A Deconstruction Journey: I'm Not Impressed by Anyone's Cult with Dr. Jamie Marich | Ep. 135

Hello, welcome back to the Holistic Inner Balance Podcast. I am Hadlee of Happy Healthy with Hadlee, and I'm here with Dr.

Nicole. Hi.

Hello. Oh my gosh, you guys, this is my favorite And I know

she says that for a lot of interviews, but I think that this is literally your favorite.

I think it really is. Like, you can see me just so lit up. Yeah. Well, and I cried. I like— there's— yeah, there's a lot here. So, uh, it just— yeah, it hits really close to home, um, for me. And I I think it's going to for most people. I think there's a lot, a lot, a lot here. And so we are interviewing Dr. Jamie Marich, and she is a clinical trauma specialist, author, and recovery advocate from Ohio. She founded the Institute for Creative Mindfulness and developed the Dancing Mindfulness approach. She has a PhD in human services, and she's written 5 different books. Um, some of them are EMDR Made Simple, Dissociation Made Simple, and her most recent one is called You Lied to Me About God, and that was released in October 2024. And we go deep into it. It is— there's a lot, a lot here. Um, she's known for her advocacy in mental health and LGBTQ+ issues, and this book specifically dives really deep into her experience with religion and spiritual abuse. And it really just is— it's so resonant, and it's— there's so much nuance, which, you know, we love to talk about nuance here. Because it's not her saying, like, screw religion or anything like that at all. You know, and we, and we talk about finding our own, our own relationship with God and all of that. And so you guys, I think, are gonna love it. So shall we get into it?

I think we should get into it. And just, you know, if you're in a place right now where you may not be in a space to hear about really difficult topics like abuse and trauma and religion, then this is your official trigger warning. And so take care of yourself. And maybe you listen to it in bits and pieces. Maybe you pass on this one. But just make sure that you take care of you first. But otherwise, if you guys are here for it, I know I am.

Yeah. And you can always come back to it later too. That's the beauty of the podcast is when you're in a space where you feel like you can handle it, then we're here for you.

Yeah. All right, let's do this, girl.

Amazing. Let's go.

Welcome, Jamie. I'm so, so happy that you're here. Absolutely love your work. And you just wrote an amazing book called You Lied to Me About God, a memoir. And you've been in clinical practice, you've been a self-healer, you've been doing this work for a minute. Mm-hmm. And this book is in many ways one of the most important things I think that you've written, that you were saying that you just This is your favorite. You love this.

Yeah, I, having written many books now, they, they are all special to me in their own way. I often tease that an author's most recent book is their favorite child, metaphorically. Yet this one, even though it is my most recent book, means the most to me of any book that I've written or put out there because it is so purely my personal story. Many of the other books that I've written, and I've done a lot of writing for clinicians, I will say have a memoir-ish quality where I do share about my lived experience. Yet I knew that in writing about spiritual abuse, religious trauma, the dynamics I write about, I had to do it as a memoir. And I think in reading it as a memoir, you can tell that I have some professional training. And it is very personal for us, what are on the pages.

Yeah, yeah. I was really struck by the way that you were able to pivot between really radically accepting how, if I may, how fucked certain things were, and, and then pivot into this just Incredible compassion, like for your mom. You talked a lot about how there were some things that were really not acceptable, not okay, but then on the other hand that you saw where she was coming from. And so the ability to yes, and— or there's something you said when we were just getting started before recording. What was it you said?

The both and. I mean, I live both. I live in the both and. And for any therapist, or healers listening to this, you may recognize that as dialectics. It's the philosophical principle off of which dialectical behavior therapy was created, although it predates it being a therapy. It's this idea of both and, or another simpler way to look at it is 2 things can be true at the same time.

Hmm.

I can love my family very deeply. I can even appreciate my mother and in many ways my father. very deeply, and I can still have forgiveness for them and can still hold them accountable or call out a lot of the systemic problems that I think are fueling the types of religious, um, trauma that parents like them give to their children. So yes, 2 things can be true at the same time.

So can you tell us a little bit more about that as you did the preparation for this book and the writing, what came up for you as like, I have to tell this story?

