Coloring Outside the Lines: Alex Caiola

Christina Elmer: 00:00:00

Hi, welcome to Living in Color, a podcast about uncovering your

Christina Elmer: 00:00:03

radiant self after losing your faith.

Christina Elmer: 00:00:06

I am your host, Christina Elmer.

Christina Elmer: 00:00:08

I'm so delighted you found us.

Christina Elmer: 00:00:15

Hi, everyone.

Christina Elmer: 00:00:16

Welcome to today's episode.

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I am excited as always for those of you that follow me or Living in Color on

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the socials, I introduced a new series that we're starting called Coloring

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Outside The Lines, where my guests and I discuss everything from books, beliefs,

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tenets, and practices that fall within or about high demand belief systems.

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So I'm excited to introduce today's guest, my friend, the High Priestess of

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Brooklyn, Capricorn Rising Inc., just a brilliant, kind human, Alex Caiola.

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I also call her the resident Real Housewives expert, and I have her

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on today to discuss the book by the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City

Christina Elmer: 00:01:17

castmate, the lovely Heather Gay.

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Enjoy!

Christina Elmer: 00:01:24

Hi, and welcome to Leaving in Color.

Christina Elmer: 00:01:26

This is our first episode of Coloring Outside the Lines, and I am super

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excited to introduce my guest today.

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Her name is Alex Caiola she is a phenomenal human being.

Christina Elmer: 00:01:38

I consider her a mentor, a friend, someone that I consult with on the

Christina Elmer: 00:01:41

regular about all things astrology and tarot, Alex has recently rebranded.

Christina Elmer: 00:01:48

When I met Alex, she was a tarot astrologer and you are now rebranded as

Christina Elmer: 00:01:52

an intuitive business and executive coach.

Christina Elmer: 00:01:54

Is that right?

Alex Caiola: 00:01:55

Yeah, so it's funny,

Christina Elmer: 00:01:57

I get that correct?

Alex Caiola: 00:01:58

You totally did.

Alex Caiola: 00:01:59

And it's, I think it's funny because I rebranded back to more of like my

Alex Caiola: 00:02:06

original thing, my roots, because I was in recruitment and talent

Alex Caiola: 00:02:11

acquisition for like 10 years before I started my own business.

Alex Caiola: 00:02:14

So it's just more like the rebrand is like a coming back to self in a way.

Christina Elmer: 00:02:21

I love it.

Christina Elmer: 00:02:23

It felt very fluid when you said, oh, I'm rebranding.

Christina Elmer: 00:02:26

And then I was like, oh yeah, this is what she's done before.

Christina Elmer: 00:02:28

And

Alex Caiola: 00:02:28

Thanks for having me.

Alex Caiola: 00:02:29

I'm so excited to be here.

Christina Elmer: 00:02:30

Yeah, I also consider Alex a little bit of

Christina Elmer: 00:02:33

like a Real Housewives expert.

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And so that's why I had her on today.

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If you follow her on any of her social media and TikTok, Instagram,

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she's, she loves the Real Housewives.

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And so, we are going to discuss the book Bad Mormon by Heather Gay and probably

Christina Elmer: 00:02:52

a little bit of like Real Housewives of Salt Lake City because obviously

Christina Elmer: 00:02:56

she's, she's a cast member on the show.

Christina Elmer: 00:02:59

But yeah, I consider Alex a resident Housewives expert, so

Christina Elmer: 00:03:03

I'm glad that she's here today to discuss this, this book with me.

Christina Elmer: 00:03:09

Alex is also Gemini, Gemini Sun like me, so I'm excited about this conversation.

Christina Elmer: 00:03:14

It's going to be spicy.

Alex Caiola: 00:03:17

Spicy.

Alex Caiola: 00:03:18

So I have a Scorpio moon and so does Heather Gay actually.

Christina Elmer: 00:03:23

Oh, yes.

Christina Elmer: 00:03:24

I was going to ask you about any sort of astrology.

Alex Caiola: 00:03:27

Let me pull up my friend Alyssa.

Alex Caiola: 00:03:30

So my friend Alyssa, who has this account starsxalyssa, is like the go to for

Alex Caiola: 00:03:37

all things astrology and Housewives.

Christina Elmer: 00:03:40

Oh, I didn't know about this.

Christina Elmer: 00:03:41

Okay.

Alex Caiola: 00:03:42

She's fantastic.

Alex Caiola: 00:03:43

Uh, she posts the star signs, sun signs, all the signs actually,

Alex Caiola: 00:03:50

that she can find, for every cast.

Alex Caiola: 00:03:54

And I actually really rely on her.

Alex Caiola: 00:03:58

Um, she does tireless research.

Alex Caiola: 00:04:00

A lot of these Housewives do not have their birth, their

Alex Caiola: 00:04:04

birth info isn't right online.

Alex Caiola: 00:04:07

So she has to like look for them and get them like all situated every single time.

Alex Caiola: 00:04:13

Um, she gets like new information and she updates them.

Alex Caiola: 00:04:16

So I'm literally just finding her posts about Salt Lake City to make sure that

Alex Caiola: 00:04:23

I get Heather's placements correct.

Alex Caiola: 00:04:25

So she's a Cancer Sun, Scorpio Moon, like I said, and a Sagittarius Rising.

Alex Caiola: 00:04:31

So what does that mean?

Christina Elmer: 00:04:33

Yes, what does that mean?

Alex Caiola: 00:04:33

That means that she, okay, so Heather Gay, I feel like

Alex Caiola: 00:04:40

leads with a lot of the Cancerian characteristics, which are maternal, you

Alex Caiola: 00:04:45

know, she's very proud of being a mom.

Alex Caiola: 00:04:48

I feel like she talks about that throughout the book, but

Alex Caiola: 00:04:50

yet she also, that Scorpio moon is like a fierce protector.

Alex Caiola: 00:04:55

You know, someone who, I have a Scorpio moon as well.

Alex Caiola: 00:04:58

We can be secretive sometimes, like compartmentalize two different worlds,

Alex Caiola: 00:05:03

you know, which she talks about a lot in the book, you know, the mormon side

Alex Caiola: 00:05:07

of her and the, you know, secular part of her and like how to reconcile that.

Alex Caiola: 00:05:12

Um.

Alex Caiola: 00:05:13

And Sagittarius Rising is very much like a teacher archetype, someone who loves

Alex Caiola: 00:05:19

to, you know, travel and gain a lot of knowledge about a lot of different things,

Alex Caiola: 00:05:25

you know, culturally very adept and I feel like she's got like a wealth of

Alex Caiola: 00:05:30

knowledge in pop culture and, you know,

Christina Elmer: 00:05:32

Oh, yeah.

Alex Caiola: 00:05:33

she, and it's, it's a cool placement, like she has kind

Alex Caiola: 00:05:37

of a factor about her that just shows that she's up on things and

Alex Caiola: 00:05:42

she can kind of, um, Sagittarius is the opposite of Gemini, right?

Alex Caiola: 00:05:45

So it's like, we can kind of talk to anyone and enjoy, like, conversations

Alex Caiola: 00:05:50

and things like that, connecting dots.

Alex Caiola: 00:05:52

That's just like a snippet of her chart, obviously, if we were gonna

Alex Caiola: 00:05:55

go, like, super in depth, we could.

Christina Elmer: 00:05:57

No, but that was super helpful.

Christina Elmer: 00:05:59

As you've been talking about, I'm thinking about, you know, watching this,

Christina Elmer: 00:06:04

this most recent season, season four, I really enjoyed when she went over to

Christina Elmer: 00:06:08

Angie, Angie's house for the Greek Easter and how she was just very respectful.

Christina Elmer: 00:06:14

Like she had done her research a little bit about the Greek Orthodox Easter and

Christina Elmer: 00:06:18

how it was different from Mormon Easter or Christian, you know, Christian Easter.

Christina Elmer: 00:06:22

And I just, I really appreciate it about that, about her and I guess the

Christina Elmer: 00:06:25

Sagittarius placement makes so much sense.

Alex Caiola: 00:06:29

It does.

Alex Caiola: 00:06:30

She's definitely respectful.

Alex Caiola: 00:06:32

And I even think, it's funny that the book is called Bad Mormon, but

Alex Caiola: 00:06:35

I feel like she's pretty respectful of the church the whole time.

Christina Elmer: 00:06:39

Yeah, exactly.

Christina Elmer: 00:06:40

She was very, very, extremely respectful and I guess, yeah,

Christina Elmer: 00:06:44

let's just jump into it.

Christina Elmer: 00:06:45

So what was something that you, you loved about the book in particular?

Alex Caiola: 00:06:50

I loved all of it.

Alex Caiola: 00:06:53

first of all, best writing out of any Housewife book I think we'll ever get.

Christina Elmer: 00:07:01

Oh, really?

Christina Elmer: 00:07:01

I've not read any other ones..

Alex Caiola: 00:07:02

Me neither, but I don't think.

Christina Elmer: 00:07:05

Okay.

Alex Caiola: 00:07:07

Okay, so I should, I should, I should say most

Alex Caiola: 00:07:10

of them are ghostwritten.

Alex Caiola: 00:07:12

So I shouldn't say that necessarily.

Alex Caiola: 00:07:14

I shouldn't say that because ghostwriters can be extremely, you know, great writers.

Alex Caiola: 00:07:19

But I think a Housewife writing her own, I'm sure she had help in some

Alex Caiola: 00:07:24

regard, but she wrote the book herself.

Alex Caiola: 00:07:25

Like, she gets the author credit, and I thought from that standpoint,

Alex Caiola: 00:07:29

it was really well written.

Alex Caiola: 00:07:31

And she thought about themes and, you know, wove them throughout.

Alex Caiola: 00:07:38

So I just think from a writing perspective, she did a really good job.

Alex Caiola: 00:07:40

Her delivery on audiobook was phenomenal, because she read it.

Christina Elmer: 00:07:44

Awesome, I love when they read the book.

Alex Caiola: 00:07:46

Me too.

Alex Caiola: 00:07:47

And so I loved that.

Alex Caiola: 00:07:49

I think that what stood out the most to me was how Housewives, like,

Alex Caiola: 00:07:56

brought everything together for her.

Christina Elmer: 00:07:58

Mm.

Alex Caiola: 00:07:59

And how she said, you know, I spent so much time,

Alex Caiola: 00:08:04

you know, trying to be perfect.

Alex Caiola: 00:08:06

And I'm paraphrasing her quote, but the producers and the Housewives

Alex Caiola: 00:08:12

franchise wanted me because of my flaws, because of my failures, and I felt

Alex Caiola: 00:08:19

like they required nothing of me, and in so doing, I got the most out of it.

Alex Caiola: 00:08:28

I think she said like they required nothing and everything from me at the same

Alex Caiola: 00:08:32

time, because I could just show up and be myself, like what better job is there?

Alex Caiola: 00:08:37

And I just thought, wow, that was a really cool way to sort of put that job into

Alex Caiola: 00:08:42

perspective, given her circumstances.

Alex Caiola: 00:08:46

And I just found that to be really empowering for, I felt like I was already

Alex Caiola: 00:08:54

rooting for her, but just given all of the backstory of what she had been through, I

Alex Caiola: 00:08:58

felt like, wow, she really has come a very long way and has made it to some regard.

Christina Elmer: 00:09:03

Yeah, for sure.

Christina Elmer: 00:09:05

Uh, I'm glad that you pointed that out.

Christina Elmer: 00:09:06

I actually, I read this before Christmas break and so I don't remember.

Christina Elmer: 00:09:10

I've tabbed my book.

Christina Elmer: 00:09:11

I have, I'm old fashioned.

Christina Elmer: 00:09:13

Alex and I talked about this a little bit before we started recording, but

Christina Elmer: 00:09:16

Alex listened to the audio version.

Christina Elmer: 00:09:18

I have the hard, old lady version like book because I need to touch

Christina Elmer: 00:09:23

it and tab it and write in it.

Christina Elmer: 00:09:25

But yeah, what a beautiful way for her to be able to heal those parts of

Christina Elmer: 00:09:30

herself, like leaving Mormonism and having to be perfect or feeling like

Christina Elmer: 00:09:34

you have to be perfect all the time and just being seen for who she is.

Christina Elmer: 00:09:39

Absolutely must have been the most therapeutic thing for her.

Christina Elmer: 00:09:43

I can imagine being on reality TV is probably very chaotic and

Christina Elmer: 00:09:49

not the best space to heal in.

Christina Elmer: 00:09:53

Coming out of Mormonism and then, okay, here I'm on the big stage

Christina Elmer: 00:09:55

and, but the producer's just saying, Yeah, okay, we want you as you are.

Christina Elmer: 00:10:00

That is wonderful.

Christina Elmer: 00:10:02

So if we want to kind of compare Salt Lake City Housewives to like other franchises.

Christina Elmer: 00:10:09

I've only watched like a season of New Jersey, maybe

Christina Elmer: 00:10:15

a couple seasons of New York.

Alex Caiola: 00:10:17

Mhm.

Christina Elmer: 00:10:18

What other ones are there?

Christina Elmer: 00:10:19

I've never really watched Atlanta.

Christina Elmer: 00:10:21

I know the castmates and I kind of follow their stories on, like, celebrity gossip

Christina Elmer: 00:10:26

sites, but, and I never watched Potomac.

