they’re tied to that same chain of authority, they have someone over them and they don’t get to always think for themselves. Yeah, it’s not just women, it’s men too. I mean, that,

[1:11:56] Michelle: yeah, it’s just women get it more directly because, because even in our relationship in our marriage, you know, that’s what we are so often. And I do think it’s gotten so much better, but still that experience you had wasn’t all that long ago, right?

[1:12:11] Colleen: It was, it wasn’t that long ago. It wasn’t that long ago. It was, yeah, um. You know, maybe 10 years ago, I don’t know.

[1:12:22] Michelle: So, so yeah, so those, those young women are all young moms now dealing with this still. Yeah,

[1:12:27] Colleen: my, my youngest daughter was um at girls camp that year and it was her last year of girls camp, and she’s 28 now,

[1:12:35] Michelle: so, OK, so she was the oldest,

[1:12:37] Colleen: yeah, she was in the oldest group, and yeah, that was another issue too that happened at the last minute. So like uh two weeks before girls camp started, um. I found out my daughter wasn’t going to be at girls camp for half the time. Girls camp is only 3 days long. And I had, at the very beginning of my calling, I had told all the male leaders. I don’t want the 4th year girls to go away on a super activity during girls camp. Take them the day before or the day after, but I think this is really important that we’re all together. We’re all on the same team. We all wear the same jersey. I don’t want, I want this unity. I’m really trying to build this, this deep unity was what I was feeling, you know, um. Our unity and our faith in God and everything and. And our last meeting we had before girls camp, my daughter came um from the room she was meeting in with the, you know, we separated for 1st year, 2 years, 3 years with their leaders that were with them, and my daughter came into the other room that I was in in tears and she said, Mom, I don’t get to be at girls camp with you. And it’s just like They approved this. I had it in writing and they approved it, and now they’re not doing it, and now I’ve got to rechange everything and camp is two weeks away. And I got home from that meeting and curled up in fetal position and cried the entire night and didn’t get a bit of sleep cause I thought, what am I doing this for? I mean, this is for my daughter and for all these other girls that I love, and they’re not getting to do anything they want to do. The men are controlling everything. They, and they didn’t let me have camp directors and they didn’t, they did away with the YCLs and so it was me and one other woman. And all of it, all of it, and they were controlling it all and, and undermining everything we were doing even at the last minute and it just It was so painful. It was so painful. Um, It took me a while to forgive some people with that experience and. And I’ve been able to and. Um, recognize they’re just functioning with the, the programming and the generational stuff that we have. They don’t know any better. They, they don’t realize the pain that it’s causing me. They don’t see me curling up in fetal position, rocking back and forth and not being able to sleep and, and my daughter crying and You know, they’re not seeing this stuff. They’re removed from it. They’re just in a place of control. They’re not in the trenches with us. They don’t know, but they don’t give us power to, to do anything about it in the trenches. And yeah, it was, it was not a good experience, but Just because I can forgive and, and offer them grace, I can offer them grace because I, I cannot survive without the grace of God. Absolutely, so I can give them grace and recognize they’re just like, but that doesn’t mean I can trust them. It doesn’t mean that I can. That I will ever, ever allow myself to be in a position where I do not use my voice and stand up for myself and for the girls ever again, never again. I thank goodness for that experience because would I ever be empowered this much had I not had that experience? So it. Yeah, so it was hard. I am who I am. I have wisdom and more power because of it.

[1:16:35] Michelle: Oh, I love it, and so what I’m thinking though is. The fact that you have grace and that you have grown from it also doesn’t mean that it’s OK, right? And that it can continue. And so

[1:16:49] Colleen: it cannot continue. It is not OK. It is OK.

