Shifting Culture
On Shifting Culture we have conversations at the intersection of faith, culture, justice, and the way of Jesus. Hosted by Joshua Johnson, this podcast features long-form conversations with authors, theologians, artists, and cultural thinkers to trace how embodied love, courage, and creative faithfulness offer a culture of real healing and hope.
Shifting Culture
Ep. 422 Tia Levings Returns - Recovery and Hope After Religious Trauma
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In this episode, Tia Levings returns to talk about her new book I Belong to Me - a guide to healing and recovery after high-control religion and other controlling environments. Tia walks through what she calls the steps before the steps: the audacity, the centrality, the willingness to want something different before you're even ready to name what happened to you. We talk about why language can free you and trap you at the same time, how cult-hopping happens and why, what developmental stages get stolen in high-control systems, and how somatic and body-based modalities opened up healing that talk therapy alone couldn't reach. This is a grounded, honest conversation about what it looks like to start to become the protagonist of your own story.
Tia Levings is the New York Times Bestselling author of A Well-Trained Wife, her memoir of escape from Christian Patriarchy and I Belong to Me: A Survivor’s Guide to Recovery and Hope after Religious Trauma. She writes about the realities of religious trauma, evangelical patriarchy, and the Trad wife life, decoding the fundamentalist influences in our news and culture. Her work and quotes have appeared in Teen Vogue, Salon, Newsweek, and the HuffingtonPost. She is an experienced interviewee, speaker, and podcast guest, and has appeared in the hit Amazon docu-series, Shiny Happy People. Based in Raleigh, North Carolina, she is mom to four incredible adults and likes to travel, hike, paint, and daydream. Find her on social media @TiaLevingsWriter.
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A thoughtful, deep dive into one of the most talked-about movements in American history.
Same when you've gotten to a place of selfhood, wholeness and healing, to turn around and help other people also heal. And we are on the cusp of an exodus. There's going to be a massive cult break and deconstruction surge. And 10 years ago, there were no resources. Now there are resources, but that that surge is also individual human beings that we sit at the dinner table with, or we, you know, we interact with at work. And so it is very, I hate to use the church model of each one reach one, but it is a little bit like that, where healed people will have an impact on other healed people, and healed people will have the capacity to show grace and space to someone who's just breaking
Joshua Johnson:you Hello and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host. Joshua Johnson, you know, high control religion leaves a mark, and for a lot of people, leaving doesn't feel like freedom. It feels like standing in the middle of a field with No Map and no idea who you actually are. So I sit down with Tia Levins, author of her well trained wife and her brand new book I belong to me to talk about what healing really looks like after high control religion and other controlling environments. We get into the steps before the steps what has to happen before you could even say you want to be healed. We talk about how language can free you and how it can keep you stuck. We talk about the developmental milestones that get taken from you when a system needs you compliant, and we talk about what it looks like to finally become the main character in your own story. Tia is one of the best writers working right now, and this conversation is honest, it's grounded, it's worth your time. So join us. Here is my conversation with Tia. Levins, Tia, welcome back to shifting culture. Excited to have you back on.
Unknown:Thank you so much for having me. It's gonna be fun.
Joshua Johnson:Last time we talked, you walked us through a well trained wife, and you walked us through the escape. Now thinking about this book I belong to me as you're walking through healing and recovery after high control religion, high control situations, in any high control situation and the trauma from that, if you could talk to yourself coming out of the escape, what would you like to know to say this is really going to be helpful for you on your healing journey?
Unknown:That's a great question. I came out of my, you know, the most dire part of my experience in 2007 and there wasn't a lot available, even language for what I'd lived through, religious trauma, deconstruction, ex Evangelical, all the sources around that were still being developed. So I kind of healed in tandem with this movement's rise. And back then, what I needed to hear the most was that there was even hope that I could heal. Because the attitude was, well, you've been really broken, and you're probably going to stay really broken, and you're just going to deal with this like we didn't even have language around Complex PTSD back then. And so the idea that you would be reactive and flicker like and and fragile and easily triggered all of the time was just kind of a an assumption, and I disagreed with that, with that that should be the outcome of the rest of my life. And so I took a different approach, and that has informed a lot of this journey, is that I was committed to that different approach
Joshua Johnson:your healing really coincided with the rise of really the place that you came out of, and we see it today, which we live in, this crazy timeline where you have people like Doug Wilson and Pete hegseth, and those that were in that space, in prominence and speaking into the public. What is it like to see both sides, the healing and the rise of what you're healing from?
Unknown:Yeah, it's every single day has the potential to be very activating. I'm so grateful that I have tools and I've done work in order to handle it, because I knew when I started to see that change politically, in 2015 2016 I was in some of the deepest trenches of my own recovery, that I could also see what was coming for us as a country, and what it would look like to scale. And sometimes, you know, you've heard people say, Well, I know too much, like it felt that way, like I know. Coming. I'm not in the dark about what this is going to mean for everyone, and to watch it be platformed and to see it become popular and normalized comes with a fair amount of terror, and if I couldn't process that terror, I would be re traumatized every single day. That's just the reality of what we live in.