Yeah. Whew. It's been a process because I don't think this is a memoir I could have written at the beginning of my career. I just didn't have the level of preparation, I think, as a writer, as somebody who had the lived experience with navigating being personal in a field where that is not looked at kindly in many ways, because even amongst trauma therapists, there can be this sense of we need professional content and data and data and all these things to justify what we do. And we— it gets too complicated when we make it too personal. So the fact that I've had 20 years of having to wade through being a person with a story. Yeah. And trying to build a professional career. I mean, that made it the right time for me to tell this story. I think every book I've done, especially in the last 5 years, has progressively gotten more memoir-ish, from Trauma and the 12 Steps to Dissociation Made Simple, where I tell more and more of my personal journey. And now it's like, here, here, here's all of it. So I think that's why now felt like it was the right time. And if, if I may, like, when you drop the F-bomb, I definitely am like, yes, of course you may. The political climate in the United States is a lot of what fueled this as well. Mm-hmm. Because when we hear a phrase like Christian nationalism, and I'll try to speak in a way where I'm keeping political parties out of it, but I grew up in Christian nationalism. I knew what that looked like when I was a small child. And I just felt, as I saw so much hatred and division in the country over— I don't even necessarily think it's over religion, but religion has been used as the tool in, uh, creating a lot of these power wars that we now see ourselves in. I just felt that my personal story had some connection that needed to be shared, that this is what growing up in extreme religiosity could do to a child. And I look at my story and I even know I did not have it as bad as some others. I think the unique twist on mine was that I had the 2 Christian denominations I was being raised in, the Catholicism on my mom's side, the evangelical movement on my father's side. And so I have the unique added twist of seeing what 2 religions that technically can't stand each other within Christianity, what they have in common. In a lot of their hate, hate-based devices and whatnot. So I just felt I had a lot to share, being that I did grow up in 2 brands of Christianity, if you will. So it just, it just felt like the right time. And even now, as we prepare for what might be ahead, I'm getting even more folks reach out to me just thanking me for writing it. And I, I knew that in writing this, I might make some people mad or create trolls and all of that. But I also knew that there were people out there to be helped by reading in a way that they could connect that they're not alone. So now is the perfect time. So here it is. Long answer to— A very short question.

Yeah, yeah, this— it's been something that's been on my heart for the past few weeks. Um, and, you know, growing up, I was also— I grew up Christian, um, went very far away from it for a while. Now I'm, you know, I have a relationship with God. And the other day I was actually— I'm a So at the time of this recording, it's December 3rd, and I love Christmas. Like, I'm a big Christmas person. And, you know, I'm like listening to these podcasts and, you know, obviously like getting into the Christmas spirit and stuff. And the other day I just like started sobbing because I was like, this thing that could be so amazing for all of us, this thing that is just Love born into the world and like whatever has just been weaponized and made into such awful— I'm getting emotional.

Yeah, yeah.

Just like, you're— I've been following you on Instagram and like your content has been so helpful in just like making sense of things. And, um, yeah, thank you. Thank you for the work that you're doing.

Thank you. Thank you for the compliment. And I resonate with that experience of this could be so beautiful. Yeah. I've had many of those moments throughout my travels, having worked in Bosnia, having traveled around the world and having been in Jerusalem. Those are 2 examples, for instance, where I just sensed into this, this could be one of the most beautiful places on Earth. This could be the most holy place on Earth. This could be the— this could be the most wonderful time of the year, truly, if we focused on— I don't know, I don't want to say the things that matter because certainly different things can matter differently to others. Yet I just— let's just leave it at I relate to what you said about, yeah, this could be and it's not.

Yeah.

So one of the, the things that you said that I really was interested in talking more about is, is you said, and maybe it was a quip, but it was really, really intriguing for me, is I'm not impressed by anybody's cult.

Yes,

yes.

Tell me more. I want to hear more.

And I will preface that by saying one thing I write about in the memoir is I really got started to feel a certain kind of way when I was feeling some of my students were wanting to turn me into a cult leader or have called me something like a guru. It's like, no, I'm, I'm not your guru. Um, I, I'll accept the title of teacher if we look at teacher as somebody who leads you to realize that you have the answers within you. Uh, but yeah, I, I've long had this radar since becoming a professional clinician because I've been licensed now going on 20 years. Mm-hmm. That when I came into the field and started getting trauma training, EMDR was my first modality that I, I got trained in significantly, and I now train in it and have written some books in it. But my bells and whistles went off around some of the dynamics I saw with people trying to make the founder a cult leader. And I've seen that with other forms of therapy as well, like IFS, Internal Family Systems, and I really don't believe that either of the founders of these systems necessarily wanted that, uh, but I think people have made that happen because people want somebody to give them all the answers. People want somebody to save them, if we're being dramatic about it. And I'm not saying that's, that's everybody, uh, but I think even in US politics, it's not necessarily one candidate that's the problem. It's the fact that we can hold the presidency. Mm-hmm. in this cult-like position of we're going to have this one person who will come in and fix everything for us.

