Have you ever tried to help youth with their mental health? That's a tricky road to travel. I have to tell you about an inspiring presentation we recorded with the one and only Jody Moore. Yes. That life coaching Jody Moore. A few years ago, she recorded a fantastic presentation covering topics like normalizing tough feelings with youth, a more positive understanding of stress, how to minimize shame, and mastering the skill set of empathy and better understanding anxiety. I want you to see this presentation as soon as you finish this podcast episode. You can go to leadingsaints.org/fourteen, and this will get you access to the entire video library at no cost for fourteen days. Jody's presentation is in the Mentally Healthy Saints library, and you'll be a better leader or parent when you finish it. Again, go to leadingsaints.org/14 or check out the show notes for the link. Hey. Welcome to the Leading Saints podcast. Now for many of you that are brand new, to Leading Saints, it's important that you know that Leading Saints is a nonprofit organization, five zero one c three, dedicated to helping Latter day Saints be better prepared to lead, and we do that through content creation. We get so much positive feedback on the podcast, our virtual conferences, the articles on our website. You definitely gotta check it out at leadingsaints.org. And on their homepage at leadingsaints that are, you can actually find the top six most downloaded episodes to the podcast. So if you're new, like the content, want to jump in to some of our most popular episodes head there after you listened to this. We are welcoming back Justin Dyer into the studio. Justin's a BYU professor of, professor of religion. Now BYU teaches the eternal family courses, but also does phenomenal research with a fantastic team with Sam Hardy and Mike Goodman who we've had on the podcast before. And and I just love the questions these guys ask, the research they dig into because they validate the Latter day Saint experience to a whole another level. And sometimes you wonder, I don't know, like, I I appreciate the church and we teach good things, but I don't know. Is it damaging to some? Do some get overwhelmed by this message and maybe we need to water it down a little or soften it? But, no, like, this the research that they do has been so encouraging and, so that's why I'm excited to have a conversation today about toxic perfectionism because that could be the the assumption, right, that that being a Latter day Saint, having all these rules, commandments, covenants, doesn't that stimulate toxic perfectionism that we're constantly living in a place of not being good enough? Now I realize my heart goes out to those who have lived that, who have had those feelings come from some gospel behaviors and traditions, and we talk about that, Justin and I, as we explore how can we offer the gospel to individuals, especially in a leadership context that will stimulate good mental health, encouragement, hope, grace, all those things. So you're gonna love this discussion. So here's my interview with Justin Dyer. Alright, Justin. You're back with some more research, so this is cool. Great to be here. Thanks so much for having me. And I I so much appreciate the research, you and and to Mike Goodman. And who else is there? Sam? Sam Hardy as well and Mark Ogletree are the ones that have been working on the research with me. And now recently, you've been talking about the research around perfectionism and toxic perfectionism. That's right. Where's a good, like, launching off point? Like, what explain the the intent of that type of research. So the research actually started when I was sitting in a meeting, and somebody just happened to mention that, well, Latter day Saints are really high in toxic perfectionism. And I happened to have my laptop at that moment. Then I thought to myself, I've been doing research on Latter day Saints and mental health for the last eight years or so. And there actually is no research on that. And so we'd been collecting data on Latter day Saint youth and youth of other religions as well. Got up about 2,000 of them. We followed them for eight years. And so I decided to open my laptop right there and crunch some numbers and found that that narrative is inaccurate, that Latter day Saints are higher in perfectionism than those of other religions. And so, and I'd heard that before. And I think many people have heard that, that, well, Latter day Saints must be really perfectionistic in a negative way, you know, be therefore perfect. We have all these high standards. So we must have all of this angst over these things more so than other people. And so it was really just by conversations and what I've heard that I decided, oh, we actually need to look at these data. We've been collecting them for many years, but we hadn't actually crunched the numbers on that. Yeah. And off you went with and then so what what type of questions are you trying to ask? Or how do you get at the core of that? Because I'd like you said, that's the the assumption that people think, well, yeah, of course, you know, there's some toxic perfection. It's because we have so much focus on it. Right? So where how do you start to formulate those questions? Yeah. So what we do is we have these standardized measures of toxic perfectionism. Actually, researchers have been looking at this for a long time. And so what we did is we just included those questions in our overall survey that we've been asking people for a number of years. And so we can see different types of toxic perfectionism. There's what's called discrepancy, which I feel like I'm not meeting these standards and that causes me feelings of shame and those kinds of things. And then there's what's called social perfectionism, which is where I feel like I have to be perfect for other people. Otherwise, I'm not lovable. And my value comes from being perfect. That's really what toxic perfectionism is about. And so we ask these standardized questions to these kids over the years. And then what we're able to do is say, alright, how do Latter day Saints differ in their toxic perfectionism from those of other religions or those of no religion? And it's important to recognize what toxic perfectionism is. Again, it's not necessarily about having high standards. That's a really good thing. It's not necessarily about not meeting those standards because that's a daily occurrence for human beings is to not meet, you know, what we'd hoped to meet. It's how we feel about ourselves when we do when we don't meet our standards, when we make mistakes. Do we feel like that we're no longer of worth, that