Joshua Johnson:I know the last time we talked, we touched a little bit on on CBT and we and talk therapy and how it wasn't helpful to be basically re traumatized and retell the story constantly. How do you help people not be stuck and be re traumatized once they've gotten out?
Unknown:For me, the swing really happened when I started noticing what was happening in my body, kind of independent from what was happening outside. And so this is true in recovery as like, if I'm in a therapy modality, you know, session, or if I'm just out and about, and we're having this exhausting conversation about what, you know, we're just inundated with the flood the zone, kind of news headlines that are really upsetting and scary. If we can learn to recognize what's happening to us in that moment, and then we can do practical caretaking in that in that moment, and build our self awareness as to how that's impacting us. And going through these steps of just really knowing ourselves and self advocating, it's a lot of work strong, you know, shrunken into a little sentence. But if we can learn how to do that, that is how we get through those moments. And that's why I feel like CBT is a nice place to start. But if you are exhausted by talking about what happened to you, and you actually feel worse afterward, it's that biofeedback that you use to say, Okay, I need to do something else. And fortunately, there are a lot of something else is available. And sometimes those modalities are good for now, but they're not good for the long haul. Or sometimes you can come back to them. For example, I could go to CBT right now, and it would be a lot more helpful to me now than it was back then, when I was still so raw and in shock and just not even ready to name what was happening, let alone hash it out for an hour, and then go back to my, you know, normal day, it just never worked back then I had some clearing I had to do first.
Joshua Johnson:So what does that clearing start to look like for people? How do you clear the the junk out so that you can actually start to name what happened?
Unknown:Yeah, that was a really dual process. And I think I hear that reflected back with other survivors. So like I belong to me, I should say, is really positioned as, yes, you're going to get a glimpse into my journey, but it's shared with an intention that you will find merit for your own, that it'll help inform the choices you want to make or not make, you know, based on how it actually works. So I tried to be as transparent as possible. And so that process of learning the actual vocabulary for what my experience was were was its own step of like describing what happened and then realizing there was language with definitions that matched it, and then learning how to sit with some of those very uncomfortable words and labels and names and diagnoses. And then the other half of that is this kind of metabolic integration thing that you do where you realize, oh, I have, I'm stuck. I don't feel well here, or I can't, I can't actually go into that room without breaking out in a full body sweat, or that metaphorical room. So I had situations and memories in my life I couldn't sit with without my heart pumping and my skin flushing and crying, or I couldn't encounter certain triggers in my active day to day life without it flashing me back. I had a big problem with flashbacks and nightmares for years, and so sometimes that's beyond language. And so there are modalities like EMDR, like brain spotting, like somatic awareness, that take you they're not depend dependent on the language model in order to help you identify what's happening. And so working with those in tandem has been the power pill, you know, basically of like the dual approach that's really worked.
Joshua Johnson:That's interesting, because language itself can be freeing, but it can also be really harmful, and it could put you into a box any cults or high control religion or high control situations, they're going to use specific language to be able to keep you stuck. I was reflecting earlier today. I think on on John five, there was a man in the pool of Bethesda Jesus walks by him, and he asked him a question. He says, Do you want to be healed? And that question stuck with me, I think because it does something if you if you are healed, that means that you are going to have a brand new story. You're going to have to use new language so that you can set things apart from who you were to who you are going to be. That piece of healing, of saying, Yes, I want to be healing can be really scary. How can you help people? How did you say I actually. I want a new story. I don't want to be stuck where I am. How do you navigate the Yes, I want to be healed part.
Unknown:This is a great question that does not come up with an any any interview, and I'm so glad you asked it, because the first three chapters of I belong to me deal with the steps before, the steps before. Like you might even be kind of aware that you want to heal, but you're so overwhelmed with what it will take that it's very hard to admit to it. Yeah, I'm willing to do that work. You may feel so wounded that someone telling you that you need to do work or you need to want to heal, feels like victim blaming. There's there's things that can keep you very paralyzed that come way before you're ready to say, I want this. And so I have a chapter on Audacity. How do I how to develop audacity for yourself? I have a chapter on centrality, because it's hard when you have no sense of self and you've given your life away to other people forever and habitually and theologically, to say, actually, I'm the main character in my own story. I'm the central character here, and I need to do things to help my protagonist advance and develop agency. You know, a boring book is a book where the character doesn't do anything. So learning that you are the protagonist of your own story is its step by itself, and you have to be willing to at least allow for it to move to the next step. And if these become micro steps, that's okay, like there's no metric of pacing, there's no time clock. You just, you know, sit in each step for as long, and you take all the time that you need. Have all these mantras, you know, in each chapter, where they're meant to be affirming and space clearers, so that if you need to take a long time in a certain phase, you can there's no comparison here. It's up to you.