Mm-hmm.

And anytime I see these cultic or cultish dynamics, it just reminds me a lot of how I grew up. And I grew up in 2 mainstream religions, to be clear, meaning denominations of Christianity that were right out there on Main Street. And so I was not, as I like to say, in the kind of cult you would find in a Netflix documentary.

Mm-hmm.

Part of what I mean when I say some people had it worse. Yet when I watched those documentaries about the various cults and cultic systems, I relate to so much. When I first started earnestly looking into spiritual abuse and religious trauma as a construct based on what I experienced, growing up in religion, I relate a lot to what people who have gone through perhaps a more traditional cult have experienced. And so I think there's just a lot of things that can become cultic. There can be this devotion around the founder of something, or there can be this obsession with— I know we were chatting about this before the formal interview— well, if I just do this one practice, then it'll be cleared, it'll be Done. And that, to me, can almost be a bit of a— I don't want to say magical thinking, but promotes this idea that one thing is going to fix it. And I don't think we as people— we're just more multidimensional than that.

I resonate with what you're saying there. And I think that— and I'll use the term magical thinking— has been such a bedrock in my psychology. Where I magically think, and I don't even realize what I'm doing. And it— I became more aware of it when working through my fear of flying.

Oh, I read about that in your book.

Yeah.

Yes. Where I— my— one of my big trauma responses is I fawn. And so for, for those who aren't listening, it's if you can appeal to the, the person or the entity or whatever that's in authority, then that can Create safety. And, you know, that was, that was trained in me from a very early age, having an authoritarian Marine parent who was very, um, corporal. And then growing up, I grew up in the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church, which is like—

Oh, yes.

Really, it's like Protestant Catholicism. It's very rigid and—

Very well put. Yep.

Thank you. And, and so I'm getting on these flights And I'm being incredibly nice to the TSA. And I, I think I'm a nice person. But this was— the reason for it wasn't out of a place of abundance and joy and love and kindness. It was out of a— Right. If I'm inadvertently unkind to this person, then karma or God or something is going to smite me and that plane is going to fall out of the sky.

Yes.

And so all of these, like, little millions of little moments, probably throughout every day of my life, flying or not, were based in this magical thinking of trying to manage what had been installed in my nervous system, in the unconscious, and later in my consciousness, is that I'm trying to prevent terrible things from happening with magic.

And I— growing up religious will do that to you. Yeah, that's been my experience with it. I remember as a young flyer in my teens into my early 20s, before I had fully deconstructed, I don't think I ever prayed so obsessively as when I went on a plane.

Yeah, and then when the plane doesn't crash, you're like, it worked.

Right.

Yeah,

right.

Oh yeah, I had that with, um, with my health, with, uh, food and my body and all of that. It was, um, my magical thinking was if I can just find this one diet, or if I can just find this one workout program, or if I can just find this one thing, that's going to be the thing that makes all of my problems go away. I was like, this is the problem. And it, of course, it was a symptom of internal challenges, but I was like, this is the problem. And once I figured out, figure out the way to the one thing that will solve this problem, then, you know, everything in my life will be better. And I think, I think most people have it at, to, to some extent in, in one area or another.

Well, Hadley, think about like when you were a baby and you had gas in your tummy. You're pre-verbal, you have no idea, and then your caretakers are the ones that help you by relieving suffering, giving you gripe water or laying you on your tummy or whatever, feeding you. And then when we get older and we get bronchitis and we go to the person in the white coat and, oh, my body is broken, please, person in authority. Mm-hmm. Please fix it. And so it's like we, we come in and we have this inherent, inherent need to defer to those in authority. And so that—

Right.

That, that program is already there. And then it's like you're talking, Jamie, about these infrastructures that are then put in place.

