And We're Off On Another Adventure

Whisper and Jemima are on their way to present at ICSA 2024. Our panel consisting of a psychologist from Australia and your Butterflies and Bravery crew is speaking at the International Cultic Studies Association yearly conference. Listen as we share a little sneak peek of our presentation.

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.  Welcome. 

I have a feeling like we always welcome everybody with laughing because usually we have some  preamble that's too silly and gets cut off. 

At least we're, at least we're funny. Yeah, and maybe someday we'll get our  acts together enough that, we can  get a Patreon going where people can subscribe to that free Patreon. The preamble, the pre preamble and the post amble of the preamble. 

Oh God, we're silly. Yes. And I will get silly here as time goes on at night.  Consequently, allegedly. But yeah, we are so welcome to Butterflies and Bravery. And I know we haven't  had a  episode out for quite some time. We have been crazy busy getting ready.  And making plans and preparations for ICSA,  which is  International Caltic Studies Association yearly conference in Barcelona, Spain. 

Yes. July 3rd is the first day like drum roll, please.  Where's our buttons to push? I heard this funny thing the other day, it was like,  he goes, what's the opposite of a drum roll, please.  Oh my God. Great. I think you don't wanna hail something  . What would be the opposite of a jungle? What would be the opposite?

Don't.  Yep. That's the opposite of, that would be the opposite of a jungle. We're claiming that the opposite of 

Oh my goodness. But now we're very excited. We  are, this, our schedule is.  We are flying  out of the U. S.  on  June 30th, which is like  really soon. So yeah, we do. We only have a couple more days to get ready. And we're leaving. We're flying out  on  June 30th.  In American time, hi Odin's butt. 

Yeah. Would you like to see?  We will be anatomy lesson.  He's I got neutered. A long time ago.  But look at my scars. Behold the glory.  We so yeah, we're going to be landing in Barcelona  on July 1st at around  four ish.  From what we understand if we're reading the sundials correctly and it's a little confusing. 

It is confusing just with the time change and everything like that. When you go in and you look and they're like, you're landing in Barcelona at, what is it? 1600 hours. And then it has a little tiny, like plus one. And I'm like, okay,  Plus one from when?  Don't know. 

No, we, I we're landing on July 1st.  And the conference officially, or sorry, the conference unofficially starts on the 3rd. There's like this pre, some pre  meetings and pre roundtables.  I think there's a couple that we're going to go to.  We are once again sticking to,  we're keeping our interest around, the presentations that have to do with SGAs and MGAs.

And  there's a few different presentations this year that are about support groups. So that's going to be interesting. There's a, there are some that are actually being presented by support groups, but they're being presented by joiners.  Which is  what I've been calling FGAs these days, but represented by joiners.

So I'm not so sure if we're interested in that because that's not really the direction that we're going  at all, nor anything that we're interested in. We're going the exact opposite direction.  We're like you guys have fun over there. Talk about.  How tough it was for you and what victims you are.

And  that is where you insert the opposite of a drum roll. But yeah and then, so our presentation is like 11 ish, 1130, I think 1130 in the morning on July 4th. So I thought it was at like three 30 in the afternoon. Oh, is it? I don't know what my,  my,  I'm standing upside down.  I just remember thinking, yay, it's not in the morning  and my nose is running because even if it isn't three o'clock, that's 6am for us. 

I did put the, I did already set my phone with the dual  time zones so that I can at least I was talking to my therapist today and she was like, so what time is your  You know, it's your thing. And I was like I think it's at such and such a time. And she's so that'd be like, probably like 3 a.

m. My time. And I was like, yeah, probably. She's yeah, I don't love you that much,  but 

I,  I it was my job, my assignment between, like the different things that we're telling each other, we're taking care of. It was my assignment. To find out what the options were for people who are interested in watching it, what those options will be. I'm, I didn't do that yet. Whova

I know that, I know you can see it at Whova and I know that if the timing isn't  right for you, You to watch it live. I think that we can  definitely replace. Yeah, I think they'll probably like, do you think, will they even give us a recording to, I'm not sure about that. Actually,  we might have somebody in the crowd to record for us. 

