August 5, 2026 • 60 mins
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About Today's Episode: Our 2nd episode with guest Trisha Wilkerson, a former member of Mars Hill Church, a non-denominational evangelical Christian megachurch, founded in 1996 by Mark Driscoll, Lief Moi, and Mike Gunn in Seattle Washington.
She is an author, a certified nutrition & health coach, registered yoga instructor & co-founder of The Aftermath Agency. Trisha helps people heal from diet culture & disordered eating and rebuild peaceful relationships with food, their bodies & themselves.
Drawing from her experience at Mars Hill, she also supports people healing from harmful religious systems.
You can visit Trisha's website here: https://www.trishawilkerson.com
The Aftermath Agency: https://www.theaftermathagency.com/
Cited: The Rise & Fall of Mars Hill (podcast by Christianity Today)
Join our Patreon: patreon.com/TheCultNextDoorPodcast
About Today's Episode: Our 2nd episode with guest Trisha Wilkerson, a former member of Mars Hill Church, a non-denominational evangelical Christian megachurch, founded in 1996 by Mark Driscoll, Lief Moi, and Mike Gunn in Seattle Washington.
She is an author, a certified nutrition & health coach, registered yoga instructor & co-founder of The Aftermath Agency. Trisha helps people heal from diet culture & disordered eating and rebuild peaceful relationships with food, their bodies & themselves.
Drawing from her experience at Mars Hill, she also supports people healing from harmful religious systems.
You can visit Trisha's website here: https://www.trishawilkerson.com
The Aftermath Agency: https://www.theaftermathagency.com/
Cited: The Rise & Fall of Mars Hill (podcast by Christianity Today)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
The world tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
The Worldwide Church of God presents Herbert's w armstrong and.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I'm here to bring you the truth.
Speaker 4 (00:11):
No one else is telling you the things that God
is telling you through me.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
He's speaking through me the Lord.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Let me experience what it is to be a new bride.
You know, I'm not worried about what I'm about to say,
though it may be graphic. We're coming to the Lord
and if you.
Speaker 5 (00:29):
Can take it, beyond.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
The veil is the chamber. That's the wedding chamber. The
Lord told me that.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
But from then on, visions begin to come. When this
comes up on me, it produces the vision. I'm able
to tell people what's wrong with them, what they must
do in life, and the sins that they are holding back.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
In their life.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
God is going to be moving vitally and bot like
he dies before both judgments.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
Welcome back everyone to the Cult next Door podcast. First off,
apologies for the long break. We were having a good time,
so that's good. Sometimes you go on a break and
you're not having a good time. This is a nice break.
We needed a few weeks before we released new episodes,
so it was good and restorative, I think. And then Ashley,
(01:23):
you were just busy as all get out, so it.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Was it was for yourself.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
Yeah, restorative for me, restorative for me, a hell skate
for Ashley.
Speaker 6 (01:35):
No.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
So, if you haven't already, go follow us on Facebook, Instagram,
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(01:59):
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(02:20):
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So today's guest is Tricia Wilkerson Ashley, you want to
tell us a little bit about miss Tricia.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Tricia is an author, a certified nutrition and health coach,
a registered yoga instructor, and co founder of The Aftermath Agency.
Tricia helps people heal from diet culture and disordered eating
and rebuild peaceful relationships with food, their bodies, and themselves,
drawing from her own experience at Mars Hill Church. She
(03:03):
also supports others healing from harmful religious systems.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
Now, if some of you listening you heard Mars Hill,
you may be familiar with that. There was actually a
podcast by Christianity Today called The Rise and Fall of
Mars Hill. I think it came out roughly five years ago.
We don't do a lot of plugging of other podcasts,
especially ones that we have really no connection to, but
that one was a very good one. I really very
(03:31):
much enjoyed listening to that. If you're not familiar to
Mars Hill Church started in Seattle, I think they ended
up with satellite churches around the Pacific Northwest, and I
think even New Mexico and California. I think they had
fifteen or so. You can fact check me on that.
But some of you may know that the lead pastor
(03:53):
there was Mark Driscoll, a lot of controversy about him
over the past several years. He's kind of back into
I don't know if the lime light is the right word,
but kind kind of resurfaced after all the aftermath of
Mars Hills. So there are a lot of layers to this.
So we had a conversation with Tricia more about how
(04:15):
she entered Mars Hill with her husband and like what
it was like at the beginning, and then kind of
the aftermath after she left and the work that she
is doing now.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Yeah, so I would also highly recommend that podcast. I
was rivetted the entire time. It does come from a
Christian perspective, but I felt like the storytelling was great
and I learned a lot that, you know, here's a
whole other group that, you know, employed some of the
(04:46):
same tactics that the groups that we were involved in did,
like the high control and the control by fear and dominance,
and very patriarchal as well. So I enjoyed hearing that story.
You want to know more about that and about Mark
Driscold than I would highly recommend that because this conversation
(05:07):
with Tricia was not focused on Mark, It was not
focused on individual people within that group. Our focus is
mostly on how that experience has allowed her to help
other people who've experienced high control religion and how that
has given her greater insight into what those types of
(05:29):
systems due to our bodies and our psyche. And so
that was the conversation that we had. And so if
you want to know more about the actual Mars Hill
rise and fall, then definitely listen to the podcast. We'll
say Also, I mentioned earlier that Tricia is an author,
and she just let me know. I think I saw
(05:52):
this message this morning that she finished her transcript on
a book that she's been writing and is being sent
to publishers. So really excited about that. When we hear more,
we'll definitely say something about that so everyone can access
that book.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Yeah, absolutely, So let's jump in to episode two with Tricia.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
I I'm just curious if you have the same experience,
because I feel like still if I'm going to take
a nap it feels wrong, like in the middle of
the day, I will do it because I know that's
just a remnant, you know, of that conditioning. But it
feels like I'm lazy, I'm not being productive, you know.
(06:41):
In my marriage now, which my husband didn't grow up
in any of that. You know, she doesn't even understand, like,
okay kind of thing because he was never indoctrinated. There
was one time, like early in our marriage where I
wasn't feeling well. I took a nap. He came home early,
and I literally jumped up without thinking because it's just like, oh, no,
(07:02):
I'm not supposed to be laying down. I'm supposed to
be doing you know, like I'm taking care of the
house and all these things. Yes, And that was kind
of a wake up cause like, what in the world,
I'm a grown woman. I can't take a nap when
my body is telling me that it needs rest.
Speaker 6 (07:20):
Oh my goodness. Yes, I'm so glad you realized that.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Yeah, did you experience any of that? Just the the
culture of and I don't know, when I think about
like the trad wife or you know, like the traditional
Christian wife, it is like you're you're busy, You've got
a whole family, yeah, for sure, and how to take care.
Speaker 6 (07:44):
Of Yeah, I'm an enneagram three And I don't know
if you know what that means from my childhood, I
was really set up to oh you are too, Maddie. Yeah.
So for me, the wound and abandonment very much set
me up for high performance, high achievement. And I still
(08:07):
to this day am very driven towards achievement. And I
don't think that's broken per se, but I can tell
that in my relationship to myself, I need to be
curious about that when I when I go just default
mode and do dooo doo. So that was with me
even before mars Hill, this propensity, this need to achieve
(08:29):
and find my worth in that. And so yeah, if
I take a nap, I'm still loved, I'm safe, I'm good,
you know. But I think that's a project my whole
life like to work on that. I think mars Hill
took what was already there and just rubbed it up
even more. Yeah, and performed that shit even more. And
(08:51):
so it was like a drug for me because you know,
I'm gonna have a lot of kids, and I'm in
a homeschool the best y'all, and I'm going to adopt kids,
I'm going to write a book, and I mean it
just gave me permission and a path to achieve at all,
And it's humbling to know that that was there even before,
but it gave me more. The cult experience gave me
(09:14):
like almost more success unfortunately. Yeah, So I.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Could almost see how that would be a draw to
it because that was a place for you to exercise
all of that. Do you resonate with that Maddie being
and Enneagram three and the abandonment piece and Performance for
Love and all of that.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
Oh yeah, the Performance for Love part. I even still
will joke with Liz. She'll come over and like, let
me give you a hug, and I'll be like, Nope,
I didn't earn my love today. Oh I still have
that part, like I'm joking about it, but also am I.
But now the kind of drive to perfectionism part, Like
I literally ashually I remember this like there was I
(10:01):
don't know if Dad wrote this song. I just know
he's sang the song like whatever you find to do,
do it well. Do you remember that?
Speaker 6 (10:09):
Like?
Speaker 5 (10:09):
I literally will hear that in my mind like daily,
which I think, like that's a good like principle, right,
like yeah, you should want to do what you're doing well,
But like no, it's like like ramped up like turned up.
So yeah, I resonate with a lot of what you're
saying on that front, like, oh gosh, yeah, it's it
(10:30):
serves you well in like work settings, but not in
being a human being settings. Often I've found it's like
I want to turn that off, and that's not how
it works.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
Yeah, it takes away the humanity of like struggle and
and if you're always achieving. For me, I'll say if
I'm always achieving, like someone will ask me how I'm doing,
and my first thought is what I've done, yes, not
how am I doing? And so you know, being in
therapy for a millionayears now or whatever, like it's just like, oh,
(11:06):
that's interesting. I want to give them my list, not
my soul cry today, like what is hurting? What am
I grieving today? Where am I struggle? Like how am
I seeing beauty today? Show up for me? Where are
the tears? Stuff like that? Not that again saying posture
change of like okay, now I got to do that,
(11:27):
because that's being a good human is telling people where
I'm grieving. It's getting deep enough to realize, oh, part
of my story is looking for what it takes to
be accepted. So it was sin over here in repentance
and now it's be honest and human, oh, you know,
(11:49):
like and then going deeper and saying, oh, I have
such a tender spot of wanting to give people something
that satisfies what they're looking for so that they'll like me.
That brings compassion and curiosity for me. So it just
never ends right where you can go with that stuff?
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Yeah, how do you do that? How do you work
on that on a daily basis? Because I mean, you're
still probably always going to have that drive to achieve
and that probably will always be exciting. But then how
do you balance that with your soul, like you said,
your humanity? Yeah, like, how do you remind yourself of
(12:32):
those things?