Yeah.

That, that are going on with— they're going with that.

And I just want to add, I never— when I go down this line, I never intend to shame people who are looking for relief. No. Because I know what it's like to be that human being that wants relief. And I think there are treatments out there. I think there are approaches we can do that give us a good amount of relief rather quickly. Uh, and, and I don't ever want to disparage anybody's quest to find that. Uh, but as holistic folks, I don't know if you have ever studied Saint Hildegard of Bingen. She is— you know her?

My mentor is a Franciscan monk.

Yes.

And so he, he bought me her book. So yes, please tell us about it.

Yes. So I adore Hildegard. Uh, again, I am away from the toxic parts of religion that hurt me, but I, I still have a lot of connections to the saints and spirituality that's sustaining me. So the group that I do a lot of work with, Abbey of the Arts— I write about them in the, in the memoir— a very progressive Christian organization. Uh, yeah, we have a big devotion to Hildegard. And I got to go on retreat in Bingen, Germany, where she lived and walked. This was back in 2016, and it was a big healing moment. And she really advocated— or some more modern doctors have kind of picked up on her concept of what's called slow medicine.

Mm-hmm.

The idea that a lot of what ails us can't be fixed rapidly. There are changes that have to be made over time. And one of her famous concepts was something called viriditas, or the greening power of God. And whenever somebody would come to her for healing, she would ask, what is cutting off the greening power in your life? So it could be diet, not getting enough water, not getting enough air, not getting enough— and there's a multitude of factors, the creative spirit being cut off. And so, like, I think a lot of the mental health work I do, yeah, EMDR therapy can give people some relief rather rapidly. But I also practice a lot of what I consider more slow medicine approaches, like expressive arts therapy and some of the more spiritual things I do. where things are not going to happen overnight. It's, it's a process. And that process generally involves looking at things from a variety of angles. And realizing that the only one who's going to save me is myself. It could be with the help of divine intervention, for sure. I'll save myself, or we'll save each other when we're in community. But Americans especially have this complex with Uh, one of my friends, Reverend Terry Williams, said it's, it's the salvific idea that somebody's going to come and save me. And a lot of us who grew up in Christianity, that's what we were programmed with, right? That Jesus is Savior. Yeah. And again, I don't want to disparage your beliefs if that is a pure belief to you and not one that was put on you. But I would ask you to look at, has that translated into other areas of your life? Like, I'm looking for a president to save me, a governor to save me, the developer of a mental health approach To save me, a therapist to save me. Because even as a therapist, I can get— I could feel a certain kind of way when the person I'm working with is expecting me to fix them, because that's not the business I'm in.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think with the, you know, looking at Instagram gurus and different leaders of different modalities, or whether it's mental health modalities or health Right. Things or personal development things or whatever it is. And I see— I watch this in myself, and now, now I know, so I can mitigate it. But, um, I, you know, I have watched myself really put those people on a pedestal. And then what we do is once those people, you know, do something that we don't like, you know, they start talking about something that maybe triggers us or whatever, that pedestal, then we take then we're like, no, now I can't, now I can't take anything of yours. And now I have to find a new guru or a new person. And how— what a shame that then we don't take the things that did serve us from that person, and we can tend to just like swing the pendulum to the other direction.

Very excellently put. And a point that I make in the memoir too is Everybody's my teacher in one way or another. Like, you two are my teachers in this moment because we're sitting here having a conversation. And I get worried in any construct I hang out in, or any context I hang out in, whether it's yoga ashram meditation world, whether it's the psychotherapy world, whether it's the spiritual religious world, when somebody says Guru so-and-so is my teacher, or Dr. so-and-so. Mm-hmm. is my teacher, doctor. So I think if we can look at everybody as our teachers, it could be a real paradigm shift away from putting somebody up on the pedestal, because that's not fair to them either. I mean,

right?

As somebody who has been put on her share of pedestals, it adds a layer of pressure to them. Now, I know some of the gurus out there, especially who are more abusive or leaders who are— yes, they may actively court that. Yeah. I think that that can be a narcissistic trait for sure. But I think for a lot of people who are out there just trying to do their work, being put on a pedestal is not fair. And it can also set you up, like you were getting at, Hadlee, to being pretty significantly let down. So I think you can have your mentors. Like, I definitely have my mentors. I have people who I value as my teachers. But it's never just been one person. Yeah. So if I have to say anything to people listening, it's see, see everybody you meet as a teacher.

