Speaker 1: Pushkin. My mom used to actually say this about the Bible.
Speaker 1: You can some of the Bible in three words, obey, obey, obey.
Speaker 1: Megan felps Roper grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church,
Speaker 1: a religious cult out of Topeka, Kansas that's often called
Speaker 1: the most obnoxious and rapid hate group in America. Meghan
Speaker 1: was a fervent believer in everything Westborough stood for, but
Speaker 1: when she was in her mid twenties, Meghan decided to
Speaker 1: leave it all behind, her family, her community, and everything
Speaker 1: she had ever believed to be true. It felt like
Speaker 1: this physical, like like I had a giant boulder sitting
Speaker 1: on my chest and I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: see around it, and I had no vision of the future.
Speaker 1: I had no idea what my life was going to
Speaker 1: look like today. A story of someone who was absolutely
Speaker 1: persuaded by terrible ideas until one day she changed her mind.
Speaker 1: I'm Maya Shunker and this is a slight change of plans,
Speaker 1: a show that dives deep into the world of change
Speaker 1: and hopefully gets us to think differently at that change
Speaker 1: in our own lives. All right, Megan, So I'd love
Speaker 1: to start from the beginning. Your grandfather started the Westboro
Speaker 1: Baptist Church, right, tell me more about the church. So
Speaker 1: what did you guys believe in. We believed that we
Speaker 1: were the elect of God, this very small remnant that
Speaker 1: was bound for heaven, and that basically almost everyone else
Speaker 1: in the world was headed for hell, that God had
Speaker 1: condemned them because of their sins. And so for me,
Speaker 1: how I came into that was when I was five
Speaker 1: years old, my family started protesting, protesting all across the country,
Speaker 1: usually several times a week, and every single day in
Speaker 1: my hometown. Our most infamous message was God Hates fags.
Speaker 1: So it started as a protest movement against the LGBTQ community,
Speaker 1: but as I say, like it very quickly expanded to
Speaker 1: include everybody who wasn't part of our church. Were you
Speaker 1: able to comprehend what those signs were even saying did
Speaker 1: you understand what it is that you were actually protesting?
Speaker 1: To bring it back to that scene, yeah, So after
Speaker 1: church it started. After church one Sunday, we kind of
Speaker 1: piled into our vehicles and drove It was about a
Speaker 1: half a mile. This park was about a half a
Speaker 1: mile from the church, and we walked out there with
Speaker 1: these signs I couldn't read at the time. Of course,
Speaker 1: it was just before I started kindergarten, and I remember,
Speaker 1: you know, people of course were very angry the messages
Speaker 1: on our signs. Uh. You know, one of the very
Speaker 1: early ones what said gays are worthy of death. And
Speaker 1: you know, people saw those signs and were immediately inflamed.
Speaker 1: And people would start like driving their cars at us,
Speaker 1: jumping out of their cars, like parking in the middle
Speaker 1: of the street, you know, these busy thoroughfare and to
Speaker 1: come after us on foot. And so you know, my
Speaker 1: dad and and the kind of older men in the
Speaker 1: church would come and try to, you know, form a
Speaker 1: kind of barricade between us and you know, counter protesters
Speaker 1: and people who came out to attack us. And at
Speaker 1: the time, of course, I did not understand Westboro's theology
Speaker 1: in all of its particulars. But the main theme that
Speaker 1: I understood was about obedience. And this was a theme
Speaker 1: that was you know, constantly harped upon in my family.
Speaker 1: So it's the idea that if you obey God, how
Speaker 1: bless you. And if you disobey God, then he will
Speaker 1: curse you. And so my family taught me that this
Speaker 1: was the definition of love. What we were doing to
Speaker 1: go out and warn people of the consequences of their
Speaker 1: sins that if they continue to go down this path
Speaker 1: of supporting you know, the LGBTQ community, or fornication or adultery,
Speaker 1: you know, which my family and church defined as to
Speaker 1: include divorce and remarriage. To go down this path is
Speaker 1: to incur necessarily the curses of God. We considered it
Speaker 1: a great privilege that we got to go and speak
Speaker 1: the truth into this, you know, the language that he used.
