LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" - Inspirational LDS Stories
LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" - Inspirational LDS Stories
How Searching for Truth in Strange Places Strengthened His Faith: Daniel Adams' Story - Latter-Day Lights
We all take different path's to find truth - Daniel's path is a bit more unconventional than most.
Growing up as an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Daniel tried to do what's right, but an accumulation of life's challenges, trials, and struggles left him with questions that he felt compelled to find answers to.
And so he began a journey trying to find truth, which took him to some very strange places. What he found not only brought him back to the gospel, but gave him unique insights and perspectives on how to discover and discern truth and grow your faith.
It also helped and empowered him to change his life and the lives of others for the better.
*** Please SHARE Daniel's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***
To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/JPDWQmf9fRM
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To learn more about Daniel's relationship and financial coaching services, go to (direct link): https://www.createprofitableliving.com/
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Also, if you have a faith-promoting or inspiring story, or know someone who does, please let us know by going to https://www.latterdaylights.com and reaching out to us.
Hi everyone, I'm Scott Branley.
Alisha Coakley:And I'm Alisha Coakley. Every member of the church has a story to share, one that can instill faith, invite growth and inspire others.
Scott Brandley:On today's episode, we're going to hear how Shaman Training taught one man that the truth he was seeking was with him all along. Welcome to Latter-day Lights. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Latter-day Lights. We're so glad that you're here with us today. We're really excited to introduce our guest, daniel Adams. Daniel, how are you doing so good?
Daniel Adams:Scott, hi Alisha, it's great to be with everybody.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, we're super excited to have you. I was telling Scott earlier I don't even know what your story is and I'm so excited because I get to be surprised completely and that doesn't always happen. So I just know that the way that we connected, we connected through our book coach. I know Scott and I have mentioned Kim Clement a few times. Kim told me about this amazing group that you have on Facebook, this creator group, and she's like you should join. It's so great. So I'm like, ok, I'm going to join and just seeing the things that you're posting and the purpose that you have, I was like I just felt like I didn't even know if you were LDS for sure, like I had an inkling, but I was like, ah, so I had to go do a little searching. I did a little FBI-ing on Facebook On Facebook. Yeah, no, it was great.
Alisha Coakley:It was so great, and so I was just like, yeah, you know what? I don't even know what story he's got, but I'm going to invite him to be on the show and you, just you are so great to just accept, without even knowing what the heck we did. I was like, whoa, that was easy.
Daniel Adams:Well, I love having conversations and the whole idea of the podcast right that it's instilling faith and inviting growth and inspiring like those are all very much what we're doing at profitable living, so the fit is apparent.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, Well we're super excited so before I tell everybody about you, why don't you go ahead and tell our guests a little more about yourself?
Daniel Adams:Well, this is bold, but that's what we're here for.
Scott Brandley:I am a millennial and we will try not to hold that against you.
Alisha Coakley:Right, a little older than that. Scott's a little older than that. No.
Daniel Adams:I just, I just barely. You know I'm within four years of the whoever decides what the demographics are. Right, but I've fully and completely owned that term because I wholeheartedly believe that I'm on this planet to create a different one.
Alisha Coakley:I love that.
Daniel Adams:And to inspire millennial living right now, today, in as many families as possible, in the church and across the world.
Alisha Coakley:Awesome.
Daniel Adams:And so that's that's what I stand for. I stand for integrity, I stand for love, I stand for understanding, I stand for inspiring people who inspire other people and lighting that fire. What that looks like day to day is I'm a dedicated dad of a 12 year old and I've been married for 15 years and it's been super intense, and we keep finding new ways to choose in to ourselves and to each other and to what we agreed on, and rework those agreements. And professionally I work as a life coach. I love inspiring self-made millionaires who are scared of emotion, who are baffled by relationships, but they're really good at making money and so it's been a ton of fun. So many amazing people that are having massive impact, and what we're doing at profitable living is inspiring as many families as possible to be emotionally profitable, relationally profitable and financially profitable.
Alisha Coakley:That's amazing Very cool. And you work with your wife right. Like you guys both kind of have a lot of stokes in the fire with your wife Very much so.
Daniel Adams:Yeah, she's, she's like the backbone, the spiritual backbone of everything that we do. She's amazing at organization and sees, sees, the full and complete vision, and I get to be the face of everything. And love to talk, love to share, love to motivate.
Alisha Coakley:That's awesome.
Scott Brandley:That's funny. I'm actually an entrepreneur too. Tell me more. My wife is not involved in my business. I've tried to get her to do stuff but she has no interest. And whenever I talk to her about business, her eyes just totally glaze over. She's like uh-huh. I mean, she tries, she tries to look like she's interested, but I know it's just like torture, whatever I talk to her about.
Alisha Coakley:She just loves the babies and the kids and she's just such a nurturer, you know, like she's. Yeah, that's where she's like all of the little little people so good.
Scott Brandley:That's cool that you get to work with your wife. I'm kind of jealous.
Alisha Coakley:Well, you get the. I don't know. I mean I'm somewhere on that list Like I'm not that bad to work with Scott. I mean, sometimes I'm a little late, sometimes my eyebrows are a little crooked, but for the most part I'm okay to work with them, yeah you're already like this, you can definitely sub par from Darla Awesome.
Scott Brandley:So well, dude like do any hobbies, any sports.
Daniel Adams:Super, love the barbecue, love speaking Portuguese with people. I love anything with people Really. I joined the Rotary Club recently in Franklin, tennessee, and that's been a blast just to do different service projects. Saturday we were out with a group called one gen away or one generation away, I should say and they're they're a food ministry and they rescue food from grocery stores that they're going to throw out on Friday nights. It's like 30,000 pounds of food that they just chuck every Friday and then they turn around and package what can be salvaged it's like 90% of everything on that truck and they stick it in people's trunks in town and it's an incredible project to be part of their passionate that, like right now. This is the generation where we end hunger and it's been beautiful to watch that ripple and they're going far and wide. So yeah, hobbies, hobbies are boring.
Daniel Adams:I guess it's like service and whatever involves people like a social eater, social game player, social mountain biker, I do like to drum.
Alisha Coakley:So your hobby is people, my hobby is people whatever wherever the people are. There you go. I love that.
Scott Brandley:I can just picture you like going into a sandwich shop and like there's a random person sitting on the side and you like just go sit by him.
Daniel Adams:Yeah, I'm wholeheartedly that guy Like hey, my name is Daniel. What's bringing you joy this week? And they're like what planet are you from?
Alisha Coakley:And you come out with like a best friend.
Daniel Adams:It's like everybody wants eye contact, but I'm just scared of it. It's fine.
Alisha Coakley:It's true, it is true, everybody. They do, they want that, whether they think they want it or not, they do, they totally want it. So well, that's so funny.
Scott Brandley:Yeah, all right. Well, we're excited to hear whatever story you want to share with us. Daniel, the floor is yours, my friend.
Daniel Adams:The floor is mine. Well, let me frame it this way. So I grew up in a super, like super Orthodox LDS household. So we were like no Diet Coke. Oh, wow, Everybody gets to wear suits every week. Like I've never heard my parents cuss. Wow. I grew up in Highland, Utah 1800 kids. In my high school there were 18 of them that were not enrolled in release time seminary. So just like a whole lot of white people, whole lot of church members, like that's. That was my upbringing. Still, to this day, I've never watched it.
Daniel Adams:I've rated our movie like very, very Orthodox, hyper Orthodox on that side of conservative, and I've always been obedient. Did the mission thing, did the you know good Mormon boys go to school and get scholarships and get married at 22. And here's the path and go live it. And I was like great, I'll do that. And I was like as obedient as possible. And then so I get married at 22. And we're 10 years into marriage and we've never made more than $26,000 in a year between us. This is like 2018. And so like saving for a house is like we're just trying to eat right, and we're like arranging our Christmas lists so that we can get, you know, whatever clothes we need and new garments and whatever else, and it's we're just trying our best to be frugal and peritiding and, you know, stay in our lane and just be the obedient.
Daniel Adams:I had a major depressive crash in 2013,. A whole bunch of gut issues, and that sent me on a hunt for meaning, for purpose, Because what I didn't understand and what I kept having this conversation with God over and over and over again is like I have literally done everything every day that you've asked me to at like the highest level, Right, and where are the blessings? Like the scriptures say, will prosper. So where's the prosperity?
Alisha Coakley:Right.