So good.

So one of the things that you write about that I would love to understand a little better, and I wonder if maybe some of the language is, is new for, for some of our listeners, is One, I'm curious about what— how, how you define what a cult is, you know, because it's not what we just see on the Netflix documentaries. Because there may be people listening that are like, oh dang, that— I didn't identify as that. And I know you're not supposed to ask 2 questions at a time, but the second question is, is what is spiritual abuse? So what is a cult? How do we define a cult? And then what is spiritual abuse?

Happy to go there. So cults, in and of itself, it's a pretty innocuous term. It comes from the same root where we get the word culture. It means to worship, to venerate in some way. Uh, and there are a lot of operational definitions out there of what is a cult, just like there's a lot of operational definitions out there, like what is trauma. Uh, typically you tend to have one authoritarian leader, whether they are alive or dead, and it is about them maintaining power and control using a variety of manipulation tactics, etc. If you want the more full definition, go to the International Cultic Studies Association, ICSA. Mm-hmm. I think it could be easily searched online. They have a great document on their website, which is essentially 14 characteristics of a cult. And what I like about them is they do not keep a cult watch list. Like, these groups are cults. They want you to decide for yourself that, uh-oh, I'm in this group. And like, one of the traits is they control every aspect of my life, like who I dress, who I date, et cetera. And I know that when I looked through the ICSA list myself at the beginning of my journey with this. Mm-hmm. I had a lot of— I had that, but not like to such an extreme degree as you might see on some, but it was still there. There was still this, what pastor says is true, or what the Pope says is true no matter what. So you can see it maybe on not as obvious levels in a lot of mainstream religion or groups like therapy communities and whatnot. So I would say go to ICSA's website if you want to see the characteristics, because one of the reasons they don't also put out a watch list is one of the first rules of cults is they don't believe they're in the cult. They think everyone else is in the cult.

Yes.

So for instance, in my father's church growing up, he would say things like, this group's a cult, this group's a cult, this group's a cult, this group's a cult. And then looking at it I think your group had more cultic traits than any of those other major religions that, that you mentioned. So pivoting then to your, your next question, because I think it is related, what is spiritual abuse? You know, what is religious trauma? Because a lot of people who experience spiritual abuse have definitely been through what we'd consider more traditionally a cult. But I remember when I first started inquiring into this 20-some years ago. It was when I was working on my graduate degree that I looked it up for the first time, because I just had this sense that this applied to me, because I had heard about all these other kinds of abuses, and knowing what I went through, I said, there's got to be such a thing as spiritual abuse, because if, if there's not, I'm gonna write it up. And when I first looked up the term around 2003, 2004, a lot of what it directed me to was the cultic literature. Mm-hmm. Yet there was a lot that had been written at that point, believe it or not, from former evangelical pastors, or evangelical pastors who were trying to do better in their church contexts, and looking at, um, yeah, what, what, what is— what happens when people get hurt at church or hurt by people of faith. So doing a lot of the kind early emerging literature around it, the definition that I use of spiritual abuse— I don't say this is, I don't pretend this is a radically original definition, but it's kind of the composite I have come to from what is out there. It is whenever God or any spiritual idea is used as a weapon to control, to manipulate, or demean. So yeah, obviously it could be God, like God's watching you, and if you don't do exactly what I say, God's going to punish you, or God doesn't love you anymore because you had sex before marriage. But this is what we tend to see in yoga meditation communities. It could also be something like enlightenment.

Yeah.

Or samadhi, or this unification with self. You're not going to get there unless you turn your will and your life over to me as, as your guru. That's an example. Don't soundbite that. Anybody other than you two listening to that. Um, I, I've seen, you know, therapeutic communities use things like success, like you're not going to succeed, you're not going to do well unless you follow our protocol exactly. Uh, so there's, there's a lot of other things besides God that, that have some spiritual punch to it that can be used abusively. But like with any and all forms of abuse we talk about as helpers and healers, there's a power differential involved.

Mm-hmm.