[1:16:54] Michelle: Oh, I love it. And so that’s what I’m wanting to like, maybe we can kind of close out on this because I want to ask you two things. Look, some things I’m thinking is. It’s taken us this long to become empowered as women, and I look back at experiences I’ve had bumping up against this and tried to say, now, if I, if I could go take the place of my, you know, 30 year old self, or you know, what would I do? What would I counsel myself to do because the situations are still impossible. So, so I want to ask you that now like. Two questions. What would you have done if you could advise yourself now where you are healed and you are empowered? And then building on that, what can we do as women who maybe aren’t facing this situation right now, but to help this situation. to help inform and open the hearts and minds of leaders who maybe don’t see it right? because we we’ll get one really um careful inform aware leader like my current state president, but who knows what the next leader’s gonna be like, right? And then. And then we have all of these women having to learn the same painful experiences that we’ve had to learn. And so that’s what I want to know is, what would you have done differently if you could advise yourself? And then what can we as women now do to help, to help.

[1:18:13] Colleen: What a beautiful question. It’s beautiful. Um, my first thought, as you’re asking that, what would you do? Um, my thought was, I’d go back and be with her and hold her hand while she went to talk to the men, you know. Why, why do we have to be alone? Why do we have to be alone to face men?

[1:18:38] Michelle: Yes. Why is it an entire council and a presidency with one disempowered woman? Yes,

[1:18:46] Colleen: and I’ve been on so many councils and been the only woman in the room or one of 2 or 3 women, you know, and It isn’t enough, you know, we’ve, we’ve got to um be there for each other, um. To have, to have someone say, Um, you’re not wrong. For feeling that um things need to be different, you know, I don’t know, just like when, when you don’t have that um Emotional uh strength or fortitude within you, um. We need outside validation until we can get to the point where we can validate ourselves, and I’m at a place where I can validate for myself, but I wasn’t for so many decades to be there to validate um other women and to can we just be open and honest and authentic about what our experiences are. I think when we’re at church, we, we put on our very best faces and, and. It it’s that I’m fine, you know, everybody asks, oh, how are you today? I’m fine, I’m fine, you know, I’m fine, everything’s just fine. But is it fine, you know, but

[1:20:07] Michelle: we don’t want to be alive anymore. I mean, that’s traumatic, it’s often.

[1:20:12] Colleen: Absolutely. And I, I’ve been there. I’ve wanted to not be alive anymore. I never wanted to kill myself because I loved my children and wanted to continue raising my children, but But what kind of life is this? I don’t want to live this life. I don’t want to live this life. It is, it’s hell. It is hell, and I don’t like this hell. Why should I have to be in hell so that I can someday be in the celestial kingdom? So I mean, how many poly polygamist women thought that? So united we stand divided we fall. If there would have been enough women who banded together in those early days of the church. Um, Who would have empowered each other because they didn’t have enough power within themselves, um, the men would have not had power to control the women and, and abuse them in that way. And so I would say let’s be there for each other. Let’s, let’s try to be more aware of, of women who are in a position where they might not feel like they have. A voice, just the pretend voice, you know, they say, yes, you tell us what you think, but then we’ll make the decision and it doesn’t really matter what you think, you know. I don’t know, Michelle, what else can we do? What else is there? Do

[1:21:40] Michelle: you know what I’m thinking is that This, this kind of mentorship you’re talking about, what if women who are older and have had this experience could kind of start, you know, by inspiration, but contacting the, the women serving in those callings and saying, hey, I just want you to know I’ve, I’ve served in that calling. I’m here to talk anytime. I’ve had some of these experiences. And so if we can start establishing relationships of support with other women. So that they can kind of learn from where we are and that we can be, we can be the one they come to. Right, and then we can be the one to hold their hand and go say, OK, Bishop, I, I’ve been here and I need to talk. Do you know what I mean? Maybe we just need to step up and stop feeling like, can I ask for permission and just say, right, like right in this. To just be like, Bishop, I know this situation because I’ve been here and I just need to let you know how important this is, right? Like if there are more voices, um, I mean from a place of love and wisdom, right? Just to say, Bishop, I, I. I just need to let you know that this is an experience I’ve had in the past and this is what happened and what you know, like, like someone to be there to advocate and maybe it’s to do it.

[1:23:01] Colleen: We need advocates because, um, until women really come into their power and are, um, not stuck in that, um. Subservient, subservient, I’m not good enough, you know, all of those things that are part of the package, um. They can’t do it.

[1:23:23] Michelle: What if we had advocate

[1:23:25] Colleen: for themselves? Because I didn’t advocate for myself.

