Anita Rao
I have a really young looking face. And I'm pretty short, like, the level to which I still make sure to add half inches when I tell people my height. This combo of physical characteristics means I'm almost always carded. And I don't just mean for alcohol. In my mid 20s, when I was living in New York, I got questioned trying to see an R movie. Required age for that? 17.
While I can brush off these interactions pretty easily, it's moments when my look, height or gender lead me to being underestimated that really sting. And my journey to sitting in this hosting chair has meant playing whack-a-mole with a combination of my own imposter syndrome and external expectations about what a host should look or sound like. Owning the right to take up space is an ongoing journey, and I'm certainly not the only one on it.
This is Embodied, I'm Anita Rao.
One woman who has been on an exceptionally long and winding journey to reclaim her body: Elissa Wall. If her name sounds familiar, you may have met her in the four-part Netflix docuseries "Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey."
"Keep Sweet" Trailer Excerpt
In our minds, the police, even the President of the United States, had no authority over us. Warren Jeffs is our president, he was the prophet. And how could you place a human over God?
Anita Rao
That's a little taste of the series from the trailer. Over the course of four episodes, it explores the origin story and legacy of the FLDS church, a far offshoot of the Mormon church that practices polygamy. FLDS stands for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. "Keep Sweet" traces the criminal case of the church's leader and prophet, Warren Jeffs, who is currently serving a life sentence for child sexual assault. And y'all, I am not typically someone who watches true crime, but Team Embodied encouraged me to press play on this one. And when I did, I was left with so many big feelings and questions, especially for one person: Elissa Wall. Elissa left the community in her late teens, and played a prominent role in Warren Jeffs' first conviction. She tells some of that story in the four part docuseries, but I had a hunch that there was a lot that got left out.
Elissa Wall
Disconnecting so completely from everything that you knew had its struggles. And there were times where that struggle was so all-consuming that I almost did not make it.
Anita Rao
That's Elissa. Today, she is in her mid 30s, and is an advocate, speaker and author. But I wanted to know more about all the moments in between her childhood and now. How do you adjust to a world outside of this incredibly insular community, while also unraveling a lifetime of toxic messaging about gender roles, sexuality and bodily autonomy? A world in which your guidance about how to behave is literally "keep sweet."
Elissa Wall
The term "keeping sweet" was a blanket term that really meant so many things. But if you were to boil it down in language that could be communicated, it was this state of being that did not allow any altered emotions. So there wasn't too happy or too upset, it was always carrying a sweet, obedient and kind disposition.
Anita Rao
So you were very controlled under that guidance of "keep sweet" and life inside the FLDS community was very controlled and very isolated from the rest of society. You didn't really leave the property. Once Warren Jeffs took over, you had to wear these, kind of, pioneer style dresses, your hair in tight braids. You didn't have much access to the outside world. I'm curious of what your conception was about how the rest of the country lived when you were growing up in that really isolated environment.
Elissa Wall
Because all of our information around the outside world and history, as well as all of our schooling, was controlled and provided by the church itself, then every viewpoint that we had of the outside world was framed from their perspective. And it usually was always framed from this place of, they are gentiles. And it was an essence of pity because, somehow, we were better than the rest of the world, because God had graced us with His pure and righteous gospel. But also they were, they were messengers of the devil in a lot of ways — meaning they were there to tempt us — and if we fraternized with the outside world too much, or we partook of any of the materials that were published by the outside world, then it would lead us astray from our testimony.
I look back on the versions of myself as a child, and we just had this sense of anxiety. And I didn't have the language to know that that's what it was, but it was always a tension and a tightness and a part of us that, especially when we were at school, or we were at any kind of a church function, you just never knew what was going to come next. And so much of the teachings while I was growing up really centered around the end of the world. It was always, "The end of days are coming, and you have to be obedient and righteous, you have to give more, you have to sacrifice more to be able to be part of God's pure people and be able to survive the destructions."
Anita Rao
There wasn't really access to movies and to video games and to a lot of the things that, you know, kids in the outside world would do for fun and joy and play. Were those aspects of your life as a kid, and what brought those to you, to your life? The fun and the joy and the play.