Christina Elmer: 00:10:31

But how, how is the cast compared to like, other Real Housewives franchises?

Alex Caiola: 00:10:38

Mm I spend a lot of time thinking about this so

Alex Caiola: 00:10:40

I'm really glad you asked that.

Christina Elmer: 00:10:42

I love it.

Alex Caiola: 00:10:43

You also forgot Beverly Hills, which,

Christina Elmer: 00:10:46

Yes, Beverly Hills and Orange County, so I have watched

Christina Elmer: 00:10:48

those, some, some seasons of those.

Christina Elmer: 00:10:50

Yes.

Christina Elmer: 00:10:50

Thank you.

Alex Caiola: 00:10:51

so I think it went Orange County, then New York, then Beverly

Alex Caiola: 00:10:54

Hills, and on and on, the franchises went.

Alex Caiola: 00:10:58

Um, Atlanta was early on, too.

Alex Caiola: 00:11:01

I think Salt Lake City, to me, I thought it was interesting, too, in the book,

Alex Caiola: 00:11:05

they kind of talk about how it wasn't originally meant to be a Housewives show,

Alex Caiola: 00:11:10

or they weren't like sure it was going to be a Housewives show, and then they

Alex Caiola: 00:11:13

made it into a Housewives show, which I think meant that, everybody was happy

Alex Caiola: 00:11:18

about that it seems like, on the cast.

Alex Caiola: 00:11:20

um, because of what that meant at that point.

Alex Caiola: 00:11:22

Um, I think in 2020, they premiered.

Alex Caiola: 00:11:26

I think that Salt Lake City compares in that there's history with all of

Alex Caiola: 00:11:33

the, with a lot of the friendships.

Christina Elmer: 00:11:36

Right.

Alex Caiola: 00:11:37

There's also the sense that there's the Mormon church, there's

Alex Caiola: 00:11:43

Mary, uh, Cosby has a Pentecostal, she leads a Pentecostal community,

Christina Elmer: 00:11:50

Yeah.

Alex Caiola: 00:11:51

and she has a very interesting backstory.

Christina Elmer: 00:11:54

Yes.

Alex Caiola: 00:11:56

And there is just so much going on, like dynamic wise?

Alex Caiola: 00:12:04

You know, Whitney has also recently left the church.

Alex Caiola: 00:12:08

That's Heather's like distant cousin.

Alex Caiola: 00:12:10

Because she had an affair with her now husband, she runs a business.

Alex Caiola: 00:12:15

It's also a very entrepreneurial cast.

Alex Caiola: 00:12:17

Like every single one of them like runs a business besides Mary,

Alex Caiola: 00:12:21

which I guess you could say that her church is a business too.

Alex Caiola: 00:12:24

It's a nonprofit.

Christina Elmer: 00:12:26

Yeah.

Alex Caiola: 00:12:26

Technically.

Alex Caiola: 00:12:27

Um,

Christina Elmer: 00:12:28

The Mormon Church is also a business, too, just by the

Alex Caiola: 00:12:31

Uh huh.

Alex Caiola: 00:12:32

Yeah.

Alex Caiola: 00:12:33

Billions and billions of dollars.

Christina Elmer: 00:12:34

Billions of dollars.

Christina Elmer: 00:12:35

Yeah.

Alex Caiola: 00:12:36

I think that was the original angle of the show.

Alex Caiola: 00:12:40

So they like compiled all these entrepreneurial women.

Alex Caiola: 00:12:43

And I think for me as an entrepreneur too, you could probably relate to this

Alex Caiola: 00:12:47

as well, that's really inspirational and aspirational in many ways.

Alex Caiola: 00:12:50

Like they all have like their thing and they're centering a lot of their

Alex Caiola: 00:12:54

life around their family and making the business and their family and all

Alex Caiola: 00:12:58

those things that they're juggling work, which I think is cool to watch.

Alex Caiola: 00:13:02

But the history and the level of you know religious affiliation

Alex Caiola: 00:13:08

and and like how the city runs.

Alex Caiola: 00:13:11

I think it's just all really interesting.

Alex Caiola: 00:13:13

It's super foreign to me personally.

Alex Caiola: 00:13:15

So I love learning about just different cultures and just like how

Alex Caiola: 00:13:19

everything works together and wait, like Lisa's owns a tequila company,

Alex Caiola: 00:13:23

but she's a very devout Mormon.

Alex Caiola: 00:13:25

Like, how does that work?

Alex Caiola: 00:13:26

Like all of these different layers to it.

Alex Caiola: 00:13:29

I think it's super interesting.

Alex Caiola: 00:13:31

And they're funny.

Alex Caiola: 00:13:31

Like they're really, really funny and entertaining to watch and not

Alex Caiola: 00:13:35

every, I don't laugh at every cast.

Alex Caiola: 00:13:39

Like there's a few that are really funny, Atlanta, Potomac

Alex Caiola: 00:13:41

are two of them and Salt City.

Alex Caiola: 00:13:43

Like New York is, is funny too cause it just on who's on it at the moment.

Alex Caiola: 00:13:48

But um, I'm, I'm laughing, I'm entertained and I'm also just

Alex Caiola: 00:13:52

like enthralled with their lives.

Christina Elmer: 00:13:54

Yeah.

Alex Caiola: 00:13:54

It might be my favorite franchise

Christina Elmer: 00:13:57

Oh,

Alex Caiola: 00:13:58

Besides New York, I mean.

Christina Elmer: 00:14:00

I was going to say you're through and through New York, but.

Alex Caiola: 00:14:02

Yeah.

Christina Elmer: 00:14:03

Yeah, I actually heard a rumor.

Christina Elmer: 00:14:04

I heard this on another podcast that I listened to that the same people that

Christina Elmer: 00:14:09

produce New York produce Salt Lake City.

Christina Elmer: 00:14:12

I could be wrong.

Christina Elmer: 00:14:12

I don't, that hasn't been vetted, but I mean, yeah, I could see that.

Christina Elmer: 00:14:16

Oh yeah.

Christina Elmer: 00:14:17

We forgot Miami.

Christina Elmer: 00:14:18

Miami is another,

Alex Caiola: 00:14:19

Oh, Miami's great, too.

Alex Caiola: 00:14:20

No, and Miami's well, they did for a while and now Miami's back and it's very very

Alex Caiola: 00:14:25

good, too I can't believe I forgot Miami.

Christina Elmer: 00:14:27

There's just too many.

Christina Elmer: 00:14:28

Yeah.

Christina Elmer: 00:14:28

And.

Christina Elmer: 00:14:28

Sometimes it's hard to keep, track of all the, the Bravo shows.

Christina Elmer: 00:14:33

Something I, that you pointed out about that they're all entrepreneurs,

Christina Elmer: 00:14:38

which coming out of Mormonism myself, it's a very, not that being

Christina Elmer: 00:14:43

an entrepreneur is solely Mormon.

Christina Elmer: 00:14:46

You know, but we're, we're taught from a very young age, especially those that

Christina Elmer: 00:14:49

have been in the church for very, very, very long time, or the ancestors go back

Christina Elmer: 00:14:53

to like the founding of the religion, have always been very work and business

Christina Elmer: 00:15:00

minded and individuals, people that just, you know, really, really work hard for

Christina Elmer: 00:15:04

what they have and take pride in things.

Christina Elmer: 00:15:06

And so I think that it's beautiful that they're highlighting

Christina Elmer: 00:15:10

these women that are, you know.

Christina Elmer: 00:15:12

First of all, who doesn't want to support a business owned by a strong woman?

Christina Elmer: 00:15:16

I think that's incredible.

Christina Elmer: 00:15:18

but yeah, it just kind of, I think it highlights a lot of their Mormon ties.

Alex Caiola: 00:15:23

That's another part in the book too where Heather talks about

Alex Caiola: 00:15:27

her entrepreneurial nature from a very age, and I loved learning about

Alex Caiola: 00:15:33

that too about her and I, I didn't realize that that was a Mormon, um,

Alex Caiola: 00:15:39

characteristic or something that's like in the culture, which is that, so that

Alex Caiola: 00:15:43

makes sense and that's, I mean, that's a cool aspect of it, I think, personally.

Christina Elmer: 00:15:48

Just being, you know, really good with your money and like,

Christina Elmer: 00:15:52

you know, just working hard for things that you have and taking pride in it

Christina Elmer: 00:15:54

is definitely something that a lot of people in the church kind of live by.

Christina Elmer: 00:16:00

But what was interesting is if we want to go and talk about Lisa

Christina Elmer: 00:16:05

Barlow, it's interesting because most Mormons, and I wonder if it's...

Christina Elmer: 00:16:11

first of all the culture, Mormon culture, is so different in Utah than

Christina Elmer: 00:16:15

anywhere else in the world or country.

Christina Elmer: 00:16:18

Like, cause there are pockets of Mormons everywhere, like pretty

Christina Elmer: 00:16:22

much every state in the United States has a Mormon congregation.

Christina Elmer: 00:16:28

But for whatever reason, Utah, Idaho, even Arizona, those members

Christina Elmer: 00:16:34

of the church are very specific.

Alex Caiola: 00:16:36

How so?

Christina Elmer: 00:16:37

Like, they're, they're a little bit culturally different.

Christina Elmer: 00:16:40

It's funny because Mormonism, there's lots of like interesting

Christina Elmer: 00:16:44

beliefs, but there's also things that I grew up thinking were beliefs,

Christina Elmer: 00:16:48

but it's actually cultural things.

Christina Elmer: 00:16:50

Like for example, caffeine,

Alex Caiola: 00:16:52

Hmm.

Christina Elmer: 00:16:53

So, one of the tenets of Mormonism is something called the Word of

Christina Elmer: 00:16:57

Wisdom and it's essentially a health code.

Christina Elmer: 00:17:00

So it just breaks down things that are healthy to eat and things that are not.

Christina Elmer: 00:17:03

So coffee, tea, alcohol are two big, big no nos.

Christina Elmer: 00:17:09

But they, they specify as hot drinks, so you can drink herbal tea, hot

Christina Elmer: 00:17:15

cocoa is fine, and that's a hot drink, but, you know, coffee and tea in

Christina Elmer: 00:17:18

particular and alcohol are a big no.

Christina Elmer: 00:17:21

But it's interesting because caffeine is found in coffee and growing

Christina Elmer: 00:17:26

up, like, we were always told, oh, don't drink Coca Cola because

Christina Elmer: 00:17:29

it's, it's caffeinated, right?

Christina Elmer: 00:17:31

But it doesn't say exactly in the Word of Wisdom, oh, caffeine is against the

Christina Elmer: 00:17:36

Word of Wisdom, it's coffee and tea.

Christina Elmer: 00:17:38

But people then changed it to believe, oh, well, then Coca Cola is

Christina Elmer: 00:17:42

bad because it has caffeine in it.

Christina Elmer: 00:17:45

And when I went to Brigham Young University in the early 90s, or the

Christina Elmer: 00:17:49

late 90s, goodness, I'm not that old, in the late 90s, early 2000s, it was funny

Christina Elmer: 00:17:53

because on campus all the caffeinated drinks, so like Coke, Diet Coke, even

Christina Elmer: 00:17:58

Mountain Dew, were caffeine free.

Alex Caiola: 00:18:01

Oh.

Christina Elmer: 00:18:02

Yeah, which is weird because it doesn't say

Christina Elmer: 00:18:04

anything in the Word of Wisdom about caffeine . So it's like,

Alex Caiola: 00:18:08

Hmm.

Christina Elmer: 00:18:09

why can't we have something that isn't

Christina Elmer: 00:18:11

necessarily terrible for us?

Christina Elmer: 00:18:14

I mean, soda isn't the best, but you know, it's, it doesn't specify in there, but

Christina Elmer: 00:18:18

yet we're told not to drink it and you're kind of controlling us in this way that

Christina Elmer: 00:18:22

we can't have caffeinated soda on campus.

Christina Elmer: 00:18:25

So I had a roommate who, when we were living in the dorms, she would

Christina Elmer: 00:18:29

sneak off, first of all, to church.

Christina Elmer: 00:18:31

We had church every Sunday and we were required to go because wherever

Christina Elmer: 00:18:34

we lived, we were separated into, um, small congregations based

Christina Elmer: 00:18:38

upon where we lived in the dorms.

Christina Elmer: 00:18:40

And even off campus, you're just separated into small

Christina Elmer: 00:18:42

congregations for Sunday services.

Christina Elmer: 00:18:45

And my friend who I adore her, she's, she was somewhat of a rebel,

Christina Elmer: 00:18:49

she would go shopping on Sunday.

Christina Elmer: 00:18:51

She would play hooky from church and she would go grocery shopping,

Christina Elmer: 00:18:55

which shopping on Sunday is like a big no, no, in Mormonism.

Christina Elmer: 00:18:59

You're supposed to just go to church, spend time with your family.

Christina Elmer: 00:19:01

You're not supposed to spend any money on Sunday.

Christina Elmer: 00:19:04

And so she would go grocery shopping on Sunday and come back with a

Christina Elmer: 00:19:08

huge like 24 pack of Mountain Dew.

