Family is one of the most fundamental aspects of human existence. From birth forward, we’re often indoctrinated to embrace the values and priorities prized by our parents and caregivers. In many foundational arenas—from religious and spiritual beliefs to social and political norms—our families and intergenerational patterns have a profound influence on our lives. Yet, from Dr. Carla’s personal and professional experience, she’s found that our beliefs and needs often change as we mature and explore who we are as individuals. Ideally, those we love choose to support and honor our chosen personal identities and belief systems, but, sadly, many families are torn apart as differences arise. It seems that love cannot always conquer all.

Join Dr. Carla and expert Lyn Smith Gregory for a captivating exploration into the heart of family estrangement, individuation, and healthy connection. Topics discussed include boundaries, rebuilding relationships, divorce, estrangement, healthy communication, emotional intelligence, spiritual and religious transitions, trauma, political differences, gender identity, sexual orientation, and individuation.

Please note that this episode contains sensitive material; listener discretion is advised. Note: If you or someone you know needs immediate support, please call your emergency services.

 

Get the help you need:

https://www.nami.org

https://www.ncfr.org/resources/resource-collections/support-resources-lgbtq-individuals-and-families

 

Books by Dr. Carla Manly:

Date Smart: Transform Your Relationships and Love Fearlessly

Joy From Fear: Create the Life of Your Dreams by Making Fear Your Friend

Aging Joyfully: A Woman’s Guide to Optimal Health, Relationships, and Fulfillment for Her 50s and Beyond

The Joy of Imperfect Love: The Art of Creating Healthy, Securely Attached Relationships

 

Connect with Dr. Carla Manly:

Website: https://www.drcarlamanly.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drcarlamanly

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/drcarlamanly

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drcarlamanly

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carla-marie-manly-8682362b

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dr.carlamariemanly8543

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dr_carla_manly

 

Book by Lyn Smith Gregory:

We Were Smiths: Escaping the Shadow of Joseph Smith’s Mormon Legacy

 

Connect with Lyn Smith Gregory:

Website: https://lynsmithgregory.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lynsmithgregory

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lyn.s.gregory.9

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyn-smith-gregory-773b7b7a

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW7sel_-sBP6Y100HOGKA2A

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Watch the episode here

 

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Healing Family Rifts by Embracing Love, Respect, and Boundaries with Expert Lyn Smith Gregory

Creating Healthy Dynamics to Heal Family Estrangement!

Introduction

Even as small children, we’re often indoctrinated to embrace the values and priorities prized by our parents and caregivers. From religious and spiritual beliefs to social and political norms, our families and intergenerational patterns have a profound influence on our lives. Yet from my personal and professional experience, I found that our beliefs and needs often change as we mature and explore who we are as individuals. Ideally, those we love choose to support and honor our chosen personal identities and belief systems. Sadly, many families are torn apart as differences arise. It seems that love cannot always conquer all.

In this episode, we’ll focus on this listener’s real-life question: “My family has become torn apart by lots of issues like religious and political differences. My sister hasn’t talked to my parents after a few huge fights about politics. My brother who is gay and exploring his gender identity was kicked out of the family because of my super-religious parents. They freaked when he came out. I still talked to both my siblings, but I felt stuck in the middle. It’s so stressful. Any tips on how to navigate this sticky mess?” With that question as the focus of this episode, I’m Dr. Carla Marie Manly and this is Imperfect Love.

Please note this episode contains sensitive information. Listener discretion is advised. If you need support, please see the special links in the show notes.

 

 

I’m joined by a very special guest Lyn Smith Gregory who will be sharing her expertise on family estrangement, trauma, and the complexities of transitioning away from family belief systems. Welcome to the show, Lynn. It’s such a pleasure to have you with us.

It’s a pleasure to be with you. I’m excited about our discussion.

I am excited as well because you have quite an intriguing personal history. While we won’t focus on the religious aspect of it, which certainly comes into play as we talk, we will be focusing on the issue of family estrangement and how difficult that is on overall well-being, from physical health to mental health to spiritual health. It can be quite devastating, can’t it?

It can. I have a great deal of experience with both religious trauma and family estrangement. I’m excited about what you share with your audience about ways that we can bridge the gap when this occurs in our families of origin.

