Ep 95: Why Women Stay In Toxic Spiritual Communities And How To Create Safety After Betrayal? With Amma Thanasanti

In this powerful episode of The Dimple Bindra Show, I sit down with Amma to explore the hidden reality of spiritual abuse inside Buddhist and monastic communities. Amma shares her courageous 20-year journey, the red flags she overlooked, and the devastating toll of misplaced loyalty to leaders over integrity. Together, we unpack how attachment wounding and narcissistic dynamics allow abuse to thrive in spiritual spaces, and why women often silence their intuition to belong.

This conversation reveals how to spot the red flags, from manipulated codes of ethics, fear of retaliation, and silencing of dissent, to public humiliation and loss of self-trust. Amma opens up about her breaking point, the grief of leaving her community, and the slow, embodied practices that helped her reclaim safety, intuition, and joy after betrayal.

Whether you’ve questioned your teacher, your workplace, or your relationship, this episode will help you rebuild self-trust, safety, and integrity after spiritual harm.

✨ Topics we cover:

• Red flags of spiritual abuse and control
• How narcissistic wounding shows up in spiritual leaders
• The difference between meditation and attachment repair work
• Rebuilding nervous system safety after betrayal
• Practices of joy, nature, dance, and community healing
• Why women must trust their integrity and intuition

If you’ve ever wondered, “Is it me, or is this environment unsafe?” this episode will give you clarity, validation, and the courage to choose differently.

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Transcript

Spiritual abuse is everywhere because power dressed up as holiness is rarely questioned. Across societies, women are taught to trust gurus, leaders, or teachers more than themselves. That devotion becomes a weapon, turning blessings into betrayal. And why is this so prevalent? Because charisma plus unchecked authority equals control and because institutions protect abusers instead of survivors. And because when trauma hides under the name of spiritual teaching, it's nearly impossible to call it abuse.

And the numbers are staggering. In Australia, 1 in every 250 people reported being sexually abused as children in religious settings. Three quarters in Catholic institutions. Boys were 8 times more likely to be targeted. In France, Jean Vanier, revered founder of La Orc, manipulated at least 6 women into sexual guidance over decades, and around the world, new cases continued to surface in yoga, healing, and even psychedelic circles.

This is the hidden wound we are exposing today on the Templebindra show. Why women stay in toxic spiritual communities and how to rebuild safety and self trust after betrayal. So today I am honored to welcome Ama Thanasanti to the show. Ama is a post-monastic meditation teacher, a mentor, and a life coach who brings over 70 years of spiritual practice to her work. After nearly 3 decades as a Buddhist nun, she now shares a trauma informed, soul rooted approach that blends ancient wisdom and modern healing.

She's also the creator of the Integrated meditation program, a path designed to help people rewire disconnection and restore nervous system safety through presence and embodied awakening. In addition to this, Ama serves as a meditation teacher and the spiritual director of the nonprofit Awakening Truth, where she continues her mission to create safe, authentic spaces for spiritual growth and healing.

Ama, welcome to the show. Thank you so much and I appreciate the warm welcome, though I do have to say that if I have been meditating for 70 years, then I was meditating before I was born. I agree, I agree. I'm the same person. I feel like yoga meditation came to me, so I 100% agree, all the meditators who are meditating in this lifetime have been previous meditators already. So for me, it's been about 50 years. Oh, wow, that's that's amazing. Well, thank you, Emma, for being here.

I would love you to start with a little about your own story on what drew you into monastic life and the kind of spiritual organization you were a part of. Thank you. Lovely question. So I I started meditating in 1979 as a 17 year old. I wandered into a class taught by Jack Engler at UC California in Santa Cruz. And he was talking about meditation masters, and he told us about Ajancha and he told us about Ajan Bhahasa. He told us about Deepa Ma, who's a remarkable meditation master who comes out of East Bengal and emigrated to Calcutta at the time of the partition.

Anyway, I have lots of stories. So I was sitting on the edge of my chair riveted, just like drinking it in, and within a week of being in that class, I had a clarity that I wanted spiritual truth and a spiritual awakening to be like the number one focus of my life. And then in a month, I had this nemita or image arise of being a nun. And that image stayed with me for the 10 years it took, until I actually ended up in the monasteries. Wow.

