Mormon to Muse

Kristin Martineau
  • 5.0 (10)
  • Personal Journals
  • Updated Weekly

You didn't lose your faith. You found out something true — and now you're figuring out who you are on the other side. Mormon to Muse is a podcast for women navigating life after the Mormon church — the faith transition grief nobody prepares you for, the identity loss that comes with leaving a high-control religious system, and the slow, honest work of reclaiming yourself. Each week I explore what it means to find yourself again after the Mormon church — through creative practice, life coaching tools, and the kind of honest conversation you can't have at Sunday dinner If you've spent years being everything for everyone else and you're only now starting to wonder who you actually are — you're in exactly the right place. Start with: "You Were Never Just a Calling."

  1. 3d ago

    Why Anger Is A Good Thing: Managing Emotions After Mormonism

    Send us Fan Mail If you were raised to believe contention is of the devil, anger probably feels like proof that you're doing something wrong. It isn't. In this episode, Kristin explains what anger actually does, why women are shamed out of feeling it, and how to separate anger from aggression. She walks you through a five-step practice for turning anger into action, so you can stop abandoning yourself to keep the peace. In this episode Why anger isn't a spiritual failure, and what it is insteadThe difference between anger and aggressionWhy "being offended is a choice" is gaslightingWhat suppressed anger turns into: snapping, passive aggression, resentment, depressionA practice for accessing your anger and turning it into actionHow to set a real boundary (and why it isn't a demand on someone else)Key takeaways Anger exists to protect. It guards your body, time, values, people, and sense of fairness. It shows you where you're being hurt and where you're giving up too much of yourself.Anger and aggression are not the same thing. Aggression includes yelling, threats, and slamming doors, but also the silent treatment, sarcasm, and withholding affection. It happens when you aren't allowed to be honest about what made you angry.Suppressed anger doesn't disappear. It leaks out as snapping at your kids, passive aggression, resentment, depression, or self-directed blame.Women are taught the problem is their anger, not the boundary that was crossed. That framing keeps you from detecting where your limits are."Being offended is a choice" shifts blame to the victim. It takes a systemic problem and blames the person harmed by it.The practice: turning anger into action Feel it in the body. Notice where it lives. Don't rush past it or argue with it. Take a break if you need one.Notice if you're angry about being angry. That means you're resisting anger, not processing it.Find out why you're angry. Free write and ask: what line was crossed? Over time you'll see that many triggers trace back to the same underlying issue.Speak it. Dealing with it silently means abandoning yourself and letting others cross your boundaries.Set a boundary. A boundary is about what you will do, not what someone else is allowed to do. "If you yell at me, I will leave the house" is a boundary. "You aren't allowed to yell at me" is not.Angry at the church, at the people who kept you quiet, at yourself for staying so long? That is information, not a flaw. Now it needs direction. Download 5 Things Every Post-Mormon Woman Should Do and start rebuilding self-trust with a clear plan.

  2. Sep 27

    Rediscovering Taste After Mormonism

    Send us Fan Mail Rediscovering Your Own Taste After Mormonism When my oldest moved out, I turned the empty basement room into a retreat just for me. I painted it purple. It ended up dark, moody, feminine, and a little sexy. That was the opposite of the light, bright, minimalist house upstairs. So I had to ask whether I'd ever actually chosen the rest of my home, or whether I'd just decorated to the expected standard. In this episode I look at how high-control religion shapes your aesthetic, and why your taste is one of the fastest places to rebuild your identity. In this episode: Why I'd never decorated a space for myself before. I married at 19 and never lived on my own.The approved Mormon aesthetic, from temple pictures and the Proclamation to the Greg Olsen painting and the vinyl lettering. It was never about beauty. It was about evidence.The rainbow Jesus painting I hung after one of my kids came out, and why it felt so riskyHow aesthetic choices become moral choices in a high-control system: "Is this appropriate?" replaces "Do I like this?"Identity foreclosure: Erikson's model of adolescent exploration, and Marcia's term for committing to an identity without ever exploringWhy your taste often circles back to what you loved at 14, 15, and 16Why clothing and decor are the low-stakes, everyday practice ground for rebuilding self-trustPractical tips for rebuilding your taste: Listen to the question you're asking. Is it "Is this appropriate?" and "Is this too much?" Or is it "Do I like it?"Go back to before the foreclosure point. What you loved as a teenager is often your last real data point.Find your version of the unmonitored room. A Pinterest board works. It requires no commitment and no money.Treat it as creative practice, because it is.Resources mentioned: Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and Crisis. Norton.Marcia, J. E. (1966). Development and validation of ego-identity status. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 3(5), 551–558.Start your own reclamation: Book a free Reclamation Call HERE

  3. Sep 20

    Therapy vs. Coaching After Leaving High-Control Religion: Which One Do You Need?