Speaker 6 (12:33):
I mean, I don't know is the answer. But one
strategy that I have had that has been helpful that
I've utilized is gratitude. It helps to take the pressure
out of the system there of achieving, because if I
perpetually find my worth and what I've done, it can
stay pretty shallow. It doesn't go very I like deep waters,
(12:57):
but I can stay pretty productive and not you know,
go into that mode. And so gratitude has helped kind
of bring my soul into the conversation around how look
what I got to do today, and you know, I'm
so grateful for this aspect of my life and I
got to do this or you know, and that can
(13:17):
be you know, toxic positivity. It can be several areas
where you're actually still missing the point with gratitude. But
it's been a bridge for me to get to my
heart because I can hide in various performances and not
give my heart. So gratitude has been one strategy I've used.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
So that's great. Yeah, you know, I'm not in anyagram three.
I'm an Aneagram one, which has some similarities. I think
there is a lot of perfectionism, and you know, the
core wound is that, you know, an Enneagram one is bad.
(14:02):
You're just like bad to the core, which I look
back on that now. Of course I didn't know about
the enneagram then, but knowing now, I'm just like, wow,
like the upbringing and the indoctrination that you are inherently bad,
it's just speaking to that wound and validating it. Yeah,
and so it just felt so true to me.
Speaker 6 (14:23):
Yeah, yeah, it's like you you wanted to hear that
message in a way, it like confirms your theory.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I think you can't trust yourself.
Speaker 6 (14:36):
I think too. Like the work that I do professionally,
like it. It really keeps me in heart spaces and
soul spaces with people's stories, and that can be very
therapeutic for me to stay in it with people. Yes,
because if I didn't do people work, I think it
might I might stay in task mode.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Yeah yeah, I mean that makes a difference if you're
helping other people being in touch with their hearts. So
I guess that brings us to you know, the healing
that you've done since leaving Mars Hill, and like the
work that you do now, I know it's so much
informed by your experiences.
Speaker 6 (15:19):
Yeah yeah. So I became a health coach about seven
years ago, and in meeting with clients, I started noticing
some patterns. Maybe the universe was bringing me the same
people with the same things. I don't know, but I
started noticing, oh, mostly women, some men, but have these
(15:42):
issues with body image, and most of them had religious trauma.
So I started noticing there's this correlation of high control
religion and or a household with religious messaging impacting the
way that these women were viewing their box bodies and
their relationship to food. So there was dieting in their history,
(16:05):
but there was also a very low self concept and
a fear based idea around their body, so shame comparison
and all of that, and wow, it just knocked myself
off because I was like, well, that's me too, And
so I started doing the work like oh yeah, body
(16:25):
image and relationship to food and disordered eating and all
kinds of stuff there started making sense. So, you know,
five years later, I started writing because I'm like, I
need to bring together the experience of religious trauma and
religious upbringing or conditioning and more high control religion and
(16:47):
diet culture because these two things are both shame based systems.
They require both diet culture and high control religion require
you to feel bad about yourself and then they give
you a formula for feeling good enough and acceptable, and
it's the same mechanism of shame. And I was like,
(17:11):
oh okay. So started explicitly offering more kind of in
the coaching realm religious you know, indoctrination recovery and diet
culture recovery conversations and help under the auspices of coaching,
offering story work relationship to food work relationship to bodywork.
(17:34):
And then I started a company with a couple other
people that are amazing and it's called Aftermath Agency here
in our area, and it's a collective, so we have therapy,
physical therapy, resource helping people find resources in the area.
So it's awesome in that it's an opportunity for me
(17:57):
to serve in religious recoveries and diet culture recovery spaces.
So working on a book called Already Good that talks
about all that. It's definitely in process. So yeah, so hard,
so so hard. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
I love it out.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
Oh, thank you so much, thank you. It's going to
be a lot about you know, my story and my
relationship to myself and how self compassion and you know,
self love actually practically make a difference in relationship to food.
Because I really believe both of you like our relationship
to food. It's it seems like a silly thing to say,
(18:40):
but I think it's profound and true now that our
relationship to food mirrors and symbolizes our relationship to ourself.
So how we think about food, how we experience pleasure
and peace with food, regularity, attention, kindness, nutrition, not nutritional
(19:00):
all the components of our relationship to food symbolizes how
kind and consistent we are. And it's not a shame message.
It's just a curiosity message of oh okay, so you
forget to eat all day? Oh okay, huh, Well I'm
wondering about that. What's going on? Do you? Do you
(19:20):
not feel that you are important to nourish? You know,
stuff like that. So, yes, it's such an interesting discovery
that people make because they come in wanting to diet
and you're like, oh, let's talk about this.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
No where does like being disembodied come into this, because
like you're talking about not remembering to eat, which you know,
I think I mentioned on our exploratory call, that's me.
I mean I go through kind of ups and downs
with that, and you know, I'm working on trying to
(19:59):
figure out what are the triggers what's going on in
my life at these times when this happens, because I
definitely go through where I feel like I'm eating healthy
and normal and then times where I'm definitely not. I've
looked at it. I mean when you say that is
a direct reflection of our like how we view ourselves
(20:19):
in a relationship with ourselves, that kind of like hits
deep because like in my mind, I've been thinking I'm
disembodied and that's just a work in progress for me
of trying to be embodied. Yeah, and because I'm disembodied,
I'm not even recognizing hunger. It's you know, it's not
that I'm hungry and I'm like, no, you can't eat, Ashley.
(20:42):
It's like it's one thirty and I'm like, oh, I
haven't had a bite to eat today.
Speaker 6 (20:46):
Right right?
Speaker 4 (20:47):
Ever even thought of it? Yeah, So yeah, I'm curious
about both of those.
Speaker 6 (20:52):
Sure that makes sense. I love that you're curious, and
hopefully you're being gracious with your curiosity. We were in
my office, I would ask questions and wonder if you
know how often this is happening for you, and ask
neutral questions like it's not good or bad, but what
was going on for you? What were some of the things,
(21:13):
you know, maybe some emotional relational things components. Sometimes there's
a metabolism component, an actual biological component of your body's
just not used to feeling hunger. And so I have
people that you know, eat a certain way for a
couple of weeks and they start to feel hunger, and
so some of that is just showing up for your body,
(21:34):
teaching it to be hunger, you know, hungry, and some
of it is absolutely disassociation. And if you're in therapy,
you're curious with your therapist about that. That's why I
do trauma sensitive yoga with people in recovery, because I
believe that yoga as a modality for recovery for both
religious trauma and diet dieting and body image issues can
(21:56):
bring some awareness and reconnection to the body. It's that mind,
body soul connection. The breath work, but gentle, restorative yoga,
not like an athletic form of yoga, is what I do,
and so that has been a method to bring some
more embodiment for folk. That's been helpful. It's certainly been
(22:20):
life changing for me.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Ah. I wish we lived in the same area because
I would totally go we.
Speaker 6 (22:27):
Could do it online.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Yeah do you do that? Do you offer that?
Speaker 6 (22:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Okay, yeah, all right, we'll have to put that info
in for listening. Yeah for sure.
Speaker 6 (22:36):
Yeah. I do private sessions and classes. But I think
that gentleness and the compassionate curiosity around all of these things.
When you learn, oh, I you know, I forget to
eat or or I overeat or whatever. The challenges or
the struggle or the awareness of oh, I actually want
to do this differently. It can be a neutral awareness,
(22:57):
but we're so conditioned. I think this has broken, this
is bad. I got to do it better different What
if it just starts out neutral, like, oh, I you know,
I sometimes forget to eat. What's that about? What's going on?
What are the variables? And stay in the neutrality of
it for a bit, you might notice some of the pressure,
the should or the like pieces there might kind of
(23:22):
show themselves, like what's going on? So that's where I
would be curious with you about.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
But it is.
Speaker 6 (23:29):
It's absolutely profound, the intersection though, of these shame based
systems and man, it's been so helpful for me to
think about how much I didn't put attention around my
story with compassion in these things. I just performed it.
And even outside the church, we know that this is
(23:52):
the case with beauty culture and beauty standards and body stuff.
It's just really hard to be out there and feel
confident and beautiful and not a shit, not a comparison,
not shame about how we look.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
Yeah, there also is that component of being more comfortable
or feeling safer being small. Yeah, Like I've noticed for
me with mine, the up and down stuff, A lot
of it isn't about how I look, because I might
even see a picture of myself and be like, ooh,
(24:33):
like I'm too thin, you know, like that doesn't I
don't I feel like I don't look healthy there. But
but it's the way that it feels just being small.
There's I don't know if that is just you know,
I assume it's part of the trauma of you know,
if if you're quiet and you're unseen, Yeah, you're safer,
(24:56):
you know, in those target right, Yeah, but like in
a physical sense, I think it's manifesting like in a
physical sense too. Like that's the question I always ask,
why do I feel more comfortable being small? Because I
will look at other women and say, who are you know,
(25:18):
healthy looking, and I'm like, ideally, that's what I would want, yeah, yeah,
and I'm like, but I'm not actually pursuing that. Yeah,
So it's very confusing.
Speaker 6 (25:29):
Yeah, oh, I know. It's it's like, no matter what
your experiences in your body, whatever size, there's like this
should of noticing others and then never quite feeling satisfied.
With where we're at right like right now, it's more
like yeah, that's true a lot of the time, and
(25:51):
it's not go ahead, sorry, oh no, it's just one
of those one of the little mind experience, Like a
thought experiment that I do with people is like, would
you find yourself content if you never lost another pound
or you never gained another pound, you stayed in this
body this size right now forever? And they're like, well,
(26:12):
absolutely no, you know, And I say, okay, so this
is the work. Could you offer appreciation and attention and
goodness to yourself right now as is it take good
care of what is already good. But that's the thing,
is that all of us, and for me, I know
(26:32):
that it's never good yet, like I'm all there's always
something else I'm working on to change my parents or
make myself better. So what if I actually accepted myself
right now and know that I'm doing a lot of
good things for myself and I'm taking pretty good care
(26:53):
of my body and eating well, and this is what
my body looks like, Okay, this is my body.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
Yeah you know, yeah, I hear it.
Speaker 6 (27:04):
I know you're crazy, it's crazy, But what if what if?
Like how sorry, if it's a trigger word, but stewarding, stewardship,
like taking good care, Like what if what if our
bodies like we didn't need to change anything? What if
what if we looked at ourselves and said, that's good.
(27:25):
I'm going to take good care of you because I
love you. You're already good and I we take good
care of what we love, right, Yes, So instead of
trying to change it, we're taking good care of something
that we is already good and already lovable and precious.