Speaker 1: We get to go in and inject a little Bible
Speaker 1: truth into this insane orgy of fag lies. That's how
Speaker 1: we put it, and that's how they talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: death generally, it could never be just you know, somebody
Speaker 1: dying of natural causes, you know, of old age or something.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, this was a punishment from God because
Speaker 1: this person was a sinner. I was kind of marinating
Speaker 1: in that ideology all the time. It was absolutely something
Speaker 1: that I lived and breathed and desperately wanted to, you know,
Speaker 1: to be a good and proper advocate for So when
Speaker 1: I graduated from college and you know, I learned about Twitter,
Speaker 1: it was something that I really, I thought, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: this could be a new avenue for us to get
Speaker 1: this message out. Can you tell me a bit more
Speaker 1: about what your Twitter exchanges were like. So, yeah, when
Speaker 1: I got on Twitter, at one of the first people
Speaker 1: that I targeted because the Jewish community at that point
Speaker 1: was very much in focus of the church, and it
Speaker 1: was around the time at the High Holidays, and I
Speaker 1: reached out to this man named David Abbottball who ran
Speaker 1: a blog called Julicious, and I think my first tweet
Speaker 1: said something so I mean to him was something about
Speaker 1: how about Jewish people needing to really repent? And you know,
Speaker 1: I thought he mistook the tone of my tweet because
Speaker 1: he responded with thanks Megan, that's handy what with youngpoor
Speaker 1: coming up. So then I like made sure the next
Speaker 1: message wouldn't be misunderstood. I told him that Whish customs
Speaker 1: were dead, wrote rituals that would lead them all to hell.
Speaker 1: So that started this you know, kind of back and
Speaker 1: forth where at the at the beginning, you know, it
Speaker 1: started out very hostile, but very quickly David changed his tone.
Speaker 1: And and not just David, but there was there were
Speaker 1: other people on the platform too who took this kind
Speaker 1: of more relaxed as I'm gonna understant that's quite the
Speaker 1: right word this. It just it just wasn't as aggressive
Speaker 1: they were. They were willing to ask questions and to
Speaker 1: be calm and to really try to understand where I
Speaker 1: was coming from instead of just assuming the worst of
Speaker 1: me and my family and our motives, and their willingness
Speaker 1: to listen ultimately allowed them to find these internal inconsistencies
Speaker 1: in our doctrine. And so David actually ended up being
Speaker 1: the first person to find one of those internal inconsistencies,
Speaker 1: and it was really mind blowing for me, and I
Speaker 1: refused to admit to him at the time. You know,
Speaker 1: he had clearly, you know, pointed out this contradiction, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't something that I could argue my way out of,
Speaker 1: and coming from a family full of lawyers who had
Speaker 1: been teaching me this ideology every day, you know, essentially
Speaker 1: from the time I was old enough to understand language.
Speaker 1: For me not to have the answer felt, you know,
Speaker 1: I felt like at a complete loss in that moment.
Speaker 1: So I didn't have an answer for the contradiction. I
Speaker 1: shut down the conversation and then I just stopped talking
Speaker 1: to him for a while what was the contradiction It was,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's so funny looking bad because it's
Speaker 1: a relatively you know, small point of theology, or seemingly so.
Speaker 1: It was about a sign that we had that said
Speaker 1: death penalty for fags. And I should say I the
Speaker 1: only reason I continued to use that language is because
Speaker 1: I think it's important too to show kind of the
Speaker 1: depths of you know, the destructiveness of our of our message.
Speaker 1: So that's what the sign said, it's calling for the
Speaker 1: death penalty for gay people. And you know, David pointed out,
Speaker 1: what didn't Jesus say, let he who is without sin
Speaker 1: cast the first stone? And you know, we had an
Speaker 1: answer for that because people would you know, throw that
Speaker 1: verse at us, And what we would say is, we're
Speaker 1: not casting stones. We're preaching words like, we're not actually
Speaker 1: out trying to you know, murder anybody. And David, you know,
Speaker 1: pointed out the obvious, you know problem with an argument,
Speaker 1: which is like, yeah, but you're advocating that the government
Speaker 1: cast stones, which he's exactly right, that's what we were doing.
