[00:00:05] Hi, I'm Kari. And I'm her daughter, Kimberly I'm a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I left the church 10 years ago. I'm a family relationships coach for LDS mothers of adult children who have left the church. I became a coach after all six of my children left the LDS Church, and I chose to stay.
[00:00:26] We've been through some ups and downs in our relationship. There was a point where I nearly left and cut off my entire family because I was worried about the conflict that was being created by me leaving the church and trying to continue this relationship. But over the past decade, we have been able to work through everything and been able to have a really fulfilling relationship with one another and as a family as a whole, even though we have very different religious beliefs.
[00:00:53] We're constantly having conversations about our different beliefs and how they affect us and affect our relationship, and how we maintain our relationships even through these different beliefs. And in the work that I do, I have conversations with other mothers that are really struggling to create a strong and connected relationship with their adult children.
[00:01:13] As we've been having these conversations, and you've been having those conversations with other moms, and as we've been seeing stuff online a lot about estranged family members, we have been talking and talking about maybe recording some of our conversations or recording some of the ways that we talk and work through our issues to help other people see that you can have a good relationship even with different beliefs.
[00:01:39] Part of this podcast, we're gonna talk about how we reconstructed our relationship and our family's relationship after me and my siblings deconstructed our faith, and during that entire process, because it wasn't just all of us left at the same time. It was kind of one by one, and it kind of took some time.
[00:01:56] And part of it is we'll just discuss topics as they come up in our lives now and how we approach those coming at it from, from different sides of the faith divide.
[00:02:05] So we're calling it Coffee and Cocoa, and this came about... If you aren't Mormon or haven't ever been Mormon, you won't know this, but Mormons aren't supposed to drink coffee.
[00:02:17] So I'm your coffee, and you're my cocoa, Mom.
[00:02:21] But we can just sit down and drink our own thing and enjoy each other's company all the same.
[00:02:28] And of course, credit goes to my Aunt Jessica, who came up with the name.
[00:02:33] Yep. Cute Jessica.
[00:02:35] It feels really crazy doing this because sometimes I feel like, "Why would anyone listen to us?"
[00:02:41] And also, everyone wants to have a podcast, so I don't even know if this will be something that anyone listens to. But I hope that if you do listen to it, it is helpful.
[00:02:51] Yeah, I mean, I think it's fun just for us to get on and chat with one another, because I always enjoy having an excuse to talk with you for a while.
[00:02:58] But I do hope that it helps strengthen other people's family relationships as well, because family can be a really beautiful thing.
[00:03:06] And it can also be a really tough thing.
[00:03:07] Yeah. And we need all the help that we can get.
[00:03:10] So we're actually recording this introduction at the end of doing this project for several months. So we have recorded several episodes talking to one another about different topics that are important to us or different topics that have been hot topics as we have grown together. Um, but at the end of this, what are you feeling and what do you think people can expect?
[00:03:34] Well, I think that the biggest thing that I've learned is how much I still have to learn about podcasting and about, um, you know, and, and just about relationships in general.
[00:03:45] I mean, I, I think we're in a really good place, and I really have enjoyed all of these conversations that we've had, and I hope that we have an opportunity to continue on and keep doing this, because, it's been a lot of fun, and I've... and it's been really interesting for me. Yeah. And I think we've had a lot of conversations in the past with each other, but I think it's really fun to be revisiting some of these topics and really dissecting them with one another and seeing where we still don't match up exactly, but respect one another's opinions.
[00:04:15] And I think it's also fun to see how far we've come. Yeah, I agree. I do think that that's interesting because a lot of the things that we disagree on are just really kind of minor things in the end. Like- ... we mostly have a lot of the same values about caring about people and making the world a better place and being respectful of other people and their values.
[00:04:37] And I think that the most important part of our relationship is valuing each other's feelings and valuing each other's opinions as good people who are trying to do good things in the world, even if we see those things a little bit differently. I think we're both excited and scared to be putting this out, but we hope that you'll listen to everything and take what's useful to you.
[00:04:58] And what's not useful [00:05:00] to you, just blow away with a breath of compassion.
[00:05:04] Right.
[00:05:06] Because obviously all of our listeners are not gonna agree if we don't agree. You know, there's lots of different opinions out there, and that's okay. We can still be respectful of each other's humanity and right to have our opinions.
[00:05:22] But no matter how people take it, thank you, Mom, for having these conversations with me on and off the air.
[00:05:29] Thank you for talking to me and for continuing to come back to our relationship even when things have been hard.
[00:05:38] I love you so much.
[00:05:40] I love you. We'll talk to you soon.
[00:05:42] Bye.
[00:05:42] Bye.
[00:05:43]