Elissa Wall
I do remember having a lot of fun and joy as a kid. Even though we grew up in very closed environments, kids find a way to create joy. And we played a lot of old school things — tag and playing house. I remember so much of my childhood as a woman, I was pretending to be a mother, because that was what our lives were, was, we knew that we were going to grow up, be married to a man that had many wives and that we were going to have as many children as God would bless us with. And so much of our play kind of centered around continuing to train us how to be good, obedient, submissive. But like any child, we find those ways to unconsciously rebel, and I was a tomboy. And so I found myself playing a lot with my older brothers, and playing everything from cops and robbers to cowboys and Indians. We also would read books, a lot of the books that were offered to us were books that were published in the 1800s, or they were approved specifically by the church. But also, we spent a lot of time doing home plays, and skits and entertaining ourselves. My family also was quite musical, and so we spent a lot of time playing music together.
Anita Rao
You mentioned that you really had the strong conception of being a mother and play would involve that, kind of, playing motherhood. Did you have any sex ed? Did you have any, kind of, idea of what it meant to end up becoming a mother? What that would take, and what would happen with your body?
Elissa Wall
Absolutely not. My experience — and I have to be really open to that — my experience was, is, mine. And a lot of people that come from the same background, they had different experiences based on where their parents were. From my childhood, there was no education around body anatomy, and specifically in the schools, it was very, very clear that we were not to be educated in any way, shape or form. As I would get older, and when I was to be married myself, what was told to me is, "Your husband is going to teach you about that." And it was often deferred to the husband of the girl to be the one to educate her on her body, her cycles, her sexuality. And quite honestly, most of the time, there was just a lot of gaps and a lot of confusion and unanswered questions.
Anita Rao
If you grow up believing that your body belongs to someone else, because of messages you've inherited through religion, politics or culture, it can be challenging to even know what your instincts are — let alone trust them. In the FLDS community, the rules for how women should behave were set by men in power and reinforced by repeated sermons and directives to get married, have children and be obedient to your husband. Elissa grew up watching her older sister go through this process. And while she knew that eventually, she too would be assigned someone to marry, she was stunned to learn that the prophet wanted her to do this when she was only 14 years old. And the person she was set to marry was her 19-year-old cousin. Upon hearing this news, Elissa remembers feeling strongly that something was not right.
Elissa Wall
It was a very visceral response. And I look back on that timeframe, and I realized that internal voice that you spoke to, it was really strong, even though everything had been thrown at it to try and culture it to where it didn't exist at all. So much of the way that we were raised, it was really about focusing on the teachings and what was being told to us by the hierarchy of the church. And we were very dissuaded from listening to that internal intuition. And at the time that I was told to be married, doing something so outside of the norm, such as questioning the marriage — and that was something that I did quite intensely. For an entire week leading up to the marriage, I went to every figure of authority inside of the church that could change my destiny that was being forced on me, all the way up to the very leader himself, the prophet, and finding myself kneeling at his knees, and sobbing, and begging for something as simple as, I just want to two years before I was to be married. And if I couldn't have that, then I was just asking to be married to someone else. Because the man that they were asking me to marry, I really did — all of those instincts inside of us that are there to protect us, they rose up and I, you know, the hair would rise on the back of my neck, and every part of me would become very uncomfortable. And I, I felt unsafe — that was the words I can use now. But at the time, I didn't know that that's what that feeling was, was feeling unsafe.
Anita Rao
I have chills, really, listening to you say that, because you — you were getting a lot of signals, and your body was really, despite not having learned how to connect to your body and being told to be really disembodied, you were getting signs and signals that something was really wrong. So when you had to learn how to suppress those, what happened for you, to your personality and to your psyche?
