Redefining Women and Christianity with Taylor Ver

Rebecca:

Welcome to Beautifully Bloomed, the podcast where we explore how to break
you out of the box of rules and beliefs that are holding you back from the
life you're meant to live. I'm your host, Rebecca Tervo. Join me as I share
mindset tools, coaching conversations and human design to help you uncover
your unique gifts and create the life, relationships, and business you
desire. Today, we're talking to Taylor Ver and she's a fellow life coach
school coach. Hi, Taylor. Welcome to [crosstalk 00:00:29].

Taylor:

[crosstalk 00:00:29] Rebecca. Thank you.

Rebecca:

I'm so excited to have you here. There's so many good things I think we're
going to talk about today, but before we get started, just introduce
yourself a little bit. What do you coach about? Who are you?

Taylor:

I'm Taylor. I am the co-founder and CEO of a brand called Femxle. We are a
lifestyle brand in partnership with two other coaches who happen to be life
coach school certified as well. Really, we're just on a mission to elevate
the female experience, particularly for women of faith, particularly for
people who are Christ conscious. We just feel like there's so much goodness
on this side of heaven, so to speak, that we just give up in the name of
faith, in the name of doctrine, in the name of service, and we want them to
feel better. We want them to have fun and live full lives, so we're
creating a community around that and around those growth tools.

Rebecca:

That's amazing. Now when you said that, when you talk about the faith and
the doctrine, so what this podcast episode is about is about faith
transition. I'm curious, were you born into a certain church or certain
religion?

Taylor:

Yeah. I was born to non-denominational parents, I would say. Unlike, let's
say, the Church of Latter Day Saints, we don't have a one church or a one
governing body, per se, for the particular denomination I was a part of,
and so-

Rebecca:

You mean, you're not Lutheran, or Catholic or [crosstalk 00:01:54].

Taylor:

Exactly. I'm not Lutheran, I'm not Catholic, I'm necessarily Southern
Baptist or Episcopalian. There are sects of churches, particularly in the
South, that identify as non-denominational. Normally, that means that they
have pulled from some Baptist inspiration and some Protestant inspiration.
It can look very different from church to church, but the point is that you
don't have some overarching church body that's governing and instructing
you on how to [crosstalk 00:02:27].

Rebecca:

What about Evangelical? How do you think about that term? Does that
[crosstalk 00:02:32]?

Taylor:

Yeah. Somebody told me the other day that they were leaving Evangelicalism
and I thought, I have never used that term to describe what I believe over
what I've practiced, the culture that I grew up in. I always just called it
Christian culture. I've noticed that the more people I talk to, they all
describe their culture as Christian culture and what we're all saying is
often so very different. When I Googled it, I fit the definition of an
Evangelical or have raised Evangelical, but I wouldn't say that's a word I
use.

Rebecca:

It's a word I hear a lot because I am listening to a lot of different
podcasts now and a lot of different people talking about faith, and
religions and studying all the different ones and I'm like, I'm just
learning all the stuff so I just wanted to know what you thought about that
term. That's good to know because now it gives me some perspective of a
little bit of what you're talking about. What were the regular practices,
or rituals or rules? Were there anything specific that you [crosstalk
00:03:38]?

Taylor:

I grew up in the... I don't know. See, now it's like, oh wow, maybe this
wasn't everybody. Purity culture was big when I was growing up, so
abstinence, waiting till marriage, waiting for the one, praying for the
one. As an adolescent and into young adulthood that really shaped my flavor
of Christianity. Everything was about preserving myself for someone else.
It was all about the purity of my thinking, the purity of my actions, the
purity of my ideas, like spiritual perfectionism, if you will. That is the
flavor of Christianity I grew up in and on a practical level, it looked
like church every Sunday and Wednesday.

Taylor:

For a season, my parents were pastors so we were there before service. We
were there long after service. We were taking out members after service.
Very much lived into me that our lives are meant to be of service to people
who are hurting, to people who are in need. The unspoken implication is
take as little as you need to function. Don't ask too much of them because
you're here to serve. Don't take up too much space because they're the ones
who need help. Yeah, [crosstalk 00:05:00].

