Episode 84: A powder keg awakening with Lindsay Poelman Part 1

Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for joining me today on Beyond The Shadow Of Doubt Podcast. I’m so looking forward to introducing you to a dear friend who is also a fellow life coach who is also my coach. I am currently actually at the time of this recording and when this is released, I’ll probably have finished, but I’m currently wrapping up her advanced relationship trauma certification.

I’m so looking forward to this conversation to share her knowledge with each of you as it relates to each of your faith journeys. So without further ado Lindsay, I want to turn the time over to you to introduce yourself. Tell us, you know, whatever you feel comfortable sharing about your background, your origin story, all those things.

Oh, well, just so happy to be here. Thank you for having me on here, Megan. It’s so fun and I just have so much love and respect for you for, for who you are as a person and the work that you’re doing and it’s just, it’s really, really

feeling is mutual.

Yeah. So my name is, oh, I, I believe you. I received that. Yeah, so my name is Lindsay Coleman. I grew up a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and I grew up in Utah. And you know, kind of just very typical, let you know in a lot of ways as I, as I got older, I did a lot of like the typical check the box things that we’re taught to do.

You know that we’re taught in our adolescence and young men and young women to do so that we can like, ensure like the good life, right? Or like a, a problem with life or a life of problems, but like the good kind or something. And so, when I was right after I finished, you know, my undergrad and economics at BYU, I met my, my partner in Thailand doing some volunteer work after to see no forever ago.

And we, you know, became really good friends and we dated and we got married and kept and then we set goals and kind of did more of those typical check the box things. He decided to go to dental school. I decided to get my graduate degree in accounting and, and then, you know, we did the dental school thing in L A and, and then went to Oregon and came back to Utah.

And by then we’d had our third kid and I thought that I was done working forever and bought the house in a nice neighborhood. And about right, And then basically, right after the year we had our third child, we were, we just bought a house. We were, my husband found this great partner that he was about to buy it with, as a dentist. like everything was just kind of coming into place and it just felt amazing and tell.

huh. Well, everything hit the fan times what felt like times 2000 and so there was a day where my, when my husband came home and just said, you know, he wanted to talk and just said, hey, I’ve been lying to you about porn use. And I’ve been had this problem for this many years and, and and he had been lying to me about it like it’s something we had where we had communicated that we would communicate to each other about it.

And I’ve, I’ve asked him somewhat directly over the years, you know, about his porn use and it was just always a no, no, no. Anyway, he couldn’t live with a lie anymore. And so he told me and at the time, it just felt like nothing could get worse. Like a dagger went into my heart and just got like twisted and I blamed myself. I just had a third kid. I was like, well, obviously, because look at my body, I just had a baby, you know, all that stuff.

So took it incredibly personally because I hadn’t been taught a lot of the tools that I teach people now. And, and then within a week of that, he started having panic attacks, anxiety attacks, shaky hands and he just, like, stopped working, like cold turkey stopped. And, and we were just like, but just like, what, what just, I don’t know what he was thinking, but I was like, what is happening,

which is that it was like, all just coming together all perfectly and yeah.

And so he stopped working and a bunch of child, you know, at the time, we didn’t, we had no, when it was happening, we just knew he was having panic attacks, he was anxious, nonfunctional, depressed. And at the time, we had a four month old, a two year old and a and a four year old and he was like a newborn, like he couldn’t fall asleep by himself, he couldn’t stay asleep.

He had to be driven everywhere. I couldn’t leave him alone without him having a panic attack. So I had to have like someone come to the house for me to like leave to go exercise like it was a big like it, he was very nonfunctioning. And so basically, you know, we spent about a year, maybe 6 to 8 months, maybe about nine months, getting him stabilized on meds.

And then once he got stabilized, I’d say 3 to 6 months after he got stabilized, he started having these flashbacks. And we realized that there are some childhood trauma, some sexual abuse that had him been processed. So from there, it just became, yeah, it just became this huge thing and it was someone that we knew. And so we had to set boundaries and now we and that person went, you know, would not take any accountability or responsibility.

