Be a good person. Goodness is who you already are when you stop performing and start living.
”But if ye will turn to the Lord with full purpose of heart, and put your trust in him, and serve him with all diligence of mind, if ye do this, he will, according to his own will and pleasure, deliver you out of bondage.”
Recovery from shame is not a single event. It is a daily practice. The patterns of self-rejection that were programmed into you over decades do not dissolve in a single chapter or a single prayer or a single breakthrough moment. They resurface. They sneak back in disguised as humility, as faithfulness, as prudence. And without daily vigilance, they will quietly rebuild the prison you have been working so hard to dismantle.
Daily accountability means paying attention to yourself with kindness and honesty. It means noticing when you slip back into performance—when you catch yourself modulating your voice, hiding your truth, pretending to be someone the ward will accept. It means noticing when shame creeps back in—the sudden flash of self-hatred, the reflexive guilt, the familiar weight of unworthiness that settles in during sacrament meeting. And it means, each time you notice, gently correcting course—not with more self-punishment, but with more self-compassion.
This daily practice can take many forms. Some men find it helpful to keep a brief evening journal noting when shame surfaced and how they responded. Others find that a morning prayer—one that explicitly includes their full identity, without code words or euphemisms—sets the tone for the day. Others use the support of a therapist, a support group, or a trusted friend to maintain accountability. The specific form matters less than the consistency.
King Benjamin teaches that deliverance comes from turning to the Lord with full purpose of heart. Full purpose of heart means without reservation, without performance, without the careful editing that gay Latter-day Saint men learn to do before they can walk. It means bringing your full self—your faith and your orientation, your testimony and your questions—to the Lord every single day.
There will be days when the old shame wins. There will be days when you hear a General Conference talk and the familiar knife of unworthiness slides between your ribs. There will be days when you wonder if you have made a terrible mistake. These days do not mean you have failed. They mean you are human, and you are healing, and healing is not linear. The only requirement is that you keep going. One day at a time. One honest prayer at a time. One small act of self-acceptance at a time.
Over weeks and months and years, these daily acts of accountability compound into something extraordinary: a life lived in truth. Not a perfect life—but an authentic one. A life in which you know who you are, and you are not afraid of it, and you bring that knowledge into every room you enter and every prayer you offer.
At the end of today, write briefly about any moments when shame surfaced. What triggered it? How did you respond?
Design a daily practice that works for you. Write it down. Commit to trying it for one week.
I choose to live authentically, one day at a time. When shame returns, I name it and release it. I am patient with myself, because healing is a daily practice, not a destination.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (Hayes et al., 2006) offers a powerful framework for daily accountability. ACT distinguishes between introjected values—values installed by your environment—and intrinsic values—values that arise when you strip away expectations and ask what you actually care about. For gay Latter-day Saint men, many introjected values (“I must marry a woman,” “I must suppress my feelings,” “I must appear straight”) have been mistaken for intrinsic ones. Distinguishing between them is one of the most liberating experiences of healing.
The Bull’s-Eye Values Survey (Lundgren et al., 2012) provides a useful exercise: identify your core values across domains—relationships, work, health, spirituality, community—and then assess how closely your current life aligns with each. Where there are gaps, the question is not “what should I do?” but “what do I value, and how can I move toward it?” Values are directions, not destinations. If your value is “love fully,” it remains available to you regardless of institutional recognition.
The Thirteenth Article of Faith is a values statement rather than a behavioral checklist: “If there is anything virtuous, anything lovely, anything of good report, anything praiseworthy, we seek after these things.” Not “virtuous by the handbook’s standards.” Virtuous. Period. If your love is virtuous, it qualifies. If your faithfulness is praiseworthy, it qualifies. Read honestly, the Thirteenth Article of Faith is one of the most affirming texts for LGBTQ believers in all of Latter-day Saint scripture.
The following framework offers a structure for daily accountability. Adapt it to your life, your schedule, and your needs. The goal is consistency, not perfection.
Morning Intention (five minutes). Before you begin your day, take five minutes to set an intention. This can be done in prayer, in meditation, or simply in quiet thought. The intention is a declaration of who you are and how you want to show up: Today, I will be myself. I will not perform. I will treat myself with the kindness I would offer a friend. I will remember that I am a child of God, and that God loves me as I am.
Midday Check-In (two minutes). Somewhere in the middle of your day, pause briefly and ask yourself: How am I doing? Have I slipped into performance? Have I encountered shame, and if so, how did I respond? This check-in does not need to be formal. It can happen during a walk or a pause between meetings.
Evening Reflection (ten minutes). At the end of the day, spend ten minutes in reflection. Write briefly in a journal or talk to God. Consider: What went well today? Where did I act with integrity? Where did I slip? What triggered the slip? End with gratitude—for your survival, for your courage, for the people who support you.
Weekly Deep Dive (thirty minutes to one hour). Once a week, review the week as a whole. Look for patterns. Celebrate progress. Identify areas that need attention. Revisit the journal prompts from earlier chapters and add new reflections as your perspective evolves.