My Journey from Mormon Motherhood to Helping Others Find Themselves

I spent ten years questioning, thirteen years overseas, and a lifetime learning to listen to myself. Now I help other moms do the same.

I was forty-three years old, standing in my kitchen, elbow-deep in apple peels, when I realized I didn't know who I was.

I was making pie from scratch — my husband's favorite, apple — the way I did every Thanksgiving. The crust had been rolled out the night before. The apples were being sliced with methodical precision. Everything was being done the way a good wife does it: from scratch, with love, without complaint.

Except I was complaining. Silently, internally, the way I'd been trained to do. And then a thought surfaced that stopped me mid-slice: I don't even like apple pie.

I stood there, knife in hand, and tried to answer what should have been the simplest question in the world. What kind of pie do I actually want?

I didn't know.

After more than two decades of marriage, three children raised across four countries, and eleven years since leaving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I could not name my favorite pie. I had spent so long anticipating everyone else's needs, predicting their desires before they voiced them, fulfilling a role that had been handed to me before I was old enough to question it, that I had never paused to ask what I myself wanted.

That moment — absurd, mundane, and devastating — sent me down a deep and dark rabbit hole. Because it wasn't really about pie. It was about a career I'd chosen because it was "acceptable" for a Mormon woman. A marriage I'd entered at twenty because that's what everyone at BYU was doing. Decades of decisions made by a woman who had never been taught she was allowed to make decisions for herself.

Today, I run a coaching practice called Mama Audra, working primarily with mothers who are navigating what many of us call a faith crisis. Some have left the LDS church entirely. Some are what might be called "nuanced" members — attending sometimes, believing selectively, trying to find a way to stay connected to community while honoring their own conscience. All of them are trying to answer the same fundamental question I faced in my kitchen: Who am I, now that I'm no longer who I was told to be?

A Life Built on Borrowed Blueprints

My story begins the way many Mormon stories do: with certainty. My father worked for CES — the Church Educational System — running seminary and institute programs in Southern California. Our family was devout, orthodox, all in. Faith wasn't just a Sunday activity; it was the architecture of daily life, the lens through which every decision was filtered, every relationship understood.

Growing up in the church, it felt very us versus them. Us versus the world. And it was very dichotomous — good versus bad, right versus wrong, in or out, all or nothing.

I went to BYU. I married young, at twenty, in the temple. I started having children immediately. I fulfilled what I'd been taught was my "divine role" as a mother. I attended church, accepted callings, read my scriptures. I did everything that was supposed to bring happiness.

Instead, I was gripped by severe anxiety and depression. Panic attacks came almost nightly — episodes of hyperventilation so intense I couldn't catch my breath. I tried antidepressants. I prayed harder. I read more scripture. Nothing worked, because the problem wasn't chemical. Looking back now, I can say that was my body screaming at me that I was living a life that wasn't mine. That I had no choice, that nothing was aligned with who I really was. But I couldn't recognize it for that at the time.

I desperately wanted to work, but was told by multiple people that my place was in the home. "Don't take that role away from your husband," they said. So my husband taught public school and we couldn't make ends meet, and we turned to the church's welfare system. I want to be clear — I was grateful for the help. The church does take care of its own. But my experience with it became one of several things that slowly eroded my faith.

A Relief Society president came weekly to my home. She opened my cupboards, checked my fridge, and decided what food my family would receive. I couldn't even choose what we were going to eat. I felt so small. I felt like I had no autonomy over who I was or my life choices.

The last time I went to the bishop's storehouse, I loaded my three kids into our old station wagon, drove across town, handed over the order form, and was turned away because the bishop hadn't signed it. I buckled my kids back into their car seats, sat in the driver's seat, and burst into tears.

In that moment, I resolved to never be dependent on anyone again. I went back to school. I chose teaching — because no one would look at me sideways as a teacher, because I'd be on the same schedule as my kids, because it was "acceptable." I chose biology because I'd always liked science. But the profession itself was never really a passion of mine. It was another decision shaped by external expectations rather than internal desire.

