Taking Off the Armor

A lifetime Mormon writing about her spiritual upheaval

Spiritual Upheaval.

Dreams & Torments. 2021. Acrylics on canvas, 16x20

“I am so frustrated, sad, angry, pained, upset, fragile, confused at my church. I am agitated. Spiritually agitated. I don't know what to do. I don’t trust myself to know things spiritually independently outside of my church context. The crappy shit the leaders say, the policies, the hurt, the shame, How much longer can I hold on to the church, being so conflicted and confused by it? How much anguish can I handle? What does God want me to do? Is He listening? Does He understand my pain and confusion? What am I to do?”

I wrote those words on September 10, 2021. 

I have been a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) for my whole life. The church is my spiritual foundation. Up until my painful spiritual upheaval that started a few years ago, I was a true blue believing member. A Molly Mormon. Fully in. 

And then my spirit was bruised, traumatized and shattered.

I didn’t want this anger. I didn’t want to be mad at my church. I had no idea what to do with these feelings and I was scared to share them with anyone. To be honest, I still feel like I am in a storm-tossed sea. I’m figuring out how to stay in the boat. My writing isn’t about bashing the Mormon Church, but I need to be real about the complexity of being a Mormon who believes AND has serious inner conflicts about the church. In this platform, I am going to write about religious trauma, expanding spirituality, staying in the Mormon boat, mental health, being a parent of queer kids, connecting to ancestors, health challenges, despair and grief. I have created many paintings and collages as a way to deal with the heaviness of it all, so I will share those also. And they aren’t pretty. 

I have put on a heavy load of self-protective armor for a long time. And it’s coming off. Brene Brown said, “[the armor] is not protecting you, it's keeping you from being heard and seen by others.”

If this all sounds like something you’d like to read and follow, please subscribe. I will publish a new chapter each week. Feel free to comment on the posts. 

It seems like the best way to get this all started is to talk about, well, my beginning…

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