And so we don’t see that person anymore and it felt like a death in the family and because there are people that stuck with that person and, and it’s just so messy, like it was so messy. And meanwhile, I’m just like, what? So I, I felt like I was processing the betrayal trauma on my husband’s por news, processing betrayal around this person, who, you know, like a predator towards my husband, you know, and, and, and then processing the grief around losing, you know, setting

boundaries and losing those relationships that had felt like people had died trying to, and then I had, I started working again. Like there was just so much happening, just so much like it just felt like this big foggy grief cloud and, and my husband was in betrayal, trauma. And so there was just so much stuff happening and that’s kind of where things like I would say that was kind of like if there was like a little powder keg for our awakening, that was probably it because it caused us

to so much was happening that we just had to trim the fat everywhere and just get down to like the bare basics, like what matters, what is the priority and the priority was him surviving. And then once he was surviving for a while, then I was able to process porn use and, and all the stuff from there and, and I did a lot of processing with an amazing trauma therapist.

And then I got to this point where I just could tell I needed more and, and, you know, based on how a lot of the 12 steps groups, you know, I don’t remember how, what the church calls the Sarp or A RP, what they, you know, they’ve kind of adapted to 12 steps. There’s a lot of stuff in there that doesn’t really give you much hope for the future and it leaves you feeling pretty powerless, especially as the partner of someone looking at porn.

And so, you know, between that stuff and between the professionals who were like, highly, you know, very popular professionals in Utah that I was working with. There wasn’t a lot of hope offered to me for like what could be, especially when I was going through this back in 2015, like there’s a lot more coaches out there. People talking about betrayal trauma, but back then there really weren’t.

And so I just remember thinking like, is this, it, it, it’s always going to be a thing. And I remember my therapist kind of just looking at me with this really pitying look like, yeah, kind of like once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, like, it will always be like a stain or like a scarlet letter on your marriage.

And I remember just thinking like, no, like there has to be more, like, more than this life of apathetic acceptance of this. And that’s when, you know, I found coaching and I was able to just kind of use the therapy work that I had done as a springboard. And the next thing for me.

Wow. Linds. Oh my goodness. I think they’re like, what? No, I’m so appreciative. I’m so appreciative. I, one of my core values is authenticity and vulnerability. And so I just honor you from the very depths of my heart for showing up in a way that it takes guts and not, not many show up in that way. I appreciate how candid you shared about how difficult that time was and you did the best you could with the resources that were available to you.

And so I, I have a deeper understanding now of how you have put yourself now in this position too, be an anchor for others who are just embarking on this type of journey, trauma is real. And I do remember, I do recall, I’ve been one that’s benefited from therapy over the years. And yeah, trauma hasn’t been talked a whole lot about until I don’t know, probably the past maybe five years if that.

Yeah, I think like in a mainstream way, even more mainstream, just the last, like I would say 18 months, it’s really picked up.

Like, even when I started offering the certification that you were in the circles that I was in, people still weren’t talking about it as, as, as something that we all carry as humans. And obviously, like through my, through my experience and through everything that I learned, working, you know, with my partner and, and supporting him through his healing and everything, like we just saw how prevalent and normal it was, you know, and so I, I have a vision of every human being,

trauma informed so that they can understand the context of trauma and take care of honor of the, take care of an honor, the nervous system because I really think that’s where healing happens, where a lot of the collective healing will continue to happen, right?

And even if you don’t think that you have the effects of trauma that you’re living with the effects of trauma just being educated.

Chances are you do, it’s just a matter of awareness really, but it’s good to be educated so that when a situation such as with your spouse arises, there’s such thing as secondary trauma where, oh my gosh, yes, I have cleared so much secondary trauma.

That’s what I was gonna tell you when I drew, when I couldn’t remember what I was gonna say. The secondary trauma Megan of watching my partner with his mental illness and not only with all of his panic attacks, his panic attacks, his anxiety, his depression, his being in a, you know, in the fetal position in the closet, many times him falling, you know, backwards on the toilet in the middle of the night because of some new medication like people pushing back when he spoke out about

his abuse and me just watching and seeing how he’s been treated, people pushing back and treating him differently when he differentiated with respect to religion. Like there is like, I have had to clear so much secondary trauma just from being a witness to how he’s been treated. So it’s real.

