The One Healing From Spiritual Abuse

00:18 - Sam (Host)

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work the Gundagara land and people. I pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I also want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which you, our listeners, are joining us from today. I recognise the deep connection that First Nations people have to this land, their enduring culture and their commitment to the preservation and care for their country. This land was never ceded and it always was, and always will be, aboriginal land.

00:58

Hey there and welcome to Beyond the Surface, the podcast where we explore the stories of people who have survived religious trauma, left high control or cult communities and are deconstructing their faith. I'm your host, sam, and each week I'll talk with individuals who have taken the brave step to start shifting their beliefs that might have once controlled and defined their lives. Join us as we dig into their experiences, the challenges they've faced and the insights they've gained. Whether you're on a similar journey or you're just curious about these powerful stories, you're in the right place. This is Beyond the Surface. Welcome, tyler. Thanks for joining me.

01:42 - Tyler (Guest)

Thanks for having me.

01:43 - Sam (Host)

Before we get into the episode, I like to give people some context. Where in the world are you?

01:50 - Tyler (Guest)

Birmingham, alabama, in the United States of America.

01:53 - Sam (Host)

Okay, and for all of my US guests at the moment I am doing a welfare check. How are you doing?

02:14 - Tyler (Guest)

are you doing? I, um, you know, have to just take breaks from uh, awareness. Currently, the most recent thing on my mind in us politics is um cory booker, and so right now, my perspective of politics is more positive. Okay, um, that and trump putting tariffs on penguins um are the most recent big political events that I've heard, and so we're just gonna stick with that as the reality right now we're gonna take tiny wins when we get them, tiny positives we're, we're just we.

02:47 - Sam (Host)

We titrate how much politics we take in and how much trump and narcissists can handle yeah, yeah, we, we are watching, uh, from australia go, and I have this conversation so often with people that, um, we are often watching from australia going. Like my gosh, I'm so glad I'm not in the US, like it's, you know, a little bit batshit crazy over there, and yet we are gearing up for an election and one of our two people who will land in the gig of prime minister has the nickname Timu Trump. So, like it's, it's a whole thing, um, over here as well, so, um, I'm really like I've got everything crossed.

03:29 - Tyler (Guest)

We're not following in in the footsteps, but our guy is already from timu, so I don't. I don't know what's going to be happening with, with I don't know. Yeah, I think I I did see recently that there was a big petition signed, I think, in Australia, to bar Trump from being able to come ever on a visit.

03:54 - Sam (Host)

Yes, except I don't actually know for certain, but I did see something our current prime minister is getting hauled over the coals for essentially inviting him to come here with um and spouted. You know long histories with the united states and we all kind of just went. That seems like a pretty piss poor excuse, to be fair. Um, but you know, being another country with the letter a, we are saying you know, make make Australia great again from certain political parties and things like that, and we're just like, oh, we're not exempt from this.

04:31 - Tyler (Guest)

So yes, but anyway, maybe all of the crazy happening in America allows more people around the world to realise that that's not something they want to be a part of.

04:45 - Sam (Host)

we we hope so, yes, maybe, maybe more people around the world will have a win because of our loss yes, I mean I I feel like if we keep talking I will derail the conversation with politics, but I'm going to go with like, yes, let's sit with the positives when we get them, and the little like of humor, of humor at least to just like laugh rather than cry in a situation.

05:12

Um, we love those, um, but uh, also commiserations, and we are with you, thank you okay, I like to start these episodes with a super vague question to just sort of like kickstart the conversation, which is where does your story start?

05:31 - Tyler (Guest)

I like that question. It's a good question. It's so open-ended. I can answer however I want to Exactly.

05:37 - Sam (Host)

There's so much freedom.

05:41 - Tyler (Guest)

There's so many parts of my story that are interesting and unique and beautiful and terrible. I left a Christian ministry environment, kind of an evangelical, charismatic, fundamentalist Christian environment. That was really toxic and abusive Okay.

06:20 - Sam (Host)

Were you raised in this flavor of Christianity? Uh?

06:23 - Tyler (Guest)

yes, yes, well, there's a question mark at the end of that, were you?

06:26 - Sam (Host)

raised in this flavor of Christianity.

06:27 - Tyler (Guest)

Yes, yes, well, there's a question mark at the end of that. More Pentecostal, okay, so not the same flavor, but cousins, cousins, okay. And when I left, it was because I realized how toxic and harmful this environment was to me, at a place where my physical and mental and emotional health were at a really low place, and being there was maybe the bravest thing I've ever done in my life.

07:05

It was a heartbreaking thing. When I left, I was mostly and basically excommunicated and this community that I'd lived in and invested in, like I lived there, worked there, it was my church, all of my things for three and a half years um was pretty immediately gone, yeah, and it was one of the more traumatic and heartbreaking things that I've ever experienced in my life, yeah, and probably the biggest collective loss that I've ever experienced.

07:47

The grief and the trauma still lives here in me, still hurts and it hurts kind of now with it being like around the anniversary of that happening and, um, the trauma, the grief, the pain, the sadness, the despair, um, that I was left with, um, like I had to do something with those things, um, I had to figure out what my path would be, moving forward, and, like, when something that big happened to me, when something that big happens to us as humans, we can't just move on. I couldn't just move on. I had to do something with all of that and I had big questions and I could not ask them. Maybe for the first time in my life, I couldn't avoid diving into this mess of pain and trauma and grief and loss and confusion and anger and hurt and hatred. And that was the beginning of my deconstruction journey. That was the beginning of me asking questions of God and with God about, like, how the fuck could you let this happen to me, how could you let people treat me this way? And thankfully, I felt like God spoke back. I felt like my heart spoke back and there were people positioned around me who loved me really well and helped me heal.

09:35

And my deconstruction journey became a coming out journey. It was, you know, in the midst of me losing everything and facing some of my biggest and greatest fears. Um, and seeing like man, these people really harmed me. They were really really wrong about how they thought about God and how they thought about the Bible and what they thought about love and connection and community. What else might they have been wrong about? Might they have been wrong about what they've said about my sexuality the last 30 years.

10:14

I didn't know the answer to that question and so diving into that was scary, like, if anything, the last thing that I had to lose was that I was a good Christian boy who'd fought against my same-sex attraction and chosen not to give in to a sinful lifestyle because I loved God. And I had to ask the question like am I really loving God by choosing to be celibate and choosing to endure conversion therapy to try and become straight and to marry a woman? And it was really scary to dive into those things. Now, three years removed, it feels easier to talk about those things and it feels really easy to be like, yeah, I'm gay and God loves me, but yeah, that was maybe the biggest pivotal points in my life was making a really courageous choice to wake up to the reality that these people that I loved and gave everything for and laid down my life to serve Jesus with were spiritually and emotionally abusing me.