Daniel Adams:My wife and I are like not even close to on the same page but we're keeping the commandments so hard, like where, where are we missing? Like how are we not matching up here? And so, you know, I dragged her into therapy because the whole, all of our problems were her fall, obviously, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, elbow, elbow. The therapist was really great. He said you know, we're going to run you through some of these standardized tests before I hear any of your sob stories. And let's start with some data. And he said, just so you know, you test for clinical depression and clinical anxiety. Did you know that? I was like no, I'm just in my head. And he's like, yeah, will you journal for me some of the thoughts you have about yourself in a day. And I came back with this list and it was just like whoa, it was so bleak and so dark and so full of pressure and so judgmental. And it was clear to see why there was so much anxiety in my space and so much depression in my space and how I was not relating to my wife in a way that worked and how I was not relating to the marketplace in a way that was adding value. I was taking, taking, taking, taking from everyone around me trying to fill these emotional voids in myself, and it just simply wasn't working by all the metrics. But what confused me was I was keeping the commandments, or so I thought, at least checking the boxes on the commandments. And so that was a huge wake up and shake up for us. And it I found a therapist I liked, I encouraged her because my wife was similar, she tested in the similar inch for clinical depression. So I was like, well, you got to go see somebody so we can move out of this right. And so she tried, like four different therapists, and some of them through LDS family services, and she was like this is not the person, this is not the framework, this is not how, like we're missing the point here. And so I went on this journey of, like you know Brigand Meeung talks about, we claim truth wherever we can find it. And I was like, okay, I'm going to go on a journey and I'm going to go find these missing pieces. And so a lot of that was personal development for me. A lot of that was I started to look in music and the arts. I started to look. I got involved in a group that did events for evangelical gay men Wow and ended up facilitating a couple of those events because they were all.
Daniel Adams:I love to talk emotions and I was trying to relate with so many men and they like only wanted to talk about sports or big diesel trucks or how much they you know their sex lives or whatever. And I was like, well, I don't really want to hear about any of those. So where do I find this emotional connection Right? And it was like here's a whole bunch of men experiencing same gender attraction that want to talk about feelings all day. So I was like, okay, well, you know, there's a lot where I mesh with in this group, so let's go explore feelings. And these are the men who want to understand emotionally what's going on in their bodies. And so that was an amazing experience to learn so many things. It's like hard to recap at all, but amazing to offer that. And I did that in Brazil. I did that on the last front and learn so much from those beautiful men and their experience and their commitment and so much about myself in the process.
Daniel Adams:The journey also led me to work with a number of people that had gone through the fundamentalist LDS spiritual orientation and many of them had left Colorado City you know where Warren Jeffs was and we're working on monogamous relationships because they had these like really intense childhoods where they're getting beaten and all the moms are super competitive about which child gets the most attention and trying to promote and sabotage the other moms and their kids and all those crazy dynamics and so much trauma. That was part of that. And so to be with those individuals that just had a way different outlook for God and a way different outlook for Native American medicine and a way different outlook on sexuality and a way different outlook on just life in general, that was an incredible part of learning and being in those circles. I got connected with shamanism and I felt really drawn to that. The way I describe shamanism is not so much a religion but more of like a lens for viewing the world. It's really interested in archetypes, it's really interested in myths and legends and stories, and that was a perfect overlay because I got to keep my obedience to the church and gave me these different perspectives and it was wild to go.
Daniel Adams:Look through the Book of Mormon for all the places it mentions healing stones. I'm like, okay, aaron and Moses are literally commanded to wear 12 stones on their chest. Well, what are those symbolized? I don't know, but here's the shamanistic tradition that uses healing stones to source healing and wisdom and understanding, and there are so many. One of the rites, one of the ceremonies, was to install what they call the garments of light Really In my energy system. And I was like, oh my gosh, and this was from the caro tradition, it's Q-E-R-O and they were in the Andes Mountains of Peru. They disappeared when the Spanish Inquisition came around, burning all the people that had native beliefs.
Daniel Adams:They came out in the 1980s, just started walking down into the villages again and said we have prophecies that say that a great wave of healing is coming through the white people and so we need to share our teachings and kind of started from there.
Daniel Adams:And they tell all these stories about these warriors that couldn't be killed because their solar plexus chakras were burning so brightly. That's like, well, that sounds a lot like stripling warriors to me. But who knows? And they have all these myths about the bearded man, god who came down to teach the people how to be fully conscious and to teach them how to heal energetically and literally. And it's like, wow, so many of these stories and myths and legends sound just like my Book of Mormon experience, right, and I start looking at all the scriptures that talk about all these different overlaps and the shaman. Experiences were fascinating because, like I said, there were so many people from different traditions that believed different things, but it was never about who was right and which, like religion, was the correct path. It was all about what's bringing you meaning, what's bringing you purpose and what are the stories and the archetypes and the myths that you believe in and what's that creating for you.
Alisha Coakley:Hmm, that's interesting Right.
Daniel Adams:And it gave me this whole other lens for what I was experiencing in the gospel of Jesus Christ and I was experiencing people I was experiencing at church and I started to notice like, okay, there's a cultural aspect to my church experience and a lot of the culture I don't agree with. And I was in, like we're in Southern Utah at the time and it was like a pioneer town where, like, people had literally starved if they didn't can enough, you know, if February, march, comes around and you didn't have enough canned food, like you didn't eat, like I've never experienced that, I could never pretend to experience that. Yeah, and there's this very like. You know, life is hard, life should be hard. The best way we can honor the pioneers is to bury our cold dead children in the frozen ground, just like they did. And like it was this ethic of like you need to work hard and suffer and that's what it means to be a good Christian.
Daniel Adams:And I, every part of my body, was like, no, I don't want that. Like, why would I go to this church? This doesn't resonate with me and I I guess there's some evidence of that in the scriptures. But then there's all these other like all of doctrine and covenant 76, 88, 93 is about how much can you receive and what is your capacity to receive, and that's very different than like how much can you suffer and struggle? And we had suffered and struggled for so long with our money, with adding meaningful value, with me finding employment to this day I've still never had a job with benefits ever. And I just, you know, decided to wholeheartedly embrace entrepreneurship and off we go.
Daniel Adams:So the other part of the story, like I said, depression was the catalyst for all of this, and I read a lot of books with a lot of salty language and I hung out with a lot of people with a lot of salty language and part of that was just being with trauma here, all these men and yeah, there's some course language there because they've lived a course life. And so for me being so judgmental about myself, for me being like Mr Hyper Orthodox LDS never watched a rated R movie and thought everybody else should live like me too, it was so powerful and built so much empathy to be with so many people that came from this different life experience in me and to try on these values that shamanism was teaching about the power of animal symbols and the power of Mother Earth to heal us and are the importance of taking care of the earth and the power of any myth and legend to generate change. And there are so many archetypes for Christ across all religions, and so it really opened my eyes into like, wow, so much of what is taught in Hinduism has some really similar beliefs to Christianity. Wow, there are so many tenants of Buddhism that are really similar to my tradition. And the scriptures say to meditate all the time.
Daniel Adams:Have I ever figured out how to meditate?
Alisha Coakley:I haven't, I still haven't. I'm struggling so bad, I'm trying and I just I don't know how to just be quiet and it's the hardest thing. But it's funny that you said that, because I've been reading the scriptures in the same thing. I'm like meditation is talked about all the time in the scriptures, but I don't know how to do it. I really, I mean, I don't know. So right, yeah.
Daniel Adams:And it's like to go out and explore that. It was like after I had some of these really deep dive experientials where I got to look at the deepest corners of Daniel and the ugly parts and the parts I hated about me, and to have transformational experiences with the atonement where I decided that it really did apply to even the ugliest threads of me. It shifted so much in how I thought and in the silence level in my own mind. I was one of the thread, you know, when the therapist sat me down and said hey, you test for clinical depression, clinical anxiety. You have three options. One of your options is to medicate, and that will blunt your highs and that will blunt your lows and it'll keep you kind of right in the middle.
Daniel Adams:And that'll that'll change your world in some ways. He said. Second option is you can see Jesus. That changes people's brain chemistry. He said. Your third option is that you can meditate consistently for three to five years and that will also change your brain chemistry. And I chose the meditation bath and so went and studied you know some of the ways that the Hindus do it, in different teachings and different schools of thought, and some of the Buddhist forms of meditation, and kind of found my own blend of what works, and it's really helped me become comfortable with the emotions that come up in me, because what hit me through all of this is like the only time I think I have a problem is when I'm experiencing big emotion about something that makes sense, though Otherwise I don't care. Yeah.
Daniel Adams:Like there are. There are gazillion terrible things happening in the United States right now, but a lot of us don't have big feelings about them, so we're not actively engaged in demanding change about them. Right, right? Yeah. And I'll tell and I'll like what's the difference? That's true. The difference is if I have big feelings about it. Sorry, scott, go ahead.