[1:23:29] Michelle: And you have so much experience. I weren’t young

[1:23:33] Colleen: all that experience. Yeah.

[1:23:36] Michelle: What if we had like, I’m just imagining if we had a relief society activity on how to advocate for ourselves as women in the church and how to advocate for others. We could have these sort of, um, You know, I can’t, like I can’t think of the word I’m looking for, but almost like, like women empowering women could become something that more of us could do and start setting up. You know, it would be amazing to have you come speak to our relief society, to our, you know what I mean, or even to our board is a 5th Sunday so the men can hear it too, right, right? Like if we start elevate anyone in a position to do this, we can start elevating women’s voices in these ways and

[1:24:21] Colleen: we’re not trying to be above, above the men. We just want to be. A an equal voice with the men, but isn’t, isn’t so what you’re talking about that right now, isn’t that kind of what um Joseph Smith had in my Borili Society when he established society. It was so the women could support each other and advocate for each other, uh, uh, to fight against polygamy. Right, because so many of these women were being seduced into this and thinking, I don’t have a voice. I don’t get to, you know, because

[1:24:58] Michelle: it’s the men that know God

[1:25:00] Colleen: that know God and the women just have to obey the men. And that’s what they have been taught, um, especially back in those days where women couldn’t even vote, they couldn’t own property. They, I mean, women were pretty much property anyway back then. So for Joseph Smith to give women that much power and say no, you guys stand up for yourselves and you guys support each other in standing up for yourselves, that’s I think the whole purpose of what release Society should be and I think we’ve gotten away from what it was um originally intended.

[1:25:35] Michelle: Yeah, I’ve said it before and, and again, no, no, um, this is not like a man bashing session at all because men are incredible and you know, it is challenging to come from this place of subservience to a place of equality, right? And I, and I, I will just throw in really fast, just part of the vision that I see that when I was experiencing a time with a bishop that was so, um, Abusive, you know, that was, that was so demoralizing to me. Yeah, and, and just realizing, oh, if his wife were here, this wouldn’t be happening. And it kind of opened me up to seeing this model of where husband and wife served together in equality where You know, we say we have a father of the ward. Well, why don’t we have a mother of

[1:26:22] Colleen: the mother of the ward and I the high council made up of peoples and wives together, meeting with the husbands and wives

[1:26:31] Michelle: together. Yes, and the presidency and then the all of it. The uh top leadership all the way up to father and mother all the way up to that’s the representation that is that’s the reality that’s what a family is that’s what a couple is and that’s what we should have in our leadership that’s at least in my, I don’t wanna, you know, I, I’m never saying this is what the church needs to be, but in my mind that. That’s what I was shown that I was like,

[1:27:00] Colleen: what’s the pattern that the Lord established the creation of the earth, right?

[1:27:05] Michelle: Adam and Eve, and it’s been that every time yoked.

[1:27:10] Colleen: It is from the very foundation of the earth, God’s plan was for equally yoked. Yes, gotten, you know, how can, how can we create Zion where we’re one heart and one mind when there’s all this. In biology and and uh Uh, like competition for our voices, you know, like we feel like we have to compete like like. You know, the women going swinging completely the other way where they get so, so feminist and so man bashing and so

[1:27:44] Michelle: right in in reaction, it’s reactionary.

[1:27:48] Colleen: It’s reactionary. What’s going to bring about the balance is people being courageous, you know, and

[1:27:54] Michelle: kind of like we’re talking about, yeah,

[1:27:57] Colleen: owning your, your own part in everything, being 100% accountable and recognizing. Oh, this wasn’t my husband’s fault or this wasn’t my bishop’s fault. Look at the part that I’m playing in this. Look at how I am, um. Allowing this,

