Julia Myers, Deconstructing Christianity & Escaping Calvary Chapel | Ep 68 | Moral Combat

In episode 68 of the Moral Combat Podcast, Julia shares a deeply personal narrative of growing up under the stringent doctrines of a conservative Calvary Chapel, leading to a profound journey of faith deconstruction and healing from religious trauma. Her story, marked by questioning rigid church teachings, navigating the complexities of relationships within a faith-based context, and experiencing significant personal losses, highlights the challenging path towards spiritual and emotional liberation. Julia's transformative journey is further enriched by her research on religious trauma's impact on sexuality and her pursuit of psychology to aid others in similar struggles. Despite facing gender inequality and the stifling of her voice within the church, Julia finds support in her husband, a pastor who respects her deconstruction journey. This episode encapsulates the essence of resilience, the importance of setting boundaries, and the pursuit of a spirituality that aligns with one's true self, offering solace and encouragement to others facing the daunting task of rebuilding their lives after religious trauma.

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Moral Combat, hosted by siblings Nathan and Zach Blaustone, is a heartfelt exploration of life's complexities, with a primary focus on healing from religious trauma. Step into their world as they navigate the realms of music production, confront the lingering echoes of religious trauma, and embrace laughter as a universal healer. With each episode, Nathan and Zach weave together their unique perspectives, seasoned with dynamic personalities that make every discussion an engaging adventure. From unraveling the complexities of personal growth to fostering open communication, healing the scars of religious indoctrination, and embracing the unfiltered authenticity of siblinghood, Moral Combat is your passport to thought-provoking conversations, heartfelt insights, and the pure joy of shared moments. Join us in the combat for morality, one conversation at a time.

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what's up moral combat fans hi moral combat fans thanks for being here here my name is zach and my name is nathan blaustone faust wow no it's well thursday it'll be but i signed the paperwork yeah it's true i'm i'm eloping we'll just we'll just blow past that yeah like it's not our other podcast yeah 100 uh because this podcast we specifically like to religious trauma yes especially trauma from coming out of the calvary about to say why do we talk about religious trauma why is that like our well our father is a pastor and we were raised heavily uh soaked in the yeah like an evangelical like a dank rack yeah uh dipped in the gospel of anymore as we have walked away from uh this faith mine was like what 15 something like that no it was like 17 years ago 16 you about maybe i don't yeah you're just getting started scary out here we're trying to be for it we're being funny because we're nervous right now because uh we our second guest ever in studio with us um she goes all the way back to we talk about childhood trauma religious trauma this individual was close relationships with our parents we have very close relationship with and their family or we did when we were like really really young in it planning this interview with uh let's give a round of applause to uh julia thank you for being here and also known um from our past we knew you as the or telly was a very famous last name there was thanks for being here oh man thanks for having me it's been really exciting and slightly anxiety do you think oh my god this is such a big deal i didn't four hours and we've been doing this now for like almost two years and uh about having you on our show was i know that we started talking about last november or something and you found us and then you sent us you which if you're listening you can definitely stop and watch this on instagram you know because we are a visual podcast video cast here um and i got this feeling where i was like oh no wait what's happening it's because we've been doing it for so long just talking and the memories and your family uh are like and which i know because we talked a little bit you have this similar is there's real trauma like within our families just so i have been hella nervous about this but like in a really good way zack and i have been building up to is by putting the pressure on by so you being here in studio i have so much gratitude i'm extremely thankful know you're doing a lot in your life around this uh trauma healing and being here yes thank you so much zachary do you remember the ortelli because you're like really young i mean you were young too we were all younger dude oh that's right okay yeah sorry but no i totally i totally i remember your younger youngest sister the most uh but no everyone in of lots of things and actually the second to youngest right because the was like a baby baby yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly we don't like to name we edit all the names out but what we do like to name drop are the churches where we all come from uh which is in the county that we filmed this we're not afraid sure sure if you guys want i mean it's a waste time were under the same pastor same youth pastors our father was your youth of them um for a little bit transitioned over to a few others you don't live in this county anymore right you guys i don't i live in conquered on the east bay yeah is it and i know you have friends here and friends now that you're in town being here for our podcast but is it weird county uh no i've even since i moved away so my family and i moved away in country to the east coast to be near my husband's family while my mother chemo and radiation treatment and we were there for one year and then we that year we're there for three years and then moved up here two and a half and ever since being back and even when we moved like i would come back you know visit family when my family was here they all except for one they're all living there now classic and um and uh so but even since then pasadena like i'd come up and visit friends and family because it's though it held a lot of trauma for me it still was my home and i never take my home away from me and i just i love petaluma i love sonoma county i never wanted my pain to take that away from me and so i've always loved you know mentioning earlier that i drove up once a week last year in class and so during that time i got to spend time with family around with nice to be able to just be back in the area and see all the places that that i love so i always love coming and whenever i do i just try to while i'm here i'm in town like i'll text some friends and be like hey this person this person so there's never enough time and it's like just to really plan it yeah but like not quite close enough that you just like it's a trip yeah it's an hour and 15 an adventure but it's good yeah do you still connect with that are still in the church at all at least like chapel um in calvary chapel i have a few that still are part of it um are still very much consider them my friends but we don't really regular um i have a lot of friends who've left and that were really well since i've gotten a little bit more vocal about my story which has been um as you guys know uh there's been more people that have kind of slid into the dms like oh my god i know you do you remember i'm like oh and um which has been like really cool um thankfully aside from some i haven't really gotten many people um in the church who've like you can't talk about this how dare you it could still happen right it's um but i just think in the you know last 15 years since i left so how old are you now i'm 36 i know we're not supposed to ask people yeah so you're three years older than me and i was closer to your not yeah the one right younger than me yeah yeah um and uh and i was you so i spent time at your guy's house like last time i think we mentioned saw each other was my sister's wedding and i was 15 yeah that was yeah yeah it's 2024 a long time it is a long time yeah which you know a lot community in the church and meet each other in the church and we're a community out of the church yeah no but it's beautiful i love it it is like so happy to hear when i moved about like your attachment not being area or like being able to like work through that because when i i moved about my son and i never thought i'd come back and i like kicked and driving from san francisco for like court dates and uh it took me like a did move back i hated this area oh my god but i was still going to church when i moved back because i was like so depressed and anxious about having going to church not like every sunday he was going to church like when you your son because i felt bad i wanted him to be part of his grandparents it yeah then i worked through all of that and realized like god damn this in every way like even when you like detach for a decade you can still and so moving back here for me was like when there was a lot of trauma that i just drank myself to pieces i mean i was working my ass off in the drinking partying and all of that well we were also djs different yeah that was fun remember that that was it was so much more that wasn't so then um yeah welcome back to the county that uh we were all raised in not as traumatic here yeah no hopefully we'll make it feel a little like i have a when i was saying saying earlier that when you first we're redefining the dm you know like when people have like come out of the dming you like yo yeah i'm not a christian either chill you're like on my show totally yeah it's not the dm like uh we need to take go out to me like oh my god yeah come on camera with us tell us your story let's go that alone i'm like oh well let's jump into it um and let's just start uh and i really cannot remember i was so young so i just we were born into evangelical faith right it was like and it wasn't calvary chapel when we or whatever it was in napa and it was i think it wasn't was it calvary been it's always been calvary chapel that makes sense because they came no you're right sorry chuck smith man he got them all yeah um so the way i it was like i don't really know anything else besides being born in out of it born again out of it born again out of it um was that the same family christian when you were born or was it something that happened my family was catholic they went to a catholic church and my both my in a catholic church my mom's family a little bit more so like religiously be involved in um my grandma my mom's mom was very involved and devout and married and started having kids uh they took us to catholic church we couple years and then they were a part of amway the mlm yeah amway a thing now it really is it's a multi-level marketing oh okay pyramid um classic yes and they were involved in that and at one of the conferences correctly at one of the conferences they got they got saved like a came back left the catholic church pulled us from the catholic school christian churches we went to one here in santa rosa for a little bit square church just because we had some friends who went to it ben church in petaluma for a couple years and then calvary chapel and it was it was susan's dance studio old building on petaluma boulevard and j know that white building we painted that to go to camp remember do you for camp childhood slave labor dog well pay for you to go to camp but whole building yeah okay yeah um so i remember being like nine ten years brushes painting that building um so yeah that's where we were then and so though i was baptized catholic i had my first communion experience in church but pretty soon after that was when they moved us into uh you know then um we started going to calvary i think i was nine um and that's when began that all started um wow yeah but i mean i had an experience i that at the four square church i was actually just talking to my husband i'm at the four square church and it was my very first experience with becoming saved and this church is in general you know four square churches and intense um lots of speaking in tongues and really intense dancing things it was pretty freaked out to be there you know they bring you into um they had these cubbies you know those cubbies where it's like a kind hooks and then a section in the top for like your lunch box whatever so and then a little table and coloring and sunday school teacher and i extroverted person and i have been since i was a kid it drove my family to everybody all the time um but i was so freaked out to be there and i sat my body in one of those little cubbies so i could like face the to me like julie are you okay like do you wanna come sit i'm like no and i on my shoulders the being in this little box like made me feel a little like unsure but i'll never forget her message was talking about jesus and all born this was the first time i heard this message not the last we sinners and so from birth we are born evil sinners who god cannot look at covered in sin and only because jesus died and jesus's blood washed over us that then god can look at us and say i love you now i can see you and i sitting in this cubby and like i'll just never forget the physical squished in there and anxious and then being like god hates me it's yeah i was like seven years old and sick maybe even six six seven and i just remember looking this lady was so intense and she was like you into your heart so you can be forgiven so that god can love you cannot look at you with love and instead he detests those things that the blood of jesus i was like well i don't want to be detested i'm good like i think i'm a good person and i think i'm like a caring person and people and like i was a good kid yeah and so i'm like okay this is what i she let everybody through the sinner's prayer you know we all just feeling so disoriented like did the blood get everything off i like did the blood like did it work it can god see me now does god love every opportunity from there all the way through probably high school i took it no way honest to god i took it because i was like what if it didn't take off everything what if like every time they'd be like if to christ no way every time like not necessarily at one point i was like i hand because like someone's going to be like now julia