Melody Whinnery Journey Beyond Christianity: Finding Spiritual Connection

What happens when everything you've believed for forty years suddenly feels like a prison? Melody's powerful story of religious deconstruction takes us on a journey from the sheltered world of evangelical Christianity to the expansive freedom of authentic spiritual connection.

Growing up as a pastor's daughter, Melody's life revolved around church, Bible study, and Christian education. Unlike many who question their faith in adolescence, she remained deeply committed well into adulthood—teaching women's Bible studies, participating in church leadership, and raising her children within the faith tradition. That steadfast belief system began to unravel after her father's death from leukemia, when she witnessed his fear of dying despite his lifelong preaching about the glories of heaven.

"I have something and it has nothing to do with Christianity," Melody realized in her moment of deconversion. "It's grown up around the trellis that Christianity has for me and it's not that." This botanical metaphor beautifully captures her experience—the religious structure that once supported her spiritual growth had become restrictive, preventing her authentic connection with spirit from flourishing.

What makes Melody's story particularly compelling is that she didn't abandon spirituality when leaving Christianity. Instead, she discovered new languages for understanding her spiritual experiences, particularly through astrology, which she describes not as a belief system but as a framework for understanding archetypal patterns. Her journey illuminates how religious deconstruction can lead not to emptiness but to expanded possibilities for authentic connection.

The path wasn't without obstacles. Fears of family rejection, loss of community, and identity crisis created profound challenges. Melody describes the process as feeling like "crawling on your knees through the jungle"—an escape that required companions for survival. Yet through these difficulties, she found deeper authenticity and a more honest relationship with herself.

If you're questioning inherited beliefs or navigating your own spiritual transformation, Melody's story offers validation and hope. Connect with her work at melodycarol.com, where she's developing educational materials around astrology and offering listening services for others on similar journeys.

Transcript

Born Into Evangelical Christianity

Speaker 1 0:00

Hi, welcome to the Unfixed Self Podcast. I'm your host, thomas H Pettersson Melody. Welcome to the podcast. And so you got recommended by my usual friend, taj right, and you know you were mentioning this story about you and your relationship with Christianity, and so I'm wondering if you could just like just dive deep and share that story.

Speaker 2 0:24

Absolutely, and I just want to say thank you so much for the opportunity.

Speaker 1 0:28

I don't take it lightly.

Speaker 2 0:29

This is amazing. I was born into a family of evangelical Christians. My dad was the pastor of the church in Youngstown, ohio. On the east side of Youngstown we lived down like on the outskirts of town, so sort of removed, but the neighborhood was an all-black neighborhood. I lived across the street from a small elementary school. We were at church three days a week and more. If there was a missionary in town for services or a vacation Bible school, it was every day for for a week. Yeah, I'm the oldest of four kids, and they were all. We were all born within five years, so along the time I'm getting, you know, four or five years old, my mom has less and less time, you know, as you know, and I have four of my own, so I get it.

Speaker 1 1:24

It's not as, not as closely eight in age, you know as you know and I have four of my own, so I get it.

Speaker 2 1:28

Oh, wow. Okay, it's not as closely in age, but it's a lot. I quickly learned very, very young, that if I wanted attention from my dad, that asking questions about the Bible or things that happened in church would give me more of his time. So I would do that. I'd ask him all kinds of questions about the Bible, about the stories, how they related, and he would spend time. It wasn't just that I was grasping because he wasn't there, he'd spend time with me, put me to bed at night, saying prayers, reviewing Bible memory verses the whole nine yards, and I stayed in the church Like. I have friends who've deconverted since then that I talked to and they talk about, you know, hitting their teenage years and questioning it. That was not me. I did not question any of it until my 30s.

Speaker 1 2:26

Awesome.

Speaker 2 2:28

So I went to Christian school. When we could no longer afford Christian school, I went to an inner city Catholic school for a year.

Speaker 1 2:36

Wow.

Speaker 2 2:37

That was something else. Lots of different cultural differences there, differences there. I went to and then I transitioned into public high school in a small Italian town that had a huge, strong Catholic presence. So you know, even though it was public school, there was a dress code. There was, like you know, things that I had assumed in my sheltered Christian life, that why would public schools have a dress code?

Speaker 1 3:01

Yeah, I mean that's a reasonable question.

Speaker 2 3:05

But like at the time I was like wait, I'm going out into the world. It's going to be wild.

Speaker 1 3:10

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 3:10

You know, and it's the 80s. So I, I show up, this little sheltered Christian girl, and I go to a public school and Mohawks are in fashion and like crazy stuff and I was just happy to be able to wear jeans every day. Like I was so happy, I'm going to wear jeans every day.

Speaker 2 3:27

I don't ever have to wear a skirt again. Yeah, and I know this is kind of skimming the surface, but it's definitely just kind of to demonstrate there's a there's bubbles within bubbles within bubbles of like protection. Yeah, In that growing up in the church and I know we have a lot of angst pointed at the evangelical community right now and I do as well and anger too, honestly but when I take myself all the way back to growing up, I didn't know a lot of what was going on in the world and a lot of it was that I did know about was shared from the pulpit.

Speaker 2 4:16

So, it was presented in a very specific way, and it's important to me because I still I, and uh, it's important to me because I still I, yeah, I'm really the only one in my family of origin that's converted, and uh, and yes, I know some of them have a broader understanding of life, but I know some of them don't, and that definitely my nieces and nephews, who've grown up in it and are still young. They don't know any different, but they would definitely identify with it. They don't know any different, but they would definitely identify with it.

Speaker 2 5:01

And so there's a piece of like hey, we're being told to pit ourselves against this label, this label, this label by the media, whichever one we choose to listen to in all its vast and power and perspectives.

Speaker 2 5:06

But there are people on the quote other side who really don't know any different. They're in ignorance and I was in ignorance for so long. I went to Christian college. After that had all the cringe worthy moments of being a 20 year old who was functionally still a teenager because she didn't have a lot of experience out out in the world and still, of course, in a Christian college. So not out in the world. Um, worked at my church after college, worked, worked at the college, worked at church, really super involved. Um, you know, took on volunteer work and that was my life. Yeah, got married. We moved to Michigan. I took a.