It supported me and encouraged me and in the, in the process, I did go on a pilgrimage to India and Thailand and I did get to meet Deepama and A Buddha Dassa, and I get to meet Ajanha, who, even though his body was like crumpled up in a wheelchair, and he looked like he had no capacity, I could sense that his mind was wide open and vast. And really free. And the combination of meeting him and the impact of what it was like being in the forests of those monasteries and this kind of recognition that I wanted to give my life to the possibility of awakening was the kind of like the impetus of why I decided.

And I might add. That's just a couple of months earlier when I was living, when I was in India. I had been attacked and bitten in the head by a bear. Oh my goodness. And so for me, the reason why I was still alive was because of the 9 years of meditation that I had done prior to that experience. And so for me, there was a real clear sense that, first of all, life is impermanent. We never, never know when our time is up.

But also that the reason why I was alive was because of the meditation practice that I had already done. And so the combination of those things made me feel really. Well, compelled is the word, but it was like the way I experienced was. The only thing that had interest for me was going forth and becoming a monastic. Everything else was like. Pale in comparison. Mhm. Thank you. Thanks for sharing that. At what point did you begin to notice the shadow side that what looked like devotion and trust was actually becoming harmful or abusive in any of the organizations that you were with?

So, that's a beautiful question, and, you know, when I was in Thailand and I was having this first recognition, I I could see that there was a discrepancy about the status of the monks and the way the lay people were being regarded, and there was something about that that was agitating, but in that context, I was able to contextualize it as being part of the Thai culture. And so, on some level, when I went to the monasteries that I was in, I was able to see harmful impacts from the beginning.

But the challenges, and this is really like one of the keys to why this is so tricky. Is that when I went to the monastery, I was committed basically from the moment that I arrived, like I didn't have any doubt. I knew this is what I was gonna do. And I knew that the dharma was like the most important thing in my life. And so I was in a community. That was built around the damma, and I was identified as both being a spiritual practitioner. And as this was the most important thing in my life.

Tell us about for our listeners who don't know the word hama. OK, Dhama is a, is a Buddhist word, it's a poly word and it means many things, but in this case, what it means is the is the Buddha's teachings. There are many dharmas, you know, there's the physical laws are dharmas, all kinds of things are dharmas, but in this case, the Dharma that I'm referring to is the is the Buddha's teachings. So you were committed to the Buddhist teachings, then you went to Thailand and that's where you saw something is not right.

Well, I got a tiny little glimpse of it, but I was also, compelled by the beauty and the simplicity of the monastic life. So that when I ended up going to the monasteries that I joined, I could see some of those same traces in the way that they were playing out between the monks and the nuns. But when you are in something and when you are identified as it is being who you are. It limits, it narrows your capacity to be able to track the harms that you are experiencing because you're identified with a community and you are dependent upon that community for your basic needs.

Correct, because you're co-dependent on them for survival. So you are dependent on them for survival, and so there is something about the tension. Between dependent on them for survival and not wanting to say something that is going to harm their reputation and not being able to differentiate the kinds of speaking up that is important in order for the integrity to be maintained and what is the fear of not wanting to harm something.

OK. So, before I ask you my next question, I want to share it with the listeners that I was under the influence of a spiritual teacher almost since birth, because he was my mom's so-called brother. Not a real brother, but just in our culture, if any uncle is considered brother. So he used to, he used to tell my mom that she's going to be a yogi and she'll be a meditation teacher one day. So he was an astrologer, a very famous astrologer. But, my parents literally put all their devotion on this one person instead of believing in the universe or the divine, and so did we as we grew up.

So when I was around 15 or so, he took me under his wing. And that was like the best thing for me at that time because I'm like, wow, you know, my teacher loves me more than he loves my siblings. And so since the age of 15, I was the seed was implanted in my brain that I have to practice yoga. I have to do meditation, else my life is going to be the life of a prostitute. That's what I was told. So, OK, so I went and I, I am under his wing and I follow his footsteps.