The World Gets Bigger

Everything shifted when my family moved overseas. My husband was also a teacher, and we discovered the international school circuit. Our children were seven, nine, and eleven when we left Idaho for Kazakhstan. Over thirteen years, we lived in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Kosovo, and Timor-Leste. I eventually became a school director.

But the professional growth was almost incidental compared to what happened to my faith. Two things changed me in those years abroad.

The first was physical separation. In Idaho, my neighborhood was my ward. Missing a Sunday meant someone showed up with cookies — well-meaning, but a little passive-aggressive. I was so busy with callings, with mothering, with the relentless machinery of church life, that anytime something didn't sit right, I didn't have time to think about it. That conditioning would just kick in: your doubts are sinful, you need more faith, pray more, read your scriptures more.

Overseas, nobody knew the word "Mormon." There was a tiny branch in Almaty run by missionaries, with services in Russian through crackling headsets. It was easy — almost inevitable — to step back and finally have the space to process everything.

The second thing was exposure to the world's religions in their living context. I visited Hindu temples in India and felt something spiritual. I walked through Muslim mosques, Catholic cathedrals, Zoroastrian fire temples, and found them sacred. I watched followers of other faiths and was struck not by their emptiness — which was what I'd been taught to expect — but by their fullness. They actually seemed happier than I'd ever been. They seemed so content.

I remember distinctly thinking, how arrogant it would be to tell them that they were wrong.

I had been raised to believe the church held exclusive truth for the entire planet, that a prophet in Salt Lake City spoke for all of humanity. And here were billions of people who had never heard of any of it, living lives of deep spiritual satisfaction. I remember these sacred places feeling more spiritual than I had ever felt in the temple — which was supposed to be heaven on earth. At first it was confusing, but I'd already been questioning for years. By the time I'd gone to Kazakhstan, I was already near the end of the alphabet, to be honest.

Letter Z

I describe my departure from the church as moving through the alphabet — not a single dramatic exit, but a slow progression from A to Z over roughly ten years.

The final letter came in November 2015, when the church announced its exclusion policy regarding children of same-sex couples. I read the policy and wanted to throw up. It was framed as love and protection of children. As soon as I read that, I knew: no. That's not what this is.

I also saw a direct doctrinal contradiction. The church's own Articles of Faith state that individuals are not punished for another's transgression. If we're not responsible for anyone else's sins, then why were these children facing consequences for what the church considers a sin?

What happened next was almost involuntary. I stood up from the couch, walked upstairs, removed my garments for the first time, looked at myself in the mirror, and said aloud: "I'm not Mormon."

I felt like the whole world opened up. Like a million stars. I felt light and airy, like I could take this really deep breath. I felt very empowered. And then, shortly after, I was scared to death. Because now what?

That one moment took ten years to get to. And what I've learned since, working with other women, is that this timeline is remarkably common. Research suggests the average person spends about a decade wrestling with their questions before making a definitive change. This is not weakness or indecision. It is a testament to how deeply identity is woven and how carefully it must be untangled.

What People Struggle With

After years of coaching women through faith transitions, I've identified several recurring struggles that define this experience.

The most fundamental is loss of identity. For someone raised in the LDS church, faith isn't a compartment of life — it is life. "I am Mormon." "I am a child of God." These "I am" statements are ubiquitous. Your identity informs your beliefs and values, which inform your behaviors and thoughts. When that identity shatters, everything downstream shatters with it. You're essentially going back to that childhood brain and reconstructing your identity all over again.

The grief that follows is multilayered. People grieve the loss of self, of community, of family relationships, of certainty. They grieve what I call "the life unlived" — the alternate paths they might have taken had they not married so young, had children so early, chosen careers based on church-approved gender roles. This grief frequently manifests as anger, which can persist for years and is often misread by outsiders as bitterness or spite. But anger is just the outward emotion. Inside, there's a lot more going on.

