Episode 136 - Choosing Love Over Certainty with Meagan Skidmore
Our good girl programming is built on the certainty that if we follow the rules and keep everyone happy, we’ll belong. But what happens when stepping into deeper love and connection also means stepping into the uncertainty that comes with unraveling that conditioning? In this episode, I talk with Meagan Skidmore, Life Transformation Coach and author of TransparentSEE: How I Learned to SEE through My Journey as a Parent of a Transgender Kiddo. We explore what it means to trust your inner knowing, even when it leads you down an unfamiliar path, and how doing so can radically transform your relationships with others and with yourself. Here’s what we cover:
How growing up in the LDS faith shaped Meagan’s sense of belonging
The pain of feeling forced to choose between two things that are meaningful to you
Why slowing can provide you with the patience and openness needed to make space for uncertainty
The importance of creating safe spaces where you can explore and questions
Why the loss of certainty can be a doorway to a new version of yourself, your family, and your faith
Meagan Skidmore is a Life Transformation Coach who empowers her clients to navigate life transitions and step into their fullest potential. Life transitions have a way of presenting the opportunity to reset our identity, reassess our values, and process emotions—becoming the witnessing observer of our experiences instead of letting them define us.
Meagan helps people awaken to their truth, crush the boxes that confine them, and step boldly into their power, stop lying to themselves and live authentically and unapologetically. With a holistic approach, Meagan guides clients to use emotional alchemy to help them connect with their bodies and hear their Inner Wisdom. This creates space to truly embody their core values and live in alignment. Whether you’re facing change or seeking alignment, Meagan offers the support and tools you need to turn what seems a life crisis into a beautiful metamorphosis.
Find Meagan here:
https://meaganskidmorecoaching.com
https://www.instagram.com/meaganskidmorecoaching
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064267982984
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-inner-catalyst/id1843004454
https://www.youtube.com/@meaganskidmorecoachingllc8331/featured
Find Sara here:
https://pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations
https://www.instagram.com/sarafiskcoach/
https://www.facebook.com/SaraFiskCoaching/
https://www.tiktok.com/@sarafiskcoach
https://www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333
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Transcript
Sara Bybee Fisk 00:59
One of the funnest things about being a coach and knowing other coaches is just how many ex good girls I read into and in this case, with you, Meagan, you and I are ex good girls of like exactly the same stripe in that we were both members once of the LDS Mormon Church. And now we're not, and we have different stories of how we got here. And yours touches on such a tender issue, I think, from a lot of people right now, if you are paying attention to politics in the United States, there's a lot of talk right now around our trans brothers and sisters and our trans children, our trans fellow citizens. And this isn't going to be political in nature at all, because that's not what we're here to talk about today.But it is going to be your story of how you came to know you had and love and accept and how having a trans child changed you.
Meagan Skidmore 02:02
Sara, thanks so much for having me. I'm already feeling choked up as you're saying those words because it's still, I'll say, fresh. It's been a little over a year since I formally took a step back, even more so since the Supreme Court, since the LDS Church submitted the amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court about a month ago, three weeks ago. Anyway, I just feel this emotion coming up.It's not an easy place to be in. And I, it's not often I hear myself described in that way, but if, you know, at my heart of hearts, like, yeah, so buckle up. Let's go.
Sara Bybee Fisk 02:52
Yeah, yeah. So I think all of us who are listening, whether we have a conservative religious background or not, you know, there are people who listen, who grew up in other conservative denominations or groups and those who didn't. And I think it doesn't matter. We all can look back at our good girl behavior and programming. And we kind of have a sense for like what we were taught to do and believe what our roles were, what the rule, the big rules were that we followed in our lives and some of the ways that we were rewarded even for being really good girls. And so I wonder, Meagan, as you look back, what is your good girl story?
Meagan Skidmore 03:37
Yeah. So I was born and raised in the LDS faith. And it wasn't until a few years ago, I don't think that I realized how much I looked to external things. I'll use the word things, but I'm talking about behaviors or observances that I did or didn't do. The success of my relationships, my belonging, I believed it to be belonging, fitting in, I'll say fitting in to my faith community, how I was maybe perceived or seen among those in that same community, including family members. And I suppose by extension that included how I felt about my worthiness or goodness or lovableness.