Years later, I actually get into yoga because of my own trauma, but I was under, I should say until the age of 25. So all the way from 0 to 25. So 25 years, this teacher was inside my brain where he was my, to me, he was my mother, my father, my siblings. He was my everybody. But At 25, I was ready to leave everything, I think it was it 25? I'm sorry. Sometimes I have these memory losses too. At some age between the age of 2025 and 35, some point of my life, I was ready to give up my life in the United States, go to India, where he was at at that time, just because I wanted to learn about the divine rising, the feminine divine rising, and he was one of my teachers.

But I found out later, thank goodness, the day that I was supposed to fly out a week before, I'm surrounded by boxes of my clothes and suitcases. A week before I got a phone call from India from his nephew saying that dimple, don't come here. I'm like, hm, what? Are you crazy? And here is a 25, you know, like maybe 20 or 30 year old programmed brain who thinks of this human being as God. He says, don't come here. I'm like, Why? He's like, when you get here, he is ready to sell you off.

So he was gonna get, get me trafficked or, or married to some older person or younger person. I don't know, I don't know the details. I didn't trust the nephew. I investigated, for almost, first I didn't believe him at all because you know. Then I investigated and after my investigation, it took me almost like two months to investigate it. It was all true. And I was like, oh my goodness. So for me, my life shattered at that time. And the reason I'm sharing this is because my question to you, Amma, is can you walk us through how That kind of abuse happened for you, not just for the events themselves, but how did it feel, how your voice or safety was compromised inside that community?

Wow, beautiful question. Beautiful, beautiful question. So the first thing that happened when I was very young in the community was a teacher was shouting at the nuns morning and night and for 3 months and nobody said anything. And at the end of the 3 months, one of the nuns went into him to him and said, Why are you angry at the nuns? And he said, I didn't know I was angry at the nuns. So over the 20 years, I asked 3 times, why were you angry at the nuns, and all 3 times he said, I didn't know I was angry at the nuns.

So here you have a situation with a meditation teacher who is highly regarded, highly respected. And is able to speak about the nature of the mind with the kind of familiarity that you can speak of the back of your hand, yet he has no awareness that he's angry. OK. And nobody in the community did anything to protect us or to support us, or to see what the impact was on us. So, That was the first register of some things really not OK.

There were many things that happened and it kind of felt like as nuns we were living as if we were on the side of a volcano. You know, there was pressure that was building. We had difficulties trying to find safety and negotiate, ways of being that were increasing our capacity to take care of ourselves and be in relationship with the monks. So from the order that I was in, there was, there was. An agreement that happened many, many, many years ago from the The not within our community, but in the organization.

The the founders of the organization or the religious entities of the organization, that the nuns couldn't be on the same legal standing as the monks. We couldn't have a full ordination. So we had an ordination that was kind of cobbled together of this, that and the next thing. And because there was no legal precedence of it, it wasn't this didn't have the same kind of protections that the Buddha had established were important for nuns. They were actually important for the monks to keep so that they would be in right relationship with the nuns, OK?

What does that mean, the right relationships? Well, the Buddha recognized that all, not all monks were ethical. And so he created extra safeguards when there were nuns that were practicing with the monks to make sure that the nuns were safe, because not all monks were ethical, correct? But we didn't have those safeguards. Interesting. And so, I was aware of various different challenges that were arising, and then one of the, one of the community members wanted there to be a branch monastery in California, and I was the only Californian in the community and I said, yes, I'd be happy to be part of it.

And so there were a whole bunch of things that happened. That then began to alert me of there's some real significant issues going on here. And very inappropriate behavior, and it was covered up. I mean, gratefully nobody was sexually abused, but there was sexual harassment and sexual intimidation at a level that was profound. It was not. It was not OK. That was completely covered up. And then, then there was a whole bunch of other things that started to happen and what happened was I began to get a feeling, it was an intuition.

But some of the things that we were then being asked to do were not coming out of motivation for our well-being, but they were coming from the motivation to to to force us into subordination to the monks. And when this became clear, I said I won't, I won't do this. And so we were asked to do this. We were not asked, we were forced to do a particular ceremony, and I said, I will not, I will not do that ceremony. And I did it very respectfully, you know, I held my hands in Angeli, I bowed my head and I said, with all due respects, venerable sirs.