[1:28:19] Michelle: yeah, I, I

[1:28:20] Colleen: we have to fight against it. It comes from a place of, of truly opening up our heart instead of having all the defensive energy trying to protect ourselves because it’s never safe. It’s never safe. I can’t be who I am. It’s not safe to be a woman. I, it’s not safe to use my voice. You take down all those defenses, you expose your heart and you come from a place of true honesty. We believe in being honest, true, right? And, and open yourself up and be vulnerable enough and say, This is what I’m experiencing and, and I am really hurt and I know it’s not your fault, but I can’t keep living this way because I don’t want to live anymore because this is what I’m experiencing. And when, when a heart is opened up to a man in that way, their natural God-given instinct kicks in. And they want to protect us and they want to help us. And they will step up and be who they need to be, but we as women have to be courageous and take down all the defenses that have been put up generationally because you know you can’t, you can’t feel anything if you’re in polygamy, you’ve got, you’ve got to completely disconnect from your husband, you know, generationally in our DNA we’ve got that. It’s time to stop it and open our hearts up and just be real and true and honest and Yeah, some men might not respond in a good way, and some men might have too many wounds of their own, and they might lash out and cause more trouble, but then that helps you know that maybe this isn’t a good situation for me, but in my case, it’s what saved my marriage. Um, you know, there were times that I would ask the Lord, why, why did you want to marry? Why did you want me to marry him? I am in so much pain, and this is not good for me, and I stuck it out, and the Lord helped me open my heart up so that we could have the relationship that he intended for us to have all along. But would, would we have been able to have it had I not gone through the pain and um We wouldn’t have had the growth, right? It’s, yeah, so let’s, let’s be honest with ourselves and with our, yeah, it starts with being honest with ourselves first. That’s what I had to do. And in my healing journey to get empowered, I had to start really looking deeply within myself and realizing, oh my goodness, I’m believing this or I’m, uh, or I’m feeling this, or I’m, you know, red and, and, and taking that to the Lord and. Lord, I know this isn’t true, but it, it is my truth. Can you please take this from me? I don’t want to keep carrying these, these lies and this dysfunction anymore, you know. It’s not a fast process usually. You’ve got to go through and you’ve got to, it’s like um. Cleaning out the attic, you know, go to, you know, you get up there and there’s, there’s spiders and there’s cobwebs and there’s boxes with stuff you had no idea. We’re up there. You don’t, you just open them up and you’re like, I have no idea what this stuff is, you know, you start unpacking all of your emotional stuff that You’ve been burying down, you know, that’s why we get depressed because we’re deeply pressing all those things because we’re not allowed to, to, we don’t give ourselves permission to feel angry or to feel sad or we, we just put on our happy faces and we’re good. Righteous women, and that’s what righteous women are supposed to look like. They’re supposed to always be happy and. So let’s, let’s start by being really honest with ourselves and then honest with each other as women in the release society and, and especially in our marriages, especially in our marriages. I think adversary, um. is very intent on keeping women carrying the the generational wounds of polygamy because it Is impacting and destroying their marriages today in this world, even though we’re not practicing polygamy. No, but. Yeah, it’s

[1:33:00] Michelle: time. Yeah, I love remnants. The remnants are still there, right? And

[1:33:05] Colleen: they are still there.

[1:33:07] Michelle: I think that’s what I think like one of the reasons God calls this an abomination, right? And I think it isn’t, it’s not just play, it’s the whole mindset surrounding it because all of these are downstream effects, right? Like God establishes this perfect covenantal relationship because of all of the implications of it going out everywhere. The adversary comes in and introduces this abominable perversion into it because of all of the downstream effects that can destroy everything. And so this mindset we have of needing to not like these false ideas. First of all, disconnect us from God, right? We can’t trust our own inspiration. We can’t feel our own worth. We can’t feel the love of God, right? And it disconnects us from ourselves. It’s not safe to feel my emotions. I just need to like keep sweet is the most, um, toxic stantiation of it, but it’s the same thing. It’s I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m gonna do my job, right, right. It’s like we’re kind of living our own version of that too often, right? And then. I, I know I was, yeah, yeah. And we’re separated from God, and then we’re separated from our husbands, right? And we’re separated from ourselves. And so we’re separated from our husbands because you were so open kind of talking about intimacy as well that you couldn’t connect. So there’s that sort of resentment that builds up,

[1:34:30] Colleen: right? Yeah, and as long as long as you have that, um, yeah, that the feelings of I’m not enough and I’m not allowed to. Yeah, all of that definitely has an impact on, on intimacy and um dysfunction and yeah, just.