Sara Bybee Fisk 04:35
Yeah, yeah.
Meagan Skidmore 04:36
With those around me and with God, the divine, you know, source. Um, yeah, I think that was a pretty big chunk of how I identified. I mean, I had other interests. I loved to dance growing up, but that is a big part of how I was in me that came out. I don't know if it would have had I not been the second child, first daughter. I don't know, but I think I got a sense of how, how well I was doing or who I was by how well I took care of others, my younger siblings. And then when I hit my teens, I baby sat a lot. Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 05:32
Yeah, it's so interesting to just consider that at the heart of certainly our faith and many Christian faiths.
Meagan Skidmore 05:40
Mmhmm.
Sara Bybee Fisk 05:41
you're taught to love and be in relationship with a God who has to be talked into loving us by our obedience and by our worthiness. And so I very much identify with this like exchanging our good behavior for feeling worthy, exchanging, keeping the commandments, quote unquote, for feeling like a good person.
Meagan Skidmore 06:09
And that's why I never said no to a calling, which is a word for the opportunity to give service among those in your faith community. Usually, at least when I was younger, among those my same age, my peer group.But even if I felt like I was quiet, I might even say shy growing up, I think I've evolved more into an introvert who can be extroverted at times. I learned that shyness is not the same as being an introvert. But even if it really stretched me out of my comfort zone, I would usually say, yes, it wasn't until I had my second baby and I was just so, so stretched, I asked to be released from a calling.
Sara Bybee Fisk 06:52
Yeah. Um, did you have the sense that it, because I, looking back, I really feel like there are women who experienced it a couple of different kind of ways. Like way number one, it kind of works and works and it's fine and it's fine and it's going well. And then it just kind of falls off a cliff or you have the sense here and there that it's not working, but you just keep pushing and keep pushing and keep pushing. Do either of those experiences describe what you were going through or is it something different?
Meagan Skidmore 07:21
No, no, for sure. Probably the one that resonates the most is the first. Yeah, I definitely fell off a cliff. I think I was pushed off.
Sara Bybee Fisk 07:33
Okay, tell me more
Meagan Skidmore 07:34
Okay. And I say this, you know, hindsight is 2020.I always have a hard time recounting this because I would never want my child to listen and feel that this was a true reflection of who they were then or who they are now.
Sara Bybee Fisk 07:54
Yeah, that's so good.
Meagan Skidmore 07:55
it's a reflection of me and my understanding of life, you know, on a spiritual level, an emotional, mental, relational, and, you know, at the time religious. But I've learned that my kiddo identified as LGBTQ+, and this has been about six and a half years ago. And it was through a text. So he didn't have the opportunity to tell me himself. And I've learned since then, he was scared. He was scared he would be rejected. And that just broke my heart when I learned that, not knowing how many kids and I say kids, because he had just turned 13. And so it, well, you know, it sent me in a tailspin.It was because of my upbringing, it was so traumatic. It brought up so much cognitive dissonance, like it was this, I could feel it viscerally, it affected me on a physical level. And it was hard. It was so, so hard. There were times I felt like I couldn't breathe that first summer. And so I do remember having a connection with God, I use more than one term to refer to divine. But that is one thing I truly feel like I did learn how to do. And that was to connect and hear, feel, sense, inspiration, guidance, messages, whatever you want to call it, that inner voice capital I capital V. And I remember one day feeling so overwhelmed. I mean, it was an hourly thing. It was just, I mean, it was just a constant thing. That's a better way to put it. And I just came downstairs and I just kind of collapsed in the kitchen. And I just kind of cried out, not literally cried, because there were people upstairs, but I'm just like, I need help. I do not know what I am doing. I don't know what is next. I don't know my way forward. Please help me. I feel so lost. And honestly, almost immediately, I truly felt this piece start to blanket me. And the message was just take it one step at a time, take it a day at a time, an hour at a time, even a minute at a time if you need to. Like that was the essence of the message. And you know, in a fast paced world, I realized I wasn't very good about slowing down. But that is truly what kind of saved me at that point. I was able to just focus on the next thing, literally, even if that was the next minute or the next hour and just take it one step at a time. And I'm really grateful I learned that because that's really what is needed when you are trying to make space for uncertainty, when you're trying to make space for the inevitable doubts and questions that are going to come up when you are faced with a situation similar to this certainty means that it's like kind of instant gratification a little bit. I mean, once you feel like you have internalized something and you know it for certain, but when you have to let that go, yeah, that requires a lot more patience and openness.