    Send us Fan Mail Therapy treats. Coaching builds. If you left Mormonism or another high-control religion, knowing which one you need is the first decision, and evaluating the person you hire is the second. This episode gives you a clear test for the first and a practical checklist for the second. You will learn how to tell clinical pain from identity disorientation, how to find a qualified therapist or coach, and the red flags that signal a practitioner is rebuilding the authority structure you just left. Run the same check on me. In This Episode The core difference: therapy is licensed clinical care for diagnosing and treating mental health conditions; coaching is a forward-facing process for people who are functional and ready to buildWhy coaching is an unregulated industry and what that means for your searchWhy leaving a religious system makes this choice harder, when guilt, shame, and anxiety were treated as moral failures instead of psychological experiencesThe two kinds of pain that get tangled together: clinical symptoms and identity disorientationThe test: Are you trying to understand why you feel broken, or are you trying to build what comes next?Reasons to seek a therapist, and reasons to seek a coachHow to find a good therapist: specialty filters, credentials, consultation calls, and how to avoid waiting weeks for a second tryHow to find a good coach: real training, a specific niche, clear scope, and no guarantee languageRed flags for both roles, organized by scope violations, manipulation and dependency, competence gaps, ideological overreach, and practical issuesThe one pattern that matters most: a practitioner who recreates the authority structure you left, with better marketing or a licensure badgeWhere I stand: what I do, what I do not do, and why art-making is part of the workIf You Need a Therapist, Start Here Seek a therapist first if you are dealing with panic attacks, dissociation, intrusive thoughts, months of insomnia, grief that is stopping you from working or parenting, or suicidal ideation. If any of that is true right now, get clinical help right away. Consider a therapist who specializes in religious trauma or high-control group recovery. Work With Me I am a certified life coach. I am not a therapist. I do not diagnose, and I do not treat trauma. If a client discloses something clinical, I say so and I refer out. What I do is work with the thought patterns underneath identity collapse. You outsourced your internal authority years ago and nothing has replaced it. Coaching is how you build that replacement, by learning to generate your own conclusions and trust them, not by adopting a new authority to obey. Art-making is part of the process because it draws a response from you outside of language and outside the doctrine-trained part of your brain that looks for the correct answer. No art experience is required. Book your free Reclamation Call: [insert booking link] It is a 45-minute conversation about where you are and whether coaching is your next move.

  4. Sep 14

    Are You a Shadow Artist? — The Difference Between Wanting to Create and Actually Creating

    Send us Fan Mail You don't have a talent problem. You have a permission problem. If you've ever felt drawn to paint, dance, write, or make something — and then talked yourself out of it because it felt ridiculous for "someone like you" — this episode is about why that happens, what it's actually costing you, and how to stop waiting for permission that isn't coming. Drawing on Julia Cameron's concept of the "shadow artist" from The Artist's Way, Kristin breaks down the difference between people who are stuck circling a creative life and people who are actually living one — and it isn't talent. What You'll Hear What a shadow artist actually is: someone caught between the dream of action and the fear of failure, feeling a vague discontent or restlessness they can't quite nameWhy "I'm just not talented" is a story, not a fact — and why Kristin says drawing (and most creative skill) is learned, not inheritedThe five signs you're a shadow artist: consuming instead of creating, surrounding yourself with art without claiming it, being quietly (or not-so-quietly) critical of people who do the thing, feeling restless despite an objectively fine life, and having a long list of practical reasons why now isn't the timeWhy Kristin called herself "an art lover" instead of an artist for a long time — and what that phrase was really protecting her fromA story from Kristin's first drawing class at the community college, and what happened when she walked in scared instead of waiting to feel readyHow martyrdom gets rewarded in Mormon culture specifically — and why "look what I gave up for my family/the gospel" is a sophisticated excuse, not a virtueSteven Pressfield's idea of the "unlived life" — and why unexpressed desire doesn't disappear, it resurfaces as resentment, jealousy, and irritabilityWhy you should "have the audacity of a mediocre white man" and stop waiting for permission or credentials before you startKey Takeaways Talent is not the gate. Showing up repeatedly and tolerating the discomfort of being a beginner is the entire difference between you and the person whose art you admire.The urge to create doesn't fade with neglect. It goes underground and comes out sideways — as restlessness, irritability, or a hum of dissatisfaction you can't explain.Waiting until you're not scared is waiting forever. Fear is a passenger on this trip, not a stop sign.Martyrdom (for family, for the church, for anyone) is often just a well-dressed excuse for staying small — and no one is handing out a reward for it.Your unlived desire is not going anywhere. It goes underground and comes back out as resentment, as restlessness, as that low hum of something's missing that you can't quite name.