11:41 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, I'm wondering if you're comfortable to take us back a little bit and go. Who was tyler before this place and how did you get there?

11:53 - Tyler (Guest)

yeah, um so way, way back. I'm from the south. I'm the um sometimes great and oftentimes not so great state of Alabama.

12:07 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

12:08 - Tyler (Guest)

There's beautiful things about the state. I love that the civil rights movement. So much of it happened here and so much of it happened in this beautiful city that I live in, and so much redemption and goodness is happening in my city. Now Alabama is the South and in a lot of ways it's all the things that people think about the South, and Birmingham is a beautiful, blue, diverse, progressive hub in a very red place that a lot of good work is being done in and I'm grateful to have the opportunity to live here. But I'm from here.

12:51

I grew up in a very conservative family, a very conservative Christian environment, and in a world that was kind of bound up in legalistic, fundamentalist, black and white, dualistic Christianity. Like I remember at an early age hearing racial slurs being used around me. I remember seeing when someone would get arrested and it was a Black person on the news. My grandpa would use the N-word and say very derogatory things about Black people. I remember knowing that we voted Republican and knowing that the Bible was the word of God and that we went to church every Sunday and that some things were right and that some things were wrong, and I remember my grandpa flipping through the tv one day and stumbling across Will and Grace on NBC and nothing else was on and him just yelling and using the f-word and saying you know, if any member of our family was ever gay, he wouldn't be welcome here.

14:08 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

14:10 - Tyler (Guest)

And so I knew the status quo of my family. Yeah, and my parents did worse when I was young, and so I grew up in between my mom's world and my dad's world. My parents had me when they were really young so I lived some in my dad's world, some in my mom's world, and then my grandparents on each side also helped raise me. So I had like these four different worlds where I was a different myself, and so anyone who knows the Enneagram, my sweet little traumatized self, became an Enneagram 3.

14:47 - Sam (Host)

Right.

14:50 - Tyler (Guest)

Who learned how to become what each of these people in each of these environments wanted and needed me to be, and to put on a mask for each of those places. And I think my family was in so much turmoil growing up there wasn't space for my emotions, there certainly wasn't room for men to feel emotions, and my family just didn't have the emotional depth to be able to be attuned to me to, to hear, most of the time, my sadness, my anger, my pain, my grief, um, and so I learned to stuff all of those feelings, to be the good boy, um, to do the right things, um, and I learned how to make everyone happy.

15:40 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, it almost sounds like you became a dissociative chameleon 100%. Yeah 100%.

15:52 - Tyler (Guest)

So that's the world that I grew up in. Of these different worlds, this Christian world, this God who, if I didn't do the right thing, I would go to hell, yeah, um, and when I started realizing like, oh well, like, maybe I'm attracted to boys and girls, um like, like I honestly never thought, like maybe I'm gay, because I knew that wasn't an option, I wasn't allowed. So, even though, like, I had feelings towards boys, I wasn't gay.

16:33 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, I can relate.

16:36 - Tyler (Guest)

I was like I used to think that I'm just like super duper good at this whole like not looking at the opposite sex thing, like I'm just nailing purity culture right now yeah yeah so you know, my sexuality was something that I stuffed under the surface, um, which was difficult during puberty when there were lots of hot boys around, when I wanted to be liked and loved and appreciated. My family moved a lot growing up and so I think you know, elementary school, middle school, high school, I went to like six, seven different schools. So I never had like a friend group and so I always like, had to start over and I was kind of like gangly and nerdy and I just like, wanted to be liked, I wanted to fit in, I wanted to feel loved. Because I never quite felt that way with my family A kind of with some of the challenges of their emotional attunement abilities, and b, I felt this deep shame about who I was and what I was and I knew deeply that if I was myself, that that wouldn't be welcome and loved, yeah yeah.

18:03

So I had this deep craving for love and connection, which I think is what led me to Christianity and what led me to the Christian ministries that I became a part of. I, in high school, went to this weekend retreat with my mom and it was like a Christian weekend retreat for, like parents and their kids, and I experienced like what felt like genuine care to me from a group of Christians, what felt like genuine care to me from a group of Christians. They were thoughtful and kind and they smiled and it didn't feel as legalistic as what I had heard Christianity was like and I I felt loved.

18:57 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

18:59 - Tyler (Guest)

th: 2008

19:27

It was really genuine. And from there I was like I want whatever this is, whatever is love and connection, like I want more of this in my life. I like had a full right scholarship to college and was like I want to go to ministry school, I want to go to Bible school. So I left my scholarship behind, signed up for a ministry school here in Alabama which was kind of four months in a classroom with these other students doing community monastic Bible school life, a month touring around Israel and then three months volunteering at a summer camp in California.

20:11 - Sam (Host)

Right, and so how was it doing all of the ministry now with this sort of like renewed sense of faith, and how did that then connect or disconnect you from your sexuality?

20:31 - Tyler (Guest)

did that then? Um, connect or disconnect you from your sexuality? A good question. When I went to, so I went to, so I did the weekend retreat with my mom and that weekend retreat place was connected to a summer camp in california.

20:41

Um, so when I went to that summer camp in California before the school was the first time I told someone, a lady who was kind of like a prayer person that week like I'm not if I like guys or girls or both and she met me with kindness and acceptance and it felt so good to have that weight off of my shoulders and to feel seen in that, because I had never told anyone before and I mean I think people knew I got bullied for being gay, even though I said that I wasn't.

21:20

I got called the F slur in high school and high school was shit because of that. But like I never owned that this is what's happening inside of me and been able to like, trust, that vulnerability with someone else. Yeah, and you know, I don't remember exactly her response. Looking back on it now I think she was a little bit more progressive and I think she might've even if we hadn't been in that setting, she might've been like great, good for you Is my feeling. I haven't seen her in 15 years, but my sense was that she would have been affirming if she had felt like she was allowed to be in that environment, because that environment was not affirming, to be clear.

22:13 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

22:15 - Tyler (Guest)

But it was. It was wonderful to share that. And then when I went to the Bible school that I mentioned, it felt really important to me to share with everyone there. It kind of felt like my next step is like telling more people and in some ways it was like a mini coming out, even though I wasn't fully coming out, or in like coming out in the way of embracing who I was. I was coming out and at least acknowledging this is part of my reality, and people met me with a level of love and acceptance.

22:54 - Sam (Host)

Um, I think in hindsight I ask a quick question were you doing that because of um, like you, actually felt safe and connected and able to do that, or were you doing that because of sometimes the unrealistic level of vulnerability that we are is expected of us in these spaces?

