The Approachable Jesus
We never read about Jesus checking His emails or sitting in traffic. The better we know Him in His world, the more approachable He is in ours.
The Approachable Jesus
I'm a Buddhist Mormon
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Terri is a yoga instructor, a personal trainer for over 40 years, and a docent at the Museum of the Bible — and now calls herself a Buddhist Mormon. She spent her twenties and thirties following a script: BYU, marriage in the temple, five kids, stay-at-home mom. She calls it outsourcing her life choices.
Heather and Terri talk about the woman at the well, and how fixating on her marital history buries the real story of who Jesus reaches out to. They also talk about the golden Buddha of Thailand — a statue covered in clay for 700 years to protect it — and what it means to find our own gold hiding underneath the clay.
Listen to Terri on the Latter-day Faith podcast: https://www.latterdayfaith.org/category/podcasts/
Follow Latter-day Faith on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/latterdayfaith24/
The Approachable Jesus is a Times of Faith production. Opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of the podcast.
Visit the website: www.timesoffaith.com
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Original Music by Johnathan B. Pack
I have one woman, she had never done yoga before, and she would put herself in the we have this one dark corner, I don't even know they're there, I can't even see them. Um, and she would put herself, she'd come early to put herself in that back corner. And and I would encourage her to move up. I'm like, you're like, oh my gosh, I see your growth, I see your strength. Why don't you come up? And she would and she ended up in the front row in the classes with this confidence that just shone all over her face. And I will tell you, she was not doing the most extreme versions of the pose, but she was confident in what she was doing.
Heather:I'm Heather Ruth Pack, and this is The Approachable Jesus, a Times of Faith production. Jesus can feel distant. The people of the Bible lived in a different world, a different time, but their times of faith weren't all that different from ours. And that's what we're going to talk about. I'm glad you're here. Welcome to The Approachable Jesus. I'm Heather Ruth Pack, and today we are talking about uncovering the gold within us. My guest is Terri Petersen. Thank you so much for joining me, Terri. I am so happy to be able to talk with you again. Yes, I was on your podcast a couple months ago, and it was such a delightful conversation. And you're just one of those people where when we're talking, I want the clock to just slow down because I want to just soak in everything you have to say. And it's um so I've really been looking forward to this conversation. Do you want to go ahead and just tell everyone a little bit about yourself?
Terri:Sure. Well, I grew up in the Mormon faith, it it really helped shape me. Um, but now I would consider myself a Buddhist Mormon. I've I've just expanded my vision of what God and the divine and life's purpose is. Um, I am the co-host of the podcast Latter-day Faith. I have taught exercise classes, been a personal trainer for the last 40 plus years. I teach yoga. Um, I'm a docent at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. So I have a huge interest in biblical history and the stories of the Bible, where these came from and what made it up and how we came to have it in our hands. So I'm kind of like you. I'm just I'm just really curious about these biblical stories, where they came from.
Heather:I I love how you're framing your religion because for me it's an open invitation. Next time I'm in DC, I'm hitting the Museum of the Bible. I would love to have you. Oh my gosh, I would love that so much. Today's episode will be a conversation about the Samaritan woman at the well. For those who aren't familiar with the story, while traveling through Samaria, Jesus stopped at a well in the middle of the day. A local woman arrived and he asked for a drink. She was shocked. Men didn't address women alone. Then Jesus offered her living water and revealed he knew everything about her life, including her five husbands. When she spoke of the coming Messiah, Jesus told her plainly, I am he. She ran back to town and told everyone. And because of her testimony, many in her town of Sychar believed. Um, so let's start by just talking about the Samaritan woman at the well, and what's your reaction to that story? How do you see that exchange in your mind?
Terri:You know, it's really popular when in Sunday School, or when we talk about this story, we have a story around her that she was a sinner. You know, she's been married four times and now she's living basically in adultery. And I think the problem is that her marital history overshadows the story. We're so hung up on her being a sinner that we're missing the bigger picture. You know, there's there's so many other things that could be other than her being a sinner. She she may be a foreigner because we know at that time the women came to live with the husband's family. They may have all died, she may have been left there alone, not unlike, you know, the story of Ruth. She might have been a foreigner, they might have considered her unlucky because all these husbands died. They might have considered her cursed. It, you know, and she perhaps stayed away for all those reasons. But I think the story shows us that that's who Jesus reaches out to. Yes. Those who are maybe shunned or maybe different. You know, and it's not unlike us today. We, even in the church, not that I would say we shun people, but those that are different than us, they don't really fit into our cliques or into our eternal family model. You know, the divorced woman or somebody who's living on welfare or somebody's got a different from a different culture or maybe has a mental illness. We kind of keep them at arm's length, perhaps. You know, and I think Jesus just came to show us a different way.