Joshua Johnson:I kind of like mixed up a little bit of that healing question I wanted to get to, and then I wanted to talk about language, because language is really important. And I think when people leave their maybe the veil is lifted, they finally see what is happening in this control. They want to get out and move. Sometimes. Language is limiting for them, because that's all that they know. They know the language of their story, of where they grew up, of what high control religion does. And they move to another place and they want to be safe in the language that they know. What happens to people sometimes, do you see people moving from like cult to cult, or moving from from one one place to another, but they're really similar, even if they feel a little bit different from the outset,
Unknown:this is really nuanced, and it's really important to understand, because there is a tendency when you're that vulnerable, you've left a toxic environment, probably with abuse, probably with, you know, control, a lot of binaries and rigidity. Jump into the unknown to say, Okay, I'm going to step away from that. And people do that in stages too. Like, it might be very hard to say I'm willing to ask questions about my faith, but I need to still call myself a Christian. I need to not let go of that label. Sometimes that's the side of the pool, you know. Like, I don't think you can do an investigation if you've already know the destination, but not everyone's ready for that right away. They need a they need baby steps, and that's okay. So this idea that you find comfort in language is a two sided coin. It can also hurt you. It can also hold you back. Can also misdiagnose or send different stories in your head, you know, as you step into different identities. So it's again, I think it comes down to pacing. It comes down to understanding that this is a journey. It's not a step that you stay in so you'll outgrow it. You know, your next little step is something you'll outgrow and you'll move on to the next one. But just knowing that there are other potentials out there sometimes can be both freeing and scary. But language is also used to control and keep us back, and this idea of cult hopping or falling for another high control dynamic is so rampant in part because that's what your nervous system knows how to respond to. So if you like, are very focused on blaming the other people who hurt you. That's a valid place in the journey. We all spend a lot of time blaming all of the externals, and at some point it's just like the verse in John you just quoted. At some point you have to set it, set the blame aside enough to stand up or to move or to follow, and that that hinge, that pivot, is also a step that doesn't all happen all at one time. Like one of the things I really hoped to bring out, and I belong to me, is that these are broken down into concepts and steps and stages that we adapt to. It's not a and then I got up and walked, you know, there's a process involved, and we get something out of blaming people. And there is a stage for blaming people, and there's a stage for accountability and investigations and reporting and things like that. And then you have to not stay there forever, like that's not the whole story. So when you're done with that part or ready to step away from that part in. To okay. Now, what can I do? There's things there too, and that I think has been missing from the landscape quite a bit is like, you can, you can move into that space, and you're not, you're not blaming victims. You're not, you know, saying it's my fault or this happened, to say that it's my responsibility to heal from what happened.
Joshua Johnson:That goes into, I think, part of your chapter there on identity formation. When you're you're formed early on in this high control environments, you have a identity. And I know you've had an identity, that your story was really the system and the environment that you grew up in. And it wasn't like who is Tia, and it was hard to know who Tia was underneath the system. When you grow up and grow in in a fear based identity formation, how do you get to a place to say, I belong to me, or I know who TIA is? What does that that like reconstruction of identity look like
Unknown:for me, and I was so excited to discover this. And I don't know if it will be this way for everyone, but it definitely was, and it and it, I see it reflected in other survivors sharing their stories. The idea that we can pick back up and redevelop is a Mind Blow. Like, wow. Like we missed it. Anyone who's been indoctrinated in the high control system, missed healthy child development, because those are at odds with one another. If they're trying to indoctrinate and churn out a predictable result, a uniform result, they're not allowing the individual to develop as they should. And so when I discovered what child development's supposed to look like, what human development looks like throughout our lifetimes. It gave me a lot of hope, because I realized, okay, I didn't differentiate as a teenager the way I was supposed to, but I can still learn how to differentiate, and I can I didn't learn how to like, try on different identities for size, or find my way what I really like, but I can do that in adulthood. So in a lot of ways, a well trained wife. The book that came before is a call coming of age, kind of story late in life, you know? And it's just, it's hope giving to me that we can do that, our our we have neuroplasticity. We have the ability to regrow. We can be really targeted in the things like, we don't get our time back, we don't get our youth back, of course not. But it doesn't have to be a sentence that impacts us for the rest of our lives. We can grow and learn as long as we have, you know, like no real health issue with our brain that's keeping us from doing that.
Joshua Johnson:What are some of these stages of development that people miss if they're in these types of situations?
Unknown:A big one is adolescence, because in high control patriarchy, they kind of skip adolescence altogether. You go into puberty and you are ready for adulthood, and they start calling you young women and young men, and you don't go through the stages. They start shaming the things that child psychologists and research and time has taught us teenagers need to be doing as their brain develops till they're 25 in Christian patriarchy, you're already married and having children by the time you're 25 so your scat, your future, is already foreclosed before your brain has really caught up to what it's supposed to be doing in order to have that autonomy and agency in adulthood. Because patriarchy doesn't want you to have autonomy and agency. You know, it's so it's on purpose. So it wasn't a surprise to me there'd be 33 I mean, I was surprised, but now it's not a surprise that I was 33 when I escaped. And I didn't have the brain of a 33 year old. I had the brain of more like a 1920 year old. I knew how to do a lot of practical things in the house, but I didn't know how the world worked, and I didn't know who I was. And I hear from people in their 50s and 60s who reflect the same thing, you know, because they were modeled and indoctrinated to become this one thing, and so they don't, they can't even tell you where they want to eat for dinner, because they don't know what they like. You know, if you ask them a question, they paralyze. They don't know what they like, who they are, who they are, without something, without a label, or without an identity that's found in the group. So it's terrifying, you know? And I think this is where science and research really help us. We have this unprecedented time in human history where we have access to all of this stuff, and we also have access to all the outcomes of the things we've been doing for the past 50 years. So when ideologists speak up and they say, this is how it's supposed to be for teenagers. We can actually hear from those adults now and say, did that work for you? How many of those did? How many worked? How many benefited from true love weights? Let's find out.