23:19 - Tyler (Guest)

that's true. This wasn't that for me, though. For me it was, I think, my sweet little Enneagram three self, this deep need that I've always had for authenticity, yeah, for authenticity. Yeah, and this deep need that I've always had to be seen and to be known, to have safe spaces to share these deep things Like those are needs.

24:02

For me at least it is. Yeah, it was a deep, deep need that I had that wasn't being met for so long. And I think when I began experiencing semblances of safety and love and connection, there was a part of me that was like we can't live depressed, we can't live bottling this down and hiding this anymore. Um, and I think for me it was courage, yeah, um, and I you know another part of the reason why I would say that is, when I shared those things, people had no idea how to respond yeah they were like oh wow, well, we love you thanks.

24:44

Thanks for telling us. That was really courageous and then had no idea what to do. You know, yeah, and I will say I do appreciate that about this particular ministry Even though there was kind of the theology in this space that you know homosexuality is a sin, it wasn't something that was necessarily like spoken about. Yeah, part of that being that the founders and leaders of this ministry had a relative, have a relative, who is gay, and so I think they had more sensitivity around that topic. So I wouldn't say necessarily that like I experienced overt conversion therapy type things there at least, but I I definitely also had a sense that, like, christianity is not okay with gay people. Yeah, I can't be gay, they don't want me to be gay, they're not encouraging me to be gay, they're also encouraging me to try and fix this yeah, does that make sense yeah, absolutely.

25:50 - Sam (Host)

I mean throughout all of this, like there is obviously this clear desire to be seen and to be authentic, but how did you feel about yourself?

26:00 - Tyler (Guest)

I never quite liked myself Sam.

26:01 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

26:03 - Tyler (Guest)

Liking myself has been one of the greatest, one of the hardest things of my whole life and still can be sometimes.

26:16 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

26:17 - Tyler (Guest)

Shame is a bitch.

26:18 - Sam (Host)

Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

26:22 - Tyler (Guest)

And as someone who lives in the heart triad, the two, three, four of the Enneagram shame is my poor emotion. Yes. So anytime that, like I've trained myself to know, I'm like, huh, I feel really angry. And I'm like, tyler, do you really feel angry or do you feel ashamed? And I'm like, fuck, I definitely feel ashamed. Am I angry? Yes, is the anger valid? Probably it's the root cause of what I'm feeling. Shame, yes, and I would really love to avoid that shame if I could by just being angry. Yeah, but if we're being really honest, we should look at our shame yeah, absolutely.

27:02 - Sam (Host)

I mean, I think um, yes, shame is a bitch for context I am in enneagram four over here, so yes, and the three-winkler it is um I. I think shame is um so tricky and so painful and so difficult for anyone who is um, taught atonement theology, um, but in particular for anyone who is queer and taught that messaging it is just an added layer of complexity. Where you are just um, it is encouraged almost in some spaces, to absolutely hate a fundamental part of who you are. Like.

27:49 - Tyler (Guest)

It's encouraged, it's like it's so, it's so harmful, it's fucked, it is is my clinical therapist term for what shame is um, yeah, I think for me in that season of life it revolved around if people knew who I really was, they wouldn't love me, they wouldn't want relationship with me, they would hate me having Christian community. I was meeting really cool people and forming beautiful friendships and you know, part of the belief system of the cultures that I was part of was like if you have healthy mother and father figures in your life, it'll heal some of your early childhood trauma that caused you to be same sex.

28:49

If you have healthy brother relationships and experience love and connection with men in healthy ways, then it'll heal your heart and you'll start to like women again.

29:03

And so I was encouraged to form deep, intimate, connected friendships with other men, and I think something that was interesting was, you know, the stereotype around men is that men are disconnected from their emotions and they're emotionally unavailable, which in a lot of ways can be very true, and I think something that was unique about me was my desire to be connected to my emotions and my heart. And when I form friendships with men in Christian communities, I think all humans have a desire to have emotional connection with one another, and I think that the connections that I formed with my brothers were unique for them because they didn't have a ton of male relationships that felt emotionally connecting. And so these men are out here being emotionally vulnerable with me and we're having these emotional bonds and then I'm falling in love with them yep um, and all of that being encouraged by like leaders, like, oh, like, these are the types of relationships that you need to make you straight again.

30:23

Um, and I'm just out here falling in love with guys and developing codependent bonds, and oh, the irony and getting my heart really, really broken yeah, yeah and living in tremendous fear that, you know, if these men knew how I felt about them and obviously I wasn't attracted to every single guy that I was friends with but the general overtaking fear of like, if this person knew, like that, my emotional connection to them, like that I feel attracted to them, that I want to kiss them, that like when I give them a hug, that I have an erection, or that in conversations that we're having together, like that my body is responding to the type of connection that we're having, and if they knew then they would hate me. Yeah, and I should hate myself because it's my fault and if I just wasn't this way, then I wouldn't ruin these friendships. And it was tremendously heartbreaking for those relationships to fall apart because I fell in love with my straight best friends, or straight identifying at least.

31:45

I'm kind of the persuasion that, like most people, are probably bisexual yeah, I mean, there's a reason we call it a spectrum yes, in hindsight I'm like I wonder how many of those guys were bisexual and if we hadn't had this like um hetero normative culture, like, could I have had a beautiful romantic relationship with some of those people? But because of homophobia and because of the heteronormative control and manipulation, because it's really heartbreaking to me that my teenage years and all of my twenties to me, that my teenage years and all of my twenties and I, I, you, I think you and hopefully your, your listeners will understand when I say this, but they feel like times of great loss.

32:45 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

32:46 - Tyler (Guest)

Um that, like I fell in love so many times with people who didn't fall in love back with me yeah and my kind of like prime years of my sexual peak and, like my youthful years, I I didn't get to experience the things that most people get to experience romantically and sexually during those times and there's still great grief that comes with that for me.

33:16 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, absolutely. Grief from lost time and lost opportunities and lost ability to just naturally develop as a human is a very real part of religious trauma for a lot of people. I'm curious what impact that level of self-hatred around your sexuality had on how you related to God.

33:43 - Tyler (Guest)

I, as an Enneagram 3, again relate to this idea that people won't really love me if they see all of who I am, and so I need to present the best, most beautiful, most polished parts of people, and I need to hide all of the things that people wouldn't like.

34:05 - Sam (Host)

Mm-hmm.

34:06 - Tyler (Guest)

And I need to do a lot of really awesome, noticeable things to get people to notice me so that I can win their love and attention, so that they will love and like me, so that maybe one day I can finally love and like myself. Maybe, if enough people love me and like me, maybe then I can finally love me and like me.

34:28 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

34:29 - Tyler (Guest)

Which, as you, you might imagine and as it sounds, is a really sad place to be yeah, and fucking exhausting, exhausting yeah.