Speaker 1: And it had never occurred to me. So again, this
Speaker 1: is the moment that I first kind of you know
Speaker 1: feel like whoa like, I feel like I've missed something here.
Speaker 1: And then but then David kept going. He said, and
Speaker 1: didn't your mother have your oldest brother out of wedlock?
Speaker 1: And we had an answer for that too, and the
Speaker 1: answer was that, you know, God doesn't require sinlessness, that's
Speaker 1: not the standard of God. He requires repentance. And of
Speaker 1: course my mom repented of that sin, and it's not
Speaker 1: like she's you know, she was still committing forn occasion.
Speaker 1: And David said, yeah, but if you had instituted the
Speaker 1: death penalty for that sin, she would have been killed
Speaker 1: and would not have had the opportunity to repent and
Speaker 1: be forgiven. And that realization, like my family would not
Speaker 1: exist without the mercy that my mother experienced, like the
Speaker 1: fact that she lived in a society where she was
Speaker 1: not murdered for that sin or executed rather for that sin.
Speaker 1: I was, just, like I said, at a complete loss.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because David's approach with you reminds me of
Speaker 1: this concept in cognitive science called moral reframing, and it
Speaker 1: basically says that we're more effective at changing people's minds
Speaker 1: when we ground our arguments in ways that affirm rather
Speaker 1: than threaten their moral values. So rather than you know,
Speaker 1: trying to undermine the entire belief system, right, rather than
Speaker 1: trying to challenge all the axioms, right, the fundamental ideology,
Speaker 1: you roote your arguments in basically the language they speak.
Speaker 1: And it seems like what David was doing was grounding
Speaker 1: his arguments to you in terms of existing values that
Speaker 1: you had, right, and that had he gone, you know,
Speaker 1: the extra step of saying began what you think is
Speaker 1: absolutely that shit crazy, it probably would not have worked
Speaker 1: as well. Can you can you share your thoughts on that? Yeah? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: this is so amazing. I didn't realize there was a
Speaker 1: word for that. I hadn't heard that phrase moral reframing.
Speaker 1: The questions and the doubts often start with internal inconsistencies
Speaker 1: or the group's failure to live up to its own standards.
Speaker 1: That this is This is how doubt creeps in initially,
Speaker 1: and then the system overall can ultimately be undermined. But
Speaker 1: it has to start with those very small things. And
Speaker 1: like you said, you are affirming or or utilizing, you know,
Speaker 1: source material that they already find compelling. But you are
Speaker 1: also you know, by asking questions and trying to understand
Speaker 1: where they're coming from. You know, you are signaling to
Speaker 1: them that they're being which tends to make people more
Speaker 1: receptive to hearing about your ideas as well. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: when David is asking me all these questions, David, and
Speaker 1: you know a lot of other people on Twitter, when
Speaker 1: they're asking me these questions, you're hearing kind of other
Speaker 1: learning about other parts of their their lives and such,
Speaker 1: developing these essentially you know, these relationships, however distant and
Speaker 1: kind of tenuous it is. And that was I experienced
Speaker 1: that over and over again on Twitter. Un tell there
Speaker 1: was this you know, community of people that I that
Speaker 1: I did feel like I had some kind of connection to.
Speaker 1: You know. That was the beginning of the process of
Speaker 1: It was like the thread that started to unravel the
Speaker 1: rest of the tapestry of Westbroo's ideology. In my mind,
Speaker 1: will be right back with a slight change of plants.
Speaker 1: Megan's faith in Westborough was beginning to falter. In the
Speaker 1: spring of twenty eleven, another crack in her belief system
Speaker 1: formed when a group of Westborough's male leaders turned on
Speaker 1: Meghan's mom. They said she wasn't following the rules. They
Speaker 1: called her a troublemaker, and they stripped her of all
Speaker 1: her church duties. Meghan's mom was devastated. The church had
Speaker 1: meant everything to her. It was the first time I'd
Speaker 1: watched it happened to other members of the church, and
Speaker 1: I was never close enough to those people to really
Speaker 1: challenge it even in my own mind. And seeing it
Speaker 1: happened to my mother, who I spent so much time with,
Speaker 1: so much of my day to hear the things that
Speaker 1: the other church members were saying about her, I knew
Speaker 1: that they were wrong, and it was a really terrifying
Speaker 1: thing for me to be feeling these things and to
Speaker 1: be rejecting the judgment of the church on any issue.