Speaker 2 5:56

We moved to Detroit, moved to Pontiac inner city, pontiac, chose an inner city church to go to we were really interested in like let's broad yeah cute, right, cute. Let's broaden our horizons. Exactly, but like we did it yeah I'm not gonna apologize. I did what I did what I knew to do. Yeah, to be to grow bigger, to expose myself to more, uh joined the choir yeah got to sing like, absolutely enjoyed every bit of Shiloh Baptist Church in Pontiac, reverend.

Speaker 2 6:28

You know, pastor, it was amazing. And at the same time I'm leading a Bible study like and growing in that Eventually I move up the ranks in the Bible studies of para-church organization. I'm suddenly, you know, between moves and having babies and all these other things, I'm Eventually I move up the ranks in the Bible studies of parachurch organization.

Speaker 2 6:49

I'm suddenly, you know, between moves and having babies and all these other things I'm doing, I'm also teaching a women's class of 200 women in regular Bible study every day. Basically, you know, if you wanted a secular comparison, it's advanced book club with application to your life, and I loved it. I didn't have an opportunity to become a pastor, although I honestly believe I received the anointing that my father passed down. That's a sacred term, but whatever it was, I got it. But being a woman, I got it, but being a woman, especially in that particular denomination, there's no outlet really for leadership of a church because of gender. So it felt like I kind of hit the glass ceiling and at the same time I was starting to question things.

Speaker 2 7:53

I started following a spiritual leader online from a recommendation of a friend and he would have been. He was considered a heretic. There were things he was testing in spirituality that he took the Bible at its word and claimed its power. Right, and he was. He was testing it. He was kind of out there with tongues and miracles and claiming things and I I soaked in his stuff for two years on my way out. He was my exit ramp Interesting Because I went through it and I was like this makes sense, this makes sense, these are the things that have always been like really believed.

Speaker 2 8:28

That I haven't let out, because every time I tried to like say but dad, the Bible says that He'd be like yeah, but that was then it's not for now, and I was like, well, if it's not for now, what the heck are we doing?

Growing Up in the Church Bubble

Speaker 2 8:38

Like, why are we here here? So that was my exit ramp and I really started questioning, questioning things why are, why are we doing this? And suddenly, like gradually, the um, the veil started coming off and I started really wrestling with but if I reject this, what's left for me? This is my life. What's left for me? This is my life. This is scary. I'm talking about and honestly I'm going to speak her name. My sister-in-law, erin O'Donnell, was the one who had introduced me to this person and we compared ourselves to prisoners of war and we were like I don't think I could have left without her. It really felt those days like it's a metaphor, it's not real, but it felt like leaving a prison camp, like crawling on your knees through the jungle, you can't do it by yourself.

Speaker 2 9:40

You've got to do it with someone, and if it hadn't been for her, I don't think I could have left.

Speaker 1 9:46

Yeah.

Speaker 2 9:46

But just having her and a couple other people and honestly I'm not sure they all stayed out. But like for that time we got out and it felt wild to be out in the world. Yeah, all the things I'd been told about how dangerous it was to not have these things and I leaned really hard. And this is kind of where my story is different than a lot of people who deconverted.

Speaker 2 10:17

I knew that. I knew that. I knew that my connection with spirit was real. Yeah, Whether we call it by a name or not, I knew that my connection with spirit was real. Yeah, Whether we call it by a name or not. Like I knew it. And so my dad passed and that was really the linchpin of like my turning, watching him go through the end of life. He had leukemia too and it took. It took him pretty fast. I had very strong impressions from when I was a child of him crying in the pulpit and he wasn't super emotional, my dad, but I I watched him tear up in the pulpit talking about how much he longed for heaven because of how great it would be and that stuck with me.

Speaker 2 11:08

so when I'm in my 30s and my dad is passing away and fighting it tooth and nail and I'm like I thought you believed in heaven, yeah, I, I have a very real reality that I received that there is an afterlife and it came from you. Where's your faith? Like to the point that that? That is the moment you know. We talk in Christianity. We talk about the moment of salvation, the moment you choose God and you choose to say you know, that was my moment of deconversion. It was like I have something and it has nothing to do with Christianity. It's grown up around the trellis that Christianity has for me and it's not that, and so that was me starting to disengage from the trellis. I like to think of it as a plant, because plant is life and other people are life and I don't ever want to like take their life away from them.

Speaker 2 12:14

But I want to recognize that that encasement, that trellis, no longer served me. It was actually holding me back from that moment on. It was actually holding me back from that moment on. And the reason I know it's different is I've gone through a few programs where psychologists offering programs for people who are deconverting support systems, support groups, this turnaround going from Christian soldier me against the world to atheist soldier me against Christianity, yeah.

Speaker 2 12:53

And not all Christians are Christian soldiers out there trying to fight, yeah. So to meet them in the opposite spirit isn't actually doing anything. If anything, it's making them oppose you more, and there's got to be a different way, a peaceful way of coexisting without it having to be a battle. So it's been just representing myself and being at peace with the world. Maintaining relationships back there has been hard.

Speaker 1 13:29

Yeah.

Speaker 2 13:31

Because my family loves me. Yeah, it's a gift. I didn't even know within Christianity what a gift that was. There's Christian families that are messed up. And the fact that my family's love has survived even this. They know that our move to California from Ohio kind of made it easier to stop attending church regularly.

Speaker 1 13:59

Yeah.

Speaker 2 13:59

Because once I left I left shortly after my last child was born. That's been 13 years now my co-parent kept taking the kids to church until we left Ohio we came out here. He never found a church that he really resonated with out here and it just kind of petered out after that. So I have two kids who went to church and Bible study until they were six and eight and you know, the one and the three-year-old don't remember really anything of it.

Speaker 2 14:33

This is fascinating, Even within the kids, like we really stopped talking about spiritual things.

Speaker 1 14:40

Yeah.

Speaker 2 14:41

And I think in some ways they thought it was a touchy subject for me. It was just me releasing it and letting it go and not reinforcing it for them, because at that point I was like, oh my God, what kind of damage have I done. I don't even know, because knowing how a unique individual takes on a belief system is almost impossible. You've got to dive into that astrology, right.

Speaker 1 15:11

Yeah.

Speaker 2 15:13

And that's where I lean on astrology really.

Speaker 1 15:16

Yeah.

Speaker 2 15:16

Really hardcore. I had my first astrology reading three days after the baby, the last baby was born, and it was like discovering a language I didn't even know. I spoke, and to the, to the fact that the, the man who read for me, was like well, you really have a knack for this.