you're scammers um wrong but like in my heart i'd be like okay i'd do it again because if what if god didn't see that time and that continued right to be a in our you know upbringing in calvary chapel where it was you know you're born inherently sinful and you need jesus you need god to you know which is just such a messed up message to tell a developing child know as i um as i've been you know pursuing my degree in psychology as for the last five years uh just learning about the development of message is because it immediately puts them in a place where they have come to like the control that is then put on them after that right and i about this on one of your previous podcasts where it's choosing to say alternative is hell yeah and eternal damnation that's not an actual choice make a sound choice under the state of duress that is a threat and it's like it just is you can't say hey uh you know nathan pass me that thing going to punch you in the face and you're like okay i'll pass you this like i don't give it to you it's like yeah that's a threat right it is and go if i don't do this i'm literally going to go burn in a lake of fire okay i'll say yes you know and so time after time after time and i'll of are cemented in there with that are things like heaven's gates and messed up evangelical plays where it'd be like actual like broadway like burning fire and the whole place would get hot and the devil would from the rubble of the car accident going to hell yeah or it'd be the kid heart youth group last night and their mom would be dragged off and i was like the mom was dragged off and the girl was begging jesus like why hell and she didn't know me and i remember just looking being like yeah just it's so abusive and it's so toxic and so creepy it really is so these adults standing around us right and it's just like yeah i'm being experience if i've been like yeah that's why you need to ask jesus into need to believe and i'm like now i'm like that is just so messed up i to swear on this podcast you can say you can say anything you fucking want there's just no other words for it right it's so fucked up like it is they're six nine and eleven and i look at them at these ages and i ever ever ever let them hear a message like your six-year-old like to be feel safe and the way that he would have to regulate his feelings my six-year-old just so sensitive and sweet if i looked at him in the eyes way that i could love you is if we sacrificed our dog and like her blood just how messed up if you put it into slightly different contexts that he'd know it's so sad having so sad having kids really it's like the old tale is parents our parents are always like you'll know when you have your own right i'll know when i have my own kids i would never i learned so much life where i was like oh i will never pressure you given he's been he was like 10 years old or maybe it was the last year like 11 you know other family his mom are very religious and christian evangelical dad you should know that i do think you're going to maybe burn in hell he he said yeah you're gonna burn in hell and i was like and he was like that's why we have to have a good relationship in this life and when he tearing up in the car but i was like i got so angry and i remembered i be like how dare you dude don't go down that path and i just kept that's what my dad did my dad like would get angry i mean like so i was the whole point here right i just never could have imagined it would be reverse yeah um but he's growing up a lot and like he's you know like he that like it's so amazing that your kids have you because we didn't have own parents and our healing right oh my gosh yes it's insane and still i mean the re-parenting experience man i could i feel like i could write still not be enough of the way in which i have grown in that becoming a as a female growing up in that context in that church because my in calvary chapel deep right we were at everything we set everything up we were dad was the bus driver yeah my dad was a deacon like oh my god sorry because he was a firefighter yeah he was a lot of firefighters in we were just like we were like a court you know like a backbone of that place you know um and yay child labor we're totally gonna lead service and i'm like yeah i'll ride ride my bike to the yeah this one name but this one family would host like morning devotions at like 6 a.m my bike down these dangerous windy roads in the country in pataluma on a bicycle in the fog to go leave worship at 6 a.m you were a perfect perfect christian when people say like you know things when you leave know oh you were never really you just were never really committed to i have receipts bro you don't even know you don't even know bro like oh i love god way more than any of you i love god more than anything in the not to you don't even know and they really don't even know like i've sat i've described to him some of the things and thoughts that go through which i let all of that shit you know shape who i was and what i did in my literally have like panic attacks if other people near me were doing sinful and bad but a lot of those things were just like kind of normal and i would be so burdened and like overwhelmed by like i can't even be i would my body would literally freak out like it was in my blood it wasn't believe in jesus oh just kidding i don't like it was everything it it's life or death exactly and then you're also told that this life is in the world be like or what is it yeah be in the world of the world and present it's like don't be present now wait until heaven right which is escapist mindset if that makes sense like it's a way to escape the that you take part in here on earth and like escaping the responsibility about injustices in the world yeah right and even if those injustices your family and so like it's like well well in this next life we're all wait what yeah no like that's just you're just trying to like escape the by this like eternal thinking it's like how about though right here and because we're right in front of each other you know um it's interesting like how so much of your childhood to teenage years were like you were like barely even literally psychologically handle somebody else just living a to you that wasn't this perfect evangelical christian life and it's pyramid scheme that you know you originally it's like as a seven-year if you don't give your life to christ you're going to burn in hell and the already evil so it's the fight or flight at seven years old yeah and part right that first part's like boom you're seven-year-old scared rules so much right it's like so like being next that fear like fear and i think that like that's why i i don't know if i don't think my i'm not trying to call them out but like with anybody that's not a their community is so only that but do you remember being told that i do not have friends who are non-christians because they'll pull you slippery slope don't fall down the slippery slope oh dude when i first like uh seventh grade i actually made friends i remember feeling guilty for that weren't christians yeah and having to tell mom and dad like to them they they said this and i'd feel so guilty just someone's saying so much guilt so much shame yeah yeah when my family was very highly movements like iblp the bill gothard um what's it stand for iblp yes um leadership program i can't i can't i was like it's like a convention so like ati homeschool like you know all the girls wear skirts and blouses and pants it's very um very complementarian very like men are at submit kind of thing and it's very very ultra conservative very the quiverful movement which is very adjacent to that where it's like have you can to build up the army of the lord and to create these like like it's called the quiverful movement and legit like i remember my parents and um uh mike and debbie pearl were a part of that and they are super written books they've actually had like a lot of legal stuff against supporting active child abuse like their their methods were very abusive books from them and and james dobson and focused on the family they had a they really clung to along with the calvary chapel um movement which we we were home we were pulled from school then after we left catholic christian school for one year and then they started homeschooling us homeschooled how long i was homeschooled from fifth all the way high school so through high school i begged and pleaded daily in middle took a public school and you know how involved like i was in youth group our family was there sunday morning sunday night you know tuesday morning devotions most weeks at the you know at 6 a.m um a couple of us as night and friday night and then if they were programming on sunday or were just we read everything yeah um and so that was kind of our social kind of existed in this bubble it was like our family and then the calvary and we could go to school campuses for their jesus clubs where that was evangelism opportunity for us that's why we were allowed to go on campuses the jesus club and that's it yeah um and i would beg my parents like all my friends from youth group they're going to school like it's not and i was really insecure because even though i was being homeschooled not an adequate education most isn't most and you were aware of that oh i all the way through high school so i was very aware of it because there mine that would talk about their homework or i'd be at their house homework and they'd be doing stuff and i'd look at it i have no idea like i mean you know my mom like they would you know they would write us lesson plans there's a lot of good intentions a lot of the time but then one of seven kids and it's like how do you how do you homeschool seven would need to to match like a normal education track you know so i have a and as i've gone through a lot of healing like i have a lot of they were trying their best a lot of times but very heavily misguided by be doing there was so much fear that influenced that decision so it wasn't academically best for our kids it was like there's so much fear of our kids they're going to be tainted and they're going to be influenced so we and safe and in this bubble yeah but what that did then instead was we experience okay when i graduated high school i had i ended up doing a like for like academic uh levels of like things you should know by the time and i found this little survey thing and this list of like by the time you should be proficient in this list yeah i remember reading it and the ninth grade level no when i but i graduated high school i passed the them and i was like okay but i have no idea what these things mean i take um i took one algebra class at the junior college that convinced my there because i wasn't getting education at home and we had like were teens we didn't watch it if we didn't have to be like oh i'll watch yeah i mean tell a 15 year old to go do our algebra homework and she's you know so there was really not as much strong oversight to make sure i milestones so when i graduated high school i thought i can't go to a going to find out i don't know anything yeah not to mention as a the emphasis was so high on your your role is to get married and have remember there being times where my mom would say like it's okay like you order to do you know what you're called to do which is to get married remember being like but i'm really good at things and i'm i'm really more but like i'm not given the opportunity you know so i walked i calvary chapel bible college because like well i could study the bible where i can like folk i know so much about it already and i've been least that's like a noble thing to seek out right i'll be studying god i was all about like staying pure and being on god's good side right intentions good and being the good christian girl um and so i went and i calvary chapel bible college in maui and then i came home and worked for a the murrieta main campus and that's where funny enough that's where my began was at calvary chapel murrieta bible college wow what made what it's really interesting but i was there and i just remember so my my very strong i am as they as some would describe as an empath like i like cheers it's wonderful and terrible at the same time right um sometimes it's a curse yeah i remember as a kid being told by you're just too sensitive and i'd be like i can't help it like i walk into feelings like and i just but i always would have this feeling inside of me like altar calls or some of these messages about like you know you're in my own home like julia if i let you be who you are you would be a and i can't let that happen who would say that to you i you know people family important members of my family and i remember just being so crushed those again were developmentally important critical years were then about who i was and my intuition was like it's not true like i'm good and not bad and and like you know sure do i make mistakes and do i mess up and and you know whatever yeah but like i'm a good person and i was doing good and i'm thinking i can't even try any harder to be any better but like who i am at my core like that part of me like is it would be messed with me so much and so i always had though this really strong all the time like that's not true and it's not true maybe sitting in youth messages about you know hell and god's gonna deny you if you deny him like okay but if god is who you say that they are then like that can't be right so i went to bible college for the second semester and i remember had so many rules i mean i this could be a whole other podcast for sure um and so many things i was like this is really intense like maui was pretty i was gonna say at least it's a maui and like i think that they had they of that laxy lax musical like let me think goes they had their very strict least like you know we were all living in condos it wasn't like a big a little bit more even though there was some really rigid intense things intense on this compound of calvary chapel marietta i don't know if you been there oh yeah totally which marietta is the home of carriage not marietta specifically right um costa mesa is the home and then property that they owned for the bible they actually sold it two years moved to somewhere else but uh yeah yes they had like a retreat center the ground zero for carriage chapel and you went to like the source of is how you become the power i think