I can't find a place of integrity from which to participate in this ceremony. Is it OK for you to share what kind of ceremony was it? It was called the Pavvarna ceremony, and the Pavvarna ceremony is meant to be a very, very lighthearted ceremony where the monks and the nuns ask each other ceremoniously if there's anything that they've done that is, needs feedback. And What was happening was the ceremony had shifted and it was being used to coerce us into being subjugated to the monks.

OK. So basically, like, and I'm also trying to understand from my perspective and the audience's perspective that I'm gonna hear this, so. Basically, the ceremony they wanted you to do something different than what was originally the plan. The difference, the ceremony stayed the same. The difference was is that we were being forced to do it. And the reason or the motivation for forcing us to do this shifted from it being a lighthearted event for us to invite feedback to being a clarifying moment that we were subordinate to the monks.

Because you guys were, you know, because you're not, you are not guys, you were females. You were women. That's exactly right. OK, got it. Now I understand. OK. Yeah. So I had this strong clarity that I was not going to be doing it. I didn't do it. And basically what happened was is that there was an explosion of then verbal abuse and character assassination and And then them trying to force me to agree that by not doing the ceremony, I had voluntarily taken myself out of the community, which there's no There's no logic behind that.

There's no precedent for doing that. There's no way that there's that that that that's an acceptable conclusion for what I did. But what did happen was is that my faith in the teacher was severely damaged. And after the event with the sexual harassment and the verbal abuse and me saying to him personally, it was a terrible It it is terrible to be forced to have to choose between your loyalty, your teacher, your tradition, and your integrity. And when he remained silent. Mhm. I knew, no more. This is not tenable.

So at that point I had been part of the community for 20 years. And the kinds of none we were, we didn't handle money, so I had no personal funds. We didn't touch money. And our support, we lived on the generosity of others. And I want to add to this, even though you were a former nun, I can call you a former nun, correct? Or are you still a nun? No, I'm a former nun. I'm no longer. OK, so even though just the word nun or a monk in today's society is something that a lot of people fantasize about, including me, I was one of them.

And that's why that was one of the reasons I wanted to leave this country and go to India under his guidance, and I was going to be a nun because that was my ego would have been satisfied with that word somehow. But I feel like even though we fantasize about these spiritual titles. But within these spiritual titles, there are, there is so much of abuse, right, which we don't think about. We just think, oh, somehow I am a woman who has a corporate job and all of a sudden I become a nun and I am gonna be extra spiritual.

We don't think about the other implications that this title has. So I am trying to understand from your perspective, you know, because our audience are just regular. Women at jobs, corporate jobs or no jobs, housewives, right? Who would sometimes even they say it, I wish I was just a nun. I wish I didn't have children. I wish I didn't have a husband, you know, because they want to just fly away and go to a different world. So what I'm trying to understand from your perspective is that when you were actually a nun in that community and you were seeing, we'll call it shit on the show, when you were seeing shit happening around you, one of them was you were forced to basically I should say lower your power.

In front of the monks, that was one. Are there any other incidents that you had seen in this particular organization? That was like a red flag for you. Yes, so there were several. One of them was that the inappropriate behavior was covered up by the other monks, and the other was is that the the

So the grand master in Thailand was remarkable, and he was very clear that the the whole process of being a monastic is is that the monastic discipline is the thing that that you uphold the most. You don't uphold the people.

So even though he was highly, highly realized and extraordinary, and certainly would have been able to take that position if he wanted to, he never did. He always referred to the vignette, to the monastic discipline as the leader. So he taught to hold that up, and he also taught that the way that the the community of monks and nuns stays healthy is if they meet together, that they, report or show each other things that each other is doing incorrectly if if you yourself can't see it, if they correct each other gently, and then together by doing that, it keeps the monastic community healthy and strong.

OK. So I'm, I am of the opinion, it's my opinion, that there were 5 things that contributed to this multiple layers of confusion. The first one is that there was  There's a lot of unaddressed ill will towards the feminine. The second is that it shifted from, loyalty or upholding the monastic discipline to loyalty to an individual person. Can you say the second one again? So, the grandmaster didn't do that. He upheld the via, and anytime there were, there were circumstances that needed to be discussed or considered, he always referred to the vinea and to the monastic discipline as how you would go about doing that. What is the via, the monastic discipline. OK, so he, he would always say, let's just, you know, this is the leader here. This is the leader. Let's look at how that the monastic discipline says to deal with this, let's refer to that. In my situation, the leader took on more prominence than the vinea. And so people were more loyal to him than they were to the via. OK. And so then, then there was the fear of speaking up because there was the fear of loss of reputation rather than the importance of integrity. 