Sara Bybee Fisk 11:55
Yeah, because there's a new reality coming. You don't know anything about there's a new version of you. There's a new version of your child. There's a new version of your family, possibly a new version of your faith, your perspective. And that is a lot to kind of all have come up at once and start to unravel.
Meagan Skidmore 12:16
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 12:16
So I love that one day at a time, an hour at a time, even a minute at a time, because I think in our wanting certainty, whether it's a religious certainty or just a certainty that my marriage is going to last or that I am going to be able to figure out who I am next and what I want next, that loss of certainty or that loss of the way things are can be so painful and so destabilizing. It's...
Meagan Skidmore 12:45
It is, it totally is.
Sara Bybee Fisk 12:47
And so as you are taking in, you know, information from your church about, you know, this is right, this is wrong, this is acceptable, this is not acceptable, and kind of matching it up with the lived experience of this child that you love and seeing it doesn't match and all these things are kind of unraveling, what kind of emerges in you as important to hang on to? Because I think that's what's so interesting, is that in every woman that I talk to has had some kind of either faith transition or other transition out of this is the way I used to be, this is the way I am now, there are always a couple of things like values or experiences, things that kind of come up as like North Star type guiding principles.Did you have any? And if so, what were they?
Meagan Skidmore 13:37
Yeah, for me, it just came to this point. Yes, I did all of those things that you're talking about. I still do them, right? This is an ongoing journey, but I think it finally came to this point for me where I needed to either lean into that trust I had with my inner knowing that I had learned, developed, strengthened throughout my life, or I do what is being told me or whatever by these external sources.Well, you know when you're going against something that you just know is good to your core. You know when that incongruence is going on. I mean, I was experiencing it for a long time. It's like this floodgate just burst and I'm just like, there came a point where I had the opportunity to talk with my kiddo and just say it was kind of at a climax of a point. Some communication had kind of gotten jumbled and it was during the pandemic and it stopped participating in home church. And it was just kind of a sticky time, tumultuous time, I guess, but I took the opportunity to just look at him squarely in the eyes and take him and just say, listen, I'm learning. I know way less than I used to think that I did know that I have way more questions than I truly have answers for and that I don't know everything, but I do know that you were made perfectly. There's nothing wrong with you. You are beautiful. You are divine. You are loved and we'll figure this out.And I love you and a big hug. And I think he felt hard. Well, I know he did. You know, we're both crying at this point, but it's so important to listen to that inner voice, which often comes not just through words that we hear, but through these sensations that we have in our body and through promptings and that we lead with love.
Sara Bybee Fisk 16:04
I think that is, first of all, so beautifully said, and second of all, it's so hard, right, to really listen to that inner voice, especially when in religious groups, in cultural groups, in gender groups, we are really told to listen to outer voices, right? What we should look like, what we should believe, what we should be thinking, who we should be pleasing, don't rock the boat, don't have big opinions that make anybody outside of you, think less of you. And so that's so important and also kind of a really sticky thing for a lot of women to actually do, to really find and trust and listen to that inner voice. So you're learning to really listen to and trust that inner voice. And one of the things that begins to happen is there's a divergence, right? Between this is what the outer authorities want you to do and then here's what my inner voice is telling me to do and it's taking me in a different direction and how is that for you?