Heather:I think what I see here is Jesus isn't saying, oh, even though you are X, X and X, right? I'll still talk to you, I'll still let you get me a cup of water out of the well. He comes in and says, You belong. Yeah. You deserve to be here.
Terri:Yeah, there's no othering, there's no you're different than me. You are me. He even, you know, when she talked about it the well, you know, we're Samaritans, we're different, and the Jews don't interact with Samaritans. He basically said, We are the same. There's no hierarchy, there's no competition. We all feel the same spirit, we all pray to the same God.
Heather:Yeah. So um tell me what your thoughts are about the living water and how that plays into this interaction between Jesus and this woman.
Terri:You know, living water, you know, is moving. It changes. It's not stagnant, it doesn't stay the same. And I think when she said, you know, I'm waiting for the Messiah, and he says, I am he, and proclaiming that he is the living water, he has come to show them a new way. You know, they've had their rituals, they've had their laws, and he's coming to show them that things change. And, you know, I love the statement you never walk through the same river twice.
Heather:Yes.
Terri:It's because things are always changing. When I walk through the second time, the water's not the same, it's moved. I'm not the same as I walk through it. I think that is our purpose of life is to change. And sometimes I fear in the church we give the same Sunday School answers, um, we keep the same ideology, and we never allow ourselves that growth. And I think Jesus came when he talked about living water, he wanted us to be free to ask questions. This whole interaction between the woman at the well and Jesus was asking questions. And I think Jesus is bringing up that point of, yeah, ask questions. Have a long dialogue about things that you're questioning, the things that you're wondering about. He spent a lot of time talking to her. He didn't call her to repentance. He he showed her through example by by spending time with her that he they were the same. And maybe she needed to get rid of these feelings of self-doubt. Maybe she needed to look at life in a different way.
Heather:Yeah.
Terri:And expand her her thinking, her believing, um old systems that no longer work. I think that's the example right there for us. It's okay to change and grow and move. You know, the shake, the snake shedding his skin. You've got to have room to grow. So you get rid of some old beliefs, some old systems. I was out in the garden the other day deadheading my flowers. You know, you take off the old flowers so there's room for them to grow new beautiful blossoms. I think that's what Jesus is talking about. Let's get rid of some of these old traditions and make room for something new.
Heather:And I think I love that point because I think sometimes we think we have a testimony of something, or we think some issue or some principle is resolved in our minds, and then we stick it on this shelf, like, okay, I've got that figured out, I've prayed about it, I've read my scriptures about it, I've read general conference talks about it, I'm good. And then the living water flows, and down the road, questions pop up, and we're like, wait a minute.
Terri:Right.
Heather:That I don't know if that makes sense to me anymore. I don't know how I feel about that anymore. Because, like you say, we're we're back in the river, but it's never the same river twice. And giving ourselves permission to say, it's okay to revisit this and and come at it with new eyes, new experiences. We're older, things have happened to us, and and maybe what made sense back then, I need to make it make sense now in a different way, or just give yourself permission to ask those questions.
Terri:Right. And I think unfortunately, as members of the church, we're a little afraid to ask questions. You know, what I love about this story is you know, once the woman recognized Jesus as the Messiah, she found her voice. Yeah, she found her voice, she ran back into the city and used her voice. Yes. And I feel that we are sometimes afraid to use our voice because our hearts and minds were changed that day, because one woman shared her new ideas. Something is happening that is different, and she shared that. And I think that's one of the main themes here. Use your voice.
Heather:Yeah, they stayed two days. That means people were willing to house him, people were willing to feed him, people were gathering to hear him. I mean, there's a lot of implications with that one little bit of information. It almost makes me wonder if Jesus purposefully came to the well at the worst time of the day to get the water because he's like, whoever shows up, their life is not going as expected. They're not living that ideal life.
Terri:And right, and the fact that he was even traveling through Samaria said something. He was making a point with his feet that they are no different than us. They are not the foreigners who need to be shunned, they are not the foreigners who need to be scared of. I'm gonna show a new way. You know, I don't think Jesus came to start a religion. Unfortunately, it has turned into that. I think he came to show a new way. And Christianity developed later. And in his name, a lot of horrible things have happened. But I don't think that that is what Jesus was about. He he came to be a disruptor and show a different way of being.
Heather:Well, it's interesting you say that because I just published a newsletter a few months ago called Jesus Doesn't Care If I'm Christian. Wow. And I talk about that man. But I agree with you. I mention that the people who followed Jesus after Jesus um ascended back into heaven, they called themselves the way. Yes, that's how they identified. They didn't walk around going, I'm Christian, I'm Christian. The Romans called them Christian. Yes, that's the nickname the Romans gave them. And so I can't find any scriptures where Jesus said, You are now going to call yourselves Christian. Nope. Just this is the way, this is how to live. And um, and so I'm way more interested in whether I am following the way than what label or identification people place on me or I place on myself. It's am I seen as someone who's following the way? That's really what matters to me the most.