34:45

I spent many, many years of life with depression, anxiety, cptsd, see PTSD years with suicidal ideation and years of performance and perfectionism and working myself to the bone and obviously during those times there were beautiful things and beautiful connections and beautiful contributions that I got to give to the world and to people's lives and it's really beautiful to me. You know, as I've shared my coming out story and shared some posts and some podcasts of my deconstruction and my spiritual abuse journeys, how many people have sent me messages and been like Tyler when we were at this place. It was spiritually abusive to both of us. Like you were the only person that it was spiritually abusive to both of us. Like you were the only person that I felt seen and known by.

35:43

Yeah, you were the one leader who it didn't feel like had authority, complex issues, which isn't to say that I wasn't complicit in abusive structures at times and which isn't to say that I wasn't harmful to people at times because of those cultures and because of the practices and beliefs of those cultures. And I've also got to have moments of apologizing to people and taking ownership for the part that I played in perpetuating harm in the harmful environments that I was in and that I was made a leader in. And I feel like I can also look back and be proud and say, even though I was in those places, I feel like I was the person doing the least harm. I feel like I was the black sheep who was kind of always kind of bumping against the rules a little bit and that, even though there was this deep part of me that was striving, I always have been courageous and authentic. I always have been a Gryffindor living in Slytherin land I'm sorry, I don't mean to make oh, I love that. I've always been.

37:08

I've always been like, vulnerable and authentic and brave in the worlds that I was a part of and hopefully a black sheep who was shining light and extending kindness and doing things that were counter-cultural to the harmful parts of some of those places and I feel really proud of the fact that I really do think that that was true about me the whole time. I've always been a little bit of a rebel and as someone who was always queer on the inside, as someone who always was different and unique and I mean it's my four wing kicking in here I'm like I want to be special. I do feel like as a queer person that I've always like I was the first person that I knew to be like. I don't know if I believe in hell. I don't know if I believe that like a good loving God would send billions of people to be tortured for eternity. Yeah, and I'm proud of myself that I was like no, I was the first one of my friends to get on that yeah, absolutely.

38:08

I like that about myself and I hope that I'm continuing to push the envelope and inviting people to be courageous, to be authentic and to ask big questions and push against the status quo and be willing to challenge things, and, in a lot of ways, I have deconstructed and left behind a lot of things, like hell. Sometimes. I wish some people would go there. Sometimes, though, I'm like do I really want to not believe in hell? I think elon musk and donald trump might belong there.

38:48

Yeah, yeah, um there's a handful of people um, but I I something that I still love about jesus. You know, I think, no matter how much I deconstruct, in some ways, christianity will always be my mother tongue. Yeah, it will always be like the way that I learned spirituality, the way that I learned faith, the way that I learned spirituality, the way that I learned faith, the way that I learned morality, the way that I learned good and standing up against injustice. And I I still mostly, I think, feel quite fond of this Jesus guy and I love that Jesus was willing to challenge the status quo and to ask hard questions and to create conflict in healthy ways where the status quo was doing harm to people. And that's something that I still hope and strive to be for people that I love and for the world around me.

39:55 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, I will often say that I actually don't. I don't have a problem. I don't identify as a Christian anymore, but I don't have a problem with Jesus. I never really did. I have a problem with the people who claim to represent him a lot of the time, um, but yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure Jesus seemed like a pretty cool guy and I'm pretty sure we'd be friends. But you know, I I don't particularly like the people who who claim to be a mouthpiece for him presently. So, and also a random little side note you said being a Gryffindor in a Slytherin world. Not all Slytherins are bad, I know.

40:34 - Tyler (Guest)

I know it's the dualism that we are also still deconstructing. Like Harry Potter paints the Slytherins to be the bad guys.

40:45 - Sam (Host)

We're not. We're not the bad guys.

40:48 - Tyler (Guest)

And as an Enneagram three, there's probably more Slytherin in me than I would care to.

40:52 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, yeah, okay, if you are comfortable, I would love if you would share more about your experience. If we go back to the place that you mentioned at the beginning and how you landed there and what your experience there was like, so I did the Bible school that I was telling you about for three years.

41:17 - Tyler (Guest)

In each of those three years, I went and worked at this summer camp in California and I ended up working at this summer camp in California for 10 summers and three years full time, like at the end of those 10 years. During those 10 years, I also attended the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry and, honestly, I didn't get like super into, like deep into the culture at Bethel, like I didn't have a leadership position there. People that I know who kind of got higher up were exposed to more of the not so good things, and this is before they all came out as Republicans and Trump supporters and this was before. So they have a conversion therapy ministry there now and this was before.

42:19 - Sam (Host)

Um, but I honestly my experiences bethel was the least culty place I've been, which is telling the thing about yeah, if I mean side note, if people don't know much about bethel um, go back to the episode that I did with mike Mayshiro and you will get all of that in there.

42:42 - Tyler (Guest)

Mike has all the details.

42:43 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, mike has given me a lot of information. Yes.

43:04 - Tyler (Guest)

The leader, the founder leader of that ministry is someone who really leaned into authoritarian leadership. He's the anointed one. God has anointed him to be the leader. He hears from Holy Spirit, which was just normal to me because that was my culture, right. The issue was that this guy would yell and scream at people. This guy would be really manipulative and this fellow started being really harmful to me. Yeah, and when I kind of spoke up about the like, honestly, the verbal and emotional and spiritual abuse I was experiencing there, kind of the response I was met with was but he's god's anointed, he's saul, you're david, so even if he throws spears at you, you just need to dodge them. Um, this is how you become a good man and a good leader is learning how to forgive and learn how. So, even if you throw spears at you, you just need to dodge them. This is how you become a good man and a good leader is learning how to forgive and learn how to not be bitter and offended when you're treated wrongly.

44:10 - Sam (Host)

So no accountability.

44:11 - Tyler (Guest)

And a whole bunch of spiritual bypassing. It sounds like A whole bunch of spiritual bypassing.

44:13 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

44:14 - Tyler (Guest)

I had. So this was um summer: 2023

44:58

Um, we met, um, he like searched the dating apps to find me, cause he ran into me at a pride parade, um and like, we went on a date and then like came back to my house after that and he like spent the night, and we spent like the next like week like together. Um, and I like instantly was head over heels and you know, like I said I'd never experienced a reciprocal love relationship before because that wasn't allowed. And so there was this guy that liked me and I liked him and I had no idea that I could feel this way. It was the most beautiful feeling falling in love and having someone fall in love with me and having someone want me, having someone think that I was beautiful and they wanted to spend time with me. In every waking moment. What they wanted was to be with me and we were quick to the I love you's and anytime that like he traveled, some for work, anytime he was in town, he was at my house and it was so beautiful and it wasn't long before he was like, so like, should we move in? And all of these things.