Speaker 1: It made me feel as if, you know, Satan was
Speaker 1: whispering in my ear, and this was a test from God,
Speaker 1: and I was failing it because I didn't just go
Speaker 1: along with it the way that everybody else seemed to be.
Speaker 1: Was there one moment in particular where you felt, Okay,
Speaker 1: now I'm fully beyond the point of return. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: was this moment in the summer of twenty twelve. So
Speaker 1: I was painting in a friend's basement with my sister.
Speaker 1: We were supposed to be covering up these purple stripes
Speaker 1: with white paint, and I just I advocate for that.
Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of purple stripes on the wall.
Speaker 1: You know. Funny thing in hindsight, like the more I
Speaker 1: tried to cover that, that cover that paint up, nothing
Speaker 1: was working. You could still see the darkness underneath. Is
Speaker 1: this a metaphor? I know? And it's like it was,
Speaker 1: it was. It was a horrible moment. So I was
Speaker 1: painting in the basement with my sister, or painting opposite
Speaker 1: walls so our backs are to each other. This incredibly
Speaker 1: sad music is playing on the speaker. What was it?
Speaker 1: What was the song? It was called just One by
Speaker 1: a blind pilot, And you know, and I'm barely hearing,
Speaker 1: you know, the music because at this point, you know,
Speaker 1: all of those all of those questions and doubts just
Speaker 1: building and building in my mind. And there's the level
Speaker 1: of shame and regret and humiliation that I felt in
Speaker 1: that moment. It's hard to describe because I mean, if
Speaker 1: you if you imagine, like what it would be like
Speaker 1: to look back and think that you had spent decades
Speaker 1: of your life sewing doom and discord to the rest
Speaker 1: of the world, offering nothing but condemnation, going to people
Speaker 1: in their most vulnerable moments and telling them that God
Speaker 1: was punishing them that they deserved, you know, this, this
Speaker 1: horrible thing that's happened to their family. You know. So
Speaker 1: I'm looking back at all of those things and realizing that,
Speaker 1: oh my God, this wasn't the work of God. This
Speaker 1: wasn't you know, a necessary divine truth. No, this was Gramps,
Speaker 1: you know, this was his understanding of the world. And
Speaker 1: it's completely wrong. And so to have this thing that
Speaker 1: I had seen as such a blessing and this just
Speaker 1: what a beautiful gift to go and speak for God.
Speaker 1: It's like having this beautiful gem in your hand and
Speaker 1: then suddenly realize that it's like it's it's not a gem.
Speaker 1: It's like turning to like ashes. It was just horrifying.
Speaker 1: So was there a particular song lyric that precipitated these thoughts?
Speaker 1: You know? The line was will I break and will
Speaker 1: I bow? If I cannot let it go break bo
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I'm sitting there again a whole onto
Speaker 1: all of these questions, and like the song continues, and
Speaker 1: I can't I know that I can't let those questions
Speaker 1: go there was I was never going to be able
Speaker 1: to let it go. And then you know, it gets
Speaker 1: to a little a few lines later and he says,
Speaker 1: I can't believe we get just one life, you know,
Speaker 1: is what he's talking about. And the idea of, you know,
Speaker 1: having spent all at that point, all of my one
Speaker 1: life doing nothing but but going around hurting people with
Speaker 1: all the best intentions. We had done this thing that
Speaker 1: had caused so much destruction in so many lives, including
Speaker 1: our own, and the idea of spending the rest of
Speaker 1: my life that way, I just that was the moment
Speaker 1: I knew that I had just gone too far down
Speaker 1: the path in my mind that I would never be
Speaker 1: able to go back and pretend. I actually thought in
Speaker 1: that moment, like could I pretend for the sake of
Speaker 1: my families, just so I could keep them, to not
Speaker 1: have to lose them. You know, I'm the third of
Speaker 1: eleven children, you know, fifty some cousins, and we all
Speaker 1: lived within a few blocks of each other. The church
Speaker 1: members were our entire life, They were in our entire community,
Speaker 1: the only people we were ever allowed to be close with.