Terri:Which is interesting as you say that because so many other faith traditions, like um Buddhism is the middle way. And oh really, yeah, yeah. And Taoism, you know, the way. And even even the um Qumran community, uh Dead Sea Scrolls, the way. You know, so I think that comes from many, many places in many, many cultures, and Christianity is just a very orthodox offshoot of the way. There's lots of really great spiritual teachers out there. Jesus just happens to be our guru, you know, he is the one in Mormonism that we follow, which and I am happy to do that. I love to do that, I love that example. But one thing working at the Museum of the Bible over the last nine years has taught me is the way the Bible came to be was they picked books that would support their already held beliefs. There are so many books out there. The Book of Mary, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Thomas. There's so many books out there. Um now, some of these that I just mentioned had just been discovered, but there are so many books out there. The Book of Jubilees didn't make it in because they didn't align. Book of Jubilees talks about women's experiences, right? It talks about the wives of the patriarchs, Eve and Noah's wife and Sarah. Church fathers decided not to put that in there. So not only did the church fathers decide which books to put in the canonized Bible, but then even later they changed the stories about the women. You know, Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute until the sixth century when Pope Gregory decided to make her a prostitute.
Heather:Yeah, and she didn't she didn't get de-identified as a prostitute until the year I was born, 1969. Oh, I didn't even know that's happening. Yeah, yeah. So John Paul de-identified it, but it it's that reputation is sticking around.
Terri:It's yeah, you know, and I guess my point is there's so much more than what we call the Bible. There's books upon books upon books. They found they found scriptures in the Dead Sea Scrolls that were Hebrew texts that that those people, the Essenes, venerated, but they decided not to include them in the official canon. Um, yeah. So, yes, I revere the Bible and the Bible stories, and I love what you're doing about finding women in the Bible reimagining their stories, telling their stories. Um, so good. But there was so much more.
Heather:As you know, Bible means library or little library. So imagine someone saying, Well, I'm only gonna go to this library and I'm never gonna go to a different library. Yes, and only the books in this library are only the books I'm gonna consider reading when there's libraries all over the world. You did a fantastic episode on Latter-day Faith that I just I've can't remember how many times I've listened to it at this point. I love it so much. And I feel like I gain a new little nugget every time I hear it. But you say something that really jumped out at me the first time, and it continues to jump out at me. And I noticed on your Instagram of Latter-day Faith, there's a story card that has this as well. And I want to find out from you what you mean by this, and um and and let's talk about it. And that's you talk about outsourcing our life choices and how we shouldn't do that. And so, what I'd like to know is what does it look like when we are outsourcing our life choices, and what would it look like if we stopped it, stopped doing it? Then what would it look like for us?
Terri:That's a really good question. You know, as because I'm I'm in my 60s and I feel like I was handed a script. Um, I was I went to BYU, I did all the things, I married in the temple, had the five children, I was handed a script, stay-at-home mom. I was not cut out to be a stay-at-home mom. So I would find other things. You know, I taught exercise classes and I wrote a cookbook and just stay-at-home activities, sold Tupperware for a while. But this was so that I could fit into the script. And just now in my 60s, when I'm, you know, the the series that we're doing on Latter day Faith is called Women Stepping Outside of the Garden, Stepping Outside of the Script or the Comfortable Place. I'm I'm like, what do I want? You know, I can go back and mourn my choices then because I don't feel like I had choice. I was I was given an outline, and I was handed a belief system as well. What would it have looked like if somebody would say, Well, these people believe that, these people believe that? I don't know where I would have landed, what choices I would have made. But I feel in my gut they would be different. Okay. So here I am at 60 years old, I've got 13 grandkids trying to reinvent myself. I um I'm I told my husband, I'm kind of joking, um, if I ever got a tattoo, in fact, I so David Hayward, he's the naked pastor He and I talk. I had him on the podcast once, but I asked him if he would design a tattoo for me. And it would be, and he's yeah, he's gonna do it. I'm not sure if I'm gonna do this, but it would be the golden cage open and Sophia stepping out. That's oh wouldn't that be cool? Because that is what patriarchy has done to women, it is a protection, but it's really the golden cage. They think they're protecting us, keeping us safe and silent, but I want to do this that benevolent sexism, right?
Heather:We're we're pedestalized, yeah.