46:22

And then the relationship changed. Yeah, um, and then he started treating me differently and kind of the small conflict moments we had at the beginning of the relationship became big conflict moments and became him yelling and screaming at me and during that time I learned a lot about something called narcissism. Yeah, and something that I learned about narcissistic behavior is called love bombing. Called love bombing. Yeah, it's also a bitch and we can talk more about this. It's so complex. I I feel a lot of compassion and empathy for people with narcissistic personality traits and disorders, because I empathetically understand that it's not necessarily something that they're choosing or that they want, but that it's just like all that they know and the way that they know to love and to connect, and that they they literally don't comprehend that what they're doing could be harmful because of the depth of the self-preservation and survival that they've learned to live in. Yeah, I don't hate him and I understand that he wasn't intentionally trying to harm me, even though he was harming me a shit ton.

47:48 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

47:50 - Tyler (Guest)

But understanding all of those things and understanding like, wow, the relationship really changed. Like six to eight weeks in that was love bonding and I was like, oh, I understand conservative evangelical white Christianity now, Cause I truly believe that this man loved me and that he cared for me to the extent which he could and knew how to, and to the extent what he learned love was yes, that that was what I was about to say which is it's typically like their version of love um and that's often when I'm talking about fundamental, high control church spaces is that?

48:29 - Sam (Host)

yeah, it is.

48:31 - Tyler (Guest)

They firmly believe that what they're doing is is loving, and it's based on their perception and their view of what they view love is and looks like that that realization helped bring so much clarity to my understanding of what happened to me at this summer camp and what would end up happening to me at this ministry in North Carolina and so many other places was. I got love bombed. I showed up. Their mission was to get me saved, and so they love bombed me to get me onto their team. And I think that there were some good intentions, yeah, and I think that there were some good intentions, yeah. I always hesitate to say their intentions are good because I'm like no, no, that's not actually true.

49:22 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

49:22 - Tyler (Guest)

When you say, oh, like they hurt me, but their intentions were good. That's not true to me.

49:26

Yeah, it's also deeply invalidating and minimizing, and I do think it's also valid to say they had some loving, kind intentions. They did want to love me. They did want for me to find healing. They also wanted me to not be gay. They also wanted me to follow the rules. They also wanted me to exist in their structures of power and control. They also wanted me to not be loud and to not share when I was negatively affected and to not have emotions and to not talk about those emotions and those intentions were fear and control and protecting of power based, and those intentions really fucked me up.

50:18 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, um so yeah, I, my first boyfriend, helped me understand narcissistic behavior and love mom, and for that I am both grateful and sad yeah, it's also, uh, such a pattern that happens for a lot of people leaving one fundamental or harmful space and finding another, whether that's in another community or in another relationship or something like that. We see that pattern happen so often until we start being able to actually pull apart the dynamic that I left, not just the place that I left.

50:59 - Tyler (Guest)

Yeah, and the parts of me that are attracted to that. Yeah, like I mean did feel good, it doesn't feel good anymore. My nervous system is real quick. I'm like I don't like that. You're treating me like that. You don't know me. You don't know about me to be treating me like that and talking to me like that. Like my inner black woman comes out real fast of like uh-uh honey, no, ma'am, I don't know who the hell you were talking to. Uh, yeah, you need to slow, you need to chill out.

51:29

If you were treating me that way, you were narcissistic out here um but there was a part of me that, like again as an enneagram three, I wanted attention, I wanted to be liked and I wanted to be loved. And the love bombing that happens in these environments are. We like you, we love you, we're paying all of our attention to you. You're the most special, most important thing and we're going to tell you that you're the most special, most important thing until we find the next, most special, most important next thing and then you're going to be discarded.

52:00

Yeah yeah but it it was wonderful to feel like I was the center of attention. It was wonderful to feel these ministries in these places bombing me with their love for whatever it was that they were attracted to in me yeah whatever performance it was that they clapped at yeah, what was it?

52:32 - Sam (Host)

because it is so difficult to leave these fundamental cult-like spaces. How did you get out? What was that catalyst?

52:44 - Tyler (Guest)

So the summer camp that I worked at I was a leader in that space, I basically. So the summer camp had college age guys and college age girls who came and like volunteered for the summer and so I did all the recruiting, interviewing and hiring for all the college age guys who came out and I kind of like got to be their pastor in some ways, which A I got to be their pastor in some ways, which A in some ways I was highly unqualified to do, but B I was also kind of good at and hopefully was refreshing. I hope for a lot of them. Hopefully I got to teach a few of them some emotional health tools.

53:33

And one of the guys that I hired and that came and volunteered with us I fell in love with and it so happened that he also was same-sex attracted and that he also had some attractions towards me.

54:03

And then the two of us had this like wheel of a friend that like um, I had some level of attraction to. I don't know if he did or not, um, but like I think we both realized like we're not supposed to feel about this with with each other, so like we should focus on our friendship with this other person. And then there was this like weird energy and dynamic of jealousy that was happening there and this guy, the third wheel guy, was kind of narcissistic and harmful to me at least I don't know about to this other person he was, he was abusive to me and, um, I knew that I wasn't supposed to like this guy, that I liked and, but we gravitated towards one another and we wanted to be around each other and, um, eventually, like, had a conversation about like, like wow, we, we both have feelings towards one another. What do we do? And I made the decision that I needed to end that friendship. Yeah, and it was heartbreaking.

55:16

I mentioned my first boyfriend. There was a mutual exchange of love. This was the first time, this moment, that there were feelings towards one another that were shared, even though they weren't allowed to be there and nothing really happened. There was an emotional bond there, but we both knew that it wasn't allowed and we didn't allow ourselves to go there because of the rules. And so I ended that friendship and I chose also to end the friendship with this third wheel guy who was being abusive to me.

55:50

They both wanted originally to come and work at the summer camp that I also worked at and work at the summer camp that I also worked at. And I had consulted with the leadership, spelled out this whole situation and they told me, whatever you feel like you need to do and like them coming to this place or not coming to this place, we trust you. So I told these guys like hey, you can't come back and volunteer here for the summer because we need to have some boundaries around this relationship. And so when I told third wheel guy, he blew up and exploded and basically called my boss and kind of got me fired. Kind of got me fired, kind of got me fired. He got me in trouble and they took away my pastoring the men job away from me. But the way they handled it, basically it felt like they were clipping my wings and didn't trust me anymore, plus the like hey, we trust you, you can do what you want. And then when I made my decision, they were like you made the wrong decision and I chose to leave that environment. And that is when I signed up for this school in North Carolina, then ended up being a part of for three and a half years.