Rebecca:

That's interesting. What about women's role in the church you grew up in?

Taylor:

In my particular church and this is part because it's non-denominational,
we advocated for women's role in church and their purpose and having
influence within church. mom was a minister. I grew up following female
pastors, female ministers, female speakers. Step down for that in the home,
the husband is the head of the wife from our theology. When you say it that
way, it's like, wait a minute. She can talk to God and move the masses, but
as soon as she hits her own address, it's under submission. I think that
has been challenging to navigate. I know it's been challenging for my
parents. It's challenging for me. How do you go about fulfilling your
purpose? How do you go about feeling like you're really fully expressed if
you're always feeling like but it needs to always be at least one notch
beneath the person that I'm married to. It's a really tough dynamic and it
shows up in the way that we go around life. I found myself like, for
example, in high school, whenever I was around a male teacher, I just
naturally quieted myself. I just naturally became a little bit more subtle,
but I'm almost six feet tall. I've been overweight my whole life. I'm a
pretty articulate person. There's nothing small and petite and submissive,
but that's what was expected. I would just shapeshift to serve the
doctrine.

Rebecca:

It's interesting. I mean, I'm just curious, were you raised to believe that
well, my job is to serve my husband and to have children and take care of
our home, or was that not part of what you felt as you were?

Taylor:

That's such a good question. I was raised in the tension of that. My dad
grew up with a mom who was very traditional in the sense that she did
everything for the kids and the family, but both parents worked. She would
go work and then she'd come home and run her home. There was always dinner.
He was always well taken care of. While he appreciated and advocated for
the strength in women, there was a part of him that wanted the stability. I
put that in air quotes, or the consistency of that traditional role and
wife. My mother was raised to provide for herself, to have a sense of
agency and autonomy. Her parents sent her to university. She went to great
schools and she had a career and so for her, her mother though, always took
care of the family. I think I grew up in the we highly value submission. We
highly value taking care of the home and making sure the home is taken care
of first, but don't let it come at the expense. If you like going after
something and you got to figure out how to make that work. That's on you to
work that out. I know it sounds like conflict, but that's on you to work
out. I think that's what I grew up feeling is we want more for you, but it
can't come at the expense of what we really value, which is you got to show
up.

Rebecca:

It's interesting because I'm just thinking of there's a conflicting story
how I grew up too. My mom was a working mom. She was a teacher. However,
I've always felt like the best role for women, like the ones we thought
were the best were the ones that stayed home and had 10 kids. You know what
I mean? I don't have anything against people who love to be a stay-at-home
mom.

Taylor:

Yes. Nor do I.

Rebecca:

I always wondered why I didn't want to be a stay-at-home mom. I wanted
kids, but I could not see myself being a stay-at-home mom and I struggled
so much with that concept, but it's interesting because I grew up in a
community where most people were stay-at-home moms. A lot of my friends
weren't really encouraged to go to college. I was encouraged, but they
weren't, so I felt out of place. I want to go to college and I want a
career, but yet I'm not really supposed to want that.

Taylor:

Yes. That is how I grew up as well, with that. I think kids see conflict.
They see the contradiction in your lives, even if you're not trying to show
it to them and what I see from my mom is that she could go out and be great
and we'd all cheer for how great she was, but if the home suffered, we had
questions for her values and her priorities. I can't imagine the tension
that is to live in to know that the real value is placed on how you show up
in the house, but if your passion is to be out, to travel, to speak, what
do you do with that conflict? I think I internalize that.

Rebecca:

Or if you see that any kids... This is how I remember just being so
judgemental because this is how I feel like I grew up in a community of
being judgemental. It's like, oh my gosh, those kids are having problems.
Look it, their mom works.

Taylor:

Yes.

Rebecca:

Well, that must be the issue.

Taylor:

yes. You grew up making sure that you're not the problem. That's what I did
anyways. I grew up being the good kid. I was the oldest. I was responsible.
I was the kid to be proud of and in part, I can see it was my way of trying
to resolve the tension between we say that we care about families, we say
that we prioritize the home, but we celebrate winning out there in the
world. We cheer for that, but we scrutinize the experience at our house and
my only way to handle that, I think kids are always trying to handle it. Is
just to be good. Be good enough. Make them look good.