Yeah. We might have to  be a long fucking ass recording for them to record though for guys. They're going to tripod. You are right. Our presentation is at  315 to  445 Barcelona time. The  Universitat de Barcelona and the Faculté de Historia e Geografia.  And then we've got a nice Airbnb that we're going to be staying at.

Oh, yes. It's beautiful. wraparound deck, man. Very beautiful. And it's  yeah we're very lucky. Privileged blessed, hashtag blessed. Yeah. That some people believe in us enough to help  cover the costs.  So it helps you to, it helps you to want to believe in yourself too, doesn't it?  It does. It does.

And it  just really makes me believe in the goodness of other people. That's for other people. Yeah, some, definitely some humans there are good humans.  . Absolutely.  So yeah,  I'm just thinking, I'm just thinking about cooking for everybody. Or yeah no. That's what's on my mind is I want to make food for everybody.

Yeah. So you got the place that we're staying at least for the first  week. Do you know how far, how we're getting from there to the conference?  No, but I've done a lot of research. There is a metro and stuff if you want to take it for just for fun, really. But it's only a 14 minute Uber ride and it's  only like a Euro a kilometer.

Okay. Yeah.  So it's that expensive to take the.  An uber to and from the  could only be  a few  euros between.  Yeah, absolutely.  Exciting. We're hoping that we'll probably have, a few hangouts  at our Airbnb will definitely be inviting some people.  Yes, come back and.  Have dinner and that sort of thing.

Like we, we know several people who are going to be showing up at the conference who are going to actually be there in person. And so yeah, we're super excited there. We're looking forward to that. 

, we have A lot of people that we're looking forward to either talking to again that we're at that we spoke with last year and then we have  a list of people that we're looking forward to talking to for the first time.

And then we have, of course the people that we know, either  people from just within our, Little healing community or support groups, or  also just some other X members that we know personally, that our friends are going to be there. Yeah it should definitely be a lot of, it should be a lot of fun, but I think there's also going to be a lot of like really important discussions to be had it's we're fine.

We've been finding out, Any, anyone that's kept their ear to the ground these last few months,  or I guess you could say the last year, right? A lot, some of these ex cult organizations or the cult recovery organizations, or have Had these like riffs, like breaking up, broken up or, there's, I was saying implode because it feels like that sometimes, like all of a sudden the two main founders are like, we're not talking to each other anymore.

I'm like we're eating ourselves from the inside out. It can feel like that a little bit. And we know. We know specifically some organizations that have had fallouts  because of,  unaligned values. And unfortunately, , I don't want this to come across in a judgmental way because , wanting to be recognized for the work that we do  and wanting to  be respected for the work that we do and wanting to be honored for the work that we do is a very fine line between that and, chasing fame or chasing, followers or even chasing, funds.

And  I think some of what.  Has happened is within some of these organizations is either that the lines, start swinging  too far in one direction or, healing isn't linear.  And everybody who's involved in all these different organizations ourselves included  healing isn't linear so you know we're going to have times like all of us as cult survivors, we're going to have these times right where we're just like Okay.

Okay. Okay. Like I've got this and I can run my organization or run my project or run my business or whatever it is you're doing. And then other times you're just like a complete mess.  You're like, Oh, it's not like to say that, someone is or isn't healed. We've talked about that before, right?

There isn't a measuring stick for healing,  but there are times where  I think people find out that they have to do it. Step back and be like, maybe I need to focus on my, myself a little bit. Maybe this has, there's some more healing I need to do in this area or there's just, I need to take more time for myself or whatever that might look like, but  because of all this, that we've seen in the last year of these different organizations and some of the rifts and people wanting so so much to do good,  but maybe not going about it the right way or, so much wanting to make a difference, but not knowing where to start.

I think there's just like a lot to navigate. I wouldn't say politics, right?  Yeah. It's Jemima's  shaking her head no, just in case you didn't hear that, you're not supposed to disagree with me, you're supposed to, you're supposed to challenge.  My  author, no  challenge. My authority.  What's that?