we're no longer valued, that we're no longer lovable if we don't meet those standards? And so that's kind of the outline of how we went about that and how we measure toxic perfectionism. Yeah. And I just my mind goes to, like, obviously, with perfectionism, it's usually tied to behaviors. Right? And in a religious tradition, there's often behaviors mentioned. Right? As far over sin that's mentioned, that's sort of negative behaviors that we wanna stay away from. And so that toxic nature, I guess some people can interpret it like, it's toxic if it's kinda makes you uncomfortable or or hurts. When in reality, it's like, well, it's good to sort of be uncomfortable at times or be like, oh, that's a high standard. I don't know if I can do it, you know, and and to reach for that. But then I I appreciate the concept of toxic because something's toxic. It's like it will perpetually get you more and more sick or worse and worse. Right? Where just because something's hard doesn't necessarily mean it's toxic. Is that fair to say? That's exactly right. So, yes, there are some standards that are difficult. You know, you have that youth that goes to the party and everybody else is drinking. And, oh my goodness, I would feel ashamed if I didn't drink and it would feel bad and all that. And so they have this conflict and they think to themselves, well, it would just be so much easier Mhmm. If I could drink. When in fact, we find and well, number one, it would be illegal for them to do that. Right. And we find that, drinking does relate to more mental health problems. Mhmm. And that's not a theological statement. That's a very well researched statement. In fact, now the surgeon general is wants to put on all alcohol a notice that it could cause cancer. It's now a known cause of cancer and we're aware of that now. And so, yes, there's this discomfort but sometimes because we have these standards, yes, it's uncomfortable but guess what? Those are actually better for us. It's better for us to keep those standards than to not keep those standards. Yeah. Sometimes I say, you know, for me, it would be a good standard to do 50 push ups. I can't do 50 push ups, but that would be a good goal for me to have. If I said, okay, that's a good goal. So I'm going to get down right here, right now and do 50 push ups. I'm not going to make it. And I could get up and I could say, oh, I'm such a terrible person. Oh, you know, that guy on TV can do 50 pushups. I'm not as good as him. Well, that's a good goal. I'm going to do it again. And so I get down. I tried to 50 pushups. I'm going to do fewer pushups the second time than I did the first time. If I get up, oh, no, that's I'm so terrible and all that. And it's a good goal. I'm going to keep doing it. I get down and try it again. I'm going to do fewer pushups the third time. And so healthy perfectionism is about making really good high standards, but recognizing that we are going to make mistakes along the way, that we're not going to be perfect at it, and then we can adjust as needed that, oh, that standard of 50 pushups, that's a long term goal. What are kind of the short term goals in the middle that I can make so that I can get there? And then if I don't make it, I don't feel like I'm worthless. Yeah. I hold my head high and I move forward in order to try and achieve that goal eventually. Yeah. So it sounds like bad or toxic perfectionism has a negative impact on our identity or how we see or interpret ourselves as a person or a being. Is that fair? You just said that perfectly. It actually does do that. Right? We start to view ourselves, ourselves, you know, who I am as negative and bad. Right? If we sin, then we can say, Absolutely. Yeah. What I did was bad. And that's actually a good thing. It's healthy. It's really mentally healthy for us to acknowledge when we do wrong things. Yeah. That's a good thing for us. It's actually a big problem when people don't acknowledge when they make mistakes. It's very healthy when we do that. So healthy to recognize I did a wrong thing. Unhealthy to say, therefore, God doesn't love me. Other people can't love me. I shouldn't love me. Mhmm. And it's when we go to that location, other people shouldn't love me. God won't love me. That's when we get into the toxic area. Yeah. And so it's this tough balance of time because oftentimes in my own life, I interpret things different than maybe somebody else does. Right? Alright. And that you see this in in youth, and I wanna get there with youth, you know, generally. But, you know, they may interpret a bad day of, like, what's wrong with me? I can't get right where I'm kinda may maybe matured to a place of being like, you know, just some days are tough, and there's always tomorrow type of thing. Right? And so sometimes you just because it you can shift to the healthy perfectionism, there are the healthy striving. Others can't. So you just have to be aware of that. Right? Oh, absolutely. We all are probably at some degree to some point in our lives, a bit of a toxic perfectionist. Mhmm. Right? Some people have it to a greater degree than others. And so, yeah, when we're working with youth, when we're working with other individuals, we do have to realize that just because I'm interpreting something a particular way doesn't mean that everybody's interpreting it that same way. Yeah. So, I mean, what about just the word perfectionism in general? Like, obviously, be there for perfect. Right? And, I mean, the biblical scholars can take you down all sorts of wormholes with just that word. What's it mean? The translation. And, you know, I think of, elder Holland's talk of be therefore perfect eventually. Right? And so sometimes the interpretation of these things and I don't think, you know, generally, I don't think Christ was saying be therefore perfect or man, am I disappointed in you or, like, like, there's a a deeper dynamic going on. Right? So I think some people just avoid the concept of perfectionism in general, but in religious context, some of the times you can't get away from it. Right? Yeah. Absolutely. I think we really do have this conflicted relationship with that because we know that we should strive for good things and we know that we should have high standards. And yet, we have this sense that, well, if we have these high standards and isn't that bad, and aren't we gonna make people feel bad? Right? And so we're kind of conflicted about whether or not we should hold on to perfection or as an ideal, or whether or not we should hold to these standards as ideals. But when we're able to separate out the standard from our own self worth, from our identity, if we can say