Lyn’s Story

Thank you. I’m so pleased that we’re going to launch into that very deep and often sad topic. Before we do that, could you tell our audience a little bit about what makes you you?

I’m a writer and author of an upcoming book about my experience and my family’s experience where we were divided by religious differences. I’m also a wife and a mother of three children. I split my time between the mountains of North Carolina in the summer, and the rest of the time, I spent in Savannah Georgia, a beautiful little historic town.

It sounds beautiful in both locations, Savannah and then the mountains of North Carolina. All that green. Thank you for sharing some of your background. I already said that we’re not going to go into maligning any political or religious sector here. That’s not what we’re about. We’re about describing issues and getting to root causes so that we can all understand each other a little bit more. You might be fascinated by Lyn’s history. You’re related to Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

It’s part of my family heritage and an important way that I identify myself. I was special because I was related to this famous person in my community and in my church. It was a big part of the family identity. When I left the church at nineteen, it created a big surprise for my family and a problem for how we see ourselves now. I no longer believed what the rest of my family believed. I felt very much not a part of things and not a part of my family. By leaving the church, I was afraid I was bringing shame to the family.

I went so far as to leave Utah and move to New York City so that I wouldn’t embarrass my family with my heretical departure. I remained estranged. I’d go home once a year for a very challenging visit at Christmas time. In between those visits, I would get letters and phone calls from my Mormon brothers and sisters and my mother, intriguing me to return to the faith. It made it uncomfortable for me. I felt like I had to choose between freedom, autonomy, and what I believed to be true and upsetting my family.

This continued for quite some time with me not understanding how to get past this impasse. There was a crisis in the family. Eventually, a couple more of my brothers and sisters also left the church. This gave me more people in my camp so to speak. It split the family in half, believers and non-believers. My parents took sides and divorced over it. Now we had a bigger gap between us. Whose camp are you in, my mother who was still religious, or my father who no longer was?

It was a crisis in the family and I talked about this in my book. We were Smiths. It lets us take a hard look at whether or not there was a way to be the Smith family and stay connected. At this point, we were both physically and religiously dispersed. We weren’t getting together for holidays, reunions, or anything. I was very fortunate that a family therapist suggested we do therapy as a family. Much to my surprise everyone in the family agreed to give it a try.

Let’s take a pause there because there’s so much already on our plate. When we look at the fact that you were able to decide by age nineteen, which is quite early for some. Some don’t individuate from their families ever, and some tend to individuate more in their 20s, 30s, or 40s, but you decided at age 19. I want to get into that in a moment. One specific question, how are you related to the founder of the Mormon church? He is your great-great-uncle.

My great-great-grandfather was his brother and the first convert to the Mormon church. We are one of the few descendants of Joseph Smith in Utah. That is fairly unique. We had a pretty high profile, which is why I didn’t want to embarrass my family with my departure.

You had more pressure to conform because you were in that religious spotlight. For religious communities, that spotlight can be quite intense. You’re held to quite a high standard, aren’t you?

I was and it’s part of the deconstructing process. What I loved was realizing how significant the impact was of my religion on who I was, how I felt about myself, and how I viewed my brothers, sisters, and my parents. I feel fortunate that I was not disowned because it allowed the fragile connection that we had, even though we were separated by 2,000 miles and had very little contact, to at least some communication. It was a big part of my identity and you could imagine that it was quite Earth-shattering to leave. I had very good reasons for leaving. I simply didn’t believe in the Mormon church anymore. It was such a big part of who my family was. I couldn’t imagine how I was going to ever get past it.

When we look at families in general, we see families that have strong religious beliefs, political beliefs, or even beliefs about family traditions and family norms. We see that in this listener’s question. She’s struggling, not only with riffs in the family because of their beliefs around religion, politics, sexuality, and gender issues. So much of a family is held together in some cases by the glue of shared beliefs. However, in today’s world, we are getting more and more accepting of individual differences. Families are cohesive because there is an implicit or explicit agreement that you must share in the beliefs, priorities, values, morals, and all of those pieces. It takes a great deal of strength to break away from that.