[1:34:50] Michelle: Layers and layers and layers right and so, so that’s how we undo it is that we start like what you’re saying like we need to reconnect with God. And reconnect so that we can reconnect with ourselves, right? So that we can reconnect with our husbands. And that’s kind of the process we have to go through is to have God show us our worth. That’s how I learned my worth was having God explained to me time again and again, like, like with my house, you know, God had to just. Tell me that’s not why you’re here. That’s not your purpose and you’re

[1:35:27] Colleen: doing judging me on that. Don’t judge yourself on that, right? That’s not going to judge us on that.

[1:35:33] Michelle: I remember the first time I walked into someone’s house of someone that I admired and they had a sign on the door that said, if you’re coming to see me, welcome. If you’re coming to see my house, make an appointment. And it was like. It was so joyful to me to be like, oh, someone else, and they’re speaking it. Do you know what I mean? It’s not just the shame of, of don’t come to my house because that’ll cause me way too much stress because I, I also had 4 children in diapers. I like, like, like, 2 boys 18 months apart and 18 months later I had twin girls. And so I had 4 in diapers and, you know, and then just babies and, and then, you know. Anyway, it’s been such a challenge, right? And then all of our other things as well, and always my husband getting the callings that he needs to be of worth? Am I getting the callings that I need? Am I Doing enough, I’m like, oh, you know, like all of that that we’re doing trying to connect to God, but it’s the wrong, it, it’s like

[1:36:25] Colleen: going about it the wrong way. If I get calling, then maybe, then maybe God will approve of me. Maybe that a relationship with God. Or if my husband gets the right calling, then maybe I’ll feel maybe I have worth because, you know, they say behind every good man is a good woman. Oh, my husband’s a bishop. That means I’m a. Be a good woman. Finally, I have worth and value,

[1:36:46] Michelle: right? But then what it actually does is take your husband away from you even more in so many ways, right? And create things he can’t tell you and then more, I, I mean, I mean, like, it’s just challenging. We have to get our worth from God. We have to have our connection to God. And then we have, and then we can see ourselves that, right? That’s the only, that’s the only path that I was just saying it’s it’s like Lehi following the man. The white robe until he is in a barren wasteland and exhausted, and it’s been hours and he pleads out for mercy. That’s what we’re doing, right? We are like,

[1:37:20] Colleen: for mercy.

[1:37:21] Michelle: Yeah, like I need the right.

[1:37:24] Colleen: I remember times pleading, you know, and asking the Lord, what lack I yet? I’ve been working for years and years. Where are you? How come I’m not healed yet, you know, and not, not really feeling that connection. But I still had parts inside me that I was rejecting that I wasn’t loving and when we don’t love ourselves and we reject a part of ourselves, it makes it really hard for us to receive the Lord. He’s still there. He’s still, you know, all the time and say, Where are you? Where are you? I need you right now. Can’t you see how much I’m suffering, but because parts of me were saying I’m not worthy. Of God’s help. I’m not good enough. I haven’t perfected myself enough yet. He couldn’t reach me. He was trying and trying. So I think, I think that element of learning to love and accept ourselves and all of our weaknesses is crucial in order to be able to finally receive the Lord’s love. You know,

[1:38:21] Michelle: I wonder, I might, I might disagree with you a little bit on that because for me, yeah, for me, the process was actually feeling, um, God’s love in order to be able to love myself. Do you know what I mean? Like,

[1:38:33] Colleen: I can’t get it for myself. I need you to give me it’s not there,

[1:38:40] Michelle: right? God’s. To show me my worth and what I bring to this world that is of so much value, even if I just can see what I lack, right? And

[1:38:50] Colleen: I, yeah, I absolutely can see that. And I’m sure that was a big part of my healing as well. He was there and giving me that love and I was feeling it. Um, but when you’re still, when you, when you’ve got complex trauma going on, and your brain gets triggered and you’re in that fight, flight or freeze, and then you’re saying, Lord, where are you when you’re in that state? You can’t receive in that state. Be still know that I am God. When your nervous system is not still, you can’t know God. You can’t receive that love he’s trying to give you, so. You gotta take it when you’re not in the fight flight or freeze, right?