For mothers specifically, the challenge is compounded. They are reconstructing their own identities while simultaneously raising children — basically growing up alongside their kids. They want to parent differently than they were parented, but no one has modeled this for them. And the village they once relied on — the ward, the Relief Society, their own parents — is often no longer available, either because those people have withdrawn or because accepting help now comes with conditions that feel intolerable.

There is also the disorientation of having to become your own authority for the first time. After decades of being told what to believe, what to wear, what to eat, what to drink, how to spend Sundays, what constitutes a good wife and mother, many women find themselves paralyzed by even simple choices. My apple pie moment is not unusual. My clients regularly discover they cannot articulate their own preferences because they have never been permitted to develop them.

Finally, there is the struggle to escape binary thinking. The all-or-nothing framework of orthodoxy doesn't disappear simply because someone has left. Many people carry it into their post-church lives — now it's all bad instead of all good, now believers are the enemy. "Just because you've left doesn't mean that pattern isn't still there," I tell clients. Breaking free of it requires deliberate, sustained work.

How I Counsel Them

My approach is rooted in several core practices I've developed over years of personal experience and professional training.

The first is emotional regulation through incremental movement. I never ask people to leap from anger to peace. Instead, I help them identify their current emotional state and reach for the next slightly better feeling. When you're stuck in anger, you feel it, learn from it, journal on it, and then see if you can move to frustration, which is a little better. Then maybe doubt or worry. Slowly moving up. This respects the reality that healing is not linear and cannot be rushed.

The second is somatic awareness — learning to listen to the body. I teach clients to notice when something feels "constrictive" — tightness in the chest, difficulty breathing, heaviness. These physical sensations often signal a belief that is misaligned with your authentic self but still operating unconsciously. By noticing the body's signals, women can begin to identify the inherited beliefs driving their discomfort.

The third is belief interrogation. Once a constrictive belief surfaces — "a good mom always sacrifices for her children," for example — I guide clients through journaling exercises to poke holes in it. Is it always true? Is there ever an exception? Can you find a belief that feels slightly better? Perhaps: "A good mom takes care of herself first so she can serve her children better." This doesn't demand radical overnight change. It simply loosens the grip of inherited certainty.

The fourth is narrative reframing. When old stories surface — my family excluded me because I left the church — I teach clients to pause and ask: what else could be true? I'll share a personal example. About a year ago, a family member sent me a photo of everyone together at an event I wasn't invited to and didn't know about. My first reaction was that well-worn story: I'm not part of the family. They don't want me because I left. I sat with the pain and hurt and loneliness. And then I asked: what else could be true? Maybe their intention was actually to make me feel included by sending that picture. I can't read their mind. But I can choose to believe the interpretation that feels better.

Finally, I help clients engage in deliberate life design — creating their own definitions of marriage, motherhood, success, and goodness. For my husband and me, this meant sitting down after twenty-two years and asking: what do we actually want this to look like now? What are our non-negotiables? What would make each of us feel fulfilled? The marriage we had was built by two twenty-year-olds on Mormon values. The marriage we chose to keep was designed consciously by two adults who had done the hard work of figuring out who they actually were.

How the Journeys Usually Turn Out

The trajectory I've observed — in my own life and in my clients' lives — follows a general pattern, though I always emphasize that it is neither linear nor predictable. People cycle back. They get activated by a family photo or a holiday or an unexpected encounter and find themselves reliving pain they thought they'd processed. I've been out eleven years and it still happens to me. That doesn't mean you're failing. It means there's something deeper that still needs attention.

But the general direction is toward integration — a state in which the Mormon past is neither erased nor enshrined, but incorporated into a larger sense of self. This is where people can look back and acknowledge genuine gifts: leadership skills, commitment to service, public speaking ability, community, the teachings of compassion and generosity. They can hold these alongside the harm without needing one to cancel the other.

Integration also means the end of either/or thinking. People discover they can remain connected to Mormon family while holding different beliefs. They can appreciate what the church gave them while standing against policies they find harmful. Some of my clients attend church occasionally — not because they believe the doctrine, but because they value the connection. Some never go back. Both are valid.