As you said, you weren’t disowned. For some people, it comes at a great financial cost to step away from a family. They can be disinherited if that’s important to them. They can face sometimes litigation if there’s somebody in the family who wants to get back at them. They can face a lack of support, no support, or no communication. All of a sudden, it is as though there’s been this giant car crash and all the family members are gone. They’re still alive, but they’re gone from their lives and it can be incredibly devastating.

It was difficult for me, especially when I was the only one who had left. I would go home and my mother would pretend I was a Mormon. She expected that I would one day repent and return to the fold, but she would refer to the family, “Since we’re all Mormons here,” like I wasn’t there. It made me feel not a part of it. I couldn’t attend most of my brothers and sisters’ weddings because they were held in the Mormon temple, which I was not allowed into any longer as a non-Mormon. The sense of being excluded and not a part of was very difficult and very hurtful.

Moving into what helped was the fact that we were in crisis and something terrible had happened in the family. We didn’t know how to heal and that’s why we were seeking therapy in the first place. The skills we learned in therapy helped us see a way of being together even though in our case, it means that we realized we can’t talk about religion or politics safely.

It’s off the table. Since that was a big part of how we define ourselves religiously, how do you do that? She talked about that. What we found was that we are more alike than we are different. We looked for the areas where we had commonality. We were all parents now and some of us were experiencing challenges with our teenage children. A lot of us had more universal experiences where we could relate to them without the religious overtones.

We also learned how to listen and sometimes be silent, not offering opinions. I didn’t know that was an option, that I could hear someone express views that were very different from my own and not feel like I had to contradict them or point out the fallacies of their reasoning. I learned that it wasn’t helpful. I tried to approach my family, reminding myself that the goal here was connection. I let go of being right in order to be happy.

Sometimes, we need to let go of being right to be happy. Share on X

Family Estrangement and Communication

Thank you. Let’s take a pause there because again, a lot of great information. When we’re looking at family estrangement, which is what happened in your case, it sounds like in our listener’s case or the individual who wrote in, there’s family estrangement. She’s stuck in the middle of this awful situation. It’s very stressful for her and we don’t know if family therapy is an option or not. As a psychologist, I am a big believer in relationship therapy, whether it’s couples or families, in healing relationships.

When you’re talking about these key pieces, it’s so much about learning healthy communication skills. It’s so much about embracing the core concepts of emotional intelligence. It’s only in the last ten years that we’re looking at emotional intelligence and how important it is. Many people who were raised in the ‘30s, ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, or even the ‘90s and ‘2000s weren’t raised with EQ skills, the listening skills, the I-messages, no need to interrupt, holding space, and empathy.

Many families simply don’t have the skills. It’s their way or the highway. It’s my political position and my religious position or you’re out the door. Follow the family code or you’re out of here. When we approach things in any area of life with a very black-and-white attitude, not only are we missing out on so much as individuals because we’re not learning but we’re not growing and we’re not expanding. We’re isolating people who have very different opinions or even slightly different opinions, perspectives, and ways of being on the planet.

I appreciate how you set the stage with that concept of if possible, inviting in the idea of family therapy. Maybe before that happens, there is some individual therapy. The individual who wrote in may need some individual therapy. She could benefit from that to create healthier boundaries, increase her emotional intelligence, and get a referral to a good family therapist. Maybe her parents could use some individual therapy if they’re willing. I think that’s a piece that I’m going to ask you. Did either of your parents engage in personal therapy?

They did. While they were getting divorced, they saw a marriage counselor, but then they both continued to go to therapy. That was very helpful. Also, I think they realize the fallacy of the ability to control anybody else. My father finally got that lesson and admitted that regardless of how much you love someone, you can’t make them do anything.

 

 

While he didn’t like the paths that we were going down and neither did my mother, these paths away from the church, they learned through the years that their attempts to control us were frustrating and didn’t work. That helped him come to the point where they had to make a choice. This is what’s important for the listener. Ask herself whether there’s an invitation or a desire on both sides or from all parties to have a relationship. There has to be motivation to change your behavior.

Thank you so much for that very succinct piece. I believe that question is at the bottom of most relationship issues, whether it’s friendship, family relationship, or romantic relationship. People often assume the relationship should work on its own and it should just be there. There truly has to be the desire to have the relationship, followed by the willingness to do the work. If you value the relationship with your mom, dad, brother, sister, husband, wife, child, or whoever, it is so important to want to do the work.