Speaker 1: And the idea of walking away and losing all of
Speaker 1: them immediately in one Fell Swope, but they would never
Speaker 1: talk to me again. That the prospect of that kind
Speaker 1: of loss is just almost impossible to comprehend. I was
Speaker 1: wondering if you could bring me back to the day
Speaker 1: when your parents found out that you were planning to leave. Yeah. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: we had My sister and I had been making plans
Speaker 1: for a couple of months or so. At that point,
Speaker 1: we had started moving out boxes, and but we kept
Speaker 1: delaying our exit because we were we were just hoping
Speaker 1: that if we if we could just convince them, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe we could just move it all back and pretend
Speaker 1: like it, you know, it had never happened. Maybe we
Speaker 1: could convince them that they were wrong, and then we
Speaker 1: wouldn't have to that we would be saved, you know,
Speaker 1: from our plans. And and so one day a friend, um,
Speaker 1: a former friend actually, you know, she had she knew
Speaker 1: all about our plans to leave, and and she sent
Speaker 1: a message to our parents, you know, telling them that
Speaker 1: we were going to leave. And you know that, of course,
Speaker 1: immediately brought everything to a crashing halt. Um. We had
Speaker 1: barely been able to keep it together as it was. Um,
Speaker 1: but then when that when that happened. We just knew this.
Speaker 1: We can't delay this any longer. We just we just
Speaker 1: have to We just have to explain and we have
Speaker 1: to go. What was the most important thing that you packed?
Speaker 1: I mean, you're packing up your entire life and you're
Speaker 1: not sure you're you're ever going to return. I copied,
Speaker 1: you know, sixty some DVDs worth of home movies, and
Speaker 1: you know, watching the scenes play like it was a
Speaker 1: funeral reel. It was just it was it was horrifying.
Speaker 1: But it was important for me to have those things
Speaker 1: to take with me. But it was also important for
Speaker 1: me to leave things behind. You know, as I was packing,
Speaker 1: I was looking at all of these letters and cards,
Speaker 1: birthday cards and just you know, thank you cards, things
Speaker 1: that my family had given me that I kept in
Speaker 1: this box. And as I'm going through it and I'm reading,
Speaker 1: there's a qualification on all of these cards. I love
Speaker 1: you because you love the Lord. I love you because
Speaker 1: you walk this path with us, things like that, and
Speaker 1: so everything that I wrote to my family in those months,
Speaker 1: it was I love you forever and ever, no matter what,
Speaker 1: and I'm always going to be here for you no
Speaker 1: matter what happens. Things like that, and you know when
Speaker 1: you when you know that this connection is going to
Speaker 1: be so cleanly severed, it just brings everything into very
Speaker 1: sharp focus. So you know, I'm thinking about I'm trying
Speaker 1: to put myself in your shoes. So there's the day
Speaker 1: you left, and you know, anxiety, trepidation, fear, adrenaline, it's
Speaker 1: all getting you through the day. And then there's the
Speaker 1: next morning when you wake up and this stark reality
Speaker 1: hits you, and you know it occurred to me. I
Speaker 1: think it's easy to see your childhood as having been oppressive,
Speaker 1: right bound by the Church's ideology and its rigidity. But
Speaker 1: I do feel that there is an ease that comes
Speaker 1: from never having to ask existential questions as a child.
Speaker 1: Every answer is spoon fed to you, every decision and
Speaker 1: action is licensed, And I'm just curious to know how
Speaker 1: do you transition to a world right you're waking up
Speaker 1: that next morning none of this is true anymore. What
Speaker 1: it felt like for me, it felt like this physical,
Speaker 1: like like I had a giant boulder sitting on my
Speaker 1: chest and I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't see a
Speaker 1: round it, and I had no vision of the future.