That was the 4th 1. And the 5th 1 was that the nuns had a very peculiar legal standing that didn't include the protections that the Buddha had established that were appropriate for women when they were practicing in, in proximity to monks. They didn't have the full ordination and that full ordination had within it protections that the nuns had so that the monks would be appropriate in the way that they responded to them. If there is, if you have the idea on what did Buddha really teach or show to the community for the feminine. 

So what he showed for the feminine is is that because monks are not always ethical, then there were extra precautions that he put in place. One of them was that Then the monks who were teachers of the nuns, not only did they need to have the same qualifications as a monk who was able to give ordinations, but he needed extra qualifications, which is that he could never have any, misconduct related to women. If there was any misconduct, he would never be allowed to be a teacher of nuns. And second of all, the nuns all needed to agree that he was. Their teacher. 

So in addition to having the purity, the nuns needed to accept him as their teacher. The devotion Yeah, well, not just devotion, trust, feeling trust and feeling safe. That's true. OK. And the third one was, is that with the nuns, he made it so that the laypeople could bring forward issues. And before, only monks were able to bring forward issues around complaints around the monk's behavior. So he made it so that there was more protection, that they weren't the only ones having to advocate for themselves, that the laywomen around them could advocate as well. And so, for example, if some laywoman saw behavior between a monk and a nun that was disturbing, she could bring that up to the monks and the monks would have to investigate. Whereas without those precautions or extra accommodations, only a monk could instigate an offense with another monk. Interesting. So basically, they are trying to suppress the feminine. 

Well, I think it's, I think it's more complicated than that. I think what it is, is, is that in our society, there is a lot of ill will adjust towards the feminine, and part of that comes because of unattended narcissistic wounding and unattended attachment wounding, and that causes there to be deep-seated anger that is then directed at the feminine. Yeah. And because this kind of inquiry is not often the thing that shows up when you do meditation. You can have a person who's highly realized. They can talk about the nature of the mind and the nature of freedom and what the ultimate reality is, and they still haven't done that work of looking at their narcissistic wounding and their attachment wounding and healed it. So that, so that you can have these completely amazing Dharma talks on one hand and have somebody yelling at you for three months on another hand in the same person. Yeah, exactly. This is great information. 

We, I also want you to focus on some of the, like now that you're out of that community, thank God, thank the Buddha. Let's talk about the red flags that you probably did not see when you were in it. So that you can express it, and then our audience can see those red flags maybe in their relationships or at their work setting, or maybe at their religious setting. 

Beautiful question, beautiful question. OK, so. If there is a code of ethics, and that code of ethics has exceptions, like everybody's supposed to keep it except for the senior person, that's a red flag. If the governing body who's supposed to manage the organization has a code of ethics, and they don't keep the code of ethics because they're trying to protect the senior person's reputation, that's a red flag. If you report to the governing body breaches of code of ethics, and they turn around and tell you it's actually your responsibility to ensure that the sisters who are coming up underneath you, that you tell them the harms that they can expect, that's a red flag. 

If you bring up Significant issues of breaches of behavior with the senior people to other of their colleagues, and they ignore it, that's a red flag. I'm laughing because all of this is like check, check, check, you know, yeah,-huh. If you feel that a person is demeaning you, that's a red flag. If you feel that a person is not actually interested in your welfare, they're interested in forcing you to do something that you don't want to do, that's a red flag. If a person is taking advantage of you or an organization is taking advantage of your vulnerability because you're part of a group and you are like, you don't know exactly how to assert your limits because you want to belong. 

They take advantage of you by asking you to work too much, by not paying attention to your needs, by threatening you to do certain kinds of medical things like take immunizations that you didn't ask for, Things like that, those are red flags, and when you have more than a couple of those red flags, then you need to start seriously thinking about whether where you are is actually a good place for you to be. Now, I will again offer another warning. Which is that when you are in an organization like I was. Even though on some level I was able to see some things that were harmful, it wasn't until I actually decided to leave the organization that I was able to register some more of the harm of what I experienced. 