57:11

It was, and is, marketed as a heart school, kind of like a school of emotional intelligence for Christians, and I was at that point, the most heartbroken I'd ever been. I mean, there was this man that I loved, that I decided not to pursue love with, for Jesus, for the rules, for the establishment, for my reputation, to please God, to please everyone. Then he chose the same thing too. Since I've come out, I actually reached out to him because I've told this part of my story before and they're like wait, are you going to reach out to him? Maybe he's there too? I reached out to him. He completely did not respond. I reached out to him. He completely did not respond, which communicates to me that he's not deconstructed or come out or been willing to explore that, which is sad. It would have been like such a fun, like Hallmark movie moment if, like, I saw your post and I've been wrestling through it and I think we should give us a shot.

58:15 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, that makes for a good movie. It would be so cute if that was reality. Yeah, okay, oh, goodness.

58:27 - Tyler (Guest)

So that's how I left the first environment that I was in. So I got to the new environment and, honestly, it's the most toxic and abusive and cult-like place that I've ever been the most high control, most authoritative. It was even worse in this summer camp and the abusive leader that was there um partly because, um, they knew emotional health tools and they taught emotional health tools, although most of them didn't have college degrees and none of them had any college degrees or formal training or licensure certification. Um in um any therapy, counseling, psychotherapy type models, um, they just had some christian counselors and some inner healing people teach them some stuff.

59:19 - Sam (Host)

And then you get to, I'm assuming, emotionally manipulate and control other people.

59:25 - Tyler (Guest)

Yes, and part of me is like I just told you that I was the pastor of a bunch of guys and like sat down with them and I didn't have any training. So I have some compassion and empathy for that. I sincerely hope that I was not doing the things that they were doing. I did participate in conversion therapy.

59:46

I was conversion therapied and in that environment I was asked to share my story and I was kind of put as the poster boy for overcoming same sex attraction story and I was kind of put as the poster boy for overcoming same-sex attraction and so I had men especially, but men and women who came up to me and told me about their struggles with their gender, with their sexuality a couple people with their gender as well and I gave really terrible advice. I just inherited the things that I'd been taught and I regret that and it saddens me Again. A lot of those people have seen my coming out posts and I've gotten to apologize to them and I have apologized publicly before and any of you if you're listening, please forgive me.

:: 00:32

I fucked up real bad and I participated in harming you in the ways that I was harmed and I'm sorry I will talk about the fact that I think that that's one of the hardest parts um of deconstruction is actually realizing the harm and the system of harm that at least you were a part of and helped perpetuate um, particularly as a queer person who might have participated in um essentially helping other people suppress their sexuality um or their gender identity, and I can relate and it's really fucking hard to pull that apart.

:: 01:12

Yeah but a lot of them actually came out before I did. Yeah, so kudos to them, those brave motherfuckers. And I still think, like I said before, I think that most people are pretty closeted. Most people are bisexual and living in the closet about their bisexuality and that's really sad to me because some of y'all are really hot and I would love to date you?

:: 01:37

yes, absolutely and I really just wish that you would deconstruct a little bit and come to terms with your sexuality a little bit, because people like me are looking for our husbands, our partners, and you're fucking it up. So get on the right fucking page. Just go look at Robert Irwin and his suits and the underwear and have your gay slash bisexual awakening and call me.

:: 02:05

Absolutely, and we can help with that deconstruction. Yes, I love that.

:: 02:32

I love that. I'm curious if we sort of like shift talking about some of those things and teaching people what not to do Anyway.

:: 02:43

What was it like for you to come out of that place and to what I imagine is just like rebuild your sense of self from the ground up.

:: 02:54

Yeah, it's been a fucking mess ground up. Yeah, it's been a fucking mess three years ago.

:: 03:07

95 to 99 percent of my friends were evangelical christians. Most of my friends were white. Yeah, um and a hundred percent of my friends I'm not exaggerating were straight or straight, presenting Straight, claiming they were, claiming they were straight. At least I did not have any queer trans, anything in the queer umbrella people in my life, because I was scared and because these environments didn't allow it and because I was afraid if any of those people were around me that they would out me or that I would fall in love with them. So the internalized homophobia was deep and strong and when I left, like all of my community, were straight white christians right and that made it really challenging. Some of them didn't believe me when I told them what happened to me yeah some of them didn't think it was a big deal and that was heartbreaking.

:: 04:20

It was heartbreaking to come out and to not know what had just happened to me and to feel scared of telling people what happened to me and that they wouldn't believe me, and then to finally find the courage to and for people to be like, wow, I can't imagine so. The the heart school that I was at, the leaders are famous worship leaders.

:: 04:42

Oh.

:: 04:43

Who are very, very well known and in high esteem hopefully less high esteem now than they've ever been and people would hear my story and be like, how, how could these people who wrote this song that changed my life do that to you? Yeah and you know, looking back, I understand the concept of privilege now in a way that I say that as someone who lived with that privilege for a long time yeah.

:: 05:30

I think one of the most grateful things that I could ever be grateful for in my whole life is becoming aware of that, yeah, and hopefully, every day divesting of that privilege, um, more and more yeah to to be able to understand people who are not white, not straight, not cis, not male, and in a lot of ways I always have, because I've always been a queer person.

:: 06:04

I grew up really poor and so I never had wealth privilege. I grew up in a family that had disabilities and so the ablest privilege I never really lived with. I grew up many times in majority black neighborhoods so a lot of ways I didn't really fully have white privilege. So I always have been a little divested of a lot of those things and Black Lives Matter and George Floyd and some really beautiful black friends that I had really taught me so much that, honestly, I would never have been able to deconstruct without the foundation laid before me.

:: 06:50

Yeah.

:: 06:51

By my black siblings especially. Siblings especially and I'm eternally grateful for my black and brown siblings for sitting with me and helping me understand whiteness and privilege. It was a lot for me to divest from and it gives me compassion for people who are in my life who don't get a lot of my journey. And it still makes it really hard, especially with you know. We all had an opportunity with the Black Lives Matter movement in America at least, to divest of privilege. We all had an opportunity with the me too movement to divest from the patriarchy. We all have had moments in the past 10 years with different things in the queer movements and trans movements to divest from cis and straightness. Um, and it's painful when people don't and it continues to be painful for me with people who are still my friends and have held space for me in my journey when they haven't divested more from a lot of those things.

:: 08:11

Yeah, so it has been an absolute shit show and a painful, terrible nightmare that also is beautiful and transformative to navigate through.

