Episode 223: Making Friends with Change | A Conversation about Hope
“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!
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
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 about one of the heaviest topics Latter-day Saint women carry.
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Episode 220: The Women Are Not Okay | A Conversation About the Male Gaze
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 to shape and distort women's religious experience.
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Episode 219: Embracing Your Journey | A Conversation with Linda Hamilton
Linda Hamilton explains, “I spent my whole life believing that spirituality was in big things. Visions from heaven, angels, signs. We always say in Mormonism, don't wait for a sign. You won't get a sign; you won't get a miracle. We say that...and then we go up in testimony meeting and talk about some sign we received." She describes having spent much of her youth wondering how to get things like signs, or a surefire testimony. "And now," she says, "I've really embraced [that] spirituality is small things. It's yoga, it's going for a walk, it's my cats, it's going to a Taylor Swift concert and feeling in communion with thousands of women." In Episode 219, Linda joins Susan and Cynthia for a conversation about where she’s been, what she’s learned, and how her experiences inform the path she’s walking now.
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