I cannot do his voice. You probably can do his voice  from south Park. Oh. Respect my author,  Carman, respect my author.  But anyways, yeah. It's.  There's waters out there that are probably going to be a little murky to navigate.  But I think what's really important is that we both have done a lot of work in these last, and like we've said, we've been busy and unfortunately haven't had time to focus on getting episodes out to you guys.

But we have spent a lot of time really getting grounded and focusing on what it is that we want to make sure  is messaged in this coming  presentation that we're doing. And  we,  although we will have to navigate some murky waters, that always is going to be there. I think in the cult recovery world, as we know we see in fighting within our own communities all the time, so it's not that it's a, it's an unusual thing, but  we both been talking about this a lot about just really getting grounded in the.

And, our purpose of going there and what we want to present and like what we want to help make better and help do and definitely  without a doubt, the peer to peer.  support and the no joiners allowed is it's the conversations that, we're going to be having and the people that we want to talk to, whatever that might look like, it's definitely not, it's definitely not, someone who's over here starting a movement or someone who's over here trying to get, people to, buy their program or any, anything like that. Like it's just, no it's the peer to peer support

 groups or facilitators, or even just the Curiosity of it that we're hoping to  have the most conversations with and hang out with the most.  That's definitely a like in our focus. Do we want to tell them a little bit about the presentation and what we're going to be going over?  Yeah, sure. Maybe just a little bit.

We don't want to give too much away, right?,   we're gonna essentially tell a little bit of our own stories and what brought us  there today and how it started since it essentially  was first started with.  An idea from Dr. Janja Lalic who wanted to get a panel together and go,  and that's what that's how we all signed on for that.

And  then things changed there.  People went in different directions at that point, and she was like I'm going to all support anyone that, wants to carry it on. And so Jemima and I always said we're already in the weeds, let's do it. 

And so  that's the beginning of it. And now here we are about to like just days away. It's wild to think about, but we've put a lot of thought and  gone around, around a lot of different ways. Some of you helped some of you offered a lot of like really keen insight in answering some questions that we were sending around asking you what you feel were the things that. 

Were missed or the things that you needed or what kind of support and, like a slew of  questions. And those,  some of the results of that percentages and things like that . That was, it was all anonymous. So there's no it's simply just some numbers that are really super important.

The rate of, the rate that  we're seeing suicidal ideation or addiction, as opposed to the rest of the world. It's not super great, not great numbers,  which is great. The whole point of talking about anything like that is to say like the need is dire. We we really need  things to start changing really quickly.

And then the second point to that is going to be talking about what those needs are, what they look like. Most of that came from everybody's input, from our support groups, from the, from the questions and all, and just even from,  Plenty of discussions that we've had here on our  podcast. It's discussions that we've had with people in some of the different support groups and Facebook groups that we're in so It's not that this is a,  what's the word?

Oh my God, it's late. My mind is going blank. It's not that this is a scientific  presentation of here's the data and here's the charts. That's not what this is about. This is,  like I said, Jemima and I being here in the weeds, the people that we talk to, the things that we hear. And. 

What we hear the most and what every what people have sent to us, whether it was through at answering questions we asked with that, survey or whether it was just, sending it information to us. Lots of discussions in the support groups that we've had as well so that's where that portion of the presentation came from, of here's what the majority of what the biggest barriers were. 

That people saw that people have faced and what has helped them the most and then like,  where do we go from here and what we've been doing so far and what still needs to be done,  the direction that  we  want to support or that we want to get behind or that we want to do more of is creating more safe spaces of these peer to peer support groups where people get to know each other on a  level of safety and support.

Everyone's respecting each other and it's not, it's not necessarily going to be quite 

the same opinion that everybody else has. That Jemima and I are coming from here's what we've been involved with. Here's what we know. Like I, I can't wait to get there and talk to these other people who are also talking about, or who also have ideas. Some of it we know from looking at the presentations the list because except puts out the list of all the these presentations.

And so we've looked at some of the subject matters of it. And, there's a few that are talking about, support groups.  There's a couple that are talking about the peer to peer support groups, which is more the direction  where we're thinking of leaning towards. 