Joshua Johnson:The great thing is, we have all of this information. This is how what I struggle with in my life is I have information. I just struggle with actually implementing it in my life. I it's just a struggle. It's like, okay, I know the right steps. I know what to do, I know, and then I don't do it, and then I shame myself for not doing it, and I just get stuck. I. Get stuck in a shame spiral, usually, because I can't get from knowledge to implementation. Yeah, what helps people in this get from knowledge to implementation?
Unknown:Yeah? They said at information overload. So this is another thing where I hope my my sharing my experience helps someone else, because that's how I learned about it was other people sharing their experience. What I discovered in my 40s and 50s is that I'm pretty neurodivergent, and so when I focused on, why, why do I get stuck when I'm overwhelmed with information? Instead of shaming myself for that, just understanding my brain has too much information to process right now, and that's fair, because we're flooded with it right now. There's so much out there, and the medium of delivery matters. You know, if I'm getting it through my phone is different than if I'm reading it in a book, I have to take practical steps to simplify my life. It's very much like a buffet table saying, No, I'm actually going to only get, you know, a meat and three, you know, or something like that, so I can put it into a sequence and process it in time. And if it takes me a little more time. It's still forward motion. It's still better than feeling overwhelmed and shut down. So I look at that, shutdown itself is the thing I need to understand. It's not the information's fault. It's not my brain's fault for not being able to process too much. What can I do about shut down? And that's what helps me move out of the cycle. If I do one thing today, it's better than doing nothing for five days, you know, so baby steps, gentleness, Grace, kindness to my system, understanding that I can't self exploit. You know, I come from a capitalist religion that exploits human beings like they we they use it up, and then they move on to the next generation. And, you know, they keep refreshing the system that way, and it uses people up. And I don't want to do that to myself, which is what happens when I get in those shame cycles my own, you know, various previous parts are saying, you, you're a failure. You should have done that better. Look at you, you know, messing up. I still, this morning, had one because, you know, you I belong to me as a big, thick book. There's a lot in here. It gave me a lot of paper, a lot of word count, and it's still, there are things I wish I had put in there, and it's like Tia, it's not possible to be to write the end all be all. You know, it's a it's a time capsule, and it's going to help people that didn't have these things 10 years ago. But it's not a perfect book, and it's not supposed to be a perfect book.
Joshua Johnson:That's good. Give yourself some grace. Yeah, it's not a perfect book, but it is a wonderful book, and I think that a lot of people will find themselves in it. And whether or not you grew up in in like, high control religion system, we get to actually see some of this play out right here on a national stage.
Unknown:That's right
Joshua Johnson:where we're being traumatized and some things and trying to be controlled. As you saw something on a micro scale that you are now seeing on a macro scale. What helps move from, hey, this happened to me and my church system, my family system, into this is happening in the nation. Maybe we as a larger collective need to actually bump up against this, speak out and like, try to live a different story. How do we move from that micro to the macro level in these big systems?
Unknown:I think it's going to replicate to scale, the same way that it did on the way up. You know, like we have this household model of patriarchy, and they strategically applied it to our whole country, so that we are all living under the influence of Christian fundamentalism. Now we are all being inundated with religious trauma, and so recovery is going to look like each one of us in the cells, you know, the individual people that make up that collective doing our own work, where we can helping others with theirs, and joining our voices. I really feel like you know this is also popular in 12 step programs that you turn around and help the ones behind you on the 12 step and it's the same when you've gotten to a place of selfhood, wholeness and healing to turn around and help other people also heal. And we are on the cusp of an exodus. There's going to be a massive cult break and deconstruction surge. And 10 years ago, there were no resources. Now there are resources, but that that surge is also individual human beings that we sit at the dinner table with, or we, you know, we interact with at work. And so it is very, I hate to use the church model of each one reach one, but it is a little bit like that, where healed people will have an impact on other healed people, and healed people will have the capacity to show grace and space to someone who's just breaking when we're recording this today, Tucker Carlson issued an apology yesterday, and there's a huge outcry against it, because they want to know how that's not even a real apology. If he says he didn't do it intentionally. He absolutely did do it intentionally. But that isn't the point to me. The point of Tucker's apology is that. It. He's creating space for his fans, for them to change their mind, and that is what really matters, is that space to let somebody get there in the pace that they need to get there. It's hard, it hurts. There's real consequences involved in the choices that they made. But if we are truly healthier, then we have the capacity to say, I know you've I've been there too. Here's some time, here's some things, here's some things that might help you. You know, I'm here to accept you and answer your questions without making excuses for what they did. You know, what and what they participated in. We have a big population collective reckoning coming. We did something that other countries spent years deconstructing. You know, Nazi Germany had to do a lot of repair work, and they're still working on it. I think we are facing a similar American reckoning.
