The One Who Found The Divine In The Forest

Sam (Host): 00:00:18

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.

Sam (Host): 00:00:58

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 occult 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.

Sam (Host): 00:01:39

Welcome, Jess. Thanks for joining me.

Jess: 00:01:41

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Sam (Host): 00:01:44

Yeah, I'm really excited about this episode. I love talking to local people.

Like, I just love talking to other Australians as much as, like, I really enjoy my American and Canadian and UK guests. It's nice to talk to people with the same accent.

Jess: 00:02:02

Yeah, totally. And.

Sam (Host): 00:02:04

And I feel the same about New Zealand people, even though it's not the same accent. It feels a little homely still to talk to people from New Zealand as well.

But, yeah, it' there's something comforting about talking to someone from Australia. It's nice.

Jess: 00:02:22

Absolutely. Yeah. I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Sam (Host): 00:02:27

So, I love to start with a super broad, super vague question, which is where does your story start?

Jess: 00:02:35

Right. Yep. We start with the broad strokes, I think, for like. Like most people. It starts before I was born. Starts with my parents. So my parents were.

They met in Indonesia. My mum is Australian, my dad is Indonesian and they met in Indonesia and were pop stars over there. They're both singers, both musicians.

Sam (Host): 00:02:58

Wow.

Jess: 00:02:59

I know that's a cool party fact to pull out. No, it's very random. Yeah. So they. They met in as part of a band and got very famous and.

And then at one point they had this kind of radical conversion story that's their own and that the whole thing, the band, the living in Indonesia, the radical conversion, that's all part of, like, the Manusama family law.

So after they got saved, they were kind of at the peak of their fame and then got so transformed by that experience of conversion that they gave it all up and walked away from all of it. They had a recording contract, the whole thing.

They'd had a song that was like number one in the charts and was huge, and they just left it all behind. They lost all desire for it. Only wanted to serve Jesus.

And then they moved to Australia, where my mum's family were back living, and that's when they started getting involved in church. And then they became. They kind of got a little bit famous here as well.

They went on one of the talent shows, one of the early talent shows, I think it's called New Faces.

Sam (Host): 00:04:21

Oh, yeah.

Jess: 00:04:22

Back in the day, in the 80s. Oh. Might have been like, so, I don't know, late 70s, 80s.

Sam (Host): 00:04:27

I think it's before both of our times. Before.

Jess: 00:04:29

Yeah, it was before I was born, so. Yeah, a long time ago. And yeah, so then they became like music ministers. They were one of the very early versions of that.

Music Ministers was kind of not really a thing until they started doing it here in Australia and. And then. Yep. So they were part of a. A church in the 80s that turned out to be a bit of a cult, really.

It was a plant from an American movement and was really intense and really was, you know, kind of a revival amongst the young people. It was a campus ministry. It was very legalistic, very controlling, and they were all in it, you know, and that's.

That's the environment that I was born into pretty much. So was raised as a homeschool kid. Ah, yes.

Sam (Host): 00:05:28

Anytime anyone mentions homeschooling, I go, oh, boy.

Jess: 00:05:32

Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Sam (Host): 00:05:36

So what I love using this term to ask this question, which is what flavor of Christianity was this?

Jess: 00:05:45

So Pentecostal Charismatic. And at that point in my life, my early childhood, very American. Okay. Yep.

The pastors of that church were a young American couple, so very holiness movement. I don't know if you know that. Like that holiness sort of brand, but.

So they had this thing called the Dating Revelation tm and it was basically because it was a church mostly full of young adults. A lot of them are single marriage, marriageable age.

So they had this dating revelation, which was that if two people liked each other, they wouldn't talk to each other about that. They would each go to. So if you like someone, you'd go to the pastors and say, I really have feelings for this person. They would pray about it.

And you would just have to hope that if. That the other person also liked you and also went to the pastors and said, I have feelings for this person.

And if the pastors prayed about it and believed that it was a God thing for you to get married, basically, then they would give the go ahead and an engagement would be announced in church.

Sam (Host): 00:07:07

Right.

Jess: 00:07:08

So we didn't. People didn't date.

Sam (Host): 00:07:10

So basically, like a glorified arranged marriage.

Jess: 00:07:14

Totally. Totally. But the past is other parents of both of them and they're hearing from God on your behalf. And nobody gets to date.

You'll hang around, hang out in groups until someone gets the green light, and then they announce the engagement to the church.

Sam (Host): 00:07:30

Right.

Jess: 00:07:31

And that's it. So.

Sam (Host): 00:07:32

Okay. And so were you a child at this point when this is all happening? Okay.

Jess: 00:07:37

Yeah.

Sam (Host): 00:07:38

So you're not part of the dating revelation.

Jess: 00:07:40

But I remember hearing all about it. I don't know why I was aware of it when I was like, we left that church when I was eight.

Sam (Host): 00:07:46

Okay.

Jess: 00:07:46

I knew all about it. Yeah. Yeah. So that was. Those are my early years.

Sam (Host): 00:07:52

So what was it in, like, I mean, you know, leaving at 8 is still like, that's a sizable chunk of your childhood. And so, like, what were some of the beliefs that you internalized about yourself and about the world around you during that period of time?

Jess: 00:08:10

The thing that stayed with me the most was this really idealized picture of who I was going to be when I grew up. And it was very much the. I had this idea of myself being, like, getting married very young.

Like 21 was the age that I aimed to get married because that was how old my mom.

Sam (Host): 00:08:32

Good Christian girl thing.

Jess: 00:08:34

Yeah. That's the right age. Yeah. I'd have long hair, I'd wear skirts, and I would never have been kissed.

And it would be just this perfect picture of purity. Yeah. And being completely sold out. Sold out was the term of the moment, was. It was always the term sold out for God. Totally serving God. And. Yeah.