Because there's something about The vulnerability about being dependent on something for your basic needs that limits your ability to see clearly the harms that are taking place. And sometimes those needs are basic, sometimes those needs are emotional. Sometimes those needs could be just physical needs and mental needs that the narcissistic abuser or abusers will just Leech on to you and hold it, and that's when they start abusing you. And I would love to understand, you mentioned, until you, until you didn't leave, you didn't see it, and this is the case for everybody, right? Whoever has been in such circumstances. 

And I also know that leaving a spiritual teacher or a community is not easy for you, especially when it has been your entire life for decades. You said 20 years, correct, Emma? 20 years. OK. What was the breaking point for you and how did you find the strength to just get the hell out of Thailand? Was it Thailand? I wasn't in Thailand. I was in another country. No, for me, for me, it was, it was completely, completely devastating, but what happened was is that I had clarity. That, the things that had happened meant that I couldn't trust my teacher anymore. And if the ethos was saying that the tradition had no room for integrity, that that wasn't an OK place for me to be. 

So I left as a nun with no support, no money, no no community, and I went and I stayed as a nun for 8 more years independently. In a different place. Yes, I was, I was on my own. I wasn't part of an organization. And then how did you survive? You left a place. I mean, thank God you were allowed to leave, cause some places, you're not even allowed to leave. 

They literally lock you up. Yeah, our place was not like that. So that was that that wasn't going to be an issue. I mean, I understood the principle of living on generosity and I had, I was a meditation teacher and so I continued teaching meditation and lived on whatever donations people gave me. And that's how I lived. So somehow, even though the trauma of the abuse, you left, you, you had freedom from that place, but somehow your survival mechanisms were still the same, were let's live on generosity just because you were a nun. Right, so I continued with the same process and the same pattern because that's, that was what that was in integrity with the precepts that I kept. That was OK. And then, 8 years later, I decided that it was no longer serving me to stay as a monastic. And then I returned to civilian life, and then once I returned to civilian life, I could handle money. I could have a bank account. 

I could have debit and credit cards. I could drive a car. I could do those basic things. But for those 8 years I was living on the generosity and the faith of people who were my students or other supporters. I, OK, thank you for sharing that. I also want to kind of understand from your perspective. That leaving was not easy. Leaving was hard. But, and just because you're sharing this on this on this podcast, I want you to understand that some women are considering leaving right now in the audience. Maybe it's their husband, maybe it's their boss, maybe it's somebody. What strength can you, through your words, give that person? She knows this is not right. She feels this is not the right relationship for me, but She can't see beyond it. All she's seeing is the reality, you know, what's in front of her. So there's a, there's a couple of things. 

One is that you have to trust your integrity. And if your integrity is being compromised, that puts you in a really unfortunate position. I love that. The second thing is, is that you have to trust your intuition. And if, you know, there's nothing that's going to be perfect, and there's no human, there's no relationship, there's no boss, there's no spouse that's gonna do everything right. But if the overall tally is that there is greater goodness than there is harm, then that leaves you with one level of understanding. But if the overall tally is that there is more harm than there is goodness, then that gives you another very important piece of information. Now, some things are not negotiable. Some things that are not negotiable is like your basic physical sense of safety. If that is being harmed, then I would hope that you would have the clarity to to move, to move out, to leave. If your psychological sense of sanity. Is being put into such a compromised position that it's hard for you to know. 

For yourself Your own clarity, and that's another situation that needs space in order to figure out what is the right way forward. So thank you. You mentioned integrity, intuition, and the person needs to feel safe wherever they're at, and if that's all threatening them, then they're not at the right place. Can we talk about safety now? How to rebuild that safety net, how to rebuild the self-trust net after such a betrayal? So again, beautiful questions, beautiful, beautiful questions. And I think really, you know, every one of us needs to start where we're at, you know, the kind of the shattering, like the shattering of what this does, because in my situation, it, it shatters meaning, it shatters identity. It, it, it, it's so disorganizing. It's so distressing. And so each of us has to start where we're at and find things that help. So when I left the monastery, the first place I was living in. It was next to Colorado, the Garden of the gods in Colorado, and I'm, I'm a nature person. So these rocks were 180 million years old, and there was this huge park of these phenomenal boulders, rocks, huge slabs of rock. 