And so that's like the pivot, you know that trying
to get to myself, but also with my clients of
(27:48):
and you were you were so shaped to believe bad
thoughts about yourself and your body and you're never going
to measure up.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
No, And I think we don't know how to take
care of ourselves either, if you've never really done it before,
it's like, okay, but what does that even look like? Yeah?
You know what I mean, what does takeing care of
myself look like?
Speaker 6 (28:09):
That's another like that's also a challenge, it is and
we want to know. And I think that's one of
the the like draws to diets is because it's giving
us the structure and the knowing that we think we're after,
but it's actually not. It doesn't end up being that.
We end up, you know, conforming ourselves to the structure
(28:31):
and the should of the diet and now that's the
only way. Instead of learning about nutrition or food education
and it being all very like lighthearted, it becomes this
thing that we must master in order to achieve our goals.
But it could be it could be that one of
the draws to diet is, like you said, like a
I want to know. I want to know how to
(28:52):
feed myself well and take good care.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Yeah, where does control come into this?
Speaker 6 (29:00):
That's a wonderful question. I wonder what you would say.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
I pretty much identified that I think a large piece
of mind has to do with control. Just recently because
I've gone through another like probably one of my most
severe times, which is kind of frustrating because I was
like I kind of thought that was past, but I
started just looking at a win to the start what's
(29:29):
been going on, And there's been a lot of things
I have been extremely distressing and stressful for me personally,
you know, like with people that I love and I
don't have any control over it, and there's like a
almost like a rage that comes with that, because like
you just want to be able to make it okay.
Speaker 6 (29:51):
And you can't.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
And so I'm like, am I just subconsciously like why
I can control this? Like I don't have to eat?
I don't know, Like I'm not saying that in my mind.
That is like a theory that I have. Since this
is a really it has been a really like obviously
bad yeah episode, and then it's been a really bad
(30:14):
season or hard season, I should say I think there's
a definite correlation with that.
Speaker 6 (30:20):
That's really curious, and I would trust you to know
that there's a connection there. I would wonder about dysregulation.
When we are nervous, systems are disregulated, what's the easiest
thing to do to control to eat or not to eat.
It's like back to biological regulation when we learn as babies,
(30:45):
we learn from our caregivers how to regulate a million times.
But you know, grown up now, when we get disregulated,
food can regulate. It's the quickest, easiest way to write regulate.
And I think our bodies know that so well. And
so if you don't eat, that's that's a very powerful
(31:08):
form of control for you because your body might be
asking for food to regulate, but you're saying no to it.
So that's a way for you to kind of opposite
regulate yourself. Interesting, So I wonder about that. Oh yeah,
and I tell people a lot that, you know, like
(31:29):
it's actually quite creative of the body that when you're
feeling out of sorts, you're just regulated and you go
to food, like all food is comforting. Like let's just say,
you know, like it's actually really amazing that we go
to food sometimes to regulate.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
See for me, though, maybe maybe it's like punishment, Like
I'm not going to allow myself to have that comfort
because anytime I'm just regulated, the last thing I want
to do is eat anything. Like I don't, I do
not think about it, So.
Speaker 6 (32:02):
Then I would the next question. And you can edit
this out if you it's too personal. Yeah, whatever, but like.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
No, I feel like it helps.
Speaker 6 (32:09):
Do you mind. Do you find that withholding love from
yourself or others is a strategy when you're feeling stressed.
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Well, it used to be with others, but I feel
like I have pretty much rooted that out. That was
a big thing, but we learned that was modeled.
Speaker 6 (32:30):
Okay, there's something curious to me that you deny food
when you're stressed and you you're checking out from that,
like the appetite, the hunger, the pleasure of whatever food
could do to regulate you. So there's a denial of
self there of like not giving something good to yourself. Yeah,
(32:54):
not like a withholding and yeah, for sure control, But
is there something that you're getting in not giving to yourself?
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Right?
Speaker 4 (33:04):
No, I've been asking myself that, yeah, like like what
am I What is the benefit of this for me?
What am I getting out of this? What's it doing
for me? Obviously something, although not you know, the best
way to go about it, I did recognize, you know,
and I'm I'm good with talking about this because I
(33:25):
think I'm definitely not the only person. So hopefully whatever
we talk about, you know, someone's gonna it's gonna resonate.
But I have you know, it took physical, like actual
like body symptoms for me to realize that I am
(33:45):
overly stressed and that I'm not taking care of myself.
And so that was a thing that kind of woke
me up like about a month ago, and so I've
started doing practicing more mindfulness. So that's where I started
I'm like, I know, meditation works for me, I know,
(34:08):
sitting in the silence and feeling like I'm connecting with
actually like me. Yeah, that helps. But I can't sit
in meditation all day. Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6 (34:19):
Ye.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
So, but I just told myself, even if you only
do one thing a day, you have to do, like
do something to take care of yourself.
Speaker 6 (34:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
That's what I've been trying to do. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (34:32):
I wonder if you could have, if you could incorporate
like a mindful eating practice where it's not necessarily you know,
you eat instead of not eating, but it's just something
you do. Maybe you just had a meal or whatever,
but you just take you know what do you what's
it like? Do you like Greek yogurt? Do you like what?
(34:52):
What's something that you always have on hand?
Speaker 4 (34:55):
That is why are you laughing, Matty? Are you thinking
of the sticky rice?
Speaker 5 (34:59):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (34:59):
Okay, like I really love it.
Speaker 6 (35:02):
I'm sorry, that's great. Okay, So a sticky rice mindful
eating meditation where you just sit and have a moment
with that sticky rice and there's no judgment around it,
there's no should there's no like, I got to do
it this way. I got to do that. Oh I
just ate, or oh I need to eat. You know,
it's just time with the sticky rice and you give
(35:25):
you see it as a gift. You see it as connection,
and you you you really just open up your senses.
You know, what are you hearing, what are you smelling,
what are you tasting? What does it feel like? And
you eat it for five minutes and you start to lovingly,
compassionately train yourself that this is a good thing. That
(35:47):
you can give good food to yourself and enjoy it
and be connected to it. And that is that is
a precious opportunity to kind of remember that. It doesn't
need to be a response to stress or like to
eat or naught eat. It's just something you build in,
you build into your your day. So I wouldn't want
(36:09):
to I wouldn't want to like recommend that You're like, Okay,
you got to eat this way, and you got to
you know, instead of skipping your food, you know, meal,
you got to eat instead instead of that, just have
something on the side, like a little sticky rice time.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
I like that because that is that doesn't feel scary
because they're you know, I've talked to my therapist about
this before and I've told her this is something that
I want to tackle fully, but like, I can't take
that on right now. I just don't you know that
there are all these other things that I'm working on,
and I'm like, that feels really big, just completely like
(36:49):
retraining myself and revamping my relationship with.
Speaker 6 (36:53):
Food, YEP is a big thing.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
And the idea of you know, being told you need
to eat this many calories and these meals, that feels
very scary. Yeah, that feels like, okay, I have Yeah.
Speaker 6 (37:07):
When you have pain and grief and a pattern of
behavior that is disembodied and history around this, you definitely
don't want to attack it like that, like the you know,
the strategic all in let's talk about everything you're eating
and because it's intimidating and overwhelming and I would imagine
(37:31):
shut shut you down even more so. Yeah, I I
you know, there's so much I would ask more but
about you. But a little side, little ad of just
a little practice that doesn't feel like too much. It
just can be a sweet little moment remembering that you
(37:52):
can feed yourself and experience the connection with the food
and the connection with your body. Just that feels like
sweet little offering for you.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
Yeah, I can do that for sure. Yeah, it's definitely doable.
Speaker 6 (38:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
I'm curious if this is common or maybe it's just me.
But if I'm exercising a lot, like let's say, strength training,
I find that I don't feel that need nearly as
much to control what I'm eating. I just I feel
(38:26):
like it's more intuitive.
Speaker 6 (38:30):
That's wonderful. I mean, do you feel connected to your
body when you're exercising?
Speaker 4 (38:33):
I think so. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (38:35):
Okay, ye, are you aware of making any deals with
yourself that exercise allows you to not have to worry
about food?
Speaker 4 (38:47):
I don't think I have. It just kind of that
just kind of is the result. I don't think it's
a conversation I've had in my head. But even when
I was running all the time marathon training, I had
to eat a lot. I mean I knew I needed
that because running so much to me. Yeah, and I
(39:07):
was like, I have to have fuel for that. It
was less about taking care of me, but more so
I could do the thing.
Speaker 6 (39:13):
Yeah that's good to know. Yeah, I can see that.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
Yeah, But I don't know, I just have noticed, especially
when I was drink training, I just felt strong and good,
and I felt more self love. I think then I
lost my gym, and then it's I just haven't you know,
I kind of fill off the wagon on that. Just
(39:38):
curious if.
Speaker 6 (39:39):
Other people, if you hear this, it's so common. I
think wherever you find a connection to your body appreciation, agency,
more awareness, that's neutral to kind go with that and
cultivate peace in the other categories from that, because you
always want to like do more of that whatever you're
(40:03):
finding more decent because then that it can accelerate into
other categories because now you know what it feels like
to enjoy and experience peace. So wouldn't it be awesome
if you had the same enjoyment piece and delight with
food that you do with running.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
Yes, And you know, like with the gym, I don't
think it was just the fact that I was strength training,
you know, and like feeling strong because it was getting stronger.
So I think that all helped. But I felt a
safety in my gym. It was mostly women, it was
very small, and I felt safe in my body, which
(40:47):
I don't get anywhere else. You know, if I go
to like a Planet fitness, I just don't I feel
like I'm activated somewhat at some level, not necessarily high
all the time. But that is another I think component
of like just the safety in your body.
Speaker 6 (41:04):
Yes, absolutely, Yeah, I'm glad that you had that. I'm
sorry you don't have an anymore. Yeah, I'm looking for
it replacement, oh my god.
Speaker 4 (41:14):
But I mean that's the challenge for everyone, right, like
hues in the situation of finding safety in your body.
Of course, you're not going to want to be embodied
if it's not safe to be there.
Speaker 6 (41:27):
Well, and research in these spaces. The two areas of
the most disembodiment are religious grama and eating disorders. So
it's so interesting to me in tragic it really is
so to you know, these these systems need us to
be disconnected from our bodies because you can't trust yourself.
(41:47):
It's not good. So we're going to check out of
our bodies, our senses are, you're in an appropriate reception,
all the things like we're we're going to check out
because it's not safe to be connected to me.
Speaker 4 (42:00):
Right, So the work that you do with you said
restorative yoga and.