So it's typically, or I shouldn't say typically, but probably the most common form we hear about is the pastor or the preacher or the priest or the rabbi or the imam or the guru to their followers. But it can also happen parent to child, can happen in the home, wherever there's a power differential. Uh, you know, think of how many parents with certain religious convictions hold that over their children. And it can also happen at the level of the state. When we think about more extremely religious countries, that those were typically the examples that have been given in the literature before. Think countries like Iran. But if we look at what's happened in America the last 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years, we see a lot of legislation changing seemingly based on the religious convictions of people in power. So that can be where it happens, at the level of the state.

And you write about how that's power and control. You— I think you said under defining spiritual abuse, um, this is on page 9, using God, religion, or a spiritual concept to wield power and control over someone. And I think about how that happens with women.

Oh,

and I see that a lot in, in our country. It's like, well, I'm trying to think of like a way to say it, but how women get enough rights and privileges that it's like, see, we're doing this for you, which is okay as long as you stay within the bounds that we've given you. But look at how generous our bounds are.

Mm-hmm.

And that could be really confusing, right? Because it, it's that mixed messaging. And you write about this too, where you say, God is so good, all loving, all knowing, all wonderful. But if you don't do these magical things or you piss him off, or if you're not nice to the TSA guy, you might go to hell forever.

Yes.

Go down in a fiery plane. And so there's this, like, this merging of conflicting ideas that, that can be really, really trauma-inducing and really confusing for us to work out. And not just on an intellectual level, but on an emotional feeling level.

Mm-hmm. And I learned this even outside the context of this kind of abuse, that mixed messages are a recipe for crazy-making. My first 12-step sponsor taught me that. How—

Yeah.

And I think the biggest mixed messages that I got, it was not just about my parents necessarily being 2 different Christian denominations, but just even take my father's religion alone, the way that God was presented. as this all-loving, loves you no matter what. You can't even describe or compare the amount of love that God has, that they sent— he, in their terms, sent his only begotten Son to die for you. And, and nothing you can do would make God stop loving you. But,

hmm,

if you, you know, look at a boy the wrong way and don't pray up and ask for forgiveness, you may lose your salvation, and then the plane may go down, and you may be in the fiery pits of hell. And yeah, I, I tell a story in the memoir. I won't give it away, especially because it's, you know, it's pretty brutal to talk about, but how my dad used a lot of that— this bad thing is happening to you because you turned away from God, because you backslid.

So. Oh yeah, it's— I remember, um, there were a lot of mixed messages for me growing up too, like And just being so confused. Like, you know, my understanding of God, my relationship with God was like, yeah, like, he's all loving, this wonderful thing. And then I just remember being so confused, like, wait, but why do we think that then? And especially as a kid, that, that mixed messaging can feel so just— it like wrenches you away from Your relationship with God or your relationship with your spirituality.

And I got to this place, the more I grew up, the more I saw through things. Obviously, working in my profession and in this field helped me do a lot of that deconstructing, where I realized the God I was taught as I grew up has a lot of the traits of a narcissistic boyfriend. Yeah. That you have no idea how much I love you and the love bombing. And, but if you step out of line, there's going to be all hell to pay. And I, I've just come to this place of God is not a narcissistic boyfriend. That's not the God I have met in my recovery.

Yeah, that is so good. Well, and it's, you know, we're talking about these big conglomerations of religion and, and these different things, and I, I do remember my mom used to always say like that Jesus actually warned us against that in the Bible. There was like— I don't know any of the actual like specific places in the Bible where it said that, but she's like, He warned us against organized religion. Like, he wanted it to be like little tiny Bible studies, like, all over, you know, and not having that one leader and one person. Yeah.

Yes.

So I'm wondering what comes next. And so we think about that process of deconstruction, and so maybe there's people who are listening to this conversation that are in the rubble. And I remember for me that It was— I don't— have you read this book? It's by Kent Dobson about how he got bit by a camel.

No.

Oh man, that was, that was, that was like everything fell down for me, and I found myself the, the father figure that I had created in my imagination to try to fulfill the role of my father because my father Had his stuff suddenly wasn't— all the domino pieces fell into place for me and all the doubts that I'd had and all the work of deconstructing that I'd had, it all just sort of fell into the rubble. And Alexander Shire writes about this, of he's this, this person and he takes people on this hike on the Camino, which is this mountain range. Was it like Portugal across Spain?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I walked it in the book. It goes mostly across Spain. But yeah, you can start it in France or Portugal.