Speaker 2 15:37

You know I don't teach anymore, but if you want lessons I would be happy to give them to you, because it seems like you can understand this and it won't be really hard to teach you at all. And I was like that's what 39 years of Bible study interpreting symbolism will do for you. Man, I know archetypes and I didn't even know, I knew archetypes until I discovered Joseph Campbell.

Speaker 1 15:57

Like oh, here we go.

Speaker 2 15:59

Hero's journey. I was really in the mix in those years Just before we left Ohio.

Questioning Faith and Finding Exit Ramps

Speaker 2 16:07

I have a child with autism, Actually now two children with autism on a late diagnosis and a child with ADHD, and neither of them were really suited to public school learning and I'd always wanted to homeschool. So it just naturally made sense I sent each of them to a preschool for a year just to kind of get feedback from the teachers on what their learning styles were and where they were struggling. And then we moved right through kindergarten first, second grade, with reading, math, really great stuff. One of my passions is education, as you've probably figured out. One of the principles that I was encouraged to use was whatever I'm learning, bring it down to their level so I can share the passion of learning with them. So we'd read every day, but because I was deconverting, I was jumping into Joseph Campbell.

Speaker 1 17:05

Yeah.

Speaker 2 17:05

And I was reading whatever I could get my hands on and I picked up a book called the Writer's Journey and the man took the Hero's Journey and had written a pamphlet back in the day, kind of taking popular film and showing how the hero's journey is demonstrated.

Speaker 1 17:27

I love this. It's amazing.

Speaker 2 17:29

Yeah, it's, it's really. I can never remember his last name. His first name is Christopher, though. Yeah, and in the book he goes through different archetypes, he goes through the stages of the journey, and the each chapter had a drawing. So what I did was I made photocopies of the drawings, I colored them and I laminated them and I taught my kids stages of the hero's journey. I used a YouTube video to like. The YouTube video went through like Lord of the Rings and Katniss Everdeen's series journey and stuff, and so they could have something to watch.

Speaker 2 18:07

But, then we looked and played with the cards.

Speaker 1 18:09

Yeah.

Speaker 2 18:11

And I had pairs so they could play a matching game.

Speaker 1 18:13

Yeah.

Speaker 2 18:14

So they learned the hero's journey like that, and then it was just a simple matter of like okay, we're watching cars. Yeah, all right, where are we right now in the journey? Or like, who's the mentor here? Or you know where's the companion, where's the threshold, guardian, who's? Going to like, hold him back until he's ready to go. And they loved it, they loved it. And then the next step was um, putting forward, putting forward oh making, making up their own stories.

Speaker 2 18:54

So they learned to read because they adored calvin and hobbes right so then it was like, hey, let's make a story with calvin and hobbes and just use the stages of the journey. And so they, like, put out all the cards and mapped the story and told a story. It was amazing.

Speaker 1 19:09

I love this.

Speaker 2 19:10

These are the things that sometimes I get overwhelmed with how many passion pieces there were that came together and trying to tell one story by calling it one thing Like I'm all about astrology no, I'm actually not. I'm all about religious deconversion no, not really. Like education's a piece. There's so many pieces to this grand and glorious life and they're all important to me. Names again. I have a kid who's working on a name change and there's people in the world who would step on that journey.

Speaker 2 19:49

Because of what else is involved with it and it's supercharged, I'm not going to out too much more because I protect my kids, but when I think about it, and I think about how many people in the Bible had transformations that included a name change, yeah. And then this group, in their high media messaging, is stepping on people for what they know about themselves and what they're doing to make themselves happy.

Speaker 2 20:23

Yeah themselves and what they're doing to make themselves happy and and not wanting to acknowledge their them by name. That's just. That's just common courtesy, so I'm not sure how we got here. I'm going to let you take a minute and reflect.

Speaker 1 20:39

Man again. Beautiful story, I mean, and beautiful upbringing. So I have a few things that kind of popped in my mind. You know things were leaving and going, as things do when you're engaged you know, and part of it was you talked about how you felt like you were leaving the prison camp, of the situation right.

Speaker 1 21:01

As a symbol or metaphor or something situation right as a, as a symbol or metaphor or something. Yes, how, like what? What were some things that came up in that transformational process, like in your world, like I I project on that story as myself has gone going through transformations and stuff. As you know, there is a fear of like, maybe being rejected by the people you've loved in the past or in that moment. So I'm sure in your Bible groups you had friends and people and I'm wondering what was some of the obstacles that you had to kind of get through through this metaphor of escape.

Speaker 2 21:40

I was still teaching Bible study and my belief system was changing at the same time. As part of the agreements of taking on a leadership position, there were certain elements I was supposed to include in every lecture. Yes, yeah, I was delivering a 40-minute lecture once a week and it was on a specific Bible passage, and the materials that I was given would have recommended doctrinal teachings to include. Yes, um, and I found myself in the position of some of those doctrines I didn't even, I couldn't speak with authenticity about anymore.

Speaker 1 22:25

Yes, right.

Speaker 2 22:28

And I leaned hard into whatever exception I could find, and so they always had a recommended doctrine, but if the spirit was moving you to use something else, that was okay, and that's where I found grace in the moment of like well, I I can't present this anymore Like I've been called to freedom and and the original and I believe still that the original intent of most of the authors yeah, I've changed my mind about some of the authors Most of the authors in the Bible was that they were leading people to freedom.

Speaker 1 23:11

Yeah.

Speaker 2 23:11

From where they were. We're talking ancient history here. We have so many more freedoms than they did, and to ask ourselves to continue to take what those things were as how we should live now is very silly, confusing.

Speaker 1 23:27

Very silly and very confusing.

Speaker 2 23:29

My kids sometimes hear things about the Bible and will come and say, Mom, what is this? And I go back to that space. I think I've drifted from your question.

Speaker 1 23:42

So other obstacles, Obstacles, yeah, so that was one of the like the doctrine. The doctrine and presenting it yeah.

Speaker 2 23:49

I would find myself driving down the road, and I think driving is a lovely metaphor for thinking, because you're moving through your life and you're trying to get things kind of situated in your brain.

Speaker 1 24:02

Yeah.