Scott Brandley:Your awareness.
Daniel Adams:Yeah, well said, right. So it's like my emotions about the thing I'm experiencing makes it a problem. And this is true for my marriage, right? If I need my wife to act a certain way so that I can be happy, that shows up a lot, you know. If I need my kid to perform a certain way at school or at church or be, you know quote unquote responsible enough and you know, do the dishes enough and do his chores enough and keep his room a certain way, then I'm okay.
Daniel Adams:Right, that's like wait, I've been giving up my sovereignty to all these outside factors and like, no wonder I'm experiencing depression and anxiety. I need the whole world to show up for me a certain way. God, I need you to give me, you know, six figure income and whatever else for me to be okay. And like the shaman, training helped me see all this and the myths and the legends and the archetypes that were playing out in my life, to where I kept waiting for somebody to care for me and make it better, without me understanding how, like the laws of money and how money works. Right.
Daniel Adams:And so many different layers. So it's been an incredible journey and I feel like I read a lot of books that probably would be frowned upon. In fact, I recommended them to some coaching clients and they're just like this is so far against my standards, like there's no way I'm going to read this and like I totally get that and I'm like, well, I'm happy to summarize it for you with the cliff notes, you know, and it's like I feel like part of my journey was to go search in all of these kind of taboo corners and bring back truth wherever we could find it Right. And that's so much of what informs what we're doing in profitable living now is getting folks emotionally centered, no matter what we experience, cause when I'm emotionally centered now, I treat people different. When I treat people different now, we're collaborating, we're creating more than we consume. Sometimes most of the time. That's going to create literal financial profit. It's definitely going to create referrals. It's definitely going to create value. It's definitely going to create meaningful connective service opportunities. It's definitely going to create friendships and relationships. It's going to fall family issues Right, and it all starts with our ability to notice our thoughts, get centered emotionally, learn to ride the waves of anger and sadness and fear and joy.
Daniel Adams:That's the other thing that I've loved to coach on is this idea of how good can you stand it, cause I spent so much of my life looking for problems and whose fault it was, which, in many ways, is what the mainstream news taught me to do. Right, what's terrible and whose fault is it? Who should I blame? Right, but through so much of these deep dive coaching events and through the personal development world and through the Shaman training, there was this inner sovereignty that came. That's like wait a minute, if I wear a different set of glasses, I'm going to see the world in a different way. And isn't that what repentance is that the Bible dictionary talks about? It's a fresh view of God, a fresh view of self and a fresh view of the world. Oh man, I never knew that.
Daniel Adams:It's this whole like and it excites me so much that, like the gospel has been there the whole time, no matter how far out I've gone to go search out this information or these experiences, or hang out with, like the roughest, gruffest friends around, the gospel has been the constant Right because it continues to teach continuing revelation and that I need to get a witness for myself of truths and scriptures. I love that about the church.
Alisha Coakley:So I have a question for you, daniel, please, because it can be really scary sometimes, right, like I know, let's say, a decade ago.
Alisha Coakley:Right, like I definitely am not the same person that I was back then, and so I would have 100% been that person who was, like, no, I'm never going to read anything or look into anything that doesn't come straight from the church, right, even though we know from the scriptures that all good comes from God.
Alisha Coakley:Right, and that by their fruits you'll know them. Right, and so there are a lot of other faiths and a lot of teachings and forms of healing and things like that that are good and that do produce really good fruits, but they're foreign almost to the gospel if you look at it just on the surface, right, and so how do you protect yourself, right, from deep diving off of a cliff where, because we know that Satan will give us a little bit of truth sometime to suck us in, right, and then he'll kind of weed us along this like really you know what I mean Like really out there stuff and he'll give us reasons to believe all of the stuff that's out there, and then he'll give us reasons to believe that it's contrary to the gospel and that the gospel is wrong.
Alisha Coakley:So how do you protect yourself when you want to be open-minded, but not so open-minded that your brain falls out right Like how?
Daniel Adams:do you Right. And then I'm throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Alisha Coakley:Exactly, exactly. How do you keep yourself centered in the gospel but still learn from all of these other sources and places of knowledge and education and history and myths and all of that stuff?
Scott Brandley:That's a good question, alisha. Just to add, like I was saying the same thing, like a lot of members would say, that like going to the fringe level right to find your truth is probably it's going to make them really uncomfortable, right so? And you did that and somehow came back better. But that's the concern is, if you go too far off the path, you could be lost.
Daniel Adams:Yeah, I love that question. I was in a men's group recently with there were 13 of us and all 13 of us that had some form of LDS experience, whether FLDS or LDS, and I was the only one who stayed.
Daniel Adams:The other 12 have left pretty loudly and pretty like not going back into that right you know, mind control, cult, whatever, and so you know, 70% of my friends are people that have left mainstream religion. Wow, and I love your question like how do I stay centered in that, and especially when people are talking about all their experiences in the mold? Don't you think that you could come watch this movie with us, or are you going to still pretend you're 12?, like what? Right.
Daniel Adams:Three really important pillars for me and I hope everybody uses these to evaluate truth. One a lot of this came from Shaumarism, actually, because if I look at like large scale, what's the story being taught? Well, I'll work this in. So, pillar one is there evidence in the scriptures? It's like if I'm evaluating a principle or a piece of truth or some kind of teaching from somebody somewhere. Pillar number one is there evidence for this thing in the scriptures? Pillar number two is there support from the words of the living prophets in a conference in the last five years? And three do I have my own personal witness from the Holy Ghost? That is truth. And how do I know?
Daniel Adams:I use body sensations when I read something that is pejorative, when I read something that's attacking, that's blaming, when I read the whistleblower stuff about the church's the most fraudulent trillion dollar business masquerading as a tax entity, whatever. That to me feels restrictive. My abs clench, my legs, get tight my jaw. It doesn't feel open and expansive. It doesn't feel like truth. When I land on when the Holy Ghost is filling my body and whispering like yes, resonance, right, that's when I get chills, that's when I get goosebumps, that's when my body feels open and expansive. That's I. Sometimes I weep, that's when I have a rush of inspiration and it spurs on 15 new thoughts that I've never thought before. That to me feels like the spirit. The fruits of the spirit right, they're listed in Galatians. Forget the words Peace, love, temperance, joy. Right, I'm seeking to build bridges with somebody. I'm going to go out and get excited to share because this thing feels so good. I just ate the fruit like Lehigh and I want to share it with everybody. This is pillar number three, right. So if I there are all these hot button issues right with the church, many people in my sphere are like, quote unquote energy workers right, and there's the line in the handbook that says thou shall not be an energy worker, and I've had some clients that have literally been kicked out of the church over it and some who've stayed and some who practice in secret and whatever. So like, let's take that through the three pillars.
Daniel Adams:Is there scriptural evidence for healings and for the transfer of energy in the scriptures? Maybe you could argue one way or the other. Is there words of the living prophets that support that? Not so much. Do many people have a conviction from the Holy Ghost that it's truth. Yeah, but so two of the three or you could argue, one of the three pillars is there. So that's something I get to put on the shelf.
Daniel Adams:In contrast, when I study the Atonement of Jesus Christ, there are evidence in the scriptures for the oneness that has already been created across the universe. Yes, is there words of the living prophets in the last five years that support the doctrine of the Atonement of Jesus Christ? You bet, do I have a personal witness from the Holy Ghost that, no matter what I've done, I can choose to recommit and turn and repent and turn towards the Savior Wholeheartedly? Yes, do I want to go shout it from every rooftop that changes possible, that we can become different creatures and that we can make different choices that lead to different outcomes? 100% yes, and that feels like the spirit to me. So I'm going to take that to the bank. That's going to keep me centered in the middle of anything else that I read or don't read, or any kind of teaching that somebody brings me. I'm going to take it through those three. Is there evidence in the scriptures? Is there anything from living prophets in the last five years? And how does it feel in my body? Do I have my own witness from the spirit, and that's part of what's kept me centered in the gospel, not in the culture, but in the gospel itself Faith, repentance, ordinances, gift of the Holy Ghost, recycle and turn to the end.
Daniel Adams:By doing all those steps, and I will say I went to Native American sweat lodges trying to understand why. Why are we doing these ceremonies? Why is there an altar in the chapel and somebody's kneeling behind it and saying the same prayer every week and turning this bread into a body or something and I'm supposed to eat it? It's kind of weird and I think about it. So when I went to Native American sweat lodge, they have a very similar ordinance, where there's an altar and you bring an object that's deeply meaningful to you and you put it on the altar and then you go and sweat your brains out for two hours and purify yourself as a vessel and let go of all the toxins and all the things and the berm sacred herbs in there that represent the incense that the Old Testament talks about.