  5. Sep 6

    The Cost of Integrity: On Being Misunderstood

    Send us Fan Mail You didn't leave because you wanted to sin. You left because you saw things you couldn't unsee, and you followed your integrity out. This episode is about the price of that: being misunderstood by the people who used to know you best, and what to do about it. What This Episode Covers Kristin's husband recently saw extended family for the first time in a while. His text afterward: "they are afraid of me." Nothing about him had fundamentally changed — a tattoo, some facial hair, a different drink order. What changed is that he no longer fits their worldview, and that's enough for a "family-focused" religion to quietly write someone off. This episode breaks down why that happens and five ways to stop letting it run your life. Five Ways to Navigate Being Misunderstood 1. It's not about you, it's about them. The labels — lazy, deceived, never had a testimony — aren't an assessment of you. They're a release valve that lets believing members avoid examining their own foundation. Your leaving threatens a worldview built on decades of labor, money, and identity. It's easier to decide something is wrong with you than to ask whether something is wrong with the system. 2. What other people think of you is none of your business. This isn't generic self-help. Exmormon women were raised in a system where worthiness was measured by visibility — temple recommend interviews, callings, how the ward perceived you. Being well-regarded was treated as proof you were living correctly. Untangling your identity from other people's opinions means something different when that's your starting point. This also isn't a license to ignore all feedback — feedback on your actions is useful. Someone's private verdict about your character is not. 3. Stop auditioning. You don't owe anyone a performance of your outcome — good or bad. You can't be present in a hard season if you're managing how it looks. You can't enjoy a good one if you're performing for an audience. The church trained you to audition for your worthiness. You're allowed to opt out of the trial entirely. Replace "how will this look to others" with "what do I actually want here." 4. Find the people who don't label you. A friend's group of Mormon friends dropped her the moment she started wearing pants to church. That's the ceiling on belonging in a system built on conformity — step out of line once and you're out. Finding people who love you without requiring proof of anything is one of the real, unexpected rewards on the other side. 5. Allow the grief. You're allowed to miss the relationship you used to have, even while knowing you made the right call. The people you love may never see what you see, or feel the freedom you've found. That's a real loss. It doesn't undo the decision. Key Takeaway You are not required to win back a verdict from people who were never actually weighing the evidence. Their judgment is self-preservation, not truth. Stop trying to prove you're happy. Find the people who don't need you to be anyone other than who you are — then go live your life.

  6. Aug 30

    Stepping Into Womanhood After Mormonism

    Send us Fan Mail A woman posted on an LDS forum that her garments were so uncomfortable, she'd stopped wearing them — and then asked permission. Is this okay? Am I sinning? That question is the entry point into this episode: a close look at how Mormonism trains women to defer their own authority to outside approval, how that shows up far beyond garments or sexuality, and what it actually takes to reclaim full ownership of your own body, voice, and life. Kristin unpacks infantilization as a system — not a single rule, but an infrastructure that teaches women to check in before acting on their own desire, comfort, ambition, or anger. She shares her own experience starting pole dancing and painting as embodiment practices, walks through the difference between compliance and ownership when your choices look the same from the outside, and offers a concrete way to tell the difference between old conditioned fear and real danger. What's Covered The forum story: a woman asking strangers for permission to trust her own body, and what that reveals about paternalistic controlInfantilization as an infrastructure, not a single moment — how it shows up in sexuality, ambition, anger, physical strength, intellectual authority, voice in conflict, solitude, rest, and rage at injusticeWhy sexuality in Mormonism is routed through male permission, and what it means for a woman to own her sexuality as hers firstKristin's experience starting pole dancing as an embodiment practice with no audience and no justification requiredReclaiming womanhood as a four-part practice: noticing where you give away authority, separating compliance from ownership, expecting discomfort without mistaking it for danger, and dropping the need to justify your own desireA real test for telling old conditioned fear apart from an actual danger signalHow Kristin and her husband had to rebuild their marriage from choice instead of obligation after leaving the churchPainting and dance as embodiment practices — why physical, repeated, unsupervised creative expression rebuilds self-trust in a way thinking alone can't.If you recognize that habit of checking outside yourself before you trust your own answer — that's exactly the work I do with women one-on-one. I offer a free Reclamation Call: one conversation, just you and me, where we look at where you're still deferring your authority and what it would actually take to reclaim it. No pitch, no pressure — just a real look at where you are and what's next. You can book yours at the link in the show notes. You don't need the forum. You don't need permission. You just need one honest conversation to start.