And and then there's also just  from talking with  other people in the community and understanding that there's,  we have a few names of people who are also talking about the peer to peer support group. So we're. We're hoping that in that we're going to be having some great conversations and hearing a little bit more about  what's been done, what is being done or what people are hoping could be done for the  SGA, MGA, cult survivors that are out there  trying to make connections or trying just to survive or just trying to get support  and what that might look like.

So  that's in a nutshell. That's it in a nutshell. 

Good job,  summed it all up very well. I hope I will feel  As comfortable  talking at the panel, as I do feel when I talk with you, and we're just shooting the shit here. We're talking with the amazing guests that we have in our podcast I tend to feel a lot more comfortable, but.  We'll be right there next to each other. 

And I listened to this podcast. I think I was telling you, you have to try not to try. That's what the podcast said.  Basically the harder you try to try, the more you're going to fuck up.  You just have to just be in your authenticity, be yourself.  Like you said, get up. Don't worry about what people think about you.

It doesn't matter.  Just say your thing.  And we I think we'll be fine. Yeah, absolutely. We got stuff to say.  Yeah, we sure do 

got stuff to say.  Yeah, so if anyone listening is wondering a little bit about ICSA, the way that they run it, it's interesting.  Essentially,  they have all these different speakers or presenters, some.  There you have the 45 minute they have 45 minute presentations and that's usually done by one person right one or two people, and then they have the panel discussions which those are 90 minutes, and they're done with anywhere from two to two to four people.

And.  They have several of these going at one time. It's not like there's it's not a movie where you finish one and start the next and then start the next or actually more like a binge TV show, but it's there's several going at the same time. And so you have to pick and choose which ones you want to watch.

Which ones you want to listen to which ones you want to sit in front of and which ones  you are, interested in seeing, the recorded version of it.  They have this app that's like an event.  It's called Whova, . W-H-O-V-A Whova is that's available in both Apple and Android, and that's where they run.  The, a lot of the  schedule and the information and everything they run it through  and everybody who comes or signs up, they get their, they can have a little their little profile. If you're a speaker you have a little speaker sticker next to your name.

And then, and different people can sign up to be.  Like it's not set in stone at all. Like people wander from room to room. Like when we went last year, like it was like Grand Central Station. And people were wandering from room to room. They were coming and going, they try, they ask you to try to be at least a little bit respectful and not have too much moving around, but there just is a lot of moving around.

And but so on the app. Like basically you can put down that, Oh, this is one that I'm interested in. I'm going to put my name in it so that  then the app will remind you like, Oh, this and this is starting at this and this time. So it's run off the app.  It's, I would say, I know that they've been doing it for years, so I would say it's My, my first impression of it was that it was run quite well. 

It's a little confusing, but I've never ever known a conference, not to be a little confusing. .  And then once the conference ends, which is  this. 

The six, it's all the way to the end of the day on the six we'll have a couple of days before we have a flight back to do a little bit of a sightseeing and explore probably the city and a couple of other  historic sites.  Is one of the places that you want to go to the cathedral that has that stained glass window, the same glass windows.

. I think so. Okay. Oh my gosh. Cause yeah, my boss was just came back and was showing me all these pictures. She was like, I thought of you, like you with all the rainbow things on. 

And she was showing me the stained glass, makes the most incredible. Images on the walls, the ceilings and stuff. She's so cute. It's see, rainbows do belong in churches. Ah, that's funny.  She's really funny.

 We were laughing today. My boss is pretty funny because she's, my boss is ADHD  as well.  So yeah, our meetings are, can get a little wild and chaotic sometimes, but  we have fun and we still get stuff done. So that's what really matters. Honestly, if you're going to have if  you're going to have a boss who has a fault, like definitely ADHD is the one thing, the way to go.

 I went up to LA to do some hotel training for the organization. We are gone for two days, and the training day, the last training day  was the day of my boss's daughter's birthday.  She was turning seven. So she's young.  So my, my, my boss has these two. 

So my boss's husband is literally like the direct opposite of her. Like he's super calm, just super slow, like my thought, like just the calmest guy, like just can handle anything. She gets extra excited, they balance each other out really well. And they have two children that are exactly like that.