Getting married and having kids. So that. That was kind of. That's the. That was the thing that really stayed with me. Like, that was the ideal version of what my life was going to be.

And it's interesting I was thinking about this recently because I've heard, I've been listening to a lot of your past episodes and. And my own siblings, we've talked about this.

Like, they kind of grew up with this fear of going to hell or fear of like, the rapture, like the rapture happening and getting left behind. I never had those fears. I always had a real assurance that I just always had this kind of innate assurance in God and in.

I don't know, I just didn't ever think that I was going to go to hell. I think I didn't believe in hell, but I'll talk about that later. But what I. My biggest fear was that I would miss out on God's Plan A.

So there's always this idea of, like, God has a plan for you and it's a big destiny and you're destined for greatness and you're going to do big things and God's called you, but if you stuff up, if you are too sinful or you are not committed enough, he'll choose someone else. And I always had this fear that, like, God was going to pass me by and choose someone else. So I think that.

Yeah, so that idealized version was what I had to live up to in order for God to use me in the way that he supposedly wanted to.

Sam (Host): 00:10:31

I mean, like, my first reaction is what an immense amount of pressure for little shoulders to hold.

Jess: 00:10:41

Yeah, everything kind of was riding on my ability to be committed and to behave and to serve and have this big capacity to do what I was called to do.

Sam (Host): 00:10:59

And was like, was how you related to God during this time something that felt personal, or was it just something that was being taught by your parents and the environment you were in?

Jess: 00:11:12

Yeah, no, my relationship to God always felt really personal. It felt really natural to me, I think.

And this is something that I've actually discovered in just in the last few years, just even learning about myself through like, the Enneagram or even astrology. Like reading my chart and going, oh, that makes so much sense.

Like, I have this natural affinity for just for faith, I think, for blurring the lines of, like, what's seen and unseen. I kind of have this ability to, like, live in this space that's a little bit unseen, you know.

So I think that for me, I was able to really internalize my relationship with God as something that was very real. But there was always this fear aspect where I knew God loved me, but I didn't know if he approved of me. And that was always.

That was always a real question for me.

Sam (Host): 00:12:14

Yeah. And I mean, did that approval feel like his love was conditional?

Jess: 00:12:24

Yeah, I guess it did. Yeah. Because it was like. Yeah, I.

There were all these, you know, even as a young kid at, you know, 6, 7, 8 years old, the ideal was to be getting up at 6am and reading your Bible and doing devotions for half an hour in the morning. And I don't know, I was six.

Sam (Host): 00:12:47

So, I mean, like, I just think, like, even, like pure devotion, like, nobody should be doing anything at 6am that requires that level of brain power, of concentration. Like, I can barely walk to the bathroom at 6am, let alone devotion time.

Jess: 00:13:09

No one's functioning at that time.

Sam (Host): 00:13:11

No, no, that's madness on so many levels. But just even on, like, the most basic of levels of, like, nobody has, like any sort of good level of functioning at that hour of the morning.

Jess: 00:13:25

No, absolutely not.

Sam (Host): 00:13:28

So you said that you were in this community until you're eight. What happened then? Did you go to a different flavor of church or did your family leave the church?

Jess: 00:13:39

When I was about 8, stuff started happening in the church where it started to come to light that there was all this legalism and control. And I think. I'm not sure what happened at the leadership level, but I guess someone started to step in and stuff started to fall apart.

And at the same time, so there was. There was a lot of talk about Jezebel and Ahab. Right, right. So. And my parents are, you know, they really fit the type.

My mum is this dynamic, energized. She's a real visionary. She's a natural leader. My dad is. Has a brilliant brain. He's kind of. The older he gets, the more of a mad professor he becomes.

Best possible way. Just gentle and beautiful and brilliant, but, you know, not like loud. He's just. He's. He's lovely. Yeah. And so that didn't fit the.

The: 1980

It was a near nervous breakdown that she went through. She just. It was a. It was a dreadful, dreadful time.

And I remember moments of just watching her completely fall apart and knowing that it was because of the church.

And that had a huge impact on me because I kind of, as the eldest child, took a lot of that responsibility on to, like, I need to protect mum from people in the church who are terror, you know, who hurt her. Yeah.

So through that, you know, sort of disintegration of their community, they ended up leaving the church and we went to another big independent Pentecostal church here in Melbourne and life completely changed. We moved house. I started going to school. It was the church school, so it was an Independent Pentecostal church with a school attached.

Sam (Host): 00:16:03

Slight step up.

Jess: 00:16:05

It was something. So we left the home, but we were still very insular. Yeah. Still very safe. Protected in a little bubble. Yeah.

And yeah, it was a big, much bigger church because the church we were in was like only, you know, it's less than 100 people and this was a church of probably a thousand or two thousand, I don't know.

Sam (Host): 00:16:24

Wow.

Jess: 00:16:25

Yeah, that was.

Sam (Host): 00:16:27

I mean, even just from like a base level, like, what was it like to be a part of a church that big all of a sudden?

Jess: 00:16:35

It was helpful for us because Mum and Dad were friends with the pastors and so they kind of, when they. When we moved across, there was an instant community.

We weren't just sort of going in anonymously, trying to find our feet and find new people, new friends. From my experience, we moved over to this church and seemed to fit into this, you know, a small, smaller community within the church.

So I think that helped us. Helped me adjust. It helped us adjust. But it was, you know, I was eight. It was just like, oh, cool. New church, new friends. It was just exciting.

And I got to go to school for the first time and that was terrifying and exciting. And it was all big and new.

Sam (Host): 00:17:17

Yeah. Did the new church differ in any way in terms of like, what you were being taught or was it still sort of like the same sort of flavor of beliefs?