Joshua Johnson:How do you give people permission to change their mind if they have say somebody has caused some sort of harm, and, like a major figures, as caused harm. How do you help say yourself? Say, Okay, maybe they can change their mind. Maybe they will change their mind, or they have changed their mind, and we give them grace to be on a journey that maybe you know, takes responsibility for what they have done, but also then say, Oh, I was wrong. Can we move into a place where we can, I don't know, give grace to people, let people change their mind. Give people permission to change their mind.
Unknown:I think we can with boundaries and accountability. You know, it's not all puffy glitter and rainbows there still have to be held to and to account for what they did and when there was real harm committed and crimes committed, those things need to be dealt with, and you can always embark on your personal journey in prison, if that's what's called for, that's totally valid. I have a permanent restraining order against somebody who means me harm, but I don't hold them to a standard that doesn't allow them to change and change their mind. I have just put a boundary upon their ability to hurt me while they're on that journey.
Joshua Johnson:I think that's such a helpful distinction. Help people figure out what boundaries are healthy and flourishing for you, and what boundaries that were maybe put upon you, that were not healthy, that were limiting. How do we distinguish between healthy, flourishing boundaries and unhealthy ones?
Unknown:Yeah, I dealt with boundaries a lot, and I belong to me in graduated form, because when you are first learning like for example, I came from a pretty boundless place. I came from high control, external rigidity and external moral compass and rules that I had to follow. You take that away. You don't suddenly have the internal structure to know what is a healthy boundary. So, and I was, you know, conditioned to not have any boundaries. I couldn't say no to men, I couldn't self assert or stick up for myself or self advocate in any way like that. So I had to first develop baby words, baby talk, for boundaries, which might sound like, ouch. You know, it's simple words like that hurts. Just identifying this is something that's harmful that I don't want in my life is the very first bud of a boundary. Boundaries are not about controlling other people. They're not about rigid rules that will break everything if you break them, you know, like they'll shatter. That's a tell that your boundary has become a rule. But I also, as I grew and developed and got stronger, found a lot of power in flipping the narrative around boundaries to what I can do, what my capacity reflects, what's for me, what's instead of always, like you can't do this, or I can't go there, or I can't you know that constant negativity was actually nudging me back into high control. Because I'm a naturally a person who is very familiar with fundamentalism, I find comfort in high control. It's very clarifying. It's very safe feeling if there's tight rules and health is the opposite. Health is flex and growth and tolerance and capacity. So when I want to stay in a soft place, I got to keep really organic, breathable, permeable boundaries that are still very effective, like our skin, you know, our skin is permeable, but also it's pretty, you know, contained. I'm not bleeding everywhere. And so I love that metaphor. Like, sometimes we'll just look at my hands and be like, it's also keeping me, inside me, my boundaries, my skin doesn't have anything to do with you. You can't even, you know, touch it because we're through a screen. But you're not looking at a bloody person because of the skin, you know. So when I think of that, I'm like, okay, what can I do? Can I What is for me? Is this book for me? Is this book not for me. It's not really a reflection of the book. It's a reflection of what I need in my life right now, if someone wants me to do something that really makes me really uncomfortable and it's causing me a nervous system collapse. That's not for me. It doesn't even matter if it's a good thing, it can be a great thing. They can mean well, but if it's not sustainable in my system. Not for me. And so speaking that way, is my boundary of that's not for me. And it really changed how I looked at boundaries. And it also was like not something I could have done in the beginning. I was in shock for a long time and vulnerable for a long time, and finding the baby steps of how to get my way through this for years. So you know, that's it's a little bit of a spiral sequence, and I don't know how evident that is to the reader, because of the different versions the book went through. But in the beginning it was like boundaries, one, boundaries two, boundaries, three, because there is a process for making and holding
Joshua Johnson:in your book you redefine and re narrate coffee chats like we're going to take you to coffee. Yeah, in some in some places, coffee means you're get scolded, and it's gonna be tough, but you actually have a good coffee chat and like, let's, let's actually have a good conversation, and it's gonna be be whole and healthy. So if you would have this, this flourishing, good coffee chat with somebody as they're navigating their boundaries, as they're saying, I don't like, I don't know what's good and healthy for me at the moment, like, what are some questions to ask person? Ask the person, to help them. Let's try to navigate. What are good, healthy boundaries for you at this moment,
Unknown:I love that. It's so individual, but it also is like this giant step back, because what they might need most of all is a timeout and some time to think and hear themselves think, and what immediately comes up then is the things that you're going to have to say no to in order to provide that for yourself. Means that you have to be able to say that and not feel like you have to over, explain or apologize for the reason why you need a retreat. So understanding that it's valid to say, I'm not actually sure what's right for me I need to pause is a boundary. When you say it, that's all you have to say. You don't have to say, oh, because I'm overwhelmed right now, or I'm really tired, or I'm just not coping well, or, you know, I'm really confused, you don't have to add any of that. You can just speak your limit and say, I need to pause. That allows your self voice to come in, which I feel is really important. I tried to write a self help book that's not prescriptive. It's very hard to do that, but what I wanted to do was carve space so that you can hear yourself think, not not Tia's voice, not your mom's voice, not anybody else's voice and space is the only way I know to do that. So sometimes boundaries means you're drawing a circle around yourself so that you can hear your own voice and also honor it and know that there's nothing wrong with it if you're not where someone else thinks you need to be, that's invalid. You need to be there when you're ready to be there, and what will it take for you to be ready? That's also a valid conversation. So it's again, it's a circle back to the body, over and over and over again for me, because I don't want to feel dragged, forced, coerced, pressed, pressured in any way to move faster at the pace that I need to which directly points to trauma. Trauma is anything that came on too hard, too fast, and you couldn't process it. So that's my line on trauma. I need to take time that I need in order to get there, and I usually get there, and sometimes I'm faster than everyone else, but it's that permission that keeps me sustained.