Speaker 1: I had no idea what my life was going to
Speaker 1: look like, and I had every reason to believe that,
Speaker 1: you know, the fact that I had so boldly, you know,
Speaker 1: gone forth in the name of Westboro and you know,
Speaker 1: done all these horrible things, and that nobody had any
Speaker 1: reason to give me a second chance, and I had
Speaker 1: left the only people you know who had any reason
Speaker 1: to love me. You know, Once it was actually done,
Speaker 1: there was an enormous sense of relief too. Along with
Speaker 1: that boulder, there was this weird sense, strange sense of
Speaker 1: relief that I could now live and behave and speak
Speaker 1: according to my conscience, to not have to act for
Speaker 1: the sake of my family, That I could be upfront
Speaker 1: with the people around me about what I really thought,
Speaker 1: about what I really believed, and to ask the questions
Speaker 1: that I needed to ask, and talk to, you know,
Speaker 1: to people and try to understand different ways of thinking
Speaker 1: and seeing the world. It was incredibly valuable to be
Speaker 1: able to be open. When you reflect back on your
Speaker 1: time in Westboro, it must feel at least slightly jarring
Speaker 1: to reconcile that Megan with the Megan you are today.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think it raises some interesting philosophical
Speaker 1: questions about what it really means to be you, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, so technically you were the same physical person,
Speaker 1: you had the same consciousness, all the same memories, but
Speaker 1: you held a starkly different and harmful worldview. And how
Speaker 1: do you feel about that? I mean, do you actively
Speaker 1: try and distance yourself from that? Megan? I do not
Speaker 1: try to distance myself from it. When I left, I
Speaker 1: did not delete you know, twenty some thousand tweets, you know,
Speaker 1: where I had been posting for the church and saying
Speaker 1: all those heinous things. I didn't go and delete all
Speaker 1: my Facebook photo and you know, pictures from pickets and such,
Speaker 1: and so I still get these memories popping up on
Speaker 1: my Facebook about about these things, and sometimes in some
Speaker 1: moments I'm like, wow, I cannot believe that was my life,
Speaker 1: and it does feel distant. But I think part of
Speaker 1: the reason, part of what helps me have such a
Speaker 1: posture of grace toward other people and even you know,
Speaker 1: specifically people that I believe are doing harmful things, is
Speaker 1: because I feel so close to the person that I was, Like,
Speaker 1: I remember what it is like to be absolutely persuaded
Speaker 1: by very bad ideas, and so for me, I've been
Speaker 1: extremely grateful that people have been willing to allow me
Speaker 1: to show the nuance of this picture, to see the
Speaker 1: hope in that, because if somebody is doing bad but
Speaker 1: has good intentions, you know you at least have the
Speaker 1: intentions to tap into. If you can just help them
Speaker 1: reframe whatever the situation is, then there is a possibility
Speaker 1: for change. And I just I am a prisoner to
Speaker 1: that hope because I know what it's like to believe
Speaker 1: so strongly in something and then to now believe you
Speaker 1: completely the opposite. In so many ways, I admire that
Speaker 1: despite the discomfort in having to embrace prior megan, it
Speaker 1: is essentially the thing that allows you to sustain the
Speaker 1: empathy you feel. In many ways, it's something you probably
Speaker 1: feel you have to do in order to feel not
Speaker 1: fully alienated from your family, right like the people that
Speaker 1: you love, like you have to cultivate this mindset. I
Speaker 1: believe that I just responded in a very human way
Speaker 1: to people who treated me like a human being, and
Speaker 1: that if my family were exposed to the same kind
Speaker 1: of thing that I was exposed to, that they would
Speaker 1: have left too, And so they just haven't yet had
Speaker 1: the experiences that I had for it to become undeniable
Speaker 1: for me, that we were wrong and that I had
Speaker 1: to find a different way. They haven't had those experiences yet,
Speaker 1: and that's the only difference between them and me. It
Speaker 1: seems like there are a lot of counterfactual worlds where
Speaker 1: if things had played out ever so differently, it might
Speaker 1: have been your family who left and not you, right,
Speaker 1: And I think that's such an important thought experiment, because
Speaker 1: sometimes the best way to empathize with others, to forgive others,
Speaker 1: to under try and understand where they're coming from, is
Speaker 1: to recognize that there's not that much that actually separates
Speaker 1: you from them. What's your relationship like with your your parents?
Speaker 1: Do you talk to them? I missed my mom so much.