I've walked part of it too. Yes.

Yeah.

Oh my heavens. So there's all this literature for how to prepare for the Camino, literally and metaphorically. And then there's all this guidance and literature for walking the transformation, walking the Camino. So we have the support for preparing for deconstruction. We have support for deconstruction. But then what happens next? When you're sitting in the rubble.

Yeah.

And you don't fit anymore.

Uh, can we also, can we also, uh, I, uh, define deconstruction for anyone who doesn't know?

Yeah.

What that is.

Yeah. So deconstruction, I mean, it's actually a philosophical concept as well. It's not particularly religious, but it's the notion of picking apart everything you've been taught to believe is true. And the rubble is a great metaphor for it because I think for some people it's, it's a slow deconstruction, like brick by brick things just start fitting and not falling into place, and all of a sudden it's like, well, what do I really believe anymore? And I think for some people metaphorically it is like an explosion where one horrible thing may happen where, you know, wow. And, and I think for me it, it was more gradual. Because I had 2 faiths to deconstruct from. The evangelical side came first, and then I thought a lot of the bad things that were happening to me was because I turned away from God. And so I tried the Catholic side of my faith, and then that was a second deconstruction I had to do. And I, I don't know. I don't know if the process ever ends, because as I write about in the book, I ended up at a yoga ashram many years later. Because I really wanted to deepen my authentic study of yoga. And I did go in with a little more skepticism, like, what am I doing here with the guru? Like, a lot of this feels familiar. And I gave it a chance, but then it was like, that was the last thing I had to do to really feel convinced in this idea that, no, I'm going to save myself with the help of other people, or maybe I don't need saving. So I think the other part— Yes. The other part of deconstruction is reconstruction, because they're often discussed as complementary constructs in, in the spiritual and faith world, which is, okay, now what do I build in its place? And some people's reconstruction involves some of the stones from the rubble. Like, in me talking today, you can probably tell that I have still kept some of the stones. I still have a huge devotion to a lot of the saints. I, uh, like to say I keep one foot in Christianity because there's a lot of teachings of Christianity that I really do love, but I recognize it's what other people did with them that was the problem. And some people build a new thing altogether, uh, and that could mean that it's a life where specific religious principles don't apply. Or maybe I build a spiritual life that looks nothing like the religion in which I was raised. So I think the what comes next varies from person to person, for sure. Um, but it is an important part of the process.

Yeah, because I think a lot of times— I know this happened for me— where it was like, well, I don't agree with you know, these parts of what I've been taught. And so I'm just gonna go away from this religion completely. But then I don't have that rela— like, that doesn't serve me. Like, I don't have that relationship with God now. Um, and so, and then, you know, like you said, a lot of times people will then move into another, um, spirituality, like, um, like organized spirituality, um, of some other kind. And I love that you're saying that you can take stones from your past. I think that's a really beautiful metaphor. I think that's so important for everyone to be able to just like really internalize that there— you get to choose the things that really— that are there to serve you.

Can I tell you where my brain is going?

Yeah, go.

So Hadley, you always have these brilliant things to say, and then I'm like, but this is what my brain is saying. So as, as I'm saying that, I'm thinking about a pastor that was like, and don't you dare cherry-pick. Ah. And so I have this like part of my brain that's like, I have to find out what's truth versus what's a statement of faith.

Yeah.

But then By deciding something is truth, I am making a statement of faith, and I want to pick what works for me and what feels true. But then I'm— then I'm— it's like a confirm, right? Jamie,

I see that you're like, yeah, let's go there. Yeah, because I heard the cherry-picking line in both the evangelical church and in the Catholic Church, and I think—

But they're also cherry-picking.

Yes, and I— they correct, or they're interpret— they're interpreting things a different way, right?

Yeah.

And I think it is a common line of defense used by people whose power is threatened.

I,

you know, to give religion a break, I hear it in therapy too. Mm. Where I have hung out over the years with a lot of EMDR purists who are like, use the protocol exactly as it's written. That's all you're ever going to need. And what I teach is that EMDR plays well with other therapies if you let it. And I think there are some of us who naturally are more integrative, and there are others of us who want more of the, the pure way. Uh, but, but a couple kind of counters I can argue to that. Uh, you know, even though he was a flawed man, you know, a great man in a lot of ways, Mahatma Gandhi, one of my favorite teachings of his is that everyone holds a piece of the truth.