Jess: 00:17:29

It was similar. It was. It wasn't the same sort of legalism, but they still had their, you know, dad had to cut his hair because it was too.

Was past his collar and he couldn't serve on the stage because he had. His hair was too long.

Sam (Host): 00:17:41

Right.

Jess: 00:17:42

So like a different, same, same type of legalistic.

Sam (Host): 00:17:46

Yeah, it sounds more like a. An image form of legalism.

Jess: 00:17:51

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Sam (Host): 00:17:54

And so is this the space that you spent your teenage years?

Jess: 00:17:58

Well, so then we were there for a few years and Mum and Dad, I guess they kind of were there just recovering from the disaster that was the previous church and I guess learning a new way to be in church. Because this, what didn't have all that legalism, you know, in the same way, it wasn't as intense.

So they were able to just kind of relax into themselves and relax into their, you know, community and. And just exist in church, which was good for them. I think they really went through a lot of healing during that time.

We were there for a few years and then they felt called back into music ministry, so they started. So we were, we traveled a lot.

We were always traveling to different churches, they would go and lead worship or sing, you know, some songs in as part of the service. And we'd be like the visiting ministers, right? We, they. But we, our family went. It was always a family like affair. So.

And we were very much a part of that as kids. So I'm the eldest of five and we all sing. We were all singing at.

As kids and so mom would dress us up in matching clothes and we'd go around to these different churches and most of the time we would get up and do a family song. We all, all of us singing together. It was very cute.

Sam (Host): 00:19:18

The Von Trapp, the church Von Traps. That's actually the image I had.

Jess: 00:19:25

Yeah, totally. All of us lined up in our matching out bits.

Sam (Host): 00:19:29

What is, I mean, what is it like for you to remember that, like as you talk about it?

Jess: 00:19:35

It's just funny now. Like, I think for a long time it was really embarrassing as a kid it felt really good. Like I felt significant.

I felt like, you know, I had a role to play in the world. As I got older, that wore off and it was just like weird. And then, I don't know, I just think it's.

That's not the traumatic part of my story, you know, like, that's just cute and it's funny.

Sam (Host): 00:19:58

I, I mean, I think it's, it's nice for people to hear though. And I think some.

Actually it's challenging sometimes for people to hear that there is nuance in these stories and that not everything is bad and that we can talk about parts of our story with humor and lightness and things like that. But I think that can sometimes be challenging for people. So I like to highlight some of that nuance sometimes.

As much as it is good to, you know, share our stories of pain and, and trauma, it's also good to realize that nothing ever feels all good or bad a lot of the time.

Jess: 00:20:41

Exactly.

Sam (Host): 00:20:42

Right.

Jess: 00:20:42

I mean, it is. It's a full spectrum of color when you're looking at the whole picture of it.

And you know, I think one of even, even in that church that I was born into and, and was ended up being so damaging for. Most of my memories of that church are incredible. It was community. All of the people in that church were my aunties and uncles.

I called them all auntie and uncle.

It was one of those sort of beautiful environments to grow up, to grow up in where you can go and sit on anyone's knee and they're just safe and they're, you know, they love you and we'd Go on church camps all the time and just have the most beautiful memories and, and I mean that's what makes it hard to unpack as well because there's trauma wrapped up in really beautiful things. How do you hold both? How do you, you know, even wake up to.

That was actually really a really damaging and traumatic time in my life because all I've ever remembered were the golden bits, you know? Yeah, yeah, I think, I mean traveling around with mum and dad, it was exciting. We got to meet new people all the time and you know, I have adhd.

That was a great thing for. I didn't know it at the time, but yeah, it was, it was fun. Yeah. And there were bits that were, you.

Sam (Host): 00:22:02

Know, terrible and so at what point did your faith start to shift for you?

Jess: 00:22:09

Yeah, that, that happened late. So I, I was really committed. So my parents were in music ministry for many years.

They were the worship pastors for, for one of the churches that we ended up going to. And then from there they felt called to start a church.

And so when I was 16, they planted a church, brand new from scratch, started in someone's lounge room and it grew from there. And that was really like, we approached that as a family thing. It was a family. We made the decision together as a whole family.

We embarked on it together.

We all had roles to play even as kids at 16, I think, I mean we were all like helping set up the sound system and pack it all down at the end and I was helping run the kids ministry and leading worship and, and trying to play keys even though I'm terrible, you know, like just.

We all had roles to play because it was just this tiny little startup and I think, you know, I'm the eldest child, I witnessed my mum go through this horrible situation as a, as a child. Took on a lot of responsibility emotionally. And when we started the church, I kind of made a vow to mum and dad.

I'm gonna serve your vision until I die as a 16, 17 year old. Big words. And I meant them because I really believed in what they were doing and I did that. I, I played, I filled that role.

I really committed myself to serving the church and serving mum and dad. And so then I, I got married to my high school sweetheart. We were in that church school together. We ended up getting married and I said I can't.

He was going to that church that the school was attached to and I was like, I can't leave this church. This is my parents church. I'm called here for till I die. So if you want to marry me, you have to come and join this church.

Not the healthiest thing to do when you're starting a marriage, but that was what happened.

Sam (Host): 00:24:25

And I mean the feminist in me like loves that you're making me ultimate. But anyway, because usually it's the other.

Jess: 00:24:33

Way around, but still, an ultimatum is an ultimatum. It's not amazing. Yeah. And then so we served. He, he threw himself into it.

We both were really, you know, highly involved in supporting mum and dad, being part of the leadership team there. And at the same time, and this is where I want to be a bit careful, I, I want to speak about things that are really important to my story.