Speaker 1: We spent so much time together all the time, and I,
Speaker 1: you know, when I see videos of her now, especially
Speaker 1: back when there was vine. I remember just shortly after
Speaker 1: I left, just watching videos of her on a loop,
Speaker 1: those six six second videos just to hear just to
Speaker 1: hear her voice. It's very one sided. So they don't
Speaker 1: believe that they can have anything to do with me,
Speaker 1: you know, on this way. We're daughter and I, you know,
Speaker 1: have to show me that that I'm doing wrong so
Speaker 1: that I can, you know, understand, understand that I'm doing
Speaker 1: wrong and repent. So largely it is, you know, the
Speaker 1: our relationship consists of me sending letters and birthday cards
Speaker 1: and wedding gifts and tweets, and whenever I'm in Topeka,
Speaker 1: like I always go and like walk around the block
Speaker 1: where I used to live, and I leave something in
Speaker 1: the door for for my parents. And I don't try
Speaker 1: to get them to come out and talk to me,
Speaker 1: because I'm not trying to put them on the spot
Speaker 1: or make them feel like they're betraying the church or
Speaker 1: the rest of the family. But it's important to me
Speaker 1: to leave those things for them so that they know
Speaker 1: without a doubt that I have not forgotten them and
Speaker 1: that I love them, and you know, I know, And
Speaker 1: this is one of the things that I think is
Speaker 1: the reason that I'm not an emotional basket case, is
Speaker 1: that I understand that they love me. In spite of
Speaker 1: the fact that they have completely cut off this communication
Speaker 1: with me. I understand that they love me and that
Speaker 1: they're doing this because they believe it is for my good,
Speaker 1: and that the way that they raised me left me
Speaker 1: with no doubt of this. You know, deep motherly, fatherly
Speaker 1: love that they have for me, and that's something that
Speaker 1: I can't forget and that I won't forget. So having
Speaker 1: gone through such a momentous change, do you fear change? No?
Speaker 1: I really relish it. Actually, I think you know. One
Speaker 1: of the things that I realized after I left was
Speaker 1: what an enormous burden it was to feel like I
Speaker 1: had the answers to everything, or that I had to
Speaker 1: have the answers to everything. What limits that places on
Speaker 1: your mind and on your life? And now, like, what
Speaker 1: an amazing thing to realize, like how big the world is?
Speaker 1: Like Wow, all these things that I just took for
Speaker 1: granted as true and necessary, and the way you know
Speaker 1: it's it's all questionable, and it's all the possibility there
Speaker 1: is amazing. It's incredible to realize how much is undiscovered,
Speaker 1: and like what a joy that makes life. Hey, thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. Join me next week when I talk with
Speaker 1: Adam Grant, we discuss how incredibly challenging it can be
Speaker 1: to change your mind about just about anything. Adam and
Speaker 1: I talk about science based strategies we can use to
Speaker 1: help encourage this change in ourselves. People generally assume that
Speaker 1: they're less biased than others. Right, This is my favorite bias.
Speaker 1: It's I'm not biased biased, right, everybody else is biased.
Speaker 1: I am objective. I see things with perfect neutrality, and
Speaker 1: I think that the higher your intelligence, the more likely
Speaker 1: you are to fall victim to that bias. A Slight
Speaker 1: Change of Plans is created an executive produce by me
Speaker 1: Maya Shunker. Big thanks to everyone at Pushkin Industries, including
Speaker 1: our producer Mola Board, associate producers David Jaw and Julia Goodman,
Speaker 1: executive producers Mia Lavelle and Justine Lang, senior editor Jen Guera,
Speaker 1: and sound design and mixed engineers Ben Tolliday and Jason Gambrel.
Speaker 1: Thanks also to Louise Gara who wrote our theme song,
Speaker 1: and Ginger Smith who helped arrange the vocals, incidental music
Speaker 1: from Epidemic Sound, and of course a very special thanks
Speaker 1: to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight Change of
Speaker 1: Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shunker. Megan, I just
Speaker 1: want to say thanks so much for joining me in
Speaker 1: this conversation. It was absolutely fascinating and can you say
Speaker 1: something back? Sure? Well, I guess it feelings one sided, folks.
Speaker 1: I'm one of us to join the conversation. I'm totally kidding.
Speaker 1: I thought I thought I was supposed to be quiet
Speaker 1: so you could just talk