At Last She Said It
Religion & Spirituality
About
At Last She Said It is a podcast that seeks to amplify and explore a variety of voices, stories, ideas and experiences of Mormon women.
Episodes
- Episode 263: What Do You Say? | 3 Conversations About Agency, Motherhood, Faith Crisis, Premonitions, and Creating God
Episode 263 of At Last She Said It features a discussion with Stephenie, Blakelee, and Tedi on topics including agency, motherhood, faith crisis, premonitions, and their personal beliefs about creating God. The conversations draw from thei…
- Episode 262: Big Ideas | Confirmation Bias
In Episode 262 of At Last She Said It, Cynthia and Susan discuss confirmation bias, the human tendency to seek evidence supporting existing beliefs. They examine how this bias impacts convictions, particularly in religion and politics, and…
- Episode 261: Susan & Cynthia's Mailbag Mayhem
Episode 261 of At Last She Said It features a discussion on the evolving nature of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Susan and Cynthia explore how recent shifts in meetings and messaging affect members and consider how leade…
- Episode 260: Big Ideas | Letting Go
In Episode 260 of At Last She Said It, Susan and Cynthia explore the spiritual concept of letting go. They discuss how this practice involves intentionally releasing emotional attachments, limiting beliefs, and past events, as well as surr…
- Episode 259: What Do You Say? | 3 Conversations About Mysticism, Music, and Living in the Now
In Episode 259 of 'At Last She Said It,' Susan and Cynthia interview Mer, Zinah, and Carol. The guests share personal stories and insights on mysticism, music, and living in the present, answering randomly selected questions.
- Episode 258: Cynthia and Susan's Ragecast Potpourri
ALSSI doesn't usually focus on church announcements or events, but our conversations about Big Ideas do exist within the current context of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In Episode 258, Susan and Cynthia take a beat to d…
- Episode 257: Big Ideas | The Beatitudes
Is there a richer text for Christians than the Beatitudes? Yet we don't all think or teach about them the same way. Many Latter-day Saints talk and teach about them as a list of saint-like attributes to which we should aspire, traits that…
- Episode 256: Shadow Work | A Conversation with Jana Spangler
Shadow Work is a phrase that gets a lot of airplay, but it can be hard to get your head around exactly what it means or how it can apply in your life. The "shadow" consists of unconscious, repressed, or hidden parts of our personality. So…
- Episode 255: What Do You Say? 3 Conversations About Spiritual Seeking, Being Forgotten, and Chasing Equality
In Episode 255, Cynthia and Susan ask Aubrey Chaves, Debbie Squires-Coleman, and Darice Auston, "What Do You Say?" It's 3 wide-ranging conversations with wise Latter-day Saint women answering questions about their memories, insights, and b…
- Episode 254: Big Ideas | Piety
Does piety serve anything besides the ego? Is our piety an asset or a liability? And what are we—individually and collectively—getting from it? In Episode 254, Susan and Cynthia consider these questions and more in a conversation examining…
- Episode 253: Revisiting Purity Culture | A Conversation with C.A. Larson
When Latter-day Saints hear the phrase "Purity Culture," they may associate it more with evangelical churches than with our own. LDS talks and lessons focus on words like virtue, modesty, morality, and chastity to describe our ideals. But…
- Episode 252: Reclaiming Your Voice | A Conversation with Katie Ludlow Rich
Many Latter-day Saint women feel some constraint when it comes to using our voices at church, but it can even be hard to express what we think, feel, and believe in our own homes or personal relationships. Writing down thoughts that don't…
- Episode 251: What Do You Say?
For 6 years, Susan and Cynthia have been asking podcast guests, "What do you know?" In Season 11, they'll be asking a variety of Latter-day Saint women new questions about their memories, insights, and beliefs, with a card game called, Wha…
- Episode 250: What About Sin?