:: 08:22

People not believing me, people not understanding me, not understanding what happened to me, me not understanding discard and love, bombing and narcissistic culture and authoritarian leadership and high control, religion and cult like behavior, like I've had to find people to teach me all of these things, to educate myself, to liberate myself from the bonds of the religious harm that has been done to me, of the trauma that I've experienced, and I've had some beautiful people walking alongside me. And I've had some beautiful people walking alongside me, like Mike Maeshiro and dozens, if not hundreds, of people that I follow on Instagram black and brown and female and trans and non-binary and indigenous and Palestinian and so many others um voices that have educated me and helped me divest from zionism, that have helped me divest from um supremacy culture and helped me divest from the patriarchy and heteronormativity and um. Yeah, I feel like I still have so much to learn, but I'm doing a fucking good job and I'm proud of myself yeah I work in this really cool coffee shop in downtown Birmingham.

:: 09:40

We have a big pride flag hanging up on our wall. Probably 50% or more of the staff are queer. I have I have had, over the last two years that I've worked there, probably 10 to 15 trans or non-binary co-workers and friends and those people have taught me so much and I would not be who I am or where I am today without them calling me out for misgendering them or dead naming them and being like, hey, I do like both he him and him and they them, but you've been doing he him a lot.

:: 10:18

Would you practice they them that would I love, loved and respected and moments like that that have been transformative um to me what has it been like for you to heal and reclaim your sexuality and your queerness, to see that as not something that is a broken part of you, but a beautiful part of you?

:: 10:42

it still feels a little broken sometimes it's it's a lot of unlearning it. You know it's been a little slow journey like I remember how much of a big deal it was for me to go on my first date with a boy. I went on a blind date with the guy.

:: 11:01

That's extra hard. It's like a double whammy.

:: 11:05

I was so scared someone would see me.

:: 11:07

Yeah.

:: 11:08

I just imagine one of these people from the summer camp that's based here in Birmingham seeing me out on a date with this boy and having to explain myself. Then I remember my first kiss and it was such a magical, beautiful moment. And I remember, you know, continuing to go on dates and being like no, like I want to experience more. And I remember kind of facing like so I feel like God is cool with me, like going on dates with boys and kissing boys, but is sex safe for marriage? And then I had to face like, not just like romance and attraction, but I had to face sex, like the sex part of sexuality, and have conversations with God and my heart and myself of what do I believe to be true and what do I value and where do these beliefs about sex come from. And having my first sexual experiences with guys and falling in love and getting to like have a lot of experimentation when I was in a relationship that I didn't necessarily feel emotionally safe to have these types of connections and sexual connections with someone outside of some level of commitment, leading to, you know, like. What do I believe about marriage? Like was marriage just something created by the patriarchy to control women? Like it's at least a question worth asking. Yeah, I mean a little bit. Whatever the answer to that question is, if you haven't asked that question, I promise you it's at least looking into the origins of things and learning about things, um, and being like so do I want to get married? Do I want just one partner? Am I poly? Is poly okay? There's different expressions of, of attraction in relationships. Is it? Would it be possible? Maybe there's different types of relationship styles that are okay and it's.

:: 13:19

It's been scary for me to ask all of those questions and to face each of those things, and I I feel like I continue to have new things to learn every day and every time I have an opportunity to learn something new or to face a new battle, like the whole. Like is marriage? Is marriage a good thing? Like, do I want to get married? Do I would want just one partner? Do I want an open relationship? Do I want poly? I'm like man, I can't even get one boyfriend. Like I can't even go on a date with one boy who's not chunky chunky vomit these days. Like, where are the emotionally attuned, not narcissistic men? Not here, apparently. Like, why do I even need to worry about being poly if I can't even find one person anyways Like where are the emotionally attuned and not narcissistic men?

:: 14:03

Not here, apparently, Like why do I even need to worry about being poly if I can't even find one person? Anyways?

:: 14:05

Just come to Australia. I'm sure you can convince.

:: 14:07

Robert at some point, like I'm sure of it, ma'am, do not tease me like that no-transcript and you know some things for me like I'm learning, like what my values are around sexuality and relationships and how that might be different for someone else. And I'm a really you know we talked about me being a three wing four. I'm like emotional connection is really important to me. I'm kind of demisexual and so like I don't want to just have a physical connection with someone if there's not like a little emotional foreplay beforehand. You know, yeah, and that's different for me than it might be for someone else and that's okay. And I've learned that about myself and what my values are around my body and my sexuality and what my values are around my body and my sexuality. And I'm learning like shame has been a bitch in my life, but shame is something that I will always feel.

:: 15:41

Narcissists have a hard time with shame and my ability to feel my shame and to have a right relationship with my shame. If I continue to cultivate that relationship with my heart and my feelings of shame and my humility, it will prevent me from going down the same slippery slope that has caused the narcissist, someone with narcissistic behaviors or tendencies to lose their empathy and their humility and to begin to harm others, and so, for me, I would rather have some shame than the alternative. Yeah, my, my shame points me inwards and invites me to self reflect and invites me to ask like where did I fuck up? Where did I do harm to someone? Where am I not seeing the whole picture up? Where did I do harm to someone? Where am I not seeing the whole picture where? Where am I complicit?

:: 16:42

And that's something that people with narcissistic tendencies and behaviors have a more difficult time doing. Yeah, it's their relationship with their shame and the way that maybe they've chosen to suppress it or to silence it, etc. Etc. Different, et cetera. Different people are different, and so I'm okay with my shame. I'm learning how to live with her and to befriend her and allow her to be my superpower, and I know she will always be my kryptonite, but she's also my superpower and that's a beautiful gift that I get to live with. And, again, I much prefer it to the alternative.

:: 17:21

I want to ask a question that I asked earlier on in the episode, but I want to ask it in a different context, which is, now that you know, present day, 2025,.

:: 17:33

Tyler is embracing his sexuality 2025, tyler is embracing his sexuality. How do you feel about you? I like myself the most I've ever liked me. I like my life the most I've ever liked my life like obviously, our president is shit and america's shit and just shit is everywhere always external shit we're.

:: 17:56

If someone invites me to go somewhere, I'm like no man, I can't. The tariffs, I'm sorry. Tariffs, bro, sorry. I mean, the world is a shit show right now. I'm hoping, I have hope, that this is the. I heard someone say this it's not an original concept that fascism is in its death throes, that these are the last like death throes of a fascist mentality and humanity on its way out. I have hope that this resurgence of fascism that's happening right now is like the worst part of it before it, like dies and humanity is able to mostly move past this. That's my hope. Um, yeah.

:: 18:47

So all of that aside, the external world can be difficult for my internal world. Yeah, my internal world is the strongest has ever been. Do I feel depressed some days? Yes, do I not feel like getting out of bed some days? Yes, is CPTSD real? Yes, and my nervous system is still fucked up. We got a lot. We got a lot of healing to do. There's a lot of safety and love that I need, my heart and my mind, and I like me, I like what I believe and I like what I stand for and I like the empathy that is inside of me and I like. I like my sexuality, I like that I'm like, I think I'm poly and that I maybe would want a relationship with multiple people. Also, I've never said that out loud. I don't know what we're doing with this podcast, but this might be me coming out as potentially poly to some people who are listening.