Speaker 2 24:02

But I would find myself on the verge thankfully never full on, but on the verge of a panic attack like racing heart of like where am I going to go? What am I going to do? I have to hide who I am now from a lot of people and I can do that, but I know I can't do that for for a long like. I can't sustain that for years. You know, will my family reject me.

Speaker 1 24:27

Yeah.

Speaker 2 24:28

I came. Yeah, that was a very real fear where my family reject me, and I'll touch back on that in a minute.

Speaker 2 24:34

Yeah, um, the you know the church family we had and we were still new to it because we'd we'd moved a couple of times. So you know how much can you push into those relationships? They're still only two years old. Yeah, and we we had people that we were close to and crazy hurts and misunderstandings, like just like with any body of people that you joined. Yeah, um, the obstacles, the obstacles were tough. I think if it had been internal to my own created family like it was hard enough. My, my husband at the time was not called in the same direction as I was. He was not called out. He definitely was diving deeper in. So there was that.

Speaker 1 25:31

Can we? Can we talk a little bit?

Speaker 2 25:32

about that part, because I think even relationships.

Leaving the Prison Camp of Religion

Speaker 1 25:36

I always I've been you know, talking I feel like this has been a thing, but like are like such a potent mirror toward us, right, because we have this attraction for them originally and all this stuff, and you know, here you are questioning really. I mean, you're a leader, you know what you're describing, is truly a leader in the Christian community.

Speaker 2 25:57

It's not just you're just going to church.

Speaker 1 26:00

You're leading, you're having a 40 minute kind of I don't know the proper term but sermons about the Bible and what we've processed through this Bible, and your husband at the time is deeply religious as well. Yes, so you guys are on the same page. So I guess, in terms of like your relationally- did you feel?

Speaker 1 26:21

like you had to hide that part from your husband, or was it more just like you showing this authentic part of yourself and him reacting a certain way? So how did that dynamic? Can you explore more depth into that? Absolutely.

Speaker 2 26:36

And before we go any further, just so when I shift language, you understand. Um, we, we were married until 2018, when we started our divorce process yeah we're legally separated now. We've been cohabiting, co-parenting, okay, um, since that time. So in the same house, and I'm currently working on finding myself another place to live, because it's just's just time. Five years together in the same house when things aren't.

Speaker 1 27:02

Yeah. So, ex-husband is correct-ish.

Speaker 2 27:05

It is, but I.

Speaker 1 27:06

Or should I say how should I?

Speaker 2 27:08

label this. I was thinking about it On my way here. I was like, how do I do?

Speaker 1 27:11

this Should I say partner or I say co-parent. Co-parent. Okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 2 27:17

What brings us together is the fact that we built a family together and we are so rock solid on that. I love that we are proud of the family we've made.

Speaker 1 27:25

Yeah.

Speaker 2 27:25

And at this point the way we live has diverged so much that it actually creates confusion in the home. Yeah, right, and so we're like okay we need to now have two homes instead of just one.

Speaker 1 27:40

So you know, with your current co-parent? Yes, and so what was that relationship in the beginning of? Just how did that shift and what struggles or obstacles happened within that divergence for lack of a better word.

Speaker 2 27:56

Yeah, he was really conflicted about it. He wasn't on the same page. He was really conflicted about it. He wasn't on the same page.

Speaker 1 28:09

I did start sharing with him the materials from the guy I don't even. Anyway, yeah, the bridge, the bridge, the exit ramp. What's the archetype for that?

Speaker 2 28:17

Oh, that's a great question. It's a threshold kind of vibe. Yeah, it kind of is Like a transformation. Maybe threshold guardian kind of thing. It's almost like, oh, that's a great threshold, yeah, yeah, you know, like you kind of forget about them. Maybe threshold guardian, it's almost like a trickster, almost like a coyote energy, you know what I mean Like kind of this shaman like a little bit like you come into this radical person and they kind of just like disappear after.

Speaker 1 28:34

they've just like, yes, let let you have some.

Speaker 2 28:36

Exactly, yeah, I like coyote for that. Yes, exactly. Yeah, I like coyote for that. Yes, very much. So I started sharing what I was learning with him Lots of, lots of CD teachings, lots of books. We went through a thing and I still have the books of blessing the spirit, calling a spirit forward to attention of any person and being able to say things to them that you would never necessarily be able to say to their face because their brain would get in the way. So his, the thing I resonated with most was calling someone's spirit to attention and saying those words that you would never want to curse or like, say anything like that, but like saying those words that have a healing energy to them or a repair work energy to them. And it just, it was like praying but talking to another person, and I loved it and I saw results. I was like, well, this is working.

Speaker 2 29:34

So if it, works like it can't work without spirit. So it must be real. Started sharing those things with him. He had a lot of disquiet at first, so it must be real. Yeah, started sharing those things with him. He had a lot of disquiet at first.

Speaker 1 29:48

He's a Pisces, ah, so he has a lot of room for like allowing and like not really liking conflict.

Speaker 2 29:52

Yes, yes, that too, very much, yeah, very much so, um so allowing things. Uh, I know he felt disquiet around being the head of the home.

Speaker 1 30:03

Yes.

Speaker 2 30:04

But that really wasn't ever his stick anyway. Yeah, he was kind of like you know, we're going to come to conclusions and agreement together and we'll figure this out too. Yeah, starting him down that road, he also after a while embraced it fully. In fact, it led him from the brethren church we were attending into more of a pentecostal church. So we changed churches and, uh, I gave it a shot because I was like, well, yeah, what I know of them historically vibes a little better with where I am right now and I attended off and on.

Speaker 2 30:40

I gave it a real shot two or three months and the spirit of righteous indignation and judgment was so heavy on me and I know that's a spiritual term, maybe not everybody would get it, but it's just this holier than thou, I know more. This is bullshit. Yeah, and I feel it every time. I was sitting in the church and I was like this is ridiculous, this isn't the. I know my like. At that point I'd already had that moment of like I have a real connection to spirit and it doesn't have anything to do with Christianity, it's mine.

Speaker 1 31:19

Yeah.

Speaker 2 31:20

And that was the point where I was like flailing in a church service going. I'm feeling this, this isn't right. It doesn't resonate with my connection that I finally kind of came to this really mostly mental conclusion not a spiritually driven.

Speaker 2 31:50

One of what, if I say this, is God calling me out. That's language that these people will understand and it does accurately reflect the disquiet and the I don't belong here anymore that I'm going through. So I found myself in this trans translator space of like oh, now I have my own internal kind of like what you were talking about, like internal reflection, like things that are changing in me that I have to bring up and look at and and put together in new ways.