[1:39:30] Michelle: And still reach out to God, but like I’m I’m

[1:39:32] Colleen: still

[1:39:33] Michelle: with

[1:39:33] Colleen: patience,

[1:39:35] Michelle: knowing God is gonna show up as soon as I’m able to, you know, like right now, yeah,

[1:39:41] Colleen: but maybe having the conversations, you know, to let people know, you know, some of the times when you feel like you can’t feel God. Um, he is there. Maybe let’s calm down the nervous system so you can breathe. Let’s breathe, uh-huh,

[1:39:59] Michelle: just because that’s the other challenge is I, I don’t think I’m the only woman. You said the same thing that I blame myself, right? If I’m having this negative interaction with my bishop, what did I do wrong? How am I wrong, right? And so, so I think what I’m taking away from this that I kind of want to be like our marching orders, you know, we need like, I don’t know what the term is, but we need fairy godmothers in the church. More and more of that, more and more of these women,

[1:40:27] Colleen: more bippity boppity boo. We,

[1:40:29] Michelle: we need like, like women reaching out to other women. And connecting in these ways where we can let our experience and the lessons we’ve learned empower other women who might be struggling, right? Even if it’s like, like whatever it might be, we just had our primary program and our darling. I love it every time I’m so thankful that it’s in the church, you know, because it’s been close calls for me a couple of times. But that our primary. The President just barely had her 6th baby. This darling, darling mother and woman in our ward, you know, she hasn’t been in our ward just gave birth. Yeah, and she’s doing the primary, and I just was like, I was like so amazed by her and so heartbroken, you know, and and and I guess I kind of like I, I, I tried to give words of encouragement and tried to To not be a big of a problem because I’m always feeling overwhelmed too. But I hope that we can be actively reaching out and saying, how can I help with your children or what, you know, like, can, can, do you have time to talk and we can kind of see how you’re doing. Do you know what I mean? Like, like, we have to follow inspiration because it has to be put together by the Lord. Because also we can come over as just overbearing women that know everything and are gonna go tell another woman how she has to do it, right? Like, like, like I just am thinking that if we are Wanting and telling the Lord we want opportunities to help with this situation because of what we have learned, the Lord will open up

[1:42:02] Colleen: ways, right, saying, Lord, we want to help. Please open the way. I, I remember, I remember an experience in the temple and the celestial room one time many, many years ago, and a woman in our state came up to me and said, You’re doing a good enough job. Don’t worry. And I know the Lord sent her to me. You know, we need more, we need more of that. We need to be going and, and, and we need to be observant to to those seeing the women that look like they’re not doing good enough and say it’s enough. The Lord is pleased with what you’re doing even though you feel like it’s not enough. It is. Because yes, it’s enough and and that was, that was literally decades ago when all of my children were young and I was homeschooling my children and just feeling so inadequate and this woman came and said it’s enough, you’re doing a good enough job, you know, and Oh yeah, little things by small and simple things are great things brought to pass and like the time I was new in Arizona and nobody knew me and we had moved to a new ward, um. And the 2nd Sunday we were there and I was walking into release society and this lady shook my hand and she said, hello Colleen. And I felt like it was the first time in my, uh, 4 years of marriage somebody knew my name, you know, can we, can we learn the women’s names? Can we call them by name? Can we say, I see you? Can I, can we say that? Let’s be there for each other. I see you. You’re doing a really good job. I know you don’t think you are, but

[1:43:43] Michelle: you are. And that, oh my gosh, so all of us as we heal. We stopped competing. I don’t feel an ounce of

[1:43:52] Colleen: competitive anymore,

[1:43:54] Michelle: you know, and in some ways, maybe it’s made me a worse mom because like I’m, I’m so tired. I, after so many years, like, honestly, Saturday nights I cried myself to sleep. Every Saturday night knowing what I had to do the next morning to get all my kids to church

[1:44:13] Colleen: it’s overwhelming.