that's where our father graduated grabbed i don't know i don't know he did but he went to the he went yeah chuck smith and but again all you're doing there's learning learning the yeah right exactly and you're learning it through chuck smith things where every week we had to listen to seven hours worth of what they were chuck smith's chuck tracks from the beginning to end of the called chuck tracks how is this not looked at as a cult oh no no okay so if you're out of it but in it they're like not a cult no in it they would okay it is fenced in with security gates coming in or out right oh god gate office there's walls of students who are banned for speaking out getting caught doing inappropriate things cute like there's literally a i'm like oh man maybe my maybe my pictures i bet you get up there it it's a trophy of success what an accomplishment to get on the marietta so intense and so regulated they literally had like security people school regularly and then they had curfews so it'd be like if you're not you will get written up and then you have to show up at 6 a.m the next and explain why so i remember getting there and hearing all these crazy some of them one of the really bogus was girls are not allowed to leave because then boys will see you with your wet hair and know you just took thinking about you taking a shower and they will stumble oh god so so we unless we had our hair blow dried real or in a braid or in a bun or have our hair visibly just to preference that so this doesn't feel how long ago was this that was in 2007 yeah 2007 yeah okay okay yeah i would be sitting in these uh mess you know in these classes and my to me like this is not this is not how it should be this is not how it hermeneutics class and the hermeneutics is like the um the uh like quick definition wise is like basically the um underneath like the bible's interpreted and like taking a scripture and breaking it down like understanding like the latin the greek that all the different and then taking that scripture then kind of deconstructing it um and like kind of like you know understanding what it actually means so then we can back in and go scripture by you know verse by verse chapter by chapter you if you break it down to that hermeneutical level right that was they offered at that at that um school sounds a little bit like you mean you could have but it was all through the lens of right it's all in right so they had all of us like write a little like sermon as part of assignments but what's ironic is that when like the girls had to get up and the sermon only to the girls but then when it was part when it was time for sermon they could read it to everyone and i remember hearing the that preached preached this sermon like this you know it's like 15 minutes god like she's really good at this like really good yeah yeah and i'm like but she's only telling this to us like this is the girls right and bummer because like she really understands this and she gets it and passion and such skill i remember thinking like what a shame that like this class and she's not even allowed to use her skill and her gift to its because women can't so you there was a very strong emphasis on well you important for when you're leading women's bible study or when you're that's what i was going to ask is what's and i'm only going to say this religion's purpose from being in it why would a woman ever even go to to marry a pastor so it's just to marry a pastor and have more it's it is so some some women really do want some sort of ministry position be a missionary or they want to be a children's ministry leader or a they want to marry someone in ministry and then do ministry with and some women like some girls who i was in school with they were like going to be fruitful for me if what i wanted to do was marry a missionary be in ministry so that's what the intention would be for them do people to this college um or is it like they might it's actually so this is a it was a retreat center right so that made the college a lot of money to come and stay there and hear speakers and whatnot and it was all run by the students so all the labor was done by the students yard work me so every other weekend i put in 16 hours worth of housekeeping cleaning from people who would come and stay so it was all run by the students out of pocket expenses for this so then they were able to keep tuition so i believe it was like 3500 a semester so we paid that i mean it is that and then i went and then i had to work 16 hours either eight hours a other week um and that was what i had to do you're painting churches as a church in college yeah you're like it's like hard labor to learn the well it really never stops too because if you become a i won't speak spouse of a pastor every pastor's wife in the coverage apple context they end up doing free labor for the church yeah as the pastor's spouse not on the payroll they're not children's classes yeah it's just those women's studies yeah so um that's kind of you know so then it uh was it like you were wanting to do something in ministry or were you a pastor i did not want to marry i did not want to marry a pastor and now right because okay so it's ironic because spoiler alert i'm married to were just talking about how pastors are really hard title sometimes for people like us who've been traumatized it can be yes if you met triggering least least threatening individual i've ever met in my life who embodied the message and being of jesus more than this person than this elaborate a little bit more about that later i joked then like his one because i i was so dead set like i will never marry a pastor i will in the military or gone all the time which is basically the same i mean right but like i was thinking that because that would be a really hard like i i would i would go through so many other hard things but i will not i was just terrified of being stuck in this for good reason cycle yes not want it so i would say that to some of my classmates and some of my friends and they were like why would you say that julie and it was like a female say that right um but i was in another class called pastoral first and second timothy first second third john titus you know these and like to the churches and stuff supposedly supposedly so so it was these are the ways in which to pastor and so it was every class the the would say this is for pastors and past future pastors wives or current and understand this but these messages are for pastors exclusively preaching the gospel and bringing these messages there was one point was like what does this mean for me as a female reading the bible why am where does it say oh it was it was one of my the first times like really something doesn't seem right but like my intuition was just dying i was like oh my gosh and this was the class i had right before this one or proverbs 31 class you literally learned to be a proverbs 31 one was how to take care of a husband the entire class only women could be in have we literally had to have demonstration days where we'd like house and we'd all be in charge of like chopping vegetables preparing we'd have to do as a pastor's wife or as a horror film godly wife this is a horror film just to reiterate this is calvary chapel yes so this is uh more time calvary chapel marietta bible college 2007 that yeah that's just bigger now 100 and they're probably still doing this exact thing school yeah it's wild to think of how much of an impact chuck smith had and created yes because he just made it to hollywood it's so beyond the religion but then there's this culture this cult of calvary chapel yes i talked to the people that aren't part of calvary chapel and sorry you went through that and they still are christians and they believe i'm like how could you and it blows my mind right but it's calvary chapel i wrote a paper actually funny enough that was called the cult of calvary this like multiple page paper all about the history of its origins and went up real early um that one is a um a feather wrestler for sure i it anywhere else but it's yeah i wrote it and i spent a lot of time was honestly to go that deep and to go back and be like just writing oh totally like it's so powerful it really has been so in that like i that class back to that pastoral epistles class and he said this isn't not for you it's for pastors and it's important for pastors wives to know way in which god is instructing their husbands or their place yeah and i can't believe like an entire section of the bible would just be like i from it it doesn't make sense to me and he was like well it doesn't have that's just what it is and i remember sitting there just being like okay so if you're a pastor's wife it'll be important like but i don't want and like her whole class being like girls going like i was like but i don't so what does it mean for me and that's when he responded that like it to you this is just how it is so he's basically saying fuck your critical and shut up yes and all the girls are looking at me like yeah and they're like crazy heads like what did she just say out loud and i just sat okay so at the time i had a job at starbucks down the street i was doing and i was working 14 hours 14 to 18 hours at um starbucks there were two literally saved my life and changed the trajectory of my entire life i've them to reconnect with them like since and i one day i hope that i can friends with them working with them and they very lovingly and gently give me some pushback they'd be like yeah we went there once and we left being like oh wait they were like they were they went to the college as deconstructed and they left but they just like flat out left and they went we're done i guess we're on the highway to hell so they might as well even they in there at least at that time they were not interested in that was they were just like bye like once they learned those first two testing the waters and they were just out out and they were but they were they would see me and they go julie like we care about you so much and person like we and like it took probably a month and a half of us kind of just gently pushing back things like have you ever asked about make sense and finally one day i was on shift with both of them and they we really need you to know that you're in a cult and i remember they the very first people to ever use that word and i remember my first response was to be like oh my god no way i'm like who wouldn't and as i that way this little voice inside my intuition was like that same voice right and you know it and i remember being like so simultaneously i'm like for this institution this that i've been a part of it's like literally yeah so i'm like i i wanted to fight but then immediately it was like my relief like finally someone said it and i remember just looking at them held me in this starbucks like we're in our starbucks aprons they're like you're gonna be okay and i was like no because it makes sense like you're and then we just talked every shift after that for hours and hours and about it and all of a sudden it was like once i saw i could not unsee and it was layer after layer after layer so that night when i went home um i 0 1 p.m so you know who was right around the corner was this security on me real fast and was like get out here you're being written up i was be a difference of our watches at this point like it's like 30 seconds i'm almost in here and she goes well once you get in there you still have ready for bed and that's going to be awake time like are you telling me like have brush what if i want to get into bed just like this and mind your doesn't matter but she was like no you're getting written up you have to tomorrow morning at 6 a.m and i was just like this is crazy so my other got written up as well we show up to the office she's scared out of her immediately was like yeah dude try me like yeah try me it's like what are she was kept looking at me like julia how are you just so okay i'm like like i am like 19 years old i got written up for like being 30 seconds no so he said like what's the reason and i was like the reason is i just crossed the threshold of my dorm 30 seconds too late like i shouldn't be went through this whole like don't challenge me kind of posture you know are the rules julia and i was like i understand but they're dumb you said i was like i should not have a security person roll up on me for dorm like either you trust us to be adults or you don't like i understand be real like why am i here i should be sleeping because i have work and i my friend was just like sitting there shivering like i can't believe she's but i felt so empowered by this conversation i'd had the day before i had had with these people who i was trying to just like ask questions to shutting me down i'm like i'm not even trying to be a pastor here i'm just doesn't make sense the math isn't mathing and nobody wants to wants to talk about it and if you try to talk about it they're like it's it's just not for you yeah and so i that was when it started for me and the more i would talk to my friends and the more things that i started to school i stayed in the world the reason i stayed i had like a month i remember thinking if i leave early i'm gonna have to explain to my and to the church so i have to explain to them because we were so i'd have to explain to them why i left early yeah and i'm not ready to tell they're gonna kick me out they're gonna disown me i don't have have anywhere to go i don't have enough money to go live on my own you know what i just need to ride it out for one more month you're fine more month finish get home figure out what i'm gonna do so i did that so i low i did took as you know many hours at starbucks as i could finished i my grades which is so unlike me now i was just like just get it done do in check out and i left like when are you coming back and i'm just like you know i got home and i immediately because i started working at back up to the store i'd been at i got a nanny job in the afternoon so at starbucks i'd go pick up the kids that i need for starting at 12 to 3 whole mom thing for them for a couple hours great family i'd drive from at 5 p.m for a restaurant and i was a hostess and i would be then done at three jobs i was just trying to keep myself busy 100 so busy and to save if i'm gonna go like the second you give your truth to anyone they're at all and i was like nobody can know yeah and i need to