Daniel Adams:And the whole thing is structured exactly like Moses' tabernacle is described word for word, and it's just like oh my gosh, this is literally the same thing and it hit me so powerfully like Jesus is literally standing at the sacrament table blessing this, it says in Hebrews and what would it be like for me to walk up to the altar and lay on the altar whatever it is that's needing to be transformed, and then he burns it just like animal sacrifice. So it's like being part of these other traditions have enriched my experience in the LDS church, because now it's so meaningful. It's like what do I get to burn this week? What do I get to transmute this week? What do I get to purify and purge this week? And it's brought so much more meaning.
Alisha Coakley:It's interesting. I like how you said you know you put it on the shelf right, because I do think that we're definitely in a very special dispensation. We know that when they talk about the different seals that are being opened and stuff like that, we know that we're on the cusp of having Jesus Christ return to the earth. We don't know how soon, but we know that we are in those end days. We're in those last days. We know that there's going to be more truth that's revealed to us, more things that are opened up to us. There's going to be things that were hidden away for a long time and I think we are going to start seeing more of those connections.
Alisha Coakley:So it's, I know, for me personally, in my journey of personal growth and development, but also in my journey to become closer to the Savior and to become more of who he needs me to be for this next era right, I have been able to find truth in places that same, as you people who've left the church, people who they cling so hard onto the thing that they like that fits in their little box of you know.
Alisha Coakley:Well, I believe in this part, but because I don't know of the other stuff, I'm just going to push the gospel away. They almost shelf the gospel, right. They're like oh well, I feel really good about this, but I'm going to shelf everything else because I don't understand all of the gospel. But I think that sometimes, when you just throw it all away, you limit yourself to being able to hear and understand how connected our Heavenly Father has made everything on this earth and how his power really resonates in so many different cultures and so many different religions and so many different experiences of people, right, and so I love that you have those three principles, those three pillars, right. Where, you know, is there scriptural evidence? Have the living prophets spoke about it in the last five years, you know? And what does it do to your body? And sometimes, sometimes I know there have been books before that I'll just put it out there Visions of Glory, right? That's a great example.
Alisha Coakley:It is one of my favorite books, but there are definitely things in that book that I'm like I'm going to shelf that. I'm going to shelf that. Even Mormon doctrine for a long time my parents' generation they were like Mormon doctrine Bruce Armaconkey, it's the you know and then the church literally had to come up and be like hold on, like this is not, this is not necessarily completely in line, and so I think that sometimes there's going to be things I'm sorry I'm on like tangent right now but I think that there's going to be evidence of truth in almost any place that we look right, because God is everywhere right.
Alisha Coakley:Because he did create this whole world. Now the interpretations and the way that we say things or the way that we do things are going to be a little different, but it always makes me think of the Shakespeare quote. What is it arose by? Any other name will still smell the same, or something like that, or will still be just as beautiful. You know what I'm talking about right.
Alisha Coakley:So like sometimes, because it doesn't sound exactly the same or look exactly the same, we think it can't be truth. But in reality what you're saying is, if you make sure you have something to fall back on all the time, you can pick the pieces of truth out, that you do have those three pillars I'm saying yes to, but then you can just kind of shelf the rest. You can just be like you know what, heavenly Father, maybe I don't have enough information to understand everything yet.
Scott Brandley:Okay, and what did your wife think about all this? Super intense for her?
Alisha Coakley:Oh I bet, Was she not on the journey at all with you? Was she kind of like where are you going and what are you talking about? Or was she semi supportive?
Daniel Adams:But yeah, like we in many ways are on a very similar path. She brought home most of the books. Oh, wow.
Daniel Adams:She's like hey, I think you're really going to want to read this. And I was like no, I already know everything, thank you. And she's like no, really, I think you're going to want to read this. You know, and it was like some of the Michael Singer literature like untethered soul it was Eckhart Tolle and the earth and these like deeply spiritual texts you know, my wife is a saint like thank you for bringing these, like all these texts home. And our joke is like she'll bring it home and I'll take it like way too far. She's like I did not bring it for this.
Alisha Coakley:She brings you back in Hold on.
Daniel Adams:I didn't know you were going to do that with it, and so that's been funny and at the same time, you know, it's like I live life out loud, Like, and this came. You know so much of the work that I did with the men experiencing same gender attraction was like. If there's a big pile of shame, the best way to dissolve it is to be open and honest, and that's you know. So many of the coaching offerings, and personal development offerings too, are just like the more you can tell the truth. It's been amazing that my partner and I have been traveling together. The gospel was an anchor, and that's you know, when we talk about the truth I was seeking was with me all along. It really is like, for as cheesy as the footsteps in the sand poem, like Jesus is right there every step. Yeah.
Daniel Adams:And I felt him through every tradition and through everybody's experience, like there are very few things people can share with me that like don't shock me anymore. Yeah.
Scott Brandley:I can imagine going through all that.
Daniel Adams:I've heard so much from so many people that you know I worked in hospice for seven years, you know, and just this wide range of everybody's feelings and experiences and you know I watched 860 people die Like that changes a person and helped me get really comfortable with emotion. So it was like I did lose myself in some ways or I'll say who I thought I was got lost, shattered, and I got to come back to these threads of, well, who is Daniel? And that's when I started looking at, like, well, daniel stands for inspiration and where is there a whole bunch of inspiration in First Nephi? Where is there a whole bunch of inspiration in the Atonement of Jesus Christ? Where is there a whole bunch of inspiration every 10 minutes in Joseph Smith's life, where he was like, hey God, I have a question. And he's like well, let me send you Peter, james and John so I can restore this massive pillar of restoration. Right.
Daniel Adams:And when I hear Nelson talking about hey, the restoration is ongoing, it's not done, get ready, buckle up Like we're going to have more miracles than any other time. Yeah, and he comes out and he says in the war in yourself and in the war in your home, oh my gosh, is there anything more relevant today? Yeah. He's like yeah, it sucks that there's a conflict between Russia and Ukraine. It sucks even more that families are mean to each other every day. How about we handle that first? Yeah.
Daniel Adams:Like whoa talk about relevant. So it's like I'm seeing these threads, these pillars where it's like I would go out. It was almost like a teenager in a way. It was like I went out, tested my independence and kept coming home to what was safe, which is these central tenants of like, yeah, the Atonement is real. Belief, faith right, it's through every tradition. Oh yeah, and it's through your independence, you can change.
Alisha Coakley:So what would you say to someone who well, I'm going to add two people, it's who I have in mind. One, the person who is struggling with their own testimony right now, who's searching for some type of feel good, like they want to feel better because something bothers them so much about the gospel that they don't know how to not focus on it. How, I guess, what would you say to those people who are just starting their journey for seeking for truth that's outside of the gospel per se? You know how would you encourage them to not put the gospel on the shelf, I guess? And then what would you say to the people who went to the fringe and basically have like they want nothing to do with church anymore because they are so ingrained in their new truth that they're not leaving room for any of the things there that could bring them back.
Daniel Adams:These are like two of my favorite questions. Oh good, somebody asked me this morning on a coaching call. I've only done church because I was supposed to. I had sin. I went in. My bishop treated me like trash, told me a whole bunch of things that were terrible about myself. I've been feeling awful ever since and I have no desire, like I'm really struggling. I don't want to go be in the church house. I don't like how I feel when I'm there, like I'm struggling. What do I do? Right.
Daniel Adams:And my first reply was like dude, the whole restoration started with curiosity, like curious, like boy goes into the woods to just ask like hey, I feel really confused. You think you could tell me about a good path for me? That'd be awesome. So it's like curiosity, right, and Uchtdorf talks about this all the time. Doubts are totally normal. Right.
Daniel Adams:But be honest about them. We get a look at the balance. Like, are you looking for it to be wrong? Because if you're wearing those glasses, like you're always going to find a bunch of wrong, like a whole bunch of flawed humans run a church. Like, of course, there's terrible things that happen, humans run it. But if you're struggling with Brigham Young, or if you're struggling with word of wisdom, or if you're struggling with modesty, purity, culture, if you're struggling with energy work, if you're struggling with wide-ed Brigham and Brigham Young, have like, disagree on, like every major doctrinal point. These are beautiful questions. Let's get curious about them. What else has God not yet revealed that he's about to reveal? Probably because you're having a sticking point right.