Elissa Wall
That night, I went and watched as my mother and my older sister so kindly and considerately stitched this wedding dress for me. And in that process of watching that and realizing there was nothing I could do with it, I look back and realize that was the point where I really exited my body — fully and completely. And I completely disconnected from that intuition, and I became incredibly numb. And through the next days, there was a blur, as I would be driven across state lines, and I was married in this very sad and painful ceremony, where, you know, I'm sobbing at the altar. Where — they had to ask my mother to step up next to me and hold my hand. And that act of her holding my hand communicated to me that it wasn't even my future that was at stake here, it was her future, and it was the future of all of the people that I loved the very most. And so, that experience of coming out of my body and being forced so viscerally into this experience, would make it to where, as time went on, and especially as I started to experience marital relations — as they were called to me. I didn't have language such as sex or rape, I didn't understand a male anatomy or my own anatomy. That the first time that I ever experienced it, it was so terrifying. And I was shaking to such a point that, I remember coming back into my body long enough to say, "This feels so wrong, that it must be evil." That's the only thing I could think is, this is evil, because the way that it feels inside of me.
That feeling led me to go and talk to Warren again and explain in detail, "This is what's happening, and this is what he did to me, and it just doesn't feel right, so can you please make it stop?" And instead of taking the time to explain it, or support me in that at all, his response was, "This is what he should be doing, and you go home, and you submit mind, body and soul." And that moment just solidified it for me. And there was a part of me that died and just went very dormant after that, where I didn't understand what was going on. And nobody really took the time to explain it. For many months, I was experiencing extreme sexual assault. But it was happening to me in a way that I didn't have language to tell people, and not only that is, it was very clear to me that I wasn't supposed to talk about it to anyone other than the man that was doing it to me. I couldn't even really talk to my mother.
Anita Rao
You're describing so many layers of, of trauma there that you experienced. From that moment of forced marriage at 14, sexual assault and rape. You had multiple miscarriages and multiple attempts to voice your concerns and get support. And eventually, years later, you did leave this community. What were some of the moments that finally pushed you to try to leave? That, kind of, got you out of that numbness enough to choose to leave this community?
Elissa Wall
It was a really layered experience, and I think one of them as I was getting older — you know, I went from 14 to 18 years old before I left — and there's so much growth and maturity that happens in children in those years. And even though in the beginning of this marriage, I was very timid, and I was very submissive, there was points throughout the marriage where I started to gain my own independence in the best way that I could. But more so, that part of me that I had parted from so extremely — my instincts and my intuition and my heart, I guess you could say — it started to, kind of, burn very, very slowly. And I started to take care of myself. I got multiple jobs, and I would take care of myself and focus on being a part of the world around me in a way that I was a lot less available in my relationship that I was forced into.
And what that started to do is, the further I was able to distance myself — even if it was just a couple of nights a week where I didn't have to be exposed to marital relations — it allowed for me to understand a little bit more about myself. And then, the struggle that I had the most was realizing that because of the miscarriages that I was having, and because I was seen as an unsubmissive, a rebellious and disobedient wife, you know, the shame from my social circles, from the leadership, from the man that they had forced me to marry — that experience of such visceral shame, it definitely triggered something inside of me. And I guess you could say, it's that feisty side of us where I just realized, well, fine, if I'm really that horrible, and I'm really just gonna go to hell anyway, then I might as well do it. Do the best I can, and go find some happiness somewhere.
And all of these things, these internal conversations that were happening, but at the core of all of it, I believe that even though I had disconnected from my body — and I hated my body so much, because I would sit there and I'd say, if I just wasn't alive, and I didn't have a body, this would end. And you started to watch the results of that in my body as I just became, you know — I struggled in, in all kinds of ways. And I struggled with my health, and just being so disconnected from it. And not just that, but consciously and subconsciously, and even speaking my hatred towards my very own body. Especially my — the fact that I was a woman, because the other thing was, that I was like, if I was a man, I wouldn't be in this situation.
Anita Rao
Choosing to leave, and then being on the outside, and having this, kind of, built up experience of what you were told and how you were supposed to interact with your body, also being in this very controlled environment — to now being on the outside with so much newness, I'm guessing so many new stimuli. I mean, how did you adjust to the world outside of FLDS? Do you have any memories from that — those early periods of, just, this totally different world and landscape you were a part of?