just like like you make as much money as i can and stay out of my home and out of like responsibilities at the church as much as possible because i i don't can talk to you about this and um so i stayed so busy just completely three jobs i eventually got offered a job well actually at that time i i should just like leave but i kept thinking where am i gonna go i don't church and i had a few friends outside of the church but i was so them like i don't know and yeah i had this really serious conflict of like church and this institution because i see things now that like i can't but i don't necessarily want to leave god and i don't know that i'm done anything other than faith too but i was scared because in that culture we to understand if you leave this you're you're done done done right these walls is doing it right it's black and white and so it's very either you're on this path or you're on the wrong way or the highway thinking i can't i can't do anything because if i leave this i lose my because they are not they're not gonna understand church everything totally so i remember like looking into okay maybe a way that i can maybe i'll apply to like those overseas mission missions like with y and i started applying to like i mean they're in there a whole other i applied for hillsong school of ministry because i loved music and like i just need an avenue that will be acceptable to them but that will i'll figure it out then when i get there um at that time i had taken from working three jobs i was able to just work one and um right at that really really trying to leave uh there was an attempt to try to get me i very much did not want to be with and it not the college at the church like left the college yeah well after i left the college yeah so it was a were involved my family was heavily involved like this guy said he's should marry him almost like a planned marriage almost but it was god told me i'm supposed to marry you pulled that whole thing right we know actually no no um and i won't say any names and like this person now you person i don't really know them very much anymore but what i do know of not this person anymore okay like that needs to be said for sure but um to marry you but god how crazy they had said some really terrible things make jokes about oh are you guys dating and would make some very awful very abusive comments and i won't say them out again it's just not nobody misogyny and it was very very toxic and i remember just being like why friend like that's terrible to say that so then when this big heart i'm supposed to marry you i'm like whoa yeah what hey there buddy yeah my family and my family was like this is the one this is nobody would i i this is not what i want so leaders in the church families in the you know influential to and close with my family they're like julia thing like no you guys like i don't feel this and i don't believe this right but they kept pushing like this is it so i started because i was this purity culture another time but i was on that purity culture path hardcore anyone i hadn't given in to any temptations for anything i had i had right for a while and i was like no i don't want this person it's not right would listen to me and it was so i started to think like maybe i'm wrong right and they know better than me because it had been conditioned to the church and in my family so i started to question like okay maybe i my heart because they kept saying you need to change your heart toward him your heart toward him and i'm like oh okay okay okay i guess i was i really praying constantly i was fasting i think i lost like 12 pounds in two like fasting and praying and stressed and anxious and i wasn't sleeping to figure out if you even want to still be here right and i'm thinking is to be like married then to this person who's like trying to be a things i'm just like this is all going against everything that i know my myself is screaming at me like do not do this but when everyone around it's so hard when you've been entrenched in that to trust yourself at risk if i were to trust myself we know the message you can't trust well i think like at this point so what you're 20 years old at this sense of self no besides that inner voice no that was it that was that couple times that i tried to challenge right and to kind of speak who who i was but i was terrified of her because i was told all the time horrible and you're going to be terrible and horrible yeah have you what who that voice is was is it the little girl like is it the seven-year who is that voice age-wise i don't know that i have like an age it's just it's me it's you it's your truth it's your spirit it's me and is in the last couple years i remember there being a moment in my therapy journey um where i finally was able to like almost tangibly and to really truly hold it finally and be like like you're not you're like i'm gonna cry and i did i like just like sobbed and wept through it you've always been good and you've always been good and that moment in journey was so pivotal because once i was able to see that and acknowledge and to say you're good like you really are good you've always been therapy but it also came through my learning and knowing and re-parenting my own children and looking at my daughter and being like you're so you're wonderful like everything about you that it helped me find that my current self and to say like you're good like you always have been that shift that i finally was able to shift my entire perspective then myself through the world the way that i took care of my body the way i took i was felt worthy of investing time and energy into i felt worthy of the previously i would say i don't know how i got this thing i don't know how always tell my husband like i don't know how i got you i don't know how i deserve you he would always be like what are you talking about like it's deserve each other because we're wonderful people and we like just and i and i was always so afraid that one day he would see that terrible and that he would reject me and he would always be like what are you everything about you and he'll always say this to me too he's like i always beginning i always saw you you just didn't see you and you didn't know and how good you were and how deserving you are of good things and literally changed everything about my life then all of a sudden i was able still toxic or unhealthy relationships that were in my life putting up boundaries now and i'm going to do these things i'm going to and i'm going to heal my physical body from all this trauma that i deserving enough or i've tried to change physical parts of my body in a lot of extra weight my whole life and i suffered from an eating almost a decade and i just would kind of abuse my body in that way with food and all those things and but it was always from a position of like like hate and then it's it shifted into like care and nurturing and like care about her and i want her to be well and so that you know propelled to that time where i finally rejected that yeah so i rejected that it made and they were just you'll be you know like you're going to regret this i person very much made it known to me and everyone in that starbucks that regret that decision and i was just sitting there like well i guess it wasn't until one girl that i knew outside the church that she said to this is not right for you and i remember being like finally somebody with me at this level and i was like i felt like more empowered than to do this i met my husband my new husband just a few weeks after that i didn't even have like any like it wasn't an immediate romantic interest like oh okay i could put this face to the name i had heard about him and um we started talking a little bit more and he asked me out i was very like safe with him he just felt like there was something about him that was just so different and again i i joke about this and i'm like your only flaw was because that was the only red flag that was like but he's a pastor but pastor he's a youth pastor at the time i remember like no julia you me was like he is good he is safe and he sees you and he loves you he cares good thing pursue this and i was always checking in with my intuition at my church some of my family members were very like this isn't you you'll be back here we know it like you should just because i just california yes and because he was very much part of like a progressive and what they have referred to in the past as a false teacher spreading a know he he uh like his theology just really freaked him out and they were to me i was like oh my gosh i've never seen god the faith like his demonstrated in a way that really is beautiful and peaceful and non and not controlling all those things are very true about my husband and lives out his role as a minister of jesus's life you know it's hard to like hard for us as a pastor as a christian pastor because it's he i i this space to differentiate that outside of that you know he still of a christian church you know whatever but for people who've been through it's important to have that differentiation right because it is never talk to a like if i was looking for a support or like advice or go to a pastor that was affiliated with any religion yeah but i have blessed and done a lot of healing with some amazing spiritual leaders to break through a lot of trauma to be okay with them because they were religious but then i realized god there's so many religions there's so so many different beliefs and with the ways people find their calling to give back and and so i'm still like really opposed you know like mechanism to like all of it but i would say like in the last three up to spiritual leadership more just by like receiving yeah you know like or whatever and like and so and zach and i have been talking a lot on this much we are opposed to like anything that has to do with you know like our in our family to have family therapy now that we have this podcast not forever yeah especially for years they're like no no no now that you're and you know we know that there's like they want a christian therapist going to happen that way yeah right because it's so skewed or whatever there's real therapy and then yeah and and there's people that we've be on our podcast you know who are like still working in christian modern and like very non-conservative where they're not even considered the worship leader yeah still doing worship you know and like when i i never could imagine like what what you know like it's hard for me to christianity because of how bad calvary chapel and like i was sharing so eloquently and yeah so beautifully your story i feel like if every day we wouldn't do anything this makes the podcast so much easier you know our mom was catholic like italian catholic met my dad and like to christ and it was like this revolutionary thing and i remember how like catholics and christians believe in the same god though they like christianity kind of is catholic and it was like my whole life was highway and that's what was ingrained in us so like even you like you had family did and then the calvary chapel church was like it's no that's perspective that's a false way of doing it yeah and i find that so chapel and evangelical christianity can pull people out of christian i was gonna mention that when she first said it yeah it's like different thing power of the cult man yeah you have like can even pull you that you devoted your life to and i remember being like my dad you know jojoba witness would come to the door you'd invite them in okay so now i do reasons but like uh but i remember so being like so it was so amazing to to do that so like brilliantly and these jojoba witnesses would like be know how to like respond that's where you want to get them right and i just but i would still always be like i'm so confused because we all believe in believe the same sort of things and yet my dad like are the evangelical joe witness are crazy that's a cult mormonism is a cult yeah like you're other things yes but now it's like when i think of it it's like you have and you have calvary chapel evangelical i'm like or baptist too that are like just at different times in history or seventh day in studio was which was like a fascinating another side of it that's 1800s and like all these different sectors of men mainly white men that now and that was like chuck yeah it's just absolutely fascinating to see it that happens it really is and so now you're like in a relationship that's were like i'm never going to be the pastor i know was there like when you how to ask this but like was there a lot of like security in that though that he was doing something spiritual that you knew so much about like lines maybe i don't know yeah you know it's interesting because i found a lot of safety in who he was and i just was so attracted to who he was personhood that i was like oh there's just something about you and it's more i learned about his family that i'm like they were one of the very got to really like enter into like to be like front row seat to guys like emotionally healthy individuals and these are people who uh like he i conversation where i said something about childhood or whatever and i mentioned something about like oh yeah well i'd get hit for that for i was like yeah yeah like getting spanked but like you know pretty like he was like no i'll never forget his posture like he was trying so hard to yeah i can't i don't freak out because like she's not freaking out freak out like this is normally he's sad and he was like um no that's yeah what is this like wrong with that and i was just like this is yeah like you normal and he was like no that i've not experienced that and i was like at him like he was the crazy one i'm like no explain explain now right was like my parents like never laid a hand on me never screamed at me and i is a lie lies but then i spent time with his parents and his family and i lying and like this is possible like oh my god this is possible no wonder person with no childhood traumas like his parents did this work of like you creating like emotionally his parents were like christians they were and church and you know and really like i can't speak enough to the fact that some nazarene churches that are pretty like hardcore conservative but comparison to calvary chapel and that's they're just they're like that very quickly um went through him and especially the way in which he um acted