So for those who are listening, who may not understand or maybe this is the first time you’ve heard the terminology, secondary trauma, how would you explain it in, you know, just common terms, layman’s terms.

So primary trauma is like trauma that you experience as a person, something that you like, you get hit by the car, right? You get hit by the car and or you know, something like that or you get swept up in like a hurricane or a tsunami or you know, and or you’re the victim of emotional abuse or, you know, different things like that, those little, those chronic traumas that we don’t talk about enough. And so secondary trauma is like, it’s the emotional duress that results when we hear or

witness about the firsthand trauma and experiences of another. Ok. So it’s, and because a lot of times we’re not taught how to process the emotions around that or we don’t know how to, we don’t even know that there’s something to process because we’ve just been a witness of it. And as women especially, we’ve been so socialized to, to discount our experience and to be so focused on other people, we don’t even know that there’s stuff there.

And I think that’s why it’s so important for us to educate ourselves so that we, we can raise our consciousness, we can raise our awareness of what is going on because otherwise we honestly are in this place. If we just think this is normal, I’m wondering if you can take this primary and secondary trauma concept one step further, what would be the difference between secondary trauma as you watch a loved one processing a lot of pain going through, you know, the flashbacks like

you’ve mentioned and just dealing with the psychosomatic effects of their trauma bubbling up for them. Let’s say that loved one was not aware that that was a traumatic response for them, that was a trauma response for them, right? And then the way that they interact with you or other family members is obviously going to spill over in a traumatic way.

And so their norm, right? Because they’re not aware of what’s going on in the way that they treat you, the way that they interact with, you interact with the family and so on. Is there a name for that? because my understanding is the loved ones who are trying to be the supporting role also get affected by in a traumatic way.

Well, I mean, when, when that’s happening, so let’s say that there’s a partner in a marriage who, you know, has had his own trauma or mental illness and is, is completely unconscious to it and, and then they treat family members a certain way. That’s, it’s not a layer behind primary and secondary that would go back to primary because of the way you’re being treated, right, you’re directly on the receiving end of the of the treatment.

So to me, of course, I would never, I, I, of course, as a coach too, I try not to like, I can get lots of ideas, but I’m not like I, I don’t diagnose of course, but, but typically like, typically that’s a primary, that was more of a primary trauma because it’s, you’re being directly impacted. You’re the one on the receiving end of certain treatment or behavior.

That makes sense. Yes. So it kind of becomes a primary for that loved one who is trying to, for the one guy because

if we take this into like physical terms, it’s almost like, hey, there’s this kid who was never taught not to hit and his parents are uninvolved, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like sure there’s a bunch of emotional neglect and stuff in that family. But the moment that kid decks one of your kids in the face or pushes your kid off of, you know, some 10 ft plank, that’s a direct acute event that your child experiences.

So that would be a primary, a primary trauma. So I think because of the way we’ve hierarchy, emotional trauma or emotional abuse versus physical abuse, sexual abuse and things like that, we really discount that emotional piece. But I agree, but when we talk physically, it’s so much easier to be like, oh yeah, my kid got hit, right? And so that’s helpful. You can think about it that way.

I appreciate that. You know, this isn’t trauma 101. I do want to get back to your faith journey. You said something that stood out to me. You said this event, this experience was kind of like the powder keg that triggered this awakening. And you also mentioned there was there was this processing of some relationships, perhaps a mourning period because some of those relationships as you understood them had died essentially.

I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about this powder cake. And what you mean by the awakening that it triggered, you know, are we talking in a spiritual sense, a religious sense? perhaps the social, I’m sure the roles of each spouse shifted. So there was some of that to consider, reframe, you know, just can you share a little bit more about that awakening and what that was like?