 

 

That’s the piece I love about your story. I love many pieces about it, including how you were able to break free at nineteen. That’s fabulous, but we can see that each player sought therapy, at least your mom, dad, and you. It sounds like your brothers and sisters may have as well. I’m not saying this because I’m a psychologist. I’m saying this because without support from an objective party, which is what a psychologist does. A well-trained psychologist is objective unlike perhaps somebody in a religious community, spiritual community, or political community. They will have a vested interest.

If there is someone like a professionally trained psychologist who can come in and help individuals look at their values and their needs, look at the values and needs of other people, find the commonalities, and explore a way forward in our relationships, that’s not only where the growth happens. That’s where the magic of love happens because love is action. Love takes work.

You said something and I made a note about it. You said that regardless of how much you love someone, you can’t make them do anything. I like that. I also would add to that piece that when you truly love someone, you don’t want to make them do anything. You want to honor them. You want to help and support them to make their choices. If they’re dangerous choices, like driving a car off a road or something, you don’t want to help with that.

If it’s somebody who is exploring their religious preferences, political preferences, or gender preferences, we may not agree with that. It may make us uneasy, uncomfortable, sad, or even angry, but the biggest act of love I believe we can do is say, “Be you, be happy, and explore what it is that makes you your very best self.” To me, that is the greatest act of love because not only do we show respect for ourselves by doing that, we’re showing respect for the other person and we’re showing respect for the relationship.

I appreciate that you brought that out because it’s an often missed point. People think that they should be able to control someone because they’re blood, and that is their right, “You should do it my way because I raised you or you’re my sibling,” when in fact, deep love and true love want the other person to explore and become their best self.

That’s a foreign concept to a lot of devoutly religious people who often have rigid thought systems. The idea of giving other people permission to be themselves is not in the range of possibility without some extensive intervention therapy-wise. I think that you can appeal to their desire to have a connection. What I mean by that is as parents realize an estrangement with the child means they’re not going to be able to see their grandchildren, suddenly, there may be new motivation to modify their behavior and be less critical or less controlling than they were in the past.

Once again, there has to be a motivation to have the relationship. What I did is I didn’t approach my family as a single entity. It’s my Mormon family and me, not against the other. I looked at building individual relationships and making the one-on-one relationships I had with members of my family stronger. I saw there was flexibility in that. Some people were, on the continuum, in a different place than I assumed they were. There was more acceptance.

 

 

We got loud about what we needed to be together. We agreed on some pretty standard rules like let’s choose not to talk about our religious differences. Let’s choose not to talk about politics. Let’s choose instead to focus on how we’re alike. I realized that when they talk about their beliefs using religious terms, I was able to say, “Your beliefs sound an awful lot like my values,” and then we could have a discussion about how similar their beliefs and my values were.

Once again, we understand we both want the same things out of life. We want to not worry about our health or safety. We found that we had a lot in common when we looked at it from a value rather than a belief perspective. I’m not saying that that’s always good to go over, but I think it’s a way of having a conversation. Learning to say when someone makes a statement, rather than contradict it, go in the opposite direction, “Really? Tell me more. Why is that important to you?”

When someone makes a statement, rather than contradicting it, go in the opposite direction. Share on X

Active Listening

I love what you are saying. I’m thinking about many of the clients I work with, especially with couples, where you can see an absence of truly listening to the other person. The one partner or family member, you can see it in their eyes and their body posture. They’re getting ready. They’re forming their response and getting ready to put it in instead of sitting with open hearts and open minds and preparing to hear what the other person is saying and preparing to listen to it fully.

Instead, they’re spending all of their energy preparing a rebuttal before they even listen to the person’s first sentence. We’re back to the tenets of healthy communication or that ability to tune in, to listen fully and deeply, and to know that you don’t always have to have something to say about everything. If you disagree with it, you don’t have to state that disagreement. It doesn’t have to be a family debate. Some families aren’t built to have debates. Some are more built to find the areas that are common ground.

It might be vacations. It might be baking. It might be the grandkids. It might be sports. It will be different for every family. If you value your family and you’re okay with keeping things superficial as sometimes they need to be, that’s okay. I agree with you also and I want to highlight the piece where you said the rules for family gatherings.