and operated as a pastor very trauma aware very peace led like non never never preached hell and eternal term you know term torment like that doesn't believe in that i don't believe in that like it's just that's god you know there are some nazarene churches who do but like so all these learning about him i was like okay so like they've always told us that like connection to god can't exist outside of these walls but they were lying it onion peel to like pull back yeah i'm like they were not they were lying and like look at this and these ministries that he's a part of so i that because i was that place where i didn't necessarily want to leave also was like but i don't know what to do and he was like here i was to other problematic organizations to go serve at in order to get out of my problematic organization yeah but then i found him and i was like there and some ease that like i think like the divine or universe knows what this is a pretty easy transition into like oh i'm leaving the church pastor he's not like a you know an accountant who goes to this other to ours i need to go to his yeah and so it's like an easy out kind of and for that part because it like really even though my family was still very they didn't agree with that yeah theology they ultimately they were guess this is what she's doing um but i never was talked to by the pastor about it it was kind of just like a we're just gonna let this go but some were like julia we're concerned about this we don't think this is the right theology that they believe i'm like i forget it guys like nope yeah um like married and it kind of stayed as this little safety net for me of i feel don't feel like i have to do anything major to break break free anymore um but i i need to do something because sometimes i'll hear messages said by or done by christians that i don't align with and i feel very but i didn't really have the i think at that point i was still struggling a lot of other trauma religious trauma but also like familial trauma i was like so like drowning in it all that i was like i just don't have this out right now um a year after we got married we became foster parents placements and then after that so we did that here in sonoma county for a was a roller coaster ride with some christians we knew because it was in weird ways that we were like helping children without parents yeah supportive but like there would just be some things that were like you for the parents you know you shouldn't be doing too much for the just be trying to rescue the kids and like the parents need rescuing and things like that that were just weird and that we would just often be like incongruent with the whole pro all life yeah you know like message here my family was generally pretty supportive you know and very loving for um in that time still have a relationship with one of them that we first year really beautiful um beautiful beautiful soul and i just connection with her yeah that's wonderful um which is great and um pregnant had our you know first baby and then continue to have babies and just like a you're in the baby life and i just always in the back of my like i'm uncomfortable i know i have this trauma but i just can't deal it on the back burner and just kind of be there to support my husband who that i i i could see was good in and wasn't problematic and that was of just go okay yeah this is better this is good i can kind of rest in until my dad passed away well we lost um a pregnancy at 16 weeks uh 12 and yeah thank you it was our third pregnancy and lost the baby in july diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor in november and then my dad passed happened within six months what year's this was 2016 and my dad 2017 so it was like a six month period of just grief and loss and fear of the fear of loss and also the all of the scripts i had ever been grief were all just like coming up and i'd look at them and be like what helpful this is not this is actually traumatizing to tell somebody who's know you have your other children that god has put in your life to care you can get pregnant god needed another and oh my god like things mother-in-law or my losing my dad they'd say these like you know these messages of like how to cope with grief and i just remember being at all none of it and people are trying to spiritualize loss and grief and um i'll never forget like i just remember being so like i felt like i for those six months like just i couldn't tell which way was up i was dad's memorial service someone said god chose to carry out this disease to god even in his suffering my dad died from als luke eric's disease so i remember we have that in common and so far yeah it is awful it's awful there i was brand newly pregnant a couple weeks pregnant with my third um our you know third living child and i was just a couple weeks listening to this and i was like noticeably i was sick to my stomach i remember thinking so vividly like if god if that's who god is that they to inflict a horrific terminal illness on a man who dedicated his so loving and sacrificial and cared for everyone loved everyone if if take that person and go you i'm going to choose you because you're going to me and love me oh god i'm going to have you do this and take him away seven children all these people that love him i want absolutely nothing to 100 and i sat there and i was so enraged i felt like you could of me that i was just like hot i could throw up i was so sick i was yourself for anybody who saw me probably just thought i was a really i was and my dad died but i was enraged and i'm sitting in the church so i'm in that place already very triggered i was like you're going listening to people say these things and afterwards say similar things to god knew again look at all those people that showed up who heard the dad's memorial and i remember being so sick anyway we drove either we was the reception place for like lunch after or we're driving home and i threw my tears i will never ever let anyone call me a christian again this can't get behind this i cannot get behind a god who would do that i that is awful that's horrible that is not a father who loves their children refuse and i will never ever let anyone put me in any group that to be similar i can't do it anymore and my husband who is by definition at me with tears in his eyes he was like i understand i get it and i love and i hate that for you because i agree that's wrong that's not who god your dad to do this god is not this self-seeking you know like maniac who's willing to let people suffer so that people will love them that he needs that that they especially a god of love right yeah congruent with anything that you know like it's just and i remember him being like yeah i get it and so i get for you why you need to do that messed up yeah and the more things that i would start talking to him i started working really deeply through the trauma therapy because i a year later um no surprise welcome right yeah so that was when we moved later to pennsylvania to you know be supportive of his family and after suffering postpartum depression i had been separated from all my community country and lost my dad i didn't know how to grieve and so i was like we the west coast i just can't i don't i just can't do it out here like we it's not about the people i just i need this i need to go so we did and getting into therapy almost a year later a memory therapist who i still um and uh yeah it's a long relationship it is a long me she is um you know let's get her on the cast she's an incredible human so grateful that i was able to find her um because she has been a totally journey and it was so strange though you guys like i had never i office right before my dad died i knew i needed help and i was trying way was up and i went to this like baby therapist because she was like she was doing that okay yeah and i mean i'm gonna be doing that in a get it like the baby part is not like an insult it's just uh she was just new and she was like so green like some of our some of our um sessions there like like what the fuck do i do okay like if she's like taking her feeling like i think i need to comfort her i don't think she's okay for this and so i was like okay this is not working out you know fast one of the people at the church my husband was working at um is the dean uh for a seminary down there and he was just like a really great guy and you please help me like give me some direction who do i who should i go to recommendations i need help and it took me probably no less than five maybe even like by session three i i walked in and i like you know i each of them and it was very clear like this was the person i felt the was like this is it yeah and it was almost like my body was just waiting i was like this is safe this is the person let it go because it came in full on miley cyrus status like whoa and right there just naked totally it was so vulnerable and i i honestly like i remember a couple of sessions i'm sorry this was kind of a lot and she was like obviously this is just i remember thinking like oh no is she gonna tell me this is too much but it was just so like telling of just like how long i had just been been keeping so much of it from my own husband because i didn't want him like this is too much you shouldn't your whole life has been protecting from everyone else yes your whole life sounds like it's been like right back home every time i'd come back to petaluma my body would remember and i parents home and i'd turn into this completely different person i'd be i'd be like hostile toward like everyone around me like kind of on on like yeah i dare you you know and they would because that was that's they did and i remember telling my husband every time if i would go up like how do i how do i keep myself from not doing this anymore like i i can't survive another week they're becoming this different person that's they bring it out i mean it took us a long time to like uncover it that's walking into your childhood home yeah where you have space your whole i've ever lived in wow my one home that was full of you know trauma like things too yes but every good thing was always bookended by trauma like or after and my body remembered because our bodies remember as much religious trauma it's like embedded in the space right right and so you like you know high alert you know and i would leave feeling like like i've hung over before uh and so like i would have equated though it's like like i feel like i'd get home from a trip like that like i feel like i'm over like i don't know what to do with these feelings i feel like i and like my body my mind my emotions everything is so discombobulated and i when my husband and i were married i think he saw me like that one time he just saw me kind of be really different in their home and be way my husband i don't argue like we have we have conflict and disagreements like emotionally healthy and attuned people but we don't fight fight we he saw me like fight fight with one of my sisters and i was like yelling other we were so defensive like what the hell i remember we were driving crying because i couldn't believe i had like let myself do that but it to be here i always had to fight i always had to like you know serve was just so bizarre that was like one of the first times too that he saw he there's some things i don't know about and it took time right now he times where he recognized like wow this is like a lot deeper than i there's um gosh so you made it out alive i made it i feel like we're we normally say that every cast we say some of us made it out alive some so yeah we kind of like made it to like more of like your current but the traumatic parts of like what was embedded in you was like from your were embedded with fight or flight and survival for your own life tell me if i'm wrong here but what i'm hearing there's so much in this i you as a woman and like what you've been through these gender were like prolific in your like inner voice being like yo this is not right little voice and it was women that i write that worked with you at women were like hey don't like so it was like this sort of community of the death of your father that like really regurgitated all of that of your own life losing it to the hell and then like gender like real loss and then those people that embedded you with that like they're like reinforcing it by being like by the way i know that you've life and any family member you lose it's because of the same fear yeah fear yeah it is i yeah i just recently made a a real you know i account and um started to kind of share a little bits of my story on a little scary but good like i know it's the right thing and even just posts now like i've connected with so many people already and i know i know do and i reached kind of a point in my healing journey where i felt like this for my processing i want this to help other people and like in you next year i'll start a side program to become a psychologist and this is doing so it just is kind of laying that kind of story and groundwork for song by what's his name benson something um beautiful things and i song where it talks basically about he met this girl he's in love with met his parents and but now he loves her so much that now he's afraid that away and so now he's plagued with this fear like god don't take away love and the song is so emotional right and like just this like very on the way home from school i think like a week or two ago and i had to i was sobbing like sobbing so intensely that i had to do like because that was a message that we heard from our pastors and our church god wants you to devote your love and attention only to him if you put anything between you and him an idol he'll take it away because that's a jealous god and god only wants your attention on on him and i remember in love with my husband i was terrified if he would leave to go on sleep he'd come home and the house would be like so clean or i would he's like when did you do this all night long because i couldn't sleep they were going to call me and tell me you were dead on the road but your i had my first baby i would literally stay up for hours just watching her didn't stop breathing because surely god knew my human heart loved her is so interesting deity that you struggle with that uh do you still not now no now especially since i've really like healed through my uh belief i don't believe in an eternal