Speaker 1 32:23

Yeah.

Speaker 2 32:23

And I need to deconstruct this whole worldview that I've been in for 40 years. It was very much a Moses thing.

Speaker 1 32:29

Like, I'm like.

Speaker 2 32:29

I've been here for 40 years, and now I'm being called to do something else.

Speaker 1 32:33

It's unknown. It's unknown, I'm going out in the wilderness.

Speaker 2 32:36

I'm going?

Speaker 1 32:37

where am I? What am I?

Speaker 2 32:37

doing and so, yeah, spending every Sunday alone in a quiet house was so unreal, Like I had to again kind of dive into the only refuge bedrock that I had, which was my connection to spirit.

Speaker 1 32:53

Yeah, Because at first it felt really bad bad, I guess, like, would you consider that like, archetypally speaking, like your dark wood moment, like your kind of darkness, or did you have any kind of moment where, like you were just stuck in this place of you know, like Dante, inferno vibes right when? You're in the darkness, having to move through I had several.

Speaker 2 33:16

I mean, you know of course you never get more than you can handle at once.

Speaker 1 33:21

Like I'd.

Speaker 2 33:22

I'd gone through a year seven of marriage.

Speaker 1 33:24

Yeah.

Speaker 2 33:25

That's a that's a dark wood moment.

Speaker 1 33:26

Like I was.

Speaker 2 33:27

I was under the table looking at the bottom of it going. What am I doing here? Why?

Speaker 1 33:33

why can I stay? How did that gum get here? Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 33:37

Yeah, but that's its own, you know seven year cycle of marriage. That's that's a thing and I hit it and this was, you know, deconversion was at the point where we're transitioning from Ohio. We're trying desperately to get from Ohio to California for years because he just really wanted to work in R&D, yeah, in Silicon Valley, and when we finally made it on a temporary assignment, it was like coming home yeah.

Speaker 2 34:06

Wow, this is different. This, this land, is different and we've. We knew we wanted to be here and, wow, we made it. Yeah and yeah, I was concerned about my family as well and how they would take it. My dad had already passed. I watched my family desperately try to keep his memory alive.

Speaker 1 34:29

Yeah.

Marriage, Family, and Diverging Spiritual Paths

Speaker 2 34:30

And one of the things that I was saddened by was the things I'd taken comfort from. The church's teachings about the afterlife were then we will know more fully and so there were limiting beliefs at this point that I was like dad grew up in and was teaching and disseminating to other people that I really didn't agree with.

Speaker 1 34:55

Yeah.

Speaker 2 34:55

And I was like, comforted by the fact that he was in a place where he knew better and was still growing.

Speaker 2 35:01

Like in my reconstruction of what does the spirit do after you know it was like it's going to keep learning, it's going to keep growing, it's going to take on other assignments, maybe reincarnation. You know I wasn't going to. I'm not really interested in condensing something back down into what everyone needs to know. Yeah, I'm interested in giving people language to meet them where they're at, which is why I really like astrology. I truly believe it's a language. I don't think it's a belief system.

Speaker 1 35:33

Yeah, I mean even astrology. It's interesting, right Like I've studied astrology for a while and. I've always been a skeptic astrologist, I would say, always questioning, constantly questioning, and one day I had this dream, where it's a strange dream, but people were like a Rubik's cubes, right, and so you had to kind of, like you know, figure out the pattern of them, and so these people would just turn in these weird directions and when people would be unlocked, like this kind of light would show and them right, you know.

Speaker 1 36:16

And suddenly the structure like of the Rubik's cube, would dissolve, right. And then I woke up. It wasn't really that, it was a weird dream, but I think what I know it was telling me was that these archetypal sciences like astrology, human design, all these different things that show you like archetypes within human beings it's similar to that You're using these kind of structural things because even in Buddhist teachings they have deities. I was always so confused by that, but it turns out Buddhists have a belief in whatever gets you to the result faster, right. And they saw that to understand consciousness it was faster for people to understand like a wrathful deity and like a just like a enlightened deity, this kind of archetype to get to consciousness quicker, right, right, yeah.

Speaker 1 37:08

And so when I think of astrology or human design and using these archetypes to understand these different parts of ourselves, how we show love, how we approach business, how we approach things, it's really to allow our kind of like hemispheric brain, this kind of brain that sees very strict patterns, to be able to understand kind of a more abstracted reality that lives within us, that's constantly moving and shifting and growing in a way that we understand, yeah, right. And so I, I, I kind of see astrology like that. I don't know if that you know. Does that track with you as parts work?

Speaker 2 37:47

Yeah, yeah, exactly, literally so my co-parent and I, as I said, are going through this this moment, where we're figuring out how to separate households, and that's a that's a lot of thing, especially in California. It involves finances, and there's nothing that will bring out your reptile brain like finances, especially right now. So we, you know, we've, we've seen our therapist we're seeing a mediator to help us through this process, and we took the step to actually just meet on our own.

Speaker 2 38:20

It's been kind of difficult, but I was like, hey, I've got some creative ideas for how we can, how we can handle this.

Speaker 1 38:26

Yeah.

Speaker 2 38:27

Maybe we can hold space for each other enough to try and work some things through. So we're not doing it on someone else's paid time.

Speaker 1 38:34

Yeah.

Speaker 2 38:35

And, uh, one of the things we did was we put our we. I did was we put our we. I've got laminated copies of our charts, right, and so I just like because in my game design, yeah, I, I would love to see people have a player mat that has their own chart on it and like some cards to play yeah, yeah again, not even finished, um, but got the mats out and I was like, look, if we need to get abstract with each other, he likes to use talk about himself in the third person.

Speaker 2 39:02

Sometimes that helps him distance.

Speaker 1 39:04

Yeah.

Speaker 2 39:05

But because I'm more astrology based, I'll be like my Venus is super triggered right now because we're talking about money and I'm feeling like, yeah, oh, that's beautiful, right I?

Speaker 1 39:15

love. I love that You're like taking astrology and using it as like um, like human or like what's a family systems kind of like parts work right. So that's a beautiful way of doing that. I love that yeah.