In my fourth book The Joy of Imperfect Love, which is about relationships in general. It’s highly applicable to romantic relationships, but it’s also applicable to family, moms, kids, dads, work settings, and friends. Why? Because the communication basics are there across all of our relationships, the need to be able to listen fully and deeply, to not become combative, which pushes people away, and to do what you were talking about earlier, the question asking, and being curious.

We are often so into making our own statement that we don’t realize to ask that person, “That’s interesting. Tell me more about that. This is your political belief or this is your belief about gender, tell me more about that.” People feel deeply heard. We take it back to the listener’s question of the day. Perhaps the parents, based on their religious beliefs, strongly feel that somebody who has a different or non-binary identity is going to go to hell. They are forbidden from family circles because it’s sort of a spiritual death or religious death to the family.

When we realize that perspective can beat parents, they can also allow it if they’re able to be open and say, “This is our son. Let’s not see him through the lens of gender. Let’s see him through the lens of love. Let’s not see our daughter through the lens of being of a different political party. Perhaps some big difference is there, but see her through the lens of love.” That family might come to an agreement. In The Joy of Imperfect Love, I call them agreements.

I believe that all of our relationships have agreements, every relationship. Whether we’re buying a car, renting an apartment, buying a house, or even going to the grocery store, there are agreements. You take this product. This is what you’re paying for it. These are the agreements. Yet in our intimate relationships, we often default to whatever agreements arise. You’re going to follow this path. You’re going to do this. This is the role you’re going to play.

We slow it down and take the time to make very clear explicit agreements, negotiate, and collaborate. It might be that for this family, the one that’s the topic of the day, we can see that this person who’s stuck in the middle perhaps can invite people to go to family therapy. If she can’t, perhaps she can say, “Let’s create some agreements. If we come together for the holidays, let’s agree not to talk politics. Let’s agree not to talk about gender. Let’s agree to talk about the sports, the weather, the books we’re reading, the shows we’re watching, the art we’re interested in,” whatever it might be.

If all people in that family can honor that, which they all can because it’s a personal choice and we can all honor whatever we want to honor, then perhaps they could begin to pave a way forward that is based on commonalities rather than these differences. Ideally, we don’t want to change their spiritual, religious, social, or personal identity. We want to be able to come to a place where we honor them. What do you think of that, Lyn?

We learned how to make sure that our language with each other was very respectful. That can be a little tricky but we would gather and mostly, we had a check-in session. When we first got together, everyone had a chance to share the highlights of their family since the last time we got together. No one was allowed to interrupt or give crosstalk, advice, or comments. You have 10 to 20 minutes to update everybody on what is going on in your family without worrying about reaction. This gave people a sense of safety and a sense of being heard, but it also prevented what you were describing which is not listening because they’re preparing to talk. Since you couldn’t comment, you ended up listening.

 

 

As I heard my sister talk about her youngest daughter who was dropping out of college and getting married early, I thought, “That poor girl. She’s not even twenty and she’s already getting married.” I didn’t say a word about that because no one wanted my commentary on that, and learning that it wasn’t necessary for me to change my brothers’ and sisters’ behaviors that in my eyes sometimes are diluted, ignorant, or even harmful. It wasn’t my job. My job was to love them exactly the way they were and to make them feel supported, heard, and respected for being on their path of choice.

Our job is to love our family exactly as they are and to make them feel supported, respected, and loved, regardless of the path they choose. Share on X

That is stellar. You’re reminding me of the old way of having a talking stick. When you’re doing any form of group work or working with kids or adults, you have a talking stick. Whoever has the talking stick has their time to talk and everybody else learns to sit and listen. Sadly, that; ‘s something we often miss in many aspects of today’s world where there’s so much overtalk, interruption, and unhealthy communication.

These are pieces that we can all work on one day at a time and one step at a time, and begin to use that idea of respect. I love that we’re highlighting it because there is an absence in many arenas of respect. It can be easy to get entrenched in “I’m right, you’re wrong,” which is a huge piece in the environment of today’s world. It’s easy to get disrespectful. We think that we’re promoting our truth and our rights, yet it easily leads us down that path of being disrespectful. I honestly see that when we are disrespectful to others, we are becoming disrespectful to that best part of the self.