I also want to protect my kids privacy and the privacy of my now ex husband, my co parent, who I have a really fantastic relationship with. Very supportive, we co parent really well together.

But you know, we, we got married, we grew up, we, we existed in a high control, performance oriented environment where you feel like you're under scrutiny all the time, even if you're not necessarily. We were visible. I was the pastor's daughter, we were in leadership.

And I think probably most or many of your listeners will probably relate to the fact that in a high control culture that can filter through into family dynamics.

So that coercive control that exists in the, in the culture filters through where there's pressure for the man to be the head of the home and to be the spiritual head, you know, where they might not necessarily feel comfortable filling those shoes. So things in the marriage and in the home were really quite difficult while we were filling these roles as leaders in the church.

And so I started looking for resources for, to help me cope better, you know, because my response was what did I do to deserve this and why is God doing this to me? Because somehow this must be part of God's plan. So I obviously need to get stronger. I obviously need to.

This is how God is breaking me, to make me, you know, more like him. So how do I do that?

And so I started just sort of looking for resources to sort of help myself be stronger in the midst of what was a really difficult environment. And I read a book called the Emotionally Healthy Church.

And that started everything for me because he is, Peter Scazzero, I think is his name, the author, he's in a more traditional church and he's talking about emotionally healthy spirituality and he talks about things in a really different way that sort of encompasses a broader spectrum of Christian thinking than I'd ever been exposed to. So in the Pentecostal world, we Kind of got the. The last little sliver of Christian history, and we think that's the entire truth.

And I'm reading these things about practicing silence or centering prayer or contemplate, you know, contemplative practices that are brand new to me because we're. We're just, like, speaking in tongues and naming and claiming, you know, like, it's all very, very aggressive.

Sam (Host): 00:28:06

Very.

Jess: 00:28:06

It's very. It's very aggressive. There's no silence. There's never any silence.

Sam (Host): 00:28:11

Yeah, no, everybody's angry.

Jess: 00:28:13

They're all, like, just aggressively getting things. So I'm reading about these things and. And learning about people like Thomas Merton or, you know, just names that I've never.

Never heard of and never been exposed to, and all of a sudden realizing, oh, yeah, there's like 2,000 years of Christian thought. They kind of all been wrong.

ll kind of been wrong. But in: 2000

In that tradition, those traditions and those thinking those. The things that they were saying and teaching and thinking about.

Not only is there that depth, but then there's the breadth of just worldwide Christianity. There's, like, all these different. So be.

I started just pulling at threads like, oh, like, I didn't realize there was all this other ways of thinking that could still actually be faithful and still actually fit within Christian orthodoxy and. And be faithful to Jesus. And that kind of started to. That was it. That was the beginning of the slippery slope for me.

I think the next thing was Love Wins by Rob Bell. And then it was just.

Sam (Host): 00:29:37

Oh, yeah. And then you were gonna. That's like, you're at the end of the slippery slope at that point.

By the time we hit Rob Bell, we're at the bottom of the slide. That's where life is starting to begin.

But I mean, I think, you know, up until the Rob Bell part, like, it's nice, I think, for people to realize that actually exploring faith doesn't have to mean a narrowing of everything, that actually exploring faith and getting curious can mean an.

An expansion of, like, your worldview and expansion of beliefs and expansion of spirituality and connection and all of those things that are encompassing of that. That. Yeah. Pulling at that thread doesn't have to be a complete dismantle. It can. And that's also okay. But it doesn't have to be.

Jess: 00:30:36

And it. It didn't feel like an unraveling at the time.

It really felt like the boundaries were expanding and that, oh, there's all this possibility now that I can explore that is still faithful, but it's. It might actually, you know, I started to discover things that actually felt more true to me.

And then I was just on this track of, like, I just wanted to find the next more true thing. And I felt like it was. I. I described it to someone.

Like, I felt like I just was walking into this wilderness and I just put my hand in the Holy Spirit. And I felt like the Holy Spirit was just leading me from one thing to the next, following the breadcrumbs. And I would just bibliography my way up.

I'd read a book and I'd be like, I love this. Who are they reading? And I would just go through their bibliography and just go to the next person, because I just got.

It became like this insatiable curiosity. I just. I had to know more.

What else have I been missing for 35 years that I haven't that's available for me as a Christian that I haven't known about? Yeah, it was. It was amazing. It was an incredible, incredibly rich time.

Sam (Host): 00:31:44

At what point did that curiosity that you're experiencing stop being attributed to the Holy Spirit?

Jess: 00:31:52

That's it. Yeah. That's a really good question, because there's a whole thing that happened. So of course I was there.

Sam (Host): 00:32:03

There always is. There's always. I mean, there isn't always, but most of the time there is.

Jess: 00:32:08

It's. And it's. It's a long story, but that's what we're here for, I suppose. So one of the things that happened while I.

While I was on this kind of rabbit trail, following, you know, the breadcrumbs, the Holy Spirit, and going through this emotionally healthy, you know, spirituality, whole situation and just learning about myself, I started to realize that I needed to individuate from my parents that I was really tied to my parents in an unhealthy way, and that was keeping me in these really unhealthy patterns. So one of the first real big disruptions that my deconstruction caused was that we left Mum and Dad's church. And that was huge.

That was really difficult for my parents. Caused a really big rupture, you know, in our relationship with them. But it was really necessary. And we probably. We didn't handle it amazingly.

Like, you know, I was. I was just learning how to be an individual, really. So it was you know, it was messy, it was difficult, and it was.

You know, we've had to do a lot of healing from that, but it was really necessary. So then we had to go find another church.

This is now the first time I'm really having to make a decision for myself, try and follow instincts that I don't know I have because I've always basically been told, you know, I've never really had to make decisions at that point.