Speaker 6 (42:04):
Trauma trauma sensitive restorative yoga.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Yeah, can you talk about the difference between those two
And then I guess both of those are about embodiment
and helping you reconnect.
Speaker 6 (42:18):
And then yeah, for sure, it's that the breath is
really a bridge from the from the mind to the body.
So any modality that is helping you connect with your
breath is going to bring more nervous system regulation. Yeah, awesome,
So yoga is us you know, it's strategically designed for
that ancient what the ancient? So I think side note,
(42:43):
I think it's funny that I'm a yoga teacher because
I was taught that it's demonic. But anyway, Yeah, so.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Do you find as a challenge though, because I have
already had that in counseling, that you have to be
careful about ingesting a yoga practice to anyone.
Speaker 6 (43:04):
Yes, I've had you know, I've suggested it to clients
that I meet with for disordered eating and it's not
you know, it's not something they feel comfortable with. I've
had a few of those, which is fine. I respect
where they're coming from. But yeah, trauma sensitive just means
we're not touching teachers are not touching students. It's very invitational,
(43:29):
like you might try this, you might try that, because
the real goal of it is increasing a sense of
agency because people that are disembodied do not have this
deep sense of agency because they're so used to being
in spaces of being controlled and not having accessing agency.
So abuse, high control, religion, all these things. There's always
(43:52):
someone telling me what to do with my body. So
the last thing I want to do as a yoga
teacher is get a group of people together and say
this is what to do with your body. So right,
So it's not trauma sensitive if it's like that, So
it's very gentle and very invitational and increasing a sense
of agency so that people feel like that empowerment of oh,
(44:14):
this is my body and it's not feeling this. I
want to do this instead and I can leave if
I want, and I can walk around if I want. Yes,
And it's all okay, yes, because it's like we need
to learn that, we need to learn how to do
that with our bodies and ourselves that oh it's an option.
I don't have to do everything the teacher tells me. Yes.
Speaker 4 (44:34):
So yeah, and so the restorative how does that differ
from so.
Speaker 6 (44:40):
It yeah, So there's I am trained in hatha yoga,
so it's more of the ancient poses that you hold
of you know, for just a little bit, and then
restorative is like five to eight minutes of a pose
that you are staying in, which allows you to rest
into a post. So you know, people might cry, they
(45:03):
might fall asleep, they might because they're giving themselves rest
and you're not so preoccupied with what's next. Yeah. Yeah,
I love in the present.
Speaker 4 (45:16):
Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about the emotions
that come up because you just said you know you
might cry. I've seen that. I've experienced that, and it
can be surprising when you're when you're in a pose
and you're like, why do I suddenly feel this like
rush of emotion?
Speaker 6 (45:33):
Yeah, well, I mean there's the energetic quality of you know,
if if you believe that there's this system in your
body up your spine where all these nerves are, and
there's this channel of energy flowing throughout our organs and
our muscles and the fashion all this geeky amazing stuff
(45:53):
that's in our bodies, and you know, the body keeps
the score stuff where you know, trauma is held in
the body in some of these places. So when you
apply a system like yoga where you're actually strategically moving
energy through these different poses. You do forward binds, back bins, twists,
(46:15):
setting down poses, in versions, you're actually moving energy. And
then the second component is the emotional spiritual. When you
give yourself the gift of rest, it's profound, like how
busy are we and how constantly are we moving going
from one thing to the next, and so any kind
of care to the body, whether it's massage, a nap,
(46:38):
you know, some sort of therapy like craniocycral or something
like that, you're giving yourself permission to set into stillness,
and there's something very emotional about that because you're giving
yourself time to be not on. You get to be
off and receive love, receive rest, receive goodness and hopefully
(47:01):
whoever's do you know, facilitating that session with you is
offering a safe space for you to exist in that stillness,
and that can be very emotional for people and rare
like yes, yeah, no, it's just very heartwarming to give
yourself that. So yeah, I love it.
Speaker 4 (47:20):
Do you yeah? Do you incorporate breath work in these sessions?
Speaker 6 (47:26):
Yeah? Yeah. At the very end of the yoga session,
we do like a five minute sitting meditation. Mm hmmm,
so okay, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Did holotropic breathwork. Oh I probably no, Okay, I didn't.
I didn't know what that was.
Speaker 4 (47:46):
And it was I was in a group of ten,
no twelve people. One was a leader, and so many
people were crying. Oh yeah, and I felt very emotional
as well, and and so afterwards I was like, I
have to figure out what that was. Like, I don't
even know what it was, but it felt like a
(48:08):
really good release. Yeah, but it was. It's really interesting. Yeah,
I definitely would love to do more breath work. We
don't have a lot of opportunity in Missouri. There is
in north west Arkansas. I'm just not there all the time.
But okay, once we're there full time, I'm hoping to
(48:29):
tap into all things. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (48:32):
Wow, I didn't know you weren't there full time. That's cool.
Speaker 4 (48:35):
No, it's like we're back and forth, half and half.
Speaker 6 (48:38):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (48:38):
So that's why I haven't like actually signed up for
a gyms very hard, you know. So once I get there,
I did find an all women's like group strength training gym,
and that's definitely what I want to do.
Speaker 6 (48:53):
Oh, that'll be so cool for you.
Speaker 4 (48:55):
Yeah, yeah, this is this resonate with you, Maddie I'm
wondering if you have any of the same issues around embodiment, eating,
connecting to yourself.
Speaker 5 (49:10):
I do with food, But I think it's almost like
the flip side of the coin is what you were
saying Ashley about. I think with me, it's I don't
withhold from myself or withhold to like punish myself. It's
more like if I feel like I have failed or
(49:34):
I just didn't live up to whatever standard I had
in my head, it's almost like who cares, I'll eat whatever.
Then I have that kind of version of it, whatever
that is, whatever that is, like I don't care whatever, Yeah,
I'll just eat these three cheeseburgers and that kind of
thing where it's like a give up, like but more
that than kind of what you guys were hitting on you.
Speaker 6 (49:58):
Would you say that you experienced disembodiment, disconnection from yourself
in the moment when you feel kind of in that
rebellious kind of I'm going to do it anyway, Yeah,
I think so you check out. Yeah, it's almost like
if I disconnect, I won't know I'm doing this.
Speaker 4 (50:15):
Yes, yeah, I think the rebellion piece is a big,
big part of that too, just being controlled for all
these years.
Speaker 6 (50:25):
Yeah, I mean, but isn't that good that you're wanting
that agency? Both of you, both both of your stories
with food. It's almost like this this reaching towards agency
in different ways, like yeah, that's true, I was controlled,
so I'm going to control it or this should in
the disconnection, it's like I'm going to do whatever I want,
(50:47):
you know, Like that's that's kind of beautiful though, that
you want agency so bad you're willing to do something
that you end up not really loving, but.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
You know, yeah, definitely gives us clues, yes, and what's
really important to us?
Speaker 6 (51:08):
What do we really value?
Speaker 4 (51:10):
Yeah, that's good control and power.
Speaker 6 (51:17):
Well, I mean there's the funny part. But it's also
like you can trust yourself. If you're hungry for a cheeseburger,
you get to have a cheeseburger, you know, like, yeah,
you're not going to hell for cheese cheeseburgers. No, So yeah, okay.
Speaker 4 (51:35):
Well I love the work that you do, seriously, I'm
glad that you offer I guess telehealth coaching and yoga.
I'm gonna connect with you after about that and that
is something that I really would like to incorporate. But
I really like the idea of the gentle Yeah, yoga.
(51:59):
You just I've gone to some yoga classes. I know
it's so beneficial. I know it's so good. It's just
the ones that I've tried to go to. It's more
about your form and like the precision of it, and
you know, somebody is coming and pushing you this way,
and you know, yeah, and it's just kind of like
(52:19):
you're like awkwardly in this pose. And I'm not super
flexible to begin with, so that wasn't the best time
for me. But whenever I've done like let's say, sound
bath or something, you know, we will do a few
poses and it's always very gentle, and yeah, I feel
I feel that that is that's giving me something.
Speaker 6 (52:43):
Yeah, yeah, that's good. I'm so glad. Yeah, awesome. Okay,
so talk to you.
Speaker 4 (52:50):
But yeah, so one last question. If somebody is feeling
disconnected from themselves, like trapped in Shames second Survival survival mode,
what would you want them to hear today We've said
a lot, but what would be finding to leave them with?
Speaker 6 (53:08):
Just notice what you're feeling, Notice, notice the messages, notice
the behaviors with neutrality. Because so much of our work
to all of us and others is where we've we've
had the judgment message for so long that we can't
be aware without judgment. So that's the first piece of work,
(53:29):
is to notice these things, all the ruminations, all the thoughts,
all the feelings, all the behaviors with neutrality, and then
capture them, write them down, share them with somebody. And
then phase two is be curious and compassionate. Compassionate curiosity
is my favorite with those noticings, so not trying to fix,
(53:53):
not judging, but like, Okay, what's that about? What was
I feeling? What was I thinking there? And investigate yourself
with that with a trusted person hopefully, but you can
also trust yourself to investigate. So it's the neutral noticing
first and then the compassionate curiosity. Those are those are
(54:14):
my little phases that I need every day for myself.
Speaker 4 (54:19):
Yeah, I love that. My word of the Year last
year was curious and I didn't really I kind of
carried that over to this year because I feel like
it's such an ongoing process and that just means curious
about myself, you know, other people, instead of getting angry
at somebody like and curious about what's going on with him,
you know, those kinds of things. Yeah, but I think
(54:40):
I have to add neutrality to that because that is
so good, just reminding yourself to not view any of
this with judgment, but just you're being curious in a
neutral way, I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (55:00):
And then neutral noticing is so important because we pingulum
swing so a little tangent if I can. The body
positivity movement is a is a pendulum swing from my view,
because we want so bad to have value and worth
attached to our body images, and so we pingulum swing.
(55:23):
And I for me, it's body neutrality. Instead of forcing
everyone to believe that all bodies are beautiful, we're still
controlling how we feel about people's bodies. What about it's
just all bodies are neutral, that there's a body, there's
a body, there's a body. Yeah, and I just I
(55:45):
don't think we're designed to be neutral most of the time.
Speaker 4 (55:49):
That's such a good point though, Yeah, I never thought
about that. With a body positivity, there's a body, we're
still judging it. Yeah, it's still a judgment.
Speaker 6 (55:58):
Yeah, it's still a shift.