Rebecca:

It's just so funny. This is such an interesting topic, which I don't feel
like I've delved too much on the podcast yet. My husband grew up in a
traditional home, but yet it's super interesting to me and I don't think
he'd mind me telling this story a little bit. When we got married, I mean,
even though I had gone to college and just along with him, we had our first
baby right away, of course, because this is the right way to do it. then a
year later I really couldn't handle being at home anymore. I was like, "I
have to go to work. I have to find a job." He was so worried about that. He
had to call his mom and talk to her about it.

Taylor:

Wow.

Rebecca:

She wants to go to work and it's just like... You know what I mean? I was
like a wait minute. We're in the 90s now and I'm not allowed... It was just
a conflict between us, but it's just from the culture we were in. His
mother said, bless her heart, she said, "Even though I never left home, my
job was at home because we had a farm." She said, "I was working-

Taylor:

Wow. That's [crosstalk 00:11:45].

Rebecca:

[crosstalk 00:11:45] a job that really felt fulfilling for me, but I had
work besides just being home." To him, that was like, okay. She was giving
the stamp of approval or something. I thought it's just interesting how it
influences the men as well as the women.

Taylor:

It does. All I knew is my parents ended up getting divorced after 27 years
of marriage and they were really big into marriage ministry. This was a
couple years before I met my husband, or I had met him, but I don't think
we were serious at the time. Anyways, it really shook me to think about
marriage and to think about family, and could I live up to what a marriage
and a home and a family requires if, from my perspective, my mother had
failed in some way or my dad wasn't happy? Because my dad always looked
happy. He's a very charismatic person and so for him to say, "We're
separating because I want something else." I was like, "What do you mean?"
I just didn't know. How does that work? How do you just want something else
when you looked very happy on some level before?

Taylor:

I say all that to say going into my relationship with my husband, I had
that in the back of my mind. I need to tell him and almost warn him of all
the potential things that I could want to do because I don't ever want him
to sign up and feel like I'm going to act like his mom. His mom, while she
worked, her one desire was to raise kids and stay at home. She worked
because she had to, not because she really would've chosen to. I just had
to kept telling him. Looking back, it was this anxiousness. I just don't
want him to feel misled and so I can relate. I say all that to say, we had
kids very quickly in our relationship and that wasn't intentional. I told
him, I said, "Here's the deal. I have to start something. Because I love
giving to these people. I care deeply about who they become in the world,
and I have to do something with who I am because I won't be able to give
them who I really am if I don't show them what I really want to do."

Rebecca:

Oh, my gosh.

Taylor:

That's what comforts me.

Rebecca:

Yes. It speaks to me because I know before we got started, we were talking
about how you're a manifestor and I'm a manifesting generator. I think
there's this energy in both manifestors and manifesting generators, there's
this creative energy that needs to be expressed somehow. If you're not
finding that being at home with kids, I can see how... I had no idea
anything about human design back then, but looking back, I'm like, I can
see why I was so unfulfilled. When I say just, I don't mean it's bad to be
a stay-at-home mom, but it just wasn't fulfilling for me. I loved babies. I
really did.

Taylor:

Yes. I did too.

Rebecca:

There needed to be something else.

Taylor:

Yes. I tell everyone because we have three kids six and under. I told my
husband, "I love ages 9 months to about 18 months. As soon as they stop
napping regularly and needing me in a significant... Something on them
triggers the maternal instinct in me, I'm ready for somebody else to watch
them because if we're just going to tear up the house, somebody else could
watch that happen. I don't need to see that." It almost feels sacrilegious
to say, even in the non-denominational culture to be like, my kids need
other people in their lives because I don't have it for that stage. I don't
have it for the twos tearing up everything. I just don't.

Rebecca:

Oh, my God. There was this funny thing and I think it was a cartoon I saw
long time ago so I had little babies and kids, but it was funny because it
made me think what would happen if I just literally didn't do anything
today and just see if my husband notices the difference between what I do
during the day versus when I don't do anything?

