Mormon to Muse

Kristin Martineau
  • 5.0 (10)
  • SELF-IMPROVEMENT
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Mormon to Muse is a podcast for post-Mormon women ready to heal, reconnect, and reinvent themselves—one creative step at a time. Leaving Mormonism isn’t just about letting go of a belief system, it’s about rebuilding your identity, finding your voice, and creating a life that feels fully your own. Join me as we explore the power of creative expression to process the past, connect with your inner wisdom, and step into a future that excites you. Through inspiring stories, therapeutic art, and life coaching tools, you'll learn how to move from a place of loss and uncertainty to one of healing, empowerment, and self-discovery. Whether you’re looking for creative inspiration, picking up a paintbrush for the first time or seeking guidance on your post-Mormon journey, this podcast is here to support you. Let’s redefine spirituality, self-worth, and personal freedom—one brushstroke at a time.

  1. 5H AGO

    40- The Truth About Awakening — Why Healing Doesn’t Make You Feel Better (and Why It’s Still Worth It)

    Most people pursue healing, awakening, or personal transformation because they believe it will make them feel better. That eventually, if they do enough work, they’ll reach some stable emotional state where doubt, grief, anger, and uncertainty no longer touch them. This episode challenges that assumption. Awakening doesn’t remove pain. It removes the psychological structures that kept certain pain out of reach. It’s less like becoming a flower opening to the morning sun, and more like realizing the walls of the room you’ve lived in your whole life were painted to look like windows. Nothing outside has changed, but your relationship to reality—and yourself—can never be the same. Drawing on the concept of “50/50,” taught by master coach Brooke Castillo, this episode explores the truth that no amount of healing eliminates the full spectrum of human emotion. Life will always include grief, anger, fear, uncertainty, and loss. Awakening doesn’t exempt you from these experiences. It initiates you into them more fully. If you were raised in a high-control or high-demand system, the emotional pain you experienced may have been muted, misattributed, or spiritually bypassed. You may have felt low-grade anxiety, emotional flatness, or a quiet sense that something was off—but lacked the language or permission to trust those signals. Awakening removes that anesthesia. It brings grief to the surface: grief for the certainty you lost, the parts of yourself you abandoned, and the relationships that may never feel the same again. But the purpose of awakening is not emotional comfort. It’s psychological integrity. When you stop outsourcing authority, you stop negotiating with your own perception. You stop fragmenting yourself to maintain belonging. You begin to experience a different kind of stability—not the stability of certainty, but the stability of self-trust. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why healing and awakening don’t eliminate emotional pain The difference between muted pain inside a high-control system and conscious pain outside of it Why destabilization is often a sign of growth, not regression How awakening removes internal conflict, even if it increases emotional intensity Why awakening often leads to increased creativity and personal agency The difference between stability and resilience—and why resilience is the real goal Awakening doesn’t make your life easier. It makes your life yours. If you’re in the disorienting space where old beliefs no longer hold and new clarity hasn’t fully formed, this episode will help you understand why that experience is not evidence that something has gone wrong—but evidence that something is changing. You are not failing. You are feeling. And there is a way to move through this transition with greater clarity and self-trust. Free Workshop Invitation If this episode resonated with you, I invite you to join my free live workshop: You’re Not Disconnected — You Were Conditioned: How Women Lose (and Regain) Their Intuition In this workshop, you’ll learn why you stopped trusting yourself and how to begin reconnecting with your internal knowing—so you can make decisions with clarity and confidence.

    15 min

  2. FEB 15

    39- The Gift of Doubt

    Doubt has a bad reputation. We’re taught to resolve it quickly. To replace it with certainty. To override it with belief, obedience, or confidence. But doubt is not the enemy of creativity. It is the beginning of it. In this episode, we explore why doubt is not a weakness—but a generative psychological state that makes creativity, intuition, and personal authority possible. Drawing on philosophy, psychology, and personal experience, I argue that the ability to sustain doubt—rather than rush to eliminate it—is one of the most important skills you can develop, especially if you were raised in a high-demand religious or ideological system. Because creativity does not emerge from certainty. It emerges from uncertainty. From the willingness to sit in the space where you don’t yet know. In This Episode, We Explore Why doubt is a generative state—not a dangerous one Doubt opens cognitive flexibility. It interrupts automatic patterns and creates space for new perception, new meaning, and new possibility. Why high-demand systems discourage doubt Many religious and authoritarian systems frame doubt as a moral failure rather than a natural cognitive process. This conditions people to distrust their own perception and outsource authority to external sources. The difference between resolving doubt and sustaining it “If we can acquire an attitude of suspended conclusion and sustain states of doubt, we open ourselves to more creative and generative possibilities.” — John Dewey, A Next Step: Learning to Listen to Your Intuition If this episode resonated with you, I created a free workshop called: You’re Not Disconnected — You Were Conditioned: How Women Lose (and Regain) Their Intuition In this workshop, you’ll learn: Why your intuition isn’t gone—it’s buried How conditioning disconnects you from your inner authority A simple therapeutic art exercise to help you reconnect with your intuitive voice This is not about becoming someone new. It’s about returning to who you were before you were taught not to trust yourself. You can register for free HERE Do your best to make it live! I'll be giving away one of my therapeutic art kits to one person on the call.