Daniel Adams:Depression was a catalyst for me to understand my feelings and learn how to relate to my wife and bring hope and love to thousands of people since 2011 and all this service and all this coaching. Our pain can be a catalyst if we let it. Let's get curious about it. Let's be honest about it. Let's take those three pillars in there. Let's get with our body sensations so you can understand how the Spirit speaks to you. You have to get personal revelation. That's not going away, no matter what you believe. So that's number one get curious and just be honest, and let's do more of what works and less of what doesn't. One other thing I'll say, too, is it's so important to differentiate between the culture of the church, the administration of the church, and the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Alisha Coakley:I'm gonna raise this right.
Daniel Adams:Because, like I live in Nashville, tennessee, there's a church on every corner.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah.
Daniel Adams:And it's amazing how many different interpretations for the gospel there are. Yeah, and we could spend a lot of time arguing about who's right, but who does that help? Nobody. So it's like let's delineate that there's an administrative, cultural part, and people members like is there anything as gutsy as opening up the pulpit to literally anybody once a month for an open mic? Like that is insanity, absolute insanity. It's true. Yeah, you have no idea what you're gonna get and that, to me, is evidence like whoa, there's something special here. Yeah.
Daniel Adams:Because I get to try on in my body. Is what that person saying over the pulpit? Is there interpretation of the gospel? Does that land with me or does it not? Is there scriptural evidence? Are there words of the prophets, and do I have my own witness from the Holy Ghost that that's true? Yeah.
Daniel Adams:And if not, I put it on the shelf and I wait for further revelation so that, I think, is a huge part for those who struggle with testimony, for the beautiful souls that have been exploring the fringe, for the beautiful souls who's this is family member, aunt who got married in the temple. Husband beat the snot out of her, horribly abusive and was just like, and over and over again, was like you will listen to me because I have the priesthood shut up whack and like that's what the priesthood means to her, like they are tethered and it's like, well, no wonder she's not part of the church. So it's like for the folks that are having those experiences, for the folks who did go to the fringe and felt something different or felt love and acceptance that they never felt from the culture of the church that did choose to leave.
Daniel Adams:I think it's important to look at the context too, of the church. In itself is good for two things community and ceremony.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, it's true, and we know that from COVID right. So, like, when we shut down and we didn't I mean the Gospels didn't stop right, we didn't stop learning in our homes, we didn't stop seeking in the scriptures for inspiration and guidance and whatever else, and even our ceremonies, like, yeah, we didn't get to go have them in the temple and so that was put on pause for a season, but the most important thing that we could partake in the sacrament was still allowed to be done. Right, and so, yeah, I can see how for those listeners out there who might be a little confused by that, it's the actual church building, like going to church. It has so much purpose and it's wonderful and it's beautiful. But even if we can't, even if it's not there anymore, or even if we don't make it, the gospel is still always going to be there. It'll never leave the earth again. Yeah, you know.
Daniel Adams:I was coaching a couple and he was. He was really bothered by a couple of things from church history and she was really intent on, you know, continuing to raise their family with these church values. And they had the opportunity for like well, this can't work. If you're not gonna go to the temple with me, I'm out like you're a pagan horse, I'm being horrible. Whatever judgment, judgment, judgment.
Daniel Adams:It was beautiful to watch them get really clear on what it was that they valued. Family was very high on the list. Love was very high on the list. Nature was very high on the list.
Daniel Adams:Her being able to be with the kids often was high on the list for both of them. So it was like they have all these major pillars of overlap. Yeah, he's in a different place with church, but like he wasn't antagonistic against it, he wasn't telling her she couldn't go, he was just saying like, for me it's not landing. And so it was beautiful to watch him go to the fringe and leave and watch them continue to create a marriage together, so where he's not openly leading scripture reading every night, but he's also not stopping her from doing it, and he takes the kids to play whatever video game and she takes the kids to read the book of Mormon together and it's like they're both invested in family. They're both vehicles to help their family be together. And so to question number two, I'd say it's so important to get clear on what are our values, cause most people really crave community and really crave ceremony.
Scott Brandley:Well, I like what you say there about in that example with that couple. We all are on our own spiritual journey, even if we're married. Both of us you know both spouses are on their own journey and it's very possible they're at different places in that journey at different times in their marriage. But that is hard. It's hard to allow someone you love to go down a path that you are not on and to have the faith it's actually a lot of good feelings about it yeah, yeah, I'll have the faith that they're gonna come back, that they're gonna find out what they need to find and then come back. So that's hard. It's just hard with human nature in general to allow people to do that Right.
Alisha Coakley:And that can go for our kids too, right, Like I mean we all have pre-teens teens, you know those ages, and stuff like that, and holy cow, holy cow, having children definitely gets me closer to God because, I'm telling you, there are so many times where I'm like praying, like Heavenly Father, you better take control of this kid right now.
Alisha Coakley:You know what I mean. But I think that in parenting, and especially in this generation, and, like we said, with the second coming being right around the corner, we know that Satan is gonna get even more sneaky with things right, and also more blunt, like he's just gonna put everything out there because nothing is a surprise anymore, like you said. I mean, we just we see every aspect of life and so we unfortunately can't shield our children from these things that are off from the gospel, and there's going to be times when they go to the fringe, you know, in some way or another, and they may do it just have nothing to do with a religion or faith or finding truth. They may just wanna do it because it's fun, because it's different, because it's something that they haven't experienced yet and because mom said I can't, so I'm going to.
Daniel Adams:Right.
Alisha Coakley:Like oftentimes. So my thought in that is I really like your pillars, I really like the pillars thing and I almost wonder, like, where else can we find pillars? You know, like when it comes to those disagreements, maybe one of the pillars we can go to is is the first couple pillars in the 10 commandments Love God and love others like you love yourself. So the first three is all about love. You love your heavenly father. You really build that relationship with him and with your savior, jesus Christ. You make sure that you love others and make sure that you're loving yourself too.
Alisha Coakley:And if you can do something that hits all three of those marks, I don't think that you'll ever. I don't think anything that you do will ever take you so far away that heavenly father can't bring you back. You know it may not be in this lifetime. It may take a little while and there may be a lot of hardship, but heavenly father is gonna give us every single opportunity. You know, every road we take he's gonna have so many different detours that'll bring us right back to the place where we need to be, and we may say no to 50 different detours along the way, but it may be that 51st that something clicks and then all of a sudden we're like, okay, maybe Right.
Daniel Adams:Love pillar resonates with me so much, and especially the love self. Yeah.
Daniel Adams:There's that line in the chosen where it's like I'm all in on you, I have all the faith in the world and Jesus it's me that I'm doubting, yeah, and I resonate with that so much. I have no problem trusting God, like. My issue is why do I suck? These are some of the beliefs, right, right, and it's like that's where I get to play. That was at the core of my depression. That was at the core of my anxiety was the way I was seeing myself. Right, I was the, the atonement applied to everybody except me, right, and that's what I got to repent of and change my view on and change my breath and change my thoughts and change. You know all the ways that President Nelson talks about Greek translations for repentance, and that's such a powerful place to start is with me. Was coaching somebody who has children that are identifying as transgender? This person's like what in the world do I do with this? Yeah.
Daniel Adams:And my counsel was like well, one, what does it mean about you that your child's having this experience? And we got open and honest and they were like well, it means I'm a terrible parent. It means I didn't do the, I didn't teach them appropriately. It means that you know they're in danger of not being with me in the eternity and I can't stand the idea that they're going to burn in hell forever. I was like one, thank you for being so honest. Two, let's try on your child's shoes. How does it feel that the person you trust the most thinks you're going to burn in hell forever? The person was like oh yeah, I can see why. Like, we don't do a lot of family dinners anymore. Like, yeah, like this relationship is toast because of the level of judgment in there, both as big feelings that you're attached to it right, coming up to it right, and it's like well, my identity as a parent is threatened unless you act a certain way. Oh wait.
Daniel Adams:How much control do I have over this person? And control is not the plan of God. By the way, Whose plan was that? Yeah, that was the vetoed plan. Right, that would be controlled. And so you know, there's this beautiful opportunity that, like the deeper, I love every single ugly corner of myself. It makes it so much easier to extend love and acceptance and understanding and curiosity to somebody else's experience. Now I'm meeting it with compassion instead of with judgment. Now we can start to look for where we overlap. Now I can start asking questions like how long have you felt this way? Now I can start asking questions like wow, this must be really confusing for you. What's been the hardest for you about this? Well, now we're relating in a completely different way, building bridges of trust. They may come back to the church, they may not, I don't know, but we're definitely gonna treat each other like people for the rest of our lives.
Alisha Coakley:I love that.
Daniel Adams:And is there like that is the gospel right? Like love one another unless you're gay. Like that's not what the Bible says. Right, it's true Love one another unless your gender identity is binary. You know, like it's not what the Bible says, it's like love all the humans, period. How can I get curious?