Elissa Wall
The choice to leave was very complex. And there was a lot of things that led up to why I chose to leave — a lot of things that were keeping me from leaving sooner. When I finally made that decision — and I remember packing up a few of my belongings and driving out of town, on the border of Utah and Arizona, and really not knowing what would come next. I was aware that I was choosing to leave behind any possible connection that I would have to my community. And so disconnecting so completely from everything that you knew had its struggles, and there were times where that struggle was so all-consuming that I almost did not make it. But the day-to-day of learning to adapt — I tell people I was really like a refugee, in that everything that a refugee coming into a new country — learning new language, learning social norms and culture and how to function in the financial world, how to have friends, how to dress, how to be a member of society — I had to learn every single one of those things. There were times where the process was exciting and illuminating. It just lit me up. But then, there were times where it was so overwhelming that I could just find myself curled up trying to, to find my place in all of it.
Anita Rao
Elissa was 19 when she left the FLDS community in 2004. At first, she moved away to an area where some other former community members lived. And eventually, she got in touch with her older sister Rebecca, who had fled years earlier. Rebecca eventually started to encourage Elissa to talk to law enforcement and tell her story, thinking it could help build a criminal case against Warren Jeffs. And it worked. Elissa took the stand in 2007, and Warren was convicted of two counts of rape as an accomplice. That case was later overturned due to flawed jury instructions, but in 2011, he was found guilty of sexual assault of a child and aggravated sexual assault against a child, which resulted in a life sentence. For Elissa, coming forward with her testimony and then watching the world react to the continued horrors that came to light pulled her back into an experience that she had only just begun to unravel.
Elissa Wall
It definitely had its toll on me physically, and my mental health, specifically. The decision to come forward was a unique timeframe for me, because prior to that, I had really taken this approach — it was like out of sight, out of mind. And what I didn't realize is that approach wasn't actually healing. It was just deferring that healing process, because it was all very much inside of me. And it was in my psyche, and ever so slowly, it started to, kind of, seep out in the mental health. Where I was extremely depressed, and then I would have extreme anxiety. So it was like this up and down and all around. And really, the night terrors was where I never could get away from it. And I got to a point where I was sometimes afraid to go to sleep, because I just didn't know what would it bring up. And that process of coming forward, it had both a cathartic element to it, but also a re-traumatization. Because by telling my story for the first time to investigators, it was the first time that anyone had actually validated what had happened. And I started to get language and a clarity of what — the gravity of what had happened. And I, I started to have these realizations that I maybe am not property, and maybe I'm not the evil one. And it was these, these points of realization and enlightenment about myself that started to happen through that process.
But the court process, anyone will say — especially being a victim in it — can be incredibly difficult all by itself. And so, it was, there was — it was a complex journey. And the fallout from that would take me a couple of years to come back from. You know, there was a point in all of it where — after Warren's trial, and after a few years of a lot of different things — I chose to write a book, because I realized that the larger world didn't really have a grasp on the gravity of this community and what was actually happening inside of it, as well as to try and educate the community itself. You know, my hope was that maybe someone would read this somewhere along the way, and it would help them. And that process of coming out so much with my story, and the details, and the struggle of my experience, it also forced me to face it. And it took me many years to gather the tools to effectively face it. You know, I had a nervous breakdown, and I struggled with mental health.
But that process of absolutely breaking and shattering — the way that it happened was really important, because the moment I found myself at the very bottom in pieces, that was the beginning for me in a lot of ways, because I got to pick up the pieces that I wanted to. I got to pick up the pieces that I wanted to stitch myself back together with, and the ones that I didn't, I could leave there, leave at the bottom, and, and that was the past. And so this process of moving out of the shadow of the past, and leaving in the shadow the parts of me and the trauma that was no longer happening to me — it took time. And it took a lot of work, and so many different ways of healing, and therapy, and self work, and learning to get myself to a place where I could feel whole again.
Anita Rao
That's so beautifully said, the way you describe that, kind of, deconstruction and reconstruction. And I'm curious about when you think about the philosophies of the world and what you grew up with, they were so strong. If you don't do this, you will, you know, have this really drastic consequence. You know, it was very black and white. There were very clear lines about what you could and couldn't do. Now you're in this world where you're rebuilding this for yourself, you're figuring out where those lines are. I'm curious about how you began to, kind of, build an awareness when it came to your body. What are those lines for you? What are your needs, what are your desires? How do you take ownership over this vehicle that had not been yours for so much of your life?