Speaker 2 39:28

When my mentor taught me he said that sometimes. Well, he talked about how horoscopes are cast. He also talked about seeing the chart through the lens of one planet. Just putting yourself in that space, just stand where Saturn is and look at the chart. I actually have a friend who's working on father wounds right now.

Speaker 1 39:48

Yeah.

Speaker 2 39:49

And it's fascinating to think about standing at the Saturn point and what does that mean about me?

Speaker 1 39:54

Yeah.

Speaker 2 39:55

What did my dad pass on to me? And standing in that Saturn space absolutely helps me interpret the things that my dad passed on to me and my brothers and sisters, which kind of brings us back around to the things I was afraid of with my family because they were a strong bedrock Of anything else in church. Letting go of all of it was easier than what is this going to mean for my relationship to my family? Yeah, and I'm super grateful. My dad passed on a love of family to all of us. Like he was very intentional. Did it sometimes get sacrificed because of God's calling? Absolutely, he didn't make any bones about that. Like sometimes God calls me to do things and and the family has to come second, I'm like okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 40:48

But um, that's, that's how it was, and what was his astrological chart? So he's a Taurus. He's a Taurus. Uh, I don't know his rising. I Taurus, I don't know his rising. I've played with the idea that it's a Libra rising. I can see that and that would make it a Capricorn moon, moon change signs that day, but Capricorn works better than Sagittarius for me. Yeah, it didn't really track.

Speaker 1 41:12

Yeah.

Speaker 2 41:13

So, yeah, I was worried because so and this is going to kind of tie in the divorce piece my dad has one sister. She and his dad passed away when he was a teenager and his mom went to work, raised them. He was the man of the house but he took man of the house traditionally, way past what his sister and his mom were comfortable with. I'm from their stock. He's always said you know, you're much more of a forward-pushing, non-traditional woman and so I love that I'm named for her. She married when my dad's sister got married. She married a divorced man. Sister got married. She married a divorced man.

Speaker 2 42:05

My dad had attended some of the first churches he attended as a teenager. They essentially evicted a pastor because he was marrying a divorced woman. So divorce became this thing that my dad was super conflicted about and condemned. My aunt married a divorced man. Then she divorced again and got married a second time. My dad did not go to either of those weddings but continued to tell me and my siblings how important family was, how important your siblings were, and he longed for a closer relationship to his sister. But because she was divorced and she didn't share his faith the same way, he felt like that was a block. His best friend had an affair and divorced his wife and essentially my dad was convicted that he needed to shun his best friend like that is what the spirit teaches you should do to a brother who is in sin.

Speaker 1 43:06

Yeah.

Speaker 2 43:07

Effectively. It was a divorce in itself, like when you shun someone. That is a separation Absolutely. And it impacted me more than one would think. It was like experiencing a divorce as a child.

Speaker 1 43:24

Yeah.

Speaker 2 43:25

Because we spent. His best friend owned a chicken farm. They were about an hour away. We'd go up there once or twice a month. They would have theological discussions at the table after dinner. We'd be running around with his five kids on the farm nine of us going crazy. It was great family times. It was beautiful. And then it just stopped and my dad cried at table, telling us what had happened and how we couldn't go back there, and he was shaken and it was huge, like earthquake in my life. We still saw the kids and the mom.

Speaker 1 44:02

Yeah.

Speaker 2 44:02

Because we kind of stepped into a support role for them, and but that still has, that still has like resonance for me.

Speaker 1 44:13

Yeah.

Speaker 2 44:13

And so you know, even choosing to divorce my husband.

Speaker 1 44:16

Yeah, what a big deal Like.

Speaker 2 44:19

I think that's why it's taken as long as it's taken.

Speaker 2 44:20

I was looking at myself in the mirror in 2014. Yeah, what a big deal, like I think that's why it's taken as long as it's taken. I was looking at myself in the mirror in 2014 and asking myself the question if you're the first or only person in your family to get divorced, can you live with that? And like staring in my eyeballs and going, if that's what I need to do, then that's what I need to do, but then not taking any action on it until like 2018, things are like, okay, we're growing apart, right, and that's neither. That's neither bad nor good, it just is. And I can see how the growth track you're on is good for you, but it's not for me. Yeah, and that's just real.

Speaker 1 45:02

Yeah, um and you know, even with that you're describing, you know you are also a cancer, right double cancer which is like um, I don't know if you resonate with this. Like I said, I learned mostly astrology from experiential. Sure, um, but like family is everything, everything like it's. So even when you have cancer in your chart, you can.

Speaker 1 45:26

Those people have deep connection with family, like and and have almost like, uh, if something happens within the family, they're, they're, they're deeply emotional around it you know, and I've always been just so like wow, like that's so interesting and hearing this, like clearly family was the obstacle, right, like will they reject me, all this stuff, and then even going through your now co-parents uh perspective, right with this is like you're having to really change and move, and so I'm wondering, like what was going on, like besides the mirror, like looking in the mirror literally yeah, and asking yourself these things like that.

Speaker 1 46:10

That sounds like it would cause a lot of stress within a human being for four years before it happens and like what like? Can you kind of like, can we dive deeper into, like what you're experiencing? Within those like four years, you decided to actually make moves on this.

Speaker 2 46:28

All right, yes, and to do that we got to go back a little bit. Yeah, um, you said attraction earlier.

Speaker 1 46:37

Yeah.

Navigating Truth, Honesty and Authenticity

Speaker 2 46:37

And I want to be careful, because there's ways I can talk about this that are hurtful, that I don't intend to be hurtful. Um, I was a 28 year old woman in the. Christian world. Right, I was single.

Speaker 1 46:53

Yeah.

Speaker 2 46:54

I was. I had a, a career. I'd been an administrative assistant for a college library and then a successful church not a mega church, but a church that was hiring starting to hire multiple pastors, right, um, I'd been given a raise but I was still single and I was aging to the point where I was the oldest in the singles group and a bunch of our mutual friends had married each other or gotten married and moved on to the married couples group in church. He and I lived down the street from each other. He's an attractive man. We'd gone on dates as friends. Occasionally he'd ask about something more serious and I was like that's ridiculous. We'd kill each other. Like there's no, I don't think of you that way. And well-meaning people in the church would also suggest, hey, super successful guy, smart engineer. Again, he lived down the street from me, on the same street as the church. Like we had a neighborhood going on, yeah, and if we were eating separately by ourselves in the evening, both of us were like this is dumb, like why don't we have dinner together?