And so I would go and I would put my body, press my body against the rocks, and my whole nervous system would settle. And so every day, every day, every day I would go, whether it was 105 or it was-20, I would go because there was no level of distress that I could bring to those rocks that would move them. They were solid. They were not shaking. I love that. And so then what I did was because I couldn't go 24 hours a day, you know, I had to do with my life. I would keep rocks in my pocket. So that if in the in between times between being able to get to the rocks, I was feeling distressed or unsettled, or anxious or overwhelmed, I could just feel the rocks. And touch of the rocks would help me remember that I had this huge support. And that I could have access to it and feel that support soon. Even if I couldn't do it immediately. So that was very comforting. The other thing is, is that like for me, when I went into the monastery, I had been meditating for 9 years and so there was already some understanding about the power of awareness and insight that wasn't armed. 

And so I could use the power of awareness in inside and use the practices of bringing kindness and care to myself in a way that was helpful and supportive. Beautiful. It's a nervous system reset in nature, meditation. And being around people who understood or could make space or could help support regulating you. So like a supportive community, right, and being selective because with this kind of thing, there's probably 1 in 100 person who actually has the bandwidth and the capacity to have any understanding really about what you're going through and can be supportive in a way that is actually what you need. I agree, I agree, and I think that kind of trauma just leaves us an imprint in our psyche that we naturally become selective in our friend circle or wherever we go and the things that we do because we just don't want ourselves to be exposed again to such. Such a trauma again, right? Right. 

So once I was no longer a nun, I had more choices. One of the choices is that I love dancing and so dancing is wonderful because the movement and the moves the body and gets the breath and helps everything in the right way. And that in my particular system, I know this is not true for everybody, but in my particular system, weight bearing exercises or practices or dancing with people where you feel each other's weight was really healing. I was like I would come right back into my body and I could feel settled and grounded and alive and connected. Beautiful. So everyone, and then things that are joyful, you know, playful and joyful. And for me, animals also is a really big support. 

And so it's often been the case that I haven't owned animals, but I borrow others. So I go to dog parks and I, when I go on walks and I talk to The dog. I don't talk to the people. I talk to the dogs, and most of the animals are really happy for a snuggle and a cuddle, and that kind of affection and intimacy, total innocent intimacy in a way that just opened your heart is just really healing. Oh, I love that. I love that. You have shared like really important points that sometimes we just forget, you know, we forget like, hey, we can just go and speak to the cats and the dogs and the trees around us and just heal our nervous system. So, at Ama, when you stepped away, right, what did healing look like for you in the beginning? I understand that you did the rocks, you, you held rocks in your pocket. Were there any moments of, and I'm sure there were, but were there moments of grief and confusion or even guilt that you had to work through? Oh my goodness, there was, there was tremendous amount of confusion, unbelievable amount of sadness. It took me years and years and years for me to actually have the capacity to touch the anger. And then there was rage, just like rage. 

And so for a couple of years, I was in a place of, I was living in Hawaii and I had unlimited amount of coconuts and I had a machete, and I would massacre the coconuts very deliberately. I would murder them. Love that. I love that. And that was hugely helpful. And then I got more creative about singing my soul, so I would play the bell and I would just sing a song that was spontaneous about naming whatever was present in my heart, and the ups and the downs and the confusion and the sadness and the anger and the disbelief, all of that. But for me also, part of what has been really helpful because there was a there was. An amalgamation between The way all of this landed was it increased my own narcissistic wounding and attachment wounding. 

It vibrated right into those places. So attachment wounding is the wounding that we have from the absence of care from our primary caregivers. It's the absence of protection. The absence of safety, the absence of attunement, the absence of comfort, the absence of delight, and the absence of encouragement. There's 5 basic qualities. Can you say that again, please? The first coupling is safety and protection. The second is attunement. Mhm. The 3rd is comfort and soothing. The 4th is delight. The light in you as a being, the light in your essence, and the 5th is encouragement to express yourself and to explore. When we have had caregivers. That because of their own attachment wounding, weren't able to provide adequate for us. 