Meagan Skidmore 17:13
I would say the hardest part about all of that is I had to give myself permission to self-differentiate. That was hard, mostly because of the way I had been taught, and I'll just call it conditioning. It just means the way that I was taught, I needed to be, and that a woman's role was or a young person's role was, because in order to heed that inner voice, that meant doing, saying, observing, or not observing certain practices in a way that was distinctly different from those around me. And I tried, I tried for a long time, I even took other callings, I was trying really hard to make it work, because there's nothing more excruciating than feeling like you're being forced to choose between two things that are deeply meaningful to you. Your faith, it goes back six plus generations for me, I have pioneer ancestry, no pressure, and then also your child, who you care deeply about, you love with all your being, I felt like I was being ripped apart down the middle.
Sara Bybee Fisk 18:42
And when you say pioneer ancestry, those are the people who kind of left where the Mormon church was started and traveled by wagon to Utah and set up what is kind of known as the present day headquarters of the church. So it's a long generational legacy of Mormonism in your family.
Meagan Skidmore 19:06
Yeah, one of my predecessors was one of the first 12 apostles of the original church.
Sara Bybee Fisk 19:14
There's nothing more excruciating than being forced to choose between two things that mean.
Meagan Skidmore 19:20
I think that's why I was trying so, I mean, I really was trying to work, make it work. And after, I don't know, couple years-ish, I really don't remember, it's kind of foggy, but it just came to a point where I had to choose me. I had to choose my mental health. I had to put me first. It was, and maybe for somebody else in the same situation, it wouldn't require this, and that's fine, I honor that. But for me, it was like if you're in an abusive relationship, whether that's verbally abusive, like not respecting you in the way they speak to you, using derogatory terms, describing you as less than, or that kind of a thing, that's like a punch to your emotional gut, right? It's not obvious, like physical interaction that becomes abusive. There's no actual blood. There's no actual open wounds, right? There's not a need for triage in that way. And I think that's why the triage that is so necessary in our emotional and mental health has gone unnoticed, untended to for such a long time. But that is how it felt is I, honestly, I wrote this in my book, I kind of felt invisible. I felt like I was wrestling with things that I would bring up to others, and some would listen kindly, and then others tried to offer these great solutions, and we had come and watch this with us, and there's someone else who's gonna be there that also has children that are, I don't know, straying or something to that effect. And I was just like, that is not the energy I'm looking for, because I love my children, and there was nothing wrong with them. By that time, my oldest had left as well. So I think really standing up for my own self in all the different ways, listening to that inner voice and heeding it, acting on it, and doing the things for me that I knew were in my best interests.
Sara Bybee Fisk 21:50
And so when you started to advocate for you and to put your mental health first and to really prioritize you, what changed?
Meagan Skidmore 22:03
Well, I was able to consciously create safe spaces for me and create a space where I could explore and ask questions and cultivate relationships that could reciprocate that, realizing they didn't have to agree with me. I think that's just fine, but you don't have to agree to respect and to have empathy for someone, or at least try to have empathy.For me, being a podcaster, I didn't realize it at the time when I started it, but it was deeply healing for me, and still is, because I was able to have increasingly more open conversations. Like if you were to go back to where I first started, very different conversations then as to what I'm having now. I just decided to be open about it as I went, and I didn't realize how healing it would be for me, and that was truly a godsend, because I was able to connect with others who experienced similar things. They also experienced different things, but we could agree at least on showing love and honoring one another, no matter where we were at. In our journeys. But I'll tell you, Sara, my relationship with myself has deepened and expanded so much in a way that I really didn't know was possible, and I'm truly in a place where I am choosy about when and where and with whom and for how long I spend my time, which is another word for energy, because I feel full. I feel like I am meeting my purpose, and if you want to use the word calling, because I feel like everything that I have done up to this point I have been guided to do. Have I done it perfectly? I don't even know what that word means anymore. I have come as my whole self each time, and I've evolved into a new person, died so many deaths, I've lost count, and a new Meagan has emerged each time, and I like spending time with me. I like spending time with other people who fill my bucket, and my hope is that I can fill theirs too. One of my favorite sayings is, I water you, you water me, we grow together, and that's what I seek out.
Sara Bybee Fisk 24:57
And so tell me when you decided that you wanted to write a book about this.