Speaker 1 48:08

Yeah.

Speaker 2 48:08

So we'd have dinner together.

Speaker 1 48:09

Yeah.

Speaker 2 48:10

And it just kind of got to the point where it's like we had a solid friendship.

Speaker 1 48:15

Yeah.

Speaker 2 48:16

But I wasn't super attracted to him. Obviously he was to me.

Speaker 1 48:21

Yeah.

Speaker 2 48:24

And I'm getting older and I want to have a family, like that is the most important thing to me. I would have moments during those years not not really close to when I was dating him, but like for further back, where I could feel my children burning to get out of me and be like I want to start raising you, I want to start having this family and, um, yeah, so finally we were. We were seeing each other off and on and he brought it up again and I was like you know why don't I take some time and think about it and maybe we do make this a serious thing? It's a lot longer and more involved than that. There was a lot of back and forth.

Speaker 1 49:08

And, like I said, I mean attraction is very complicated with different people, right? You know, sometimes like people need more time to get to know people, there's like a lot of different aspects to this when I started doing the dating thing after our separation, uh, I very quickly discovered the words sapiosexual and demisexual.

Speaker 2 49:29

Yeah, attraction, uh for intellect and attraction for friendship. Absolutely, and I am solidly in those categories like both of them like you can. You don't have to be a standard uh handsome type. Yeah, for me to like consider right because it's. It's just that's not the point yeah um, but sometimes the way I say it as far as not being attracted to him, can sound hurtful.

Speaker 2 49:55

And that's not really the point. Was I attracted to him? Yes, we had a solid friendship and we had a solid intellectual rapport, Our conversations. He's a Pisces right, Very spiritually grounded and also super intellectual. So there was a lot there and still is. But we shouldn't live together. We really shouldn't. But again, there's a hardcore moral imperative against living together before marriage, having sex before marriage. I have completely reversed my opinion on having sex before marriage. I, um, I have completely reversed my opinion on having sex before marriage and I know that would be anathema, like that would just blow people's minds who knew me. But I don't need to go shouting it from the rooftops, but when I look at my kids, yeah.

Speaker 2 50:47

Like friends please have sex before you get married. Don't do that Like I got lucky, but that that could have been so bad.

Speaker 1 51:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2 51:02

And so yeah, again, I've lost my train.

Speaker 1 51:07

No, I mean, but it tracks because it you know. I think what we're describing is around just the idea of like what happens when we do go through like real identity shifts. Like my friend Abby, she likes to quote this author, but it's usually not. We were still trying to find out what the quote is.

Speaker 2 51:28

Oh no, I started listening to that episode and I didn't get to finish it yet. Yeah, no, but she always again. We and I didn't get to finish it yet.

Speaker 1 51:31

Yeah, no, but she always. We did an episode on Speak for Change a while back and she's done this quote that's always stuck with me and when we started looking it up, I just can't find it. She can't find it. So I'm like can it just be an Abby quote?

Speaker 2 51:45

There we go, you know. Um, but it was around the idea that, oh, I don't.

Speaker 1 51:57

I don't remember exactly what it is now, but it's. It's kind of like where, if you want to change, I forgot what the goal was. If you're looking for truth or to like change, you have to acknowledge that maybe everything you once believed was wrong. You know, yeah and feel that. And that your whole world may just wrong. Oh, you know, yeah, I feel that, and that your whole world may just be all wrong you know, and like that and honestly with honesty looking at that you know and I think your story deeply reflects this idea what happens when we start to become honest with ourselves?

Speaker 1 52:29

right, and that's honesty has been a big core of my transformation. I I've always run from. I've always been a kind of truthful person, but like, not always, but you know. But honesty and truth has have always scared me.

Speaker 1 52:45

It definitely when I was in relationship and and I was like because maybe a truth will destroy everything and so, but now, going through this transformation in this space, honesty has been like the core bedrock of everything, you know, like I needed to just be honest with myself and I did in this really weird way. I was like I had a journal at my house right now and I was like, okay, I'm just going to be 100% in this journal, right, because a lot of times when you journal you still have this kind of thing that somebody may read this Self-censor yeah, right.

Speaker 1 53:21

So I was like, screw that, I'm going to be 100% in this journal. Right know where I'm just going to, I don't care. No, if someone reads it like, well, shit, you know.

Speaker 2 53:32

Yeah.

Speaker 1 53:33

And then it became I'm just going to be honest with myself, you know. And then it became I'm just like radically honest and everything now you know where I don't tell a lie, and if I do, I I have to find some kind of accountability through it. And you know, I think that's been. You know I've been telling a lot of people this, but like this I've been like walking cliche, like everything. Everything I say is like what every wise person said like the truth will set you free.

Speaker 1 54:05

I'm like god damn it. You know yeah again, and so I'm wondering, like what your relationship with honesty is in this process, like in truth.

Speaker 2 54:13

Yeah, um, one of the writers that I would love to emulate is Madeline L'Engle. She wrote wrinkle in time and, uh, I've read a bunch of her things. I, I think it's in walking on water, which is one of her author's reflection books. She talks about having a journal where you can just write and no one's ever going to read it. But you have to get that stuff out because it will come out some other way if you don't, and so, yeah, it's definitely something I think about and something I encourage myself that I am a writer, although I'm not published, because I write journals, if nothing else.

Speaker 2 54:59

As far as honesty and truth go, I have an honest mouth. That sometimes gets me in trouble as a sad. You probably understand such rising. You probably understand that there's times when I wish I could take it all back. Yeah, but I don't always equate honesty and truth. Yeah, and it's for that reason, because I can be honest about something I'm feeling in the moment, but that may or may not be truth Absolutely. A feeling is a response or a reaction, and I can be honest about my feelings, but one of the most truthful things about feelings is they change, and allowing them to come through is where honesty helps. Truth, right. Right, because the truth is there, but you might be feeling something that if you don't acknowledge it honestly, it's going to keep you from getting to the truth because you're stuck in that feeling. And the other thing you said when you were asking about truth and honesty again, I'm an astrologer Truth, truth is real and we idealize it as an archetype.

Speaker 2 56:22

And there is that idealized archetype of truth that we seek after that we want like gold. And I mean I'm sure you've seen the memes about different ways of looking at things. You can look at a truth and see it very differently. So if I put, say, truth in the middle of my chart, that blank space with all those crossed lines, and I look at that truth from my Saturn in the 12th house, my Jupiter in the 6th, is going to see it very, very, very differently.