The older one is a boy who is very, just he does have anxiety, but he's generally the more quiet one. And they have this daughter who's just like an absolute, The youngest absolute firecracker of a, like never stops talking like super funny. It's like really energetic, really great kid. 

So  she, we sit down at the last day of of training. And she's Oh, I gave my daughter like this, watch thing. And it's like this special kind of watch that I forget what it's called. My kids are grown so I don't know the name of it, but it's this kind of watch that tells  that you can communicate only to a handful of people, you can call like you can set them they can't go online, they can't do anything through it's just like it's calling and messaging.

To a specific group of people, and she's yeah, I gave her an early birthday present with this watch, and I'm looking at her like,  I'm sorry, what?  And she's what? I was like, have you met your daughter? 

Sure, no.  The rest of the day, we're trying to be professional and do these, these important, these are, this is a very faint, very big and very fancy hotel up in Santa Monica, California, and they've paid money to have this training done. And her phone is going off poop emoji. 

Just blink. And I'm just looking at her like, you didn't really think this was true, did you? She's no. I just had mom guilt. And I'm sorry, I'm not going to be there for your birthday. 

It was so funny. That's funny. And so we are in our meeting today. And because it's connected to her smartwatch.  The kid's is, the kid's watch is not a smart, it's like a kid's smartwatch basically,  but it's connected to her smartwatch, so it's going off at the same level as like her  emails, her phone calls, texts, all of it.

And then her kid's like  She's yeah not gonna lie, I might have, I might regret. 

But no, after it to me, I was like I was saying, I was like no, all joking aside.  And  as I think she set like a limit on the amount of like texts but I was saying all joking aside, actually I wish I had something like that for my kids, like when they were younger, because even if they're like, 

Even if the kid's asking too much, you're communicating too much, like they're connected with you. That's got to feel good for a kid and probably for the parent too, it's still like the difference between the kid that's constantly going, but why? And then you have the parent that doesn't answer those, or you have the parent that answers those. And that's the difference, so that's her version of why, but mom, why?  Oh my gosh.  But it's really fun to have something to continuously. 

It just reminded me though, like you were saying about about just like for getting, like getting out of your head and just being yourself up in front of people because that's really hard for me to do, especially when it's  like a group of people.  I've been through   a high impact, two high impact presentation courses with Dale Carnegie because it's for my work, but, like I'm,  I go to these trainings and these are trainings that people that corporations spend thousands of dollars per person. 

It's three, three grand per person to send people to these trainings. And  yet I still get so in my head, and I, cause I sit there and I'm like, I can't remember what they're saying. I can't remember what I'm supposed to do here. I can't remember  there, but  the truth of the is it's like you either  like what you need. You've learned and that's what she's going to carry you through  because people don't respond to,  people don't respond to formulas.

They respond to, confidence and connectivity.  Actually not even, not, confidence is a really weird word, but it's just more they respond to authenticity and connectivity and that's really what matters. I need to give myself lots of pep talks from here, 

but No, I'm looking forward to oh. I didn't even tell you the best part. Jem and I are Jem and I are.  meeting at LAX. She's, Jemima is flying into LAX and then I'm going to meet her there because, LAX is the, is obviously the,  on the West coast, the best  and cheapest

airport to fly out of. But the good part about that is that Jemima and I get to spend, both the flight there and the flight back. Next to each other. So we'll have lots of time to  pep talk each other, yeah.  Yeah,  I guess there you have it. That's the long and short of it. Yeah. And for anyone that wants to keep up on, we'll be keeping up on the butterflies and bravery socials, posting,  what have you, we'll probably do. Yeah. I'm guessing we'll do a podcast  or. Even just some mini podcasts while we're away on the trip just to get everybody updates and what's been going on, what's been happening.

That should be fun.  So yeah, you'll definitely be taking you with us.  Everyone. That's really what it feels like because so many people that have contributed to this presentation, it's really like we are taking  all of you with us, I know  there's probably most of you going Motherfucker, where, and you are not taking me with you because I am still here  in Canada  and not in Spain.