And, yeah, I mean, once everything happened, I mean, like when my husband or my partner, when he, you know, became nonfunctioning due to his, his mental illness and that childhood trauma coming to a head up until that point, what I knew about anxiety was, it’s a mixture of feeling, nervous and excited. But that’s pretty much all I’ve been taught my entire childhood and depressed just means depressed, sleepy, probably a little lazy, like, you know, just this horrible, like

these stigma. So I didn’t understand a lot of about mental illness. Now, once all of this went down, a lot of my first sessions with my therapist was like figuring like what’s even what is all this stuff, right? So there was like the contextual education that she provided to me while allowing me to process a lot of grief around. So many things, grief around not being able to be home with my kids.

I love being home with my kids. I’m a pretty social person. So I found plenty of outlets. I used, you know, been instructor, you know, doing all the things. And so there was so much grief for me to process. And and so just as I was supporting my husband through his recovery, I learned so much about different stigmatized things like mental illness and porn and what that means when a partner is looking at porn in a marriage.

and, and so many things. And so as I learned more, it really shifted the lens of how I looked at things, looked at, people, looked at my partner, looked at myself. so that I became a lot more protective of, of my husband, of course, and also just people who, you know, at church who are going to take things the wrong way because maybe they have O CD, maybe they have a little Trulicity, you know, maybe they take things really literally because we all just have such a different mapping.

Such unique mapping as humans, the language that we use really, really matters. And so, it was kind of just I became more and as I supported my husband through everything and then, you know, became a coach, then I really started seeing the patterns and the parallels and the things that are being taught that we just hurting a lot of people.

So, thank you. I appreciate that. I have found that it’s usually a significant life event such as this one. just a major fork in the road that causes us to re examine our, our faith, our spirituality, our concept of religion.

Yeah, it doesn’t have to be, but it often times is I think to spend the talks about that too.

So would you say when would you say was it this event or was this just something that it kind of started you on what I call maybe a pivot a shift in the way you viewed your faith or when would you say that kind of significant point was for you?

Oh, that’s such a good question. I feel like there were so many pivot points I think with awakenings, I kind of just think of like the way of flower kind of just like it blossoms and then it sheds and then it blossoms and then it sheds and it blossoms and sheds. I feel like I had just a lot of many pivot points. but there were a few bigger ones and I would say, and I would say, you know, a big one was, you know, initially when I, you know, if my husband was working through his mental illness and,

and we were, you know, going to church and stuff like that, it was fascinating for me in the very beginning to, to see how we would go to the same Sunday school lesson and he would come home feeling just ashamed and horrible. And I’d be like, oh, I just took that one line that that person said and just kept that and felt great, right? And so, so I started noticing like he internalizes stuff differently than I do, right?

And, and that trend and then once we became coaches especially, well, I say, once we both became coaches, I was a little bit ahead of him and the switching to become a coach career, he, but I coached women in betrayal trauma. And he coach currently coaches men to so teach them how to stop looking at porn. And, just that daily exposure to the thought process processes and the, the things that are taught, the fear and the shame based tactics that are used to control behavior.

You just see it over and over and over and over again. It’s just something for me, I couldn’t deny that there is a problem. And so, of course, for me, another thing is I’ve always felt like I’m meant to be a voice for the voiceless and to, to be willing to speak out when I see those types of things. And so that I would say that was another pivot point.

I there, I have lots of other pivot points, but I’d say that was a pivot point. And what else would there be? women’s rights, stuff like that? Equality of marriage, you know. I’m a big very Magdalene person and also the way the church has, in my opinion, failed to protect Children with, you know, different loopholes and things like that. That was a big awakening for me because I started seeing like this isn’t a culture problem. This is like a top down problem. So that was probably one

of my biggest pivot points as far as like faith specific to Mormon faith journey when I started seeing, you know, for me, what I see, I don’t want to speak for the people. A lot of these problems as top down and not this way where we say it’s, it’s just the culture, it’s not the leadership because again, that’s just dismissive of can be a way to dismiss and keep leadership from needing to take ownership and responsibility for their behavior.