Sam (Host): 00:33:40

And were your instincts still being viewed as, like. They're not instincts, they're the Holy Spirit. Because, like, I know for myself, like, intuition was not intuition.

Intuition was the Holy Spirit until I realized, actually the intuition is just mine.

Jess: 00:33:55

Not the whole experience.

Sam (Host): 00:33:58

What do you remember about that time in terms of what you were looking for in that?

Jess: 00:34:04

So I was really conflicted because I was going through this whole. I was really in deconstruction action at that point. So I would have you read Rob.

Sam (Host): 00:34:12

Bell by this point.

Jess: 00:34:13

He really was the top of the slope for me. The top of the slippery slope.

Sam (Host): 00:34:18

That's like the measuring guide.

Jess: 00:34:20

And I was listening to the liturgists. Yeah. And I was listening to the deconstructionists. And I know all. All of them.

Sam (Host): 00:34:30

Yeah.

Jess: 00:34:30

I was reading Sarah Bessie. I was, you know, I just. Oh, yeah, Evans. All of them. Right.

Sam (Host): 00:34:37

Okay. So we're already in the very progressive.

Jess: 00:34:40

Loosey, goosey style of Christianity in my mind.

Sam (Host): 00:34:43

Yeah.

Jess: 00:34:44

And very, very, very privately, because I had tried to, like.

I got really into Dallas Willard for a little while there, and I tried to sort of bring that up with different people in my, you know, in my family, and even bought a book, you know, you should read this. Didn't go down well. It wasn't receptive. So I just. I very much then just shrank back and we just became a very process.

Couldn't even talk to my husband about it because it was too destabilizing for him. He needed the structure of what we lived in. He needed the community.

And I was threatening all of that with my big questions and my, you know, I voted yes in the. In the plebiscite. And it was. Yeah, right. And. And that was too much for him. We had a huge fight about it because it was. It was very destabilizing.

So it was very internal process. So I was deconstructing very privately and thinking very progressively, but still having to exist within where we were.

Sam (Host): 00:35:41

That's a lot of dissonance, Jess.

Jess: 00:35:43

Fuck load of dissonance.

It was very, very confusing time when we left Dad's I was like, I want to go to, like, a traditional church where, you know, I want less personality and more structure. But, yep, my husband was a drummer, and so he wanted to be part of a band.

So we couldn't go to an Anglican church or a, you know, Catholic church or a liturgical church. We had to go somewhere that had a band. And I was like, you know, so it was a big compromise, and we ended up going. We.

We went and visited this church, and they would. The day that we went, they were talking about how they were in a season of silence. And so that was. That was a trigger word.

That was not a trigger word. It was like a. It was a word for me that was like, oh, silence. Okay, There's a Pentecostal people talking about silence.

This could be good, because I was about centering prayer and finding silence and a new way of meeting God. And they just used all these sort of key words that seemed right. I think they even talked about deconstruction.

And I was like, hey, I think we found the right place. Meanwhile, you know, the auditorium is painted black. Pretty sure they had a smoke machine. Very loud music was very obnoxious.

So my whole body was like. And in my mind, I'm like, yeah, but they're using the right words, so let's give them a go. So we ended up in this.

We ended up going to this church, and it ended up. It. I mean, I call it a cult. It has all the markers of a cult. Very high control, very much a personality thing with the senior pastor. And. But that.

But they use the right words. And I had these moments that felt like the Holy Spirit. And this is where, like, deconstruction is such a.

I think one of the biggest things about going through deconstruction and leaving high control religion and unpacking all your spiritual trauma is learning to trust your intuition, learning to actually get in touch with it, but then learning to trust it. Because, like, I went through this experience and I was like, following the Holy Spirit as best as I knew how, listening to, you know, And I.

I remember being in a. In a meeting. They. So they. We started going to the church. They kind of headhunted us and wind and dined us and asked, oh, they love bombed you.

Okay, you posted that thing on Instagram about churches love bombing you. And I was like, holy. That's exactly what happened. They. They completely love bombed us.

It was classic narcissistic love bombing and wouldn't leave us alone and asked us to come over because the. The mother church was In Adelaide. So they wanted us to move to Adelaide and join their staff there.

Sam (Host): 00:38:56

Right.

Jess: 00:38:57

So they love bombed us into and basically convinced us to do that, convinced us to sell our business. We had a really successful cleaning business. You know, we were doing really well. Life was great. The kids were stable.

The kids were in a lovely school. Everything was perfect. And they were like, you're called and you're called to, to be with us.

We know we're called to, you know, build together, come and, you know, do business, bring business and ministry and kingdom purpose together, work with us. And we, and we heard all the words.

And I remember being in a meeting once and listening to the senior pastor and he was preaching and it was so intense. And so it was. It harkened back to the holiness stuff from that I grew up with. It was really radical. It was really like very Jesus centered.

You know, he had this whole thing about like, the church has gotten away from the simple message of Jesus. And it was very like, we need to call the church back. It was very holiness.

And my nervous system was conditioned to respond to really intense, really radical revival speaking people who wanted to just serve Jesus. And so everything in me was like, like just responded. And I was like, this is where we need to be. I felt like I caught on fire.

It was extreme, excited me. It caught my passion because that's, that's what I grew up with, right?

And I think my nervous system was conditioned to be in high control, highly idealistic environments. So that's what I responded to.

We made the decision, we sold our business, we went over to Adelaide, moved our whole family there, and it was incredibly disruptive. We lasted about a month.

We got there and the two pastors who had been whining and dining us and chasing us in touch all the time, nowhere to be seen, very difficult to get a hold of, not really interested in us. Once we were there, the pressure of having to work in the church and then, you know, we were on like, less like the most ridiculous wage imaginable.

Like it was ridiculous and.