Christina Elmer: 00:19:11

Which, caffeine on campus was a big shocker, like, Oh, here

Christina Elmer: 00:19:15

comes Nikki walking in with a big thing of Mountain Dew on Sunday.

Christina Elmer: 00:19:19

But she did it for show, she's like, I don't care.

Christina Elmer: 00:19:21

And she would just walk back into the dorm carrying her case of Mountain Dew.

Christina Elmer: 00:19:26

But coming full circle, Lisa Barlow now owning a tequila company.

Christina Elmer: 00:19:32

And what's interesting is that her husband, she, she mentions it this

Christina Elmer: 00:19:36

season on the show when her son is getting ready to serve a mission for

Christina Elmer: 00:19:40

church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, that she wasn't able to go

Christina Elmer: 00:19:44

into the temple to be there while he goes and makes these special promises

Christina Elmer: 00:19:48

or covenants with God in their temple.

Christina Elmer: 00:19:52

but her husband could go.

Christina Elmer: 00:19:53

So I'm curious.

Christina Elmer: 00:19:55

I wish I could ask somebody this question, like how, how is that allowed?

Christina Elmer: 00:20:00

Like, how can you own a business selling alcohol when the Church is definitely

Christina Elmer: 00:20:05

against the consuming of alcohol?

Christina Elmer: 00:20:08

I don't know if they necessarily are against the selling of it,

Christina Elmer: 00:20:10

but they limit drinks in Utah.

Christina Elmer: 00:20:12

You can't have more than two alcoholic drinks on a table at a

Christina Elmer: 00:20:16

time when you go out to eat in Utah.

Christina Elmer: 00:20:20

But it's just, it's interesting that John Barlow has a temple recommend to go into

Christina Elmer: 00:20:26

the temple and he owns a tequila company, but we couldn't have caffeinated soda at

Christina Elmer: 00:20:31

Brigham Young University in the late 90s.

Christina Elmer: 00:20:33

They've since then allowed caffeinated soda on campus and I remember when it

Christina Elmer: 00:20:38

happened it was a huge deal and everyone was posting about it on social media.

Christina Elmer: 00:20:41

But yeah, that's kind of interesting and weird to think about.

Alex Caiola: 00:20:47

It is weird to think about, and I don't know anything about anything

Alex Caiola: 00:20:51

in regards to the Mormonism of it all, but I'm also thinking about filming.

Alex Caiola: 00:20:57

So there's gotta be such interesting stipulations for Salt Lake City in

Alex Caiola: 00:21:02

particular because the two drinks on the table thing, I'm thinking

Alex Caiola: 00:21:06

about a lot of times when they're out to eat, it is two of them.

Alex Caiola: 00:21:11

they're not out to eat like in a big group dinner, or if they do

Alex Caiola: 00:21:14

a big group dinner, it's private.

Alex Caiola: 00:21:16

And I'm wondering if that has something to do with one, you

Alex Caiola: 00:21:20

know, that might that makes sense.

Alex Caiola: 00:21:22

I never thought about it.

Alex Caiola: 00:21:23

Uh, cause I didn't know that was a rule.

Alex Caiola: 00:21:26

And secondly, Lisa's the only one, I guess, still in the Mormon

Alex Caiola: 00:21:30

church, right, and she's on the show.

Alex Caiola: 00:21:33

I don't know what their opinion on that would be, um, or if they have a

Alex Caiola: 00:21:40

say, but I would assume that maybe, like, because she's on the show,

Alex Caiola: 00:21:44

she can't go into the temple either?

Alex Caiola: 00:21:47

Like, maybe it has less to with VEDA and more to do with the show.

Christina Elmer: 00:21:53

Possibly.

Christina Elmer: 00:21:53

I don't know.

Christina Elmer: 00:21:54

Yeah, I'm kind of curious about that.

Christina Elmer: 00:21:55

I mean, obviously, like, I want to be respectful of, you know,

Christina Elmer: 00:22:01

whatever is going on with that.

Christina Elmer: 00:22:04

Like, it's, when I was active in the Mormon church, I, especially towards

Christina Elmer: 00:22:08

the end and I kind of I came into my own understanding of a lot of the

Christina Elmer: 00:22:13

beliefs and practices within Mormonism.

Christina Elmer: 00:22:16

I, I came to understand that it's very personal, like the relationship that

Christina Elmer: 00:22:21

you have with God and the promises that you make to him are very personal.

Christina Elmer: 00:22:26

They shouldn't include, your husband, which within Mormonism, it's a patriarchal

Christina Elmer: 00:22:31

religion and there's a lot of like consulting with men and reporting to men.

Christina Elmer: 00:22:37

But, yeah, I came to believe that it's very personal, and I didn't want to

Christina Elmer: 00:22:42

be judged because someone else told me that I couldn't do something, or, you

Christina Elmer: 00:22:47

know, if I felt something differently, I really wanted to believe that that

Christina Elmer: 00:22:52

was true, and I hope, I'm going to assume that Lisa Barlow is in that same

Christina Elmer: 00:22:55

situation that it's very personal for her.

Christina Elmer: 00:22:58

She doesn't talk a lot about it.

Christina Elmer: 00:23:00

Right.

Christina Elmer: 00:23:00

She doesn't talk a lot about going to churches.

Christina Elmer: 00:23:02

I think she was just recently started going back again shortly

Christina Elmer: 00:23:06

before Jack decided, her oldest, decided to go on a mission.

Christina Elmer: 00:23:10

But I, I think sometimes.

Christina Elmer: 00:23:13

I forget, for me, coming out of Mormonism and I see how damaging

Christina Elmer: 00:23:17

it's been to so many people that it is, it's a personal choice, right?

Christina Elmer: 00:23:22

And I, I need to be respectful of, of that.

Christina Elmer: 00:23:26

And I, I can imagine trying to navigate having a kid who's

Christina Elmer: 00:23:32

wanting to serve a mission.

Christina Elmer: 00:23:33

Actually, side note, I think he ended up not going.

Christina Elmer: 00:23:35

I think we find that out at the reunion.

Alex Caiola: 00:23:38

Yeah, I didn't watch the most recent one.

Christina Elmer: 00:23:41

I haven't either.

Alex Caiola: 00:23:42

Like I feel like you're right.

Christina Elmer: 00:23:44

But yeah, having a husband who's still in the

Christina Elmer: 00:23:48

church, but he seems like he's supportive of her, her decisions.

Christina Elmer: 00:23:52

And I think that that's not something that I've seen very often within Mormonism.

Christina Elmer: 00:23:58

So kudos to her.

Alex Caiola: 00:24:00

I feel like she just really does her own thing

Alex Caiola: 00:24:03

completely, and I think that's cool.

Alex Caiola: 00:24:08

It seems like Heather to me, felt like more of a rule follower, and

Alex Caiola: 00:24:12

that she was really respectful of, everything and took it very sacred from

Alex Caiola: 00:24:20

an early age and then felt that she eventually had to leave because she

Alex Caiola: 00:24:27

wanted to like, live a very different life, like she couldn't have both and

Alex Caiola: 00:24:31

she really tried and couldn't do it.

Alex Caiola: 00:24:35

And I think It's interesting to see, and she probably feels some type of way, and

Alex Caiola: 00:24:39

I feel like she said this about Lisa just kind of doing whatever she wants with

Alex Caiola: 00:24:44

Mormonism, and yes, it's personal, but I feel like the Mormon church has very

Alex Caiola: 00:24:50

strict guidelines from what it seems like on what is and isn't couth and like, what

Alex Caiola: 00:24:55

kind of makes you a good or bad Mormon.

Alex Caiola: 00:24:58

And I think, you know, it's clear which one, The route that Heather chose.

Alex Caiola: 00:25:04

But, um, that's why that cast dynamic I think is so interesting is because

Alex Caiola: 00:25:09

there's people who are like not involved in it at all, people who were involved

Alex Caiola: 00:25:13

very heavily and are no longer, and you know, that was a big part of their story.

Alex Caiola: 00:25:19

And then, you know, somebody who's in the church still, who kind of is a

Alex Caiola: 00:25:23

little loosey goosey with the rules.

Christina Elmer: 00:25:25

Yeah.

Christina Elmer: 00:25:26

I guess it, you know, that works for her and I'm glad that it, that

Christina Elmer: 00:25:30

it's there just to support her.

Alex Caiola: 00:25:32

Yeah.

Christina Elmer: 00:25:33

So anything else from the book?

Christina Elmer: 00:25:34

I'm trying to, When I was reading the book, I have different tabs on

Christina Elmer: 00:25:38

mine things are like, oh my gosh, I, you know, this is typical Mormonism.

Christina Elmer: 00:25:44

And then there were things that I also tabbed that felt very similar

Christina Elmer: 00:25:48

to my own experience in Mormonism.

Christina Elmer: 00:25:51

I actually, um, read a review today because I was like, oh,

Christina Elmer: 00:25:54

I wonder if there's anyone out there that's done a book club.

Christina Elmer: 00:25:57

But, um, someone who's also an ex Mormon said that they found her description of

Christina Elmer: 00:26:03

the Mormon temple ceremony pretty bland.

Christina Elmer: 00:26:07

But again, like going back to the, the thing that you said originally, that

Christina Elmer: 00:26:10

she was very respectful of Mormonism.

Christina Elmer: 00:26:12

Like she, you know, exactly what you said with the title being interesting

Christina Elmer: 00:26:17

because she's not a bad Mormon.

Christina Elmer: 00:26:18

I don't, I don't see her as a bad Mormon.

Christina Elmer: 00:26:19

She's not out there trying to put an expose out about the church

Christina Elmer: 00:26:23

and how it's ruined her life.

Christina Elmer: 00:26:26

She's very, very respectful.

Christina Elmer: 00:26:28

And I, that's somewhat contrary to a lot of people's experiences.

Christina Elmer: 00:26:35

A lot of people that are post Mormon or ex Mormon, they come from a

Christina Elmer: 00:26:39

very, just a very painful space.

Christina Elmer: 00:26:44

and obviously, it's, you know, each person's experience is different,

Christina Elmer: 00:26:50

but I, I don't think Heather Gay is someone who wants to have

Christina Elmer: 00:26:53

that negative energy out there.

Christina Elmer: 00:26:54

She wants to really just put the best out there, and I don't think

Christina Elmer: 00:26:58

that's necessarily a bad thing.

Alex Caiola: 00:27:00

Right.

Alex Caiola: 00:27:01

I have a question because I feel the end got kind of rushed and it didn't really

Alex Caiola: 00:27:09

go into what, her leaving the church.

Christina Elmer: 00:27:12

Yeah.

Alex Caiola: 00:27:13

It just kind of went into like, her becoming a housewife.

Christina Elmer: 00:27:17

Uh huh.

Alex Caiola: 00:27:18

A Real Housewife.

Alex Caiola: 00:27:20

Is it that you have to leave the church if you get a divorce?

Christina Elmer: 00:27:24

You don't have to but she, you know, she is engaging in what

Christina Elmer: 00:27:31

the church considers bad behavior, right?

Christina Elmer: 00:27:35

She's drinking alcohol.

Christina Elmer: 00:27:37

She's having what they would consider extramarital relationships.

Alex Caiola: 00:27:43

Hmm.

Christina Elmer: 00:27:43

I don't recall if she's mentioned getting

Christina Elmer: 00:27:45

her temple sealing canceled.

Christina Elmer: 00:27:48

So the way it works in Mormonism, you go into the big buildings, they have

Christina Elmer: 00:27:52

one right in New York City, somewhere up, uptown, um, in New York City.

Christina Elmer: 00:27:59

Um, but that's where a lot of Mormon ceremonies take place,

Christina Elmer: 00:28:02

predominantly marriages.

Christina Elmer: 00:28:04

And when one leaves the Mormon church.

Christina Elmer: 00:28:07

As far as I know, if you haven't had your records moved, which I don't think she's

Christina Elmer: 00:28:12

had her records removed, as far as I know.

Christina Elmer: 00:28:14

I know that Whitney did this last season, but I don't think Heather has.

Christina Elmer: 00:28:19

So I think that her temple sealing is still intact, even though her

Christina Elmer: 00:28:25

legal marriage to her husband, it's like she's officially

Christina Elmer: 00:28:30

divorced by the eyes of the law.

Christina Elmer: 00:28:32

But according to the Mormon church, she may not necessarily be divorced in their

Christina Elmer: 00:28:37

eyes, like her celestial marriage may not be canceled, if that makes sense.

Christina Elmer: 00:28:42

It's interesting that you asked is because I'm actually kind of

Christina Elmer: 00:28:46

looking at this a little bit.

Christina Elmer: 00:28:48

It's kind of been popping up on my radar with a bunch of ex Mormon women on this

Christina Elmer: 00:28:52

Facebook group that I am a part of.

Christina Elmer: 00:28:54

With women that are leaving the Mormon church, removing

Christina Elmer: 00:28:57

their names, it's a process.

Christina Elmer: 00:28:58

You have to get a whole thing notarized, just like Whitney did.

Christina Elmer: 00:29:02

I was really happy to see that, that they showed like the process

Christina Elmer: 00:29:06

that it's not just like a simple thing and it kind of then shows that

Christina Elmer: 00:29:11

the Mormon church is a business.

Christina Elmer: 00:29:12

Like who has to get a notarized document to leave a religion?