Daniel Adams:How can I extend? And you know I get to extend the love to myself first, and then it will ripple out and so that's you know. I love that you brought that up Like that's where I get to work. I can only make change in one person and it's not my kids, though I try really hard. Yeah, you know, I can only make change in one person and it's not my spouse, even though it'd be really convenient if I could just change her so convenient so that I can feel good and all those pesky big feelings can go away because she's treating me a certain way Like no, it's not how the gospel works. Right.
Daniel Adams:I get to apply faith and repent. I get to go find ceremonies that are meaningful for me. I get to extend love to this guy and to everybody around me.
Scott Brandley:Yeah, yeah. So we had a guest on a couple of weeks ago. His name is Vinnie Tolman and he said something really profound. He said one of the lessons he's learned. He had a near-death experience. He said one of the things he learned from that is that life is a classroom, not a courtroom, and we are continually learning. We're put on earth to learn and grow from the things that we experience, not to be judged, and God loves us so much that he gave us the ability to do that to come here and learn and grow and learn from our mistakes.
Scott Brandley:I mean, honestly, I love the idea. I'm still trying to get my mind around it because I mean, I would say I'm pretty conservative. When you started out the podcast, you said, like you almost set it up, like I'm a millennial, right, I think different. And what's interesting to me is the thought process and the journey you've been on to even go to that level and like it comes down to tradition, it comes down to how we've been brought up in the church. But I also get what you're saying on the other side of that topic, where you've kind of pushed a lot of the boundaries of where most members feel comfortable even just talking about.
Scott Brandley:But throughout this whole podcast and I know people are gonna react similar to me, where they're like you did what and you learned something from that, right. And so my initial reaction is to be like whoa, that's too far, it's too much. But then, on the other side, I respect that you're willing to take the risk. I'm still worried like that, even saying it out loud that other people are going to push it too far and leave right. So there's like this battle inside me where part of me is like okay, I get where you're coming from and I respect it and you've come up with these incredible lessons from it, but there's still that traditional side in me that's fighting it. I mean, do you come across that in your coaching? Like, how do you what?
Scott Brandley:are your thoughts on that 100%.
Daniel Adams:I appreciate so much your honesty and I appreciate so much sharing your experience and I think it's a super relevant conversation to have, like what is too far? And it's like you said, like I have pushed the boundaries and that's part of what's unique about me is I came back and stayed too, cause a lot of people push the boundaries and take them even farther and they're just like you know, Just leave, yeah, yeah.
Daniel Adams:So I love having the conversation and I love to hear people's experience. There's a layer of identity in that too. I love that the culture of the church is starting to shift, from why we're right into let's embody the gospel of Jesus Christ at the highest level possible.
Scott Brandley:Right, I can agree with that.
Daniel Adams:I'm in preparation for this incoming right.
Daniel Adams:Because there was all this stuff in the 80s about like, well, the Baptist this and the Presbyterians that, and the Catholic Church this, and it was just like there was so much focus on why everyone else was wrong and why this was the only true and living church and that was the emphasis right, which is like at the end, it's the identity thing.
Daniel Adams:It's like my team's the best, everyone else's team was the worst, nannanannanannan or go Seahawks or whoever you cheer for, right, and in that way, like I was making church about my identity and that's part of my wife and I taught a fifth Sunday lesson recently and we had more vulnerable, honest conversation than I've ever had in a fifth Sunday and just the flood of feedback was like thank you so much for this discussion Because we are uniquely set up to where there was a crazy ton of pressure to have your family look a certain way, which means that all your kids get to go on missions and all your kids get to get married in the temple or you're a failure, like those are the stakes, and by failure we mean like you're going to burn in hell forever because you didn't do it good enough and your kids are going to burn in hell forever and you can't be an eternal family Like those are some gnarly gnarly pressures.
Alisha Coakley:And they're self-inflicted, right, like I've never once heard anyone tell me anything like that. But I'll have those thoughts. Oh well, if I don't do this and if my kids don't do this, and if my husband doesn't do this, and it's so funny because it really isn't. I don't think that it's honestly expected by anybody else. It's just our own internal big feelings, right? That are making us feel, if my family's not like this, you know, then, oh my gosh, it's the end of the world. You know everything's going to go.
Daniel Adams:I decided at some point that, like, the worst, most torturous, horrid thing would be that, you know, if one of my seven siblings was in the terrestrial kingdom and I was in the celestial and we were blocked forever, wouldn't that be the worst? I decided that at some point along the way. I was like, wait, is that what the book says? Is that what the living prophets say? Do I have my own spiritual witness that that's true? And so it's like, because I keep looking at identity, you know, if I can get beyond, I need the church to be right so that I can be validated as a human being. It's almost the same as, like I need, you know, the BYU 20 year old athletes to play at a certain level so that I can be justified as a human being. And it's like, well, it's silly when you think about it that way. Yeah.
Daniel Adams:Am I taking it too far to apply it to the church? And what was wild was like. So you know, one of the siblings in my family is gay and it was. We had a choice point right when he said hey, next time I come to the family reunion and bring somebody it's probably going to be a dude Just want to prepare y'all. And we have this choice point right, like, do we let this affect our relationship or do we get to lean into what our understanding of the gospel is and get curious? How long have you guys been dating? You know what's that been like for you? What have Elder Oaks talks been like for you? You know, and we're going to have some meaningful conversation and similar.
Daniel Adams:Like um parent left in a really loud way and through all the anti stuff at us, I'm like, well, did you know that Brigham said this? And you know this and this and this and this and this and this? And like honest, tearful, intense, like I am so sorry I brainwashed you in this cult. I'm so sorry it's all wrong. You know you're going to pay for your therapy to get you better, to get you liberated, like I am. Like I am so sorry I ruined your life with this cult and just honest, honest, honest tears. I'm sorry I ruined your life, I'm sorry I deceived you.
Daniel Adams:And it was like, oh, this is a very different conversation than I expected to have with a parent and to watch, you know, because parent chose the agnostic path, which is like well, there's no real evidence for God and no real evidence against. You know, and you know, we bought her drinks for her birthday and that was weird. You know, haven't bought alcohol for anybody except for but it was this again, like here's this thing that you value. It's your birthday. I told you I covered dinner, so I'm covering dinner. And what does that mean about me? And is this the right way to do it? I haven't read in the scripture short, it says thou shall not buy alcohol. Like yeah.
Daniel Adams:So there's these lines. I love the conversation, scott right, because it's like I am pushing the boundaries in so many ways and the function of all of it, I think, is to help us think and to help us assess, like, what is at the core of the gospel of Jesus Christ and are we living it? Or am I pursuing the Pharisee path, where I'm like, hey, you can't walk more than 619 steps on the Sabbath and you certainly can't pick up your bed. And he's like I haven't walked for 30 years, but that guy just healed me and told me to pick up my bed, so I'm going to do that. And it's like I can miss the point Getting fixated on how the structure has to look so steeped into tradition, yeah Right.
Alisha Coakley:So it's interesting because we had a guest on I don't know a little while ago, charles Lawson, and he wrote a book called the Millennial Shot and he deep dives into some of these really controversial topics in regards to the church and how millennials, they truly struggle with them. They truly struggle with. How do I just say that all my friends are wrong or evil or bad?
Alisha Coakley:or like these are people I love and I have relationships with, especially when you have a big shift in a person's identity or personality or belief system, absolutely, where you have all these great memories of them and then they change in a way that doesn't you don't recognize them anymore, surprise, yeah.
Alisha Coakley:And so a lot of the younger generations, younger than Scott and I right, you guys are really having to struggle with how do you show Christ like love for everybody, how do you not have that prejudice and how do you still keep yourself firm in the foundation without being showy and without triggering people? I mean, my generation, listen, my generation is all like you can't get offended unless you choose to be offended, and that's true, it is true. But it's also true that we're supposed to be compassionate, and so it's hard because, like Scott said, I mean truthfully, in the beginning of the conversation, I was like I don't know where this is going. I was like Scott is going to fire me as a ghost. But it was intriguing too, because you would say one thing that would just like have me, kind of like, oh, what the heck? And then you would say something else that was so centered and strong in the gospel and I'm like it's such a weird dichotomy for me to hear you have both.
Alisha Coakley:And I think the thought that I had when Scott was expressing, like his, you know, struggle with the tradition versus the compassion and and I guess, progressiveness right Is that that's exactly what your generation is supposed to do and the generation that comes after you. They are going to be designed to be able to speak to that generation. So the experiences that you guys are having, you know, I can speak all day long to women who are around the age of 40, right, and I can resonate with them because we have very similar upbringings and experiences and struggles right now in our life and hopes and dreams, and there's a lot of commonality. No matter which walk of life a woman my age comes from, I can find a lot in common with her. But you put me next to a 20 year old.