to ourselves, as President Nelson has taught us, that we are children of God, child of the covenant, disciple of Christ. If we can hold on to those things as identities, then we can strive for good things while at the same time thinking, I am still loved infinitely. And so we can do both of those at the same time. We can hold perfection as an ideal while at the same time holding within ourselves, I am loved infinitely. And there's there's nothing that's gonna take me outside the bounds of Christ's love and his help. Yeah. I don't know exactly where this will take us, but I'm I'm just thinking of the typical scenario that maybe a church leader experiences where, you know, we've been to many of those state conferences or, you know, the bishop speaks in sacrament or even speaking to youth where there's this feeling of, like, you know, you all are great people, but you could be doing a little bit more. I mean, I've seen the temple attendance numbers and yeah. It's come on. You know, you're sort of this feeling of rallying the troops. And so then leaders get this perception of feeling of, like, I think I'm just always supposed to, like, once they maybe touch the standard, I gotta lift it a little bit more because we're reaching for perfection. But then that experience just becomes like, oh, like, I can't I can't do it. I can't listen to one more talk about I'm not doing enough when I'm just trying to survive most days. Right? What what comes to mind with with that? Yeah. That's, we are so good. Many of us are just so good at saying anything my leader says that is about improvement or anything like that applies directly to me. Right? Leaders are speaking to people in lots of different circumstances. And sometimes when we hear a leader and there are certainly sometimes and I know I've I've had this at times, perhaps as a missionary, maybe many people can relate to this as a missionary. Yeah. This is these are good examples. You are you are 100% obedient, like, and you're you're moving along. And then the mission president says we need to do better. And honestly, he's really not talking to you. Right. He's talking to the other elders or sisters who are perhaps not quite in the patterns, if you will, of missionary service. And so it does take some maturity for us to take what a leader says and then apply it in our own situation and to examine ourselves with the Lord. Right? Am I doing all that I need to be doing in this area? And we can say to ourselves, leader, thank you so much for bringing that up. I really appreciate it. It was a point for me to self examine. And you know what? I feel like between me and the Lord, we're doing great in that particular area. Yeah. So we can take some ownership for it. For the advice and the counsel given by our leaders. And of course, you know, if they say there are those times when we say, you know what? I'm actually not doing that as well and I need to adjust what I'm doing. And so we need to be, if you will, spiritually mature enough to take what the leaders say and take it seriously and evaluate to what degree do I need to change something in my life. Yep. Yeah. And on the you know, like and this is the like, from the leader standpoint as leaders are listening. I think the paradox is that, you know, I I always go back to Carl Rogers, American psychologist, who said, you know, the curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change. Right? And that dynamic is happening when when you help the people feel they're accepted just as they are. It's this weird thing happens. They wanna do more. They wanna be better. They wanna lean into the gospel. Right? And so I'm just thinking, like, the more we can offer redemption in the context of a state conference of, you know, let isn't it beautiful that Christ's, like, what he did for us? Not so much of what you didn't do this past week. Right? Anyways, I I I'm kind of veering off the focus here. But going back to the data Mhmm. That so the data, as far as you can tell, is telling us that there's nothing about our religious experience is stimulating more toxic perfectionism. Is that a fair way to frame it? So toxic perfectionism seems to be a natural human tendency that would exist whether they're religious or non religious. So what we found is that twelve percent of Latter day Saint youth were high in toxic perfectionism, which isn't a good number, right? We need to look at that and say, okay, what can we do better? The same time, atheists and agnostics, twenty percent of them were high in toxic perfectionism. And so because it's a natural human tendency to be toxic perfectionist, there might be, if you will, messages that some youth or adult receives in church that may indicate, you know, you really aren't of worth if you are not perfect. Mhmm. But the thing is, is that those messages exist in all of society. Right. It's a human tendency to feel toxic perfectionism, but it's also a human tendency to indicate that somebody is not as good or not very worthwhile if they are not perfect or make mistakes or any of those things. Right? You just think of social media, all the images that you receive about all these people are are doing so well. It is very profitable for companies to make you feel bad about yourself if you do not have their product, if you don't subscribe to whatever it is. And so they are really, really good at that and therefore that's probably why you see outside of religion higher levels of toxic perfectionism because at least within religion, particularly the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, we are taught that we are children of God, that you are loved infinitely. There's nothing you can do to take yourself outside the circle of God's love. That you are infinite value and so within religion you can bypass that. It's not just about the worldly things that no matter what happens to me, no matter what the circumstances that occur in my life or what mistakes I made, I can go to church and guess what? 99 times out of a hundred, I'm told God loves you no matter what. Yeah. I'm told that if you make mistakes, those sins though they be a scarlet can be made white as wool, snow, all those things that you don't just have this life. If I messed up my youth or my young adulthood, well, guess what? You have a chance to change and there's a life after this that you can have infinite possibilities ahead of you and joy. For For somebody who doesn't believe that, boy, if I mess up this life, that's kind of it. Yeah. And so there's even more of a sense that if I don't do well, boy, this wasn't worthwhile versus, hey, if I don't do well, I can change, I can repent. I'm