The destination, if there is one, is not certainty. It is comfort with uncertainty. I used to tell my AP Biology students: “get comfortable being uncomfortable”. I now offer the same counsel to women rebuilding after a faith crisis. There are very few absolutes in life. The plan of salvation provided a comforting map of everything. Letting go of that map is terrifying. But I have watched woman after woman discover that the freedom on the other side is worth the passage through.

There comes a point where you can feel really calm and peaceful in the uncertainty. And how freeing it is, actually, to reclaim the authority over your life.

Advice for Those Just Beginning

For those at the start of this journey — the ones whose shelves have just broken, who are staring at the wreckage of their certainty and wondering what comes next — here is what I wish someone had told me.

Do not make any major life decisions right now. Not about your marriage, your career, or where you live. When you are deep in grief and anger, you are in a reactive state. You always want to make big decisions from a place of peace — that's when you can tune in to your own intuition. The peace will come. But it takes time.

Do not bury the anger and the grief. The church may have taught you that negative emotions are sinful, that anger is dangerous, that doubt is a moral failing. But these emotions are information. They are your body and psyche processing an enormous loss. Feel them. Journal about them. Let them move through you. They are part of the healing, not an obstacle to it.

Start small. You don't have to reconstruct your entire identity in a week. Notice when your body feels expansive and when it feels constricted. What small choices bring you a spark of pleasure? You are learning a skill you were never taught: the skill of listening to yourself.

Know that you are not alone. At first you feel like you're the only one who feels this way. Or maybe you're embarrassed about some of your feelings. But there's a whole community of people willing to accept you whatever stage you're in. You don't have to go through it alone.

Be patient with the nonlinearity. You will have good weeks and terrible ones. You will think you've made peace with something and then be undone by a family email. This is not failure. It is being human, processing something enormous. The path is a spiral, circling back through familiar territory but always, over time, expanding outward.

How to Support Someone on This Journey

For those on the other side — the believing parent, the active spouse, the faithful friend watching someone they love walk away — my guidance is simple: listen.

Listen to understand, not to convince. When someone comes to you with their doubts, that is extraordinarily brave. They have identified you as a safe person. Do not betray that trust.

Reflect back what you hear. Paraphrase their words so they know you understand. You don't have to agree. But if you can demonstrate that you genuinely comprehend what they're experiencing — not as a wayward child to be corrected, but as a full adult navigating a legitimate crisis — you will preserve a relationship that matters more than any doctrinal point.

Ask clarifying questions. Not "who have you been talking to?" or "what are you reading?" — but "tell me more," "what does that feel like for you?" The conversation doesn't have to reach a resolution. Your only job is to be present.

Do not send the conference talk. Do not bear your testimony. It is well-meaning. But it communicates one thing: I am not listening to you. I am trying to change your mind.

The most powerful thing anyone can say to a friend is simply: "I'm not even scared for you. You're going to be fine. You're on your path, and it's going to be great."

No correction. No concern. No subtle implication of spiritual danger. Just confidence in their capacity to navigate their own life. That fundamental respect for another person's agency may be the greatest gift you can offer someone whose world is being remade.

I have been out of the church for eleven years now. I have lived on four continents. I have rebuilt my identity, my marriage, and my sense of purpose from the ground up. And I can tell you that the woman standing in her kitchen not knowing what pie she likes — she eventually figured it out. Not just the pie. All of it. Who she is. What she wants. What she believes. And she figured it out not by finding a new authority to follow, but by finally, after four decades, learning to trust herself.

That's what I want for every woman I work with. Not my answers. Not anyone else's answers. Their own.

I work with mothers navigating faith transitions through my practice at mamaaudra.com, where I offer one-on-one coaching, a free masterclass on the five shifts every former Mormon mom needs to make, and my intensive eight-week program, Reclaimed.

Written by Audra Phelps, M.Sc, PNLP (Mama Audra)