Elissa Wall
I love to talk about this part of it, because for me, I'm still in that process. And this is one thing that I really like to share with all people that are coming from different forms of trauma: it really is a journey. And at different points in this journey, we find these places where we feel like we've arrived, and we're like, ah, we're here, we've done it, oh, yay. And I celebrate those moments, but then as the journey continues on, there comes these — these valleys where it doesn't feel like we have arrived. So this journey of embodiment for me, it has been — and it is continuous — but it has been everything. And it, kind of, really started right after, around the time that I was at my very lowest. I was at a point where, I had finally honored the fact that I was struggling from a mental health disorder, and that I was at the very rock bottom.
But I happened to be at the library one day, and I found this book on this Japanese art — kintsugi art — that, it shows these beautiful vases and cups and bowls that have been broken. And then they're brought back together, and they're mended with gold. And it was this powerful epiphany that I had, where if I looked at myself as just that — I, I'm a broken vase, and my goal right now is to find the gold that can bring it back together. Because there was something in me that really wanted to feel like a beautiful art piece. And in that moment I didn't. I felt exactly opposite. And so, as the years would go on, that would become my mission. What are the pieces of knowledge, or practice, or therapy that can become my goal, that can bring my pieces together. And a lot of it turned into embodiment practice. Practices of movement and massage and breath work and EFT, or different kinds of modalities within therapy that is about bringing the feeling back into your body. And that process of coming back into my body was, was very difficult. Because there were times where I wanted to default to unconscious patterns. And no, this is too scary, it's too hard. It's too painful, go back out, go back out. But just, teaching myself to keep going, and it took me a long time to learn the concept of — to have grace and compassion for myself. But when I realized how powerful that compassion and that grace for myself could be, it accelerated that process where I could come into my body and, just, start to honor it, and one piece at a time. You know, I have legs that work, I have a body that moves, and how do I want her to feel?
Anita Rao
Fifteen years after testifying against Warren Jeffs, Elissa's advocacy on behalf of those still part of FLDS is far from over. In 2016, Elissa was awarded a settlement that included land in Hildale, Utah — one of the towns that makes up her former home of Short Creek. Since moving back to the area, Elissa has established herself as a leader in the community. Her goal: to support women who have recently left FLDS or who remain part of the church.
Elissa Wall
Returning back to Short Creek was such a profound decision in my life. And at the time that I made it, I think a lot of it was that unconscious knowing inside of my body that knew that that really was the next step for my healing. But outside of it, I had been helping people leave the FLDS cult for almost 15 years before I made the decision to move back. And with each and every person that I would help, or support — or organizations that I would help and support that were just trying to stitch together a network to help people adapt into the world — I really came to this realization that, if we were going to actually create a long-term solution, we had to go back to the heart of where it all happened. And we had to heal it from the inside out.
And there were — there was a lot of progress that had been made in the town itself, because when the town was established, and when I lived there, the entire town was owned by a trust that was owned by the church. And why that's important is because nobody had home ownership. Nobody owned the land they were on. And the land was often used as a tool to kick people out or to control people. And over time, that changed because of people like myself and others who stepped forward and petitioned through lawsuits and different ways to the state to take it over. So the state did, and over time, it changed where there was possibility for people to get homeownership. And so in 2016, I got myself a home down in Short Creek, and I made a decision to sell my life and move.