Speaker 4 (56:00):
You should see all.
Speaker 6 (56:03):
Sizes as beautiful and good. Well, what about personal preference?
What about your story, what about genetics, what about your relationships?
What about There's so many variables that go into how
someone exists in their bodies, and so it's still a shit.
It's still a control mechanism. Anyway, it's a little rant
(56:25):
for why you know, he feels so much better.
Speaker 4 (56:28):
Yeah, I feel like that's really missed, so thank you
for pointing that out. Yeah, okay, Well, can you let
people know where they can find you?
Speaker 6 (56:39):
Of course, thank you so much, and I will share
I will share this with my network. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (56:45):
Yeah, so you have a website, right, I do so, okay.
Speaker 6 (56:49):
Forshall Wilkerson dot com and after the Aftermath Agency dot com.
Speaker 4 (56:54):
Okay, and that's Tricia t r I s h A.
Speaker 6 (56:57):
Will Krison dot com.
Speaker 4 (56:59):
Yet okay, well we'll put that in the in the
notes too though.
Speaker 6 (57:03):
It's so good to get to know you guys a
little better. Wow. Yeah, is so great.
Speaker 4 (57:07):
I could talk about this all day me too.
Speaker 6 (57:10):
Let's let's let's yeah, we could do a whole other
podcast just for this.
Speaker 4 (57:16):
I know. When yes, yeah, if you would like to
for sure, seriously, because I do want to get out
of this. Doesn't have to be on the pod anymore.
But like I do want to step away from not
entirely only talking about you know, individuals cult experiences, like
(57:39):
I want to talk about the aftermath and what you
do about it and how you reconnect with yourself and
some of the just the impacts that we don't really
even realize were from that. I'm still like uncovering, unearthing
things for sure.
Speaker 6 (57:55):
The recovery work, Yeah, yeah, I recovery language is interesting
now in that it's so in you know, addict addiction spaces.
But yeah, I feel like I'm recovering from religious trauma,
and I'm recovering from abuse, and I'm recovering you know.
So there's so many things that I'm recovering from and
it's going to be forever that I'm recovering.
Speaker 4 (58:19):
So yeah, that on one hand, sometimes that has felt
a little bit heavy, knowing Okay, well there's no finish line,
but you know, I can see progress every year and
that's encouraging. That is encouraging, Yeah a lot. I feel
like as long as we're growing, then we're on the
(58:40):
right track.
Speaker 6 (58:42):
Yeah, And there's that connection piece, like we need each other.
So your listeners as they connect to YouTube and your guests,
like they're finding connection like that that's the big remedy
right to all this.
Speaker 4 (58:56):
Yes, yes, because I think we're both just it kind
of especially in the South and the Midwest. Connection is
so often found in religious spaces, and so just to
have alternatives to that. There are other ways to find
community and connect with people outside of a religious ideology,
(59:19):
you know. And I know our podcast is like a
little small drop in the bucket to that. But if
that helps anybody, you know, feel a sense of community,
then like, I'm so happy.
Speaker 6 (59:31):
That's good. That's really the best we can do is
offering safe spaces for people to connect.
Speaker 4 (59:40):
Yeah, okay, thank you so much.
Speaker 6 (59:46):
Thank you for doing both do and being bright lights
in these dark places seriously, and.
Speaker 4 (59:56):
Yeah it feels like it's getting darker all the time
to yeah, awesome, you know in the world, Yes it is.
Speaker 5 (01:00:04):
If you like this episode, please go leave us a
five star rating and review wherever that is, if it's Apple,
Spotify or another service. It's really helpful. And don't forget
to subscribe so that you can get notified to when
we have new episodes and updates and things like that. Thanks,
and we'll talk to you all again next week.
The world tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
The Worldwide Church of God presents Herbert's w armstrong and.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I'm here to bring you the truth.
Speaker 4 (00:11):
No one else is telling you the things that God
is telling you through me.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
He's speaking through me the Lord.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Let me experience what it is to be a new bride.
You know, I'm not worried about what I'm about to say,
though it may be graphic. We're coming to the Lord
and if you.
Speaker 5 (00:29):
Can take it, beyond.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
The veil is the chamber. That's the wedding chamber. The
Lord told me that.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
But from then on, visions begin to come. When this
comes up on me, it produces the vision. I'm able
to tell people what's wrong with them, what they must
do in life, and the sins that they are holding back.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
In their life.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
God is going to be moving vitally and bot like
he dies before both judgments.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
Welcome back everyone to the Cult next Door podcast. First off,
apologies for the long break. We were having a good time,
so that's good. Sometimes you go on a break and
you're not having a good time. This is a nice break.
We needed a few weeks before we released new episodes,
so it was good and restorative, I think. And then Ashley,
(01:23):
you were just busy as all get out, so it.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Was it was for yourself.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
Yeah, restorative for me, restorative for me, a hell skate
for Ashley.
Speaker 6 (01:35):
No.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
So, if you haven't already, go follow us on Facebook, Instagram,
and TikTok. Also, you can leave us a voice message.
There's a link at the top of the episode description
where you can click the little button and leave us
voice message. Sends it directly to Ashley and I. We
really like those, it's really cool. Also, we have our
Double Portion Club shout outs. We've got Shanda and Chase
(01:59):
as always love those two. We have Heather Bartlett, Carla
Julia b Tamara Smith, Tiffany Spurlock, and Holly Rowland. Thank
you all for supporting the podcast. Listener. If you hear
this and you want to get a shout out and
you want to be in that club, you can join
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(02:20):
free episodes and a shout out. Or you can do
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link for our Patreon is also in the episode description.
So today's guest is Tricia Wilkerson Ashley, you want to
tell us a little bit about miss Tricia.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Tricia is an author, a certified nutrition and health coach,
a registered yoga instructor, and co founder of The Aftermath Agency.
Tricia helps people heal from diet culture and disordered eating
and rebuild peaceful relationships with food, their bodies, and themselves,
drawing from her own experience at Mars Hill Church. She
(03:03):
also supports others healing from harmful religious systems.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
Now, if some of you listening you heard Mars Hill,
you may be familiar with that. There was actually a
podcast by Christianity Today called The Rise and Fall of
Mars Hill. I think it came out roughly five years ago.
We don't do a lot of plugging of other podcasts,
especially ones that we have really no connection to, but
that one was a very good one. I really very
(03:31):
much enjoyed listening to that. If you're not familiar to
Mars Hill Church started in Seattle, I think they ended
up with satellite churches around the Pacific Northwest, and I
think even New Mexico and California. I think they had
fifteen or so. You can fact check me on that.
But some of you may know that the lead pastor
(03:53):
there was Mark Driscoll, a lot of controversy about him
over the past several years. He's kind of back into
I don't know if the lime light is the right word,
but kind kind of resurfaced after all the aftermath of
Mars Hills. So there are a lot of layers to this.
So we had a conversation with Tricia more about how
(04:15):
she entered Mars Hill with her husband and like what
it was like at the beginning, and then kind of
the aftermath after she left and the work that she
is doing now.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Yeah, so I would also highly recommend that podcast. I
was rivetted the entire time. It does come from a
Christian perspective, but I felt like the storytelling was great
and I learned a lot that, you know, here's a
whole other group that, you know, employed some of the
(04:46):
same tactics that the groups that we were involved in did,
like the high control and the control by fear and dominance,
and very patriarchal as well. So I enjoyed hearing that story.
You want to know more about that and about Mark
Driscold than I would highly recommend that because this conversation
(05:07):
with Tricia was not focused on Mark, It was not
focused on individual people within that group. Our focus is
mostly on how that experience has allowed her to help
other people who've experienced high control religion and how that
has given her greater insight into what those types of
(05:29):
systems due to our bodies and our psyche. And so
that was the conversation that we had. And so if
you want to know more about the actual Mars Hill
rise and fall, then definitely listen to the podcast. We'll
say Also, I mentioned earlier that Tricia is an author,
and she just let me know. I think I saw
(05:52):
this message this morning that she finished her transcript on
a book that she's been writing and is being sent
to publishers. So really excited about that. When we hear more,
we'll definitely say something about that so everyone can access
that book.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
Yeah, absolutely, So let's jump in to episode two with Tricia.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
I I'm just curious if you have the same experience,
because I feel like still if I'm going to take
a nap it feels wrong, like in the middle of
the day, I will do it because I know that's
just a remnant, you know, of that conditioning. But it
feels like I'm lazy, I'm not being productive, you know.
(06:41):
In my marriage now, which my husband didn't grow up
in any of that. You know, she doesn't even understand, like,
okay kind of thing because he was never indoctrinated. There
was one time, like early in our marriage where I
wasn't feeling well. I took a nap. He came home early,
and I literally jumped up without thinking because it's just like, oh, no,
(07:02):
I'm not supposed to be laying down. I'm supposed to
be doing you know, like I'm taking care of the
house and all these things. Yes, And that was kind
of a wake up cause like, what in the world,
I'm a grown woman. I can't take a nap when
my body is telling me that it needs rest.
Speaker 6 (07:20):
Oh my goodness. Yes, I'm so glad you realized that.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Yeah, did you experience any of that? Just the the
culture of and I don't know, when I think about
like the trad wife or you know, like the traditional
Christian wife, it is like you're you're busy, You've got
a whole family, yeah, for sure, and how to take care.
Speaker 6 (07:44):
Of Yeah, I'm an enneagram three And I don't know
if you know what that means from my childhood, I
was really set up to oh you are too, Maddie. Yeah.
So for me, the wound and abandonment very much set
me up for high performance, high achievement. And I still
(08:07):
to this day am very driven towards achievement. And I
don't think that's broken per se, but I can tell
that in my relationship to myself, I need to be
curious about that when I when I go just default
mode and do dooo doo. So that was with me
even before mars Hill, this propensity, this need to achieve
(08:29):
and find my worth in that. And so yeah, if
I take a nap, I'm still loved, I'm safe, I'm good,
you know. But I think that's a project my whole
life like to work on that. I think mars Hill
took what was already there and just rubbed it up
even more. Yeah, and performed that shit even more. And
(08:51):
so it was like a drug for me because you know,
I'm gonna have a lot of kids, and I'm in
a homeschool the best y'all, and I'm going to adopt kids,
I'm going to write a book, and I mean it
just gave me permission and a path to achieve at all,
And it's humbling to know that that was there even before,
but it gave me more. The cult experience gave me
(09:14):
like almost more success unfortunately. Yeah, So I.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Could almost see how that would be a draw to
it because that was a place for you to exercise
all of that. Do you resonate with that Maddie being
and Enneagram three and the abandonment piece and Performance for
Love and all of that.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
Oh yeah, the Performance for Love part. I even still
will joke with Liz. She'll come over and like, let
me give you a hug, and I'll be like, Nope,
I didn't earn my love today. Oh I still have
that part, like I'm joking about it, but also am I.