Meagan Skidmore 25:03
That's a great question. Very early on, I'm talking 2021, maybe before then. For sure, I remember in 2020, so maybe been a year, I felt as I was increasing in my understanding and the light bulbs were going on and the dots were connecting for me like, wow, we have completely misunderstood this beautiful community of people. More people need to know about this, right?It was like a magnet pulling me toward this purpose to be an advocate. I felt called to be an advocate from very early on. As I continued to learn, I was like, I should write a book. It just was there. That's all I know. This pull, just this knowing I had a book inside of me. I didn't quite know how that would happen because where in the world do you find an agent? How do you get a publishing company to sign you on? I had no idea how any of that worked, but in 2022, my paths crossed with Kira Britten. It was at a conference and I remember learning. She was there with some of her authors. She had her own publishing house and I said, you what? She's like, yeah. I said, I know I have a book. You could publish it? She's like, absolutely. I didn't know something like that existed and I knew I was going to work with her. I didn't know when, but a little over a year later, I started to work with her. We're coming up on almost two years and my book is now published as of three days ago.
Sara Bybee Fisk 26:56
Amazing. And as we were chatting, it's the number one new release in three categories, namely LGBTQ plus biographies and teen issues. And so making congratulations, that is such an incredible accomplishment.As we wrap up here, is there anything else that you would want people to know? Because I don't want to tell a lot of what is in your books. I want people to go buy your book, right? But what do you want people to know about you, about just anything that you haven't gotten to say yet?
Meagan Skidmore 27:26
So I was very purposeful about my title. I knew the title of it. I call it transparency. And I spell it T-R-A-N-S-P-A-R-E-N-T-S-E-E. And the subtitle is how I learned to see through my journey as a parent of a transgender kiddo. And that title and subtitle really encompasses the essence of this journey up to this point.I began to let layers upon layers peel back from my view, like literally and figuratively, on life. And I began to see things, which is another word for knowing, understanding, that I could not unsee and then remain in my integrity. I couldn't do it. Like it just went against everything inside of me. It would be ignoring the least of these, right? Which we're taught to be especially conscientious of and extend love and mercy and grace and all of that to them. So this book, that title, it really is the epitome of what my journey has been and kind of my message and who I am. And I'm trying to continue to be ever evolving, ever trying to educate myself on there's so many things that we could have touched on, how I learned to distinguish sex from gender, from gender expression, and separate all of that from having some kind of moral value if I viewed it differently than what I had been raised to view that as. Anyway, just, yeah, I'm so excited. It took a lot, like I evolved into a different person who could publish something so raw and vulnerable. But I show up authentically in it and I'm proud of it.
Sara Bybee Fisk 29:40
Well, Meagan, having known you over the years, it's been, first of all, incredible to see some of this transformation through social media and then to talk with you and kind of get the behind the scenes. I love Kira.She is a personal friend of mine and husband for a lot of years. We were actually in a Mormon congregation together for a little while, so the connections are pretty wild. But if people want to purchase your book, if they want to learn more about you, where should they go to find that out?
Meagan Skidmore 30:16
So I recently updated my website. It's got all of the things on it about me. If you go to my website and then click on Speaking Media and more, scroll down, you'll see my book.
Sara Bybee Fisk 30:28
What is your website?
Meagan Skidmore 30:29
My name Meagan skidmorecoaching.com and if you scroll down There will be a link where you can order it on Amazon and I say that because if you do a search for transparency Because of the distinct spelling it it may not come up for you If you put I use my maiden name as well in the for my author name So if you use that link you can get there, but also I'm on Instagram I'm quite active on Instagram, and it's the same handle Meagan skidmore coaching.I'd love to connect with you
Sara Bybee Fisk 31:02
Okay. I will link that in the show notes for sure.And Meagan, I'm so impressed. Writing a book is, first of all, incredible. And then to share something so raw that will help so many people is just such a gift. So thank you for writing that and thank you for talking today.
Meagan Skidmore 31:19
I so appreciate you sending you love and light.
Sara Bybee Fisk 31:25
Thank you. You too.