hell um and i don't believe that even though i don't call myself a christian anymore because i don't you know sure well there's i i very much consider myself a spiritual whether it's because i like to or because it's true like whatever i the idea of a divine creator who put all of this emotion and create all of and i think it can create really um beautiful connections spiritually for other with themselves and i just when i look around the world and when i children and all i see is goodness and love and i feel the love that i like could make me explode like you know as a parent right like there's love that makes you feel like i could i could probably just die right now feels right if i'm to compare to compare that to god to the divine much more magnified that must be when all the cosmos and the universe and they've created that they would look at it and go beautiful and like i would never see our love then for our offspring who we've created and if reflection of like a reflection of divine right we've been told you're that's true then we are born good yeah and we are born deserving of we're not a threat to the divine we're an extension of them right and talking about this last night as i was kind of talking about coming on stance um coming out of this and in this healing to be like anti-church fight and some people they they have to channel that rage somewhere and i'm i'm not going to tell them what to do with that my i believe so job my mission is to hold people's hands sometimes hold their faces hold metaphorically or physically and remind them that they're good and like it has to start within us and everything that we do then with our that good place of like seeing you as good and you're good and i'm good at want good things for you we don't want to harm you i don't want to harm know contribute to harm in the world i want goodness and when harm comes broken and flawed systems and trauma yeah then we want to heal and we start at a default setting of bad and awful and failure it's a self so when we do mess up well i was prone to do that because i'm human feel it right like yeah i mean it's it's embedded in that dna of that is and i just i can't um i can't justify like operating from that i grew up with who is very famous on tiktok unfortunately with some of one of the messages one time that i heard them say was before i even get sinned and i already need forgiveness so i need to before my feet even hit failed against god and i've failed against my husband and i've felt forgiveness before i even enter my day and if i don't start from that i need forgiveness and i need jesus to come and take over if i just let mess everything up i'm gonna make mistakes i'm gonna do this so i need me and like control me i remember and i still think this that's the from you are going to fail all the time you are going to make mistakes you doing like what a tortured existence yeah to live that way and to live into that because then you're operating as well i'm gonna fuck this i already prayed this morning or you know of course i let my husband down just because i'm such a failure instead of i want to put out goodness live into my goodness ensure there's going to be ways i mess up i'm going good and i'm gonna say make this better make amends you know take you actions and do better next time instead it's just such a tortured way people stay controllable totally that's how you keep them coming back pyramid scheme it is so it's just it all comes circles back right but i to see in themselves that they're good and to hold that inner child or that reminder to tell themselves are good because i just believe that really take place especially in this religious trauma context and this specialty that i'm studying and want to work in like i just want people to that because i think that that's where it can change and that's where generations you know look at my kids and i asked my son the other day and another re-parenting moment right i asked i was like what's your favorite uh because he was just being so adorable and he goes everything about about me god i love that so much yeah like little nine-year-old julia could i like everything about me was awful and i was a terrible horrible person i'm looking at him and he just was like it should be like confirmation doing you're doing as good as a parent it was and like i just i i was don't cry in front of me he just walked away like no big deal okay mom stood in the kitchen and just cried of course yeah you know hearing your that that just ends up like okay okay okay we're making it by like one person it's one life at a time right like i and i keep thinking this if my story my experience and finds healing in it it's it's all worth it get pushed back are we scared to death to put this out into the world but like i want i just really truly want every person to know that and to it's changed my life in every possible way yeah that's beautiful you're out of the cult i would say we're just like where's your question um but you just i think that i was gonna kind of ask something just said i think is like different than where me and zach have found our the church not to like just interrupt but just you talk so much about how want people to be like pushed out of this church you don't want them to be to be looked at this evil evil thing because there's you have this divine do believe in or well not not so much about the church i just mean that isn't to be like oh church has begun like wow like that's not my that's is to like slay the organization of the church do it does it does a lot and would it benefit from it all being torn down and yes 100 one wrong there and i don't think that every person belongs in a church us who've been traumatized by it because if god is a god that is like your child gets harmed gets bit by a dog you would understand why that to go around dogs and you do everything you could to protect them maybe some gentle re-exposure later on re-exposure therapy right so like but like we're gonna right and be cautious and you don't have to have a love them but like let's let's detach some of that fear because it doesn't that fear to control your life right so i want to help people heal from think that every person should go back into a church in fact i think some people who shouldn't um at all but god can be found elsewhere that kind of leads into your question like i have found god in so many of those ways is by living my life in a way that my compass always orients find the good in every situation that i'm in and if i can't find it i want i act as an extension of love and goodness in maybe a scenario where be any or how do i take part in goodness that's already going on be individually one-on-one with somebody um in a church not in a church in a maybe in a group that does nature hikes or goes running or of like communities that kind of like gotten into along the way where i've in really real intangible ways and so for me i don't my spiritual journey i evolving because the more that i learn the more that i know i realize like how much i don't know right yeah and i just i i'm never i don't think because on one and i don't think we're supposed to because we grow and and what i do know to be true is that that what i said like about goodness an extension of that and if i want a heaven to exist all i can do is do life that i've been given that's right in front of me i don't have to afterlife that i'm not certain of that exists that no one is certain try to say oh this is why it does and i'm not going to go on some campaign doesn't exist this is just that's not fruitful like it's just not and i'm not going to theologically debate people but what i believe is that god my life for whatever reason is here right now and so what am i going to and that opportunity how am i going to carry myself in this conversation how am i going to protect my goodness from those people or this situation i think i've learned a lot of really beautiful things through some recently um payma shondran who's a buddhist monk like her books are just learned a lot just about that and about how like our every engagement have is that god exists in it and so we can decide to contribute to good at is like because so much of what you're talking about is like where podcast and like most of my 20s was like when i walked away from the so aggressive being like this is all bullshit and like i had a lot of i'm not a christian like i'm not i don't believe in god god there is no like this proclaimed atheist all all of a sudden but deep down inside i i like out of fear i was like still praying before my meals and i lived amongst like and like the like very similar to you i didn't have space that like i couldn't even there was no desire for me to even think about i just like shut it off and then psychedelics like was like this sort oh my god god isn't everything right it was like whatever like i just acid or whatever was like an opportunity just to like re see the world a was like oh my god everything's breathing and talking to me and like i am the tree and like so there's like this the connection that it was god like you are god or whatever which my like my goodness like you not jesus through you i am god they're like yeah false promise yeah that up like my mid-20s that it was like what if it's not this like everything you're saying and i think that like what if like there's like appendage of god or like this extension of god and like jesus threw in jesus foot subject all these connections of like this like more and more i've like removed the damaging parts or like really started trauma i've started to feel god is like this person in me that like self like it is god those cosmos are like within me and i would say like for me really has helped reorient to like detach from this idea of like an an extension and more of just like what you just said like literally god not like a like and when i say that it's like i don't like us i still am i'm still opposed to this like entity or this thing that is that right it's mindset and a space of just accepting and surrendering to the moment into and that into like gardening has become like was something that i 20s that was like so meditative and very buddhist and like very like so able to see the process of like taking this like life in a seed that and then you plant it in soil and it produces life was so christian like so christian then i was like wait a minute christianity just took from the truth isn't everything in our lives and what humans do is they're and they're picking real truths they're from the truth they don't yeah on the divine not at all or creation or anything yeah so they're taught or embedded with that is like so powerful and manipulated and bad and so but that's what also gives it the strength it has i feel like the cult especially like the power of calvary chapel like can pull people are some of the things they're preaching are very true it feels like would never say that but like you are built in the image of god is the very of god is everything right and then they use that and then they well yes but also the cognitive dissonance that has to exist in that of god and if you are like god in you right and you're a reflection of god things like genocide yeah how do we other how do we other there's a whole we've been talking about it a lot yeah yeah but like how how do you penalty how do you then look at that person and go oh yeah you carry the but you should die because of that like we get we get to be the judge either either they are an extension of god and we need to treat them as us are yeah you know so like that there's so much cognitive dissonance just open the earth i know i'm sorry no no but like one of the things that is like you know there's a lot of people who hear you know and i'm sure this language too if people are like well what if you're wrong and what if day when you die nathan what if you're wrong you know and i've just and um i was watching a tick-tock video recently of someone kind of i agreed so much and i don't know who it is to give credit but it was like if i get if i die and there is a heaven and a hell and it's real and i sees me and can look at my track record of always aiming to do good to trying to be loving and trying to be caring not contributing to trauma agent in the world in my own ways even though it wasn't praying a a church if god could look at my whole rap sheet and look at all of straight to hell for you she's like if that's who god is i don't want to no thank you i'll take that i'll take it because like if these are not the be there yeah yeah and if the people that are going to be there are these hurtful people i don't want to be there you know it's it's like it's kind of ruined this also and at least at least you lived one life right if at least i didn't live it in such an oppressive like non-present way yeah really when i was like lost in the faith because it was always covered damnation and fear of god right and so you take that away and it's like pretty happy about things right and let go of it right and living for so we're like oh we're just we're just live eye on the prize and it's neglecting all this other reality going on around you this one life eternal life too like billionaires right and it's like there's so much extend life extend life live a longer life every so if you're being if you life ding ding ding you just made like you know billion dollars who can live eternally it's tapped into all of our deepest fears yeah exactly in our culture for sure right but like the way you're talking about daoism like hinduism a lot of the eastern religions death is or just culture and like other cult like you get out of white culture really it's out of white culture death is something that isn't really always as right it's and there's a lot of yeah there's a lot of different things i every culture though i mean there's still other religions that are just totally totally it's just not looked at as like um i guess in the same way worst it's the end and it's the like a healthy cycle of life it begins with death and we have a healthy understand that's how it works and takes away too soon and we mourn in a different way for that right but um in our in the christian world it's like okay that's the end and it's it's also like well why are you so afraid to die if heaven is waiting it's so amazing heaven's like super cold really loud and it's all gold as a kid you're like wow but then you're an adult