But now the kind of drive to perfectionism part, Like
I literally ashually I remember this like there was I
(10:01):
don't know if Dad wrote this song. I just know
he's sang the song like whatever you find to do,
do it well. Do you remember that?
Speaker 6 (10:09):
Like?
Speaker 5 (10:09):
I literally will hear that in my mind like daily,
which I think, like that's a good like principle, right,
like yeah, you should want to do what you're doing well,
But like no, it's like like ramped up like turned up.
So yeah, I resonate with a lot of what you're
saying on that front, like, oh gosh, yeah, it's it
(10:30):
serves you well in like work settings, but not in
being a human being settings. Often I've found it's like
I want to turn that off, and that's not how
it works.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
Yeah, it takes away the humanity of like struggle and
and if you're always achieving. For me, I'll say if
I'm always achieving, like someone will ask me how I'm doing,
and my first thought is what I've done, yes, not
how am I doing? And so you know, being in
therapy for a millionayears now or whatever, like it's just like, oh,
(11:06):
that's interesting. I want to give them my list, not
my soul cry today, like what is hurting? What am
I grieving today? Where am I struggle? Like how am
I seeing beauty today? Show up for me? Where are
the tears? Stuff like that? Not that again saying posture
change of like okay, now I got to do that,
(11:27):
because that's being a good human is telling people where
I'm grieving. It's getting deep enough to realize, oh, part
of my story is looking for what it takes to
be accepted. So it was sin over here in repentance
and now it's be honest and human, oh, you know,
(11:49):
like and then going deeper and saying, oh, I have
such a tender spot of wanting to give people something
that satisfies what they're looking for so that they'll like me.
That brings compassion and curiosity for me. So it just
never ends right where you can go with that stuff?
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Yeah, how do you do that? How do you work
on that on a daily basis? Because I mean, you're
still probably always going to have that drive to achieve
and that probably will always be exciting. But then how
do you balance that with your soul, like you said,
your humanity? Yeah, like, how do you remind yourself of
(12:32):
those things?
Speaker 6 (12:33):
I mean, I don't know is the answer. But one
strategy that I have had that has been helpful that
I've utilized is gratitude. It helps to take the pressure
out of the system there of achieving, because if I
perpetually find my worth and what I've done, it can
stay pretty shallow. It doesn't go very I like deep waters,
(12:57):
but I can stay pretty productive and not you know,
go into that mode. And so gratitude has helped kind
of bring my soul into the conversation around how look
what I got to do today, and you know, I'm
so grateful for this aspect of my life and I
got to do this or you know, and that can
(13:17):
be you know, toxic positivity. It can be several areas
where you're actually still missing the point with gratitude. But
it's been a bridge for me to get to my
heart because I can hide in various performances and not
give my heart. So gratitude has been one strategy I've used.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
So that's great. Yeah, you know, I'm not in anyagram three.
I'm an Aneagram one, which has some similarities. I think
there is a lot of perfectionism, and you know, the
core wound is that, you know, an Enneagram one is bad.
(14:02):
You're just like bad to the core, which I look
back on that now. Of course I didn't know about
the enneagram then, but knowing now, I'm just like, wow,
like the upbringing and the indoctrination that you are inherently bad,
it's just speaking to that wound and validating it. Yeah,
and so it just felt so true to me.
Speaker 6 (14:23):
Yeah, yeah, it's like you you wanted to hear that
message in a way, it like confirms your theory.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I think you can't trust yourself.
Speaker 6 (14:36):
I think too. Like the work that I do professionally,
like it. It really keeps me in heart spaces and
soul spaces with people's stories, and that can be very
therapeutic for me to stay in it with people. Yes,
because if I didn't do people work, I think it
might I might stay in task mode.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Yeah yeah, I mean that makes a difference if you're
helping other people being in touch with their hearts. So
I guess that brings us to you know, the healing
that you've done since leaving Mars Hill, and like the
work that you do now, I know it's so much
informed by your experiences.
Speaker 6 (15:19):
Yeah yeah. So I became a health coach about seven
years ago, and in meeting with clients, I started noticing
some patterns. Maybe the universe was bringing me the same
people with the same things. I don't know, but I
started noticing, oh, mostly women, some men, but have these
(15:42):
issues with body image, and most of them had religious trauma.
So I started noticing there's this correlation of high control
religion and or a household with religious messaging impacting the
way that these women were viewing their box bodies and
their relationship to food. So there was dieting in their history,
(16:05):
but there was also a very low self concept and
a fear based idea around their body, so shame comparison
and all of that, and wow, it just knocked myself
off because I was like, well, that's me too, And
so I started doing the work like oh yeah, body
(16:25):
image and relationship to food and disordered eating and all
kinds of stuff there started making sense. So, you know,
five years later, I started writing because I'm like, I
need to bring together the experience of religious trauma and
religious upbringing or conditioning and more high control religion and
(16:47):
diet culture because these two things are both shame based systems.
They require both diet culture and high control religion require
you to feel bad about yourself and then they give
you a formula for feeling good enough and acceptable, and
it's the same mechanism of shame. And I was like,
(17:11):
oh okay. So started explicitly offering more kind of in
the coaching realm religious you know, indoctrination recovery and diet
culture recovery conversations and help under the auspices of coaching,
offering story work relationship to food work relationship to bodywork.
(17:34):
And then I started a company with a couple other
people that are amazing and it's called Aftermath Agency here
in our area, and it's a collective, so we have therapy,
physical therapy, resource helping people find resources in the area.
So it's awesome in that it's an opportunity for me
(17:57):
to serve in religious recoveries and diet culture recovery spaces.
So working on a book called Already Good that talks
about all that. It's definitely in process. So yeah, so hard,
so so hard. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
I love it out.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
Oh, thank you so much, thank you. It's going to
be a lot about you know, my story and my
relationship to myself and how self compassion and you know,
self love actually practically make a difference in relationship to food.
Because I really believe both of you like our relationship
to food. It's it seems like a silly thing to say,
(18:40):
but I think it's profound and true now that our
relationship to food mirrors and symbolizes our relationship to ourself.
So how we think about food, how we experience pleasure
and peace with food, regularity, attention, kindness, nutrition, not nutritional
(19:00):
all the components of our relationship to food symbolizes how
kind and consistent we are. And it's not a shame message.
It's just a curiosity message of oh okay, so you
forget to eat all day? Oh okay, huh, Well I'm
wondering about that. What's going on? Do you? Do you
(19:20):
not feel that you are important to nourish? You know,
stuff like that. So, yes, it's such an interesting discovery
that people make because they come in wanting to diet
and you're like, oh, let's talk about this.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
No where does like being disembodied come into this, because
like you're talking about not remembering to eat, which you know,
I think I mentioned on our exploratory call, that's me.
I mean I go through kind of ups and downs
with that, and you know, I'm working on trying to
(19:59):
figure out what are the triggers what's going on in
my life at these times when this happens, because I
definitely go through where I feel like I'm eating healthy
and normal and then times where I'm definitely not. I've
looked at it. I mean when you say that is
a direct reflection of our like how we view ourselves
(20:19):
in a relationship with ourselves, that kind of like hits
deep because like in my mind, I've been thinking I'm
disembodied and that's just a work in progress for me
of trying to be embodied. Yeah, and because I'm disembodied,
I'm not even recognizing hunger. It's you know, it's not
that I'm hungry and I'm like, no, you can't eat, Ashley.
(20:42):
It's like it's one thirty and I'm like, oh, I
haven't had a bite to eat today.
Speaker 6 (20:46):
Right right?
Speaker 4 (20:47):
Ever even thought of it? Yeah, So yeah, I'm curious
about both of those.
Speaker 6 (20:52):
Sure that makes sense. I love that you're curious, and
hopefully you're being gracious with your curiosity. We were in
my office, I would ask questions and wonder if you
know how often this is happening for you, and ask
neutral questions like it's not good or bad, but what
was going on for you? What were some of the things,
(21:13):
you know, maybe some emotional relational things components. Sometimes there's
a metabolism component, an actual biological component of your body's
just not used to feeling hunger. And so I have
people that you know, eat a certain way for a
couple of weeks and they start to feel hunger, and
so some of that is just showing up for your body,
(21:34):
teaching it to be hunger, you know, hungry, and some
of it is absolutely disassociation. And if you're in therapy,
you're curious with your therapist about that. That's why I
do trauma sensitive yoga with people in recovery, because I
believe that yoga as a modality for recovery for both
religious trauma and diet dieting and body image issues can
(21:56):
bring some awareness and reconnection to the body. It's that mind,
body soul connection. The breath work, but gentle, restorative yoga,
not like an athletic form of yoga, is what I do,
and so that has been a method to bring some
more embodiment for folk. That's been helpful. It's certainly been
(22:20):
life changing for me.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Ah. I wish we lived in the same area because
I would totally go we.
Speaker 6 (22:27):
Could do it online.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Yeah do you do that? Do you offer that?
Speaker 6 (22:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Okay, yeah, all right, we'll have to put that info
in for listening. Yeah for sure.
Speaker 6 (22:36):
Yeah. I do private sessions and classes. But I think
that gentleness and the compassionate curiosity around all of these things.
When you learn, oh, I you know, I forget to
eat or or I overeat or whatever. The challenges or
the struggle or the awareness of oh, I actually want
to do this differently. It can be a neutral awareness,
(22:57):
but we're so conditioned. I think this has broken, this
is bad. I got to do it better different What
if it just starts out neutral, like, oh, I you know,
I sometimes forget to eat. What's that about? What's going on?
What are the variables? And stay in the neutrality of
it for a bit, you might notice some of the pressure,
the should or the like pieces there might kind of
(23:22):
show themselves, like what's going on? So that's where I
would be curious with you about.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
But it is.
Speaker 6 (23:29):
It's absolutely profound, the intersection though, of these shame based
systems and man, it's been so helpful for me to
think about how much I didn't put attention around my
story with compassion in these things. I just performed it.
And even outside the church, we know that this is
(23:52):
the case with beauty culture and beauty standards and body stuff.