Christina Elmer: 00:29:18

That makes zero sense.

Christina Elmer: 00:29:20

So a bunch of these women on this ex Mormon Facebook group are saying, you

Christina Elmer: 00:29:24

know, I've left the Mormon church.

Christina Elmer: 00:29:26

I've, officially removed my name through the process of, sending a

Christina Elmer: 00:29:30

letter to the church or whatever.

Christina Elmer: 00:29:32

but their temple marriages or their celestial marriages are still

Christina Elmer: 00:29:37

intact in the eyes of the church.

Christina Elmer: 00:29:39

And we were all confused because I also assumed the same thing that if your

Christina Elmer: 00:29:43

name is removed from the records of the church, like, there's not any existence

Christina Elmer: 00:29:49

of you left in the Mormon Church.

Christina Elmer: 00:29:50

Like, you're just, it's like, you were never there.

Christina Elmer: 00:29:54

But from what I've heard from these groups is that that's not the case.

Christina Elmer: 00:29:58

That they still count these marriages as legal in the eyes of God.

Christina Elmer: 00:30:04

It was a little bit confusing, like, oh, I thought that because, you know,

Christina Elmer: 00:30:09

My name was removed from the records of the church that therefore any ceremonies

Christina Elmer: 00:30:14

or promises or things that we do, that it would automatically be canceled

Christina Elmer: 00:30:21

as well, but that's not the case.

Christina Elmer: 00:30:23

So, yeah, I'm curious as to if she's going to go through that,

Christina Elmer: 00:30:28

but also she doesn't really talk a lot about her kids still being in.

Christina Elmer: 00:30:34

She's mentioned that her oldest.

Christina Elmer: 00:30:36

Ashley, who's away at college, is obviously not in the church anymore.

Christina Elmer: 00:30:41

Well, I'm assuming from what I've just seen on the show, but she hasn't

Christina Elmer: 00:30:45

mentioned anything about her younger two.

Christina Elmer: 00:30:46

So maybe her younger two are still active.

Christina Elmer: 00:30:49

Because I think this season she did talk about, remember she went skiing with her

Christina Elmer: 00:30:53

girls that one day and they were talking about some of the bullying that had

Christina Elmer: 00:30:57

been happening with the girls at school?

Alex Caiola: 00:31:00

Yeah

Christina Elmer: 00:31:01

And so I wonder, you know, cause there is a stigma if a

Christina Elmer: 00:31:04

parent leaves the church and there's another parent that's still active, or

Christina Elmer: 00:31:09

the kids still may be active and they have to be around other Mormon kids.

Christina Elmer: 00:31:14

I can't imagine doing that in Utah and then having your mom be on this

Christina Elmer: 00:31:17

huge public, you know, forum of TV.

Christina Elmer: 00:31:21

Yeah, so I don't know if her kids are still in Or if that's why she

Christina Elmer: 00:31:23

hasn't left the church, because her kids are still in, you know?

Alex Caiola: 00:31:26

Right.

Alex Caiola: 00:31:28

It's confusing.

Alex Caiola: 00:31:29

I feel like the end of the book was like a little bit rushed.

Alex Caiola: 00:31:32

I feel like I didn't fully understand the whole of the story.

Alex Caiola: 00:31:37

And I think she's, she's clear and pretty thoughtful about

Alex Caiola: 00:31:42

everything that she's telling.

Alex Caiola: 00:31:43

And so it must have been a clearly well thought out, not, you know, omission,

Alex Caiola: 00:31:49

if, if didn't really go into it in the book and that makes sense to me.

Alex Caiola: 00:31:54

it's just interesting how religions take something that is undocumentable,

Alex Caiola: 00:32:01

marriages in the eyes of God.

Alex Caiola: 00:32:03

It's like, what?

Alex Caiola: 00:32:04

I guess I can think about it as like the Akashic records, right?

Alex Caiola: 00:32:07

Which is like the way that we go into, um, past lives and sort of the soul

Alex Caiola: 00:32:15

history of every living, breathing entity or even building or, you know, land

Alex Caiola: 00:32:25

in, in the, I guess on earth really, because that's the only thing that

Alex Caiola: 00:32:29

we're kind of seeking out answers to.

Alex Caiola: 00:32:33

So I, I guess in that sense, like I can see why you would stake a claim to a

Alex Caiola: 00:32:43

relationship being a record in the eyes of god or the universe, because I guess...

Alex Caiola: 00:32:49

I'm disproving what I was about to say, because, um, there are soul

Alex Caiola: 00:32:54

records that are called, you know, I just call them a different thing

Alex Caiola: 00:32:56

or kind of, you know, we, we kind of recognize them to be a different thing

Alex Caiola: 00:32:59

in spirituality as the Akashic records.

Alex Caiola: 00:33:02

But, yeah, I guess there, there wouldn't be a way to like strike

Alex Caiola: 00:33:06

that from the record, from the Akasha because that's not possible.

Alex Caiola: 00:33:12

So in the other instance of that, I think it, it's kind of beautiful to say like

Alex Caiola: 00:33:17

this cannot be erased, like, you did come together in union, in holy marriage, in

Alex Caiola: 00:33:28

no matter what religion it is, and we cannot pretend like it never happened,

Alex Caiola: 00:33:32

like, there was, you know, the souls came together and created a family,

Alex Caiola: 00:33:38

you know, potentially children, and it would be almost like, uh, sanctimonious

Alex Caiola: 00:33:44

to, to say that it didn't happen.

Christina Elmer: 00:33:49

Now that's a beautiful perspective, thank you.

Christina Elmer: 00:33:52

I wonder if I were to bring that up in ex Mormon circles, they'd probably

Christina Elmer: 00:33:55

be like, that's a bunch of bullshit!

Christina Elmer: 00:33:59

You know, cause there, a lot of these women are coming from an angry space

Christina Elmer: 00:34:01

of like, this has been damaging, you know, but, you know, for me, I feel like

Christina Elmer: 00:34:06

if you're looking at it from a healed perspective, which, I know that I am.

Christina Elmer: 00:34:10

I can definitely see that as, yeah, that, that absolutely makes sense.

Christina Elmer: 00:34:15

But then if we twist it and look how the Mormon Church operates,

Christina Elmer: 00:34:17

that's not how they're viewing it.

Christina Elmer: 00:34:18

But I, yeah, I can totally, I can see that viewpoint of it.

Alex Caiola: 00:34:23

I think that's the interesting thing about being a

Alex Caiola: 00:34:26

third party observer of any highly, you know, organized and thoughtful

Alex Caiola: 00:34:37

religion or culture of any capacity is like simply asking a question

Alex Caiola: 00:34:41

can be very triggering to the people who have the lived experience.

Alex Caiola: 00:34:45

And I think, you know, I hope that as a society, we start to soften the

Alex Caiola: 00:34:51

edges on that a little bit because I think people are really afraid to like

Alex Caiola: 00:34:55

ask questions and get more knowledge on things because people are scared to

Alex Caiola: 00:35:01

offend people, you know, plain and simple.

Alex Caiola: 00:35:03

And I, I could see that like going into a, a setting like that and just saying,

Alex Caiola: 00:35:08

what if we looked at it like this, you know, getting like your head ripped off.

Alex Caiola: 00:35:12

I appreciate that you've created a safe space for me to ask you questions

Alex Caiola: 00:35:15

about Mormonism because, yeah, I think it can be really intimidating

Alex Caiola: 00:35:19

to get to know something if you don't know where the, the landmines are in

Alex Caiola: 00:35:24

regards to the questions, you know?

Christina Elmer: 00:35:26

Yeah.

Christina Elmer: 00:35:27

No, ask away.

Christina Elmer: 00:35:28

That's partially why I started this podcast was just to have

Christina Elmer: 00:35:30

a safe space to be able to ask questions and share stories and...

Christina Elmer: 00:35:35

There's quite a few podcasts out there that really focus on the damaging

Christina Elmer: 00:35:41

effects of Mormonism And I, want, I don't want that to be the focus.

Christina Elmer: 00:35:46

And they come from an angry space of like, this is how I was hurt.

Christina Elmer: 00:35:50

And I, I understand that that, that definitely happens.

Christina Elmer: 00:35:54

Like it, that may not be my exact experience, but I, I know that so

Christina Elmer: 00:36:00

much more can come from healing than coming from the, the space of

Christina Elmer: 00:36:03

like hurt and fear and negativity.

Christina Elmer: 00:36:07

Cause that's, you know, I lived my whole life in fear.

Christina Elmer: 00:36:11

A lot of people in Mormonism live their whole life in fear, and so being able

Christina Elmer: 00:36:14

to just come out and have a safe space is, and a positive space, it's like,

Christina Elmer: 00:36:20

you know, we can have conversations and there's not, you know, animosity or,

Christina Elmer: 00:36:25

judgment on anyone's part, they're just like, yeah, this is just a discussion,

Christina Elmer: 00:36:29

it's, you know, someone's coming from a place of curiosity, not from

Christina Elmer: 00:36:32

a place to like judge or, or accuse.

Alex Caiola: 00:36:37

Right.

Christina Elmer: 00:36:37

So.

Alex Caiola: 00:36:38

And so living in fear, you mean that just in that the church

Alex Caiola: 00:36:44

or a culture that is stemming from the church, imparts a lot of rules and

Alex Caiola: 00:36:51

sort of a moral code to live by, and so you're living in fear that you aren't

Alex Caiola: 00:36:57

living perfectly in the eyes of God?

Christina Elmer: 00:37:00

Yeah.

Christina Elmer: 00:37:01

Yeah.

Christina Elmer: 00:37:01

Living, not living perfectly in the eyes of God and there's the Mormon belief that

Christina Elmer: 00:37:07

when we die, we, that's the main reason for having the temples and performing

Christina Elmer: 00:37:12

the different ceremonies that they do in them is to allow people to have

Christina Elmer: 00:37:19

a next life, but living in with God.

Christina Elmer: 00:37:21

So, you know, versus the belief of like our soul moves on to something

Christina Elmer: 00:37:26

else, it's like staying in heaven.

Christina Elmer: 00:37:27

And then the belief that, you know, when you are, it's called a sealing.

Christina Elmer: 00:37:32

When you're sealed to your spouse, that you're going to be with this

Christina Elmer: 00:37:35

person in the eternities and maybe one day create worlds of your own

Alex Caiola: 00:37:39

Hmm.

Christina Elmer: 00:37:40

like, you know, Heavenly Father did and, you know, sent his son.

Christina Elmer: 00:37:43

I don't know how the whole thing works, but that's just a general

Christina Elmer: 00:37:47

belief that, you know, we'll go on to create our own, our own worlds.

Christina Elmer: 00:37:53

And so there's a lot of fear placed in this life to be perfect, to get

Christina Elmer: 00:37:59

married in the temple, to have a family, to do things perfectly.

Christina Elmer: 00:38:04

Cause if you don't, then you're not going to be able to live with

Christina Elmer: 00:38:07

your family in the next life.

Christina Elmer: 00:38:09

You won't see them again.

Christina Elmer: 00:38:10

If you, you know, commit an atrocious sin of, having sex or, you know, even

Christina Elmer: 00:38:16

viewing erotic material, or just a whole gamut drinking alcohol, or at one

Christina Elmer: 00:38:24

point, I think suicide was considered pretty taboo within the Mormon religion.

Alex Caiola: 00:38:28

Hmm.

Christina Elmer: 00:38:29

Um, that if you commit any egregious sin, even the smallest

Christina Elmer: 00:38:34

one, cause they, they say that just starting small with the smallest

Christina Elmer: 00:38:39

sin, cause then become something much bigger and can ruin your life.

Christina Elmer: 00:38:43

And so there's just a lot of fear placed upon people that if

Christina Elmer: 00:38:46

you're not absolutely perfect.

Christina Elmer: 00:38:48

And yeah, you can repent, you can go talk to your parochial leader

Christina Elmer: 00:38:53

and, you know, confess your sins.

Christina Elmer: 00:38:56

But there's just that underlying fear of like, if you're not good enough,

Christina Elmer: 00:39:00

you're not going to be able to attain the highest kingdom and be able to

Christina Elmer: 00:39:04

live with your family in eternity.

Christina Elmer: 00:39:05

You're going to be living in this lower kingdom and having to like

Christina Elmer: 00:39:10

essentially just not see your family ever again, which is devastating.

Christina Elmer: 00:39:14

You know, if you think about like an eight year old kid in Mormonism, eight

Christina Elmer: 00:39:17

years old is the age you get baptized.

Christina Elmer: 00:39:19

I think, did Heather talk about that in her book about being baptized?

Alex Caiola: 00:39:22

She did it with, I think, Ashley.

Christina Elmer: 00:39:25

Oh, yes.

Christina Elmer: 00:39:26

Ashley's baptism and just reading that, I was like, there's such

Christina Elmer: 00:39:29

pomp and circumstance around that.

Christina Elmer: 00:39:31

And if you think about it, it's a huge deal to accept these

Christina Elmer: 00:39:39

beliefs at eight years old.

Christina Elmer: 00:39:40

Like my youngest got baptized in the Mormon church about two years ago.

Christina Elmer: 00:39:43

And I remember going through that process, being an ex Mormon and supporting my,

Christina Elmer: 00:39:51

my baby who's still in, cause their dad is still an active member of the church.

