Rebuilding Identity After a Mormon Faith Transition
Why the path spirals — and why that isn't failure.
By Audra Phelps
After years of coaching women through faith transitions, I've identified several recurring struggles that define this experience.
The most fundamental is loss of identity. For someone raised in the LDS church, faith isn't a compartment of life — it is life. "I am Mormon." "I am a child of God." These "I am" statements are ubiquitous. Your identity informs your beliefs and values, which inform your behaviors and thoughts. When that identity shatters, everything downstream shatters with it. You're essentially going back to that childhood brain and reconstructing your identity all over again.
The grief that follows is multilayered. People grieve the loss of self, of community, of family relationships, of certainty. They grieve what I call "the life unlived" — the alternate paths they might have taken had they not married so young, had children so early, chosen careers based on church-approved gender roles. This grief frequently manifests as anger, which can persist for years and is often misread by outsiders as bitterness or spite. But anger is just the outward emotion. Inside, there's a lot more going on.
For mothers specifically, the challenge is compounded. They are reconstructing their own identities while simultaneously raising children — basically growing up alongside their kids. They want to parent differently than they were parented, but no one has modeled this for them. And the village they once relied on — the ward, the Relief Society, their own parents — is often no longer available, either because those people have withdrawn or because accepting help now comes with conditions that feel intolerable.
There is also the disorientation of having to become your own authority for the first time. After decades of being told what to believe, what to wear, what to eat, what to drink, how to spend Sundays, what constitutes a good wife and mother, many women find themselves paralyzed by even simple choices. My apple pie moment is not unusual. My clients regularly discover they cannot articulate their own preferences because they have never been permitted to develop them.
Finally, there is the struggle to escape binary thinking. The all-or-nothing framework of orthodoxy doesn't disappear simply because someone has left. Many people carry it into their post-church lives — now it's all bad instead of all good, now believers are the enemy. "Just because you've left doesn't mean that pattern isn't still there," I tell clients. Breaking free of it requires deliberate, sustained work.
The trajectory I've observed — in my own life and in my clients' lives — follows a general pattern, though I always emphasize that it is neither linear nor predictable. People cycle back. They get activated by a family photo or a holiday or an unexpected encounter and find
themselves reliving pain they thought they'd processed. I've been out eleven years and it still happens to me. That doesn't mean you're failing. It means there's something deeper that still needs attention.
But the general direction is toward integration — a state in which the Mormon past is neither erased nor enshrined, but incorporated into a larger sense of self. This is where people can look back and acknowledge genuine gifts: leadership skills, commitment to service, public speaking ability, community, the teachings of compassion and generosity. They can hold these alongside the harm without needing one to cancel the other.
Integration also means the end of either/or thinking. People discover they can remain connected to Mormon family while holding different beliefs. They can appreciate what the church gave them while standing against policies they find harmful. Some of my clients attend church occasionally — not because they believe the doctrine, but because they value the connection. Some never go back. Both are valid.
The destination, if there is one, is not certainty. It is comfort with uncertainty. I used to tell my AP Biology students: “get comfortable being uncomfortable”. I now offer the same counsel to women rebuilding after a faith crisis. There are very few absolutes in life. The plan of salvation provided a comforting map of everything. Letting go of that map is terrifying. But I have watched woman after woman discover that the freedom on the other side is worth the passage through.
There comes a point where you can feel really calm and peaceful in the uncertainty. And how freeing it is, actually, to reclaim the authority over your life.
For those at the start of this journey — the ones whose shelves have just broken, who are staring at the wreckage of their certainty and wondering what comes next — here is what I wish someone had told me.
Do not make any major life decisions right now. Not about your marriage, your career, or where you live. When you are deep in grief and anger, you are in a reactive state. You always want to make big decisions from a place of peace — that's when you can tune in to your own intuition. The peace will come. But it takes time.
Do not bury the anger and the grief. The church may have taught you that negative emotions are sinful, that anger is dangerous, that doubt is a moral failing. But these emotions are information. They are your body and psyche processing an enormous loss. Feel them. Journal about them. Let them move through you. They are part of the healing, not an obstacle to it.
Start small. You don't have to reconstruct your entire identity in a week. Notice when your body feels expansive and when it feels constricted. What small choices bring you a spark of pleasure? You are learning a skill you were never taught: the skill of listening to yourself.
Know that you are not alone. At first you feel like you're the only one who feels this way. Or maybe you're embarrassed about some of your feelings. But there's a whole community of people willing to accept you whatever stage you're in. You don't have to go through it alone.
Be patient with the nonlinearity. You will have good weeks and terrible ones. You will think you've made peace with something and then be undone by a family email. This is not failure. It is being human, processing something enormous. The path is a spiral, circling back through familiar territory but always, over time, expanding outward.
About the Guest Author:
Audra is a Master Coach who helps moms unravel the web of old beliefs after leaving a high-demand religion to discover their own identity as a woman and mom. With over 15 years of experience in international education and coaching, she discovered her passion in supporting women grappling with grief, guilt, and identity loss after a faith crisis.
Audra began her career as a high school biology teacher, was raised in the church, and then moved overseas with her family to work in international schools. When she finally made the life-altering decision to leave the Mormon church, she found herself sinking in uncertainty, lonelier than she'd ever been before, and constantly feeling like she was failing her children.
Through years of self-discovery and coaching, she has walked the path to uncovering beliefs that resonate, and navigating the loneliness that comes from starting all over again. She is now focusing her work on the unique challenges that women are navigating after high-control religion. Audra is reaching back to help them feel confident in who they are and blaze their own path, on their own terms.
Disclaimer:
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in guest blog posts are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Religious Trauma Network. We recognize that each person’s healing journey is unique, personal, and courageous. The stories shared here belong solely to the contributors, and their experiences, perspectives, and advice may not apply to everyone. We encourage readers to honor their own paths and seek professional support as needed.