And then expected to work your fight or four days a week because you have Monday off, but then be at three services on a Sunday and be available to meet with people on, you know, at other times, on the weekend, on Saturdays and stuff. And all of a sudden you're in this environment where, like, you're under scrutiny again.

All of your conversations are being kind of feel like you're being tested, you feel like you're being judged. There's this kind of unspoken, unwritten thing, code that you're supposed to live up to.

It's this very, like, high commitment, exhaust yourself for the vision kind of environment. And I remember walking into the church and again, it's the black ceiling, black walls, all the lights, all the loud music.

And it just, like, feeling really oppressive in my body and just being like, I don't like this. But God obviously called us here for a reason. God obviously has a reason for us to be here. Maybe this is. Maybe we're going to be part of the change.

All that old thing. And. Yeah, and so it was once. This is a very long way to get to the answer to your question. Sorry. But it's important. Things fell apart very quickly.

So we were out of, like, we stopped working there within six weeks of being in that job. And then we were stuck in Adelaide. So we'd sold. We sold the business. We didn't have a house to go back to. We were kind of just stuck there.

We didn't have a community anymore because we moved there. And they were like, we're your family now. And then we weren't part of the family anymore. Like, they kind of. We were beyond the pale.

We were outside the circle, and that was it. And I continued to deconstruct, and I was still doing all of this centering prayer. Centering prayer was my connection point. That was.

That was really important to me. And I remember having this moment. Things had completely fallen apart with the church. We were completely lost.

We didn't have jobs because we moved over there to work for the church. So lost the church, lost our jobs. And it just felt like the darkest place. You know, things in the home heated up. And it was just.

It was very difficult. And I remember sitting in centering prayer one day. So if you're familiar with centering prayer, you. You go in with us.

You either have a sacred word or a sacred image, a picture. And you. You pay attention to your breath. You enter into sort of this meditative space, and then you just place your awareness on your sacred word.

So it's a word that represents God or spirit or. My word was always love. And in this particular day, I decided to bring up an image. So an image that represented love to me.

And one, the most loving image that I always had of God was Psalm 23, the shepherd. And so when I wanted to picture love in that moment, I. I pictured hands. 2. Had two big hands holding a little lamb. And that was what I thought.

I felt God holding me. So I went into centering prayer. And I was just listening to my Breath brought in my image.

I could see these two big masculine hands holding this lamb. And then I just sat with that image and allowed it to just speak to me. And without my intention, without any conscious thought, that image just.

I watched it change like a. Like a little movie. And the hands became feminine hands.

They crossed over and they turned to be, like, all of a sudden, I was looking at a mother holding a baby. And these. These masculine shepherd's hands had become these beautiful, nurturing, feminine hands holding a newborn baby.

Like that real newborn, very wobbly, tender little, little baby. And that was an incredible moment for me because it was the first time that I started to connect with God.

Not as father or shepherd or any kind of masculine disapproval, but as nurturing mother and starting to see the feminine in God. And then. And then there was another experience where again went into centering prayer. But I couldn't even bring an image.

All I could see was darkness because it was just. I really felt like we were just in the dark. And whatever we were going through just felt like the storm. It felt like this just.

Just turmoil and darkness. And I all of a sudden saw a picture of me standing, you know, suspended in space and just surrounded by this bubble, this kind of.

This bubble of darkness all around me. And I had an edge. Like, it was like I was standing in a sphere of darkness. And this voice just welled up inside me that just said, I am the darkness.

I. This is a womb, and I am the darkness, and I'm carrying you and I'm holding you.

And again, for a Pentecostal Christian whose God is all light and all action and all, you know, positivity, to have this moment of like, no, this darkness is me. There's a. And it really began to speak to me about how this is a. This is a necessary death. You know, this is. It's the seed going into the ground.

It has to die. It has to be buried for something new to come forward. And it put me on a new path.

And I think once I was on that path, once I started to shift my view of God and really connecting to the divine feminine, I didn't realize it at the time, but that. That's what was happening. That path of connecting got to. To love.

You know, I stopped referring to God as God at that point and started referring to God as love.

Sam (Host): 00:48:26

Yeah.

Jess: 00:48:26

And I think I heard someone. Someone in a podcast, because all I did was. All I did was listen to podcasts and audiobooks. That was my bread and butter.

And I heard someone in a podcast Ask the question, how do you define God? And they said God is the evolutionary impulse that drives creation. And I was like, hey, that's really, that's a really interesting concept.

God is the evolutionary impulse.

And I started to think of God as just the presence, the life force that runs throughout the universe, that where you see life persist, where there's just death, or you see the, the death and rebirth cycle in nature, that's God at work. And so, and then I, I started to realize. But yeah, I, I see love in that as well.

There's this kind of transcendent love at the essence of all of that. And that's how I began to experience God.

And as I continued down that path of deconstructing my understanding of God to really be the essence of love and really be the life beat, the heartbeat of the universe, it took me on a pathway of really connecting back to my own body and finding God in the lifeblood of my own body. And so all of those. And here we come back to the question.

All of those things that I had experienced as the Holy Spirit, I began to realize that was me talking to myself. That was my body picking up on things in my environment.

It was, it was the part of me that is beyond my body that I, I still believe in, that is connected to all that is, that is communicating to me through my body. That's my intuition.

And so starting to tune into my intuition and again, build that trust, because I really had broken trust with my intuition, with the.

Sam (Host): 00:50:29

Yeah.

Jess: 00:50:30

Just my own misinterpretations of what was happening, really misreading my, my body's signals and ignoring really important ones, like, hey, you're not safe in this environment. Let's get out of here.

Sam (Host): 00:50:42

Yeah.