Christina Elmer: 00:39:56

And just trying to have conversations with him to help him understand, cause

Christina Elmer: 00:40:00

there's not a lot of teaching that goes into it to say, you know, this is...

Christina Elmer: 00:40:04

you get to choose ultimately, but at the same time, there's like the undertone of

Christina Elmer: 00:40:08

like, well, if you don't get baptized, you're going to feel left out, or it

Christina Elmer: 00:40:12

shows that you don't love God, or you don't want to make these promises.

Christina Elmer: 00:40:15

And it's like, but an eight year old.

Christina Elmer: 00:40:18

has barely, you know, been reading for a couple of years.

Christina Elmer: 00:40:21

They barely understand the things that they're learning.

Christina Elmer: 00:40:25

Um, how can you expect them to make a promise, a huge promise.

Christina Elmer: 00:40:29

Like making a commitment to anything, whether it be a God, a person,

Christina Elmer: 00:40:33

anything, it's a huge commitment.

Christina Elmer: 00:40:35

Yeah, it's a lot.

Christina Elmer: 00:40:36

And especially reading Heather's experience going through that with

Christina Elmer: 00:40:40

Ashley and how it just was like, I found it interesting now that

Christina Elmer: 00:40:43

we're talking about that her husband like punished her in some way.

Christina Elmer: 00:40:47

Right?

Christina Elmer: 00:40:47

He was being really difficult about something was...

Christina Elmer: 00:40:53

I really felt for her in that moment, just she was wanting everything to be

Christina Elmer: 00:40:56

so perfect because her baby was gonna be making these huge promises to God.

Christina Elmer: 00:41:02

It's a huge thing at eight years old to do this thing.

Christina Elmer: 00:41:05

And yet her husband's like being a dick about it.

Alex Caiola: 00:41:10

Yeah, they were really not good at that moment.

Alex Caiola: 00:41:16

And so she had gone through all this rigmarole to put together like the

Alex Caiola: 00:41:21

perfect party and the perfect, day.

Alex Caiola: 00:41:24

And I gather this, and you've been saying this, that like the man holds more weight

Alex Caiola: 00:41:30

in the church, and so all he really had to do was show up and actually get

Alex Caiola: 00:41:36

most of the credit for the whole thing that she had done behind the scenes.

Alex Caiola: 00:41:42

And so I think she was feeling very resentful, and just like, all you really

Alex Caiola: 00:41:45

need to do is show up, and then he was trying to change the time of the ceremony,

Alex Caiola: 00:41:51

and she was like, like, no, you can't, you know, it's been, we've worked that into

Alex Caiola: 00:41:57

the entire day and it's just so planned.

Alex Caiola: 00:41:58

It's like basically saying, like, you want to change the time of

Alex Caiola: 00:42:01

a wedding, like the day before.

Alex Caiola: 00:42:03

Right?

Alex Caiola: 00:42:03

It seems, it seems like it was pretty, you know, a lot of moving parts and, um, he

Alex Caiola: 00:42:09

still showed up, he showed up late anyway and, and then like that was kind of the,

Alex Caiola: 00:42:13

the breaking point of their marriage.

Alex Caiola: 00:42:16

Like he was just like, you know, I'll move out like tomorrow or something like that.

Alex Caiola: 00:42:20

I think that was like the end of everything.

Alex Caiola: 00:42:23

And it, you know, there always has to be, like there's like a catalyst and

Alex Caiola: 00:42:28

there's like the small breakings, and then eventually, like, you just can't hang

Alex Caiola: 00:42:34

on like that for very much longer, so.

Alex Caiola: 00:42:38

Yeah.

Alex Caiola: 00:42:38

it was ironic to have it be centered around something that's so important

Alex Caiola: 00:42:43

in the church, though, right?

Christina Elmer: 00:42:45

Yeah, for sure.

Christina Elmer: 00:42:46

Like, I can't imagine doing that.

Christina Elmer: 00:42:48

Because it's funny, because looking at it from an ex mormon perspective, like,

Christina Elmer: 00:42:52

I know that the scheduling that has to go into it, like, because there's, you know,

Christina Elmer: 00:42:57

a lot of children getting baptized, they usually it's assigned per congregation.

Christina Elmer: 00:43:03

Because usually multiple congregations share one building, and so they

Christina Elmer: 00:43:06

schedule like on the first Sunday, this congregation or this Saturday of

Christina Elmer: 00:43:10

the month, this congregation goes and baptizes all their kids turning eight.

Christina Elmer: 00:43:14

And so they usually combine all of them in one hour or you get to say,

Christina Elmer: 00:43:19

okay, well, we're having the Richardson baptism at 10 o'clock and then we're

Christina Elmer: 00:43:24

having the Smith's baptism at, you know, 12 o'clock or whatever, because they

Christina Elmer: 00:43:30

have to fill this big font of water and it takes a long time to get it warm.

Christina Elmer: 00:43:35

And so, you know, it's just.

Christina Elmer: 00:43:36

They do multiple in a day just to knock them out, but.

Christina Elmer: 00:43:39

Maybe it's different than when Ashley was younger, but I feel like in the last,

Christina Elmer: 00:43:45

let's see, my oldest is 18 and when he got baptized 10 years ago, that's kind of how

Christina Elmer: 00:43:49

it was just like you were assigned a day.

Christina Elmer: 00:43:53

Yeah, it is.

Christina Elmer: 00:43:54

They have people scheduling it.

Christina Elmer: 00:43:55

You have to call and schedule if you need to use the building.

Christina Elmer: 00:43:58

Like it's, it's a well oiled machine.

Christina Elmer: 00:43:59

That's for sure.

Alex Caiola: 00:44:00

I have a question back to what we were talking about before,

Alex Caiola: 00:44:03

which is like, the fear of not getting into heaven, not getting a next life

Alex Caiola: 00:44:09

in the best heaven, let's say, for lack of a better, I mean, there is

Christina Elmer: 00:44:15

It is the best.

Christina Elmer: 00:44:16

It is the best heaven.

Christina Elmer: 00:44:17

Yeah.

Christina Elmer: 00:44:17

It's called the celestial kingdom.

Alex Caiola: 00:44:19

The Celestial Kingdom, okay.

Alex Caiola: 00:44:21

So we've talked about Journey of Souls, right?

Alex Caiola: 00:44:24

The book by Dr.

Alex Caiola: 00:44:26

Michael Newton, So I'm wondering, I know it's hard because there's a lot of

Alex Caiola: 00:44:32

secular texts about spirituality that do not have a religion attached to them that

Alex Caiola: 00:44:37

are probably also no nos in the Mormon Church, but in, in any religion, like I

Alex Caiola: 00:44:44

don't see Catholicism handing that shit out either, um, which is how I grew up.

Alex Caiola: 00:44:49

But, death is the great equalizer, you know, the next life, or, you

Alex Caiola: 00:44:54

know, the fact that we all return to energy is the great equalizer.

Alex Caiola: 00:44:57

Like there is no, in my understanding.

Alex Caiola: 00:45:01

And again, I have died hundreds of times.

Alex Caiola: 00:45:04

And what I believe of reincarnation, but I don't remember all of them, obviously,

Alex Caiola: 00:45:08

but in every bit of research that I've done, even like cross functionally

Alex Caiola: 00:45:12

with different texts, different ways that it's been documented, even

Alex Caiola: 00:45:16

in near death experiences, right?

Alex Caiola: 00:45:18

Like we kind of all go through the exact same experience when we die.

Alex Caiola: 00:45:22

And we do rejoin with our loved ones, like kind of no questions asked.

Alex Caiola: 00:45:27

There's nothing you could do to not get that.

Alex Caiola: 00:45:31

And it makes me really sad that for years, I also believed that

Alex Caiola: 00:45:37

you go to either heaven or hell, um, maybe purgatory, but you got

Alex Caiola: 00:45:43

to be really good to get to heaven.

Alex Caiola: 00:45:46

And to learn, you know, as an adult, after years of deprogramming that, at

Alex Caiola: 00:45:52

least from where I sit and the research I've done, none of that is true.

Alex Caiola: 00:45:56

And so it's really just the biggest lie of all of the lies, if we

Alex Caiola: 00:46:03

want to talk about, the egregious offenses in the eyes of God, right?

Alex Caiola: 00:46:08

Um, which is the most ironic thing I've ever heard.

Christina Elmer: 00:46:14

Yeah.

Alex Caiola: 00:46:15

That we, as it's, it's similar in society to, I've been thinking

Alex Caiola: 00:46:18

about recycling lately, Trevor Noah talked about it on his podcast, where

Alex Caiola: 00:46:22

he said the biggest like fallacy and fraud of it all is, is taking something

Alex Caiola: 00:46:28

that is really a large scale problem, like recycling plastic, and instead

Alex Caiola: 00:46:35

of just changing the materials that we make things with from plastic to glass

Alex Caiola: 00:46:41

or other recyclable materials, they in big corporations that make things out

Alex Caiola: 00:46:47

of plastic, put it on the individual to do the right thing and recycle, when

Alex Caiola: 00:46:53

really the problem could be solved in an instant by changing the approach

Alex Caiola: 00:47:00

from a systematic corporate standpoint.

Alex Caiola: 00:47:04

You know, we're talking about religions as being businesses too, right?

Alex Caiola: 00:47:07

Like, I don't, I mean, it's basically the exact same concept.

Christina Elmer: 00:47:11

Yeah.

Alex Caiola: 00:47:12

Do the right thing, go to church, you know, consistently

Alex Caiola: 00:47:16

feed into this business.

Alex Caiola: 00:47:18

And then maybe you'll get an option to go

Christina Elmer: 00:47:22

Yeah.

Alex Caiola: 00:47:22

to heaven, to the best heaven.

Christina Elmer: 00:47:24

Yep.

Alex Caiola: 00:47:25

What a crock!

Christina Elmer: 00:47:26

I know it is the biggest, the biggest farce of them all

Alex Caiola: 00:47:31

It's so messed up.

Alex Caiola: 00:47:32

And it's hard, like, we're impressionable.

Alex Caiola: 00:47:35

We like, you know, humans like want to, I think, you know, you touched on

Alex Caiola: 00:47:39

something earlier, you know, with the baptism, like we just want to be included.

Alex Caiola: 00:47:44

We just want to belong.

Alex Caiola: 00:47:45

We're tribal at the end of the day too.

Alex Caiola: 00:47:48

And so.

Alex Caiola: 00:47:49

You know, religion is one, one of the best ways to be able to give that to people.

Christina Elmer: 00:47:56

So you grew up Catholic.

Christina Elmer: 00:47:57

I have a question.

Alex Caiola: 00:47:58

Mm hmm.

Christina Elmer: 00:47:59

Okay, so Heather talks about Mormons, in one

Christina Elmer: 00:48:02

of the chapters, Mormons are comfortable living with secrets.

Christina Elmer: 00:48:06

Church members go into temples all over the world and conduct complicated and

Christina Elmer: 00:48:09

elaborate rituals that keep a secret from their friends, their children,

Christina Elmer: 00:48:13

their employers, even their spouses.

Christina Elmer: 00:48:15

So in Mormonism, when people talk about the temple, they say, well, we can't

Christina Elmer: 00:48:21

talk about it because it's sacred, right?

Christina Elmer: 00:48:24

But she says that it's secretive, which coming out of it, it's very

Christina Elmer: 00:48:28

secretive because if you're not allowed to talk about it, Right.

Christina Elmer: 00:48:33

So, was there anything within Catholicism that felt very similar

Christina Elmer: 00:48:39

to like, oh, this is sacred, but we have to keep it a secret.

Alex Caiola: 00:48:43

Not necessarily, I feel like Catholicism does things

Alex Caiola: 00:48:47

a little bit more out loud.

Christina Elmer: 00:48:51

Okay.

Alex Caiola: 00:48:52

like, you know, even just the papal, anointing or appointing, right?

Alex Caiola: 00:48:57

It's televised.

Christina Elmer: 00:48:58

Super cool.

Christina Elmer: 00:48:59

Yeah.

Christina Elmer: 00:48:59

I love that.

Alex Caiola: 00:49:00

Super ritualized but I think it's very public, and I think that has

Alex Caiola: 00:49:04

probably always been like a stamp of Catholicism, just like Jesus, in a way,

Alex Caiola: 00:49:09

was like, here I am and I'm the son of God and like, crucify me in the public square.

Alex Caiola: 00:49:14

Right?

Alex Caiola: 00:49:14

Like, it's just, I think a lot of it was pretty from the roots of it.

Alex Caiola: 00:49:19

Um, live out loud.

Alex Caiola: 00:49:22

And also there are rituals in which you confess your secrets

Alex Caiola: 00:49:29

or your, um, sins, right?

Alex Caiola: 00:49:31

Like similar in Mormonism and that part isn't on blast.

Alex Caiola: 00:49:37

And there's a fair amount of secretive behavior in the banals

Alex Caiola: 00:49:41

of Catholicism, obviously, given the, you know, history of abuse.

Alex Caiola: 00:49:46

so.

Alex Caiola: 00:49:47

that's a little bit I think of the Catholicism way, which is like, look over

Alex Caiola: 00:49:51

here and behind the scenes, like something

Christina Elmer: 00:49:54

Hmm.