How do you feel about sin? Richard Rohr describes our inevitable human missteps as essential to our growth when he says, "Not doing it right seems to teach us much more than doing it perfectly." But for many Latter-day Saints who struggle…
- Episode 249: Big Ideas | Belief
Latter-day Saints consider ours to be a non-credal religion, yet nearly all our Articles of Faith begin with the phrase, "We believe...." We're asked questions about our specific beliefs in official interviews where our temple worthiness i…
- Episode 248 (Bonus): Revisiting Christ Chose Women
Latter-day Saints are often told that the contemporary Church is built on the same model Jesus Christ used to establish His church. In this bonus re-release, Cynthia and Susan offer a few thoughts on that idea, and also discuss the pattern…
- Episode 247: Let's Get Curious About Curiosity
Curiosity should feel foundational for Latter-day Saints—it's the birthplace of our religious tradition. Any member of the Church can recite the story of young Joseph Smith seeking wisdom he lacked. Curiosity is where any search for God—or…
- Episode 246: What Women Don't Get | Part Two
In a podcast season devoted to talking about change, it makes sense to revisit some previously covered topics to see whether there's been any. In Episode 246, Cynthia and Susan take another look at a foundational ALSSI discussion: What Wom…
- Episode 245 (Bonus): Re-Acknowledging the Elephant | A Conversation About Polygamy with The Faithful Feminists
Every four years, D&C 132 comes around for study again. If you ask a Latter-day Saint woman what she keeps on her metaphorical faith "shelf," there's a good chance polygamy will be there. It's mostly ignored in contemporary church conversa…
- Episode 244: What About the Word of Wisdom? | A Conversation with Linda Hamilton
Though Section 89 of the Doctrine & Covenants describes itself as a "principle with promise," "to be sent by greeting, not by commandment or constraint," contemporary Church leadership has elevated some of its prohibitions to the level of…
- Episode 243: Embracing Your Journey | A Conversation with Whitney Call
Each Latter-day Saint's path looks different, a combination of unique experiences, choices, and challenges. No matter how insistent our culture may sometimes feel, no woman fits in a mold. "I think my life began with holding dissonance," e…
- Episode 242: Are You There God? It's Us, Susan and Cynthia | Part 2
No matter what language we use to describe the Divine, for spiritual seekers the hope is that our understanding and connection will continue to expand and deepen. As Richard Rohr reminds us, "God is always bigger than the boxes we build fo…
- Episode 241: Demystifying Mysticism | A Conversation with Kathryn Knight Sonntag
Was Joseph Smith a mystic? Searching for the term 'mysticism' on the Church website yields, "See: False Doctrine, Sorcery, Superstitions; Traditions of Men." So it's no wonder many church members haven't thought much about mysticism—the ro…
- Episode 240 (Bonus): Navigating Transitions 4 | ALSSI Listener Stories
We can't get enough of these stories! Bonus Episode 240 features more ALSSI listeners answering the question, "What triggered your faith journey?"
- Episode 239: Let's Talk About Enmeshment | A Conversation with Dr. Julie Hanks
"Differentiation of self is being a unique individual while maintaining connection with people you love," explains Dr. Julie Hanks. "We've been trained, particularly as women, to be enmeshed—to feel other people's pain for them. And that d…
- Episode 238: Embracing Your Journey | A Conversation with Lindsie Cornia
"With always wanting to do the right things, take care of people, and people please, this set me up perfectly to be an all-in member. Doing the formula. Hustling! I was married in the temple to a returned missionary, had 4 children, and di…
- Episode 237: The Invisible Labor of Women | A Conversation with Christine Pagano
"There's no roadmap for how to do partnership in patriarchy, at least within our little Mormon frame of reference," explains Christine Pagano. "Patriarchy believes that men's time is finite—there's only 24 hrs—while women's time is infinit…
- Episode 236: We Don't Believe Our Own Stuff | Resurrection
It seems Latter-day Saints most often speak about resurrection in the literal sense: the reuniting of spirit and body. Jesus rising from the tomb holds promise for us after our own inevitable physical death. But as Richard Rohr says, "Lite…
- Episode 235: Is it Too Expensive to be a Latter-day Saint? | A Conversation with Natalie Brown
"In all my angst about if I would marry and if I would have children and if I would have a career, I did not fully consider how the ideals in this proclamation from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reflected a certain moment…
- Episode 234 (Bonus): Navigating Transitions 3 | ALSSI Listener Stories
We asked, you answered! In Bonus Episode 234, more women from the ALSSI community share their stories in response to the question: What triggered your faith journey?
- Episode 233: Embracing Your Journey | A Conversation with Jen Dille
"Deconstruction doesn't just happen to lazy learners," says Jen Dille. "It's often the most true-blue Mormons and the people who are all in who have this experience." In episode 233, Jen joins Susan and Cynthia for a conversation about her…
- Episode 232: Let's Talk About Sanctuary
Diana Butler Bass wrote, "To belong is to be, for belonging is ultimately a question of identity: Who am I?" For many Latter-day Saint women, a place where they can just "be"—whoever and wherever they are right now—feels elusive. That's wh…
- Episode 231 (Bonus): Navigating Transitions 2 | ALSSI Listener Stories
What triggered your faith journey? In this short bonus episode, more women from the ALSSI community share their answers!