:: 19:53

So come ask me some questions if you want to talk love that and I love it because, as a poly person, it's really fucking fun so I love that we'll say polycurious at the moment yeah

:: 20:07

polycurious monogamish yeah, part of me asking the questions and I'm like I always like watched all these romantic movies where people found their soulmates and I'm like I love that and I love the idea of finding one person who could just like meet all of my needs and we could just live happily ever after. And it kind of feels like bullshit and it feels normal and understandable that we as humans would have needs and desires. Most of us, many of us all right if some people are straight, and it's okay if some people are monogamous. Yeah, god might have made them that way too. We diversity. Maybe some are cis. I think I'm cis and that's fine. Yeah, I mean, a black woman lives inside of me, but I'm a white man.

:: 21:03

I love asking people where their sense of spirituality lives now.

:: 21:10

I on my Instagram profile. It says queer progressive Christian mystic.

:: 21:20

Yes, and I profile it says queer progressive christian mystic.

:: 21:22

yes, and I I'm glad you brought it up because I was going to, if you didn't progressive both um, in the world of christianity and in the world of humanity and politics and belief about life and humanity, queer the um mystic I'm. I'm weird. I told you I went to bethel, bethel's weird. We've been healing in prophecy and gemstones appearing in people's shoes and manna falling from the sky and honestly, I experienced some of that shit and some of that shit was real and happened. Like I told people stuff about themselves that I shouldn't have been able to know about them. People told me stuff about themselves that I shouldn't have been able to know about them. People told me stuff about me that they shouldn't have been able to know about me.

:: 22:03

Other belief systems some people might call that a witch. We just have to call it a prophet in the system that I was in or a seer. But I'm kind of like I'm kind of witchy, I'm kind of new agey, I like crystals. I have plants around my house. I don't say spells or anything, but I like kind of believe that like if you say things, you manifest it, which is kind of basically the same thing. I like astrology, but also I like the Enneagram the most. I like astrology, but also I like the Enneagram the most. Yeah, I have tarot cards and I'm like I would love to like do some psilocybin mushrooms or go to Peru and do a what's it called Ayahuasca, ayahuasca? Yeah, ayahuasca and Ashwagandha always get confused in my head and I'm always the wrong thing. I think psychedelic experiences probably are a way to connect us to our higher selves and or God. Sometimes, when I talk about the higher power, sometimes I say Jesus, sometimes I say God, sometimes I say the universe yeah.

:: 23:11

I think like if I'm being really vulnerable and honest about spirituality, I feel angry at God, the Christian, god, jesus, the concept of Jesus, for allowing this stuff to happen to me, that happened to me, and for this world of Christianity to be perpetrating unknowingly, in a lot of ways and many times, but perpetrating so much harm, especially on black, brown, indigenous, queer, trans, women, female, non-binary people. I don't know how that concept of Jesus heals without. I know a lot of that is an internal thing, but I think some of it is external. I'm like, how does my concept of Jesus heal if I don't tell people that's not what Jesus is fucking like and stop acting like a fucking idiot?

:: 24:13

and tearing down the abusive, harmful ecosystems around me. Um. So there's. There's a lot of emotion and anger and hate and love and hope and heartbreak. Like I don't know if I believe in heaven, I like the idea of heaven in some ways and I think reincarnation is kind of a fun idea and the idea that, like some, loves last many lifetimes.

:: 24:44

Yeah.

:: 24:45

The idea that our souls sometimes get to try again. I think, I think I believe that all belief systems have places of truth and curious ideas and beautiful things that I want to, and that every human would have the opportunity to learn from and be able to look right into their lives, and a lot of the things cross over and we just have different words for it.

:: 25:12

Yeah.

:: 25:13

I have so much respect for so many other faith systems yeah, I have so much respect for so many other faith systems. I I wish I had more friends who could teach me about some of their their cultures and faith traditions. I would love to celebrate ramadan and eid, uh, kwanzaa and festivals that I've never even heard of, and yeah, yeah. Experienced the differences yeah.

:: 25:45

Yeah, I think there's. I think there's the need for so much nuance for spirituality and faith and belief when you have been harmed in those spaces. I think there's a need for nuance in general in this space, but in particular when wading through the complexity of emotions that come with any form of divinity or higher power or sense of spirituality. It's complicated and layered. Yeah, I like to finish these episodes with some encouragement for people and I like to ask people what would you say to someone who is fresh and raw in their deconstruction and they are sitting with all of that pain?

:: 26:38

I would say to you feel it, feel, feel the fear, feel the shame, feel the anger and find people to feel it with you. Find me on instagram, send me a message. Let's feel our feelings together. Don't do this alone. You're not alone. I'm not alone, we're not alone.

:: 27:00

Yeah, no, it's scary and I know it's hard and you can take breaks when you need. You only have to go at the pace that you want to go and that you're ready to go. No one's making you deconstruct. If you don't want to deconstruct, you don't have to. No one's making you deconstruct If you don't want to deconstruct. You don't have to Feel what you're afraid of and press into it when you can and when you're courageous enough, and then take a break and then come back to it.

:: 27:29

Be kind to yourself with your questions. All of your questions are welcome and all of your questions are appropriate. You're doing a good job. You're doing a better job than you think and you're really not alone. Find those of us who have gone before you, find other people who are in it with you where you are. Reach out for connection, ask for help and trust yourself. Trust your heart, trust your fear, fear, trust your anger, trust your grief where, where it leads, you will be healing, it will be liberating, and we're with you in your journey and we're proud of you beautiful yeah, as I say all those things to you, I say it to sam and I say it to myself yeah, and sometimes we need to say it to ourselves.

:: 28:27

yeah, well, I mean, thank you so much for joining me. I just, um, I feel like I just sit back and listening to you talk is just the most beautiful thing in the world and I love it. I remember listening to your episode with Mike on his podcast and I'm pretty sure I sobbed like 90% of the time, so I'm surprised that I made it through this episode without shedding a tear, although they were welling so, but I'm so grateful for you sharing your story and for spending your time with me to record this episode, so thank you.

:: 29:05

It's been so good to be with you. I've loved your questions and doing things like this is healing for me being able to share my story in a safe place and laugh and cry and feel validated and feel heard and understood. This this means the world to me and it means the world to me to hear and experience you and your heart and make a new friend yeah, thanks for tuning in to this episode of beyond the surface.

:: 29:34

I hope you found today's conversation as insightful and inspiring as I did. If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with others who might benefit from these stories. Stay connected with us on social media for updates and more content. I love connecting with all of you. Remember, no matter where you are in your journey, you're not alone. Until next time, keep exploring, keep questioning and keep moving forward. Take care.