It's just really hard to be out there and feel
confident and beautiful and not a shit, not a comparison,
not shame about how we look.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
Yeah, there also is that component of being more comfortable
or feeling safer being small. Yeah, Like I've noticed for
me with mine, the up and down stuff, A lot
of it isn't about how I look, because I might
even see a picture of myself and be like, ooh,
(24:33):
like I'm too thin, you know, like that doesn't I
don't I feel like I don't look healthy there. But
but it's the way that it feels just being small.
There's I don't know if that is just you know,
I assume it's part of the trauma of you know,
if if you're quiet and you're unseen, Yeah, you're safer,
(24:56):
you know, in those target right, Yeah, but like in
a physical sense, I think it's manifesting like in a
physical sense too. Like that's the question I always ask,
why do I feel more comfortable being small? Because I
will look at other women and say, who are you know,
(25:18):
healthy looking, and I'm like, ideally, that's what I would want, yeah, yeah,
and I'm like, but I'm not actually pursuing that. Yeah,
So it's very confusing.
Speaker 6 (25:29):
Yeah, oh, I know. It's it's like, no matter what
your experiences in your body, whatever size, there's like this
should of noticing others and then never quite feeling satisfied.
With where we're at right like right now, it's more
like yeah, that's true a lot of the time, and
(25:51):
it's not go ahead, sorry, oh no, it's just one
of those one of the little mind experience, Like a
thought experiment that I do with people is like, would
you find yourself content if you never lost another pound
or you never gained another pound, you stayed in this
body this size right now forever? And they're like, well,
(26:12):
absolutely no, you know, And I say, okay, so this
is the work. Could you offer appreciation and attention and
goodness to yourself right now as is it take good
care of what is already good. But that's the thing,
is that all of us, and for me, I know
(26:32):
that it's never good yet, like I'm all there's always
something else I'm working on to change my parents or
make myself better. So what if I actually accepted myself
right now and know that I'm doing a lot of
good things for myself and I'm taking pretty good care
(26:53):
of my body and eating well, and this is what
my body looks like, Okay, this is my body.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
Yeah you know, yeah, I hear it.
Speaker 6 (27:04):
I know you're crazy, it's crazy, But what if what if?
Like how sorry, if it's a trigger word, but stewarding, stewardship,
like taking good care, Like what if what if our
bodies like we didn't need to change anything? What if
what if we looked at ourselves and said, that's good.
(27:25):
I'm going to take good care of you because I
love you. You're already good and I we take good
care of what we love, right, Yes, So instead of
trying to change it, we're taking good care of something
that we is already good and already lovable and precious.
And so that's like the pivot, you know that trying
to get to myself, but also with my clients of
(27:48):
and you were you were so shaped to believe bad
thoughts about yourself and your body and you're never going
to measure up.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
No, And I think we don't know how to take
care of ourselves either, if you've never really done it before,
it's like, okay, but what does that even look like? Yeah?
You know what I mean, what does takeing care of
myself look like?
Speaker 6 (28:09):
That's another like that's also a challenge, it is and
we want to know. And I think that's one of
the the like draws to diets is because it's giving
us the structure and the knowing that we think we're after,
but it's actually not. It doesn't end up being that.
We end up, you know, conforming ourselves to the structure
(28:31):
and the should of the diet and now that's the
only way. Instead of learning about nutrition or food education
and it being all very like lighthearted, it becomes this
thing that we must master in order to achieve our goals.
But it could be it could be that one of
the draws to diet is, like you said, like a
I want to know. I want to know how to
(28:52):
feed myself well and take good care.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Yeah, where does control come into this?
Speaker 6 (29:00):
That's a wonderful question. I wonder what you would say.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
I pretty much identified that I think a large piece
of mind has to do with control. Just recently because
I've gone through another like probably one of my most
severe times, which is kind of frustrating because I was
like I kind of thought that was past, but I
started just looking at a win to the start what's
(29:29):
been going on, And there's been a lot of things
I have been extremely distressing and stressful for me personally,
you know, like with people that I love and I
don't have any control over it, and there's like a
almost like a rage that comes with that, because like
you just want to be able to make it okay.
Speaker 6 (29:51):
And you can't.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
And so I'm like, am I just subconsciously like why
I can control this? Like I don't have to eat?
I don't know, Like I'm not saying that in my mind.
That is like a theory that I have. Since this
is a really it has been a really like obviously
bad yeah episode, and then it's been a really bad
(30:14):
season or hard season, I should say I think there's
a definite correlation with that.
Speaker 6 (30:20):
That's really curious, and I would trust you to know
that there's a connection there. I would wonder about dysregulation.
When we are nervous, systems are disregulated, what's the easiest
thing to do to control to eat or not to eat.
It's like back to biological regulation when we learn as babies,
(30:45):
we learn from our caregivers how to regulate a million times.
But you know, grown up now, when we get disregulated,
food can regulate. It's the quickest, easiest way to write regulate.
And I think our bodies know that so well. And
so if you don't eat, that's that's a very powerful
(31:08):
form of control for you because your body might be
asking for food to regulate, but you're saying no to it.
So that's a way for you to kind of opposite
regulate yourself. Interesting, So I wonder about that. Oh yeah,
and I tell people a lot that, you know, like
(31:29):
it's actually quite creative of the body that when you're
feeling out of sorts, you're just regulated and you go
to food, like all food is comforting. Like let's just say,
you know, like it's actually really amazing that we go
to food sometimes to regulate.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
See for me, though, maybe maybe it's like punishment, Like
I'm not going to allow myself to have that comfort
because anytime I'm just regulated, the last thing I want
to do is eat anything. Like I don't, I do
not think about it, So.
Speaker 6 (32:02):
Then I would the next question. And you can edit
this out if you it's too personal. Yeah, whatever, but like.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
No, I feel like it helps.
Speaker 6 (32:09):
Do you mind. Do you find that withholding love from
yourself or others is a strategy when you're feeling stressed.
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Well, it used to be with others, but I feel
like I have pretty much rooted that out. That was
a big thing, but we learned that was modeled.
Speaker 6 (32:30):
Okay, there's something curious to me that you deny food
when you're stressed and you you're checking out from that,
like the appetite, the hunger, the pleasure of whatever food
could do to regulate you. So there's a denial of
self there of like not giving something good to yourself. Yeah,
(32:54):
not like a withholding and yeah, for sure control, But
is there something that you're getting in not giving to yourself?
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Right?
Speaker 4 (33:04):
No, I've been asking myself that, yeah, like like what
am I What is the benefit of this for me?
What am I getting out of this? What's it doing
for me? Obviously something, although not you know, the best
way to go about it, I did recognize, you know,
and I'm I'm good with talking about this because I
(33:25):
think I'm definitely not the only person. So hopefully whatever
we talk about, you know, someone's gonna it's gonna resonate.
But I have you know, it took physical, like actual
like body symptoms for me to realize that I am
(33:45):
overly stressed and that I'm not taking care of myself.
And so that was a thing that kind of woke
me up like about a month ago, and so I've
started doing practicing more mindfulness. So that's where I started
I'm like, I know, meditation works for me, I know,
(34:08):
sitting in the silence and feeling like I'm connecting with
actually like me. Yeah, that helps. But I can't sit
in meditation all day. Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6 (34:19):
Ye.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
So, but I just told myself, even if you only
do one thing a day, you have to do, like
do something to take care of yourself.
Speaker 6 (34:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
That's what I've been trying to do. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (34:32):
I wonder if you could have, if you could incorporate
like a mindful eating practice where it's not necessarily you know,
you eat instead of not eating, but it's just something
you do. Maybe you just had a meal or whatever,
but you just take you know what do you what's
it like? Do you like Greek yogurt? Do you like what?
(34:52):
What's something that you always have on hand?
Speaker 4 (34:55):
That is why are you laughing, Matty? Are you thinking
of the sticky rice?
Speaker 5 (34:59):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (34:59):
Okay, like I really love it.
Speaker 6 (35:02):
I'm sorry, that's great. Okay, So a sticky rice mindful
eating meditation where you just sit and have a moment
with that sticky rice and there's no judgment around it,
there's no should there's no like, I got to do
it this way. I got to do that. Oh I
just ate, or oh I need to eat. You know,
it's just time with the sticky rice and you give
(35:25):
you see it as a gift. You see it as connection,
and you you you really just open up your senses.
You know, what are you hearing, what are you smelling,
what are you tasting? What does it feel like? And
you eat it for five minutes and you start to lovingly,
compassionately train yourself that this is a good thing. That
(35:47):
you can give good food to yourself and enjoy it
and be connected to it. And that is that is
a precious opportunity to kind of remember that. It doesn't
need to be a response to stress or like to
eat or naught eat. It's just something you build in,
you build into your your day. So I wouldn't want
(36:09):
to I wouldn't want to like recommend that You're like, Okay,
you got to eat this way, and you got to
you know, instead of skipping your food, you know, meal,
you got to eat instead instead of that, just have
something on the side, like a little sticky rice time.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
I like that because that is that doesn't feel scary
because they're you know, I've talked to my therapist about
this before and I've told her this is something that
I want to tackle fully, but like, I can't take
that on right now. I just don't you know that
there are all these other things that I'm working on,
and I'm like, that feels really big, just completely like
(36:49):
retraining myself and revamping my relationship with.
Speaker 6 (36:53):
Food, YEP is a big thing.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
And the idea of you know, being told you need
to eat this many calories and these meals, that feels
very scary. Yeah, that feels like, okay, I have Yeah.
Speaker 6 (37:07):
When you have pain and grief and a pattern of
behavior that is disembodied and history around this, you definitely
don't want to attack it like that, like the you know,
the strategic all in let's talk about everything you're eating
and because it's intimidating and overwhelming and I would imagine
(37:31):
shut shut you down even more so. Yeah, I I
you know, there's so much I would ask more but
about you. But a little side, little ad of just
a little practice that doesn't feel like too much. It
just can be a sweet little moment remembering that you
(37:52):
can feed yourself and experience the connection with the food
and the connection with your body. Just that feels like
sweet little offering for you.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
Yeah, I can do that for sure. Yeah, it's definitely doable.
Speaker 6 (38:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
I'm curious if this is common or maybe it's just me.
But if I'm exercising a lot, like let's say, strength training,
I find that I don't feel that need nearly as
much to control what I'm eating. I just I feel
(38:26):
like it's more intuitive.
Speaker 6 (38:30):
That's wonderful. I mean, do you feel connected to your
body when you're exercising?