Alex Caiola: 00:49:54

shady is going on.

Alex Caiola: 00:49:56

Versus, in Mormonism, you can't even get in until you've passed all of these

Alex Caiola: 00:50:01

different like layers of gates, Right.

Alex Caiola: 00:50:04

And then you, once you get in, you get like, the keys to the kingdom, so to

Alex Caiola: 00:50:08

speak, and then you feel really like hard pressed that you could lose it.

Alex Caiola: 00:50:13

I think Catholicism is very much like open the doors and anyone can come in,

Alex Caiola: 00:50:18

but then like once we grab you, you're kind of in with that guilt and that shame

Alex Caiola: 00:50:22

and you know, like the concoction that all like, you know, a lot of organized

Alex Caiola: 00:50:27

religions use to like keep you, I guess.

Alex Caiola: 00:50:30

it's very like, I feel like, you know, probably similar in Mormonism too, but

Alex Caiola: 00:50:34

like, Catholicism was really rooted in like power and like the, you know,

Alex Caiola: 00:50:38

only certain people can have it and, you know, the people that were closest

Alex Caiola: 00:50:42

to Jesus had it and it, you know, just very much like a, power hungry,

Christina Elmer: 00:50:49

Yeah.

Alex Caiola: 00:50:50

patriarchal community.

Christina Elmer: 00:50:53

Yeah.

Christina Elmer: 00:50:54

For sure.

Christina Elmer: 00:50:55

Going back and talking about secrets versus sacred, like, how would you

Christina Elmer: 00:51:00

interpret, like something that's secretive versus something that's sacred.

Christina Elmer: 00:51:04

I have an idea, but like coming out of Catholicism or just like the books and

Christina Elmer: 00:51:09

the studies that you've done since.

Alex Caiola: 00:51:11

I think that a secret, to me, implies that there is something

Alex Caiola: 00:51:17

damaging that you wouldn't want getting out, or you want to keep.

Alex Caiola: 00:51:22

I think, you know, it's a really good distinction because I think

Alex Caiola: 00:51:25

that there are certain things you hold sacred that you would keep

Alex Caiola: 00:51:28

a secret or keep it to yourself.

Alex Caiola: 00:51:31

Um, but you would maybe use that different word.

Alex Caiola: 00:51:33

But I feel like secretive, um, especially because like I have a Scorpio

Alex Caiola: 00:51:37

moon, like I said, with Heather Gay.

Alex Caiola: 00:51:38

So I am just inherently like a secretive person.

Alex Caiola: 00:51:42

There are certain things that like people would never have

Alex Caiola: 00:51:44

known about me and just as I've healed, I've been vocal about them.

Alex Caiola: 00:51:48

So, things like smoking, like I smoked for years and people didn't know,

Alex Caiola: 00:51:52

like I vaped for years and people had absolutely no idea, which I thought

Alex Caiola: 00:51:56

was, it, I just was a testament to like how good I am at like being able to

Alex Caiola: 00:52:01

keep a secret, which I don't think is necessarily a great thing, cuz it implies

Alex Caiola: 00:52:05

that, you know, you're keeping things like kind of away from people you love.

Alex Caiola: 00:52:09

But yeah, I guess I, as I've grown, I've really understood, apart from church,

Alex Caiola: 00:52:14

what sacred rituals look like to me.

Alex Caiola: 00:52:16

And I've really, you know, amalgamated from multiple different teachers, non

Alex Caiola: 00:52:22

secular, and a little bit secular, right?

Alex Caiola: 00:52:25

Because,

Christina Elmer: 00:52:26

Yeah.

Alex Caiola: 00:52:26

Actually something good about the church is like, that's

Alex Caiola: 00:52:29

kind of where you learn rituals the first time, you know, you walk

Alex Caiola: 00:52:32

in and you like bless yourself.

Alex Caiola: 00:52:33

And, but a lot of that is actually rooted in paganism.

Christina Elmer: 00:52:39

Hmm.

Alex Caiola: 00:52:39

So like where the roots are, I think are interesting and.

Alex Caiola: 00:52:47

I think that's a really good question.

Alex Caiola: 00:52:48

I guess sacred is implied that it's good or for your highest, best, and secrets

Alex Caiola: 00:52:58

can be all sorts of different things that maybe aren't in the highest alignment

Alex Caiola: 00:53:03

with who you are or aspire to be.

Christina Elmer: 00:53:07

Yeah.

Christina Elmer: 00:53:08

I love it.

Christina Elmer: 00:53:08

That's exactly what I was thinking.

Christina Elmer: 00:53:11

And it's interesting because Mormon church really wants the

Christina Elmer: 00:53:16

temple ceremony to be very sacred.

Christina Elmer: 00:53:19

They, they want it to be something that, and it's just, this sounds

Christina Elmer: 00:53:22

so gross, just saying it, but you have to earn to get in there.

Christina Elmer: 00:53:25

Like you have to go through a process of, you know, they ask you

Christina Elmer: 00:53:29

in an interview with the Bishop.

Christina Elmer: 00:53:32

They ask, you know, a set of, I think, 10 questions or whatever, and I think

Christina Elmer: 00:53:36

Heather does talk about the questions that they ask, but you have to answer

Christina Elmer: 00:53:39

these questions, and if you answer no to anyone, it might prohibit you

Christina Elmer: 00:53:44

from entering through those doors.

Christina Elmer: 00:53:47

And then, then you get a special piece of paper if you pass the test or

Christina Elmer: 00:53:50

whatever, um, but the things, like the ceremonial part, you don't talk about.

Christina Elmer: 00:53:54

Like, I didn't know anything about it.

Christina Elmer: 00:53:57

And I, before I got married, I actually went to the public library and was

Christina Elmer: 00:54:01

just like browsing nonfiction books and browsing the religious section.

Christina Elmer: 00:54:05

And I found a book called Secret.

Christina Elmer: 00:54:09

I think it's titled Secret Ceremonies.

Christina Elmer: 00:54:10

I've gone since and purchased it on thrift books.

Christina Elmer: 00:54:13

It's an older book.

Christina Elmer: 00:54:14

I think it's out of print.

Christina Elmer: 00:54:15

But a woman writes about her exact experience in Mormonism and she goes

Christina Elmer: 00:54:21

to the temple ceremony in the book.

Christina Elmer: 00:54:24

And I remember reading that, having not gone through the temple and

Christina Elmer: 00:54:27

being sort of freaked out about what was awaiting me on the other side.

Christina Elmer: 00:54:34

Right?

Christina Elmer: 00:54:34

Cause I had gone into the Mormon temple at 12.

Christina Elmer: 00:54:38

Because you can do what they call baptisms by proxy.

Christina Elmer: 00:54:40

So you go in and you get a name of a deceased person and you do the baptismal

Christina Elmer: 00:54:45

ordinance for them so that they can move along the line of specific promises or

Christina Elmer: 00:54:51

covenants that they make to God in order to make it to the celestial kingdom.

Christina Elmer: 00:54:54

And baptism is the first, the first step.

Christina Elmer: 00:54:57

And so at 12 years old, you're allowed to go get a temple recommend

Christina Elmer: 00:55:01

and go to the temple, but they only let you into a certain part.

Christina Elmer: 00:55:04

Just like the front part there's like a waiting room and then you go and there's

Christina Elmer: 00:55:07

like a big font where you go and get baptized for these people, and then you

Christina Elmer: 00:55:12

get the Holy Ghost which is like the laying on of hands where they put their

Christina Elmer: 00:55:15

hands on your head and give you the, essentially give you the Holy Ghost,

Christina Elmer: 00:55:19

and they do that by proxy for people.

Christina Elmer: 00:55:23

So I was in the temple and I had seen in is like this beautiful

Christina Elmer: 00:55:26

building that you, everybody wants to go into, you walk by you're like,

Christina Elmer: 00:55:28

oh this building is so beautiful.

Christina Elmer: 00:55:31

But little did I know that there was like more in the temple that you go and you do.

Christina Elmer: 00:55:36

Other things that are very secretive that you can't talk about.

Christina Elmer: 00:55:38

Like I didn't, you go and you take a it's called a temporal preparation class

Christina Elmer: 00:55:44

before you get married or before you go on a mission either one that's usually

Christina Elmer: 00:55:47

when people go through the temple.

Christina Elmer: 00:55:48

And you're sitting in there, but you can't ask a lot of questions.

Christina Elmer: 00:55:53

Just like Heather said in the book, like she went to a temple prep class,

Christina Elmer: 00:55:56

but she was like, well, what do you do?

Christina Elmer: 00:55:57

What do you wear?

Christina Elmer: 00:55:58

Like all these things, but they're like, oh, we can't talk about it.

Christina Elmer: 00:56:01

And so that's the thing that is a little bit outrageous to me that

Christina Elmer: 00:56:05

they're touting something is sacred, but it's so secret that we can't

Christina Elmer: 00:56:09

talk about it because it's weird.

Christina Elmer: 00:56:11

Honestly, it's really freaking weird.

Christina Elmer: 00:56:13

And the fact that like the, the ceremony has changed over the years.

Christina Elmer: 00:56:19

Like, at one point they did like a, anybody that's interested

Christina Elmer: 00:56:23

in this, you can go on YouTube.

Christina Elmer: 00:56:25

There's like lots of information.

Christina Elmer: 00:56:26

You can even watch the temple, um, it's called the endowment session.

Christina Elmer: 00:56:31

You can go and watch it on YouTube if you want to.

Christina Elmer: 00:56:34

It's there.

Christina Elmer: 00:56:34

It's all there.

Christina Elmer: 00:56:35

A guy named, he goes by the name of New Name Noah.

Christina Elmer: 00:56:38

He's fascinating character.

Christina Elmer: 00:56:40

Um, in the ex Mormon arena, he went into temples and he's actually like banned.

Christina Elmer: 00:56:46

Like he was on like a multiple, possibly, I think, I might be wrong, but I think

Christina Elmer: 00:56:52

he was on like the Mormon Church's like top hit list of like people to like

Christina Elmer: 00:56:59

watch out for, cause he would just go sneak into temples and like, he would

Christina Elmer: 00:57:02

pin a video camera on himself and he'd record the whole temple ceremony.

Christina Elmer: 00:57:06

Um, so it's out there online if you really wanted to go and watch it.

Christina Elmer: 00:57:10

But it's just, it's so interesting that something that's claimed to

Christina Elmer: 00:57:14

be sacred and of divine revelation from God, but yet it keeps changing.

Christina Elmer: 00:57:23

you can't talk about it outside the walls.

Christina Elmer: 00:57:24

You can talk about it, like Heather said in the book, she was able

Christina Elmer: 00:57:27

to talk about it once she got to a certain room in the temple.

Christina Elmer: 00:57:29

But before that, you can't say anything.

Christina Elmer: 00:57:32

And so it's just, it's very, little kooky, if you ask me.

Alex Caiola: 00:57:37

Yes.

Alex Caiola: 00:57:38

And I feel like it's kind of, it's paranoid as well.

Alex Caiola: 00:57:43

Like I it's, it reminds me a little bit of like when businesses make you sign an NDA,

Alex Caiola: 00:57:49

you know, like to go through an interview process, like they're worried that you

Alex Caiola: 00:57:53

could leak information or trade secrets.

Alex Caiola: 00:57:57

And I think, you know, then it just makes people want to like do illicit activities

Alex Caiola: 00:58:02

to get the information out there like that guy like, you know recorded that's

Christina Elmer: 00:58:08

was already out at that point.

Alex Caiola: 00:58:09

rebellious.

Christina Elmer: 00:58:10

Yeah it's so rebellious.

Christina Elmer: 00:58:12

Yeah.

Christina Elmer: 00:58:13

But it was fascinating.

Christina Elmer: 00:58:14

Cause now like, you know, you could just research it, but then the church

Christina Elmer: 00:58:17

has like done everything they can to take out as much as they can, but...

Alex Caiola: 00:58:21

I wanted to tell you about something that my family was

Alex Caiola: 00:58:24

like sending around around Christmas.

Alex Caiola: 00:58:27

In New York City, we have Times Square, I'm sure everybody is familiar, at

Alex Caiola: 00:58:32

least if you haven't seen it yourself, and so it's million, you know, huge

Alex Caiola: 00:58:37

LED, massive video screens, and around Christmas, they did a nativity

Alex Caiola: 00:58:46

story of like the birth of Jesus,

Christina Elmer: 00:58:50

The Mormon Church did?

Alex Caiola: 00:58:52

Well, that's what we found out.

Alex Caiola: 00:58:54

Okay, so that's what I wanted to tell you because my, my grandmother

Alex Caiola: 00:58:58

found it on YouTube or my aunt found it and she sent it to me.

Alex Caiola: 00:59:01

And I said that is an advertising platform, so there's no possible

Alex Caiola: 00:59:07

way that a, we don't have a national religion in, in, in the US.

Alex Caiola: 00:59:13

It's like our whole country is founded on like religious,

Christina Elmer: 00:59:16

Freedom.

Alex Caiola: 00:59:17

I ndependence and freedom.

Christina Elmer: 00:59:18

Yeah.

Alex Caiola: 00:59:19

Cause of where, you know, a lot of people came from, right?