Joshua Johnson:How do you do that with others? Because if you're having this this boundary around you, you have the space you're figuring it out. I know that some therapists have really helped you walk through this, these spaces, like, what is a healthy way for people to do it with other people? Yeah, gives people space as well.
Unknown:I love this question too. You're asking great ones today. Some of this is I'm just now learning in the last couple years because I have a trauma informed partner, and we talk this way all the time, and it makes me reflect back on how different it would have been raising children with this language available. And was when you live in community with someone else you're gonna rub up against. You know, conflicting needs, conflicting paces pressure. You know, the need to everyone get in the car and let's go, whether you're ready or not. You know, that kind of stuff, and it's very it's very mundane sometimes, but what we practice here, I love it's working really well. I don't expect him to read my mind. So if I need to go at a slower pace, I need to actually verbalize I need a minute. If I need to go a different way, or if I need to be the one that drives today, it's on me to communicate my needs. If I'm unable to communicate my needs, he knows my signs, and he can watch for them. But I also want to be like, Whoa. I feel myself getting overwhelmed. Let me take a minute, you know. So it's a lot of self responsibility, which I ironically find empowering, because I can take care of myself, and I can also knowing, like when you're in community with someone else, and they're the ones that need the time. They need more time, they need a different pace, they need different language, they don't know how to name their feelings. Those kinds of things I can recognize really easily now that that's not about me. I don't have to take it personally. I don't have to to carry it or enable it. I can give. Them all the time that they need, and I can go do something else, or I can go to the thing myself, or, you know, like there's, there's in partnership and in family support, which I think is just so beautiful on a community model. The more we're self aware, the more we're able to communicate our self awareness. And that only helps relationships. It helps you keep your side of the street clean. It helps you take responsibility for your own choices and actions, but then you have that increased capacity to give to someone else who maybe is having a hard time putting it into words, or, you know, getting the job done
Joshua Johnson:as you're as you're walking through I'm thinking about my wife, and I I'm an internal processor, and I have conversation with myself a lot, and so sometimes I think that I actually verbalized my need to my wife, and apparently I didn't say anything, but I said it to myself, help me. Help me be able to actually communicate and not think that I already did, because I've been internally processing
Unknown:as someone who has a constant internal chatter, I get that so well, and also I've just learned to say it out loud, oh, I probably only said that in my head. I'm sorry, you know. And it's just practice learning to say, like, Did I really say that to you, or did I just dream that?
Joshua Johnson:Thanks. Hopefully I'll get much, much better in this you talked about this self help book that is, like, more free, and you're having a conversation with people, and like, you're giving people, giving people space. And it's not a like, a framework that is like, here are the five steps to healing, and I'm going to give you, and you just do these five steps, and you're you're good. What is the difference then, between a like fundamentalist framework, where this is the the rigidity of it, and then, like a flourishing framework for for people to flourish within even what you have here.
Unknown:Yeah, yeah. So my basic definition, my little shorthand that I carry with me of fundamentalism, is people, ideas before people. The ideological purity is so much more important than the person. And when I flip that and I say, No, actually, humans are more important than the ideology that puts the priority back into what each individual does. So then when, if the fundamentalist approach is, you know, lined out sense set of states, steps and stages you're going to take in order to achieve this ideal promise, and that if anything goes wrong with it, it's the user's fault. I wanted to, you know, obviously, completely avoid that, but a lot of self help is, here's your 10 Steps, here's your here's your big prosperity promise at the end, and I'm saying hope is available. There are options that can help you heal. There's a menu available to you. Here's space for you to weigh if that's going to work for you. But there isn't a promise other than like the hope, the com, the solidarity, the friendship you're going to find along the way, the grace and space the room for it. But it is really hard to write self help without telling people what to do. And so I pulled on my Doula experience extensively, and also my mother experience. So I there is advice in the book. I do give advice, but it's an option that you're free to take or leave, you know, and it's always with that disclaimer of take what you like and leave the rest. Some of this is not going to apply to you, especially when it feels really gendered. You know, there's like, I know that I'm not speaking directly to men all of the time because I'm a woman speaking to other women, but there are men that have reflected back they got so much out of it. So I know when I when it's when that moment where I'm like, Okay, I did the thing where, here's the advice, here's the options, here's what available. Customize it to your own life. Because I'm not here to tell you what to do, or promise you that if you do this, you're going to get this shiny, happy response. That's not how it works. Your life is your life, and your success is going to look like your success. And we're all coming at it from different places too. So our we don't even share the same starting point, you know, we're coming at it from all different places.