Terri:Yeah, the golden cage. And in case people don't know, Sophia is the Greek word for wisdom in the scriptures, and I just and and naked pastor, he's got a he's got a um drawing of Sophia, and I would just love if I were to get one. Again, I'm old, but um, that would be it. Opening up that golden cage, walking into a new life, and I'll tell you right now, I don't know what it is. I don't know what I like. I'm trying to find, I love biblical history, I spend way too much time researching it only because I like it. But um, yeah, we've been handed our beliefs, we've been handed the script, and I would encourage women, younger women, to just set that script aside and go, gosh, if I was able to make my own choices, what would I do? If I wasn't expected to be a mom. I mean, we preach the highest, greatest calling is motherhood. Okay, you know, I like I said, I was a stay-at-home mom, and I may have chosen that if I felt I had a choice. I may have chosen to stay home, but because I felt like I did not have a choice, I was unhappy. So own your sovereignty, make a choice. It might be that you want to be a stay-at-home mom. That would be great. It might be that you don't, that's great too. But follow, follow our own guts, our own inner knowing and divinity. It's part of all of us.
Heather:Yeah. Have you um have you ever heard of Beth Allison Barr in her book Becoming the Pastor's Wife? I have not. She's um someone who has a doctorate in medieval history, and she's done extensive research on what you were talking about, how the Bible has been curated to tell a certain narrative. And and she talks about how there's been very intentional times when womanhood has been changed or diminished, or, like you say, put in a golden Cage and she talks about this very thing of motherhood being replacing priesthood. I don't know if it's fair to really point the finger at anyone faith and say, You did this. Um, but I I think that's part of sovereignty is saying motherhood is something I can choose to do, but God will love me if I choose not to. And or or staying at home, or whatever is um what feels like my own life choice, not like you say, not outsourcing it to what the Bible says or what a religion or a church says.
Terri:Can I tell you the story of the golden Buddha?
Heather:You tell us about the Golden Buddha, because it's a fascinating story.
Terri:Um it really is. You know, this golden Buddha statue was created in the 13th century in Thailand. And because it was so big, in fact, it's it's probably the largest golden Buddha in the world, it was so large and it was so valuable, but the townspeople wanted to protect it. So, you know, they thought maybe invaders would come in and steal it or something, so they covered it in clay to make it just look like a regular old statue. They wanted to protect it. I'm having ding ding ding go off in my head, but they were trying to keep it safe, and yet people weren't allowed to see its beauty. But in 1955, they were moving this huge statue, and some of the clay chipped off. They dropped it. There was a huge chunk of clay that clipped off, chipped off in it, revealed it was underneath, and all of a sudden they saw that it was gold. It was only because it was cracked that the people even knew because it sat there for 700 years. Nobody knew what was under on the underside. But you know, that just reminds me of ourselves. You know, going back to this woman at the well, she may have had all this clay thrust upon her by other people and their opinions, or even added by herself, her own self-doubt, her own insecurities, maybe her own um, maybe she was in a really bad financial state. We don't know. We know women of those days were really dependent upon their husbands. But maybe with Jesus coming and spending some time with her, valuing her, conversing with her, helped chip off some of that clay. And it helped her realize who she really was inside. You know, we know that she went back and told the townspeople, maybe she got that confidence just from Jesus helping her discover who she really was. And I think we're not unlike that golden Buddha or the woman at the well ourselves, is that we do have all kinds of layers. We protect ourselves, um, maybe through you know, building walls or having anger or having resentments, or other people. I'll just say put us in that golden cage to I'm using air quotes, people can't see that, but protect us, keep us safe. Yeah. Um, but that's concealing what our true natures are. Yeah.
Heather:Well, and I think about your story about the Buddha, so the the intent to cover up the golden Buddha with clay was so that what? So that people wouldn't know it was made of gold, or were they trying to what were what was their goal?
Terri:They were trying to protect it from from foreigners or from invading armies. They were trying to keep it safe, so nobody knew its value.
Heather:Okay, so it was to show to make it look less valuable than it actually was, yes, so that it wouldn't get stolen or right. Well, that's resonating, right? Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean that when you keep being told you're you're clay, and as a way of means of protecting, like, you know, like the purity culture or um a whole host of other things that we're told, um it it the story we hear is you're clay, you're clay, you're clay. Yeah.
Terri:And then we believe it.
Heather:Yeah. And then we feel like, well, we're not gold, we're not valuable. Jesus wouldn't want to talk to us. He's not approachable, he's not someone we could learn from because we're not, we're not of that. I I I gotta tell you, I can't tell you how many times I've had a student report to me or say to me something along the lines of, I just need to get better at X so that God will Y. And I just go, that's not the formula. Right. That's just not how this works.
Terri:No.
Heather:And um, you already are whatever it is you think you're striving to become. You're already gold. The gold is there already. And you talk um also about this idea of what chipping away that clay looks like, and how and and one thing you said that I absolutely loved, and this just hit me so hard. Life is not a test, it is a classroom. And sometimes we pick our classrooms, and sometimes our classrooms are assigned to us. And and then you said something that I want to ask and explore a little more from you, and that is you said, no experience is a waste. And so my question is, what would you say to someone who is feeling bad about a mistake they made or an experience they had because they feel like they've lost time, they've lost resources, or maybe they've even lost their own worth. How would you frame that for them?