Taylor:

Gotcha.

Rebecca:

Because what I always felt is he would come home from a long day of work.
You know what I mean? To me, there always felt like this disparity. He's
really giving to the family and I'm literally sitting home doing nothing.
For some reason-

Taylor:

I'm just keeping us alive, but he's slaving away.

Rebecca:

That's what I always felt and I felt like it was maybe more me judging
myself, but I was like literally, if I got up in the morning and the only
thing I did was gave the kids what they actually needed, changed the
diapers and give them food and did nothing else, this place would be a
disaster.

Taylor:

Literally, literally.

Rebecca:

Yes, because you spend all day. Right? I mean, I had four kids.

Taylor:

Literally chase people around.

Rebecca:

I had four. Run around, get to appointments, change them, feed them, cloth
them, nap them, change them, feed them, clean up constant. That's all I did
all day and it just was so unfulfilling.

Taylor:

Yes.

Rebecca:

It just runs you ragged.

Taylor:

Yes, and then you feel shame because you're saying that raising the next
generation is unfulfilling work. That's the mantra for people who maybe it
is hard work for them. It feels compelling and their mission and all of
that and I honor that, but I think that for those of us who do crave more,
at least in my audience, I notice we just shut that down. We're just like,
oh no. I'll do that when my kids get older and we don't realize that like
we're starving our kids of our authenticity, and we're starving our spouse
of our authenticity and we're making it so that the world where it's not
okay for women to go after things starts now. We're creating that world by
not making sure that people have to deal with it. We're teaching people
cannot adjust because we aren't willing to be there present and showing up.

Rebecca:

I feel so sad about all of that shame and guilt I had for years and years
and years. I'm over 50 now and I finally have said, "I have left the
church," and I told people that. I have gone through so much guilt and
shame cycles for so many years about all of this stuff that we're talking
about, about why couldn't I just be a stay-at-home mom? They look like
they're happy being a stay-at-home... It's just like am I broken? There's
something wrong with me. Always those thoughts in my head. There must be
something wrong with me because I just can't do that. It really beats you
down and you can't show up as yourself. I mean, it's just hard.

Taylor:

I agree. I agree. One of the things I learned when studying when I
discovered human design is just that manifestors are people who get things
started and that is our greatest gift. While it doesn't mean we can't
finish things, we really are about moving conversations, and experiences
and ideas forward or initiating them, if you will. In relationship, things
get finished, and so one of that triggers for me in terms of motherhood and
even in faith is well, why can't I just keep going? Why can't I just keep
doing Christianity like normal? For me personally in this season, I don't
attend church regularly, which I know would be... Well, my husband has
gotten feedback from his friends about how we should be in church because
we need to be around the people. I'm like-

Rebecca:

Wait, let me ask you right there. Why do you not? Where was the transition
for you?

Taylor:

Gotcha. What happened? I don't know that it was any one moment or thing
that happened. My husband and I, in 2015, took our seven-month-old daughter
and became mission to the Dominican Republic. In the non-denominational
church realm, it's not a funded activity. You have to go raise support. It
is something that you really need to feel a calling to because it becomes
your second job trying to make sure that you can actually do this. Whereas,
I know in Southern Baptist or other faiths, it's more culturally supported.
People understand and they plan and celebrate that. In the
non-denominational world, it isn't the exact same thing. We sold everything
and we moved and it really was my way of saying, "Honey, you're unhappy in
your job." I can't foresee... At this point I was fine and happy to be home
with our daughter, but I knew I didn't have two more years of this. I was a
flight attendant before this. I love to go.

Rebecca:

I want to be a flight attendant.

Taylor:

Oh, it's glorious.

Rebecca:

[crosstalk 00:20:22] is like, yes, I want to do that.

Taylor:

It is glorious and that was our dream, so when we got surprised with a kid
one month into marriage, finding out we were pregnant, it was a lot. I say
all that to say we went and we gave our all, and we realized that while we
were there, we wanted a different community around our faith. At the time,
we weren't even aware that we were dissatisfied with our faith. We just
thought, oh, there's a different group of people who do our faith
differently, who are more authentic, who are more communal, who are more
real with how they're explaining their relationship with God.