[1:44:16] Michelle: It is so difficult and so now it’s kind of like Oh, you can’t find other church shoe. OK, sneakers. Do you know what I mean? Like I’m, I’m like, oh, you can comb your hair. Uh, OK, you know,

[1:44:29] Colleen: buttoned wrong on the wrong button

[1:44:35] Michelle: or whatever like that, like, yeah, I’m not, I’m not, you know, my kids, I mean we still, we still, I do what brings me joy, but I don’t feel pressure, right, and I’m not competing. And I think it’s such a more joyful way to be. And so we can encourage, like, I guess that’s the encouragement is for all of the women like, like, let’s connect to God and connect to ourselves, connect to our spouse and connect to the other women and, and heal these heal these competitive insecurities.

[1:45:04] Colleen: Being being real will help eliminate the insecurity and the shame and, and just being. You know, real and honest, I remember a lady giving a chocolate in church one time and she was so stressed getting ready for church. She got there and she’s sitting up on the stand and she realized she had two different shoes on, you know. And she, she told us all, you know, uh, my shoes don’t even match today, and I just thought, that is just beautiful. Yeah, you don’t have to be perfect. The Lord says as you are, just come to me. I’m here. I’m not expecting you to have every hair in place and the perfect shoes and the perfect outfit and the perfectly behaved children and Just come, just, uh,

[1:45:53] Michelle: change the mindset from trying to impress one another to trying to serve and love one another, right? Forget

[1:46:00] Colleen: ourselves and, and try, try to change the The mindset of. My worth is dependent on how. And anything see me, yeah, right, on how others see my home, on how others see my children, or, or whatever. It doesn’t matter. That’s not where our worth comes from, whether even if it’s not coming from a place of competition, if it’s coming from a place of I’ve got to prove to myself that I am good enough by doing all this stuff, all this toxic perfectionism. Yeah, no, let’s, let’s, let’s see if we can stop that. That’s not gonna be an easy thing. It’s, I don’t know, at least for me, it’s very, um, ingrained in me. I still, I still find myself always trying to put my best, uh, forward, and I think, is it because I want, you know, what am I trying to impress other people or am I trained to impress myself? I don’t know. Anyway, yes.

[1:47:05] Michelle: Yeah, that’s OK. So that, that’s our for, and I, that’s our, that’s our,

[1:47:09] Colleen: our work, right? Yeah, this is our work. It’s always good to have some homework and say, OK, women or men who are watching this podcast, you know, let’s start being honest and, and not, um.

[1:47:24] Michelle: And you know, yeah, I, I quit. I

[1:47:26] Colleen: quit trying to impress each other. Let’s just be authentic, real, loving, you know, body of Christ. Just let’s watch together to try, try and create insight because we can’t do it. We can’t do it without the men. The men can’t do it without us. We just hate each other. We’re not trying to. Put anybody above anybody else.

[1:47:48] Michelle: No, and I often, I do have to give a shout out. I know we’re wrapping up, but men have, have reached out to me actually somewhat regularly and tell me I’m not giving enough voices to the men. And I’m not, and I recognize that men are so essential. And it is true. There is a, um, like men’s voices matter so. They have so much impact. They’re so outsized. And so men also have like a man telling a young mother, you are doing an amazing job. What you are doing is enough is huge,

[1:48:26] Colleen: right? Whoa, yeah, yeah, we’re talking to us women being there, but yes, so for the men watching, can you please, because I. guarantee you 90% of the women at least, are not feeling like they are enough and they need to hear from their husbands or from their brothers or, you know.

[1:48:44] Michelle: And, and also mentoring the men, right? Mentoring like people who have served as bishops. Like, I, I remember a story when I was a newlywed and it was a tough transition and I had one baby and I I was at the grocery store and I was backing out the car that my husband had just got and I bumped into the car next to me, you know, dented the car and And so drove home and, you know, so devastating. And, and I, I, my, my father-in-law happened to visit that day and, um, and he said to my husband, my husband told me later, actually, he said something like, I hope you are loving to your new bride, you know, just like, like he kind of was saying, yeah, like saying to my husband, you know, my husband let me know that. That he had said to him like she dented the car but she matters more than the car, right? And that kind of mentoring is worth so much, right? I seeing the person, seeing the relationship. And so I guess that’s what we are

[1:49:48] Colleen: open our eyes and see each other.