Jess: 00:50:45

That's when that rabbit trail, that hand, you know, holding hands with the Holy Spirit being led through the rabbit trail of deconstruction really began to change into tuning into my body. This is my intuition. Yeah. And. And it was my intuition leading me all the way that whole time. Yeah.

Sam (Host): 00:51:06

I mean, as you sort of talk about the different ways that your body responded, it makes me think of the, like the quote that says that your nervous system will choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven.

And that's what it made me think of when you said that, you know, when you heard that radicalized type of message that on fire sort of message that your body responded to that because it's the only thing that it knew to respond to. But I'm curious because as you talk about that journey, it's Absolutely beautiful as you talk about it.

Did it feel beautiful at the time, or is it just retrospectively beautiful, the other end of it?

Jess: 00:51:53

It felt excruciating at the time. I mean, I felt like I was dying. My whole life was falling apart, and. And there was this beautiful connection that was unfolding at the same time.

And I've always. I think, because I. I spent my childhood reading books. That was. That was. The world that I lived in was just Narnia and the Secret Guy.

Like, I just spent my life in books. I think I've always been able to find the metaphor in things and find something beautiful in whatever's happening. So, yeah, it was excruciating.

It felt like. It honestly felt like we weren't going to survive.

I thought that one of us might die in the process because it just was so painful and so devastating, what happened in Adelaide.

And yet there were these moments of connection and this unfolding understanding of there is life and love and beauty that unfolds and includes and transcends death, and death is a necessary part of that cycle and of that wholeness. And death feels brutal. But it can also be beautiful. Yeah, it can be. There can be a surrendering in it that is.

Instead of having life rested out of your hands, it's a surrender, and it's a softening into letting go of what was. To allow what will be to come through.

And so there was the beginnings of that sort of understanding as I was going through this excruciatingly painful process. Yeah. Yeah.

Sam (Host): 00:53:43

Did all of this happen, like, a while ago, or is this all quite recent? Because the way that you talk about it almost, like, sounds like an ancient form of wisdom that you've come over, like, many, many years. I feel like.

Like the. I don't know if you've seen Pocahontas, but, like, the. Is it the tree in Pocahontas, Babe?

Jess: 00:54:06

I was. I wasn't allowed to watch Pokemon because we were very, very Christian.

Sam (Host): 00:54:14

I'm pretty sure there's a tree in Pocahontas that's like the. Not, like. Not like the Knowledge of Good and Evil tree, but, like.

Jess: 00:54:20

Okay, like a grandmother tree or something. Yeah.

Sam (Host): 00:54:23

Yes. Yeah. So I'm curious, like, how long ago did all of this happen?

Jess: 00:54:30

were. We lived in Adelaide in: 2018

Sam (Host): 00:54:38

So what has that been like for you over the past? Like, you know, three or four years to, like, ease into a new sense of spirituality. And what does that look like for you?

Jess: 00:54:53

onstruction really started in: 2015

Sam (Host): 00:55:09

Yeah.

Jess: 00:55:10

Based on my need at the time, which was to find, you know, support. The big moments happened when we, you know, we moved to. We left the mom and dad's church, we moved to Adelaide. Adelaide. Everything fell apart.

And then as a result of all of the stuff that happened in Adelaide, I ended up. Up, you know, things came to a real head and we really got really difficult with. In. In our home. And I ended up leaving very suddenly with.

Packed up the three kids and moved back to Melbourne.

Sam (Host): 00:55:41

Yeah.

Jess: 00:55:43

And then I was still very much holding on to my Christianity at that point. I was still very much like, no, I'm going to find, you know, maybe a uniting church here that's embracing you, that's inclusive or whatever.

And again, less personality, more structure and something that's not a cult. Please, God. At the same time as I was doing that, I was also continuing to deconstruct a lot of the particularly purity culture.

Like, so, you know, I left my marriage now. So now I've got this sort of space to be a whole person on my own with, you know, three dependents.

So to an extent, and I don't mean like in looking for new relationships, I just mean, like, making my own decisions and creating a life that's on my own terms that I don't have to consult anybody else. And I think a big part of that was learning to relate to my body well at all.

Because I think up until that point, I was going to say in a different way, but really I had not. I had a master slave kind of relationship with my body up until that point, because that's what you're taught.

You're supposed to bring your body under control and your heart is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things. And who can trust it? And, you know, your flesh is to be brought under control. And so I, I read a lot of. I read Jamie Lee Finch.

Do you know Jamie Lee Finch?

Sam (Host): 00:57:18

I don't.

Jess: 00:57:20

She has a great book called. Oh, wait, what's it called? You are your own.

Sam (Host): 00:57:27

Oh, yes, okay. I do know the book, but I don't know the name.

Jess: 00:57:31

Yes, okay. Formerly known as the Sex Witch. Loved her and, and loved her teaching and. And so started to really connect to my body as a person. And.

Wait, what was the question of spirituality? Yes. And so while I was continuing to think of, you know, trying to imagine new Ways of relating to Christianity and to church and to the Bible.

Because I've always loved the Bible. I loved, I love reading and I love making sense of thing of the written word.

So I, I loved getting into the Bible because you can read it so many times and get so much more meaning. There's always another layer.

So I always had a really, you know, dynamic relationship with the Bible and was finding new ways to relate to it and at the same time having this whole experience happening with my body.

And I think in the end I got to a point where I realized I was, I was doing all of this mental gymnastics to try and make things feel, try and make things make sense and try and fit, still fit into a churchable mindset. And I think really what ended up happening is I, I, I lost faith in church before I lost faith in anything else.

Because even just learning about the history of church and looking at the gospels and then looking at what Rome did to the gospels and the church as it co opted it because it suited it to reinforce its power, it just, I couldn't make it make sense anymore. I couldn't make any of it fit anymore. And I just let that go.