Alex Caiola: 00:59:23

And so there's just no way that they would do that in Times Square,

Alex Caiola: 00:59:26

like, out of the goodness of their heart, because it's Christmas time.

Alex Caiola: 00:59:28

It's like, they could be getting Coca Cola money, they could be getting M&

Alex Caiola: 00:59:31

M money, like, they, they do, they get, you know, they get money from

Alex Caiola: 00:59:34

advertisers, that's how it works, right?

Alex Caiola: 00:59:36

So, I go digging a little bit, and I didn't have to go far, and

Alex Caiola: 00:59:40

I find that it's paid for by you know, Jesus Christ of the Latter

Alex Caiola: 00:59:44

day Saints, um, the Mormon Church.

Alex Caiola: 00:59:47

And so I said that in our group text and, you know, my family's Catholic.

Alex Caiola: 00:59:51

So my grandmother was like super Catholic and, they didn't like that.

Alex Caiola: 00:59:55

I was just like kind of poking holes and like, you know, they're not doing

Alex Caiola: 01:00:00

this out of the goodness of their heart.

Alex Caiola: 01:00:01

It's so sweet.

Alex Caiola: 01:00:03

And like, we love the Jesus story.

Alex Caiola: 01:00:04

Obviously it's, you know, Christmas is like a big deal.

Alex Caiola: 01:00:08

but like, let's just look at like.

Alex Caiola: 01:00:12

One layer beyond the initial with this stuff.

Alex Caiola: 01:00:17

Uh, it didn't go over well in the group text, but I just thought I would

Alex Caiola: 01:00:20

share that with you because I thought it was interesting and you know, the

Alex Caiola: 01:00:23

church is worth like a, what, a billion dollars, multiple billion dollars.

Alex Caiola: 01:00:27

So they had money for the advertising.

Alex Caiola: 01:00:30

Let's just put it that way.

Christina Elmer: 01:00:33

I feel like we could spend hours talking about the the amount

Christina Elmer: 01:00:36

of money that they spend on marketing.

Alex Caiola: 01:00:38

That must've been, I mean, a takeover, like, a takeover,

Alex Caiola: 01:00:42

like, that must have been, the number that's coming to my mind is like 250,

Christina Elmer: 01:00:46

Yeah.

Christina Elmer: 01:00:48

Oh, that's like chump change for them.

Alex Caiola: 01:00:50

I don't know how much it actually was, I kind of, now I'm

Christina Elmer: 01:00:53

Yeah, but

Alex Caiola: 01:00:54

But that's like,

Christina Elmer: 01:00:54

So, that's like a drop in the bucket for them.

Alex Caiola: 01:00:58

Totally.

Alex Caiola: 01:00:59

Totally.

Alex Caiola: 01:00:59

And I just think

Christina Elmer: 01:01:00

Yeah.

Alex Caiola: 01:01:01

It's worth thinking about this because basically people were

Alex Caiola: 01:01:05

like, this is like, person who posted it was like, if, if this is the way that

Alex Caiola: 01:01:09

the direction of our society is going, then that's such a fantastic sign.

Alex Caiola: 01:01:14

It's like, what?

Alex Caiola: 01:01:16

No.

Alex Caiola: 01:01:17

Somebody paid for that.

Alex Caiola: 01:01:18

I don't

Christina Elmer: 01:01:19

Yeah, you don't just get to put things up for free in Times Square.

Christina Elmer: 01:01:22

It's not like that.

Christina Elmer: 01:01:24

Yeah, but that's not, that's also not very shocking at all that they did that.

Alex Caiola: 01:01:28

It was cool.

Christina Elmer: 01:01:29

Well, I'm sure it was.

Christina Elmer: 01:01:31

Like, they have great people in their marketing department.

Christina Elmer: 01:01:34

Like, you know, they, they pay good money for for their PR department.

Christina Elmer: 01:01:40

They have really good people in there.

Alex Caiola: 01:01:41

Yeah.

Alex Caiola: 01:01:42

hmm.

Christina Elmer: 01:01:42

It's astounding what they do with their money.

Christina Elmer: 01:01:46

They have billions of dollars the amount of good they could do with that money

Alex Caiola: 01:01:52

Of course.

Christina Elmer: 01:01:52

and they're not doing it.

Christina Elmer: 01:01:56

They're not doing it.

Christina Elmer: 01:01:57

They keep building these temples which cost millions of dollars

Alex Caiola: 01:02:01

Well, Christina, they did put up the Nativity story

Christina Elmer: 01:02:05

in Times Square.

Alex Caiola: 01:02:07

I think that's a world of good, and if that's showing

Alex Caiola: 01:02:10

us where our society is going.

Alex Caiola: 01:02:12

By the way, I'm a fan of Jesus, like just FYI.

Alex Caiola: 01:02:16

Like not like he's like the one true savior kind of thing, but like in

Alex Caiola: 01:02:20

the fact that he like was a cool, you know, um, dude who helped people.

Alex Caiola: 01:02:26

Yeah.

Christina Elmer: 01:02:28

He was a model citizen.

Christina Elmer: 01:02:29

I, I totally believe that.

Alex Caiola: 01:02:32

Beyond even that, like he helped people.

Christina Elmer: 01:02:34

Yeah.

Alex Caiola: 01:02:34

He was a healer.

Christina Elmer: 01:02:35

Yeah, he was.

Christina Elmer: 01:02:37

Yeah, I do too.

Christina Elmer: 01:02:38

But it's just interesting that like the Mormon version

Christina Elmer: 01:02:41

of Jesus is somewhat skewed.

Alex Caiola: 01:02:46

Yeah.

Christina Elmer: 01:02:47

So, but I mean, that's good for them that they, was it?

Christina Elmer: 01:02:52

Obviously it was someone who wasn't Mormon that you saw had posted that.

Alex Caiola: 01:02:56

It was not a Mormon person, it was like my aunt found it from, I

Alex Caiola: 01:03:01

think like a Christian, so I guess maybe just like the amalgamation of like all

Alex Caiola: 01:03:05

things Christian kind of thing, and she said like, I wonder if this really

Alex Caiola: 01:03:09

happened, and if so, like how cool.

Alex Caiola: 01:03:11

And I was like, yeah, it seems like it did, but it also seems

Alex Caiola: 01:03:15

like it was paid for, and then we went down that rabbit hole.

Alex Caiola: 01:03:19

And it was, and it was by the Mormon church.

Alex Caiola: 01:03:23

So, I mean, I guess doing a solid for all

Christina Elmer: 01:03:27

All Christians.

Christina Elmer: 01:03:28

Yeah!

Christina Elmer: 01:03:28

I mean, it's, it's a beautiful story.

Alex Caiola: 01:03:31

It is a beautiful story.

Alex Caiola: 01:03:33

Exactly.

Christina Elmer: 01:03:36

Oh.

Christina Elmer: 01:03:38

Well, well, well.

Christina Elmer: 01:03:40

I have, I have some more about housewives of Salt Lake City

Christina Elmer: 01:03:43

that I want to talk about.

Christina Elmer: 01:03:45

Um, I feel like we've covered a lot about Mormonism.

Christina Elmer: 01:03:50

when I read Heather's book, there were so many things that really resonated with me,

Christina Elmer: 01:03:53

like her relationship with her ex husband kind of felt like the relationship I had

Christina Elmer: 01:03:58

with my ex husband just, and I feel like a lot of Ex Mormon women have very similar

Christina Elmer: 01:04:03

stories of like feeling like they, didn't have a voice and they couldn't share

Christina Elmer: 01:04:09

their opinion or, you know, they just felt marginalized in some way, even at church.

Christina Elmer: 01:04:14

Like I remember holding a somewhat higher position because within the Mormon church,

Christina Elmer: 01:04:19

everything is on a volunteer basis, like you're given an assignment, you're

Christina Elmer: 01:04:24

asked if you want to take an assignment and you could say no if you wanted to,

Christina Elmer: 01:04:27

but there's a stigma, like, oh, who would say no to this, this position.

Christina Elmer: 01:04:31

But when I was called to a position, um, to work with the youth program

Christina Elmer: 01:04:37

with the girls, cause it's, you know, it's separated by sex.

Christina Elmer: 01:04:40

Like the men work with the men and the women work with the women.

Christina Elmer: 01:04:43

And so when I got called as the president of the youth group for the girls,

Christina Elmer: 01:04:48

my bishop at the time was amazing.

Christina Elmer: 01:04:50

He was supportive.

Christina Elmer: 01:04:51

And that was the, I think, honestly, the best experience I've had holding

Christina Elmer: 01:04:55

a calling in the Mormon church where I felt like I was being heard.

Alex Caiola: 01:05:00

Hmm.

Christina Elmer: 01:05:00

But just within my own relationship, I.

Christina Elmer: 01:05:04

I struggled with that.

Christina Elmer: 01:05:05

I struggled being able to just come forward and say, hey, I I'm questioning

Christina Elmer: 01:05:09

things, or I feel differently about something was automatically discounted.

Christina Elmer: 01:05:14

You know, like, well, you don't know what you're talking about, or,

Christina Elmer: 01:05:17

just you're wrong, you know, um, and her experience when she was talking

Christina Elmer: 01:05:25

about, um, that in particular, and then just the temple stuff, I was

Christina Elmer: 01:05:30

like, oh my gosh, yeah, that was me.

Alex Caiola: 01:05:33

Mm hmm.

Christina Elmer: 01:05:33

Like, oh, I'm going through here and

Christina Elmer: 01:05:35

I can't ask questions, and,

Alex Caiola: 01:05:38

Yeah.

Alex Caiola: 01:05:38

I feel like.

Alex Caiola: 01:05:39

it's interesting that the religion reinforces something

Alex Caiola: 01:05:43

that's uniquely patriarchal.

Alex Caiola: 01:05:46

You don't really question the man in the relationship and you have your role.

Alex Caiola: 01:05:54

And I think when they were owning the business together, I loved that part

Alex Caiola: 01:05:59

because it was just sort of like showing you how qualified she was, how ready

Alex Caiola: 01:06:05

she was to take on a different role, how capable she was and how he sort of

Alex Caiola: 01:06:10

recognized her in that capacity, but then was still the one who was making

Alex Caiola: 01:06:15

like the business decisions at a,

Alex Caiola: 01:06:18

at a higher level that did affect her down the line.

Alex Caiola: 01:06:23

And I thought that part was hard as a business person and as someone who's

Alex Caiola: 01:06:28

uniquely capable and like, don't need to run a business with my husband.

Alex Caiola: 01:06:32

I felt for her in that moment.

Alex Caiola: 01:06:33

And I feel like it was a very big redemption story for her

Alex Caiola: 01:06:36

to like own her own and have a man actually hand her the keys.

Alex Caiola: 01:06:41

Which I thought was really cool, to, to Beauty Lab and Laser, which

Alex Caiola: 01:06:45

is like renamed from whatever the, the guy who had it before was.

Alex Caiola: 01:06:49

And I thought, what, what a cool, like full circle.

Alex Caiola: 01:06:51

She didn't really make that distinction, but I thought that was a cool full circle

Alex Caiola: 01:06:54

moment of like a guy who shut the door on her, from a business standpoint,

Alex Caiola: 01:07:00

something that she created and was her brainchild and he just like monetized it

Alex Caiola: 01:07:05

poorly basically, and just kind of like gave, gave it away and then, you know,

Alex Caiola: 01:07:09

getting, getting a second chance at that with Beauty Lab and Laser, I thought

Alex Caiola: 01:07:13

was kind of cool and important for her.

Christina Elmer: 01:07:15

Definitely, yeah.

Christina Elmer: 01:07:17

When her husband, her ex-husband, like she was doing the photography

Christina Elmer: 01:07:21

for the business and then he'd ended up hiring . So I was like, oh.

Alex Caiola: 01:07:25

Well, she, she also said, you know, they got almost like skilled out.

Alex Caiola: 01:07:34

Because Photoshop was not a unique skill set anymore and they just were

Alex Caiola: 01:07:39

not as unique of a business model anymore, but still I thought...

Christina Elmer: 01:07:43

All she wanted to do was just to be seen, right?

Christina Elmer: 01:07:45

She just wanted to be seen by her husband.

Christina Elmer: 01:07:47

She wanted to seen, be seen by her church, and now she is, she's

Christina Elmer: 01:07:51

being seen by the entire world.

Alex Caiola: 01:07:53

We love, we love a redemption story.

Christina Elmer: 01:07:55

Always been a Heather, yes, I've been a fan of Heather since

Christina Elmer: 01:07:58

like season one, honestly, she's

Alex Caiola: 01:08:01

She's one of my favorites.

Christina Elmer: 01:08:03

Yeah.

Alex Caiola: 01:08:03

Yeah.

Christina Elmer: 01:08:04

Meredith Marx is number two.

Alex Caiola: 01:08:06

Mm.

Christina Elmer: 01:08:07

I have issues with Whitney.

Christina Elmer: 01:08:08

So I don't know if you're, how good your memory is with Real Housewives stuff, but

Christina Elmer: 01:08:12

I remember so I texted my friend Ashley about this, I was like, hey, I could

Christina Elmer: 01:08:17

have sworn, and I went back and watched it because everything's on Peacock now.

Christina Elmer: 01:08:21

Even though I bought everything on iTunes or on, on Apple TV.