[1:49:51] Michelle: That’s it. This is

[1:49:52] Colleen: just without judgment. Let’s judgment, that same judgment with which we judge shall we be judged. I do not want to be judged harshly, so. I, I don’t judge people anymore so much. I try not to, you know, but

[1:50:07] Michelle: this is a new, this is a new mindset for me actually to think about how I can actively be opening my, you know, how if we pray for missionary opportunities, we’re going to receive them. If we are praying to have experiences to do family history, we’re going to receive experiences. Right, so if we are praying for eyes to see and opportunities to empower women and men in this system to try to mitigate the imbalance to whatever degree we can, right? If you, if you like part of your taking ownership, I guess, you went to that state leadership and asked for per. Right? I wonder what would have happened if you had been in a place to go to that state president and inform them of what you were going to do so that he could go inform the high council. That would have been a different to

[1:50:55] Colleen: ask permission. I’m here to tell you the Lord told me this, this is what we’re going to do.

[1:51:03] Michelle: Right, even if I were to say, oh, president, we’re changing around, we’re doing it this way, right? And you could say, oh, I’ll take it to the state council and see what they think. And you, oh no, you can just let them know because this is what we’re doing. Do you know what I mean that

[1:51:16] Colleen: like I just never would have, it never would have dawned on me that I could do that.

[1:51:20] Michelle: So I don’t think he would have been affected, right? Probably it’s like it’s just if we expect it’s like if you expect your children to obey, you just show up and you know and expect them to obey and they’re more likely to obey. So anyway, yeah,

[1:51:33] Colleen: yeah, trust your children to make good decisions and Statistically they make better decisions when you trust them. You trust the women to make good decisions in their callings. Statistically they’ll make better decisions. And just like with raising children, you know, oh well, they made a mistake. Now they’ve learned and they’ve got experience and wisdom. So let the women take. Over their callings and do them and then they make a mistake. Oh well, you know,

[1:51:58] Michelle: and are the women less any more likely to make a mistake than the men are, you know what I mean like, like what it really is the risk? It’s just a matter of letting go of power and women into our power, right? Letting like stepping into our power and And helping everyone do this so we can start. I really think so much of these changes bubble up from right like changes happen, um, in government as a result of culture, right? And so as we are the change and we start letting it bubble up from us and we start spreading that, it will change the culture and eventually will change the structure as well I

[1:52:34] Colleen: believe. I believe that too, you know, I, I think there’s hope. Yes, oh so much. Yes. You know, I, I, I just, I look at my life and where it is now, where it used to be and where it’s now, and I think, yeah, there’s no reason not to hope and there’s no reason not to work for better, um, because the difference when you work for better is. Oh, life is so much better. Yeah, yeah, you, it can happen.

[1:53:03] Michelle: I love it. OK, I have loved talking to you. I hope, thank you so much again,

[1:53:09] Colleen: Michelle. Thank you. Thank you so very much for um having a platform where these things can be discussed so that um we are, we are making some ripples and they will go out and change will happen a little here and a little there and yeah.

[1:53:28] Michelle: And I hope, I hope everyone will go to the blog and read Remnants of Polygamy. It’s, it’s published in other places as well, but you have to pay to read it. So Colby was so sweet to say, let’s put on the 132 Problems blog so people can read it without a paywall. And it is worth reading and reading together as couples, maybe, you know what I mean, sending to a leader if you’re struggling, this is a good tool to help spread this message that we’re talking about that is so essential.

[1:53:56] Colleen: I think that’s wonderful. Thank you,

[1:53:58] Michelle: Michelle. Thank you. Thank you everyone for joining us. We’ll see you next time. Another huge thank you to Colleen and to all of you for joining in. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your support, your prayers, you’re continuing to stick with me as we dive into these things. I have some other big topics that I’m getting into as always, so please keep checking in, and I will see you next time.