Episode 211: Who's the Decider? | A Conversation with Natalie Brown
Release Date: 02/11/2025
Episode 229: What About Empathy?
At Last She Said It
How can we know if we’re getting it right when it comes to meeting others with empathy? “Empathy is a tool of compassion,” writes Brene Brown. “We can respond empathically only if we are willing to be present to someone’s pain. If we’re not willing to do that, it’s not real empathy.” We’re living now in a time and society where people actually talk about the sin of empathy. But for followers of Jesus—charged to mourn with and comfort others—how can being present to someone else’s pain ever wear the title of “sin?” In Episode 229, Cynthia and Susan take on empathy,...
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Episode 228: Embracing Your Journey | A Conversation with Abby Maxwell Hansen
At Last She Said It
For many Latter-day Saint women, a faith journey begins as their personal experiences pile up and dots begin to connect. Abby Maxwell Hansen began to see a thread of internalized misogyny in her own story emerge like this: “Every time I went to church, I had some type of message—whether it was really overt or whether it was just sitting down at conference, and they didn't come out and say women's voices aren't as important, but all the speakers were men except for two. So whether it was implied or overtly stated, I got the message over and over that women are not as important as men.”...
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Episode 227 (Bonus): Navigating Transitions | ALSSI Listener Stories
At Last She Said It
What triggered your faith journey? In Bonus Episode 227, 10 women share their answers.
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Episode 226: I Am a Woman of Faith | Tackling Imposter Syndrome
At Last She Said It
Sometimes it’s hard to untangle specific beliefs from our ideas about faith. Is struggling with church policies or doctrinal tenets an indictment of a Latter-day Saint woman’s faith? What does it even mean to have faith? And who gets to measure ours? In Episode 226, Cynthia and Susan take on a topic that comes up frequently for church members who find themselves on a journey of expansion or redefinition: Imposter Syndrome. It’s a conversation about faith vs. knowledge, Churchianity vs. Christianity, the place of doubt in a religious life, and finding hope by leaning into personal...
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Episode 225: Navigating the Fallow Years | A Conversation with Kajsa Berlin-Kaufusi
At Last She Said It
“I have always felt the gentle nature of Jesus being one of the most resonating parts of what I saw and knew as the gospel, and I always imagined Jesus speaking to me, saying, ‘Consider the lilies, how they grow, and they don't toil.' And my whole life ... I have been a toiler,” explains Kajsa Berlin-Kaufusi. “What if I wasn’t a planter at this time, and what if I was the field?” In Episode 225, Kajsa joins Susan and Cynthia for a conversation about being still. What kind of rejuvenative possibilities might exist when, for whatever reason, we find ourselves in what feels like...
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Episode 224: Navigating Transitions | What Triggered Your Faith Journey?
At Last She Said It
Maya Angelou said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” When things start to get shifty in your faith life, it can feel overwhelming and difficult to talk about, even with those closest to you. There are as many stories of evolving faith as there are Latter-day Saint women who experience them. For Season 10, Cynthia and Susan have asked listeners to share what started them on the journey they’re navigating now. In Episode 224, they explore some of those stories.
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Episode 223: Making Friends with Change | A Conversation about Hope
At Last She Said It
“There is hope in the certainty that things do change,” writes Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg. But there is also real anxiety in the certainty that things do change. Change is the force that pushes us forward, without asking whether we want to move. Can the way we think about and navigate life’s transitions improve our experience of them? In Episode 223, Susan and Cynthia are back for Season 10 with a conversation about the relentless nature of change, and what it might mean to lean into hope.
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Episode 222 (Bonus): Mailbag!
At Last She Said It
In this bonus episode, Susan and Cynthia share and discuss a few voicemails from the ALSSI mailbag. The male gaze, sad heaven, organizational/prophetic focus, sealing policy, and dancing with parables are some of the topics touched on in this wide-ranging conversation.
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Episode 221 (Bonus): Confronting Polygamy | One Woman's Experience
At Last She Said It
TW: Emotional Abuse and Physical Abuse Members of the Church don't talk much about polygamy, but isn't it time we did? After all, it continues to haunt our family trees, our church history, and many women's minds and hearts. Imagine getting married to a man only to find out he actually has a deep testimony of polygamy and insists you'll need to have one too. In Bonus Episode 221, Blakelee Ellis is joined by Alicia Owens, who shares her personal story of finding herself in that unthinkable situation, and everything that happened next. Please exercise self care—this is a harrowing conversation...
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Episode 220: The Women Are Not Okay | A Conversation About the Male Gaze
At Last She Said It
How much in the Church is still, in 2025, coming to us through the male lens? Pretty much all of it. Our scriptures, doctrine, ward boundaries, curriculum, conference talks, local leadership, and decisions are almost entirely by and/or about men. A women’s organization made and presided over by men is not really a women’s organization, is it? How could men ever describe or define women—our roles, attributes, or experiences—not as they see us, but as we actually are? In Episode 220, Cynthia and Susan wrap the season of zooming-out conversations by examining how the male gaze continues...
info_outlineWhen asked about the possibility of priesthood ordination for women in 1998, Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley famously told Larry King, “It would take another revelation to bring that about. I don’t anticipate it.” Big changes have come following revelations in LDS history, but must prophetic revelation always precede change? Even on a local level, many leaders are hesitant to innovate in small ways. Natalie Brown posits that “not every small experiment should require prophetic sign off.” In Episode 211, she joins Cynthia and Susan for a conversation about how change happens—or doesn’t—at church. Do debate and discussion have a place, and if so, whose opinions should be considered? And what about transparency in the decision-making process?