you're like but you and a mansion and a crown come on it's amazing bigger than the guy next doing it you know adding jewels to your crown also quick comment just on no podcast just on the misogyny of of the culture we grew up in yeah uh i man powerful right powerful as a man what's the woman's job in heaven celebration in heaven cooking and cleaning exactly putting on polishing the gold yeah exactly that is a lot of gold there's no talk of that like in heaven no is there gender in heaven no there's no god doesn't have bible like let's if we're gonna go that's right god's a man oh my god like we just got it that's just a given right but like so if you're if you're gonna dissect some of the names for god they're they're gender a gender so when you call god they or them not only did you use these whoa yeah talk about gender on a spectrum right god is a man only a god only be man yeah masculine feminine and why did why if if that's why did jesus come through the form of a woman yeah why did he use a and why did he why did they use women to be the ones to discover that jesus dead why were they the preachers of that good news but like yeah we can't make them shut up like we can't do that jesus used them to announce that we're not gonna use them for that for everything in the bible yeah but it like i mean those those are some pretty critical yeah like like story of jesus that like totally came through a woman uh was you know like cross by a woman was discovered to have overcome death by a woman yet church and don't get to have a position to lead and she's like it especially the overcoming of death like that's such a big part of the makes it it's like history will tell you oh jesus did live so no one's but history doesn't tell you jesus was risen right and so the religion rise and that's what we live for right right if a woman confirms that confirmed that let's keep that over yes but let's not talk about that man in my plant medicine journeys and like really deep dives into finding godlike figures in our cosmos and whatnot almost every godlike energy with that's been like whatever my experience is they're like extremely all feminine energies just from like not putting gender just the spectrum and so much of my healing has been internally becoming my own mother i've been a really good dad to myself like that heart like christians i christianity is like the right these men reinforce these toxic masculine and uh and so my like so much of my healing what what like the other side has been like me embracing so much of a feminine energy and like breaking it's funny because i'm like this happened started happening like last of this religious deconstruction did that and it was so scary because it i've always had this feminine energy i've always had these like bisexual um but this toxic masculinity was just like wrapped in me you know it's deal with your emotions is going to be fear than anger you know and like highway and this is how it's going to be and like um i uh i also find it are the second woman that we've had on right yeah um and y'all's like we have all these similarities but this awareness of purity culture of like gender inequality did not hit me until i was way out of the church like even though i feel like i'm so well more like kind of woke on these who's just like a godsend no pun intended but um um has been are in this christian church from having any sort of awareness of sheltered so perfectly that it was like probably the scariest thing for sexuality and accepting like powerful feminine energy which now is like you know um i don't remember if i talked about this already that i piece of research that i've been working on uh to the american a poster yeah so i haven't heard back yet what is it for you to eat so um association they're like the big you know like oversight for psychology in a national conference every year and there's this exhibit hall where researchers can present on a poster their research so that people can it or they can say hey i like that come do that at my college or i'd study and take that data with you whatever um and it's just a really feedback to get recognition to see if this is something that like other professionals in the field want to pursue with you or have a place for a priest's id too yeah like it's really good for your resume oh last semester was he pulled me aside after my presentation actually didn't in front of the entire class and he went julia have you done anything submitted this anywhere have you tried to post or present this i was need to and i'm gonna tell you how and so i submitted um my abstract for and the um the conference is happening in august in seattle so i accepted or not if they do i make this poster with my research if they a few other conferences this year on the on the west coast and i'll try tell me the research so the research is about religious trauma and the so i conducted a very small scale not uh it's like not remotely meeting all like a legit study because i was i was in my associate's degree and i sexuality topic my research topic and i asked my teacher i was like can i six-page research paper can i expand this a little more and can i include take because of my particular upbringing and unique experience she with it like you know she's like i'm teaching associates level like i lot to like do it and i was like yes so what i did is i just created a i did put like a little disclaimer in it it's like i knew a couple things even taken research methods yet and so i was like and i thought maybe 50 take this maybe right because i knew like i grew up with people that are just take this survey and it was mostly about like okay what the when you're a child and an adolescent and how they've impacted you then how then about your relationship to your body and how and sexuality and your experiences um pleasure things like that and then now how it's translated this like 28 question i think um survey at the end i put this i made mistake in a bad mistake what a little like is all anonymous and i like box where if you have any thoughts you could just like write a add anything to this right there were a couple people that were like this are you doing this this is making the church look bad and i was like okay but there were so 728 people you guys took this survey when was this this my god 728 people so the link got shared on my social media but then my me the link i'm gonna share it online i'm gonna share it in this of i'm gonna share it in this other group i'm a part of i'm gonna share it went crazy and at one point when it was like three or four hundred i i like babe should i just like shut this down like this is crazy like i handle like this level it's a lot and he was like no the more data the like he's like there's like you know this is you hit something yes and i affirming that like i knew that like religious trauma and sex and to pursue that was it it was like yet another confirmation like this is so some of the messages you guys when i when i start publishing a little bit more openly and like i'm eventually going to public write a book about of this will be in there um some of these messages that were left to me i in like a four-week time span because they were so they're probably about responses in there so out of 728 more than half of the people wrote in to me about their own experience or the experience of their wife or their ex-husband or whatever did you read them all yeah i eventually got month the reason being is that i would read them and i would just cry affirming but deeply you're so connected to your research exactly and i'd talk to my therapist and be like okay this one what is this and you know talk about it one class for one class i ended up writing i professor and i was like so this paper and she was like i'm here put it turned into a 14-page research paper she sat down with me for an the paper and she was like julia this is unreal this is incredible she's their phd programs who don't get this many research responses like people many people to respond like what you have is so important she's like maybe the little technicalities to get this to a peer review level but that matter yeah you can still use it to support ongoing research so when i proposal i was able to include some of this like i already did this one non-peer-reviewed study this is what it has shown which indicates more area so this is obviously something i'm very very passionate about and need to become aware of who are still operating in church settings to do it more holistically and peacefully and well like my husband just i need we need to know everything about how to do this from informed standpoint and he's very gung-ho about that in his space and position and i just love him for that because that's it is so rare i mean ways he's such a unicorn and especially in this like so it's it's asterisk yes i am married to a pastor i don't consider myself a pastor's a very loaded title and i was given very very kind permission to let go pastor um the psychologist friend of mine and he was like he doesn't have on to that like you actually date he's julia myers's husband that's not wife that's that's your husband you know um and differentiation was it was good but he you know he's very like invested in this as well because want to know how how do we help other people not keep doing this and how do like yours and all these other people that you are in connection with and we our job isn't to force them back into a church our job is to help them and to then find god in their own way to find to find wholeness in their their own way um yeah and so anyway so that research i'm really excited in a couple weeks hopefully where that's going and so there's going to to talk about it'd be amazing to uh so like this wouldn't come out for a well i would write i would create the poster presentation for august so it yes you're in i'm going to create it for august and then it'll be people if they wanted to see it but it's it'll be just like a bit you like ongoing research it'll be you know i could potentially if i were to an offer to go do research out of school somewhere for my doctoral whole country yeah and when tons of opportunity right to connect any work here well no it's the it's the funding that that's where it's like is true and of course we know it right and we know there's right something to say right it's one getting the funding and like the research and then you can do the research and to be able to do it but 700 and something people and be like hey like just this moment people sort of funding and push it some sort of way totally and to get that kind an academic level with other psychologists and researchers you really excited because i see people you know um like forest right forest benedict who's on here and other people who are also doing similar culture which again we'll have to do a whole other cast about this a lot of hope because there's a lot of people like around my age and kind of ahead of me who were very steeped in that in the 90s and um early 2000s really heavy but it still exists it's still very prevalent um and so in women's roles right and in that it's gosh it's like that experience is talking to my husband recently about his experience at like summer camps it was like this for me it was like no big deal and i'm like oh my god about this or if we're really gonna talk let me tell you about how this let me tell you how this experience is wildly different and so there's it really does matter because women are held to a different standard can research those 700 plus people that responded was it heavily women did women i didn't actually so here's one a couple of things i didn't get age anonymous it's totally actually is it did i get male and female maybe i did male and female and then a denominational um affiliation i'm that that um the sex question you know male female non-binary anything did not remember to put that one in and that was like a late i literally next semester you guys and i was like damn it i could have done this and i would imagine like not this is all speculation but i would imagine very opportunity to take that like questionnaire honestly there were a from what i could tell were men because they were like oh my wife relationship with my girlfriend or my wife or i was gay but i was married so there actually were a surprising amount of men i i don't know i'd have comments again and see if i could maybe if they used their own you know indicate but either way it's something a lot of people are very because there's so much healing and feeling validated in that experience because it's such a sacred part of who we are um so it's something that to pursue it's heartbreaking and right and so it's a heartbreaking about but i'm excited because of the freedom that it will give a lot of will and yourself people and myself like you're it means like i always up being the real lucky ones that get to do this like all the time talk over and over and get deeper and deeper and then learn from so many we just are like like it's yeah it's amazing to like jump into something such a strong connection to it in our lives and are on that healing journey arms because we're not really meant to be alone in this life right we're which is another way they get you yeah yeah their community our else is bad um my last one of the things to like because i know we've hours yeah um you've really kind of captured a lot of your life here your your young adult your marriage and then like we've like learned so much inside of a marriage right where you guys have figured out the last person benedict who him and his wife he shared with us deconstructed together somebody that allows you to deconstruct for you and like i have amazing that's possible that it is possible okay you can do it um and how that looks and um i can only imagine like just how much you've and how much you've grown because of it and and you have like such a self like yeah you're this married woman but you're not the pastor's wife like i said like so much about like fear of loss and death that like led you like made such an emphasis on lack of education that you were aware years and you're now like becoming a doctor like come on dude like i really well your drive for academics was early even you just wanted to go school or whatever like you were driven to be like critical thinking now here you are like trying to become a researcher in psychology takes a lot to get to a sidey level yeah and