Episode 223: Making Friends with Change | A Conversation about Hope
Release Date: 07/15/2025
At Last She Said It
“The spiritualities of all great world religions teach us letting go, or how to step aside,” writes Richard Rohr. Letting go is an intentional process. We may let go of our emotional attachments, limiting beliefs, or past events. We may give up control, the need to be successful, or the need to be right. It’s an ongoing process of surrendering to what is, and adjusting accordingly. In Episode 260, Susan and Cynthia take on this big idea, a central theme in spiritual practice.
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In Episode 259, Susan and Cynthia ask Mer, Zinah, and Carol, What Do You Say? It's the second installment of ALSSI's wide-ranging conversations with wise Latter-day Saint women. Each guest answers randomly selected questions about their memories, insights, and beliefs through stories of their personal lives and experiences.
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ALSSI doesn’t usually focus on church announcements or events, but our conversations about Big Ideas do exist within the current context of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In Episode 258, Susan and Cynthia take a beat to discuss a few recent headlines and explore some questions raised by these changes.
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Is there a richer text for Christians than the Beatitudes? Yet we don’t all think or teach about them the same way. Many Latter-day Saints talk and teach about them as a list of saint-like attributes to which we should aspire, traits that will bring us closer to God and eventual exaltation. But Nadia Bolz-Weber suggests, “What if the Beatitudes aren’t about a list of conditions we should try to meet to be blessed? What if they are not virtues we should aspire to? What if Jesus saying ‘blessed are the meek’ is not instructive but performative—that the pronouncement of blessing is...
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Shadow Work is a phrase that gets a lot of airplay, but it can be hard to get your head around exactly what it means or how it can apply in your life. The “shadow” consists of unconscious, repressed, or hidden parts of our personality. So what might it mean to uncover, understand, and integrate our shadow self? How might this work affect our responses and relationships? “The human soul wants belonging, but the ego really doesn’t know how to give it to us. It just...helps us fit in. It helps us show up and be acceptable—and it thinks that hiding the shadow is the thing that’s going...
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In Episode 255, Cynthia and Susan ask Aubrey Chaves, Debbie Squires-Coleman, and Darice Auston, "What Do You Say?" It's 3 wide-ranging conversations with wise Latter-day Saint women answering questions about their memories, insights, and beliefs through stories of their own lives and experiences.
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Does piety serve anything besides the ego? Is our piety an asset or a liability? And what are we—individually and collectively—getting from it? In Episode 254, Susan and Cynthia consider these questions and more in a conversation examining the piety that is a cultural hallmark of our church. For Latter-day Saints and other Christians, is a focus on outward appearances or superficial “churchiness” sometimes a stand-in for real inner transformation?
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When Latter-day Saints hear the phrase “Purity Culture,” they may associate it more with evangelical churches than with our own. LDS talks and lessons focus on words like virtue, modesty, morality, and chastity to describe our ideals. But regardless of the specific words used, the messages are the same. Therapist C.A. Larson points out, “Purity culture is a moral control system that ties worth to sexual behavior, especially for women. [...] Purity culture in the LDS Church is institutional, enforced through interviews, modesty rules, and silence around consent.” In Episode 253,...
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Many Latter-day Saint women feel some constraint when it comes to using our voices at church, but it can even be hard to express what we think, feel, and believe in our own homes or personal relationships. Writing down thoughts that don't fit neatly in the box and hitting publish can bring consequences, but once a woman begins to speak, she's likely to find the repercussions she feared were much bigger than the ones she'll actually face. In Episode 252, Susan and Cynthia are joined by writer and independent scholar Katie Ludlow Rich for a conversation about her personal journey to reclaim her...
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For 6 years, Susan and Cynthia have been asking podcast guests, "What do you know?" In Season 11, they'll be asking a variety of Latter-day Saint women new questions about their memories, insights, and beliefs, with a card game called, What Do You Say? Episode 251 introduces the game as C & S break out the decks of cards for a fun and wide-ranging conversation of questions and answers.
info_outline“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.