Daniel Adams:Worlds apart, right so different. So different and I just I never know.
Alisha Coakley:I never know what I'm going to get, to the point where I was recently called back into primary and I had a little bit of fear. I was like can I please just go be with the old ladies and release society, because I don't even know.
Alisha Coakley:That's why I'm comfortable and I have children and I don't even know how to like do all this. But I think that that's the point. Right Is that you said you're so proud to be a millennial, and I know there's jokes and you know us, you know I'm not a boomer, but you know, whatever I am, I'm a Gen Xer. Yes, I'm a Gen Xer and well, actually I think I'm a Zenial is what they call me.
Alisha Coakley:I was, I was in that little tiny pocket of 1983. So it's a little sub, whatever. Anyway, regardless the Gen Xer or the Zenial or Boomer or whatever generation we're in, we were, we were given that time to be on this earth to learn how to speak, mostly to the people who were on the earth with us and maybe one generation lower right. But, realistically, you guys are going to be the ones, the millennials are going to be the ones, that are teaching the next generation and the next generation is going to teach it what is it? Gen Z and then a Gen Alpha, and so you guys have to learn a new language, right, you guys have to learn. How do you have the gospel in your life and accept people for who they are, when the line for normalcy is going to be so much broader than what it ever was before you think about?
Daniel Adams:it's been the last few years, literally right Like three years. It's accelerated, I'm telling you yeah.
Alisha Coakley:And I even think about it. You know, back in around 2008,. Like when Obama's president and stuff like that I know the hot topic back then was was all about you know, african Americans and and how they were slaves here in America and we should do all of these things and I it was such a divisive thing. It was like it was like, oh no, like you can't. You can't be okay with the fact that America had bad things happen. Like we can't put a statue of Robert E Lee up because he was not a perfect person.
Alisha Coakley:And I thought, oh my gosh, like what is happening? That we're being judged for the worst parts of ourselves. Like forget any of the good stuff that happened. If you did anything bad in the past, we're not even relating to those people. When it was literally as normal as putting on a pair of pants to accept slavery Not that it made it okay. But when you look back and you say you know what someone in Scott and I's generation, if we were to go back and we were to talk to people today, especially with like with with us being white right, like if we were to talk about how the best people we know you know, like we have friends who, not that they've ever been slaves or anything like that, but like they, they share that ancestry with people who have, and so it's a deep wound for them.
Alisha Coakley:But they are amazing and we'll invite them over for dinner and we hang out with them. And people are married now that you have the interracial relationships and they're having children and it's such a normal part of today's society we don't even let. Billy and I were like oh, it's totally, because we know we've evolved and we've gotten closer to that second coming, which is going to reveal more light and truth, but it's also going to reveal a lot more darkness.
Scott Brandley:So that's going to be blurred right.
Alisha Coakley:Or it's going to be widened, it's going to get so wide, but I think that it's awesome that you guys are learning how to speak to that gap that's being created. You know, and I'm going to tell you there's going to be. We're going to get comments on the show.
Daniel Adams:Well, I'd love to have conversations with like literally any listener like, please open a conversation.
Alisha Coakley:I mean it's we're going to. I'm just going to put this out there. Listeners, we are going to love every one of you guys who have a comment and we are going to just encourage everyone just to pray and be compassionate, because it's going to be a little bit of a tricky conversation for some people to hear your language and then to try to be like, well, wait a minute here. You know, we actually have had that a couple times in the past from some other guests where they've said something that it just doesn't speak the regular language that we're used to in the church, you know.
Daniel Adams:And this, like literally, this whole conversation, is like why I stayed. I love it Because there is space in the church for somebody like me who pushes the edges, and that, like that, means everything in the world to me, because there are a lot of spaces and especially online and especially with what I say as a coach where, like it is divisive and people say things about me and about my family and about my character, that there's a lot of judgment there, right, and it's like part of the reason I stayed in the church is because there is space for somebody like me who's walking between worlds. Yeah, our Bishop got sober four months before he was called.
Daniel Adams:Wow 20 years of alcohol.
Alisha Coakley:Oh man.
Daniel Adams:He started when he was 10. Oh wow, louisiana Whole different life Started chewing tobacco when he was 10. He was like, yeah, alcohol is nothing. He was like getting rid of. Right, yeah, he was a homemade, and it's. It highlights this principle for me. He walks between worlds. He's still very, very involved in AA and he's part of this whole network of veterans who have been trying to drink themselves to death since they came home because they experienced things that no human should experience. And what do you do with that? There's room for them in the Church of Jesus Christ the latter. That's why I stayed, and I'd be like I'm colonized for this. And there's this really powerful law that the scriptures hit on. That is the law of paradox, where two things can be true at the same time, even though they're contradictory. Right, hey, nephi, I need you to kill that drunk eye with his own sword. Lord, I don't know if you know this, but we have like 10 laws.
Daniel Adams:Yep it's like really, really clear that like number six is like don't kill people, especially if they're laying drunk in an alleyway.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah. Right it's true, that's true and the spirit constraints him.
Daniel Adams:Okay. Well, is there scriptural evidence For killing people? Yeah, have you read? Like, hey, king Saul, I need you to go in and slaughter every man, woman and children? Okay, I did that, lord. Okay, but what are the bleeding of the sheep in my ears? Like you didn't kill all the children? Well, I didn't kill the children, I can't kill the children. God's like okay, you're out. You didn't listen to what I asked you to do, right. So like, yeah, people get killed in the scriptures because God said so, right, and there it brings tension. Yeah, hey, have one wife, except for when I command you to have more than that. Wait what?
Daniel Adams:and they were gonna command you to stop both right like wait, there's this pattern that I don't understand and it's like law of paradox, like two things can be true at the same time and contradict each other, and that's part of like my whole life. Like, okay, I'm an initiated shaman and I hold the temple recommend. How are those two things compatible? I have no idea, but they are. And and like I love doing ceremony with Native Americans, I love doing ceremony with my wife in the temple, yeah, and for me, I have a witness that like, yeah, I want you to be there, I want you to serve there In both places. I'm walking this both and kind of living, and I love that there's room for that and the church of Jesus Christ the latter, yeah and you know what I really love about that?
Alisha Coakley:we, we we're going to live the and right we're. We're going to be Really good and committed to the gospel and we're gonna be sinners and we're gonna screw up. All right, right, we are going to have such a firm testimony of nine out of ten things that were told to do and we're gonna go out and have a drink on Saturday night or we're gonna, you know, like I don't know, have sex outside of marriage, or like we're gonna do something right. But I Like that, the, and I think is kind of where the atonement lies.
Daniel Adams:We talked about the gap right like he literally closed the gap.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, exactly. And so if we screw up really badly and we go too far to the fringe, you know, if we say things in a way that Just confuses people or offends people or or gives them the heebie-jeebie feelings because they're like, oh, I don't know. We know that the one the Holy Spirit can always teach us, you know, so long as we keep seeking after truth and it's so long as we keep our relationship with our heavenly father, it's like a core part of ourselves. And two, if we mess up I don't think we can ever mess up so much that the atonement can't fix it in some way. You know like it may not look exactly the same as what it would have looked if we didn't mess up, but it can all be beautiful in the end.
Daniel Adams:Yeah, d&c 132 says we have to take it really really really far. If you have to kill somebody in cold blood, knowing that you're about to kill them in cold blood and that's Most people don't get there.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, yeah, isn't it just a, since it's against the Holy Ghost? Right is is just when you have that conversion. Right and you deny that. That that's kind of about as far as you got to take it. Heavenly Father is gonna keep giving you opportunities, right. So, I love, I love that, I love what you're doing. I really do I. Feel so good right now. This has been the most back-and-forth conversation Episode that we've ever had. Actually it's.
Alisha Coakley:It's more of a story with, like a little bit of conversation. We've had a lot of conversation. I feel like this go on.
Scott Brandley:Yeah, so I have two other things to add to what you just said, Alisha. One we always have the light of Christ with us to to help us know what is right and wrong. In addition to the gift of the Holy Ghost. The other thought I had was that we all, we're all gonna make some, some big mistake in our life. Like it's just unavoidable. We're all gonna do something really stupid at me. Especially Daniel right I.
Daniel Adams:Try to get it in before I'm 40.
Alisha Coakley:You just shut your mind off and you're like no.