Terri:Yeah, everything teaches us something. You know, I feel like I've I've gone down many paths, and a lot of people will do this. They'll start down a major and they'll pull back like I wasted so many credits. But you learned something along the way. You really did. You know, I hate the phrase, you know, everything happens for a reason. I don't I don't think that that's true at all. I don't think God orchestrates the things that happen in our lives, but we can learn something from every experience, even if we think that we've wasted time, we have learned something from what we're doing at that moment. It's um, you know, I I I was on bed rest with several of my children, and I'm like, talk about a waste of time, just laying here looking at the cobwebs on the ceiling. But that experience taught me something. You know, it taught me about you know, slowing down or having patience or compassion with other people going through similar experiences. Every experience is going to teach us something.
Heather:Yeah, I I had the opportunity to go out to lunch with one of my former professors, and after she left the university, she she calls it kind of her dark time. And and she just ended up reading a lot of books because she just didn't know what to do next with her life. And she read a book, and I can't remember the book, but she talked about this idea of the cocoon stage. You know, you look at a caterpillar and how busy they are going about, eating their leaves, doing all their things, and then they go into this dark cocoon and it could feel like a waste of time. It could feel like, well, what am I doing here? I'm just I'm not eating, I'm not growing, I'm not helping anyone, I'm just in this little cocoon. But then what comes out is a completely changed person, or well, in this case, insect. But transformed. And she says, What I realized was happening to me during that dark time is that was my cocoon phase. Yeah, and that was a necessary stage for me to be able to become the butterfly I'm now becoming. And Heather, that cocoon stage is gross.
Terri:That caterpillar turns to goo. Yeah, disintegrates right.
Heather:That's right. Amen.
Terri:It's really gross, you know, and and yeah, I agree. Sometimes, you know, for metamorphosis to happen, we have to go through that cocoon stage. And and when we talk about, you know, in faith crises, we call it the dark night of the soul, or we have questions, we have to go there for growth to happen. We do, otherwise, we stay stagnant. We're not the living water, we're not drinking of living water, which is new and is changing and is going to be different every time. We're gonna like you, you read the Bible all the time. It's gonna be different every time you read it. Oh, yeah, and because you are different, yeah, and so we we need to allow ourselves, allow ourselves to have different ways of thinking and believing and being in the world. And sometimes, especially in the Mormon faith, we don't allow that because that's a scary, that's a scary thing. We're veering too far off the path, it might seem. And that's scary, but what it's really doing is spiraling us up.
Heather:You are spiraling, you're spiraling up. I love that.
Terri:If we allow that, if we if we want to, yeah. We can shut ourselves down and don't go there. I think a lot of times members of the church are afraid to step outside of the um approved texts. Like, wasn't it interesting when the church just I I had to just roll my eyes, when the church came out and said, I think it's okay that you read other versions other than the King James. Here's some here's some versions of the Bible that that might be okay for you to read. I'm like, oh, for the love.
Heather:Um can can I be honest with you right now? When that came out, I went, what? I thought we always could. Oh, no, no, no. I had no idea. I and people all of a sudden I'm getting all these messages from people saying, Heather, which Bible translation should I use? Heather, which one do you think I? And I'm like, why is all of a sudden everyone asking me this question? It just seems so out of the blue for me. And then someone told me, well, the handbook says we can use other translations. And I go, we couldn't before?
Terri:No, Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith read from the King James, therefore, it became the authorized version of what we should all read. Now, let me tell you, the King James version of the Bible is the least accurate of the translations out there. Biblical scholars will tell you. It's poetic. It's poetic, it's Elizabethan language, Shakespearean language. It was written at the it was printed at the same time as Shakespeare. So, yes, it's poetic, meant to be read aloud, but uh not that accurate.
Heather:So that cracked me up. Um I one thing I've come to appreciate about the KJV is it becomes people's mother tongue, where if you recite something in the KJV, it it evokes memories and they kind of know where in the Bible you are. But there's such value in seeing how other people translated it. And when the show The Chosen came out, um, a lot of people wanted to know my opinion on it. What did I think about it? And I was fine. I thought it was entertaining, I thought it was great. I but one thing I saw a lot of people getting upset with was well, Jesus never would have said that. Jesus said this, and then they'd quote the KJB, and I'm like, spoiler, Jesus never spoke English. Right, Jesus didn't say any of this.
Terri:Right. It's just the translators' word choices.
Heather:Yes, 100%. And so I think seeing how different people perceived, and and let's be honest, even in the Greek Septuagint, even in that's not what Jesus said. That's what someone said he said. Right. There was no tape recorders back then.
Terri:Right. And then written like 30, 40 years later. Yeah.