always loved and there's an infinite beauty ahead of me. So certainly there are tendencies of religious people because we are people, we're human beings that say a kid in Sunday school or seminary might feel the message that, Oh, I'm not worthwhile. But that is anti gospel, right? That is pro consumerism if you will, because that's what the consumerism culture wants you to believe. But that's anti gospel. And so within the gospel of Jesus Christ, we get the messages that can help us avoid it. We still have issues with it in the gospel, but that's more because of the natural man and other worldly emphasis, not because of the pure doctrine of Jesus Christ. Yeah. And I really wanna underscore that. That's a really helpful framing that it's mortality that stimulates the toxic perfectionism where you, you know, in a religious frame, you can say it's the adversary that does that even to the atheist when he gets on social media and he sees someone that has something more than he does, and when he gets that, there's always gonna be somebody else who has something more. Right? And that dynamic can plays into it where if that same individual had a place he could go every seven days or so or a community he was in reminding him, no. No. You gotta remember. You are a child of god of infinite worth. Like, that sort of that can reset the system to then face mortality again and again. Right? Oh, absolutely. You see an image of somebody online and they have this perfect body and, you know, for the religious individual, Oh boy, I guess I'm not worth something because I don't have that body. Oh wait, but my body is a temple of the spirit. And oh, I'm still of infinite worth even though I don't have that. Right? We have a way to frame ourselves, our identity that is not tied to, if you will, the world and material possessions and success in a worldly sense or even in a spiritual sense. Right? Even if somebody I see them as more righteous than me, guess what? They're not more loved by God than me. And, they're not more God doesn't care about them more than he cares about me. And so we have all the hope in the universe to move forward even if we don't even if we make mistakes or, don't have what others have. Yeah. And, Esa, this is why I love interviewing you and some of your research partners of because I want leaders to feel like they can lean in and have permission of proposing the gospel lifestyle saying this is a valid lifestyle that promotes very healthy experiences and mental health dynamics and all those things. Right? And, of course, we're not saying we're perfect at fighting toxic perfectionism. Right? Like, sure. We could go through and be like, well, you know, what about the temple recommend thing? Like, is that the best way to do it? Like, well, maybe there's a better way, but we're just doing our best to saying we need some level of standard to gauge whether people are ready for that next step of covenants or renewing those covenants type of thing. Right? So I don't say the system is perfect to every, you know, detail. However, generally speaking, the gospel of Jesus Christ is a beautiful framework that I highly recommend that every leader should feel like you can recommend this with passion and yeah. With that passion of saying, no, this is valid. Lean into this. Right? That's exactly right. The standards of the gospel are beautiful and fantastic. And it's actually, you know, I have benefited from those throughout my life, but I don't think I realized how much I benefited throughout my life until I started doing this research and looking at these various standards and religious people and finding that they actually do better in their mental health and family life and in all these ways. And it's those standards that are helping us. Now, are there instances where there's, you know, one out of ten of our youth who have high toxic perfectionism and maybe sometimes when we indicate these things, they are putting themselves down and that's creating problems? Yes, absolutely. Which is why we need to be dialed into the individual, which is why it's wonderful that you have youth that have their adult youth presidencies, the young women presidencies. You have four women there and the bishopric and they're all dialed into these youth at a close level that we can try to monitor. Okay, how are they receiving these messages? Let's teach the standards that will bless them so much in their lives. Their life here and in eternal life, we are going off the rails unfortunately in society in terms of mental health problems, deaths of despair like suicide. And part of it is because we're losing religion. And the wonderful blessing that religion provides for us in our lives. Please teach that. It's such a blessing. You're literally saving lives from doing that, but also be aware that, alright, there might be people who are interpreting these messages who have experienced this toxic perfectionism, so just be aware of that. Yeah. And dial in with each one of them to make sure that they know that they're loved no matter what and that these standards are there to support and to help and to lead them closer to god. Yeah. Let's talk about just the youth demographic for a minute because it does feel like and I have a variety of theories on this where all things related to youth feels heavier in general. And I would probably and this is probably controversial, but I'd say it's probably not as heavy as you think. However, from a parent's standpoint, you're like, man, I remember little Johnny. When he was eight getting baptized, he was so precious up here, and now he's 14 and, like, what is happening? Right? Like, the contrast is there. And so you feel like we gotta triple down our effort. We gotta make sure that, you know, testimonies get established, that we're doing the youth activity, that, you know, that we're developing this person. Then we sorta overplay it to the point of, like, alright. Now I think we overwhelmed the the kid or not. You know? So but what does the data show or what can we learn just about how is this perfectionism, toxic perfectionism unique for youth the youth experience? Youth are just in that process of discovering who they are. Yeah. Right? They're an identity discovery in so many ways. And so what they're trying to figure out is where does my worth come from? If I don't play basketball as well as my dad wants me to play basketball, am I still loved? If I don't get on the particular team or whatever, am I still good and okay? And so they're trying to figure all of that out. So it is a perfect time to try and instill in them, again, exactly what President Nelson is trying to