And once I let go of needing to make church make sense, it was a lot easier to let everything else go as well. Because the more I followed my curiosity, which my curiosity was my gateway to my intuition, the more I followed that and listened to my body.

And a big part of connecting to my body was connecting to nature. So when I moved, when I left Adelaide and moved back to Melbourne, I didn't have anywhere to go.

So my kids and I stayed at my parents house and they live in the forest basically out here in the hills outside of Melbourne. And so I would just walk. Like things would get too much, the kids were crazy and we're all traumatized. The kids were like deeply, deeply traumatized.

So it was a madhouse of emotions. And so I would just escape when I could.

Mom and dad look after the kids and I just go walk in the forest and I started to connect with nature and my spirituality just followed that path. And so my connection to all that is and love and the way that I experience who I would have called God in previous times really happened.

Like nature became my church, the forest became the cathedral. And that's where I, that's where I met myself. That's where I met the great mother. I don't know, like spirit. That's right.

That's where I found connection.

Sam (Host): 01:00:57

Yeah, I love that. I feel like that's so often it's so many people's stories.

I, I think, like, the irony is, is that often churches feel like, you know, sex and drugs and that sort of thing is going to lead you a astray or lead you out of the church. And it's not. Nature is probably going to do that. For a lot of people, nature is the gateway drug to out of the church.

Jess: 01:01:28

Isn't that amazing? It's so true.

Sam (Host): 01:01:30

It's so often in people's stories. And I can absolutely. I can relate to the curiosity as the gateway to the intuition, and I can very much relate to that.

Part of what I like to do in these conversations is I love being able to reclaim words that we used to feel like the church owned and they don't. And so what brings you in present day? What brings you joy and peace?

Jess: 01:02:04

Oh, so many things actually. So I.

Life was tough when we moved from Adelaide, you know, solo parenting three kids because, you know, my ex stayed in Adelaide and then the pandemic hit and we had. Were in Melbourne in like, literally the world's longest lockdowns. And I got really depressed.

So one of the things that I had to do just to save my own life was to look for joy. And it's just become like a practice now of just finding joy in mundane, everyday things. I like incense. I find joy through sensory experiences.

So I like to have a bit of incense burning just because when I walk past in the house and I smell it, I'm like, oh, it makes me happy. I find joy. I endlessly find joy in the forest. I find connection and peace in the forest.

I will, you know, I just have to drive in and I'm like, oh, right, I'm home. It's okay. You know, my body just knows that that's where it belongs.

I find joy in my kids, you know, watching them heal from the trauma of those few years leading up to and after Adelaide and go beyond healing and really just watching them become who they are, you know, like my, my whole aim for the last few years has just to be, has been just to create peace, peace and stability in our home so that they can be who they need to be, who they truly are. And I'm watching it, like, I'm seeing it. I'm seeing the results. I'm seeing them actually start to relax and become who they are. And it's.

It's incredible. So, like, taking stock of how far we've come, that brings me joy. My community.

I have really beautiful friends and loved ones who are, you know, big Part of my life, and they bring me joy. Lots of things.

Sam (Host): 01:04:15

Beautiful. And so I love finishing these episodes with a little, you know, word or piece of advice.

Offer a bit of encouragement for people who are at the beginning of their journey, so their foundation is perhaps feeling like it's crumbling beneath them. Or just picked up the first book that's pulling on that thread of curiosity in their world, feels like it's crashing around them.

What would you say to that person?

Jess: 01:04:52

I would say follow your curiosity. Like, a big. A big part of the journey ahead of you is going to be learning to listen to your intuition and to trust your intuition.

And I would say a really great first step is just learning to follow your curiosity. Just trust it and. And find someone to talk to. Find someone who's on the like. For me, my community was podcasts.

I just listened to podcasts because I didn't have anyone to talk to. But if I could have got on the phone with any of the people that I was listening to, I think that would have helped a lot. So finding.

Finding someone who's maybe a little bit ahead of you, who has done the journey and. And having just conversations, finding community, that's really important. But at the bottom of it all, trust your curiosity and just follow that.

Sam (Host): 01:05:46

Yeah, I love that. And I. I mean, from your story, just like, pick up the next book.

Jess: 01:05:55

Pick up the next book. Big bibliography your way up if you're a nerd like me or just.

Sam (Host): 01:06:03

Yeah, listen to the next podcast. Yeah, I love that. To just, like, follow that thread of. Of curiosity, perhaps without any expectations of where it's going to lead you.

Jess: 01:06:16

I cannot possibly predict. Where are you going to go?

Sam (Host): 01:06:20

If any of us who are sitting at this end could not have predicted where it would land us. Yeah, it's. I mean, you just never know.

Jess: 01:06:32

They call it a slippery slope for a reason. It's out of control. Just. Yeah.

Sam (Host): 01:06:36

And also you just don't know how fast you're going to go down that slope. And, like, are you just going to come flying off it or are you just going to, like, hit the bottom of the slope really slowly?

Jess: 01:06:47

So if you can do it gracefully. Yeah, I'd love to hear it. Yeah, Just enjoy the ride.

Sam (Host): 01:06:55

Absolutely. Yeah. Because I don't know about you, but I've not met anyone else who has done it as gracefully.

I don't think any of us did it gracefully, but, yeah, I love that. Follow your thread of curiosity. So that's. I think that's a really great piece of encouragement and advice wrapped up in one.

So thank you for joining me.

Jess: 01:07:22

Thank you again. It's been a really great, really great chat. I've loved it.

Sam (Host): 01:07:30

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of beyond the Surface. 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 on your journey, you're not alone. Until next time, keep exploring, keep questioning, and keep moving forward.

Sam (Host): 01:08:02

Take care.