to also be able to do the at an associate's level you're passing like you already did some when it's interesting because one of the things that was really like control right is if you keep people uneducated you keep them easy to you tell them this is your role you should get married and have babies your husband and you live you know happily ever after like okay um but i like i'm i'm not smart enough to like go to school i'm not this or that or years to finally feel like okay actually i've always loved people to me about all these things deep things like i'm such an empath like i people now that i've been in this journey myself like i want to help i do that and um it was actually my therapist who helped me kind of like think that i should work in this field like in mental health field and wholeheartedly i was like okay she would tell me if i was like not she right um and so i started going back to school um summer of 2021 and i since then um and i learned that i know i know i know i very much nerd really was like really heavily trying to pursue that for my associate's associates at a 4.0 because it was a gift i was giving to my younger self never stupid it was never because you didn't know it was because you didn't of opportunity it was lack of opportunity and i was able to prove confidence so much and continues to and i strive to be a really good at this point now like if i get a b in one of my classes right now like giving my very best effort but i still love that streak yes and i'm to lose epic amounts of sleep over it like i did my associate's degree that hold on um but that was such a gift to me but one of the things that just i was taking an astronomy class and i remember thinking this is why they to school yeah because yeah seriously if i took this class in high school i y'all are crazy this is bullshit like this is insane that you could think this young and that god is that small that he would be so concerned about like it's just like the the universe is so vast and infinite and like what about like there being a god a deity or whatever you know i feel like sense of the world as human beings we have to we sometimes just have to put that we can just understand with our little tiny minds with something so single or you know like a single origin source like god it's like yes only comprehend so much because look at the universe that we don't even we don't even know what i was saying to zach over the last couple podcasts i've thought about a lot that it would make sense that religion and religion would be such an evolutionary part of humanity for working and believing the same thing and supporting one another then like surviving becomes a joint effort and it can be really beautiful it can be where like food was the number one thing we needed to focus on forever like it feels so evolutionary where now it feels like against evolution like evolved more we have the internet we have more awareness more it's funny that you bring up the stars because that really was when i and he would stand up and be like so here's something else i learned about i'd be like oh my god this start looking up at the stars really were like i was telling you earlier like star wars as a kid took me over like whatever faith is faith but force is like the force is like this these endless galaxies and all these planets and different like beliefs this planet or isn't yeah so i like that because the stars saved me too just made me be more in awe of everything around me anything you you possibly live a limited and narrow view when you understand when understand and ask questions about that it's just infinite infinite yes we're talking forever it is we can talk forever that's actually like a like we don't have that big of a reach and so it can kind of feel like really heartfelt things to who um but really it's like we're uploading message it's like it's going on the internet i mean unless it'll be there eye of youtube takes it down i keep you know shadow banning us and and hopefully we don't get to that point where that would happen but it just be able to be putting like vulnerable messages on the internet there forever yeah i'm excited for it to you know with every new person you other like community of reach and you know people to reach right so i'm so several of my friends recently are like please send me the link once listen i want to listen and i'll share it and i'm here for it i'm we've had southern baptist twice now we've had a man out of southern a woman southern baptist evangelical which so many similarities to calvary baptist for sure and then to calvary chapel like from home so that's been really nervous for us to do this but like powerful so i feel like we've yeah thank you so much julio yes um but um and then we've had a gentleman seventh day of venice which blew our minds yeah totally the focus on professional education perfectionism so it's just like there's so many just scratching the surface here yeah i love it i think that there is a the christiany and in this sort of evangelical or just christianity i've come to make is like a lot of us born in a religious one way or the it is this is the answer is there's like an extreme lack of curiosity of of anything else and then yourself is like non-existent until hopefully that and the scariest thing ever is to be like all right i'm gonna go scary um one of the questions or what i'm gonna ask and then zach's gonna and then we'll okay we'll call it okay is do you want to share your new account that you're going to be like sharing your because you're starting own yeah what it where can we find that it is my handle on the social like i'm sharing kind of simultaneously um the handle is the it's it's julia myers i t s j u l i a m y e r s sometimes myers is spelled that is where i am and i am welcome to connect with people if they want know like we can chat um if people are angry about this and want to chat as long as they are respectful and stay curious instead if they just i'm like i'll say no thank you yeah um but if someone wants to say i you explain i'm curious like i don't understand because i meant whatever conversations because i think there's i think that nobody is beyond a place and grow and myself included so i can learn from others others can learn together but if the posture is i'm gonna judge you please don't dm me um if it's like that but if it's curious i'm here for it and i really connect with people so very cool yeah and on that i'll share about you know also going to start sharing a little bit more about how working out and been really critical to my healing journey so there's gonna be a little in there too um because i think it's really important you know like emotions and our physical body as well so i feel like a lot of this most of this was being like here's an example of why religious drama is think like because a lot of i know like people from this coverage chapel our own families they're like religious trauma is a non-existent this podcast is you could watch this and be like oh yeah it's fucking real proof i know zack and i've talked hours about ours but i feel like you such in a religious traumatic experience in your life from like you know it's fascinating to see where you're at now and i'm so happy to piggyback off that it's also uh so difficult to tell the people that were traumatized by them because they love to tell you that your trauma is hurts pulls me outside of myself the spirit we're talking about like i anymore at that point so i don't even know what logic means and i'm like i anymore so to actually like tell our parents like multiple times i've had about this trauma and they're like just explain it to us i'm like i anymore like i just can't even think you know but sometimes it's not what know we're kind of concluding one of the things i've learned as well as relationships where it simply cannot be us yeah it can't be that it simply not going to be the ones to help those people along because they were true for everyone sometimes people can heal and repair and recover that's true for someone then that's wonderful sometimes though it's just of the way in which trauma like re-traumatization is going to take trauma was how long it they endured it for how like never stopped it just sometimes people have to go completely no contact that's been my my remaining parent unfortunately um i and that's just been the only way really truly the only way that i could heal is it going to be that way is has been still the right decision for me but one of the things i get sometimes like i need to save all these other people i need to get them sometimes it can't be us which is crazy you said saved it's so real but like complex yeah built into it right right and i mean like and maybe that maybe like a little Freudian slip or whatever they call it no i is it's like i think that we were conditioned to be trying to save the you come out of it you're like oh my god i need to like there's a lot of gotta know they gotta know the truth yeah but sometimes they can't hear it close the proximity is too close and so sometimes it just means we have to and go i appreciate your curiosity i appreciate that you want to know i it down for you boundaries because i cannot re-enter my body my emotions please though go and do the work yeah and go to therapy ask those questions will find that information that you need and then we can talk about it because not only did you cause the trauma i shouldn't have to break it you i'm like taking advice from this right now with our parents just with has like caused a lot of like real like desire for a relationship but place and they're being confronted with it and it's kind of like go do and i guarantee you we'll be able to really have better conversations if care enough to like think outside of or how it's possible you know don't you we've been doing it for them our whole lives but boundaries are so powerful you can really yeah um all right we gotta really wrap this up exactly ask your famous question all right okay uh a big motivator for me to do this podcast is that there's kids right now in an evangelical right i'm already gonna cry in the same situation you were in the same feel it even when i ask this question i am always like back in my younger and lost in it and believing it 100 what would be any advice if i and i we'll just broad spectrum anyone else that's like battling with their faith is struggling with their religious trauma now what would be your advice what should they be doing oh man do people cry at this part no but people's healing might i am uh well there's tissues right there if you thank you i just like i can't help but picture like simultaneous images us as little kids like i imagine us out on your little playground outside like running around and doing our little things like you know just looking at my little kids and i think to myself like what would i say yeah to yourself i would i just i think that i would want to just hold her that the people around her are really hurting and they don't know what she can trust herself and she's always been able to trust herself been true and always be true and that that is all that you have every day just have yourself and so you need to honor that and trust that and don't away from you i wish i could tell all of us that that's beautiful i think that like now we're doing it on sort of a level that we were trained to do be activists we were trained to go out there and try to save lives from here we are like you know using a platform to preach what we really that was really beautiful very powerful thank you yeah thank you so one of the things i was gonna it sounds like you are in contact with a the past or from different churches or religious and i would just ask somebody that wants to go public because i know you're gonna have your be on it someday in the future absolutely love that please send them to i think that's maybe not now but at some point we've talked about this open to interviewing like more religious people i'd love to have really want to use our platform right now for this like all you go aside us were like gone through what we've been through to finally have like an public about it is so powerful yeah i agree and so um because those that do as we've seen yeah it can be kind of brutal yeah i i love that and i love the the point like that that that is what this is for yeah because that is and it's a reclaiming of your agency and your autonomy in it right like and there should be a place for that totally without fear that someone in and go well it should be this and well that was just one church that i mean and i can guarantee that would never be things would not be the way the message like no um but yeah i know that he'd be open to that keep that in mind for people who i mean i talk to people daily literally crazy crazy place they're literally like i have like dozens and dozens of day and when i post stuff it's like more and more and more and i'm like a part-time job i don't know like it's a lot to manage but i love it i much for us you know it's just it's good it's good work yeah yeah so that would like would benefit from this or would love to share their in the church to listen to people's testimonials every sunday right where another drug addict or another person from prison to share their crazy life we really believe in people's testimonies of the religious trauma right everybody's story just like there in church mattered they matter discoveries of self are just powerful as fuck and i know that they ripple just religious trauma because there's a lot of people that have hit me up i handfuls that aren't religious that have started following our podcast never really seen people talk this way and i found that fast like more context so these conversations matter yeah they sure do you know it's just appreciate you i love you and um i'm so happy your kids are doing well and um yeah oh we'd love to have you back on we do a lot of um one of our to reddit and it's where we get like reddit posts from x christian or x like hot and heated posts of like anonymous people and then we like you back on for that i'd be totally here for it would just be like we'd comments love it you know stuff like that i'd be totally here for it this well thanks for being here thank you everybody um that's a wrap this yeah right yeah part one part two yeah no this is like gold yeah this thanks julia thanks for being here yeah thank you julia all right you