Welcome and Introduction to the Episode

Gina Cohen [00:00:00] Welcome to A Thoughtful Faith Podcast with your host, Gina Cohen. A Thoughtful Faith is a production of the Open Stories foundation and relies solely upon the support of you its listeners. All donations to A Thoughtful Faith are tax deductible in the United States and go directly towards the podcast and building a community of support for Mormons like you. If you would like to support the podcast, please consider donation by visiting thoughtfulfaith.org.

Gina Cohen [00:00:40] Today. My guest is Mindy Gledhill. Mindy is an American indie pop music singer songwriter. She has four albums, the Sum of All Grace, Anchor, Winter Moon and Pocket Full of Poetry. Mindy's music appears in film, television and commercials, and it's been described as tender, emotional, intelligent and touchingly autobiographical. Her vocal style is warm and rich and each of her songs attest to her tremendous talent, not only as a singer, but as a musician and a lyricist. She's also innovative and entrepreneurial and in 2012 was recognised as one of Utah's 40 under 40 in the Utah Valley Business Q Magazine. But Mindy also has a rich life story. Born into a large Mormon family, she grew up in a faith tradition that could not keep up with her growing awareness of gender inequality and patriarchy. Mindy joins me to discuss her life, her work, her family and her politics. Well, welcome to A Thoughtful Faith and Mormon Stories. I'm here with Mindy Gledhill and her Forge Collective, isn't it? It's the Forge Collective in downtown Provo. Now, tell us about this building that we're in. It's kind of cool.

Mindy Gledhill [00:01:53] Yeah, this building. The building is over 100 years old and it used to be the blacksmith shop for the Brigham Young Academy, which is across the street now the Library of Provo. But yeah, there used to be. I hear there used to be a stable in here with horses and it was a foundry of sorts. And then later it was a printing press and they printed books and among those was the Book of Mormon as well.

Gina Cohen [00:02:16] Oh, and there was no burning of the printing press.

Mindy Gledhill [00:02:19] There was. Not here. Not that I know of.

Gina Cohen [00:02:24] So what was it? Did you inherit this place? Place empty, untenanted?

Mindy Gledhill [00:02:29] Yes, it was. It was vacant for, I don't know, quite a while. It was in really bad shape when we got it and we pretty much. We took out the ceilings and. Yeah, just a lot of stuff. Carpets and just. And redid it. And now it's. It houses studios for different artists and even a bakery.

Gina Cohen [00:02:49] Now, it's a really unique space. So tell us about, like, how the space is used. You talk about it being the Forge Collective.

Mindy Gledhill [00:02:58] Yeah, well, for me, I mean, I sort of selfishly curated it so that people rented spaces in here that I felt like would inspire me. So, yeah, there are different. There's a girl in here who designs children's clothing. We have the owner of communal restaurant, which is a really beautiful restaurant here in Provo. We have a recording studio upstairs where Eric Robertson works. And right now we're in a mastering lab recording this podcast. And there's an architectural design firm here, and as I mentioned, the bakery. So lots of really creative people whom I admire.

Mindy Gledhill's Early Life and Character

Gina Cohen [00:03:38] That's something characteristic about you, Mindy Gledhill, that I've noticed is that you're a bit of a mover in Shaker. You move people. Okay. I'm hearing the Provo because of you. An event happened a couple of weeks ago because of you, and I've just noticed, and John Dillon has done an interview with you, and I was listening to that interview. I was listening to all of the things that you did to gather around you a particular kind of community that was thriving, that was collaborative, that was thoughtful and mindful. So I want to talk about that. I want to talk about the Mindy Gled Hill that. You know, you're a beautiful musical artist, a beautiful singer, writer, composer, and you're venturing out into other electronica pop with Dustin Gledhill, which is so exciting. But let's talk about you as a woman growing up in a community that had a particular kind of narrative for women. I just feel like you've broken out of all of that. So let's just wind the clock back, shall we?

Mindy Gledhill [00:04:42] Okay, let's do it.

Gina Cohen [00:04:43] Right.

Mindy Gledhill [00:04:43] Time travel.

Gina Cohen [00:04:44] You have. You're the. How many child? The third child.

Mindy Gledhill [00:04:48] I'm the eighth child of nine.

Gina Cohen [00:04:50] Eighth of nine.

Gina Cohen [00:04:51] Okay.

Gina Cohen [00:04:52] I knew that was a curly number. The eighth of nine children. How many boys, girls?

Mindy Gledhill [00:04:57] I have two brothers who were born first and then seven girls in a row.

Gina Cohen [00:05:02] Wow.

Gina Cohen [00:05:03] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:05:03] Okay, that was. Were your parents hoping for more boys along the line?

Mindy Gledhill [00:05:07] I think my dad, he was an athlete growing up, and so I think he was hoping for, you know, a football team of, you know, sons. But he got basketball player daughters, so most of. Most of us played basketball.

Gina Cohen [00:05:23] Was he on the sidelines? Was he pushy?

Mindy Gledhill [00:05:26] Not pushy, but supportive. I remember him, you know, practicing with us and even reffing a few of my games, you know, volunteering. But I think most of. Yeah, most of my desire to play basketball or sports was because I saw my older sisters doing it.

Gina Cohen [00:05:42] Right. So you're a sports family?

Mindy Gledhill [00:05:46] Partially, yeah. I wouldn't. I wouldn't say we're huge into. I'm not really into sports anymore, but growing up, I loved basketball. That was my sport.

Gina Cohen [00:05:54] Okay, okay, okay. So what, the sixth daughter out of seven?

Mindy Gledhill [00:05:59] Yes.

Gina Cohen [00:06:01] Tell us what that was like, having all of those sisters.

Mindy Gledhill [00:06:05] You know what, it was incredibly fun for the most part. And I. I don't think we fought a lot. I mean, I definitely look back and remember a few intense fights, but for the most part, they were my. And continue to be my best friends. And my sisters are. They're incredibly driven, powerful women. I would say a lot of. Yeah, a lot of us are kind of aggressive.

Gina Cohen [00:06:33] Tell me about that. You've got some sisters who've done some really extraordinary things, haven't you?

Mindy Gledhill [00:06:38] Yeah, My oldest sister, she's currently doing her PhD and her dissertation is on the sexuality of women in patriarchal cultures, with an emphasis on Mormon women.

Gina Cohen [00:06:51] Wow. Wow.

Mindy Gledhill [00:06:52] Yeah. And she will be the second officially certified sex therapist in Utah that's female when she gets her certification. So she's really. She, for me, was a very maternal figure. Out of, you know, with a family with nine kids, you can imagine that it was survival of the fittest, especially when it comes to getting your mother's attention. And so my oldest sister really served as my maternal figure. I slept in the same bed with her for the first few years of my life.

Gina Cohen [00:07:24] How old are you now?

Mindy Gledhill [00:07:25] I'm 34.

Gina Cohen [00:07:26] 34, yeah.

Mindy Gledhill [00:07:28] So that's one sister, Marnie, my oldest, and then my next sister, Amy, she is a lactation consultant. She also got her degree in blacksmithing, and she for many years was a blacksmith as an artist, and so did sculpture and things like that. It's really cool. And then Jenny, my next sister, she got her degree in photography, but then she sort of phased out of that and went back to school and got a master's degree in somatics, which is sort of the study of the body and how your emotions affect how you physically feel and. And mostly focusing on your pain. And so she also has her massage therapy license. So right now she. She practices as a massage therapist and. And doing body. Body work and energy work, kind of like that. And so. But I mean, she has a high. You know, she sought higher education in that field as well to specialize in it. And then I have the next sister below her. She got her degree in human development and she spends her days with her family and raising children. She doesn't currently work. And then I have a sister the next one is a psychiatrist, so she went through medical school, and she's the director at a recovery center here in Utah. She's the medical director. So she prescribes all the patients their medications and keeps tabs.

Growing Up in a Devout Mormon Family

Gina Cohen [00:09:07] I'm surprised that you don't bring everybody.

Mindy Gledhill [00:09:09] Your whole family. We should.

Gina Cohen [00:09:12] Right.

Mindy Gledhill [00:09:13] Actually, two of my sisters do have an office here. Yeah, I'm sorry, I forgot to mention that. So, Marnie, my sister, who's currently getting her PhD in. You know, I can't even say what the exact name of her PhD is in. It's in therapy. But, yeah, she'll be a sex therapist. And then Jenny, the one that does bodywork and has her master's in somatics.

Gina Cohen [00:09:36] They both have to go very far to find somebody to take care of mind, body, spirit.

Mindy Gledhill [00:09:40] Would you. They're right next door to my studio. I'm really lucky. And then my little sister, the one under me, she also got her degree in photography. She's an artist. And right now she's just. She lives in a pioneer home out in rural Utah, just alone. And she spends a lot of her time in nature and with her dog and doing art and.

Gina Cohen [00:10:05] Yeah, it's kind of remarkable when you think about it, because your family seems like, on the surface, really conservative.

Mindy Gledhill [00:10:12] Yeah, I think we were brought up in a conservative environment. Absolutely right.

Gina Cohen [00:10:17] So you. Your father always had leadership positions in the church?

Mindy Gledhill [00:10:23] Yeah, as long as I can remember.

Gina Cohen [00:10:26] Well, tell us what that was like. What did you notice about the patriarchy growing up? Because I'm just sort of imagining this kind of. I'm not feeling wild, but just enormously creative energy coming from the woman in your family, and it feels juxtaposed against this patriarchal figure managing the church. Yeah.

Mindy Gledhill [00:10:45] Well, that's interesting. Well, within the family, I think patriarchy had a huge influence. My grandfather was a patriarch. He gave most of us our patriarchal blessings. So my dad's dad, and then my. My dad, ever since I can remember, was a bishop, then stake president, then mission president, then general authority, and then temple president. So he's had some pretty demanding callings in the church and very traditional home where my father taught us, you know, the. The father in the home is the head of the home. The mother is the heart of the home, the nurturer. So he defined those roles very clearly.

Gina Cohen [00:11:26] And did you feel that those rules were enacted, or do you feel that there was a little bit of resistance to those rules? Like, did everyone observe that as a kind of cultural.

Mindy Gledhill [00:11:35] I feel that they were enacted by my parents. But I think as far as all of the daughters in the family go, we all resisted that. Maybe not in our early years, but in our later years, I think we. And now I think a lot of us do.

Gina Cohen [00:11:49] That's interesting. That's interesting. So can you. Can you, if you recall growing up in that household, do you ever feel that at any point you had some questions or maybe kind of a knot of hardness to the order of things?

Mindy Gledhill [00:12:02] Do you know what? I think patriarchy was around me everywhere. And, I mean, it was in the water I drank. So I don't think I really woke up to the influence of it until my later, you know, adult years. But I do remember the role of women. There were some tough questions I had, even at an early age about that, Asking my mother about Heavenly Mother and polygamy and all these things within Mormonism that relate to women and those tough questions I was definitely very inquisitive about.

Gina Cohen [00:12:38] What sort of answers did your mother give? Let's talk polygamy, then. What does she ask?

Mindy Gledhill [00:12:42] Okay, let's talk polygamy. Well, I think it sort of relates to my questions about Heavenly Mother. And I asked my mom about Heavenly Mother once and why we don't talk about her. And she gave me a few answers. One was that she's just so sacred, and Heavenly Father wanted to protect her, and so we don't talk about her much. And the other answer was that we may have more than one Heavenly Mother. That one really threw me for a loop as a kid. Tell us about that.

Gina Cohen [00:13:12] What did you feel at that point?

Gina Cohen [00:13:13] Well, I.

Mindy Gledhill [00:13:15] She. I remember her explaining, you know, I said, well, why? And she explained, well, how else do you think that, you know, we could have so many children here on Earth? You think one woman could do that? And I guess logically, at that, you know, age, I really. I thought about that, and I definitely was something that made me uncomfortable, but I think I was young enough that I, you know, I set it aside and I didn't like it, but I didn't. I didn't have the language to really ask. I think ask more about it at the time.

Gina Cohen [00:13:45] How old were you when you're asking those questions? Can you recall?

Mindy Gledhill [00:13:48] I can't. I want to say that I was in elementary school, so it's young to ask those questions. Yeah, I remember it was. It was when we still lived in California that I was asking these questions, and we hadn't yet moved Till I was 13, so it was definitely under the age of 13.

Gina Cohen [00:14:03] So you grew up In California.

Mindy Gledhill [00:14:04] I did, yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:14:05] Right. And so at age 13, you moved out here?

Mindy Gledhill [00:14:08] No, at age 13, we moved to Spain. So my dad was a mission president in Madrid.

Gina Cohen [00:14:13] Right. I want to go back to polygamy just for a minute.

Mindy Gledhill [00:14:16] Okay.

Gina Cohen [00:14:17] And then we're going to deal with your life transitions and how you've moved around the world. So were your ancestors polygamous?

Mindy Gledhill [00:14:27] Yes.

Polygamous Ancestors and Family Heritage

Gina Cohen [00:14:27] Okay, tell us about your polygamous ancestors.

Mindy Gledhill [00:14:30] Okay, let me think. I know that on my father's side, my great grandmother was a daughter in a polygamous family. But I don't know, to be honest, I don't know much about them. I just know that much. And then I don't think we have any polygamy on my mother's side. In my husband's family, there is also pretty recent polygamy. His great grandfather was Miles Romney, who is, I think, in the Mexican colonies. He's. I think the Romneys are, you know, Mitt Romney comes from that family as well. They're kind of a strong family.

Gina Cohen [00:15:13] This is interesting. You know, often I ask people tell us about your polygamous ancestors, and often there's this big, you don't know. And I'm thinking, wow, I mean, were the histories of all of these women completely erased?

Mindy Gledhill [00:15:26] Yeah, that's. I mean, I feel like that. I feel like even as recently as my grandmother on my. My father's side, her mother was the daughter of a polygamous family, but it wasn't talked about much even. Yeah, yeah. I really don't know much about my female ancestors.

Gina Cohen [00:15:46] It's hard to know how to feel about your female polygamous ancestors. Not that I have any, but, you know, given the culture and the climate, how it used to be a practice that was, you know, either saved or damned, and then it was, it's, let's keep it quiet. And then it's excommunicable. Yeah. We forget that actually there are people in lives in there and there are matriarchs and patriarchs in there that, you know, whose blood flows through us, so.

Mindy Gledhill [00:16:10] Oh, yes. And that we are so much more closely related to current, present day polygamists, you know, than. Than we realize. I don't think I realized there were still so many here in Utah and they're. They're here. And I'm realizing that more and more. And. And I feel like they're cousins. They're cousins. Yeah. One thing about it, though, that I've thought in my mind is that, well, I really don't like polygamy. I'M not a supporter of it, but I.

Gina Cohen [00:16:40] That was going to be my next question. We have to say this is really interesting, but I don't like polygamy.

Mindy Gledhill [00:16:46] Yeah, it's interesting, but I would say maybe. Maybe the cool thing about it is that a hell of a lot more women settled this land than men did.

Gina Cohen [00:16:56] They were rockers, weren't they?

Mindy Gledhill [00:16:58] Yeah. Yeah. And tough women.

Gina Cohen [00:17:01] Now, is there a point that you decided that you didn't want to be a polygamist? Isn't that a question, though, for Mormon girls?

Mindy Gledhill [00:17:09] Yeah, well, I. Again, going back to that conversation as a child with my mother, when she told me this about Heavenly Mother, I think it kind of sparked a few more questions about polygamy and asking her, well, is that something I'm gonna have to do? And I remember her answer being like, you don't have to worry about that now. It was done away with a long time ago.

Gina Cohen [00:17:31] So you looking at me as if that was not satisfactory.

Mindy Gledhill [00:17:36] It's not satisfactory to me because it, you know, for me, maybe it's. It's not practiced, you know, in this life, but it's definitely still a part of Mormon doctrine. And a part of what? You know, Mormon doctrine teaches about the afterlife, and it is practiced and it is practiced and. Yeah, through. Through marriage.

Gina Cohen [00:17:56] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. So at 13, you go to Spain. Now, that must have. Was that a shock for your family to be. To have your father called to be the.

Moving to Spain as a Teenager

Mindy Gledhill [00:18:05] Yeah, kind of blindsided us. Came out of nowhere. And I remember begging my parents to let me live with someone in California and stay behind.

Gina Cohen [00:18:15] Where in California were you?

Mindy Gledhill [00:18:17] We were in Eureka, California, which is on the north coast, just a couple of hours south of Oregon. Yeah, but that didn't happen. I ended up going with my family, and I don't. I mean, I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.

Gina Cohen [00:18:31] They treat mission presence families pretty well, don't they?

Mindy Gledhill [00:18:34] They do, yeah. Yeah. We lived in a really nice home, and, I mean, my dad was pretty private about, you know, money and expenses, but as far as I understand, the church provides for the families of mission presidents with, you know, their housing and their food and basic needs.

Gina Cohen [00:18:52] They call it basic needs, but it's basic stipend.

Gina Cohen [00:18:55] It's.

Mindy Gledhill [00:18:55] Oh, is it?

Gina Cohen [00:18:56] Yeah.

Mindy Gledhill [00:18:56] I mean, I don't know. I don't know how that works, but I remember feeling very well taken care of.

Gina Cohen [00:19:02] Did the whole family go over or did you have brothers and sisters away?

Mindy Gledhill [00:19:04] No, most of my siblings were older and out of the home by then, and in college so just the three youngest girls.

Gina Cohen [00:19:11] That would have been interesting. Did you feel a deprivation from the other siblings, like not being in the same space, or was it kind of cool to have Mum and dad to yourself?

Mindy Gledhill [00:19:21] It was cool. I remember missing my siblings very much, but again, they were kind of already leaving home anyway, and so it was sort of getting down to just the youngest kids in the family anyway. But, yeah, I was a. It was a huge transition. I remember for the first month crying almost every day. Being there, you know, in a foreign country. And again, I wouldn't trade it for anything. But the initial move was hard. It was really hard.

Gina Cohen [00:19:47] They don't really prepare families for culture shock particularly well, do they?

Mindy Gledhill [00:19:51] No, there was. We had no preparation. My parents went to the mtc. I do remember that. Or had some kind of training, but we, as the kids, did not have any training. Yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:20:02] So suddenly you're uplifted, like, boom. You go into this culture and just sort of find your own feet. Yeah. And you're 13 and you've obviously got friends who you've left behind. That's a massive transition period, isn't it?

Mindy Gledhill [00:20:16] Yeah, it was a huge transition, but I think it made me really close to my sisters. That did we. All we had was each other for the first bit.

Gina Cohen [00:20:25] Right. And you went to an international school. So let's talk international schools, because they're pretty cool, international schools. Well, they can be pretty cool, yes.

Mindy Gledhill [00:20:34] Okay. The school was night and day, different from what I was used to in the States. And there's so many beautiful things about it, and I'm so, so glad for it. But again, a shock to me and really hard transitioning into it. The family that owned the school was from Iran, so there were a lot of Persian kids at the school. And then it was a. Was a British curriculum. So lots of British teachers from the uk, just Scottish, Irish, English, which I loved. And then, I mean, and then teachers from all over. You know, we had. I had French immersion from day one, so our French teachers were native, you know, to France and Spanish teachers as well. And most of the kids spoke Spanish outside of class. That was kind of, you know, because we're in Spain. The language that most kids tried to learn as a common language, aside from English.

Gina Cohen [00:21:30] But.

Mindy Gledhill [00:21:32] Yeah, but yeah, you'd walk down the halls and hear all kinds of different languages, you know, from around the world.

Gina Cohen [00:21:37] They're pretty amazing, aren't they, those international schools? And a lot of the population of those international schools are kids that move around internationally anyway, you know, with their Parents from place to place.

Mindy Gledhill [00:21:48] Yeah. Would say most kids spoke at least three languages. So I. I mean, by the time I left, I was bilingual for sure, and then spoke a good amount of French, but.

Gina Cohen [00:21:59] Yeah. And back at the mission home was busy with missionaries coming in and out and parents catering.

Mindy Gledhill [00:22:04] Yes, constantly. Constantly missionaries and them holding events in the home and dinners for the missionaries

Gina Cohen [00:22:10] and firesides and so you're really immersed in this, you know, in a rarefied environment, really, aren't you, as a young woman?

Gina Cohen [00:22:18] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:22:18] And you loved it all.

Mindy Gledhill [00:22:20] I wouldn't say I loved it all, but I didn't love that my parents were constantly busy. I feel like it was already hard to have their attention in a family of nine kids, but now they had 160 missionaries and the parents to these 160 that they were like parents to. Yeah, we actually had a live in nanny for most of the time that I was there. My parents traveled a lot together, going to zone conferences, and so I was lonely, very lonely for my parents.

Gina Cohen [00:22:53] It's interesting, isn't it? There is that sense of abandonment. I mean, you say 160, and I think the nature of the mission is that missionaries are required to just let go of all other attachments. And the first people that they attach to are the mission presidents and their wives. And that makes them, I suppose, emotionally. They need to be emotionally and spiritually available to these people all the time, these young people all the time.

Mindy Gledhill [00:23:17] Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Gina Cohen [00:23:19] And the people that fall through the cracks, often mission presidents, kids, Right?

Mindy Gledhill [00:23:24] At least. Yeah, that was sort of my experience. And I mean, my parents, I know they both tried their best. Those are roles that are very difficult to balance.

Gina Cohen [00:23:34] Of course.

Mindy Gledhill [00:23:35] Yeah. And there's a lot of, I know, pressure too, for them, for my dad, especially as the president, to be meeting goals and reporting numbers of baptisms and working hard on those things. And so, yeah, I'm sure that that was very difficult for both of them.

Gina Cohen [00:23:50] There is a lot of pressure on mission presidents from headquarters, isn't there?

Mindy Gledhill [00:23:54] Yeah, I think especially when they're new and they're expected to come in and fix any problems that were there previously.

Gina Cohen [00:24:01] So you're really going through some formative developmental years, ages 13 through to 16 in Madrid.

Mindy Gledhill [00:24:07] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:24:08] Tell us about that. Like, how does it, you know, flowering into adolescence in a place like that?

Mindy Gledhill [00:24:13] Well, I think I had a really different experience at that international school with that, because it's not. They don't have the same regulations that they have with schools here in the United States, with public schools. So I would say it was a lot more liberal. There's no. The. The drinking age In Spain is 16. There's no censoring on TV. So I think I was exposed to a lot of things that I maybe wouldn't have been at an early age at that time.

Gina Cohen [00:24:45] How was that? How was it, Mindy?

Mindy Gledhill [00:24:48] How was it? You know, I didn't know what to say. Some of those experiences were really hard, and. And I wasn't ready for some of them. Like, in school, I remember they showed rated R movies, and as a. As a kid, 13 and 14 years old, I wasn't ready to see some of the things that I saw in those movies.

Gina Cohen [00:25:10] I mean, there's a way in which your home culture is just not, you know, calibrated particularly well with the school culture, even in the wider culture.

Mindy Gledhill [00:25:18] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:25:18] And so the default often is, like, horror, like cotton wrap, these things.

Mindy Gledhill [00:25:23] But. Yeah, but also, I think when my parents started realizing that, you know, the rules at this school were not quite the same as back home, they. They would ask for me to be taken out of class. And so then I felt, you know, I was the marginalized kid

Gina Cohen [00:25:42] who had

Mindy Gledhill [00:25:42] to go sit in another room alone while everybody watched the movie in class, you know, and so that was not. That was not my favorite either. But after a while, I think, you know, kids started to be really, really sweet and supportive about it. And if there was a movie that was going to be shown in class that they knew I couldn't watch, they'd be like, mindy, can't watch this. But not in a way. Not in a way that they were mocking me, in a way that they were supporting me or, you know, being inclusive of your. Yeah, sometimes other kids would come in and sit with me, too, in the other room and not. And choose to leave the movie as well.

Gina Cohen [00:26:18] So did you develop lots of friendships while you were there at the International school?

Mindy Gledhill [00:26:21] I did. I'm still friends with so many of those people, and I was only there for three years. That was three years of young years of my life. But still really good friends with a lot of them.

Gina Cohen [00:26:31] But these kids are so kind of fluid. You know, they maintain relationships for short times just because they're moving a lot around international schools.

Mindy Gledhill [00:26:39] Yeah, that's true.

Gina Cohen [00:26:40] They're used to embracing somebody in a community and, you know, saying goodbye and.

Mindy Gledhill [00:26:45] Yeah, I think you're right.

Gina Cohen [00:26:46] Yeah. Okay. Did you have any boyfriends while you're there?

Mindy Gledhill [00:26:49] Yeah, my first boyfriend was half Spanish, half Filipino, and then I had another boyfriend who was Spanish. So I dated two.

Gina Cohen [00:27:01] Right, right. LDS boys.

Mindy Gledhill [00:27:03] No.

Gina Cohen [00:27:04] Right.

Mindy Gledhill [00:27:05] Raised in Catholic families. Yeah. They knew.

Gina Cohen [00:27:08] Okay. They were okay.

Mindy Gledhill [00:27:09] I don't know that they were okay. I. I wouldn't say that my parents and I ever talked much about these things.

Gina Cohen [00:27:17] Okay, tell me more.

Mindy Gledhill [00:27:21] You know, my parents were raised in, you know, the 50s would have been when they were sort of teens. And so I don't think they had that kind of an open relationship with their parents. So I don't know that they knew how to model that to me, but we didn't. So we didn't talk much about relationships, about things like that.

Gina Cohen [00:27:42] I'm thinking you're like, so your sixth, seventh child, aren't you?

Mindy Gledhill [00:27:46] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:27:46] Seventh of eight. Did they talk.

Mindy Gledhill [00:27:48] Eighth of nine.

Gina Cohen [00:27:49] Eighth of nine. So did they talk to your siblings about this stuff, or was it just like this big walk, wall of silence when it came to sex and sex.

Mindy Gledhill [00:27:59] You know, I think maybe they actually talked more about it to my older siblings, and I think it might even be. Not that they didn't want to talk about it with me, but I was one of the caboose kids, and so by that time, they may have been tired or just a bit.

Gina Cohen [00:28:15] Well, this is the sense that I'm getting. Yeah, she's got questions she can go ask.

Mindy Gledhill [00:28:22] Your big sister.

Gina Cohen [00:28:23] Yeah.

Mindy Gledhill [00:28:24] Which is what I did. Right.

Gina Cohen [00:28:26] And your big sister was helpful.

Mindy Gledhill [00:28:27] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:28:28] Right. So at age 16 now, another transition back to Utah, was it? Yeah.

Returning to Provo and Early Adulthood

Mindy Gledhill [00:28:35] So we moved to Provo when I was 16, after the whole Spain experience. And that was. I think that felt even more shocking than the move to Spain. From California to Spain, Spain. Of Provo felt more shocking. Yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:28:50] In what way?

Mindy Gledhill [00:28:52] I had never had the experience of being around all Mormon people. You know, I had always been the only Mormon kid in my communities, so. Or one of very few. And so that was a very strange experience. It's hard to describe it, but I. Yeah, I think I maybe felt less unique. I remember being really depressed the first. That first summer that we moved to Utah, and my mom even taking me to a doctor for it, you know, and, yeah, it was. It was a strange experience.

Gina Cohen [00:29:32] But it is a strange experience being around Mormons, isn't it? Being around a lot of Mormons? Because I think, you know, maybe there's this pressure, this sense of, hey, we are all homogenous, but the reality is we all are not homogenous. There are different kinds of Mormonisms, and there's tension in those spaces. There's kind of conflict and judgment in those spaces. So, you know, if it's not attended to properly. I just think kind of Mormons are group just tend to get a bit dysfunctional.

Mindy Gledhill [00:30:00] Yeah, I think anybody, probably. And that's one thing that I have learned from that experience, especially being in that international school, was that I think it gets a bit dangerous when you surround yourself with people who think just like you and are just like you and I. And I think it's healthier when we're around people who have different ideas and backgrounds and. Because then we all have something to offer and help each other. We help each other think about things from different angles.

Gina Cohen [00:30:30] Oh, absolutely, absolutely. So you, at age 16, you're going back to high school.

Mindy Gledhill [00:30:35] Yes.

Gina Cohen [00:30:36] So that is what you started as a sophomore.

Mindy Gledhill [00:30:39] A junior.

Gina Cohen [00:30:40] A junior. Okay. So that would have been difficult to find your feet.

Mindy Gledhill [00:30:44] Yeah, so I went to Provo High. And yeah, it was just a real transition. But like any transition, you start to get used to it, and there you start to thrive and find wonderful things about it as well. So I think one of the really wonderful things about moving here was there's a lot of. A lot of goodness here. And I think because kids are brought up without. Without very much experimentation with drugs or alcohol. I think a lot of the kids here are very focused. And on the weekends, we would go to a rest home with my friend group, a nursing home, and sing to the elderly people. Like, that was our fun and that was a really sweet experience and kind of really cool to me that teenage kids would want to do that for fun.

Gina Cohen [00:31:35] I know, right?

Mindy Gledhill [00:31:36] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:31:37] I was with Courtney at so Delicious the other night. I don't know where it is. But anyway, we were there and I looked around all these groups of young people, and they were so clean cut, it took my breath away. They look so innocent and full of the, you know, Viv and verve of life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go Provo.

Mindy Gledhill [00:31:57] Yes, Go Provo.

Getting Married at Nineteen

Gina Cohen [00:32:00] So at this point, did you go on a mission?

Mindy Gledhill [00:32:03] I did not, no.

Gina Cohen [00:32:04] Okay. Why didn't you go on a mission?

Mindy Gledhill [00:32:06] I got married when I was 19.

Gina Cohen [00:32:08] 19, okay. Tell us about why you got married so young.

Mindy Gledhill [00:32:14] Oh, it's so scandalous.

Gina Cohen [00:32:15] Yes. What a scandal. Fancy a Mormon woman getting married at 19. As someone who got married at 19.

Mindy Gledhill [00:32:21] Oh, you did? Swell. I did.

Gina Cohen [00:32:23] I happen not to be married to that same man now.

Mindy Gledhill [00:32:28] You know, I. Well, what's scandalous about it, Gina, is that when I moved to Provo, the bishop in my ward, he's now my father in law, so he was the father of my husband, and my husband Ryan was On a mission when I moved into this ward. So I didn't know him at first, but his dad wrote to him on his mission and said, there's this new girl in our ward that I think you'd be really great with. And he didn't know how young I was. He thought I was older than 16. So after he found out my age, he stopped writing to Ryan about me. But when Ryan got home from a mission, I think I was 17. The ripe old age of 17 by then. And his dad called Ryan to be my Sunday school teacher.

Gina Cohen [00:33:15] What? So, like, you had a 21 year old teaching a bunch of this 16, 17 year old class? Wow.

Mindy Gledhill [00:33:24] Yeah, I remember, too, the first time I saw Ryan was in state conference. They invite all the returned missionaries to stand up and they welcome them home. And I was sitting up in the choir of the Provo Tabernacle, and when they called them to stand up, I saw Ryan stand up on the second row. And as soon as I saw him, I was like, perhaps he will be mine.

Gina Cohen [00:33:45] Really? Did you have that moment?

Mindy Gledhill [00:33:47] I did have that moment, yeah. And I remember calling my best friend and telling her, mark my words, I am gonna marry Ryan Gledhill.

Gina Cohen [00:33:54] Wow. What was it? I mean, like, was he hot then?

Mindy Gledhill [00:33:57] He was super hot, yeah. Yeah. Well, there's something about him too, though. But. So, yeah, then he gets called to be my Sunday school teacher, so. Great. I've already got a crush on him.

Gina Cohen [00:34:09] Right, so you're, like, drooling through the scriptures. Yeah, yeah.

Mindy Gledhill [00:34:14] And he. My senior year of high school, I guess he had the nerve to ask me on a date. So I was. I was still in high school. We went on it. We went on one date, I think, when I was in high school.

Gina Cohen [00:34:25] So you were like 18 at that time?

Mindy Gledhill [00:34:26] I was 18, yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:34:27] And he was 22.

Mindy Gledhill [00:34:28] Yeah. And I think he kind of felt the same about me. On our first date together, I had a ring on my middle finger, and I remember him taking it off and putting it on my wedding finger. And he said, get used to that feeling.

Gina Cohen [00:34:45] Wow.

Gina Cohen [00:34:46] That was assertive.

Mindy Gledhill [00:34:47] Super assertive. Which was. Yeah, but he was a super shy person, so that was kind of. It was kind of hot.

Gina Cohen [00:34:55] Very hot.

Gina Cohen [00:34:56] Wow.

Gina Cohen [00:34:57] I'm fanning myself.

Mindy Gledhill [00:34:58] You're fanning yourself?

Gina Cohen [00:34:59] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:34:59] Yeah.

Mindy Gledhill [00:35:01] So, yeah, I was. I was in love with Ryan Gledhill. And after I graduated, though, from high school, I really. I knew I was young and I wanted to date different people. So for a year, I dated other people and dated him on and off, and we Were kind of. We were off, and I. I didn't really have any plans of getting back together with him or dating him again. But he came over one day to tell me, you know, I don't want. I can't see you anymore. It's too hard. You know, Good. Goodbye. Like, it's too hard to even really be friends, you know? But he ended up saying, so, what are you doing this summer? And I gave some sort of generic answer, like, I don't know. And I asked him, what are you doing? And he said, well, I'm gonna marry you this summer. And he didn't even plan on it. It was just. It came out of his mouth.

Gina Cohen [00:35:55] So he came by to say, we're ending it. And he ended up basically announcing that you guys are gonna get married.

Gina Cohen [00:36:00] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:36:01] Wow. Is that inspiration?

Mindy Gledhill [00:36:03] It was. Well, it was like, whole month. Well, it was a definite attention grabber because I wasn't even really in that space, but. And he was a really shy, kind of passive person, so anytime he got assertive like that, it was all of a sudden so very attractive. And I. I was minutes away from going on a date with someone. In fact, after. Like, a few minutes after he said, I'm gonna marry you this summer, my date knocked on the door and I said, get out of. Like, go hide down the hall. I'm going on a date right now.

Gina Cohen [00:36:37] Was he jealous?

Mindy Gledhill [00:36:38] I don't know. I didn't have time to even ask him, or I was leaving, so I left with my date. And we got a few blocks down the road, and I. I just felt I was going with my date to meet his family because we'd been dating for a little while, and this was kind of the meet the family moment. I just had this sick feeling in my stomach, like, don't. Don't go meet his family. And so I asked him to stop the car, and I just said, I can't meet your family. I need to go home. He cried.

Gina Cohen [00:37:09] Oh, wow.

Mindy Gledhill [00:37:11] I don't know, but it was that kind of. It was that strong of a feeling that I should go back and talk to Ryan. And so he let me out of the car and I walked slowly home. And Ryan was actually still there waiting for you? Yeah, he was waiting.

Gina Cohen [00:37:27] Was he gonna wait all night?

Mindy Gledhill [00:37:29] I had no idea, but he was still there. So. Yeah. So over the next few weeks, we just. We talked about this and started to see each other again. And it just. It just felt right. And so, yeah, that was. Sorry, that was a long kind of story.

Gina Cohen [00:37:43] No, that was A great story. It was a great story. And I'm still feeling in my heart very sorry for the young man that you asked to turn around.

Mindy Gledhill [00:37:50] He was a good man. But. So anyway, you, your original question, though is to. Well, you wanted me to tell you about getting married at 19, so. Yeah, I was, I was barely 19 when we, when we got married. Just, I had been 19 for three months. And I think we as humans tend to recreate the familiar. And my mother had gotten married when she was 19 and her mother got married, I think it's 17. My dad's mother got married, I think around the same time. 18. 17 or 18. And so I think for me it didn't feel all that out of the ordinary. Looking back and seeing 19 year old girls now I'm like, are you kidding me? I got married that young. Yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:38:36] When is your birthday?

Mindy Gledhill [00:38:37] It's March 7th.

Gina Cohen [00:38:38] Okay. And when's Ryan's?

Mindy Gledhill [00:38:41] December 19th.

Gina Cohen [00:38:42] Okay, well, that's interesting. Right? Okay, so you had a summer wedding. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mindy Gledhill [00:38:53] And I had, we had our first son not much more than a year later.

Gina Cohen [00:38:57] Okay. I'm just calculating. Yeah. Okay, that's good. You have a number of sons, though, don't you?

Mindy Gledhill [00:39:05] I have three sons.

Gina Cohen [00:39:05] Yeah, three sons.

Mindy Gledhill [00:39:06] All my kids are boys.

Gina Cohen [00:39:07] Right, okay. And I'm just gonna ask this kind of, this, you know, a segue question. How many, how many Winkle grandchildren are there now?

Mindy Gledhill [00:39:19] I believe there are 23.

Gina Cohen [00:39:21] Okay. That's not a lot on, you know, for that many children.

Mindy Gledhill [00:39:26] Yeah, I think the most kids that any of my sibling has is four.

Gina Cohen [00:39:32] Right, okay.

Mindy Gledhill [00:39:33] None of us went on to have nine.

Gina Cohen [00:39:36] And that might have been like a reaction to the whole large family thing.

Mindy Gledhill [00:39:39] Maybe, maybe just a change in cultures with, with the generational change. I don't know.

Gina Cohen [00:39:44] Right.

Mindy Gledhill [00:39:45] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:39:45] Okay, so you've married very, very young. Like, we settled in the marriage. Like after you got married, were you kind of happy assuming the role of a woman in a Mormon marriage?

Mindy Gledhill [00:39:58] No, the first year was really hard. After, I remember, after two months into the marriage, I think I wanted to go and study abroad. And I. Of course you did. I said, hey, Ryan, how would you feel if I went to France for study abroad for just two months? And he was. No, you know, that was hurtful to him. It's like we just got married. What, you want to leave for two months? You know, understandably, but I, Yeah, I think developmentally I was, you know, I was 19 and like, I want to go see the world and do some things and.

Gina Cohen [00:40:38] Yeah, I mean, you don't think about it, you know, you don't really anticipate that. You think, okay, well, the end is marriage. But actually I'm just a kid and I. I just really want to do what girls do. So you didn't go?

Mindy Gledhill [00:40:50] I didn't go, no.

Gina Cohen [00:40:51] Right. Were you resentful about that?

Mindy Gledhill [00:40:52] I think I was for a bit. But later I made the decision that being married and having children young was not going to stop me from doing those things. So now I've toured the world.

Gina Cohen [00:41:06] Exactly. And this is where this sort of resistance seems to be coming in a little bit, you know, shortly after marriage, I'm just going to do things differently.

Mindy Gledhill [00:41:14] Okay.

Gina Cohen [00:41:15] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So where was that coming from? Were you noticing? Were you resisting the church? Were you resisting patriarchy? Or did you just fiercely independent, just wanted to do what you wanted to do?

Mindy Gledhill [00:41:26] I was fiercely independent, I think, and just, you know, I've always wondered, where does my driven nature come from? It might come from again, being one of nine kids and just always trying to survive and survival of the fittest and working hard to get validation and attention. So I don't know if it comes from that. It may come from that experience of living in Spain and having a taste of how wonderful diversity is and seeing the world. My dad always really made sure that I had travel opportunities, even while living in Spain. He sent me to Russia for a few weeks to go on a trip, an educational trip there. And he took us around Europe after we were done with our mission there. We travel in a van for several weeks to different countries. And that was something he always provided for me. So, yeah, it was just a hunger for.

Gina Cohen [00:42:25] But also, there's a way in which that kind of exposure, exposure to cultural diversity makes it very difficult to make carte blanche comments or judgments about a certain formula as the formula that works in life. And in a place like, you know, like in Mormon communities, there, there seems to be one dominant formula, but you're exposed to a number of cultural formulas that just seem to work.

Mindy Gledhill [00:42:52] Yeah. And the irony is that Mormonism provided that experience to me of going to Spain and being, Being with. Immersed into the Catholic culture. And I think that was the first time that, that, that realization ever hit me was all of these kids, so many of these kids in Spain are raised in Catholic families, and this is their worldview and their paradigm and their truth. So that was the first time I ever looked at myself through that. That lens. It was almost like looking into a

Gina Cohen [00:43:22] mirror

Mindy Gledhill [00:43:25] and I was like, that's Mormonism.

Gina Cohen [00:43:26] For me, that's a really complex thought to have at that age. This notion that maybe the world that I inhabit is just a system that works for me and other people have different systems. But there's a way in which international schools foster that kind of cultural inclusivity and that diversity as well, if they're doing their job.

Mindy Gledhill [00:43:50] Yeah, I think so.

Gina Cohen [00:43:52] So really that kind of rewired you, do you think?

Mindy Gledhill [00:43:54] I think it. Yeah, I think it did.

Gina Cohen [00:43:58] So you seemed. And in the interview with John, one thing that was popping out to me was this determination to do things you want, the way you wanted to. So when was it you decided that you wanted to pursue music as a career?

Discovering a Passion for Songwriting and Music

Mindy Gledhill [00:44:11] You know, I actually distinctly remember even the age I was 13 when I started to write songs and I would record them into my little walk band cassette tape recorder. And. And this was when we had just moved to Spain. And I was probably also very influenced by the fact that my. My dad wanted us and asked us to always sing at members homes or, you know, for investigators or at firesides or zone conferences. So we were constantly singing for people. But I think it really, yeah. Sparked an interest in me in writing music. So I started to write then and I loved. I loved it. I loved singing and sharing a powerful message to people that I felt like, you know, they were moved by. I liked that feeling a lot.

Gina Cohen [00:45:01] You're writing your own lyrics, right? Yeah. And that's, you know, that's a form of poetry really, isn't it?

Mindy Gledhill [00:45:06] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:45:07] So what's the process for you when you write a song?

Mindy Gledhill [00:45:11] You know, it can happen different ways for me. Sometimes I'll have a idea with chords on the piano. So I'll mostly compose with piano. I don't play really any other instrument. Little bit of guitar, but anyway, so yeah, I'll sit down at the piano. And a lot of most of it begins with it's. It's some sort of therapy that I need. I'm usually dealing with some sort of emotion I need to sort out. And that's usually where my songs come from. So I'll sit down at the piano and feel it out.

Gina Cohen [00:45:39] Or you'll feel the music out, or you would have come with lyrics to that music.

Mindy Gledhill [00:45:43] And that's the other way that it happens sometimes. If a lot of it's when I'm doing some sort of stream of consciousness activities that we call it, like running or driving long distances or whatever, where my brain sort of zones out. I'll have a lot of lyrical ideas come to me in Those moments. And I'll record it into my phone or whatever and then take it to the piano later.

Gina Cohen [00:46:04] Right, right. And so when you discovered that you really wanted to be a singer songwriter, that was in your later teens?

Mindy Gledhill [00:46:16] No, still early. Like 13, 14. I just remember. Yeah. Sitting down the piano and writing things. And I. At school, we did a play on the Life of Galileo, and it needed music to go with the play. And the music teacher allowed me to compose the music on piano for that play. So that was kind of a formative experience, too, that I remember and really remember loving stepping into that role of composer.

Gina Cohen [00:46:43] You were pretty driven, though, weren't you, because you actually earned the money to pay for your own music lessons.

Mindy Gledhill [00:46:49] Yeah. So when we moved back to the States, I was really loving music. I didn't have any very much training in it, though. So as a kid, I had some piano lessons through elementary school, but then in Spain, I didn't really take any music lessons. And so we moved to Provo, and I tried out for the chamber choir at Provo High, and I didn't make it. And I also tried out for the school musical and didn't make it. And music. The music, or what's it called? The dance company, and didn't make it. And so, I mean, I just thought, well, what can I do to get better? And so I got a job making smoothies to pay for voice lessons.

Gina Cohen [00:47:29] That's really resilient, isn't it? Sort of like a real good sense of confidence. Just be really dogged.

Mindy Gledhill [00:47:38] I just wanted it so badly, and I found so much joy in doing it when we were living in Spain that I just. I decided I could either make it mean that I wasn't good enough or make it mean that I needed to get better and, you know, and realize that there was room for improvement. And so, yeah, I realized there was room for improvement. And I didn't read much music either. So that.

Gina Cohen [00:48:03] Yeah, you weren't theoretically very sound at those times, were you?

Mindy Gledhill [00:48:07] I wasn't.

Gina Cohen [00:48:07] And at those. At that, you know, that age, you know, you're dealing with young musicians who've had, like, piano lessons since they were six years old. They know all the theory and they kind of know that, the whole thing, but you've had all these disruptions in that. So if you put you beside the concert pianist or, you know, someone who can rock up and.

Mindy Gledhill [00:48:25] Yeah, yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:48:27] Have voice lessons.

Mindy Gledhill [00:48:28] Yeah, I couldn't hold a candle to those people.

Gina Cohen [00:48:32] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:48:33] But it does show, though, doesn't it? It shows the power of that kind of resilience and that, you know, and I think, you know, we're talking about music. I think some young people don't have access to the kind of resources to, you know, maybe their parents can't afford a piano or a lesson or whatever it is. And, you know, they get through their teens and that desire to do music still lives, but they're eclipsed by everybody else who had lots and lots of parental input. And your story is like, well, just keep up with it. If there's something that you want to do. It's never too late.

Mindy Gledhill [00:49:06] Yeah, I think I really started to learn that we put. Humans put so many limitations upon themselves and we. We make up these stories as to why we can't do something or be something because it keeps us safe when we do that. I don't know. Somehow I realized that at a younger age and I. I realized I could. I could write my own story.

Gina Cohen [00:49:32] And also, you don't appear to be particularly risk averse.

Mindy Gledhill [00:49:36] Yeah, I guess not. I think trying out for things all those years and being rejected sort of made me numb to rejection. I just want to giggle.

Gina Cohen [00:49:46] I kind of imagine this Mehlman de Gledhill, you know, this kind of optimistic 16 year old fronting up like, no, sorry. Okay, I'll try again.

Gina Cohen [00:49:56] This desk inside it makes me lose my mind which wanders endlessly where all the birds fly freely with their silhouettes in perfect symmetry. I've got a packet full of poetry. I've got a head full of songs, a heart with wings. You couldn't tie me down to anything and that's enough for me. I draw doodles of eccentric faces in margin spaces of important papers and I hand them in with a comedic grin. You ask if I need help or where do I begin? I'll get a packet full of poetry. I've got a head full of songs I hide with wings. You couldn't tie me down to anything that's enough for me. People are good lovingly they tell me do as you should, all will do well. They say life is a test. Please give the best answer A or B or C. Pick one instantly. What if there's so much more to me? I've got a piece of pocket full of poetry. I've got a head full of songs, a heart with wings. You couldn't tie me down to anything that's enough for me. I've got a pocket full of poetry. I've got a head full of songs, a heart with wings. You couldn't tie me down to anything. And that's enough for me. I've got a pocke poetry. I've got a head full of songs, A heart with wings. You couldn't tie me down to anything. And that's enough for me.

Gina Cohen [00:52:06] Hey, so where was your music career when you were with Ryan? Where was that up to when you got married?

Mindy Gledhill [00:52:12] When I got married, it didn't exist yet. And so I. In high school, I did all those. I tried out for all those things, and I just sort of took what I could. And I was in the. The chorale in high school. So that's the choir anyone can be in. But then I got an internship in high school at a recording studio, and that sort of sparked my love of the recording process. And after high school, again, I dated Ryan for a year, and we got married when I was 19. And I think it was shortly after we got married that I got into the music school at byu. But that also came with the same process. You know, I didn't get into the women's course at byu. I didn't get into the music dance theater major I tried out for. I didn't get into Young Ambassadors. I didn't even make this fireside group called Latter Day Sounds. Let's all be grateful for that. But. So it was the same process, getting into the music school. I tried out for so many things and never got in. But I remember that sort of built this muscle for me, a muscle of networking and not being afraid to reach out to people and network and get to know, you know, I asked myself, who do I need to know? Like, that would help me get into the school of music, and who do I need to know that would teach me and what other students here are doing what I want to do? And so. So yeah, and then there's the exam. To get into the music school, you have to take that three times, or. No, you don't have to, but it took me three times. They give you three times, max. I failed it the first two times, and the last time, I passed it by one point. So after I got through that, then were the auditions to get into the school of music.

Gina Cohen [00:53:56] So you do theory exams and then practicals.

Mindy Gledhill [00:53:58] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:53:59] Right.

Mindy Gledhill [00:54:00] So. So I really don't know how. Like, my resume really didn't have much on it other than staying in a band in high school, which I started, and then my internship at a recording studio. But that was the first audition I ever got through, was the one into the. The music school. And so then, yeah, I launched into theory, and Ryan helped me get through A lot of that theory because he took trumpet lessons growing up, so I couldn't really read music, but he helped me get through it.

Gina Cohen [00:54:28] Of course, the Glade Hills are a musical family as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was good. So he was happy with you carrying on like, you know, outside of the narrative?

Mindy Gledhill [00:54:38] I don't think he realized. And I. I don't know if I even realized at the time that it would go very far beyond that. You know, I. I really don't. I didn't. I didn't know I would get a record deal that year. I didn't. Yeah. And I had, by the time I got my record deal, I had my first son. And. Yeah, I don't think he was planning on that.

Gina Cohen [00:55:04] Right.

Mindy Gledhill [00:55:05] It sort of disrupted his narrative.

Gina Cohen [00:55:06] I bet. I bet. Because, you know, suddenly he's got a wife, She's a young wife. You know, you're in Provo, it's like, well, you married, you're pregnant, and like, well, you know, have a baby and, you know, put on your best dress and serve me.

Mindy Gledhill [00:55:20] I wouldn't put it that way.

Gina Cohen [00:55:22] At its worse, you know, come on.

Mindy Gledhill [00:55:24] At its worst.

Gina Cohen [00:55:25] Okay.

Gina Cohen [00:55:25] I don't think he would have minded though. He would have said, no, Mindy, please don't serve me. Please go to school, have a baby and get a record deal. But you combined it all those things at once. That's extraordinary.

Mindy Gledhill [00:55:40] Yeah, yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:55:41] It's a matter of saying and. And. And though, isn't it?

Mindy Gledhill [00:55:44] Yeah. I think I was really unhappy with the idea that I felt that I had a gift to share and that I wanted to develop. And I felt that drive and the thought of not doing anything with that and staying home made me really depressed and sad. And that is not in any way to put down anyone who chooses to stay home and raise kids. Because that to me, in my mind, that is the harder job than what I chose for some people. Not it might be easier or more preferred. But anyway, it wasn't working for me.

Record Deal, Music Career, and Motherhood

Gina Cohen [00:56:23] So tell me, you have a baby, you're at byu, at the music school, and now you have a record contract. How did the record contract come about?

Mindy Gledhill [00:56:32] I went to a workshop and I showcased a song that I had written actually with my brother in law, Dustin. And the song was critiqued by a panel of judges and got torn apart, really. But at the end of the workshop, the president of Excel Entertainment, his name is Jeff Simpson, and also Kenneth Cope, approached me and they said we really loved that. We were really impressed. We'd like to meet with you so that meeting led to further meetings, and it led to really a year, over a year of being mentored by Kenneth and producing my first album, which was called the Sum of All Grace, and signing a record deal with that company.

Gina Cohen [00:57:12] So Excel used to be. Lex Desavedo started up one of those labels, didn't he? That led to Excel.

Mindy Gledhill [00:57:19] Yeah, it used to be embryo music.

Gina Cohen [00:57:21] That's right. That's right. And Excel's associated with Deseret.

Mindy Gledhill [00:57:25] So then Excel Music merged with Deseret Book and basically took over their music. And so, yeah, it sort of dissolved the name of Excel and Excel became Shadow Mountain.

Gina Cohen [00:57:38] Right. What were the changes in the industry like? I mean, Mormon music industry is a really interesting genre in itself, isn't it? And you're kind of like rubbing your hand across your forehead. Do tell, Mindy.

Mindy Gledhill [00:57:56] Oh, I don't know. I try to understand it myself, but it doesn't seem like a genre of music that has really changed much since the 80s and 90s to me, and I don't completely know why, but it's a unique little genre of music, and it was one that eventually proved to be unfulfilling for me, and I wanted out.

Gina Cohen [00:58:17] It's interesting. I had a similar conversation with Julie de Azevedo about Mormon inspirational music, and I think you're quite right. You know, she was at the crest of that, the 1980s and 90s. But it just hasn't moved on. Like, our hymn books haven't moved on. Music traditions and other. Other faith traditions haven't really been. You know, we haven't paid attention to what's happening in terms of worship and music at all, which has been really generative. It's just spawned all kinds of different religious genres. But, you know, Mormonism is like, let's just hold this thing down.

Mindy Gledhill [00:58:55] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:58:55] Yeah.

Mindy Gledhill [00:58:56] I don't. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I really have a hard time understanding it myself, but. And because it was not a genre that. That felt like it was going anywhere or that even the consumers weren't really seeming to want it to or let it. For me, eventually I just kept feeling like I'm not. I'm not really satisfied with making this style of music, and it doesn't seem like it's progressing or staying up with. With the times of music, so.

Gina Cohen [00:59:25] So you got yourself out of the record deal, right?

Mindy Gledhill [00:59:27] I did, yeah.

Gina Cohen [00:59:29] That's pretty gutsy.

Mindy Gledhill [00:59:31] Yeah, it was. It was. It was a sad time because I think I developed some really strong relationships with people there, and I learned so much from that. Experience about how to make a record and how to market it and sell it. And it was really just that same time that the Internet was coming to a place that allowed independent musicians to have careers. So you had MySpace and YouTube and all these things that didn't exist before. And so it was really actually kind of the perfect timing for me to step into an independent place with music and take. Take charge of it on my own.

Gina Cohen [01:00:08] When did you find your particular voice? Because you got this.

Mindy Gledhill [01:00:12] Yeah, that's a great question. I was. It did take me a while to find my voice. I remember at Deseret Book, I did a few different projects. Like, I did one with a band called the Nashville Tribute Band. So it's kind of was more country, Mormon music. And. Yeah, I just remember, well, maybe I could do. Maybe I could try country. And then I really wasn't happy in that genre. I had a few opportunities to maybe take my music and. And I did go to Nashville, actually, and had a producer there by the name of Jason Deer. He took me, you know, to meet with a couple of major label people, and he produced some of my. My songs in a country style and was very generous with me that way. But I remember the minute I started singing in the studio and trying to be this country artist, I was like, this is not who I am.

Gina Cohen [01:01:03] Right. Yeah.

Mindy Gledhill [01:01:05] Yeah. And so, yeah, so I tried out country for a little bit, and I, you know, had started out in church music and searched for my voice for a little while. I think I really came into my voice, though, after my first independent release. The first release was called Feather in the Wind. That was a really great learning experience, and kind of I felt like it came a step closer to finding my voice. But then my anchor album for me really felt like where I came into my own and understood what my voice was and what made me feel joy when I sang.

Gina Cohen [01:01:39] And I think the feather in the wind really seems to be an exploration of a particular style.

Mindy Gledhill [01:01:43] It is, yeah.

Gina Cohen [01:01:44] And then the anchor is like, stepping into some kind of maturity, like, kind of owning that. So all of this while you're producing more children?

Mindy Gledhill [01:01:57] Yeah. I had my second son by the time I was 22, almost 23. And that was right at the, like, months. He was, I think, two months old at my album release concert for some of all Grace. So I had these two little boys, and by the time I got to recording my. My anchor album, my youngest son would have been six years old. So there's. There's a big gap between my second and third sons.

Gina Cohen [01:02:25] Right, right. And so you're bringing them along with you?

Mindy Gledhill [01:02:28] Yeah, I would, I would just anytime that I could, I would bring them along. I. A lot of family helped me out with them.

Gina Cohen [01:02:34] Right.

Mindy Gledhill [01:02:35] I know we had, you know, we've had some, some nannies over the years that have helped. We have one now, so. Different things at different times.

Gina Cohen [01:02:44] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [01:02:44] And Ryan's also taking off in his work as well.

Mindy Gledhill [01:02:48] Yes, Ryan has been. Yeah, his work was really taking off and Ryan was really, you know, he helped so much. When I would need to go out of town and sing and tour my sisters as well, I mentioned I had family help, but we, I mean, I had. My babies were nursing, so we would wet nurse each other's babies when we each needed.

Gina Cohen [01:03:11] That is so cool.

Mindy Gledhill [01:03:12] When we needed to go to school or work or whatever, my sisters helped me with that too.

Gina Cohen [01:03:17] That is very cool.

Mindy Gledhill [01:03:18] Very cool. Now that our boys are older, they're all like, ew, aunt so. And so nurse me.

Gina Cohen [01:03:26] That's a benefit of having sisters who will breastfeed.

Mindy Gledhill [01:03:28] Yeah, yeah. Well, that's.

Gina Cohen [01:03:30] I mean, that's the thing too. I mean, I've noticed in the States it's a real. It's a real kind of issue with breastfeeding. Like, it. I don't know, maybe the crowds that you walk in are different from mine, but I see a lot of bottle feeding here.

Mindy Gledhill [01:03:43] Oh, yeah. I would say there's probably been a movement towards encouraging women to breastfeed a lot more over the last, I don't know, five years, maybe more. But yeah, my mom bottle fed most of us and she told us that in the hospitals the doctors would tell her that it was healthier to bottle feed than to breastfeed. So I think that, you know, I think some, some corporations probably got in there and tried to encourage. Yeah. Just do this for their own sales. But yeah, I'm sure all over the world.

Gina Cohen [01:04:17] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm sort of sensing in your narrative that there's just sort of like, kind of shifting away. Like you've shifted away from the traditional Mormon woman narrative. You're shifting away from the church in terms of what, you know, in terms of your recording work. Were there other questions arising for you as you're making a sort of movements away.

Mindy Gledhill [01:04:47] Yeah, for sure. I definitely feel like I started to see more just the patriarchal influence in my life.

Gina Cohen [01:04:55] About what age?

Mindy Gledhill [01:05:00] Well, I think I definitely felt it really strongly when I went through the temple for the first time that, you know, gave me all kinds of questions, but I think I grew up with some sort of narrative of like, oh, if you have tough questions, you just set those aside. You know, you just put them on the shelf. We hear the word shelf a lot.

Temple Experience and Patriarchal Dynamics

Gina Cohen [01:05:23] Tell me about going through the temple as a 19 year old. Did you have good preparation for that?

Mindy Gledhill [01:05:28] I did take a temple prep class, but it didn't. I would say it did not prepare me at all for the experience. Experience of going through the temple. There were some things that surprised me in the temple that I, you know, in a good way that I wasn't prepared for, I didn't know anything about. And that was like the. The roles of women and using different, you know, titles and, you know, priestesses and all these words I hadn't really heard before. And regarding women. And I wondered why we. We hadn't used those more before my experience in the temple.

Gina Cohen [01:06:04] So that actually perked your ears up to hear.

Mindy Gledhill [01:06:06] Yeah. I was like, really? Wow. But then there were other things that were very difficult for me. Yeah. And I wrote. I still have journal entries from those. Those first few times of going through the temple that are like, what just happened? Right. Did you.

Gina Cohen [01:06:25] Did you share that with Ryan? Did you come out of the temple and go, what the heck was that?

Mindy Gledhill [01:06:30] Yeah, I think I did. But again, I don't think I pressed it too hard or I did. I just decided, I'm not gonna worry too much about this. I'm gonna put on my shelf.

Gina Cohen [01:06:39] But, you know, there's a way. I bet, you know, you had lots of Gledhill and winkles there, all, you know, receiving you in the celestial kingdom. And everyone's like, smiling. You're going, what's wrong with me?

Mindy Gledhill [01:06:50] I actually think the experience of having all those family members there, for me felt. That felt like a beautiful thing, a beautiful. A feeling of support and just a strong kind of family bond.

Gina Cohen [01:07:03] But I've noticed that. Have you noticed that in the celestial kingdom. Celestial kingdom. In the celestial room, like, people come through and, you know, it's their first time because I got these little pink tags on and you see the bewilderment and they come through. And then in the celestial room, there's all this family, and everybody's smiling like, you know, hey, this. We do this every day, right?

Mindy Gledhill [01:07:22] Yeah. Sort of a welcome to the secret club now.

Gina Cohen [01:07:25] That's right. And still the look remains, like, what happened? And I said that somebody who quite likes the temple, but. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, it is a big cultural shift. It's like a whole different experience. Like, nobody can prepare you for it?

Mindy Gledhill [01:07:40] Yeah, I think for me, the language was like, this is the same church I was raised in.

Gina Cohen [01:07:49] Were you sealed the same day as you went through the temple?

Mindy Gledhill [01:07:52] No, I think I went through a few days before the ceiling.

Gina Cohen [01:07:55] Right, right. Yeah. Okay. So that's sort of starting. You're starting to ask questions.

Mindy Gledhill [01:08:00] Mm.

Gina Cohen [01:08:01] Right.

Mindy Gledhill [01:08:01] Mm.

Gina Cohen [01:08:02] Okay. You're putting stuff on the shelf. What are you putting on the shelf?

Mindy Gledhill [01:08:06] I'm putting on the shelf my role as a woman. And. And I'd never heard. I mean, again, the patriarchy for me was sort of in the water I drank growing up. So walking into a church and seeing all men sitting on the street stand and having the bishop, you know, be the leader of the congregation and having him be the one that everyone answers to, and, you know, the deacons pass the sacrament and just men doing all of these things, it just. I didn't look at it from a different context than other. I mean, I don't. I'm not explaining this very well, but I just didn't think about it. What was it?

Gina Cohen [01:08:51] You didn't think about it, but you were noticing it Just what?

Mindy Gledhill [01:08:54] I. No, I don't think I was noticing it as out of the ordinary or as. I mean, it's just what?

Gina Cohen [01:09:00] Well, it is ordinary. It is ordinary, though, isn't it? But there's a way in which the ordinary, you know, one day you wake up, you go, no, that's not ordinary.

Mindy Gledhill [01:09:09] That's just oppressive. Yeah.

Gina Cohen [01:09:14] What flipped your switch?

Mindy Gledhill [01:09:16] What flipped my switch? Yeah. The language in the temple of having to obey my husband and bow my head and say yes and, like, things. I felt like I didn't have choices in the temple, and things were especially going through the first time. I just wasn't prepared for, you know, even the very beginning, you're given an option to leave if you don't want to go through, but what are you supposed to do? You've been preparing your whole life for this, and you don't know what you're about to see or covenant to. And as a faithful, you know, young. Young woman, I wanted to. That was all I wanted to do was. Was just do what was right. And so I remember that feeling. Weird to me, when at the beginning, you're given the opportunity to leave, but then it's like, but I don't want to get up in front of all these people. And also, I don't know what's about to happen.

Gina Cohen [01:10:15] It seems like a bizarre question. I mean, I've never seen anybody leave.

Mindy Gledhill [01:10:18] Well, I feel it to Me, it feels manipulative.

Gina Cohen [01:10:20] Right.

Mindy Gledhill [01:10:21] If I'm being honest. So. So, yeah, that was difficult for me, just from the beginning of that.

Gina Cohen [01:10:27] And then.

Mindy Gledhill [01:10:28] Yeah, then there are moments in it that continued to feel like coercion a bit to me. Like there's no. I don't know. And again, it was mixed with. With beautiful things. And so I think I left feeling confused because it was like, this is beautiful, but this felt really weird. I don't even know what to do. Everyone's always said, the temple feels weird, so I just need to wait it out and keep going.

Gina Cohen [01:10:53] Right.

Mindy Gledhill [01:10:53] Did you keep going? Yeah.

Gina Cohen [01:10:54] And did it change for you?

Mindy Gledhill [01:10:57] I think I probably got more used to things, but I never had the. An experience, you know. Experiences? Well, no, I shouldn't say that. I've had spiritual experiences in the temple, and I. But I mostly left feeling really unsettled most of the time that I would go. And that really was hard for me because everybody would always say, I love the temple. The temple is, you know, and it's really the pinnacle. It's the apex of our worship and what we're taught to get to the temple our whole lives. And so for me, leaving and feeling so unsettled was like, what's wrong with me?

Gina Cohen [01:11:39] Yes. Yes.

Mindy Gledhill [01:11:40] What is wrong with me?

Gina Cohen [01:11:42] Was there a point that you realized that there was nothing wrong with you, that there actually were unresolved questions in the temple?

Mindy Gledhill [01:11:48] Yeah. Yeah. I went to. I actually went to my bishop about it, and he's someone who I still to this day admire very much. He's a really good. He's a really good person. But I said, I have these questions about the temple. Everybody loves the temple. The temple makes me feel like crap. Why? What's wrong with me? Like, what. You know, what's going on? And we talked about the reasons why it bothered me, and I felt like he didn't really have any clear answers for me. And in the end, he just said, I don't think you have to go to the temple all the time. If it's bothering you, just don't worry about it. And that kind of bothered me, too.

Gina Cohen [01:12:30] Seems like an unsatisfactory. Just don't go.

Mindy Gledhill [01:12:34] I've been singing about going to the temple since I was in primary, so just don't go. And that's okay. So I really struggled with that. And he also. One thing, though, this was a game changer for me. He said to me, I don't think you should talk about this to anybody. Interesting. Yeah. And he said, because you could Become a stumbling block for other people. That almost to me was. That flipped a switch, and that was almost an invitation to me. I followed his advice for a few years, and I didn't talk about it to anybody. And I carried those burdens quietly with me. And I've been. I became very isolated, and it wasn't a healthy thing for me to do.

Gina Cohen [01:13:22] Tell me about that moment when he said, don't talk to you. How are you feeling that in your body?

Mindy Gledhill [01:13:29] I think I felt almost like a bit of. Bit of a fire, a bit of a rage or an anger. Yeah. It just didn't. It didn't feel good, and it didn't feel right to me. But even more than that, when he said you could become a stumbling block for other people, that for me was very difficult because then it meant I'm responsible for other people's, you know, decisions and other people's opinions and. And I'm not.

Gina Cohen [01:14:00] No, you're not. And I think it's a no win situation, really, isn't it? I mean, bishops, and I feel sorry for bishops particularly, you know, since the policy change, having to head with their congregations. Some things that they've got no resources to deal with.

Mindy Gledhill [01:14:14] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [01:14:15] You know, that bishop, all he's doing is, like, he's probably inside. He's panicking, like, just don't go to the temple and don't talk about this.

Mindy Gledhill [01:14:23] Yeah. And I have. I can definitely feel a lot of empathy and compassion towards that position. That would be such a difficult position, especially when you're not trained to be a mental health care professional and really know how to deal with people's problems in a professional way. Sometimes you might steer them wrong, but

Gina Cohen [01:14:40] they're not theologians either, so they don't really have a great repertoire to draw from. It's like, well, I've got the Handbook of Instructions, so I don't know. And page such and such section. Such and such. How do we deal with doubt? Oh, I know what we do. We excommunicate people. It's just easy. So how old were you when you were experiencing. When you had that experience?

Mindy Gledhill [01:15:02] So let's see. That was probably. I was probably my late twenties. Yeah. Okay.

Gina Cohen [01:15:10] So just in the last five years. Five or six years. Okay. That's pretty soon. Are you sharing these with Ryan? You're saying Ryan?

Mindy Gledhill [01:15:16] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [01:15:16] Mm.

Mindy Gledhill [01:15:18] Ryan didn't. He didn't know what to do with that. If the bishop says that, then that must be, you know, what you should do, like, don't go to the temple. Don't worry about it and don't talk to people about it.

Gina Cohen [01:15:28] Right, right. You know, and that's, you know, we have to have empathy for that because, you know, I'm married to a, you know, similarly orthodox, particularly, you know, perhaps as he was at that time, who had no answers for this stroppy woman who just kind of wanted to do what she wanted to do. And he'd gone through the mission, you know, and I think in the mission they learned to be loyal, they learned to be tribal, they learned to defer. And, you know, part of the success of the mission is actually maintaining the system. They know how to do that. And these stroppy women are throwing their hands up. That's not their, you know, they don't even know how to respond to that. So.

Mindy Gledhill [01:16:09] Yeah, I know.

Gina Cohen [01:16:12] So. So tell us your journey from there. Like what, what happened after that.

Carrying Doubts and Emotional Struggles

Mindy Gledhill [01:16:18] So I think I, again, I carried those, those burdens quietly with me, and I think that that really caused things to fester and I just became, I think, really unhappy and frustrated. And at the same time, I think I had other friends who were starting to be a little more vocal about their concerns for women in the church. And we would sometimes meet and talk together about these things. You've interviewed one of these women recently.

Gina Cohen [01:16:48] Who would that be?

Mindy Gledhill [01:16:51] Her name starts with a C. No, Courtney was a really good friend to me at this time. Courtney Kendrick and I have some other really great friends in the neighborhood who I think were experiencing similar things of frustration with these issues. And I knew very little about church history at this time, but I remember talking once to these friends and one of them said, well, if you think that's bad, you know, what about, what about Fanny Alger? And I was like, who's Fanny Alger?

Gina Cohen [01:17:27] The Fanny Alger reveal.

Mindy Gledhill [01:17:29] Yeah, the Fanny Alger reveal. Helen spells oh. And she said, well, I'll send you some pioneer journals on Fanny Alger. And I, at this, you know, I had just told myself, I don't, I don't care about any of this anti Mormon literature I've heard about. I don't want to read it. I don't, I don't need that. If I want to know anything about these stories, I'll just read pioneer journals or I'll just read, you know, church approved things. And so I read these journals that pioneers had left behind about Fanny. So, you know, they're all second hand from people who knew her or knew her family or whatever. But in reading her story of being, she was, she was Joseph Smith's first polygamous wife. From what we know, I think this seems like that's even maybe a little nebulous. I'm not a historian here, but anyway, so she. She was living in the Smith home and was sort of like a foster daughter in a way to Emma and Joseph and doing housekeeping and taking care of the children and things and just learning her story. And again, not a historian trying to remember her age, but she was quite young.

Gina Cohen [01:18:42] I think she's 14.

Mindy Gledhill [01:18:43] 14? 15.

Gina Cohen [01:18:44] Yeah. We say history says 14, but the church, I think, goes 14. 15.

Mindy Gledhill [01:18:50] Okay. Yeah, it's a little nebulous, but she

Gina Cohen [01:18:55] was well developed for age.

Mindy Gledhill [01:18:59] So Joseph married her in secret. And just the whole. The things that have been left behind about this story. You know, Emma kicked her out after she found out about this. She was kept in a room in the Nauvoo Temple while they figured out what to do with her, then sent to Indiana. And again, please correct me if I'm wrong about some of these things, but I just said, let me just take away all of these little facts. Let's just take away that she was working in the Smith home. Let's pretend that never happened. Let's pretend that she wasn't kept in a room while people decided what to do with her. Let's pretend that Joseph didn't go to her father and brother, I think, to arrange for this marriage to happen. Like, let's take all the facts away. Am I okay with the fact that Joseph married someone beyond his wife without telling his wife? I think when I read these things and started to learn these things, like, it was a huge. It was a huge moment for me. I remember honestly, physically collapsing to the floor, really? And crying. Yeah, crying. That gut snot cry, you know, and, and I remember it was a Sunday when this happened, and Ryan walked in on. On this happening, and he was like, what is going on? And I just. For me, that was really the moment that opened up how I saw patriarchy and the roots of maybe where some of these things come from. And, and, and, and really could pinpoint times in my life where there had been an abuse of power, you know, with patriarchy, things that were hurtful to me. And. Yeah, and I. It really was. It was both a devastating moment and an empowering moment as a woman, because I. I knew I didn't need to answer to a man again for my. My power as a human being.

Gina Cohen [01:21:00] That's huge. That's huge.

Mindy Gledhill [01:21:02] And this is all happening in my 30s now. Like, I think 33 at this point, when all this is happening. And I. I just remember thinking I'm. I'm in my 30s and I never knew about this, let alone the first 11 women that Joseph married without telling Emma in secret. Like, and then all the. And so learning the history of these women and just feeling. Feeling just amazed, like, and like, devastated at the same time that their histories have been so kept quiet. It just, for me, it like, was just a light bulb for so many things in my life of keep quiet, you know, don't tell anybody about these things and just carry on, you know,

Gina Cohen [01:21:53] and set that moment that it all became, you know, as you're saying, it all just starts to fit together.

Mindy Gledhill [01:21:59] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [01:22:00] And I think maybe, maybe. I mean, how do you. I don't know how you feel that perhaps some of the tent. Some of the cultural strains in Mormonism of secrecy, of allowing things to be buried and not asking questions and. Etc, etc actually stem from polygamy.

Mindy Gledhill [01:22:17] Yeah. And I remember feeling also a huge amount of, like, anger that women are okay with this and I was not okay with it and I never will be okay with it.

Gina Cohen [01:22:36] See, that's a definite no, isn't there? There was no equivocation. You know, a lot of women go, well, there must be something. And right from the very beginning, women have said, well, there must be something wrong with me. Like, my body is telling me, no, no, no, no, no. And I had a similar experience when I was 17. Like, no, that just doesn't. And then another voice coming over top saying, there's something wrong with you. You need to get your feelings right about this.

Mindy Gledhill [01:23:00] Yes. And I feel like I could then really clearly see those moments in my life where I had told myself, in moments with patriarchy and patriarchal influence that I had trained myself to say, something must be wrong with me for not feeling comfortable with it. You know, so I'm going to put it on the shelf or I'm going to adjust my behavior.

Gina Cohen [01:23:26] But that process is really ubiquitous in Mormonism. You know, it kind of happens everywhere. You know, your first. Most people's first reaction to the policy change that basically denies children of gay families all of the ordinance, Like, I'm just clenching up, going, no, I'm sorry, that can't be right. And I imagine that that doesn't feel right for anybody. The difference is. And people who say that doesn't feel right in my body and my soul is just wrenched because of it, and I'm gonna trust that, or people who say that doesn't feel right, there's something wrong with me. And I need to rejig my thinking. I don't know, maybe I need to read my scriptures harder or believe in the prophet harder. Yeah. I mean, and I think that's a really, it seems to me, a big cultural dividing line that's sort of, you know, emerging in Mormonism. People who can trust themselves, their own spiritual authenticity, and people who feel that they need to realign themselves constantly to fit with the narrative.

Learning to Trust Herself During Faith Transition

Mindy Gledhill [01:24:28] Yes. And I do have to say that. That learning to trust myself and my gut and my heart has been just the most beautiful and empowering experience. Experience. One of the most powerful of my life so far. And people may be listening to this and thinking that I'm a late bloomer in that area and learning this lesson in my 30s maybe, but I'm so, so grateful it's happened. And it's something that people have always, I think growing up, it's a narrative I've been taught to be afraid of.

Gina Cohen [01:25:01] But you sing, you know, you can say that and, you know, being a late bloomer. But look at your life, you know, you've always trusted yourself.

Mindy Gledhill [01:25:10] I think, in certain ways. Yeah, I think. Yeah. I think in areas regarding religion, though, that's been an area where I've. I've never thought I had a voice in that area, that I. That obedience was, you know, what I learned and what was right. So. Yeah, in that area. No, I don't think so.

Gina Cohen [01:25:35] So when. But, you know, it comes later on. So after this kind of awful experience of you, you know, collapsing with this horror and this rage, did you go back to church the next Sunday?

Mindy Gledhill [01:25:48] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [01:25:49] Okay. What were you taking with you?

Mindy Gledhill [01:25:52] I think I suddenly was looking at things through a different lens, you know, and seeing. Noticing around me just how much influence the patriarchy has. And it was. Yeah, it already wasn't a great feeling going to church in the temple for me for the same reasons, but now I felt like that experience for me gave me. I don't know why, but it just really flipped a switch for me and gave me the power to not. Not make it wrong that I was feeling these things.

Gina Cohen [01:26:27] Did Ryan know about phenylgia?

Mindy Gledhill [01:26:29] No.

Gina Cohen [01:26:30] Okay. Was he outraged?

Mindy Gledhill [01:26:31] No.

Gina Cohen [01:26:34] Did you take it to your dad and say, dad, did you know about phenylgia?

Mindy Gledhill [01:26:37] No, I was too scared to take it to my dad.

Gina Cohen [01:26:39] Really? Why?

Mindy Gledhill [01:26:40] Again, we. We don't. We don't really have a relationship where we talk about things very deeply. I think over the years after that, the next few years, my dad noticed a change in me, and he. He made A few attempts to reach. I remember him sending me an article on, you know, feminism. It was a woman in the church who was a feminist, but somehow had this, you know, experience, spiritual experience, where she realized that the priesthood and, you know, was, was okay for her.

Gina Cohen [01:27:13] And that changed your heart?

Mindy Gledhill [01:27:15] No, I threw it in the garbage.

Gina Cohen [01:27:17] Right. I think every Mormon feminist has had somebody trying to redeem us from. With a dumb article. We could probably say, now, Mindy, don't send us articles.

Mindy Gledhill [01:27:28] You know, I felt that it was a really sweet gesture from my dad though, at least to reach out and notice I was going through something. I will absolutely give him that. You know, that was a big deal.

Gina Cohen [01:27:39] But once again, he's a Mormon man who doesn't have the resources to deal with this because it's not supposed to happen.

Mindy Gledhill [01:27:45] I can't blame him. I can't blame Ryan for his reactions either, or his lack of reactions. It's sort of what, you know, how he's been groomed and what he's been taught and the role he's been taught to step into.

Gina Cohen [01:27:56] Right.

Gina Cohen [01:27:57] We have to do a lot of work with our, you know, and our Mormon husbands are gorgeous, you know.

Mindy Gledhill [01:28:02] They are. And yes. And I, Yeah. And I would absolutely say there are so many wonderful things that, you know, that the priesthood has provided for men and, and it's a very good place

Gina Cohen [01:28:17] to be a man. The church is.

Mindy Gledhill [01:28:19] Oh yeah, it's great if you're a

Gina Cohen [01:28:22] boy, if you've got a willy. But, you know, I mean, I've had the same conversations with my husband. Like, I'm trying to make you see, I'm trying to make you see how this is really painful. And this sort of, you know, in the past, this sort of blank look comes over like, will you have the privilege of not having to think about what I have to think about?

Mindy Gledhill [01:28:44] Exactly. This happened the other night with, with my husband. We were talking about Heavenly Mother and how we don't talk about her. And I was, I was talking to him about, I think this happened because we were in line at a restaurant to get food and my son, my four year old son asked me, who created the earth? I said, well, I'm not totally sure, but I think that, that Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother may have created it. And he goes, heavenly Mother, is that a girl? And then he started laughing. He was like, nah. And I was so upset.

Gina Cohen [01:29:25] I know, I know, right? Yeah.

Mindy Gledhill [01:29:27] How did a woman get out of that? I know. So then my husband and I were talking about it later that night and I said, you know, just this notion of us becoming God someday and. And me disappearing as the heavenly mother, that none of my children will reach out to me in prayer or speak of me or anything. So incredibly depressing to me.

Gina Cohen [01:29:50] You mean, what's there to look forward to? Right?

Mindy Gledhill [01:29:52] Yeah. And he said, I never thought of it that way from a woman's perspective. Yeah.

Gina Cohen [01:29:56] I mean, he gets to wear silky kind of, you know, flowing robes and marble sort of, you know, things in the sky, and gets to grow a full beard and have long hair and man buns, but, you know, where is she?

Mindy Gledhill [01:30:11] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [01:30:11] Somewhere in a kind of white twin set and pearls.

Mindy Gledhill [01:30:15] Yeah. So, yes, you're right. They just. They're not really taught to think about these things.

Gina Cohen [01:30:20] No.

Mindy Gledhill [01:30:21] I was in the Young Women presidency in my ward, I don't know, maybe eight years ago or something. And again, these things were prevalent to me in knowing. Seeing the budgets and seeing that the men got. The young men got a bigger budget than we did, and that they also had Scouts and they had. We have. Even now, still, we just barely did it. There's a fundraiser for the Scouts where the ward gets together and we do an auction, and we sell pies and services and even bring in more money for the young men. And I asked my husband, why don't we have an auction for the young women or for the personal progress, which is supposed to be the equivalent of, you know, the Scouts. And he said, I don't know.

Gina Cohen [01:31:02] I don't know, but don't ask that question anywhere else.

Mindy Gledhill [01:31:06] And, yeah, this was. This is another thing that's very depressing to me. And. And I look at all the Scouting opportunities and think, I would have loved that growing up. I would have loved to go biking in Moab, which is what people here in Utah do, and Scouts or I would have loved to learn how to do archery and all these things.

Gina Cohen [01:31:28] What did you do in Young Woman's?

Mindy Gledhill [01:31:32] We learned how to bake.

Gina Cohen [01:31:35] Did you learn how to do angel food cake?

Mindy Gledhill [01:31:36] How to do crafts?

Gina Cohen [01:31:37] Right. I know.

Mindy Gledhill [01:31:41] It's so sad. Yeah. I'm trying to even think you cooked

Gina Cohen [01:31:46] and the young men came and each ate your food.

Mindy Gledhill [01:31:48] Yeah, we did. Yeah.

Gina Cohen [01:31:51] And I can I just say, you know, as we're sharing this experience, you know, you know, we have a difference in age, but, you know, this has been going on for a long time. Young women's programs are poorly resourced. They're poorly thought through, and the church is going to lose these young women. Yeah. Because what's holding them there, like, really what's holding them there? Accept a sense of obligation. But I mean, as was Young Woman, where you learned a sense of personal empowerment, spiritual authenticity, you found a voice, you experienced a broad range of activities that were well planned and well resourced. Sometimes, you know, I've been young woman's president like four times now. It just feels like, just.

Mindy Gledhill [01:32:37] Do they have girls camp in New Zealand? I guess I can't dismiss girls camp. I didn't have that because I lived in Spain for three years and they didn't do it there optionally.

Gina Cohen [01:32:44] And it does really depend, you know, on whether or not you can resource the Girls Camp director. You know, it's hard for the young woman's present to do girls camp as well as run the program as well. So it really depends. Also really depends if you've got counsellors that are able to be flexible enough to leave their families or fit enough to go camping.

Mindy Gledhill [01:33:06] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [01:33:07] Or, you know, or you have the equipment.

Gina Cohen [01:33:09] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [01:33:10] So theoretically it does happen, but it just depends.

Mindy Gledhill [01:33:12] Yeah. What kind of activities have you done with your young women?

Gina Cohen [01:33:19] We did a lot of trekking. I took them hiking a lot.

Mindy Gledhill [01:33:22] I love that. Yeah, I think we do that here too. Just, it's just not nearly as much as the young men.

Gina Cohen [01:33:28] Well, it's not. The expectation's not there.

Mindy Gledhill [01:33:30] Right, right. I think one, one breaking point too for me was in that presidency and young women and one of the activities the president wanted to do was have a. She really wanted to instill the importance of eternal marriage into the girls. And so her idea for the activity was to bake wedding cakes and have these girls come dressed in white dresses and wedding dresses.

Gina Cohen [01:33:51] Oh, oh, oh, I've heard about that.

Mindy Gledhill [01:33:53] Have you heard about that?

Gina Cohen [01:33:54] That's freaky weird.

Mindy Gledhill [01:33:55] Okay, so this is where I put my foot down and I was like, we're not having 12 year old girls wear wedding dresses and eat wedding cake or even 13, 14. Let them be children. Like, let them be young girls. They don't need to be.

Gina Cohen [01:34:11] Ah.

Mindy Gledhill [01:34:12] Like I had a pull my hair out moment. You know, there is, you know, and I know she meant well and, and she was just trying to do prepare girls for something that she felt was really important.

Gina Cohen [01:34:25] But okay, yes, I heard about that. I heard about that. That activity. In fact, there's a really great novel by Carys Bray. She's an English novelist and she wrote a book called A Song for Issy Bradley, which was about a family going through the death of a child. But the teenage girl was invited to come and participate in wearing the mother's wedding gown and doing that stuff, and it just. It's hilarious. I mean, I'm just doing a little. Little plug for Caris's book. It's a great book. Yeah. So this has really put. This feminist issue. Has really put you.

Mindy Gledhill [01:35:00] Yeah, yeah.

Gina Cohen [01:35:01] I'm kind of sensing irritation.

Mindy Gledhill [01:35:04] A little bit of irritation.

Gina Cohen [01:35:07] So at what point did you say, look, enough is enough? I can't. I can't hold this down anymore?

Mindy Gledhill [01:35:15] I think. I mean, for me, I sort of intertwined some of the LGBT issues with, I think, the feminine issues. For me, in the church, it's just. For me, it just makes the patriarchy stand out all the more as being the dominant group in the church, and there's not really room enough for all of us to equally coexist. It feels like. I don't know. I'm trying to think of. So I feel like I had several of these kind of breakdown moments. For me, the Fanny Alger moment was huge. It was really a deciding moment for me, and saying, enough with this. Like, I'm. I do not support this. I will not ever support this, and I will vocally not be okay with it, because I. It pains me to see that some. That a lot of women don't. Don't even really think about it, for one, but that they are okay with it with. With so much coercion that I feel like has. Has gone on, you know, and, you know, I feel. I worry that maybe that makes me sound like I know more than other women or I. And I'm not saying it that way, but that was the honest, you know, realization and feeling for me was, I am just so not okay with this. And I'm comfortable now saying I'm not okay with it because my voice matters.

Gina Cohen [01:36:37] And that's really powerful, isn't it? That's really claiming a space for yourself. That's huge ego strength. And I say that in the best possible way to actually really own that.

Mindy Gledhill [01:36:47] And I am totally fine and comfortable making a space in my life for women who want to argue me on that and say, you know what? I actually believe that this was inspired, and I'm gonna live by it. And it's important to me because if they're feeling powerful enough to stand by that and say that, then, you know, they should own that voice too. And so I'm okay with that. Okay.

Gina Cohen [01:37:07] Okay. Can I ask you, do you really think that they're powerful in that, or do you think they just oppressed by the patriarchy?

Mindy Gledhill [01:37:14] I mean, who am I. To say that's not your real experience. You know, that's not really how you feel. You know, I can't do that as a person. So if someone really believes that and says that, that's their right to. To support it and say it. And many women do, but it's ironic because those are the women. I feel like so many women as when I've been vocal about this, have wanted to tear me down and call me names or say I'm a. You know, I'm a disappointment. I'm not a good example. I would never say that to any of them for standing up for it. I think that's their right.

Gina Cohen [01:37:49] And this is. This has been characteristic of your transition, perhaps out of full activity in the church. I mean, you still got a Mormon family. And, you know, Ryan still goes to church, right?

Mindy Gledhill [01:37:58] Yeah, he does. And I still go, too, with the family. At least. At least for part of it.

Gina Cohen [01:38:03] It.

Gina Cohen [01:38:03] Right.

Mindy Gledhill [01:38:03] I usually never make it through an entire Sunday.

Gina Cohen [01:38:07] Do you know? And I went. I went to church up in Salt Lake City with my friend Thomas McConkie on Sunday, and this is the first time I'd been at church for a couple of months. It is like I'm jumping out of my skin. I just feel. It's like a disembodied experience. I have to actually detach from my body somehow to get through the whole experience. Experience. By the time I got to relief society, I'm like, I think I'm going to rock backwards and forwards.

Mindy Gledhill [01:38:37] I mean, I. I know exactly how you feel. I. I want to get to a place where I can go and not feel triggered by everything everyone says, you know, And I think I'm kind of getting there in the same way I'd be able to go to a Catholic mass and not be triggered, you know, or whatever. But it's still hard for me. And I have literal panic attacks sometimes or where I feel like I'm hyperventilating. When I've heard, especially in the last few years with lots of controversial things going on, people will get up and give talks about the other or the progressives or liberal Mormons who.

Gina Cohen [01:39:14] They say that down here.

Mindy Gledhill [01:39:15] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [01:39:19] Democrats. Bloody Democrats. I'm gonna ruin the world.

Mindy Gledhill [01:39:25] Yeah. Or people who. Even. Even feminist, you know, Mormons, I've heard, spoke down on within church very recently. And I just. I'm like, that's me. And you suddenly just feel like you're not. You're not welcome there.

Gina Cohen [01:39:45] Yeah. Yeah. There's that subtle exclusion, that subtle shunning, like you can bring part of yourself here, but please don't bring any. Every part of yourself.

Mindy Gledhill [01:39:53] Yes. And so for me, it's just gotten to a point of church. I feel like a church should be a place that it's there because it provides a safe place for people to come and bring their burdens and as Thomas McConkie says, bring their mess.

Gina Cohen [01:40:11] Yes.

Mindy Gledhill [01:40:11] You know, and a safe. Of respite. A safe place of respite for. For all those things. And I feel like church right now for me is the most anxiety inducing experience, you know, that I have in my, my present lifetime, you know?

Gina Cohen [01:40:27] Yes, yes. And look, you know, and you realize that you're not alone.

Mindy Gledhill [01:40:31] Yeah, I know that I'm not. I know there are other people, you know, in my own congregation that feel the same.

Gina Cohen [01:40:38] Yes, yes. And everywhere.

Mindy Gledhill [01:40:40] And everywhere.

Gina Cohen [01:40:41] This is. I mean, it's really, you know, I think the church cultural terrain is just convulsing at the moment. I think the women are the sleeping giants. There'll be a point that women will get to and, you know, it will start in a similar way as you and then like, I can't. I can't be in this space and feel happy and safe.

Mindy Gledhill [01:41:00] Yeah. And I hope that they don't feel like they need to be silent anymore. I know it can be scary to speak out and see how we're feeling. And even a few weeks ago, when the whole church policy change happened and I had a good friend, you know, say, do you really think that you speaking out is going to change the brethren's mind? These are inspired men. And I said, of course it is. Like, of course it will. If my voice does not matter in the church, then why am I here? Like, of course they listen. And it may not mean that they completely change everything they say, but I think over time, the things that have changed have been because they listened to people who are speaking out. You know, they changed polygamy because the US Government spoke out.

Gina Cohen [01:41:47] Yes, yes.

Mindy Gledhill [01:41:48] You know, do you know, and the

Gina Cohen [01:41:50] church would change overnight if all of the women of the church said, do you know what, men? We're just a little bit tired of taking second place. We're tired of your dumb sort of gender theology. We're tired of you hogging all of this power. We're just not coming anymore. And everybody give it a month of women not showing up to church. What we need is a collective action. Bang. They will change.

Mindy Gledhill [01:42:14] Yeah, well, and they have changed. I mean, I don't see it as any coincidence that now women can pray in general conference, after women started showing up and saying, please let us into priesthood session, or women started raising their voices and saying, look, there are some things that are not. That are not equal here. And so we've got. We start seeing these small changes that happen. And I don't. I don't think they would have happened if women had not said a word.

Gina Cohen [01:42:39] It's not really enough, is it? Like a woman can pray in general confidence. Yeah.

Mindy Gledhill [01:42:41] That's almost a bit humorous.

Gina Cohen [01:42:43] I know, right? Like, it's hard to celebrate that. Yeah.

Mindy Gledhill [01:42:50] I mean, I'm grateful for that little change, but now we need to have an equal amount of women speaking, I feel like, and sharing powerful messages in conference.

Gina Cohen [01:43:00] Indeed. Indeed. Yeah. And so you kind of feel like, I suppose, you know, sort of consciously detached, a bit from the mainstream. What would have to change for you to say, all right, I'm back on board. Make me the young woman's president? Is it redeemable, do you think?

Mindy Gledhill [01:43:23] I mean, this. This may disappoint a lot of people, but I feel like at the moment, I just feel like it's not redeemable. For me, it's so hard because I have been in the public eye as, you know, a musician who has done so much music with the church, and I have a song in the church movie, Meet the Mormons.

Gina Cohen [01:43:44] You do? What was the song?

Mindy Gledhill [01:43:45] It's called Whole Wide World.

Gina Cohen [01:43:47] Oh, yes.

Mindy Gledhill [01:43:48] You know, the interesting thing about that is that when I was invited to come and see the rough cut of the movie, the other women who were invited in the room were in my same boat. You know, we were all kind of in that same boat. But I really wrestled with them wanting to use my song for a little bit, because I didn't. You know, I think I have it ingrained in me of, like, oh, if I'm not on board with all these things, then they might not think I'm worthy. And. But then I thought, I mean, I'm completely worthy of stepping into this role of providing music, especially for the scene. The scene is one where it's about a female athlete who's a member of the church. She's from South America, and she's a mom and she's a professional. And I was like, this is completely new territory for the church to be supporting this and sharing this story. And I'm so on board with combining my music with that.

Gina Cohen [01:44:45] Oh, perfect.

Mindy Gledhill [01:44:47] And also, I feel like the church has this weird thing where if people aren't completely in lockstep, you know, then they must be Separated from it. And I don't agree with that. I am generations deep in church heritage. It's my. It's a language I speak fluently. You know, it's my family. Immediate family and extended family, you know, are. Most of them are very orthodox people. Like, and I love these people. They are my people. Why would I separate myself from that, even if I don't? Even if I have different ideas now, you know?

Gina Cohen [01:45:23] So you think yourself. You think of yourself as Mormon.

Finding a New Relationship with Faith and Community

Mindy Gledhill [01:45:26] Yeah, I think I will always claim

Gina Cohen [01:45:27] that, but just independent.

Mindy Gledhill [01:45:29] Yeah, independent.

Gina Cohen [01:45:31] I heard that over the weekend. Like, independent Mormon. That's me.

Mindy Gledhill [01:45:36] I mean, I will claim that as my heritage, but there is so much within it that, you know, it's so funny to see that. Things I never knew until my 30s. And I'm like, this is not the church I was brought up in. It's certainly not the church that I was, not the teachings of Christ. I was brought up with all of these exclusions that are happening. I'm so compassionate with and loving towards the LGBT community. To me, it is such a loss for us that we would exclude anybody that, you know, participates in having a life partner or getting married or having children, or we lose the gifts of those people when we exclude them. And their gifts are so beautiful. It just. To me, it's a tragedy.

Gina Cohen [01:46:27] It's a tragedy. And such a cruelty.

Mindy Gledhill [01:46:29] Yeah.

Gina Cohen [01:46:29] Such a cruelty. Okay, final question as we wrap up. As we wrap up. So you've had this gorgeously creative life, and in many respects, part of your latest creation is yourself. I'm actually going to create a Mindy Gledhill that sits within this tradition, a way that I really want to. It's quite an original contribution to it. Yeah. Let me just ask this one question. What do you hope for your boys growing up in the tradition?

Mindy Gledhill [01:47:03] I hope that I can be a teacher to them and really show them that women are their equal. And I know people will argue, well, the church teaches that, but to me, they might say that, but it is so not how it's enacted to me. So I want them to see that. And they know, like, we talk about it all the time. Even, maybe to the point of them even, like, making fun of me. Like, anytime there's any kind of gender stereotype, you know, that comes up in a song on the radio or whatever, the boys will be like, oh, mom would change the lyrics to be like this. And good teaching. When I sing primary songs to my boys, like, I was singing My Heavenly Father Loves Me the other night to my four Year old. And I said at the end, I said, yes, I know. My heavenly father and mother love me.

Gina Cohen [01:47:57] Did he give you the side eye?

Mindy Gledhill [01:47:58] No, but my husband started laughing.

Ryan's Response and the Family's Path Forward

Gina Cohen [01:48:02] How's Ryan with all of this?

Mindy Gledhill [01:48:04] You know, it's been a real. A growing experience for both of us. I think it was really hard for him at first because, you know, he thought he was signing up for something different. All these poor Mormon men.

Gina Cohen [01:48:17] I didn't see that coming.

Mindy Gledhill [01:48:19] Yeah, he didn't see it coming, and neither did I, frankly. But he is. He is so supportive and loving. He really is. And I think he's grateful that he's. You know, I've brought up issues that cause him to look at things from different angles and. And he agrees with a lot of it. And he's like, yeah, I don't know why I think it's been like this all these years, but he's supportive. His mission really meant a lot to him. It was really transformative for him. And I think he really holds on to those experiences, and that really, you know, makes him want to stay involved the way that he does that.

Gina Cohen [01:49:00] It's hard for our Mormon men to juggle, you know, the feminist wife who's just noticing for the first time that perhaps the narrative they've been sold is a bit of an ugly one, and the wonderful experiences that they've had being socialized into this man's church. I actually do have one more observation to make, and it comes back to the way that you have not unleashed on the church in a rage and that you've treated with graciousness this space. And, you know, one thing that somebody said to me, it might have been your publicist, was that you wanted inclusivity. You want to just love compassion. Inclusivity.

Mindy Gledhill [01:49:43] Yes. I really like the idea of the church being this. This big tent that encompasses people at all levels of belief and welcomes them with open arms at whatever level they want to participate at. You know, I see that as the way that Christ was, you know, and so, yeah, and I also. I understand when people. Members who are really participating loyally, when they see people like me and get angry or fearful, I understand, and I feel empathy towards that because I've been there in that place, you know, where I've seen other people speak out on something that they're not okay with or that upsets them, and I'm like, we. We don't do that. Like, I. I've been in that place, and so I have to have empathy towards that. And I don't even think like I know more than these people know or I. You know, I. I have the right answers. I. All I know is that I know nothing.

Gina Cohen [01:50:50] Isn't that a place of liberation, though?

Mindy Gledhill [01:50:51] It really is, because it opens up so much possibility and things are not limited to I know. And that's the end.

Gina Cohen [01:51:01] Mindy Gledhill, it's been an absolute delight speaking with you.

Mindy Gledhill [01:51:04] Thank you. You too, Gina. I'm glad I coerced you into coming in here.

Gina Cohen [01:51:09] It's my pleasure. Indeed. Thanks for joining us today on a thoughtful faith podcast. To discuss this episode with others, please visit athoughtfulfaith.org and don't forget, if you'd like to support this podcast, please consider a donation.

Gina Cohen [01:51:22] I don't mind your art behavior. It's the very thing I love. If you were an ice cream flavor, you would be my favorite one. My imagination. Imagination sees you like a painting by Van Gogh. Starry nights and bright sunflowers follow you where you may go? Oh, I've loved you from the start in every single way and more each passing day you are brighter than the stars Believe me when I say it's not about your scars it's all about your heart. You're a butterfly held captive small and safe in your cuckoo. Go on you can take your time Is set to heal our wounds? Oh, I've loved you from the start in every single way and Maurice path every single day you are brighter than the stars Believe me when I say it's not about your scars it's all about your heart Like a lock without a key Like a mystery without a cloud There is no me if I cannot help you? Oh, I loved you from from the start in every single way and more each passing day you are brighter than the stars Believe me when I say it's not about your scars it's all about your heart? All about your heart Sa.