do. Give us our true identities. Yeah. Help us to understand who we are and where we come from. That is going to be the very best combat against toxic perfectionism. Now what we found in our research is that parents who use what we call authoritarian parenting Mhmm. And that's high expectations but low love Mhmm. And low care and concern and often a lot of shaming Mhmm. For the kid doing the wrong thing where we would indicate to the kid that, you know what, mom, dad doesn't love you. Right? We give them the silent treatment. We use love withdrawal. Well, I'm gonna just kinda be cold shoulder over here because they're not doing the right thing. Mhmm. When in fact, when they're not doing the right thing, they probably need more of mom and dad. Mhmm. They probably need more love from us and more care and concern. Not that we drop standards, but that we are dialed into what they need because then that calls them to a higher standard rather than giving them, you know, icy fire to punish them to a higher standard. Right? We don't whip them to get along the path, we call them through our love. We found that when both mom and dad were authoritarian in their parenting, fifty percent of girls were high in toxic perfectionism, forty nine percent it was. I mean, it just goes off the charts as soon as mom and dad use this kind of love withdrawal and shame their children for doing the wrong thing versus if they do something wrong, it's so important for us to point that out and to work with them on that. But there's, you know, if a child comes home late, it's not written in the stars that the first thing you have to do is get really mad at them and say, Why were you late? You could start with, Well, how was your evening? Then, you know, talk about that. And guess what? With that, they'll probably talk about them being late. But if they don't, then eventually you say, Okay. Well, you came home late. Can you tell me about that? Alright. Well, we have a standard and we have this pattern. You know that these are the consequences gonna happen. Alright? And and we just have those standards and those patterns, but they're not enforced with hate. They're enforced with love. Yeah. And the man, there's so many things to consider, but the most tragic thing that comes from this is that often in those in those adolescence years, the experience they have with earthly parents is often what they project on our eternal father about, oh, you know, if my dad was angry pacing in the living room when I was five minutes past curfew, god must be pacing in his living room just so frustrated with these stupid mistakes I make. Right? And then they would not only withdraw from those earthly relationships but from those eternal relationships, that godly relationship where they're so powerful and and what's so needed in mortality. You know? It's tough. It's tough. Yeah. That that's absolutely the case. You tell a five year old your heavenly father loves you. That is so abstract for them. Right. Right? Your heavenly I I don't know what that is. Love, love is pretty abstract concept. Yeah. Father. Oh, father. Okay. I got one of those. Yeah. And so when the father says I love you and all that, okay. They're kinda getting this idea. And so, well, I guess how my father loves me here is how my heavenly father loves me. Yeah. And so, again, heavenly father loves you is actually pretty extract for, like, a four or five year old. Mhmm. And what do they do? They latch on to the words that they're familiar with. Yeah. And, oh, this is how this works then. This is how my dad Yeah. Works with me. And so if you're like me, you've made all kinds of mistakes along the way. Right? And so you try to explain to your child that your heavenly father is different from me, but then you also do try to apologize when you make mistakes to the parents. Right. That's powerful. And you do try to love them as their heavenly father would. Yeah. Yeah. And I just think with then maybe, you know, there's smarter people that could articulate this more accurately. But another dynamic that happens in those adolescents years is that they're just like that you'd mentioned, like, they're just sort of becoming aware of their identity. Right? Like, suddenly, they're really aware of how they dress to school, the groups they're in. And and I think a lot of this stuff just works its way out of the, you know, out of the system as they mature and their mature and their brain develops, and then they're 25 and they're like, oh, suddenly they're in grad school. Like and you can't really tie it back to like, oh, that's because I I shamed them enough at 14 that, you know even though we kinda wanna take that credit, you know, I think it's just a natural process. And I get like, my heart goes out to those, and I'm just stepping into the teenage years. But, like, the but, Kurt, what about those serious mistakes they can make? Like, what about, like oh, no. That's the atonement covers those two, and, you know, it'll be okay. But I my heart goes out. These are tough years. Right? And so but what I'm learning from you in this and what you're learning from the data is that the more we default to a place of identity, like, reminding them, hey. I know you didn't make that school team. I just want you to know, like, you could never make a school team again, and, like, I'd be here for you. Like, I'll still shoot hoops with you. I'll still we'll still do the things together. Right? And and, sir, reassuring that identity, which, again, our theology is just packed with this stuff. Right? President Nelson just been pounding the lectern for, you know, so many years now about remember who you are. Like, this is your identity, drawing people to the temple. What's what's the temple about? Identity. Right? So I'm just thinking, like, to enable those youth leaders out there, those parents of, like, if you don't know what to do, just default to divine identity and remind them again and again, and that will give you a foundation to build from. Absolutely. That is such the critical foundation upon which everything else builds. Yeah. Awesome. What about this is something I worry about. So I have a 13 year old, Devry. Just so sweet. Just like growing up, you know, she's in young women's now just and she's so good. Like, you know, and and I try and have these conversations with their ITs. They're like, don't turn into a mean ager. Like, hope you still like me throughout your teens. Like, of course, dad, I will. Right? But I also worry that, you know, there's this I don't know what they would call it, like, the the good student syndrome where it's like somebody's sort of quietly suffering