- Episode 230: Creating Your Future | A Conversation with Jody England Hansen
"I can take as long as I need on the edge of the chasm of the unknown," writes Jody England Hansen. "I can experience the terror of moving into the future for however long I feel it. I can turn again to the past if I choose to deal with th…
- Episode 229: What About Empathy?
How can we know if we're getting it right when it comes to meeting others with empathy? "Empathy is a tool of compassion," writes Brene Brown. "We can respond empathically only if we are willing to be present to someone's pain. If we're no…
- Episode 228: Embracing Your Journey | A Conversation with Abby Maxwell Hansen
For many Latter-day Saint women, a faith journey begins as their personal experiences pile up and dots begin to connect. Abby Maxwell Hansen began to see a thread of internalized misogyny in her own story emerge like this: "Every time I we…
- Episode 227 (Bonus): Navigating Transitions | ALSSI Listener Stories
What triggered your faith journey? In Bonus Episode 227, 10 women share their answers.
- Episode 226: I Am a Woman of Faith | Tackling Imposter Syndrome
Sometimes it's hard to untangle specific beliefs from our ideas about faith. Is struggling with church policies or doctrinal tenets an indictment of a Latter-day Saint woman's faith? What does it even mean to have faith? And who gets to me…
- Episode 225: Navigating the Fallow Years | A Conversation with Kajsa Berlin-Kaufusi
"I have always felt the gentle nature of Jesus being one of the most resonating parts of what I saw and knew as the gospel, and I always imagined Jesus speaking to me, saying, 'Consider the lilies, how they grow, and they don't toil.' And…
- Episode 224: Navigating Transitions | What Triggered Your Faith Journey?
Maya Angelou said, "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." When things start to get shifty in your faith life, it can feel overwhelming and difficult to talk about, even with those closest to you. There are as…
- Episode 223: Making Friends with Change | A Conversation about Hope
"There is hope in the certainty that things do change," writes Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg. But there is also real anxiety in the certainty that things do change. Change is the force that pushes us forward, without asking whether we w…
- Episode 222 (Bonus): Mailbag!
In this bonus episode, Susan and Cynthia share and discuss a few voicemails from the ALSSI mailbag. The male gaze, sad heaven, organizational/prophetic focus, sealing policy, and dancing with parables are some of the topics touched on in t…
- Episode 221 (Bonus): Confronting Polygamy | One Woman's Experience
TW: Emotional Abuse and Physical Abuse Members of the Church don't talk much about polygamy, but isn't it time we did? After all, it continues to haunt our family trees, our church history, and many women's minds and hearts. Imagine gettin…
- Episode 220: The Women Are Not Okay | A Conversation About the Male Gaze
How much in the Church is still, in 2025, coming to us through the male lens? Pretty much all of it. Our scriptures, doctrine, ward boundaries, curriculum, conference talks, local leadership, and decisions are almost entirely by and/or abo…
- Episode 219: Embracing Your Journey | A Conversation with Linda Hamilton
Linda Hamilton explains, "I spent my whole life believing that spirituality was in big things. Visions from heaven, angels, signs. We always say in Mormonism, don't wait for a sign. You won't get a sign; you won't get a miracle. We say tha…
- Episode 218: Faith, Control and Identity—The Impact of a High Demand Religion | A Conversation with C.A. Larson
Therapist C.A. Larson defines a high-demand religion as "a religious group that exerts significant control over its members' beliefs, behaviors, and daily lives. These groups often require strict adherence to doctrine, discourage independe…
- Episode 217: Following Your Conscience | A Conversation with Laurie Lee Hall
"We have direct access to light and knowledge and power, and we have the right—the divinely given right—to take that power, even if it says to us something different from how the authorities or power structures over us may be thinking. If…
- Episode 216: The Ultimate Big Deal Part 4 | Spiritual Separators
These days it seems Latter-day Saints talk about the importance of temple attendance in almost every meeting and lesson. It makes sense: in 2001, then-Elder Russell M. Nelson explained, "Every activity, every lesson, all we do in the Churc…
- Episode 215: Let's Talk About Shibboleths
Shibboleths are customs, traditions, words, or phrasings that distinguish one group of people from another. Latter-day Saints have a lot of unique identifiers. Garment lines, beverage choices, vocabulary, or prayer styles might serve as re…
- Episode 214: Changemakers | A Conversation with McArthur Krishna and Anne Pimentel
"Wouldn't it be a good idea to have a book about girls who ask great questions?" This question from a 9-year-old inspired authors McArthur Krishna and Anne Pimentel to create their book Changemakers: Women Who Boldly Built Zion. By highlig…