    14 min

  3. FEB 8

    38- Reclaiming Flow: How Women Rediscover Themselves Through Creativity

    Flow isn’t passive happiness. It’s deep immersion. It’s the state where time bends, self-consciousness softens, and you stop narrating yourself long enough to fully engage in what you’re doing. And research shows it’s one of the healthiest states the human brain can enter. In this episode, we explore: What flow actually is (and what it isn’t) The neuroscience of transient hypofrontality — when the inner critic quiets Why flow improves focus, creativity, and emotional resilience How high-demand religious conditioning can make immersion harder Why women trained into self-surveillance often struggle to access flow How creativity becomes one of the safest gateways back High-demand systems don’t forbid flow — but when life is structured around obligation, moral performance, and external approval, it’s difficult to enter a state that requires autonomy and self-forgetting. You cannot merge with the moment if you are busy monitoring yourself. If you’ve been craving deeper presence, this episode will help you understand why — and how to begin rebuilding your capacity for immersion. Download the Reclaiming Flow Worksheet to assess where you are and begin intentionally creating the conditions for flow in your own life. References: https://medium.com/change-your-mind/3-habits-of-people-never-in-flow-states-180683cb8e36 Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2008). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. Harper Perennial Modern Classics. Kotler, S. (2014). The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance. New Harvest. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-rise-of-superman-steven-kotler McGonigal, K. (2015). The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It. Avery. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/314317/the-upside-of-stress-by-kelly-mcgonigal/ McGonigal discusses stress physiology, performance states, and neurochemistry related to focus and resilience in both her book and related lectures. Dietrich, A. (2004). Neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the experience of flow. Consciousness and Cognition, 13(4), 746–761. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2004.07.002 Dietrich, A. (2008). Psychiatry Research, 159(1–2), 122–128. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2007.02.006 (This 2008 paper expands on the hypofrontality hypothesis in the context of exercise and altered states.)

    26 min

  4. FEB 1

    37- Why Traditional Spirituality Doesn't Work for Women

    For many women, spirituality was never meant to make us smaller—but that’s often what it did. In high-demand religious systems, spirituality is frequently defined by obedience, self-suppression, and service to the institution. Authority is external. Worthiness is conditional. Expansion beyond assigned roles is quietly discouraged. In this episode, we explore how feminine spirituality operates differently—and why so many women feel spiritually disconnected not because they are broken, but because they were conditioned to abandon themselves. This conversation is about remembering what was taken offline. In this episode, we explore: Why traditional, patriarchal spirituality rewards self-erasure in women rather than self-connection How “obedience” and “humility” became substitutes for intuition and inner authority The difference between masculine-coded spirituality (control, hierarchy, endurance) and feminine spirituality (integration, expansion, embodiment) Why women often feel spiritually depleted when they try to thrive inside systems that require their diminishment How reclaiming intuition, creativity, and emotional truth is a spiritual act—not a selfish one What it means to practice permission-less spirituality after leaving a controlling belief system This episode is especially for women who: Feel spiritually numb, angry, or disconnected after leaving a high-control religion Were taught to distrust their inner voice in favor of external authority Sense that their growth required breaking rules they were told were “divine” Are longing for a spirituality that feels alive, embodied, and honest A reframe to hold onto: For women, spirituality is not about disappearing. It is about becoming whole. Expansion is not rebellion against the sacred. It is the sacred. If you want to try a more feminine, creative approach to spirituality download these three art prompts that will help you slow down and get in touch with yourself.

    23 min

  5. JAN 25

    36 - Audacity over Permission

    Audacity Over Permission Why Waiting Isn’t Wisdom—and Showing Up Changes Everything. We’re often taught that patience is a virtue. That waiting is wise. That if we just prepare a little more, heal a little more, learn a little more—then we’ll be ready to speak, create, lead, or take up space. But for many women—especially those raised in high-demand or patriarchal systems—waiting isn’t neutral. It’s conditioning. In this episode, we talk about audacity: not arrogance, not recklessness—but the willingness to show up without permission, certainty, or guarantees. Using the character of Aaron Burr from Hamilton as a lens, we explore how “I’m willing to wait for it” can sound wise while quietly keeping us stuck. Burr believes he’s special. He believes his moment will come. He believes that restraint is strategy. But waiting doesn’t create authority. Showing up does. In this episode, we explore: How “good reasons” for waiting often mask fear, socialization, and self-distrust The difference between humility and self-erasure ,Why lived experience is a legitimate source of authority How social movements, creative work, and personal change are rarely led by people who felt “ready” We also talk about how many men are culturally rewarded for confidence without competence—while women are trained to require proof, permission, and polish before daring to act. The cost of that imbalance isn’t just personal—it’s collective. Audacity isn’t: Knowing exactly what you’re doing Being fearless Having credentials, titles, or approval Audacity is: Speaking from lived experience, creating before you feel qualified, letting yourself be seen while still figuring it out, refusing to wait for a system that was never designed to invite you in If you’ve been telling yourself you’re “not ready yet,” this episode is an invitation to question that story—and to consider what might happen if you stopped waiting for the perfect moment and started responding to what this moment is asking of you.