in toxic perfectionism. And so they're getting the straight a's. They're doing all the things. And then suddenly it snaps the more tragic scenarios of, you know, teen suicides and things of, like, wow. What happened? They were so good when in reality, they were interpreting it like, well, yeah, I have to be this good or that they would reject me. Right? Is there any, like I don't know if any that anything came out in the data or is it does that lead you anywhere? Oh, absolutely. There are many that are just suffering in silence and they look like they're doing good. They look like they're doing okay because they're succeeding in all these things. Honestly, it's a good thing every now and again, because you can kind of see if you're paying attention, you can kind of see perhaps some signs of and again, there are some times where parents generally there there really weren't signs, so I don't wanna say that. Right. But if we can pay attention and say, you know what? Are they doing okay? I have expressed to one of my children before. I said, you know, that if you failed out of school, you'd still be okay. And I would love you. Right? And your life wouldn't be over if that happened. And it's like, Why is my dad giving me permission to fail out of school? And I say, No. Now let's try not to do that. But this is by far not the most important thing in your life. The most important thing in your life, right, are gonna be the relationships that you build with those around you, with your heavenly father. That's what's really most important. Yeah. I mean, a person could be a failure in so many ways in life, but still 100% succeed. There are people who are in total poverty that in the next life are gonna be so much better off than me who has a good job, right stability, all these things because they have managed to achieve those heavenly qualities. Mhmm. And so as we work with our kids, the more that we can acknowledge to them what really matters in life and that those successes that they have are fantastic, they're wonderful. We should applaud and praise those successes but also remember, you know what? That's not the end all be all Yeah. Of life. And reminding my kids that, Hey, I failed at a lot of things in my life. And helping them to recognize that failure is a part of life. And we naturally identify with those things that we're very good at. And so very naturally, say at BYU, you have people that have The students have done very, very well in high school. And I talk to them about that and say, Well, what if you were to, again, naturally make one of your primary identities good student? What happens when you get that first B at BYU? And a lot of heads are like, Yeah, I remember that. Your whole world falls apart. Yeah. But it's a natural thing to have that develop because, Oh, I'm a really good student, and you're told you're a good student. Uh-huh. But we need to just continue to remind them that, you know what? That's a temporal thing. It's a wonderful thing. It's a great thing. Please do well on it because that can help you be a better disciple of Christ. But at the end of the day, that's what we're striving for. Yeah. And I appreciate that story you shared. Again, that paradox of, like, you're not telling your center daughter, like, you can actually flunk out of school and whatever. You know? But you're just it's an identity discussion. You're like, let's set behaviors aside for men just so you know, like, we're good. Like, whatever happens. And sometimes, as, you know, taking back to the church context, I worry we sometimes oversell the gospel tradition and behaviors where it's like in a priest quorum, you can't help but talk about your mission. Let me show you pictures. You guys are gonna love it. Like, I'm gonna come to each one of your mission call openings. It's gonna be great. Right? And and then the the the young man sitting there thinking, like, I don't wanna go on a mission. So is this guy gonna reject me the minute he finds out I don't wanna go on a mission? Right? Or we know we we hype up the temple. Temple's awesome. It's like, actually, I'm kinda bored when I go to the temple. You know? Like, what does that mean about me? Right? So the the more we can just take it back to these identity discussions. But at the same time, like, I've noticed just in my parenting or relationships, when I make sure that identity conversation and foundation is set, then I can approach my son or daughter and be like, listen, I know you have it in you to take this on. Like, you can be a missionary. Like, you got it. You have what it takes. Go do it. I'll be right here. Like, I'll be writing the letters every week or whatever. Right? Like, you have support. You can do this. And then they're like, okay. I'm I'm I know my identity. I can lean in. And then that positive perfectionism, like, just drives them. Yeah. Amen. It's so good for us to push our kids. Mhmm. My wife is very good at this. You know, if they go my kids go to the doctor's office, even the little kids, go check yourself in. Go talk to the receptionist. That's right. Right? You make that phone call. Mhmm. Right? Pushing these kids out of their comfort zone to do things that, hey, I have confidence in you. And when they perceive that we have confidence in them, like you just expressed, then they can pick up that confidence as well. And it's a great thing. Again, it is great to have high standards. That's a wonderful thing. It's an incredibly mentally healthy thing Yeah. To have high standards. And you can hold both of those things in your hands. You can hold, I am a child of God and no matter what my mistakes are, I can come back, and you can hold in the other hand as well, I need to have high standards. And in fact, those are reinforcing things. They're not mutually exclusive. They're things that actually boost each other. Yeah. And that takes me to this conversation of, like, sometimes leaders are really hesitant because you think about, like, the LGBT dynamics and, being a LGBTQ Latter day Saint and wow. Like, that's complex. It's complicated. And so maybe let's not talk about the temple so much or about these commandments, and let's just make sure that, you know, they're in a a mental health state that's actually pause you know, we we kinda try and control these dynamics to the point of not having permission to lean in and say, no. This is a valid thing. So anything come to mind as far as, like, when sometimes we wanna kinda downplay the the gospel. I mean, and maybe we've already covered it. Though. No, no, no. That's a really great point, especially when we're thinking about kids who might not fit the typical