Heather:And that's why I think I love this idea of not outsourcing your life choices because let God, however God is for you, let that speak to you directly. Um, in your words, in your word choice, in the way that you understand it as.
Terri:There's another story in Buddhism. There was one of these, the favored disciple of Buddha. He came in, he asked a young Matanga woman. Matanga is a lower caste. He asked her for a drink. And she said, no, because my touch will make you unclean.
Terri: Here's what he said:I ask not for caste, but for water.
Terri:I don't care who you are. I don't care what other people call you or how low you consider yourself. I I want to share this water with you. We are the same, we are equal. And so this perennial philosophy, you know, throughout all traditions, comes back to the same thing. We're all one.
Heather:Well, and and and that's exactly what happened in the story of the woman at the well. He asks her for water, same thing. And her reaction is similar to your story in that she's like, you know, you're a Jew. I know what Jews think of me. Yeah, I know that you think if I give you some water, it's gonna make you unclean. And he's essentially saying exactly what was said there. I'm just asking for water.
Terri:Yeah, and I just peeled off one layer of your clay.
Heather:Yeah.
Terri:I'm helping you discover you are gold.
Heather:Yeah, yeah. That's just your clay talking.
Terri:That's just your clay talking.
Heather:Yeah, yeah. So, what types of clay do you see people wearing today?
Terri:Wow. I think there are a lot of women, especially, who think, I have nothing to say. Who am I? Who am I to speak up? I'm sure the woman that will felt the same thing. That's clay. You have everybody's got experiences, and everybody's experience is valuable. Everybody's experience, like your your story on the subway, that was life-altering to hear somebody else's experience. And so I think sometimes people thinking, I have nothing to share, who am I? I don't have a degree, I'm not enough. I am. I'm not like you. I'm different. And I think we we have been taught that self-love is selfish. And you know, be humble, be self-deprecating, don't build yourself up too much, don't get too big for your britches. So we try to make ourselves small. And we are not small, we are golden inside, but the self-love is a practice, it really is. It's not something that we're maybe comfortable with. Um, and so we don't take that time to believe it. So I think some of sometimes those, you know, have you heard of the loving-kindness meditation? You know, you send love out to your friends, to your your um colleagues, and then you have to send that same self-love back to yourself. Put your hand over your heart and breathe into your heart and talk to yourself gently, like you would talk to your child, talk to your inner child. You are loved, you are beautiful, you are important.
Heather:You made a comment about being a yoga teacher that I really liked. Because I'll be honest, if I was in your yoga class, I think I'd be someone who would be saying the same thing. Yeah, and that is they come stiff and they feel, you know, I would be saying things like, I'm not flexible, I'm too stiff. And you said it's I'm growing, I'm learning. And so I wanted to ask you, as a as someone who's worked physically with people's bodies changing, what lessons have you learned from those experiences that you've had with other people?
Terri:Oh my gosh, it is it is so great because in yoga, and I say as a teacher, and I'm just the guide, this is their experience, this is their practice, and yoga is not a workout, it is a practice, and this is part of that practice of that self-love. It's about tuning in, tuning in with our heartbeat, tuning in with our breath, tuning into our bodies, tuning into the moment. And a lot of people they are they do come concerned with what they look like, and I am trying um to ask them to notice what it feels like. What does that feel like in this pose? I don't care what it looks like, explore it, explore where it feels good, where it doesn't feel good. If you're trying to copy my body, you're being inauthentic. And and that's not the point, is to look like I do. Everybody's different, built different, our bone structure, our ligament structure. So stop caring what you look like and start focusing on what it feels like. Oh wow, yeah, it's it and and it's a practice. I, when I teach yoga, I put them in balance poses or whatever. I want them to fall. Sorry, but I want them to practice getting back up. I want them to challenge themselves enough, and through repetition, we get better at anything, right? So then your confidence grows with repetition, you get better. And challenging yourself is the way to grow. Asking your, and I do this all the time. Maybe you do this, maybe you put your hand there, maybe you try this. Try different things. Does it feel better with your hand up in the air? Does it feel better with your hand on your back? Explore your body, explore your feelings about your body, explore where your thoughts are going while you're practicing the pose. Get in touch with your golden Buddha. And again, stop comparing yourself to the person next to you, stop judging what you're doing and criticizing yourself, just experience it.
Heather:I love that. I I remember our Relief Society did a yoga night, and there was all levels of flexibility that night, I will just say that. And and I found that me and those of the same age group as me, the older ones, we were putting ourselves as far back in the back of the room as we could, and we all admitted we didn't want these cute little thin young moms looking at our stiff, overweight bodies. I mean, we were literally hiding ourselves from the rest of the group.
Terri:Yes, yes, and you know, we do that in life. We do that in life. That's the clay we're talking about. We cover ourselves up to make ourselves small so that nobody can see us. I have people in class, they always want the dark corner in the back, always, and I invite them to come out front and um own their body, own their feelings, own their thoughts, own their experience and love that part of themselves.