Hmm.

And I think that is a fundamentally more Indian way to look at things than a Christian Western-centric way to look at things. And I know, and this is why I don't regret getting involved in a yoga ashram after having had so many experiences with Christian religion. I, I did deepen a lot of my study with yoga, which was my intention for going there, and I learned one of the most beautiful teachings of India is the teaching of Sanatana Dharma, which is— and I write about it in the memoir, and I'm very much simplifying it here— but it's this idea that the things that we have in common is what is really true.

Mm.

Everything else is just detail. So when I think about what are the things that the great faith traditions have in common, this is quoting another colleague, Reverend Dr. Sherri Paulus. It's love and letting go. The idea of love as, as the base, as the core, that, that love is my religion, to quote the song, the Marley song, and that letting go and surrender. Mm-hmm. is, is key, that we don't have all the answers. So for me, that is what's true, and everything else is just detail.

Hmm.

So the whole don't cherry-pick, to me, that is something delivered by a person whose authority and power is feeling threatened, because you can also argue that in other spiritual paths The cherry-picking is the mosaic, but what is really true can never change.

Thank you. Everyone has a piece of the truth, and the things that we have in common is, is really the truth, is looking for those commonalities, which you said is love and letting go. Oh,

it's so good. And that's what I do with Ayurveda too. Like, Ayurveda says I mean, Ayurveda is a Vedic philosophy and everything.

Yes.

And so it's like, you know, they have the doshas. So we have the different— the differences between people. But the central point of Ayurveda is actually that we are all more similar than we are different. And so there are things that we can all do for our bodies and our minds and our spirits to— that we don't have to differentiate between people. Though we can do little things to tweak things, it's all— we're all more, more alike than we are different. Yeah.

Beautiful.

This is so good.

Yeah.

I'm having fun having these conversations.

Yeah.

So as we, as we come to the end of this, this beautiful connection, this beautiful time together, what is something else that you want to make sure gets shared, gets conveyed to the audience, to the people that hear your story?

It's a beautiful question, and I think we covered so many of the bases here that, uh, keep being good to yourself. Keep realizing that your outside helpers are just that. They're, they're helpers. They can be great facilitators. They can be great, uh, teachers, to use a word we used during the interview. Yet your own deep healer lives inside of you. You are that healer.

You are that healer. I love that. And In DBT, we call that wise mind, right? And, and then in IFS, we call that self. And in Christianity, what's your— the Holy Spirit, spirit. And so

kind of Buddha nature, you can think of it. Uh, I recently did an interview with Dick Schwartz. I'll send it to you because I think you might like it. Uh, we were both interviewed about parts on a podcast. And yeah, the whole idea of capital S Self, you know, it's also a very yogic idea, like the one conscious self. I think it can, like, and I guess I'm just saying that word can get a little triggering to some people who have dissociative identities because it's very much like, but we're all selves. And saying that there's one capital S Self can feel a little— so. On behalf of the community I belong to of people with dissociative identities. I just want to, you know, put that out there. But yeah, if it works for you to think of it as capital S Self, great. Um, I think a lot of what Dr. Schwartz writes about as Self, I see as Buddha nature, or I see as this idea of Sanatana Dharma that, that I talked about, the thing that connects us. Um, and something else yoga philosophy would say about that is That is the you that is universal, unchanging, and timeless. And all these traumas that have happened to us, all these experiences that cut us off from that, yeah, it's work to heal them. But that, that one constant— call it what you, what you need, friends. Is there for us to tap into. Yeah.

Sometimes it's just slow medicine.

Slow medicine. Thank you.

Yeah.

Big fan of slow medicine.

I'm a big fan of instant gratification. Why not both?

Like, let's go to the both and idea that started this. There is nothing wrong With wanting some instant relief.

Yes. Yeah.

But it's also realizing that some of the things that are truly worthwhile need to come slowly.

Yeah. Like next day spaghetti. Always better the next day.

Yeah. Well put.

So good. Thank you so much for joining us. This has been one of my absolute favorite conversations.

Me too.

Aw, we are honored. We are touched. And yeah, hope we can do it again sometime.

I'd love that. All right, everybody, thanks for being here, and we'll see you next time.