Christina Elmer: 01:08:25

I went back and watched season, the first episode of season

Christina Elmer: 01:08:28

one, where Whitney is having her recommitment ceremony to Justin.

Christina Elmer: 01:08:33

And it was Heather who said it.

Christina Elmer: 01:08:36

So I looked back and I was, could have sworn that Whitney said that

Christina Elmer: 01:08:39

she'd left the Mormon church, but then it was Heather in the confessional

Christina Elmer: 01:08:45

that said that Whitney had left.

Alex Caiola: 01:08:47

Mm.

Christina Elmer: 01:08:48

Then we fast forward to what, season three, and Whitney

Christina Elmer: 01:08:50

is signing her official documents to leave the church, and I was

Christina Elmer: 01:08:54

like, I thought she left already.

Alex Caiola: 01:08:56

Mm hmm.

Christina Elmer: 01:08:57

And so I was confused.

Christina Elmer: 01:08:59

And I was like, but did I get it wrong?

Christina Elmer: 01:09:01

Did Whitney say at any point that she left a Mormon church?

Alex Caiola: 01:09:04

I don't remember that, but I feel like it's semantics too, because

Alex Caiola: 01:09:08

if you're like not going to church anymore or you're, I feel like she was

Alex Caiola: 01:09:11

excommunicated because of the affair.

Alex Caiola: 01:09:13

I feel like she did talk about that.

Christina Elmer: 01:09:15

Yeah.

Christina Elmer: 01:09:15

That's what I thought.

Christina Elmer: 01:09:16

And so then she's like removing her records.

Christina Elmer: 01:09:18

And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Christina Elmer: 01:09:19

I'm so confused about this.

Christina Elmer: 01:09:21

And so I was like, is she doing this for publicity?

Alex Caiola: 01:09:24

well, is It like an empowerment move?

Alex Caiola: 01:09:28

Okay.

Alex Caiola: 01:09:29

Yeah, I could see.

Christina Elmer: 01:09:30

So there might be a little bit of judgment.

Alex Caiola: 01:09:32

I've DM with her a couple of times.

Alex Caiola: 01:09:34

So I like her.

Alex Caiola: 01:09:36

That doesn't like mean that I like somebody just because they like answer

Alex Caiola: 01:09:40

their DMS or like, you know, look at their DMS, but I mean, to your

Alex Caiola: 01:09:43

point, like you could have like an ex communication from the church and

Alex Caiola: 01:09:48

then you decide as an individual, hey, strike my name from the record is,

Alex Caiola: 01:09:53

aren't those two different things?

Christina Elmer: 01:09:55

Completely, yeah, because when you're excommunicated,

Christina Elmer: 01:09:58

your records are I thought they were removed, but maybe they're not.

Alex Caiola: 01:10:02

Maybe they're not, maybe it's like the marriage thing.

Alex Caiola: 01:10:05

Yeah.

Christina Elmer: 01:10:05

Yeah, but you have to be re baptized into the Mormon

Christina Elmer: 01:10:08

Church, so I don't know if they just I, I don't know how it works, if they

Christina Elmer: 01:10:11

have like a special folder In their filing system at the church headquarters

Christina Elmer: 01:10:18

across the street from their billion dollars outdoor shopping mall.

Alex Caiola: 01:10:23

I have not one clue.

Alex Caiola: 01:10:25

But I do think like there's part of these shows that are for the show as well.

Alex Caiola: 01:10:33

And so I think, you know, it's probably two things can be true.

Christina Elmer: 01:10:36

Yeah, that's true, but I was just like,

Christina Elmer: 01:10:39

how can this, what's going on?

Christina Elmer: 01:10:40

I was so confused.

Christina Elmer: 01:10:41

Cause like first season, she's like, but then it was Heather who said it like.

Christina Elmer: 01:10:46

You know, Whitney left the Mormon church.

Christina Elmer: 01:10:47

She and Justin left the Mormon church at, you know.

Christina Elmer: 01:10:50

And that's what, what's interesting, like, if we talk about Monica, the

Christina Elmer: 01:10:53

new cast member this season, who had an extramarital affair, she

Christina Elmer: 01:10:59

had an affair with her brother in law and she got excommunicated and

Christina Elmer: 01:11:04

he didn't, which is so typical.

Alex Caiola: 01:11:06

Mm,

Christina Elmer: 01:11:07

So typical.

Christina Elmer: 01:11:08

Like I actually was threatened with excommunication.

Christina Elmer: 01:11:10

I haven't talked about it openly.

Christina Elmer: 01:11:12

Because my records were still in the Mormon church.

Christina Elmer: 01:11:16

And, I had divorced my husband, my ex, my now ex husband, but because I

Christina Elmer: 01:11:21

was still considered an active member of the church and I was engaging in

Christina Elmer: 01:11:25

a relationship with another man and posting about it online, that I was

Christina Elmer: 01:11:31

confronted with excommunication.

Christina Elmer: 01:11:33

And I was like, Hold on.

Christina Elmer: 01:11:35

I have kids that are still in it.

Christina Elmer: 01:11:36

It's very taboo.

Christina Elmer: 01:11:37

Very, very taboo.

Christina Elmer: 01:11:39

So when Monica said that that was her experience, I was like,

Christina Elmer: 01:11:42

yeah, that's unfortunately

Alex Caiola: 01:11:44

mm,

Christina Elmer: 01:11:44

the case.

Christina Elmer: 01:11:45

Like just reading these stories, these women on ex Mormon Facebook,

Christina Elmer: 01:11:50

like going back to the, the Mormon celestial, the temple marriage.

Christina Elmer: 01:11:55

Like when someone is still active in the church, for example, my ex husband

Christina Elmer: 01:12:00

who, let's say they wanted to get remarried, they can ask the church

Christina Elmer: 01:12:06

for a temple sealing, a cancellation.

Christina Elmer: 01:12:09

So they can cancel the sealing or the marriage between me and him.

Alex Caiola: 01:12:13

mm,

Christina Elmer: 01:12:13

But they will send me a letter notifying me of his request

Christina Elmer: 01:12:18

and I can, you know, respond to it.

Christina Elmer: 01:12:21

But ultimately they're not, they're going to do whatever they want.

Christina Elmer: 01:12:23

They're not going to, my words won't matter.

Christina Elmer: 01:12:26

But it's just interesting that some of these women have said, oh, I have

Christina Elmer: 01:12:30

sent a letter because I've gotten a letter in the mail saying, oh, your,

Christina Elmer: 01:12:35

you know, this person who you were married to wants to get remarried.

Christina Elmer: 01:12:38

And they'll send a letter saying this person is horrible person,

Christina Elmer: 01:12:42

they're abusive, yet they can, you know, list off things as to reasons

Christina Elmer: 01:12:46

why this person should not even have a membership or be married.

Christina Elmer: 01:12:51

The church just discards it.

Christina Elmer: 01:12:52

They don't care.

Christina Elmer: 01:12:53

It's a number, someone that's continuing to pay money to the church.

Christina Elmer: 01:12:57

But it's just very, very sad that men are given special allowances where sometimes

Christina Elmer: 01:13:03

women are not, and it's frustrating.

Christina Elmer: 01:13:08

So I felt for Monica when I, when I heard that and very frustrated with the system.

Alex Caiola: 01:13:13

I think that Monica aside, cause that's a whole separate

Alex Caiola: 01:13:19

issue that on a different podcast.

Christina Elmer: 01:13:20

I kind of want to get into that.

Alex Caiola: 01:13:22

I feel like what is so cool about the Housewives

Alex Caiola: 01:13:26

is that it is women's stories.

Alex Caiola: 01:13:30

Over and over and celebrated and, you know, trials and

Alex Caiola: 01:13:34

tribulations and yes, flaws.

Alex Caiola: 01:13:36

And of course, you know, there's salacious things that come out.

Alex Caiola: 01:13:38

And, but what I do love is that the woman is always centered in the conversation.

Alex Caiola: 01:13:45

And it really is like probably the first time in Truly, like, pop culture history

Alex Caiola: 01:13:52

where, like, the men are secondary.

Alex Caiola: 01:13:54

And, uh, you know, Desperate Housewives was the impetus

Alex Caiola: 01:13:58

for the Housewives franchise.

Alex Caiola: 01:14:01

And I remember that show being very pivotal and, and,

Alex Caiola: 01:14:04

trailblazing at that time.

Alex Caiola: 01:14:06

Because I mean, even if you think about soap operas and stuff like

Alex Caiola: 01:14:09

that, it's always like couples.

Alex Caiola: 01:14:10

It's not just one woman, you know, telling her side of the story and the man, the

Alex Caiola: 01:14:15

men come in and out or, you know, or again, like not the main characters.

Alex Caiola: 01:14:20

And I think it's a beautiful thing to, to see that, no matter what's

Alex Caiola: 01:14:24

happening with them, that it's just their side of the story.

Christina Elmer: 01:14:28

Yeah.

Christina Elmer: 01:14:29

That's beautiful.

Christina Elmer: 01:14:29

I think that's where we're going to stop because that was, that was amazing.

Christina Elmer: 01:14:33

But, um, Alex, before we go, um, can you tell people where they can find you

Alex Caiola: 01:14:39

Yeah,

Christina Elmer: 01:14:39

on the Internet?

Alex Caiola: 01:14:41

So my personal account is high priestess of Brooklyn.

Alex Caiola: 01:14:44

That's where you're going to catch most of the, uh, the housewives musing.

Alex Caiola: 01:14:47

So if you want to like Kiki there, that's a fun place to find me.

Alex Caiola: 01:14:51

My business account is, uh, Capricorn rising ink on Instagram.

Alex Caiola: 01:14:56

These are both my Instagram handles.

Alex Caiola: 01:14:58

And that's, um, the business executive coaching area where we, actually bring

Alex Caiola: 01:15:05

an intuitive practices like astrology and human design and apply them to

Alex Caiola: 01:15:10

career life purpose and, um, you know, running a successful business.

Alex Caiola: 01:15:17

just where the intuitive meets business side of life.

Alex Caiola: 01:15:21

So I'd love to hang out with you there too, my entrepreneurial,

Alex Caiola: 01:15:25

you know, ex mormon besties.

Christina Elmer: 01:15:27

Yes.

Christina Elmer: 01:15:28

Everyone connect with Alex.

Christina Elmer: 01:15:29

She's been so helpful in my journey in my own intuitive practices.

Christina Elmer: 01:15:35

So I'm grateful that I met you.

Christina Elmer: 01:15:38

It's been like, what, four years now.

Alex Caiola: 01:15:39

Yeah, I know.

Alex Caiola: 01:15:41

I'm so too.

Alex Caiola: 01:15:43

I know you've come so far and just what you're doing now, I think is so great.

Alex Caiola: 01:15:49

And this is exciting and I'm, I'm excited to see how this

Alex Caiola: 01:15:53

continues to flourish for you.

Christina Elmer: 01:15:55

Thank you.

Christina Elmer: 01:15:55

And also guys, check out her TikTok, her TikTok is one of my favorites.

Christina Elmer: 01:15:58

I'm always excited to see when I'm scrolling.

Alex Caiola: 01:16:01

Ooh, yeah.

Alex Caiola: 01:16:01

Thanks.

Alex Caiola: 01:16:02

Yeah.

Alex Caiola: 01:16:02

That's a fun one too.

Alex Caiola: 01:16:04

And I have a podcast as well, so it's, it's just called Capricorn Rising Inc.

Alex Caiola: 01:16:09

and it's entrepreneurial stories and interviews.

Alex Caiola: 01:16:14

So it's a fun, fun place too.

Christina Elmer: 01:16:16

It is.

Alex Caiola: 01:16:17

I'm all over the Internet.

Christina Elmer: 01:16:18

Yeah, you are.

Christina Elmer: 01:16:19

I love it.

Christina Elmer: 01:16:20

I love it.

Christina Elmer: 01:16:22

Well, thank you so much for being here today.

Christina Elmer: 01:16:24

I loved it so much.

Alex Caiola: 01:16:26

Me too.

Alex Caiola: 01:16:27

Okay.

Alex Caiola: 01:16:28

I'll see you later.

Christina Elmer: 01:16:29

Bye.

Christina Elmer: 01:16:30

Thank you so much for listening today and allowing us to be a part of your day.

Christina Elmer: 01:16:35

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Christina Elmer: 01:16:38

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Christina Elmer: 01:16:44

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Christina Elmer: 01:16:49

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Christina Elmer: 01:16:53

or a friend, please tell them about it.

Christina Elmer: 01:16:56

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Christina Elmer: 01:16:59

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Christina Elmer: 01:17:03

Like all beautifully crafted pieces, this podcast was created

Christina Elmer: 01:17:07

by the most talented humans.

Christina Elmer: 01:17:10

Our music is by the melodic master, Tucker Winters.

Christina Elmer: 01:17:14

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Christina Elmer: 01:17:18

all trades, Jen Cagle Gilmore.

Christina Elmer: 01:17:22

Leaving in Color is masterfully produced in conjunction

Christina Elmer: 01:17:24

with Particulate Media, K.O.

Christina Elmer: 01:17:26

Myers, executive producer.

Christina Elmer: 01:17:29

And I am Christina Elmer.

Christina Elmer: 01:17:31

See you soon.