Heather:Have you seen a change in someone just by changing physically where they are in the room? Like when you see them move from that dark corner up to the front, do you see a change in them as a result?
Terri:Oh my god.
Heather:Just by that act alone.
Terri:I have this is making me tear up. I have one woman, she had never done yoga before, and she would put herself in the we have this one dark corner, I don't even know they're there, I can't even see them. Um, and she would put herself, she'd come early to put herself in that back corner. And and I would encourage her to move up. I'm you're like, oh my gosh, I see your growth, I see your strength. Why don't you come up? And she would and she ended up in the front row. The classes with this confidence that had that just shone all over her face, and I will tell you, she was not doing the most extreme versions of the pose, but she was confident in what she was doing, and that to me was amazing. Just doing something over and over, telling yourself over and over that you're valuable, just keep doing it. Like I said, it's a practice. Talking to yourself kindly, and the confidence that comes over you. I'm not saying that her body shape changed, no, but it's the confidence level that she gained. Absolutely.
Heather:Believing that you deserve a spot on the front row. Yeah. Just because you exist. You didn't earn it.
Terri:Yeah. There's a there's a um pose called star pose. You stand with your feet grounded and your arms extended up to the heavens and you're looking up and you're opening your heart up to the sky. And I'm like, this is a power pose. Own your power. Own your place. Take up space in this world. And boy, that is the chick, the clay chipping off when people can do that. And we'll stay in that pose, you know, 15-20 seconds because I want people to own their power and take up space and get used to it.
Heather:What do you tell your students to say in their own heads when they fall because of a balance pose? What's the self-talk you would love to have them say when they fall? That it's awesome when they get back up.
Terri:The difference between a master yogi and a beginner yogi is the master has just fallen more times. And it's the getting back up where the growth happens. I love that. And that's a metaphor for life. You know, this is why I love so yoga so much. I could talk forever about this, but because it's all a metaphor for life. You know, getting back up when you fall. What did that teach me? Oh, I need to separate my feet a little bit more. Practice helps us learn, get stronger, get more confident, and we just keep getting back up. What are my what are my thoughts right now? What are the what are the thoughts going through my mind? What am I telling myself right now? Tune into that. Pay attention.
Heather:I love this idea that the master has just fallen more times than you. Yeah. And um, I'm a huge tennis fan. People who know me personally know that about me. It's hard for me to go more than 10 minutes in a conversation without talking about tennis. Wow. But one thing I've noticed um about the the greats, well, two things. First is they know how to fall. And they practice how to fall so that they don't injure themselves. Novak Djokovic, when he falls, he flings his racket as far away from him as he can. Because one, that prevents wrist injuries, and two, it prevents him from falling on his racket and hurting himself. And so it looks way more dramatic when he falls because he's not trying to stop the fall. And I've seen other tennis players when they fall, they they they push on the ground trying to keep themselves from falling. That's where the wrist injuries happen. Yep. And and so when you see Novak fall, it looks like he's down for the count because his racket went flying, he's rolling, it's so dramatic. But he knows how to fall to create the least amount of injuries. And there was a study done on the and they looked at the top five tennis players in the world, ranked in the top five, and they looked at their serves, they looked at their stats, they looked at their conditioning, they looked at their diet. They can't find any difference between these five tennis players among the top 20. There's just nothing on paper that distinguishes those tennis players. But what they did find is they looked at their behavior when they miss a point. And the top five, it doesn't bug them, they they recover very quickly, they don't beat themselves up, and what they're finding is what they just say is okay, next point. Like they move on very quickly. Yeah, that's amazing.
Terri:And that's really good.
Heather:It's the resiliency, right? And I think sometimes we strive so hard to be happy, but really we should be looking to be resilient.
Terri:Yeah.
Heather:Because those hard times come. Yeah. And just keep practicing getting back up. You're giving me a whole new perspective on yoga because I think the self-talk I give myself is I'm too stiff, I'm too short, I'm too stiff. But short people do yoga all the time. But I I think the stiffness is just my body indicating that it's getting stretched and that it's well, and make the pose work for you.
Terri:Maybe you don't touch your toes. So what? You don't touch your toes. You're still feeling your body. We're so detached from our bodies so so much. If your pose looks different because you're shorter or or whatever, it it doesn't matter. You're you're feeling your body move, and that's the whole point is not to look like somebody else, but to get in touch with yourself.
Heather:I love that. So, um, as we wrap up, I would love to ask you or to give you an opportunity. Let's say someone's listening to this right now, and they're just like, you know what? I'm covered in clay. I can tell, I can feel it, and I want to find this gold Buddha inside of me. What advice would you give to that person of something they could do this week to start chipping away at that clay? What's something they could do different than they've been doing all the weeks before?