Taylor:

We moved thinking, oh, we're going to go find more of those people, the
kind of people who would change their whole life to do this. What we found
is Christians are everywhere, the regular one. The ones at home, they go to
the Dominican Republic too, and they work with us and they're normal
people. We ended up moving back after almost two years. We realized that
the dissatisfaction was internal. It wasn't with everyone else. We needed
to reexamine our faith and so from that, probably was the impetus for that,
but it just started a conversation within myself. my husband's a
manifestor. He's not aware of it.

Rebecca:

Is he a manifestor too?

Taylor:

He is, but he doesn't care about human design.

Rebecca:

Two manifestors getting married. That is interesting. Wow.

Taylor:

Tell me about it. It should be a podcast episode. It's very much in our
relationship where I'm like, okay, here's what I'm doing. I'm disappointed
and I'm not interested in going to church all day and working all
afternoon. I need to know that this is fulfilling. I need to see progress
in our ministry. I need to see where we're either creating impact or we
need to do something else. It took about a year or two, but we just didn't
see the impact. We didn't see how working harder or giving more was
translating to fulfillment, and so I just began to gradually step back.

Taylor:

We stepped down from some positions. We opted not to take a ministry
position that we were considering. We just gradually said more nos and
eventually, it became no our stance. We just started at no, and then we
will attend if we're invited somewhere there's something to do. We don't
have anything against it, but we don't feel compelled to reenter that
lifestyle of you just go to church because you go to church. You just give
because you give, and you don't ask what happens to the money and you don't
ask if this service is actually useful for and. You just don't ask. You
just keep going because that's what you do. We're just not willing to do
that anymore and-

Rebecca:

And you just keep serving in the capacity you're asked to serve in.

Taylor:

Yes. You just keep doing what you're asked.

Rebecca:

You don't say no. Instead, you just-

Taylor:

You don't say no. You don't ever question if we're actually fulfilling the
mission. That was one of the challenges that I had is that we were a part
of small churches at different points and there were a lot of ideas that...
Let's say we had taken it out of the church and put it into a business, the
business would just be closed down because it's not effective. It wasn't
producing a profit no matter how you identify that profit, but in the
church, we do it because this is what God told us to. No matter if it's not
actually benefiting anyone, no matter if it's actually costing families, we
just keep going because we read about it somewhere. That disparity is a
challenge for me. It just didn't line up with my faith.

Rebecca:

It's interesting because you're not... Of course, you could keep going. The
church can say, that's great. Just keep doing that because they're not
investing in it. It's free labor for them, but they can say they're doing
all this. Churches-

Taylor:

They can say people are giving. They can say they have the building. They
can say people show up and I'm the one waking my kids up at 6:30 another
morning. I just can't get with that.

Rebecca:

I get it. Yes. If family's important, shouldn't we put family first? I
don't know. Instead of church first, or religion first or whatever.
Family's important too, so if it's hurting your family, how can that be
helpful? Oh, wow. We got off on an interesting tangent today. I really
appreciate this, Taylor, because there's so many more things I think we
could talk about. But keeping in mind our time constraints, so what would
you like to tell people about where they can you, if they want to learn
more about what your program is about?

Taylor:

If you want to know more, if you identify as Christ conscious while you
maybe don't love all of the aspects of the culture, but you feel like Jesus
and Christ is still significant in your walk or in your experience and you
want to feel better and you want to know what a fuller life looks like,
then I would love to invite you into our community. You can do that at our
website, www.femxle, with an X. It's F-E-M-X-L-E.co. Femxle, with an X,
.co. We're also on Instagram at the same handle, so at femxle.co. We're
just redefining what it means to be female today and that's why it's called
Femxle.

Rebecca:

That sounds amazing. Thank you so much, Taylor.

Taylor:

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Rebecca:

If you enjoy listening to this podcast, please go subscribe so that you get
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there, please leave me a review and let me know what you think. So excited
to share this with you and can't wait to talk to you next time. Bye.