mold. Right? Your LGBTQ individuals. And okay, well, we might not quite know how to approach that. Obviously, the best way to approach that is a one on one Yeah. Sort of a thing where we're trying to understand where they're coming from and see where they're at and then bring them along in a in a one by one on one thing. But the research is actually pretty clear and not just from our research but other research studies that the more religious LGBTQ individuals are, the better their mental health. Yeah. And they also derive benefit from religion. And so actually if we, if you will, soft pedal it and say that some people are gonna be exempt from some commandments, what you've done is you've just taken away supports. Mhmm. In an effort to be kind and loving and supportive, we've actually just removed some supports from those individuals because the commandments are a support. They're so good for us in our lives. And if we decide to remove some of those for some people, then we've actually done them a disservice. Right. And again, we need to make sure that particularly with individuals whose experiences might be well outside the norm, we need to be able to engage with them on a one on one basis. And again, that's why the local leaders are so important to be right there and dialed in with what the youth are experiencing. My parents can be dialed in with their kids' experiences as much as they can. I remember as a kid there were some things I was far more comfortable talking to a youth leader about than my own parents. My parents are fantastic people, but people, but just for whatever reason, I just felt like, oh, I need to would talk with some somebody else. And that's that's a natural thing. Right. Yeah. Is there anything that came out of the data that, for the adult demographic, not just, you know, after you've matured out of, teenage years, anything that's unique about adults and toxic perfectionism? You know, what we found is that lower levels of toxic perfectionism in adults. So it seems like you got toxic perfectionism that kind of grows throughout the teenage years and adolescence and early adulthood. You kind of have that increase there. But it looks like a little later in life, you know, you kind of settle down a little bit. You make enough mistakes to realize you're probably not gonna figure it out. Right? That's right. That's right. That's right. You just gotta give up. You're just tired. It was like, you know, and I'm imperfect. And so be it. Perfect. Yeah. But what we did find actually even more with the youth that religion helps to dial down toxic perfectionism. Mhmm. For youth, toxic perfectionism leads to less religious behaviors. Mhmm. In some instances, you had religious behaviors decreasing toxic perfectionism, but you really found a big negative effect of toxic perfectionism on religion. So kids who experience that, they're more likely to back away. And in fact, you know, we think of the toxic perfectionist kid as being that kid who is super high achieving, But it's actually can also be the kid that decides, I'm going to do nothing. Mhmm. Because it's just so dangerous. If I make a mistake, then I'm worthless. Yeah. And so it's easier not to try. And so it can be the kid that just spends all their day on video games because they're just so scared of trying. Yeah. Like this is a safe place and I can achieve whatever I can here in this video game, but if I try outside of this, in school, in church, it's just too painful. Yeah. And so I'm just going to back away from it all. So we found that a lot that kids who were toxic perfectionists tended to shy away from religion. And the opposite was also true in some instances where the more religious you were that dialed down the toxic perfectionism, but that was actually particularly true in adults. That the more secure relationship they had with God, that I feel like God's trustworthy and all that, the less they experienced toxic perfectionism. And that behavior such as scripture reading and church attendance, that helped to translate into that secure attachment to God and then less toxic perfectionism. So the behaviors really only mattered in as much as they were helping the adults and the youth, but more so even the adults, create that healthy relationship with God. Like I can trust God, he's going to be there for me and we call that a secure attachment with God. Yeah. And and, you know, I wanna remind myself, and correct me if I'm wrong, like like, you're the researcher. You're the data guy. You didn't say I did the day, and now I have all the solutions. But just for conversation's sake, I'm curious. Like, I'm just thinking of that person, and we've all heard this story where someone is sort of propelled into a faith crisis because they're just like, I just can't do it all anymore. Because somewhere along the path, they got this idea that if you're not going to the temple once a week or studying your scriptures sixty minutes a day, like, doing all the things, then you're not a good Latter Saint. Right? There's the identity battle. Right? I mean, is there anything comes to mind for an adult who's in that state, like, or a Bishop who sees someone in that state that, I mean, what do we do? I think one thing, of course we deal with them as we weep with them and we recognize the struggle and we see ourselves in that, in that individual. And we going back to, you know, what I mentioned just earlier, these things are designed to help us build a good relationship with God. Right. And make us more godly. We talk about the checklist, you know, all the time and that this isn't a checklist gospel and that if you're reading your scriptures every day, but it's just stressing you out, right, and and it's just so heavy on you. Mhmm. You know what? Maybe what you say is instead of reading it, I need to listen to some song that's going to be very uplifting to me. That's going to help me connect with deity. And that's going to be part of my deep connection with God today. What really matters almost at the end of the day is that these patterns are helping us to create deep connections with God in ways that help to sustain our faith in Christ and sustain us along the covenant path. And so what are those things for you that help you, that enable you to do that? Is there a moment where, you know what, this is just so stressful and maybe I need to do something a little bit different and find refreshment in what we're doing. So I, you know, for a living, I teach about the gospel. And I was talking with another person who was do who who also teaches the gospel for a living and they were super stressed out with things. And they're like, you