Terri:Find your voice. I would go back to the yoga thing, open your voice chakra.
Heather:Okay, well, talk about that. How do we how would they do that?
Terri:First of all, I think you need to start finding out what you believe. Again, we've been handed a set of beliefs. And I would say start exploring other ones. Look at other faith traditions, look at other ways of being, and ask yourself if any of that resonates with you. And if it does, start exploring it. Start maybe writing down things that you believe, don't believe, and finding. I mean, that's number one. Find out what you do believe about the world, and then go in and talk to your little child. I think because you're we start out perfect. I mean, we're perfect anyway. We are we are golden inside. But ask yourself, why do I believe this about myself? Why do I believe I'm stupid? Why do I believe why do I believe I'm too dumb to start a podcast? Why do I believe I can't go back to school? Why do I believe those things? Where does that come from? And start questioning yourself. Start questioning yourself, questioning what you've been handed from the world, from the church, from your parents, questioning your own self-doubts. Just start questioning. And I think that that's that that's a place to start. Where did this come from? Where did this belief system come from?
Heather:Yeah. And and one thing I have found is sometimes there's safety in those beliefs, even though we we feel like they're not true, we we just cling to them because it's almost the devil you know versus the devil you don't, and and being afraid of finding out those beliefs aren't true, even if it's a belief that's not working for us. Yes. And how how how do you find that confidence to let go of a belief that you know really isn't true, but you're just it's comfortable to hang on to it.
Terri:It's so scary. You know, when I had kids leave the church and they would bring things up to me about why I wouldn't go there, I didn't want to go there because I didn't want to be uncomfortable, um, and have to then go down that rabbit hole. That is so uncomfortable, but it's not unlike that butterfly in the goo or the caterpillar becoming goo. You do, you go through goo, you go through the cocoon phase, and it hurts, and and there's a lot of sometimes resentment, there's a lot of anger. You know, I look at where I am now, 60 decades plus, my life would have been different had I made other choices. Um, I went through anger, but then you can come out on the other side, but the anger phase or the exploring phase, which might take you to anger, is is a part of life. And and letting go of certainty for uncertainty, whoo, scary. Do I believe in a celestial kingdom right now? I don't know. I don't like that. You know, I don't know. But being willing to let go, again, I'm going back to yoga because that's what I do. You gotta exhale first to make room for the inhale. So maybe let go of some things that don't feel right. I never felt right in the temple, but hung on to it because it was safety. Um, and I've got I had to be able to let go of some of those things to make space for something else. Not comfortable. It's standing on one foot and doesn't you feel off balance. Yeah, doesn't feel good. Don't be afraid to explore.
Heather:I remember the very first time I went to my Baha'i gospel study and somehow felt like I was doing something wrong. Yes. Or, you know, guilt. I don't know what emotion to ascribe it to, but like this isn't what Mormons do. We don't go to other people's Sunday School classes.
Terri:Yes, and the first time I went to a um uh mantra sound bath thing and we're chanting, I'm like, ooh, this sounds wrong, feels wrong. But the vibrations in my body felt like, whoo, this is pretty amazing, and yet there was part of me that felt this was wrong. I was devil worshiping or something. Uh you know, take a risk and get uncomfortable.
Heather:Yeah, I participated in a drum circle hosted by a woman who has spent just years of research and does these. And at first I was like, oh, this sounds like hooey hippie stuff. You know, I was being a little off put by it. And oh my goodness, something happened in me, and I was all of a sudden I felt like I was getting in touch with a part of my body that had been ignored for so long that I was like, what's happening right now? What is going on? And I was like, Imagine if I had never attended this.
Terri:Yeah. You know, there's one way we call it the spirit, you know, the Holy Ghost or whatever. We just have different language. We it's just a different language, you know, different faith traditions. They're gonna call it something different, you know, nirvana or enlightenment or non-duality, or you know, even Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you. Yeah, we just have different language, but there's many ways to access that spirit of the universe, that power that's holding everything together. There's many ways, and I would just encourage people to experience that and not put themselves or God or the universe in a box and limit it and try to define it.
Heather:Yeah, I that's just thank you. That's a beautiful way to end because I think you just said it perfectly. And Terri, thank you so much. Your insights and your perspectives are just it's it's like living water for me. I just feel like I I'm not stepping into the same river twice when I talk to you. And I really appreciate your thoughts. And um, so with that, thank you so much, Terri, for coming.
Terri:Oh, you're welcome. You are one of those really brilliant voices out there, and I'm so glad that you're doing that. Letting your throat chakra be opened and and sharing with all of us.
Heather:Thanks for joining me at The Approachable Jesus. Please share this episode with a friend. That's how these conversations find the people who need them. My newsletter, current course offerings, and all my latest resources are at timesoffaith.com. Remember, Jesus is closer and more approachable than you think.