I think many members could admit that they were a little confused the first time they felt “spiritual feelings,” often described as the Holy Ghost, a “burning in the bosom,”  a tingling sensation, or a deep sense of peace, in a non-LDS atmosphere—like watching the movie Saving Private Ryan and feeling overwhelmed with emotion, or walking into a beautiful Catholic Cathedral and falling silent in awe.  When “feeling the spirit” is always connected to the LDS church, or God, it gets a little confusing if it suddenly connects to something else. But for me, I felt like spirituality was much more than a religious feeling associated with the church.  (And, don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone that you watched Saving Private Ryan. It was rated R after all. Just pretend like you saw the edited version one night on TBS. Wink. Wink.)

In the church, spirituality is linked exclusively to a relationship with God. Spiritual experiences were usually opportunities to have your testimony strengthened about a certain principle or teaching. I had many of these types of experiences, even as a young child. Feelings of love associated with a Heavenly Father, or feelings of truth while reading a scripture. I relied on those experiences to confirm my belief in the church.  It’s taught that these experiences come directly from God, and often manifest as promptings we receive when we are worthy and listening. We are taught that those promptings will always align with what the modern prophets teach. It seems impossible, to some, to have a spiritual witness that is incongruent with the Mormon faith, or one that contradicts the teachings of the church. I think that is why so many people believe that we are “led away” or being “fooled by Satan” when we feel that we have had a spiritual witness that confirms our belief that the church isn’t true, or that we should no longer participate in the church. These people may not realize that spiritual experiences exist outside of the Mormon definition.

I remember the first time I took a yoga class and had a very beautiful, even otherworldly, experience. (I also remember being crazy sore all the next week. Who knew you could hurt so much from just a few weird stretches?) It was actually with a private instructor, just she and I, in her small, quiet studio. While meditating in different yoga poses, I felt a deep spiritual connection, not with a heavenly being, but with something that connected me to things unassociated with myself, my faith, and even my immediate surroundings. Until then, I had no idea that yoga was so powerful and peaceful. I just thought it was doing strange, flexible stretches. But it connected me to a much broader universe and a new concept of spirituality.  I loved it. It was liberating to feel that spirituality did not need to be connected to a specific religion or belief—it could be a personal, unique experience outside of those parameters. Some spirituality might be inspired by God. Some might come from deep within ourselves. Or it may even come from something else entirely, like the way I felt practicing yoga.

When I realized that I wanted to leave the church, I became overwhelmed trying to process many of my previous spiritual experiences. They came at me like a tidal wave—a rushing sensation that buried me under years of witnesses, beliefs, testimonies, experiences, and miracles, like the time when I felt that “I knew the Book of Mormon was true,” or the promptings that led me to decide to marry JT, or the other amazing experiences I had throughout my life in the church. Suddenly, I was forced to deal with the question of what to make of all of them. If I left the church, how would I reconcile the testimonies and witnesses I had once believed were true?  Especially when I believed that God had previously confirmed these truths through spiritual experiences. I thought that I had to have an explanation for and an understanding of each one.

I was fortunate to have a small life preserver thrown to me when the first tidal wave hit. I clung to it as the waves continued to break throughout my entire faith transition. And the little life preserver continued to pull me back to the surface, keeping my head above water and giving me time to thoughtfully process each wave. It was thrown to me by a non-Mormon cousin who was raised Christian.  She has always inspired me, and I have admired her for years. In desperation one night at our family reunion, I told her about the tidal waves. At that time, before many of the waves of doctrinal experiences hit, I was thinking about my mission. “I loved my mission,” I told her, fighting back tears. “If I leave the church, if I go to another church, or none at all, what does that mean for my mission in Madagascar?” I didn’t think I could go to a Christian church and talk about my spiritual experiences sharing the Book of Mormon in Africa. Would they think I was crazy? Obviously, Christians would not believe in the Book of Mormon. Would I have to abandon all of those amazing experiences, the little miracles, and things we considered tender mercies? Would I have to look back at them as fraudulent moments from my life as a Mormon? I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t forsake the things I loved about Madagascar—the simple things, like the smells and sounds in the streets, the hugeness of the sky and the infinite colors of the sunsets, the strangeness of speaking a foreign language, the spiritual moments that connected me to everything, and the love I felt for the other missionaries and the Malagasy people that we served. The mission meant so many different things to me. My daughter was even named after a beloved Malagasy mother. The force of that wave was enough to keep me from ever leaving, and strong enough to drown me, until my cousin reached out and lovingly said, “You can take your mission with you, if you choose.”

My cousin’s words have carried me over massive waves and through darkest storms for the past three years. Her words never prevented a church-related memory or wave of testimony from cascading down. I went through them all, but after I processed each one, and followed the spiritual light that has always guided me, I was able to keep what I wanted to keep. I was able to examine many of my beliefs in a new way. I realized that I had been basing most of my beliefs on feelings. I had been interpreting feeling inspired by a particular scripture or principle to mean it was true. But, as I looked deeper into the questions I had about doctrine and church history I found new information. And this information changed the feelings I had about many of those principles. I no longer felt the “burning in the bosom” feelings when I thought about Joseph Smith, I felt quite the opposite. Realizing that much of my testimony had been based on limited and even false information, I no longer perceive my spiritual experiences and impressions as concrete. For instance, the indescribable feelings of beauty and peace I felt at Notre Dame in Paris did not confirm to me that Catholicism is true. Feeling good is not a Truth-O-Meter. It was difficult, at first, to not feel trapped by past spiritual confirmations. But I found that I can trust my spiritual impressions and instincts, and not have to be limited by them. I can still cherish some of the amazing experiences I had in the church, and on my mission, while rejecting the teachings I find to be false.

For example, when the wave that carried my struggles with the temple came rolling in, I was momentarily swallowed up. I had to process the good things from the temple and weigh them against the bad. I trusted myself, and how I already felt about never wanting to go back. But what would I do with the rest? Then the words from my cousin came back and lifted me up: “You can take this with you, if you choose.” So, I kept the sweet moment in the Celestial Room when JT and I were all alone, almost 13 years ago, when he told me everything he loved about me and why he so desperately wanted to marry me, right before he took my hand and walked with me into the room to be married. I held tight to that moment, Celestial Room and all, as I gratefully watched the wave recede back into the sea, taking the other negative experiences from the temple with it.

Right now, while the sea is calm and I feel peace and connection, the life preserver is tucked away. I don’t need it to save me as often as it used to. To some, it may not make sense how I can continue to consider myself a spiritual person while abandoning a temple-worthy Mormon life style, or how I can still have beautiful memories from my mission, while sometimes wishing I had never gone, or singing “Mary’s Lullaby” from the Children’s Hymnbook to my kids at night, while not wanting to ever hear the song “Follow the Prophet” again. Just because I left the church and most of the things in it, doesn’t mean that I can’t take the things I love with me.