Speaker 2 56:56

And because Jupiter and Saturn have very polar, opposite, like, not only are they opposite each other close to it in my chart, they're very opposite archetypes. One is very limiting, structural, protective, the other one's very expansive, exploring growth. So you know, the same truth will be perceived differently from both of those abstract entities. And how could I say that another person with those exact same archetypes somewhere else in their charts will look at a truth that I say the same way. They can't. They can't. It's those Rubik's cubes again, except instead of a cube it's a circle. It's a circle of variety. Beautiful beauty, yeah.

Finding Community Beyond Religion

Speaker 1 57:45

Man, I love this because it reminds me so many things, but one of the most potent things that I got kind of from activism and from spirituality and from it's all connected Right, it's all connected, but like is like for for me to be free, we all have to be free, yeah, right, for us to understand truth, we all have to, we all have. Look, we all have to come at things honestly. You know, we can't just like I can't just be like extremely honest every time something comes up, yeah, and be like you know, I know what truth is right. No one person can know what truth is.

Speaker 2 58:23

That's right.

Speaker 1 58:23

The only way we can understand truth is if everybody the collective.

Speaker 2 58:28

Yeah, the collective.

Speaker 1 58:29

And so I always, when I talk about authenticity and all these things, I always bring it back to there's a lot of work we do and that's been very highlighted in literature and everything right, and it's important.

Speaker 2 58:39

Yeah.

Speaker 1 58:39

Extremely important, like our work, but there is a part of the work that requires being in community, being in connection with other people, being able to communicate with other people, and as an introvert who's just very social, I could like stay in my isolation for days, you know, and work on myself and get in my little darkness and to the point where, like now the uncomfortable is now comfortable, right when now I'm like okay, now I have to like go get out.

Speaker 1 59:13

And so I think this idea that you know, cause I always say, like I'm honest with myself in the moment, right, like where something comes up, I give myself permission to be honest about what that is. And that's the hardest thing right Is when you're when you believe something and then suddenly through the unconscious mind, something shows up that disproves the thing you believed. Are you going to be honest with that or are you going to try to hold on to the thing that you believed? Right, you know.

Speaker 2 59:43

That's where the rubber meets the road with what we're dealing with as a collective in this country right now.

Speaker 1 59:48

That's the rubber meeting the road right there, exactly in this country right now, that's the rubber meeting the road right there, and so it has led me from focusing more on depth in this deeper work instead of like just community work and trying to find a balance between both, because there is this sense of I'm not going to spiritually bypass the thing, I'm not just going to be like, oh, that's too messy, I'm going to move on. You know, and I know that in my heart, that it's.

Speaker 1 1:00:16

We need this you know and people need this. You know like these conversations, but we're at time, oh shoot.

Speaker 2 1:00:25

Can I say one?

Speaker 1 1:00:26

more thing. Yes, yes, yes yes, I really wanted to um ping off of what you said yeah, just as far as uh, community, the need for community.

Speaker 2 1:00:37

One of the greatest fears I had leaving the church was where will I find my community?

Speaker 2 1:00:42

and moving to a new state where I know almost no one yeah and now I don't even have the comfort of well, even if I just walk in a bapt church like I'm going to know the order of service, most of the songs, I'll know how to speak to people Like where do I find it?

Speaker 2 1:00:59

I don't want to just go to bars to find my community. That's the other direction, that's too much, I'm not ready. So I guess what I'm trying to say is what you just said about community, and depth is up to every individual, and when I started taking apart my belief system, it was identifying those basic human needs that no one had ever said out loud, they just handed to me, and that's, I think, the appeal of any religious culture is that it provides for some of those unspoken needs that we have protection, identity, community, places to take your, your needs and your prayer requests. You know whatever language you're going to put on it. Yeah, these are basic human needs and that's why we've got a proliferation of different religions and different belief systems. Even if they are, they haven't grown a religion around them.

Speaker 1 1:01:58

It's like yeah, oh man.

Speaker 2 1:02:01

There's so much more, we got to stop. Oh, melody.

Speaker 1 1:02:04

Okay, give me, give me something that you're doing that maybe you want people in the community to know about, and just you know, just a little.

Speaker 2 1:02:15

give us some last things here. I'm trying to launch a personal brand, you know, and I'm flailing because I told my therapist the other day I have such a great, varied personal life Like I've already said, like I'm interested in education.

Speaker 2 1:02:25

I have neurodiverse kids, gender fluid kids, like there's a lot I'm passionate about so much, but I've got a small website, melodycarolcom. I've I've kind of put out there a listening service not really therapy. I'm one of those people that people just walk up to me and they start talking and I'm good at listening. So I'm putting it out there that you know, if you want somebody to listen to you, you cause you're tired of waiting on the phone for whatever, or can't you know I am a good listener. And then I've also got an astrology curriculum that I'm looking to publish. So I've got a couple of prototypes for board books and some ideas for games and looking to put that out there.

Speaker 1 1:03:08

I love that.

Speaker 2 1:03:09

And both of them are referenced on the website. As far as just getting started, yeah, well, beautiful Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 1:03:18

And you know, thank you for coming on. It's been an honor and I love this story. I'm excited to get this out and just some like community highlights. I just want to unapologetically put a plug for um. We just I just launched the sunday sessions. Yeah, it's pretty fun.

Speaker 1 1:03:36

Um, we're first, second and third sunday of every month a different kind of gathering is happening. The first sundays is create and integrate, which is about using creativity to process values through the arts, so you can just show up and create cool stuff based on your values. Then we have a little circle where we discuss it. Second Sundays are the Integrity Lab, which is a really hands-on workshop about how do you live your values. You know so like you have values.

Speaker 1 1:04:14

We have real life scenarios, really tough conversations to practice and then just kind of reflecting on what came up during the workshop. Right. And then, lastly, the third Sunday is one of my favorites and it's the mirror gatherings and that's just where we connect and no fixing, no repairing, but we just share stories and connect what comes up in in us when we're in this circle. So if you're interested in that, you can go to link tree slash, thomas Sage Pedersen, or just Google it or find me on social media, but this has been the unfixed self podcast. Thank you so much for listening and I hope you have a wonderful day.