  7. Aug 23

    Why We Resist What We Actually Want

    Send us Fan Mail Resistance Isn't a Stop Sign — It's a Map This week I'm breaking down Resistance — the concept Stephen Pressfield writes about in The War of Art — and why it ambushes you right at the exact moment you're closest to the thing you actually want. I'll walk through where Resistance really comes from, how to tell it apart from real intuition (this part matters especially if you grew up being taught your feelings were a moral compass), and what it actually takes to move through it — not by white-knuckling your way past it, but by understanding the game your own brain is playing. What You'll Learn: The difference between the surface reasons you avoid your work (fear, perfectionism, distraction, self-medicating with food/shopping/scrolling, manufactured drama) and the real reason underneath all of themWhy Resistance is proportional to how much something matters to your growth — not to how physically risky it actually isWhy the loudest Resistance shows up right before the things closest to your callingFive ways to tell Resistance apart from your intuition: timing, content vs. noise, direction, physical signature, and whether it holds up under scrutinyWhy this is a distinct challenge for women raised in high-control religion, where doubt was pathologized and your own emotional signals were used as the mechanism of controlThe Amateur vs. Professional framework — and why "turning pro" is about your relationship to the work, not your skill levelA track-record practice for rebuilding trust in your own signal over timeKey Takeaway: Resistance isn't proof you should stop. It's proof you're close to something real. The work isn't waiting for it to quiet down — it won't. The work is learning to stop believing what it tells you, and showing up anyway.

  8. Aug 16

    10 Ways Creativity Builds Inner Authority After High-Control Religion

    Send us Fan Mail If you were raised Mormon, you were taught to outsource your authority, your boundaries, and your worth to everyone around you. This episode isn't about making good art — it's about using creativity as a rehearsal space for trusting yourself. Kristin shares her own experience coming out of the church with a voracious, almost obsessive need to create — painting until 2am, forgetting to eat, unable to get enough of what the practice was doing for her. Looking back, she's identified exactly what that hunger was: creativity isn't the reward for finding yourself. It's how you build who you are. In this episode, Kristin breaks down ten ways a creative practice — painting, writing, or whatever medium calls to you — rebuilds the internal skills that high-control religion strips away. In This Episode 1. Releasing the need for control Why art refuses to let you force an outcome, and how that uncertainty becomes practice for staying present instead of white-knuckling toward a predetermined result. 2. Creating boundaries around your time Claiming hours that belong to no one but you — and why the people around you may resist that shift before they adjust to it. 3. Trying new things The case for novel experience as a nervous-system reset, and why the unfamiliar class or the unfamiliar hobby matters more than whether you're "good" at it. 4. Tolerating being bad at something Breaking the link between performance and permission to feel okay — including Kristin's ongoing war with painting flowers. 5. Flow state What it feels like to exist without self-surveillance after years of monitoring your own righteousness, and a simple way to start practicing it today. 6. Commitment — without the binary Why turning creative practice into a checklist recreates the same pass/fail system you're trying to leave, and what happens when you commit to yourself without the threat of punishment. 7. Risk taking Using low-stakes creative choices to practice the sensation of "I don't know what will happen and I'm doing it anyway" — without any real-world consequence attached. 8. Taking up physical space Claiming a table, a corner, a room as an act of quiet rebellion against the belief that your space belongs to everyone but you. 9. Being in the process — there's no "arriving" Unlearning the idea that everything must build toward exaltation, perfection, or a finish line. 10. Play Reconnecting to your body and your curiosity as sources of delight, and replacing "what ought I to be doing" with "what feels joyful right now." Key Takeaway None of these ten things are really about becoming a better artist. Creative practice is a rehearsal for trusting yourself — for recognizing impulse, tolerating imperfection, and taking up space. The boundary you set today in the studio is the boundary you'll already know how to set tomorrow, everywhere else.

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About

You didn't lose your faith. You found out something true — and now you're figuring out who you are on the other side. Mormon to Muse is a podcast for women navigating life after the Mormon church — the faith transition grief nobody prepares you for, the identity loss that comes with leaving a high-control religious system, and the slow, honest work of reclaiming yourself. Each week I explore what it means to find yourself again after the Mormon church — through creative practice, life coaching tools, and the kind of honest conversation you can't have at Sunday dinner If you've spent years being everything for everyone else and you're only now starting to wonder who you actually are — you're in exactly the right place. Start with: "You Were Never Just a Calling."

Information

  • Creator
    Kristin Martineau
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    71
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Mormon to Muse
  • Show Website
    Mormon to Muse

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