Or they harmed us and didn't repair. Then we developed strategies, and those strategies affected our ability to know what was going on inside of ourselves. It affects our basic level of how safe we feel or how vigilant we feel. It affects our ability to the speed with which we process, and it also impacts us in ways where, like as advanced meditators, one of the things that we experience. Is non-dual states are emptiness. But when we have attachment wounding. When we come close to those experiences, those experiences naturally are can be caused fear to arise. But when there's attachment wounding, it can cause a trauma response. It's like a terror to arise. And we have to back away. 

So this attachment wounding then impacts our ability to experience the deeper levels of what meditation can bring us. And all of that then influences how much we have access to the deep states of peace that meditation can bring. So, for like a meditator, if they, if they're meditating and the attachment wounding just comes up for them, which usually like you mentioned is fear or terror in their bodies, how can they Go beyond the fear and the terror. If you have a trauma activation, you have to back away and deal with the trauma activation. And then if you recognize that this is connected to an attachment wounding, then you need to do attachment repair work, which is different than meditation. 

Yes. Because meditation is about looking at the nature of the mind, attachment repair work is about allowing those patterns to shift by bringing Safety and protection, attunement, comfort and soothing, encouragement, delight and encouragement, delight and encouragement. OK, this is beautiful. This is, this is great. Looking back now, what were the biggest lessons about this journey that taught you about your power, trust, and self-betrayal inside spiritual spaces? I think that My own personal attachment wounding. was something that looked a little bit like that there was something fundamentally wrong with me. I think that sense that there was something fundamentally wrong with me was part of the reason why I stayed in as long as I did. Yeah, as I was able to recognize and then move out of the harmful influence. 

And was able to do the work to shift that patterning so that that was no longer something that would be like. Place that I would return to. Then what started to happen or continued to happen is my trust in my intuition. And the need or the importance of really taking impeccable care of myself. And the recognition that as a human being, I have a right to a life of joy. And can play and to have ease. And to look for ways of Making that happen. 

Look for relationships that support that, move away from relationships that don't support that. Look for circumstances where I can live like that and move away from getting involved or admitted into context where those are not encouraged or supported. Beautiful. And finally, my last question for women listening who may be questioning their own teacher, their group, or a community right now, what is one thing that they can do today to begin creating safety and just rebuilding trust in themselves? First of all, is to affirm that safety is important and that you deserve to have it. And then the second thing is to look and see where it is present and where it is absent. And how you can be advocating for yourself when it's absent, how you can ask for what you need, how you can move away from situations and need a little bit more space, how you can begin to start bringing language to describe what it is that you need in order to feel safe. 

And if the people around you are not supporting you in your advocacy, then find people who will. Thank you. Thank you, Ama. This was a wonderful conversation with you. Where can our listeners find you? So I'm awakening Truth.org is the website. The integrated meditation program for cohort 3, the applications are open. I am starting as of tomorrow, Meta Monday, which is a half an hour drop in guided meditation on loving kindness. I'm on social media, I'm on Facebook. I've got a YouTube channel. Awakening Truth is on Instagram. There's a newsletter Awesome. Thank you so much. it was wonderful having you on our show and we are going to add all of her social media links and her website on our show notes. So please go check out her work. She's a beautiful soul, a beautiful spirit, and if you have, if you're listening to this on audio, please do check us out on our YouTube. Channel where we are going to put on this podcast recording very soon. So it was wonderful to have this amazing topic, spiritual abuse topic on our show, Ama. Thank you so much. 

Thank you for your warmth and your welcome and your astonishing brilliant questions, really helpful. You're most welcome. It was an honor to have you on our show and for all of our listeners, always remember metamorphosis, not medication and namaste. 

If this episode spoke to you, then please give us a review on iTunes. I will really appreciate it and if you felt something, Shifting your chest or your gut, that's not just a podcast moment. That's your soul saying, hey, we are ready. So head over to dimplebindra.com and take my healing archetype quiz. I'm also gonna add the link to my show notes. It's gonna help you understand the pattern that's been running your life. The one you didn't even know was there. And once you take the quiz, you'll see a button to join the waitlist for You Are Awakening. That's my Women's circle, and it's where we do this work together with other amazing sisters. You don't have to heal in silence anymore. I'm so glad you're here, and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye.