Agency, Love, and Intentionally Creating the Life You Want

Where It Started

When I stepped away from teaching after my first baby, I was figuring out who I was outside of a career I genuinely loved. Around that same time I started getting curious about the LGBTQ+ community, specifically how God saw them and how I did. I realized I did not actually know. I had grown up with a vague sense that the rainbow flag was something to stay away from, and I had never had a real conversation with anyone about their experience.

So I started doing the work.

Ben Schilaty, Charlie Bird, and the podcast and book Listen, Learn, and Love were the resources that opened that door for me. I started following people, reading their stories, and genuinely wanting to understand how someone else experiences love and identity. And then I started praying about it and journaling about it and letting my conclusions form slowly and honestly.

What I landed on is that I do not believe there is a wrong way to love.

✨Listen to the full episode or read for the breakdown.

When It Got Personal

Years into that process, my brother Cragun came out as gay. And my youngest brother Ryan began deconstructing his faith and stepping away from the church. I have talked about Ryan's journey in my first interview episode, which is worth going back to listen to if you have not.

Watching both of my brothers take the time and space and courage to figure out who they actually wanted to be stopped me in my tracks.

They were so brave.

And it made me ask the same questions about myself. Not from a place of crisis, but from a place of wanting to be more intentional. Did what I was thinking and believing actually serve me and my family? Was it actually what I wanted? Was I choosing it or just defaulting to it?

Those questions changed everything.

Agency Is the Whole Point

One of the things I love about Latter-day Saint theology is the pre-mortal narrative of the war in heaven. Whether it is literally true or not, I love what it teaches. Satan's plan was to remove choice entirely. Christ's plan was to come and prepare a way, but let us choose.

We fought a battle for the right to choose.

And then we got here and were handed a very specific list of how to choose correctly.

That has always felt like a contradiction to me, even if it is a recent realization. The idea that you have agency but only if you use it a certain way seems to miss the point entirely. I do not think God intended us to be fear-mongered into righteousness. I think the invitation was more like, if you want to find joy and peace, here are some paths that tend to lead there.

But the choice is genuinely ours.

"I am learning that we have far more control over our lives and circumstances than most of us realize. And the more intentionally each of us creates the life we actually want, the more it elevates everything around us."

What Studying Other Faiths Has Shown Me

"God did not make one right way of being human. The more I study, the more convinced I am of that."

I am currently working through a religious studies course created by David Butler and it has been one of the most clarifying things I have done. So far I have learned about Hinduism and Buddhism, and what strikes me most is how many commonalities exist across traditions that look completely different on the surface.

God did not make one right way of being human.

The more I study, the more convinced I am of that. And as a parent of three completely different children who all came from the same two people, I find myself wondering if God is the same way. Parenting them differently does not mean loving them differently. The love is constant. The approach adapts to the individual.

Maybe God is the same. Not a dictator in the sky whose love has to be earned, but the optimal parental figure whose love was never conditional in the first place.

Co-Creating the Life You Actually Want

The thread running through all of this for me is agency. Real agency. The kind that goes beyond following a prescribed path and steps into actually deciding what you think, what you believe, and how you want to show up in the world.

I am learning that we have far more control over our lives and circumstances than most of us realize. And the more intentionally each of us creates the life we actually want, the more it elevates everything around us. We are interconnected. What I create affects you and what you create affects me.

Choosing compassion and love as often as possible is way more powerful and exciting than the alternative.

That is what I am here for. To keep figuring this out and help you do the same.

Cheering you on 📣

Brynne

"My brothers were so brave. Taking the time and space and courage to figure out who they actually wanted to be made me ask the same questions about myself."

Thanks for Being Here

Hi, I’m Brynne. I share my journey of becoming through stories and reflection - guided by a higher power as I explore identity, faith, and everyday life, inviting you to grow alongside me.

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