know, I know all the gospel answers. You know, I do this. I read the scriptures all the time. I'm studying the scriptures like I should, because I know all this stuff, be able to do that. Well, and as we got into discussion, you know, some of their realization was, you know what? I'm doing this intellectually and I know these things intellectually, but my relationship might be suffering. You know, I could know everything there was to know about my mother. And I could tell you everything there was to know about my mother and you would know all these things. I could write books about, you know, my mother and then But that doesn't mean that I or you have a relationship with her. Right. It's about the actual connection with the divine that makes the big difference. And it's us working for it. If we're not feeling it right now, we recognize that there are periods in our lives that we might not feel that as strongly. So we keep on keeping on, you know, but we're working for those moments, those quiet moments, those moments of pondering where actually having that deep connection with the divine. We're going to the temple to try to enable deep connections with the divine. We're reading our scriptures to have deep connections with the divine, to have those moments of touching the divine so that we can get that relationship. Right? It's not just this intellectual exercise that sometimes And it's not just these behaviors that we do that we sometimes think are it. The behaviors are important and they can facilitate that connection, but that's really where it's at. And us transmitting that to the person and us feeling that for ourselves is really where the refreshment. Yeah. That's where the refreshment comes is in those moments. Yeah. I love that. Just that, know, the obviously, the temple is an intellectual experience from time to time and, you know, information's being discussed and principles are are there. But some parts you think like, well, what about the celestial room? Nothing intellectual is going on there. I'm not, like, listening to something. I'm just, like, sitting. Like, why are we wasting our time here? Right? When in reality, it's so relational to sit in God's house on his sofa and just be there. Like, with that moment of the spirit that's there, not to learn something, but to be there. Right? And so sometimes I think there is those moments where you have to think, okay, I'm doing a lot of stuff. I'm learning a lot of stuff. I just need to take a breath and lean into that relationship that you talk about. That's awesome. I remember as a missionary, it was then Elder Oaks came to our mission and, he says, we read scriptures differently than anybody else. I'm paraphrasing him. He says, because we have the Holy Ghost with us, we can then get this conduit, kind of this conduit to us to heaven and that the scriptures then become a mechanism to create that conduit to heaven and to feel the Holy Spirit with us. And if we think about our scripture study as, oh, this is helping me to access that conduit, that is going to be so much more healthy than thinking, if I do my scriptures today, I'm going to score 10 points lower on my depression scale, whatever. Like that's Yeah. Somehow that's going to be it. Like because I did that, am I doing this so that I can be in a place where conduits to heaven can be open? And it's not gonna happen every day. Right. But we regularly be in that place where those moments can happen. Yeah. Yeah. Reaching for it. That's powerful. Well, before wrap up, what what are the next big questions or other things you're you're discussing that maybe we'll have you back on for? I mean, are there big questions in your research that you're leaning towards? You know, one thing that we have been looking a lot about is women in the church. Oh, cool. We have had for ever since we've been collecting data, not just us, but data and historical data, women are more religious than men. And what we're finding is that might be starting to flip. And so we're really interested in women's experiences today. And this is in Christianity in general. We're seeing a worldwide thing, not a worldwide thing, I should say, more in the West, that's starting to change. And so we're wondering a little bit about, okay, well, how are women doing in the church and what can we do there to better serve them? So we're actually starting a project to look at that now. Cool. Alright. There's your tease. So Jez will be back. Well, just to end, what what final encouragement would you give to church leaders? I would say thank you for what you're doing. You literally are saving lives by what you're teaching. And then of course, minister to the one. Find those that are having a difficulty with the teachings of the church in any way, right? Are they experiencing toxic perfectionism when they hear these kinds of, when they hear about standards, right? Again, it's a natural inclination. We shouldn't back away from the standards. We should talk about them, but then also make sure that we're understanding how people are interpreting these things and that they're not interpreting it in a way that would indicate that God doesn't love them or that there's not infinite hope for them if they make mistakes. It's a beautiful thing to be able to teach the Lord's standards and at the same time communicate the love that God has for them, that you have for them, and that you can be that conduit of God's love to them, to call them to greater and greater heights. Now that we've reached the end of the episode, I quickly want to thank you for supporting the leading saints podcast. There's so much content out there to consider and you picked this one. If leading saints has made an impact in your life, we would sure like to hear about it at leadingsaints.org/contact. And if you could quickly text or email this episode to a leader, you know, I bet it will bless their life. You can mark off your good turn daily and let's even call it ministering. Okay. Maybe not that far, But seriously, thank you, and help us share this content. Remember, the Jody Moore presentation about youth and mental health is waiting for you at leadingsaints.org/fourteen. It came as a result of the position of leadership which was imposed upon us by the God of heaven who brought forth a restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And when the declaration was made concerning the own and only true and living Church upon the face of the earth, We were immediately put in a position of loneliness, the loneliness of leadership from which we cannot shrink nor run away, and to which we must face up with boldness and courage and ability.