The self truly wants to grow, expand, and be kind and loving. For most people, the highest self that they can be is kind, loving, and respectful. Every time we’re cutting someone off or being disrespectful or demanding that they be a carbon copy of us or what we believe they should be doing, we are disrespecting their unique most beautiful best self, which is often very different from who we are. I think that that’s a lovely part of the world.

I was raised in a highly religious environment and in somewhat of a bubble. The more and more I became exposed to the real world, which didn’t come later in life, I realized that there are so many different ways of being. I became more and more curious. With that curiosity, I became more and more accepting and had eyes wide open, but I could still sometimes feel those old childhood patterns coming up and going, “That might be wrong,” because of the way you are raised with “This is right and this is wrong.”

Acceptance

I am a big believer that the concept of right is all about kindness, respect, and goodness. It’s feeding the old tale of the good wolf. We all have two wolves inside of us. One is the mean one or the evil one. One is the good one. We get to choose which one we feed, and whichever one we feed is the one that wins that battle inside the self. That very old tale does not talk about the right wolf and the wrong wolf. It talks about the good one and the angry or the evil one.

When we look at the listener’s question of the day, she’s trying very hard to feed her good wolf and to feed the family’s good wolf. We can only hope that each member of her family chooses to feed that good part of themselves, which may be uncomfortable. That’s a piece that people think, “If I accept this child of mine who’s transgender or gay or whatever it is, or if I accept this daughter of mine who has religious differences, I am bad or I’m betraying myself.” No. We can accept people who are different from us. That is a beautiful and loving way of being. What do you think?

In response to our listener’s question, after she gets some support from a therapist for herself so that she has someone to process with and bounce ideas off and experiences, she focuses on the individual relationships that she has with each of those people. She might be in a position to help bring them together by her elevated style of communication. She can teach by example so to speak. Be curious with her parents, “I wondered if you missed David. We don’t see him as much now that he has a partner,” or this type of thing.

It’s amazing and I would never have guessed that in my family because Mormons are very rigid. They think their truth is the only truth. It’s very much a lifestyle religion, as well as a belief system. We could be the family where they’re over there wearing their special Mormon garments and the others over here have tank tops and tattoos. We’re all on the same boat laughing about some silly experience we had as kids.

I never would have guessed it was possible. That’s why I can’t stress enough to find what you have in common. Be out loud about the fact that our values are much closer than perhaps what we think they are when we break them apart from the labels that they have traditionally been assigned to. Also, let things go. Not every conversation is one that I have to put my two cents into.

I love that you brought it back to that wonderful piece about building individual relationships. Sometimes, if a family is fragmented and you can have someone to talk to, whether it’s mom, sister, brother, or dad, and you keep that relationship and you’re working on yourself, you can then come from a more elevated, more conscious, more mindful place, or a different way of being. By default, it may make other people curious, “Dad’s going out with Sarah for a cup of coffee and they are having a relationship.”

Listeners, sometimes that takes great courage. Sometimes the person that you’re trying to build an alliance with or a relationship with is afraid that the other people might then turn their backs, and all of those dynamics. A lot of this is very iffy and slow-going. For anyone who’s experienced this, take good care of yourself. You do your best to be your best and highest self or your best-evolving self. You stay curious, you are open, and you have strong boundaries. You stay true to you. It doesn’t mean you ever need to be somebody’s doormat. Love does not ask you to be a doormat.

Love asks you to be your best self and to see life and people through that lens of love. If other people choose to keep their doors close to you, that’s not your failing. You are an incredibly lovable, valuable, and wonderful human being. As you journey forward in life, sometimes you may find that family dynamics are too challenging, difficult, or emotionally and mentally destructive. You do need to step back.

It may not end up with as happy an ending as Lyn’s has, but you may find that you build a different family system with souls who may not be related to you dramatically, but they may surely be related to you in body, mind, and spirit and other ways that allow you to feel connected. Don’t lose hope. It is a big world out there and ideally, we don’t have to lose our genetic families. If for some reason that happens, remember that there are other ways to create a family that can feel very rewarding and filled with love. Thank you, Lyn, for all of this wisdom. Are there any final points you would like to share with our audience?