No, but the support and, the purpose and just being so And so much communication and connectivity with everybody all along the way has it, it, really feel I know both of us really do feel for all my point  of being scared to talk to people.  We really do feel you, you're behind our backs and. 

And cheering us on  and rooting for us. And hopefully  even if we can just move the needle a little bit further, a little bit more towards  people, understanding  that we deserve to be recognizing that we deserve attention from the vast world. That just wants to either exploit stories on the media or  talk to joiners or group everybody all together no, we need our own little category and that's the most important.

That's one of the main  messages of our presentation as well is that we like we need our own categories, stop lumping us in we're not the same. We are not the same. We're not an afterthought.  We are not a asterisk in your workbook. , and  I know it takes a while though.

That's the only thing I try not to be discouraged about is that it does take a while for society and especially the academic world to come around. They're still fighting over  PTSD versus CPTSD when literally the whole world knows that those are two different diagnosis, and they're very different.

And they have very different, behaviors. And that's how I feel. That's what I feel. I feel FGAs, joiners, they, tend to fall into the it's the difference between us and them is like PTSD versus CPTSD. And  unfortunately, you have a lot of people who are going to argue that we're the one and the same, and we're just not.

I don't know, maybe we shouldn't use that. Example.  That allegory. 

It's a good one.  Because it's it just feels like that sometimes, what I mean? Yeah. No, aren't you guys all just cult survivors? No, we're not fucking all just cult survivors. That is really different. That's like trying to say like somebody who got out of a domestic violence situation and someone who just got divorced or one of the same yeah, or saying like a soldier who decided to join the army as the same as someone who got drafted.

No, it's not the same. They didn't fucking decide they were forced.  Yeah. A whole different kettle of fish.  Yeah. The one that, studied, went to West Point. Had found, yeah.  A general for a father.  Yeah. Drag chicken and screaming. Yeah. Those are two different things. Two different stories. 

I, I don't think, I think that is one thing that  really impressed on me. Because I know the.  Cult wanted us to, pick up their culture, right? Whenever they they were so big on showing us the movie Hair, right? 

And they really wanted us to pick up on their like, this is the culture we came from, this is why we are the, whatever. But what,  of everything in that movie, the thing that stuck with me the very most was  that poor kid  at the end, being shipped off to war. Yeah.  When he'd done everything he could to not be there. 

And I was just like, yeah I think you guys are on the wrong side of the equation with this movie. You're not the hippies. 

You you're the government.  That's who you're all is in this movie I don't know who you think you are, but you're not the hippies.  No.  Oh my gosh.  It's it's so funny how so much of our life is just it's the opposite world. Yeah. That's like the song The Room. In the room, never alone.  Lots of people are with you,  tell you it's your home.  Room it has a window,  and your name above the door, but you can't go out now, cause your friends have locked the door. 

That's literally a description of being in a cult.  Exactly. And they were trying to say that,  that was a description of being in the system. In the system. So opposite. 

It's funny actually, that's A lot of my nightmares actually fall in line with that song. That's a pretty apt description of my nightmares.  Now that I think about it. Interesting.  All right. Thank you so much. I know we can't say it enough, but thank you so much. Every one of you who contributed  Whether  financially  or supportively or both or emotionally or all of the above. It means the world  to Jemima and I that we are part of 

all of  you. Like that we're, we're this community that are making things happen, and  trying to figure out a way to save ourselves  since no one else is trying to save us. So so  much for being here, for listening. We love you and we are looking forward so much to,  yeah,  I guess we're going to get on the road here and  see what happens. 

Anything more?  Stay brave.  Yes, you remember that  every butterfly was once a cat.  That's right.  Or the smush gush in between,  where that sometimes too. 

Because the chrysalis is very messy.  Very messy transformation. That is not just  It's not like just walking through the door and coming out the other side with wings no. No, not quite. You dissolve into a very gooey mess. Very gooey. Sometimes that is really how it feels. Some days you're the caterpillar, some days you're the gooey mess.

But you're always going towards being a butterfly.  That's right. 

  Oh, come on!