And even that — the act of coming into town that first night, I had all my belongings in a Budget truck. And I'm, I'm driving in, and I'm having this panic attack, and I pull off the side of the road. And there was a part of me that was like — it was like rewinding a decade. And I had to stop, and I had to tell myself, "Elissa, you know what to do. Just do one thing at a time, your body knows how to respond to this." And to be able to draw on the years of work that I had done to come into my body, and to teach her different practices, and to walk myself through that process of coming out of a panic attack. And then being able to look at it and say, you know, if I look at the town as a body, and I say, "Did the body hurt me, in all those years? Was it the body? Was it the mountains? Was it the beautiful desert around? Was it the thing that did that damage, or created that trauma?" And to have to compartmentalize them and realize no, it was people's actions that created that trauma. And so by reframing it in that way, and being able to look at the town as: it wanted healed just as much as I wanted healed, because so much sadness and pain had happened on this land. And so that process of coming back, and also being able to, to stand side by side with a lot of other people that were making the same decision of coming back. And one thing led to another, and we got this beautiful community movement of people coming back and, and saying, "We want to do this better." You know, we voted in our first mayor, which happened to be a female. We got a public school in the town. And it's just been year after year of, just, incredible progress that has happened. And to be here, watching that journey of healing and resilience — but then also being able to match it with my own healing and resilience — has been life giving on every level.
Anita Rao
You have two teenage children who you are raising in that community. I'm curious about how much you've processed about your own experience with them? What do you want them to know? What do you want to keep from them at this stage of their lives?
Elissa Wall
That's been a very interesting journey, because I realized for so much of their lives, I kept it from them. And I don't know that that was the best approach. It's actually been this year that we've done a majority of our conversations around it, because they watched the Netflix documentary with me. And it, it really opened their eyes up. I mean, they always knew, kind of, who I was, and they always knew a little bit about it. But I hadn't gone into a lot of detail. And I always thought, you know, when they're an adult, and they can ask the questions, I will be open to the questions. But part of moving back into this town, I could have been a lot more aware of their experience. And so, even for me, I'm realizing there's this thing that we call generational trauma. And it's very, very real, because without realizing it, in some way, I've continued aspects of that. And I've had to be honest with myself, and — and say, "Okay, what can I do about it now? How can we heal this now?" But for them, they have a different perspective, because they weren't immersed in it. And so I think, in a lot of ways, when we have the conversations, it's really refreshing, because they have a very unique perspective. And it kind of helps me to reframe my own perspective, and ask myself, "How much weight do I want to give this? And how much of it is just the past?"
Anita Rao
Have you been able to have any conversations with them about sex and their bodies that have been meaningful or important to you?
Elissa Wall
Absolutely. I started very young with my children on conversations around their bodies. And, you know, interestingly enough, I've even seen specifically with my daughter where that generational trauma, kind of, comes up, because she has been struggling with a lot of the same body image issues that I did for a long time. And to just see that and to ask, "Okay, is this coming from a subconscious? Did I relay this into her? Or is this just, kind of, part of the experience of teenage girls?" And so we do have a lot of meaningful conversations around sex, around their bodies. And I've been really trying to help them, just, have a relationship with their body first, because in my own experience, that's where it's been such a difficult struggle is — I didn't have a relationship with my body. I was so disembodied when I experienced sexuality already, and then to have the experience so brutal and traumatizing — it just furthered that. And a lot of the work that I've done with my own children, is just establish a relationship with their body first. But then just, absolute awareness of, of sex and how to, you know, how to listen to your body so that you know when that is something that you want to engage in. And when you do, how do you do it so that it's healthy, and life giving, instead of scary or against our will.
Anita Rao
And I'm sure that it's helpful for them that, you know, you are still very much — open about the fact that you're on your own journey. And you're constantly working through these things in real time, in your own relationships. And you are in a partnership now with someone who you met long after this, this docuseries period — he's not in the docuseries. I'm curious about what the process has been like of building a safe and healthy sexual life with your partner, and how you work through this ongoing relationship that you have with the history of your body.
Elissa Wall
This is a fabulous topic for me, because you're right, I'm living it real time. And yes, I'm not with the partner that I was forced to marry as a teenager. I remarried shortly after I had left the FLDS. And the thing that was different about that relationship is I was trying to be in a relationship — in a healthy relationship — and I didn't even have a healthy relationship with my own body. And there was a lot of struggles that we experienced in that marriage. And I have a lot of compassion for my partner at that time, because I can't imagine what it was like to be in a relationship with someone that was so — that was still so damaged from the trauma. And ultimately, it led to our divorce. And it wasn't a pleasant divorce, because I was still trying so hard to work some things out in myself and, and so were they.
And so then, I went on a nine year period where I was single. And there was a time where it was not in a pleasant way. You know, I became a man-hater. I tell people that. I, I wanted to blame the men for everything that had happened to me, and I went into this very visceral blaming game time. But over time, I started to be better about naming the shame that I was holding, because that blame was actually shame in disguise. Shame and judgment in disguise. And all those feelings that I had towards men, I actually held towards myself. And those nine, nine and a half years of, of healing that I did — because it was, it was an intense healing period. It was also an intense time of just learning to survive as a single mother in this world. And it brought me so much compassion for the single mothers out there, because it is a tough thing to both be breadwinner and mother and taxi and laundry service and all of it. Learning how of balance those was really an a journey for me.
And then, about four years ago, I had this beautiful, blossoming opportunity where I met my partner now. And you know, it started out as a friendship, and a safeness that I hadn't experienced with, with men. I hadn't allowed myself to experience, I guess is the better term. And being able to watch that friendship blossom and grow and to, to have that experience that people talk about — feeling love blossom within us. And then, allowing all of the work that I had done with myself and my body, allowing myself to come to a place where I literally asked myself, I said, "Alright, am I going to let the past continue to be with me? Or am I going to start right here, right now, and engage in this relationship with this beautiful man in a way that says: I did the work, I get to start fresh." And it has been this incredible experience, because I don't have to drag any of the past into our relationship. Because I've done a lot of that work, and to approach it and say, what would it feel like to be a mature, innocent, incredible woman who knows who she is, and knows what her body loves and enjoys and bring that to the table of this relationship? And that approach has been sacred and absolutely delicious to experience, because it's allowed me to activate parts of myself that I didn't even know existed. And to do it free of the shackles of my story.
Anita Rao
You have had this beautiful, long evolving journey since your time I'm leaving FLDS. But there still are thousands of people in that community — some young women who are still in there. Is there a message that you most wish that some of the young women who are in FLDS could hear and could believe?
Elissa Wall
There always is. And I tell them all the time when I see them that, that you are enough, and you are worth it. It's a difficult thing to say, because for them, they don't understand what that means. But I would tell them, "I'm here, and when you're ready, there is a way. And remember to follow your heart." That's what I tell them: follow your heart. Because even if it's just a subconscious reminder that they have a voice inside of them — they have an internal guidance system — that's what I hope. Because then, I've seen time and time again, when people start to listen to that internal guidance voice within themselves, miracles happen in their lives. They find the strength they need to leave and to start to rebuild their life.
Anita Rao
I would love to close, kind of, returning back to where we started. We talked about "keep sweet" and your personal definition of that mantra that defines so much of your childhood. I'm curious about if there's a guiding phrase or guiding philosophy that is in your life now — that takes you in the direction that you want to keep going.
Elissa Wall
That is one that has shifted from time to time, it really has. I've always had a guiding phrase. Everything from "You are enough" to "You are light." And where I am at this point in my life is, "You are grace, be grace." Because that term means so many things to me. And it's the way that I treat others, it's the way I treat myself. And it's the way that I treat my world around me, but more so, I see it as this beautiful container that can, kind of, hold a little bit of everything. It has the place to hold sadness and pain. It also has the place to hold joy and pleasure and ecstasy. So for me, that's really where I'm at in my world, is to continue the healing journey. Give myself permission to be in the middle of it, even when it's really really messy, and then to just be messy and graceful in the process.
Anita Rao
Elissa Wall is an advocate, speaker, mother and the author of "Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs." You can hear more of Elissa's story in the Netflix docuseries "Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey."
Embodied is a production of North Carolina Public Radio-WUNC, which is a listener-supported station. If you want to lend your support to this podcast and WUNC's other shows on demand, consider contribution at wunc.org now.
This special episode of the Embodied Podcast was produced by Audrey Smith and edited by Amanda Magnus. Kaia Findlay also produces for our show, Madison Speyer is our intern and Jenni Lawson is our technical director.
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Until next time, I'm Anita Rao, taking on the taboo with you.