Joshua Johnson:Previously, in the conversation we were talking about, we were talking about the macro level, we're talking about the nation we're talking about, there's going to be a reckoning, and there's a reckoning coming, and we're all going to be deconstructing. And so I want to know what helpful deconstruction looks like. You had a deconstruction doula, and so like, what is helpful deconstruction, if we're all going to be like, exiting some of this soon, hopefully, what does that look like? How does it? How do we do it? Well, that's
Unknown:a great question, because there's some different schools of thought I can tell you mine, I don't believe that you can openly question anything if you've already decided what the answer has to be. So I really think it starts at. The beginning with being able to ask why, safely asking why, and being in an environment where you know you're not going to be booted or kicked out or exiled for asking questions or having unpopular opinions. I think being open to people who live through the world radically different ways, being able to sit with them and not feel threatened by them, is part of deconstruction. Understanding certainly the cerebral breakdown of what you believe is important. But you can also be aware that staying in that cerebral place can be its own deflection and its own way not to actually get into the outcomes and real fruits of something. And I think fruit inspection is vitally important. It's very biblical. You know, we know them by their fruits, and you can't be defending the cognitive or rational, intelligent type defense of something. If you're dealing with bad fruit, you have to find out what's actually causing this bad fruit and be open to the causes. And so that constant openness is really a big part of deconstruction. I also don't believe you are obligated to reconstruct anything that's a belief system that's according to a system. You know, that's why I said system like it's your reconstruction is going to look like an inner integrity, and that isn't set to a code of any kind. It's not necessarily tied to a group that requires your belief to make you belong. It's individual, and it's your inner character. And I think that's we have a lot of inner character to rebuild, but then also deconstruction should lead outward once you get to through your own you know, beliefs, your own values, your own integrity. Look at systems, look at decolonization, look at how the greater world is impacted, and how the systems you participated in are still, you know, working their havoc. You know, through the through the world, it's growth and it's ongoing. So, like, that's, I think deconstruction never stops. And there are a lot of people who want to spot speak about deconstruction, as if it's this finite window of time you're gonna, like, ask questions for five years and then be ready to move on. And I don't, I can't, I can't with that that's like, okay, that that's getting to another plateau and staying there. No, thank you. I've learned that lesson in my life multiple times.
Joshua Johnson:So you don't want to stay at a plateau, so you continue to ask questions. I mean, it's great to be able to continue say we're constantly asking questions we can't ever get to the depth and mystery of the universe or the creator, like it, like you can't get there, like it's so deep. So there's constant questions that need to be asked, and it's not actually our job and role and responsibility to have it all figured out. And that's one thing I like about what the Christian faith is supposed to be, is that there's mystery involved, and we're holding on to mystery, and it's not a like I have everything figured out, so I have all the answers in the world, and so I know how it works. And if you don't come to my space, then
Unknown:you're
Joshua Johnson:evil and wrong, and it's going to be Hellfire for you. So forget you.
Unknown:That's such a wearing small way to live, and it makes God really small. The Christian walk is a walk, you know, you're you're walking with the divine in the expansive, you know, universe, of course, there has to be mystery. I found so much freedom in that Calvinism and tight, high control religion was boring at some point, because I was like, Well, why? Why bother if we have it all figured out like this is, this is way, not a fun way to live. I don't like it.
Joshua Johnson:So what is walking with mystery like for you? I know one of the things that you do, that I really resonate with, that I do, is like going out in nature, being in creation, going on walks. Like, if I could be out on a walk in the woods every day like that would be like, That's heaven for me. Like, I It's amazing. What is it like? Just like in a practice for you, like being out in creation, what does that look like as and what does that do for your body and for your soul?
Unknown:I love that question, because I think it's like one of the most intuitive things I've ever done in my life. I was a wandering kid, and so I love daydreaming. I love wandering. I love interacting with the seasons and taking myself out of anything that's man made or artificial or forced contrived, and getting back to the basics, having that time with nature and feeling the planet breathe, and understanding there's a pacing, a natural pacing, to life, and connecting in silence and just reducing the amount of noise around us is so important. I also really love breaking habits. Sometimes this can be as simple as. Like, if you always put your toothbrush in your mouth on the right side, try it on the other side one day, and just see what that does in your brain. Like, immediately throws you off your game and makes me wonder. And that's what I'm always looking for, is like, Where can I stay in a state of wonder? That means shaking up what I'm reading or switching genres? I love science fiction for this, because science fiction as a genre, is, you know, embraces wonder and curiosity and what ifs, and I find that just fascinating. And if I can stay in those higher curiosities, I'm less likely to fall prey to something that's going to try and put me into a box. So it's kind of, it's not predator insurance, but it's pretty close to it, because you're not in a state of fear. You're in your you know, higher awareness. You are safe. Your creature needs are met. You know that, and that's why it's so hard for us to get outside. We spend this time in our culture like, you know, slaving away at the rat race, which chips away at the very thing that's going to help us have some armor against threats out there is we have to be able to hear ourselves and know ourselves, and hear what's going on really, in our system, in our body and all around us, and be at one with creation that way. Yeah, I spend if I can just be barefoot on the grass. Sometimes I can't, maybe get a whole walk in, but I can touch dirt. Like, there's a whole meme about go touch grass. Like that's not bullshit. You should go touch grass.