So, if you’re comfortable, I’d like to talk a little bit more about this. How much did you share of your journey with your fellow parishioners, your, maybe your family, your friends. I always like to speak to that when I can on this podcast. I, I truly believe moving forward igniting and fostering open, not

judgmental communication is essential. It’s not just something that’s pretty and a nice thing. I think it’s essential if there’s going to be healing in our faith communities.

Yeah, I mean, so I live in France and so it’s a different culture, a different culture and I love it here too. Ultimately, though I think the doctrine is going to come through no matter where you live because it’s like the same hand, right? So, so a lot of those pop down things I still see trickling through here. Even though there’s a very chill and like, there’s a lot of a lot more of a chill membership vibe here that I really, really gravitate towards but, you know, I shared and

communicate with people that I see as safe to communicate with. And so I did, I have talked to, like, leadership here but what they see is, is this is a Utah problem. This isn’t a church wide problem. I see that differently. I, I think it’s, you know, it’s a headquarters thing and it’s a, it’s a church wide thing. But, so for them it’s, it’s a little bit more like, oh that’s just because you grew up in Utah.

And so you see it that way and I actually feel like because I grew up in Utah, I have a pretty good perspective of how things go down in the heart of where, you know, where church headquarters is. And so, and then on top of that, like my lived experience, but then what I have done professionally and the people that I served feel like I have a pretty good perspective.

And so I don’t want to say it’s right or wrong. But so that’s, it didn’t go very far, which I’m not surprised, but there’s also the language barrier. So, and you know, with family, I chose to say family. So for me when it comes to communication, like yes, I can see that it’s important to communicate and share concerns. Also, I think our nervous system gets to take priority.

I think our safety gets to take priority. So if I can test a little with relationships. And if I get pushed back, really tough push back, I’m not, there’s no point in me trying to engage if I know someone isn’t in it to listen and learn if they’re there. So basically take everything I’ve said and turn it around against me. Like I, I’m just not interested in engaging and I, a lot of people like to do that and they will say things like I just want to understand.

And so you share, and then two days later you get the email back with why every single point you made is wrong. And, and I don’t think that’s what the point is when it comes to change, right? Like when it comes to systemic racism or you know, LGBT Q rights, I think people just need to be listened to, right?

I think getting that email back full of, I don’t know, rebuttals or whatever is kind of the antithesis of a safe space, a safe space is just listening with no other agenda, just listening to somebody share their honest to goodness truth. I wanted, I want to try to pinpoint this and I don’t know if I’m, if I’m not using the right words to try to describe this.

I’m really curious to try to understand when or how when you felt this awakening inside of you because you, you see life through a different lens now than Lindsay of however many years ago before all of these major life, things started to happen that you shared earlier. What happened inside or what would you say shifted for you that you started to, I don’t know if give yourself permission is the right way.

This is, this is something that I see. It is difficult is allowing these doubts, these questions, the seemingly contradictory things to exist as part of our world like, yeah, what was, what happened inside, do you think for you?

That’s a great question. And I think the reason we’re so scared embark on a faith expansion is because of the conditioning and what we’ve been told, like, if you do this, then this will happen. Oh, they probably stopped this and that’s why they’re this, right? And so that’s why it could be so scary. But there was just like this deep, deep, deep part of me that like knew there was more, there was something else I would say a lot of my study around like the relationship between Christ and

Mary Magdalene and what, what their relationship potentially was was a big thing for me that helped me really, really anchor into myself and into my knowing. you know, even just down to like him, not just telling her she’s an equal, but actually showing her and treating her so, so much model integrity to me, like Christ lived what he taught.

And you know, some scholars, some scholars say that Mary actually understood the gospel of Jesus better than any of his 12 apostles. And then after he passed away, they asked her to teach them, but her level of consciousness was equal of that of Christ. But it, but it was over the heads of the apostles. So even they couldn’t like the stuff was over their heads.

But then you look at like the gospel of Thomas and Philip and, and the stuff that she taught, they also taught and their stuff, it just didn’t happen to make it into the Bible.