    14 min

  6. JAN 18

    35- Creating during Chaos

    Feel calmer in 5 minutes.  Click HERE to download free anxiety calming art prompt.   Want to be the first to know when an in person class opens? Sign up HERE so you won't miss it! There’s a belief that surfaces during times of collective crisis: now is not the time for creativity. That when the world feels unstable, violent, or overwhelming, art is indulgent—or even irresponsible. In this episode, I gently challenge that idea. We explore why creating during chaos isn’t a luxury or a distraction, but a deeply human, regulating act. One that helps us process grief, stay present in our bodies, and remember our capacity for meaning when the world feels unrecognizable. You’ll hear reflections on: Why creativity has historically persisted during war, disaster, and upheaval The difference between escapism and regulation Maslow’s hierarchy of needs—and where creativity actually belongs Anthropologist Ellen Dissanayake’s argument that art is a biological human need, not a reward for having life “figured out” Why making something small, imperfect, and present-focused can be an act of resistance and care This conversation isn’t about productivity, positivity, or “coping better.” It’s about staying human when the world makes that difficult.

    19 min

  7. JAN 11

    34- Why I Hate Self Care

    CLICK HERE to get on the interest list for in person classes in Utah.  You'll be the first to get all the details when a class opens.   We’re told self-care is the answer — but what if it makes you feel irritated, resistant, or worse? In this episode, I talk about why I hate self-care sometimes — and why that doesn’t mean something is wrong with me. For many women, especially those raised in high-control or performance-based systems, self-care becomes another obligation. Another way to self-monitor. Another quiet demand to feel better, faster. When self-care turns into something you should do — instead of something that actually supports you — your nervous system pushes back. That resistance isn’t laziness or ingratitude. It’s information. This episode isn’t about finding the perfect self-care routine. It’s about reclaiming care that doesn’t require self-abandonment, positivity, or fixing yourself. In This Episode, We Explore: Why self-care can feel annoying, heavy, or fake How “should-based” self-care becomes control in disguise Why your body may resist things that are supposed to help How obligation turns care into performance What real, supportive self-care actually feels like Key Insight If self-care feels like pressure, it’s no longer care. True care doesn’t ask you to override yourself — it asks you to listen.

    34 min

  8. JAN 4

    33- Goals without Overwhelm

    Setting goals is supposed to feel empowering—but for many of us, it quietly turns into pressure, self-judgment, and nervous-system overload. In this episode, we explore why goals so often create overwhelm (especially for women who were raised in high-demand systems), and how to approach goal-setting in a way that actually supports your life instead of bracing against it. This isn’t about lowering your standards or giving up on growth. It’s about designing goals your body can say yes to. In this episode, we talk about: Why overwhelm isn’t a motivation problem—it’s a design problem How holding too many goals at once scatters your energy Why choosing one meaningful focus can be regulating, not restrictive How high-pressure improvement culture trains us to override our own signals A gentler way to relate to goals that allows for adjustment without shame You’ll hear why it’s okay to reroute, change your mind, and let go of goals that no longer fit—without deciding that something has gone wrong. A question to sit with: If I chose just one focus for this season, what would actually support my life—not just prove something about me? Free Anxiety-Reducing Art Exercise If overwhelm lives more in your body than your thoughts, I created a free therapeutic art exercise designed to calm your nervous system and help you reconnect with clarity—no art experience required. 👉 Download the free anxiety-reducing art exercise here: https://www.mormontomuse.com/anxietyart Want support applying this to your own life? If this episode stirred something and you’d like a calm, supportive space to explore it more deeply, you’re invited to book a free Creative Healing Session with me. These sessions are not therapy and not sales calls. They’re gentle, one-on-one conversations with optional art-making to help you: slow down listen to your internal signals and reconnect with a sense of direction—without pressure or fixing 👉 Book your free Creative Healing Session HERE

    19 min
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5
out of 5
10 Ratings

About

Mormon to Muse is a podcast for post-Mormon women ready to heal, reconnect, and reinvent themselves—one creative step at a time. Leaving Mormonism isn’t just about letting go of a belief system, it’s about rebuilding your identity, finding your voice, and creating a life that feels fully your own. Join me as we explore the power of creative expression to process the past, connect with your inner wisdom, and step into a future that excites you. Through inspiring stories, therapeutic art, and life coaching tools, you'll learn how to move from a place of loss and uncertainty to one of healing, empowerment, and self-discovery. Whether you’re looking for creative inspiration, picking up a paintbrush for the first time or seeking guidance on your post-Mormon journey, this podcast is here to support you. Let’s redefine spirituality, self-worth, and personal freedom—one brushstroke at a time.

Information

  • Creator
    Kristin Martineau
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    40
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    Mormon to Muse