Joshua Johnson:You should. My son's been saying it. He's eight. He's like, he's, you know, sitting doing something. He's like, I need to go touch grass. Good
Unknown:awareness. Breathe some fresh air. I remember this temper tantrum I threw once in my 20s where I realized, like, if I wasn't mindful about it, it was possible for me to go from my house to my car on concrete to a concrete parking lot, into a mall, back into my car, and have never touched the planet at any time. And that was like, okay, that's not okay. I don't want to spend whole weeks and years of my life not touching actual planet
Joshua Johnson:you mentioned one thing is breaking habits, doing something different that actually brings you into wonder and curiosity of seeing something different. Is there anything else to help us pay attention so that we can, like, notice the wonder that's all around us that we miss every day?
Unknown:Yeah, I love the pause. I do this with my scroll sometimes too. Like, it's really easy to just, like, scroll past really fast and go through 500 emotions in a split second, you know. Like, because we, because there are algorithms, mix everything up, and I'm like, Oh, I'm grieving, oh, I'm happy, oh, there's a cat, you know. And sometimes I will hold it and make myself watch something three times just to really see what that content is. It's for me, it's a lot about slowing down. That's a that's a constant theme. So if I can have somebody, can you say that again? I didn't quite catch that. Let me hear that. Or active listening where I'm actually reframing it back to them. That's a great exercise, because it helps your relationship and communication too, not centering yourself in something and saying, Okay, I'm just gonna take in what I'm hearing and observing and I'm gonna name, gonna name it. I'm gonna like, I'm in a room with tan walls and I hear a garbage truck and I'm talking to Joshua, like, knowing to be able to clock those things already brings my nervous system down here, because it's awareness, and it all comes down to me for awareness, which is why sensitivity and sense awareness is also such a superpower. Because you can, you know, know where you are in the world and how you're moving through it, and who with. It's just an immediate way to combat what the world wants us to do, where we're just racing through our experiences and dissociated half the time and or most of the time, and not really engaging in our life. This is our lifetime. We only get one.
Joshua Johnson:We only get one. Let's live our life.
Unknown:Yeah, it takes intentionality.
Joshua Johnson:It does. This book, I belong to me. It's fantastic. Tia, so good. What is your hope for your readers? What do you hope that this book gives to people
Unknown:that they find space to have their own experience and step into the calling of their own lives?
Joshua Johnson:Perfect. That's great. I would love a recommendation or two from you, from you anything you've been reading or watching lately you could recommend?
Unknown:Oh, that's a great question. Let me task switching is sometimes tricky, but I'm really enjoying I love paradise. I just finished paradise. I just finished. I'm in the middle of DTF, Lou, St Louis might not be everybody's cup of tea. I love. Love on the spectrum I'm reading is it called heart the lover. It's really blowing me away right now. And I'm very excited about this book. Everything in color, graphic it's a graphic memoir. Look how thick it is. It's all comic book art,
Joshua Johnson:amazing,
Unknown:which is completely new to me. I have. Not spent any time. And this is by Stephanie, and it's her story of religious trauma and recovery after purity culture. But this is a new format for my ADHD. I'm very excited about it, and I'm in full planning for the book tour and stuff. So just being connected with my fellow humans and really listening to what the needs of our changing culture are, I feel like we're in the middle of a massive we're in the not in the middle of it. We're at the very precipice of a massive cultural shift as a lot of people step away or wake up and being ready for that and speaking to it without shame is top of my list every day.
Joshua Johnson:That's so good. You can see it starting to turn and remove. People are like, oh,
Unknown:oh, yeah, oops. We didn't like that.
Joshua Johnson:No, not good. We didn't want it at all. This is not right.
Unknown:So only works so many times. You know, I told you, so is not always helpful?
Joshua Johnson:Yes, yes. So we need people like you to figure out, like, how do we actually help people as they they walk through, what is coming the reckoning, the walking away, the saying, Oh, we got duped, and I didn't know that we got duped, and I was wrong, right? And so, yeah, that's that's good. Hopefully we can start to see something like that happen sooner, rather than later.
Unknown:You know, people who want to look at the big collective and feel discouraged that enough of it's not happening yet, you can look closer to home, and you will see it in your own circles. There are people near you who are grappling with questions and shame and shyness and and fear, and they don't know what to do or where to go because they didn't know they were part of an ideological cult.
Joshua Johnson:Yeah, yeah. Well, I belong to me. It's fantastic, and people can go and get that anywhere. Books are sold out May 5, everywhere. So go and get I belong to me. How can people connect with you? Where we'd like to point people to so that they get more of what you're putting out there?
Unknown:Yeah, super easy to find. I'm on almost all the social platforms at Tia Levings writer, and my sub stack is Tia levings.substack.com and I do more active deconstruction of our headlines and our current events over there. I'm also getting ready to share behind the scenes and bonus content from both books on my sub stack. So if you like read it and want more, that's where you'll find it
Joshua Johnson:awesome. Well, thank you, Tia. This was fantastic. Really encourage people to go get I belong to me and really, really enjoyed talking to you, thank you for your work. Continue to just step out, speak out and be a voice that many people need at the moment. So thank you for everything that you do. This is fantastic.
Unknown:Thank you. This was great.
Joshua Johnson:You you.