Scott Brandley:Yeah, all wrong. No but no, like that's the truth, like there's always gonna be that and moment probably many of them right when we're trying to do the best we can and we do something really stupid, but there's always that atonement, that repentance there and we can always come back and God loves us unconditionally and if we remember that and he loves every person unconditionally- and he's got a plan for everyone. So those are important truths.
Daniel Adams:No, Pillars, right, we come back over and over and over again.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, and we can't screw up so much that he can't get us back on track, you know. So his plan may not be for us to go all the way to the fringe, but maybe it is. Maybe he can, maybe he can trust you, daniel, to do that, but maybe he can't trust Alisha to do that. And it's not your path, right, exactly Mine. Mine could totally be some completely different direction, where I just stay right in the meadow, I don't, I don't venture to any cliffs. You know what I mean. Right again, you never know, you never know, and and it's okay, because he, he is so much more creative than we are Right, and that was one of the things that I was thinking of when you, when you talk about the people who have left the church, you talk about the children who are really struggling with knowing who they are and With their sexual identities or their or their orientation or whatever it might be.
Alisha Coakley:You know, you struggle with the parents, who are just, are just in turmoil because they think that they screwed you up so badly, right, I think that I Think that in those moments, we need to remember that, that our Heavenly Father knows us and loves us and he has the most brilliant way of touching those hearts and of.
Alisha Coakley:Speaking truth to them and it is so creative and it is, I mean and I can just vouch for that with the amount of guests that we've had on this show in the last year or so, the stories that we hear about people who have experienced things we had a couple who's both of their daughters were killed in a flash flood on Mother's Day weekend during a hike and to hear their testimony of how much they know that their baby girls are waiting for them, you know, and they go forward and they share their story over and over again and they just create this, this feeling of warmth and love and hope for everybody else.
Alisha Coakley:It's, it's amazing to think how in the world, you know, did they keep their testimony and how did they even stay together, like we know that greed, like the loss of a child, is one of the biggest causes for divorce in in couples that are grieving right and and we've had people who we a dusty Smith, he left the church, he was an apostate for 26 years I mean like, like sign-carrying You're all burning in hell like he would preaching in other churches.
Alisha Coakley:Yes, go to forums, on, on, on Facebook and not Facebook, but you know what I mean. Like, yeah, he was so actively against the church, he was such an apostate for 26 years, and then you hear all of the miracles that happen that brought him back and changed his heart and you think there is no story that Heavenly Father can't write. You know, like he is, like the, the, he's literally the god of the plot twist.
Daniel Adams:A true author.
Alisha Coakley:Yes, he's got all the scenes written out. He's got that little yes, why chart? Going and he knows it all. He's like, oh yeah, oh, belly of despair. This is where you're at right now, just.
Speaker 4:So it's okay cuz we don't have to be the author right we don't be the author.
Alisha Coakley:I love Mother Tracy. She said we can be the pen. Right, that's all we have to. We just be, have to be the pen, and the pen is the thing that's going to love others, right where they are, regardless of their circumstances. There's a book by Byron Katie called loving what is? Have you read that? It's such a great book, hi, it like. That book made me not stress out Nine times out of ten when my kids don't do their chores, right. You know, I'm like yes.
Alisha Coakley:Just, it's what it is, it's okay, I can love it. I can love them where they are. I I don't have to rely on someone else to do something in order for me to feel love for them.
Alisha Coakley:You know, like and it's it really has I, and it's not necessarily a Christian book, or I mean there's a little bit of cussing in it, I think too. If I remember correctly, it's been a while since I read it, but but even in that book I found a lot of truth and I found a lot of. This is how God loves us. He loves us just the way we are. He loves what is he's like. It's okay, it's good I'm. I got something. I got something my sleeve. Just wait till the next scene. Let me.
Scott Brandley:Alright, daniel. Well, this has been an awesome conversation. Yeah, probably should start wrapping up, even though it's really good. So what? What you know, this is just been a wild conversation, but I think it's been really good. Give us some of your last thoughts or, you know, what would you like to share with, with the people that are listening.
Daniel Adams:Yeah, what I'd love to share is my testimony 100,000 percent certain that God is our loving Father in heaven, that Jesus Christ is exactly who he said he was, is the author and finisher of our faith. 100% certain that he loves us, independent of what we choose, and For me that's a great motive to choose things that I know are in line with truth. I have a testimony in the restoration of all things that Joseph Smith started and that's still very active. I have a testimony of God's love that simply exists and there's nothing we can do to separate ourselves from it, as hard as I try. I have a witness that the Book of Mormon contains true principles and has brought me closer to Jesus Christ. Same with the New Testament, same with the Old Testament. I have a testimony that there's a law, a universal law, that governs every blessing and that's not the obedience isn't for me.
Daniel Adams:God doesn't need my tithing money. God doesn't need me to like not drink coffee. God doesn't need me to not eat pig, like, depending on which era of health laws we're talking about right.
Daniel Adams:But the obedience is. For me it's to align and to learn how to make commitments and keep them, and religion is one of the most incredible channels for that. And I will also say I believe that, even with all its flaws, the administrative entity that is the Church of Jesus Christ to Latter-day Saints Is an inspired organization. I do believe Jesus Christ leads it and inspires. President Nelson, there's some policy things that a lot of people don't agree on, and both and paradox. I believe it is a deeply inspired organization that does a lot of good for a lot of people. By their fruits, you shall know them. Churches brought food to my table. Churches brought compassion to my heart. Over and over and over again, has invited me back to repent and utilize the gospel of Jesus Christ. So I'm in and that's, that's my witness.
Alisha Coakley:I love that.
Daniel Adams:I'm in.
Alisha Coakley:I'm in with you, even if you make me a little uncomfortable sometimes. And I'm just gonna bring scot along to Wow, I Love that, I love that you ended on that. Daniel, that's beautiful.
Scott Brandley:Yeah, thanks, man. This is the wildest podcast we've ever done.
Daniel Adams:Well, thanks for your time and trust and energy and investment of all the things. I know you have families too, and deeply grateful to connect here. Yeah.
Scott Brandley:Oh yeah, well, so there's gonna be a lot of conversation because of this, though, and I think that's a good thing. Yeah, that's a good thing.
Alisha Coakley:I think so too, and I will. I will just put a disclaimer out there, guys, scott and I we're not gonna have all the answers, you know Daniel's not gonna have all the answers, and and I just I want to encourage you guys, like Definitely, leave a comment. Let us know, like, what resonated with you. You know, like let us know what kind of helped you to gain a new perspective and and what spoke to your heart, what hit those three pillars for you during this conversation? You know, and what do you think you could be curious about? We'll put it out there. What in this conversation today makes you a little bit curious of how you know, how could that relate to the gospel and how could that play into your truth and your testimony?
Alisha Coakley:I would love, I'm very excited to hear what type of comments we're gonna get from this episode and I just want to encourage you guys listeners like Share, you have no idea. You have no idea what type of language Is being spoken in these episodes to different types of people in your life. You know, you just you never know what story and what saying and what gospel principles gonna come out. That is just gonna give people that, that piece and that light that they need. That's gonna help them to be more edified in Jesus Christ and in the gospel. And so make sure you guys hit that, that share button, do your five-minute missionary work and, you know, let's get that that light that Daniel brought to us today out there.
Scott Brandley:Yeah, so, daniel, if somebody wants to Get in touch with you. But how do they do that?
Daniel Adams:Best channel would be go to wwwcreate profitable living calm. There are a number of activities there to expand our capacity to receive, to get centered emotionally, to improve our relationships of all kinds and To create as much prosperity as possible to give to the kingdom of God, collaborate with each other to move us all forward, and that's a great spot. You can also come find me on Facebook. I imagine we can post a link somewhere if my personal profile or whatever. I'd love having conversations and awesome. Yeah cool.
Scott Brandley:Awesome. Well, thanks again for being on the show, yeah that's right, I haven't got that word been, it's been quite an unique experience.
Alisha Coakley:I'm not. Mine is just really right. He's just got so much going on.
Scott Brandley:It's been good, really appreciate it. Yes absolutely.
Daniel Adams:God bless you both. Thank you for the work you're doing.
Alisha Coakley:Well, and to our listeners out there, guys, if you have a story that you'd like to share, would like to even nominate someone to be a guest on the show, you think maybe they've got something that could spread some light and truth out there, go ahead and head over to our website, latter-day lights calm. There's a form at the very bottom of the page that you can fill out which will send us an email, or you can find us on social media. You can comment on any of these videos. We can see it. We would love to open up some more new language To those who are seeking a little bit of inspiration, and With that we hope you guys enjoyed this show and we hope you guys have a wonderful week until next time You'll see you later See you Be well.