You have expressed so many of my own feelings that we can best love others when we have worked hard and done the inner work of loving and accepting ourselves. We’re not coming at our relationships from a need for approval or validation, and letting go of that expectation that mother is going to change and suddenly she’s going to be the mother you wanted her to be or whatever. When our cup is overflowing, we have something to give and to offer without being needy, and needing validation, permission, or anything else. I think that’s the most generous place that we can come from in a difficult relationship. It is that we are taking good care of ourselves. We’ve built our support network. Now, we have the availability to be there in a generous way with others.

 

 

I love the term generous because especially if we’re stuck in a right-wrong way of thinking and a very dichotomous way of being, we might not be very generous. We do want to be generous but do pay attention to being overly generous because if you go overly generous as you’re saying, Lynn, in order to be loved, validated, accepted, approved, and of all of those pieces, then you lose your boundaries. You lose your sense of self.

We don’t want to sacrifice. We do want to be generous, empathic, and understanding but we also want to learn to stay true to you dear listener, as well as work to uplevel your way of being and your communication. One last piece, I appreciate how you said several times throughout the interview that you learned that you didn’t have to say or have something to say to everything. I think that is a piece we can all take with us.

Love is sometimes silent. We’re all imperfect. Sometimes we’re going to have to come back to what didn’t need to be said. We thought we had to say it, but sometimes, the most loving thing we can do is be silent unless it’s boundary-crossing or deeply disrespectful. Sometimes we can trust and let it go. Lyn, it has been such a pleasure and a joy to spend time with you. Where can our listeners find you?

Thank you. I have enjoyed our discussion and the wisdom that you were sharing with your listeners. I have a website that has all my information on it. It’s LynSmithGregory.com. There, you’ll find links to all my other places online, which are social media, Instagram, and Facebook. You can subscribe to my newsletter. I’ve been a guest on multiple podcasts. You can watch those or listen to them. I also have a YouTube channel. All of those are available to be linked to from my website LynSmithgregory.com. My book is called We Were Smiths: Escaping the Shadow of Joseph Smith’s Mormon Legacy. I look forward to engaging with you again sometime.

It will be fabulous to do so. Lyn, I thank you for sharing your time, compassion, and wisdom with us. Listeners, I thank you for joining us as always. It has been my privilege and my pleasure. This is Imperfect Love.

 

Important Links

• Lyn Smith Gregory
• We Were Smiths
• Lyn Smith Gregory – Facebook
• Lyn Smith Gregory – Instagram
• Lyn Smith Gregory – LinkedIn
• Heretic Survivor: From Mormon to Me – YouTube
• NAMI
• NCFR
• Dr. Carla Marie Manly, PhD
• Dr. Carla Marie Manly – Instagram
• Dr. Carla Marie Manly – Twitter
• Dr. Carla Marie Manly – Facebook
• Dr. Carla Marie Manly – LinkedIn
• Dr. Carla Manly, Imperfect Love – Youtube
• Dr. Carla Marie Manly – TikTok

 

About Lyn Smith Gregory

Lyn Smith Gregory grew up in Utah as one of nine children in a devout Mormon family. Her great, great uncle was Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church. At 19, she left the Church and moved to New York City, eventually obtaining an MBA at NYU. After a 20-year career in the tech industry, she left to pursue writing full-time and has attended the Iowa Summer Writing Program and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.

Lyn is an expert in family estrangement and the complexities that arise when people transition away from their faith community. Owing to a keen personal understanding of the emotional and psychological trauma involved in this seismic shift, Lyn guides those affected through the sensitive dynamics of this profound life change.

Lyn helps others cope with the psychological trauma of leaving high-control groups. She offers sound strategies for reconstructing personal autonomy, rebuilding relationships, developing ties with new communities, and grappling with the grief that arises from leaving one’s familial or spiritual community. Family estrangement, especially as it relates to leaving strict religious communities, is a significant and widespread issue that is rarely discussed openly.

Lyn’s personal journey has equipped her with a deep understanding of the trauma and liberation involved in spiritual transitions, which also affords her a valuable perspective for those undergoing similar experiences. She offers insightful, actionable guidance for recovery and the formation of new personal and social identities.