Speaker 4 (38:33):
I think so. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (38:35):
Okay, ye, are you aware of making any deals with
yourself that exercise allows you to not have to worry
about food?
Speaker 4 (38:47):
I don't think I have. It just kind of that
just kind of is the result. I don't think it's
a conversation I've had in my head. But even when
I was running all the time marathon training, I had
to eat a lot. I mean I knew I needed
that because running so much to me. Yeah, and I
(39:07):
was like, I have to have fuel for that. It
was less about taking care of me, but more so
I could do the thing.
Speaker 6 (39:13):
Yeah that's good to know. Yeah, I can see that.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
Yeah, But I don't know, I just have noticed, especially
when I was drink training, I just felt strong and good,
and I felt more self love. I think then I
lost my gym, and then it's I just haven't you know,
I kind of fill off the wagon on that. Just
(39:38):
curious if.
Speaker 6 (39:39):
Other people, if you hear this, it's so common. I
think wherever you find a connection to your body appreciation, agency,
more awareness, that's neutral to kind go with that and
cultivate peace in the other categories from that, because you
always want to like do more of that whatever you're
(40:03):
finding more decent because then that it can accelerate into
other categories because now you know what it feels like
to enjoy and experience peace. So wouldn't it be awesome
if you had the same enjoyment piece and delight with
food that you do with running.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
Yes, And you know, like with the gym, I don't
think it was just the fact that I was strength training,
you know, and like feeling strong because it was getting stronger.
So I think that all helped. But I felt a
safety in my gym. It was mostly women, it was
very small, and I felt safe in my body, which
(40:47):
I don't get anywhere else. You know, if I go
to like a Planet fitness, I just don't I feel
like I'm activated somewhat at some level, not necessarily high
all the time. But that is another I think component
of like just the safety in your body.
Speaker 6 (41:04):
Yes, absolutely, Yeah, I'm glad that you had that. I'm
sorry you don't have an anymore. Yeah, I'm looking for
it replacement, oh my god.
Speaker 4 (41:14):
But I mean that's the challenge for everyone, right, like
hues in the situation of finding safety in your body.
Of course, you're not going to want to be embodied
if it's not safe to be there.
Speaker 6 (41:27):
Well, and research in these spaces. The two areas of
the most disembodiment are religious grama and eating disorders. So
it's so interesting to me in tragic it really is
so to you know, these these systems need us to
be disconnected from our bodies because you can't trust yourself.
(41:47):
It's not good. So we're going to check out of
our bodies, our senses are, you're in an appropriate reception,
all the things like we're we're going to check out
because it's not safe to be connected to me.
Speaker 4 (42:00):
Right, So the work that you do with you said
restorative yoga and.
Speaker 6 (42:04):
Trauma trauma sensitive restorative yoga.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Yeah, can you talk about the difference between those two
And then I guess both of those are about embodiment
and helping you reconnect.
Speaker 6 (42:18):
And then yeah, for sure, it's that the breath is
really a bridge from the from the mind to the body.
So any modality that is helping you connect with your
breath is going to bring more nervous system regulation. Yeah, awesome,
So yoga is us you know, it's strategically designed for
that ancient what the ancient? So I think side note,
(42:43):
I think it's funny that I'm a yoga teacher because
I was taught that it's demonic. But anyway, Yeah, so.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Do you find as a challenge though, because I have
already had that in counseling, that you have to be
careful about ingesting a yoga practice to anyone.
Speaker 6 (43:04):
Yes, I've had you know, I've suggested it to clients
that I meet with for disordered eating and it's not
you know, it's not something they feel comfortable with. I've
had a few of those, which is fine. I respect
where they're coming from. But yeah, trauma sensitive just means
we're not touching teachers are not touching students. It's very invitational,
(43:29):
like you might try this, you might try that, because
the real goal of it is increasing a sense of
agency because people that are disembodied do not have this
deep sense of agency because they're so used to being
in spaces of being controlled and not having accessing agency.
So abuse, high control, religion, all these things. There's always
(43:52):
someone telling me what to do with my body. So
the last thing I want to do as a yoga
teacher is get a group of people together and say
this is what to do with your body. So right,
So it's not trauma sensitive if it's like that, So
it's very gentle and very invitational and increasing a sense
of agency so that people feel like that empowerment of oh,
(44:14):
this is my body and it's not feeling this. I
want to do this instead and I can leave if
I want, and I can walk around if I want. Yes,
And it's all okay, yes, because it's like we need
to learn that, we need to learn how to do
that with our bodies and ourselves that oh it's an option.
I don't have to do everything the teacher tells me. Yes.
Speaker 4 (44:34):
So yeah, and so the restorative how does that differ
from so.
Speaker 6 (44:40):
It yeah, So there's I am trained in hatha yoga,
so it's more of the ancient poses that you hold
of you know, for just a little bit, and then
restorative is like five to eight minutes of a pose
that you are staying in, which allows you to rest
into a post. So you know, people might cry, they
(45:03):
might fall asleep, they might because they're giving themselves rest
and you're not so preoccupied with what's next. Yeah. Yeah,
I love in the present.
Speaker 4 (45:16):
Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about the emotions
that come up because you just said you know you
might cry. I've seen that. I've experienced that, and it
can be surprising when you're when you're in a pose
and you're like, why do I suddenly feel this like
rush of emotion?
Speaker 6 (45:33):
Yeah, well, I mean there's the energetic quality of you know,
if if you believe that there's this system in your
body up your spine where all these nerves are, and
there's this channel of energy flowing throughout our organs and
our muscles and the fashion all this geeky amazing stuff
(45:53):
that's in our bodies, and you know, the body keeps
the score stuff where you know, trauma is held in
the body in some of these places. So when you
apply a system like yoga where you're actually strategically moving
energy through these different poses. You do forward binds, back bins, twists,
(46:15):
setting down poses, in versions, you're actually moving energy. And
then the second component is the emotional spiritual. When you
give yourself the gift of rest, it's profound, like how
busy are we and how constantly are we moving going
from one thing to the next, and so any kind
of care to the body, whether it's massage, a nap,
(46:38):
you know, some sort of therapy like craniocycral or something
like that, you're giving yourself permission to set into stillness,
and there's something very emotional about that because you're giving
yourself time to be not on. You get to be
off and receive love, receive rest, receive goodness and hopefully
(47:01):
whoever's do you know, facilitating that session with you is
offering a safe space for you to exist in that stillness,
and that can be very emotional for people and rare
like yes, yeah, no, it's just very heartwarming to give
yourself that. So yeah, I love it.
Speaker 4 (47:20):
Do you yeah? Do you incorporate breath work in these sessions?
Speaker 6 (47:26):
Yeah? Yeah. At the very end of the yoga session,
we do like a five minute sitting meditation. Mm hmmm,
so okay, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Did holotropic breathwork. Oh I probably no, Okay, I didn't.
I didn't know what that was.
Speaker 4 (47:46):
And it was I was in a group of ten,
no twelve people. One was a leader, and so many
people were crying. Oh yeah, and I felt very emotional
as well, and and so afterwards I was like, I
have to figure out what that was. Like, I don't
even know what it was, but it felt like a
(48:08):
really good release. Yeah, but it was. It's really interesting. Yeah,
I definitely would love to do more breath work. We
don't have a lot of opportunity in Missouri. There is
in north west Arkansas. I'm just not there all the time.
But okay, once we're there full time, I'm hoping to
(48:29):
tap into all things. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (48:32):
Wow, I didn't know you weren't there full time. That's cool.
Speaker 4 (48:35):
No, it's like we're back and forth, half and half.
Speaker 6 (48:38):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (48:38):
So that's why I haven't like actually signed up for
a gyms very hard, you know. So once I get there,
I did find an all women's like group strength training gym,
and that's definitely what I want to do.
Speaker 6 (48:53):
Oh, that'll be so cool for you.
Speaker 4 (48:55):
Yeah, yeah, this is this resonate with you, Maddie I'm
wondering if you have any of the same issues around embodiment, eating,
connecting to yourself.
Speaker 5 (49:10):
I do with food, But I think it's almost like
the flip side of the coin is what you were
saying Ashley about. I think with me, it's I don't
withhold from myself or withhold to like punish myself. It's
more like if I feel like I have failed or
(49:34):
I just didn't live up to whatever standard I had
in my head, it's almost like who cares, I'll eat whatever.
Then I have that kind of version of it, whatever
that is, whatever that is, like I don't care whatever, Yeah,
I'll just eat these three cheeseburgers and that kind of
thing where it's like a give up, like but more
that than kind of what you guys were hitting on you.
Speaker 6 (49:58):
Would you say that you experienced disembodiment, disconnection from yourself
in the moment when you feel kind of in that
rebellious kind of I'm going to do it anyway, Yeah,
I think so you check out. Yeah, it's almost like
if I disconnect, I won't know I'm doing this.
Speaker 4 (50:15):
Yes, yeah, I think the rebellion piece is a big,
big part of that too, just being controlled for all
these years.
Speaker 6 (50:25):
Yeah, I mean, but isn't that good that you're wanting
that agency? Both of you, both both of your stories
with food. It's almost like this this reaching towards agency
in different ways, like yeah, that's true, I was controlled,
so I'm going to control it or this should in
the disconnection, it's like I'm going to do whatever I want,
(50:47):
you know, Like that's that's kind of beautiful though, that
you want agency so bad you're willing to do something
that you end up not really loving, but.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
You know, yeah, definitely gives us clues, yes, and what's
really important to us?
Speaker 6 (51:08):
What do we really value?
Speaker 4 (51:10):
Yeah, that's good control and power.
Speaker 6 (51:17):
Well, I mean there's the funny part. But it's also
like you can trust yourself. If you're hungry for a cheeseburger,
you get to have a cheeseburger, you know, like, yeah,
you're not going to hell for cheese cheeseburgers. No, So yeah, okay.
Speaker 4 (51:35):
Well I love the work that you do, seriously, I'm
glad that you offer I guess telehealth coaching and yoga.
I'm gonna connect with you after about that and that
is something that I really would like to incorporate. But
I really like the idea of the gentle Yeah, yoga.
(51:59):
You just I've gone to some yoga classes. I know
it's so beneficial. I know it's so good. It's just
the ones that I've tried to go to. It's more
about your form and like the precision of it, and
you know, somebody is coming and pushing you this way,
and you know, yeah, and it's just kind of like
(52:19):
you're like awkwardly in this pose. And I'm not super
flexible to begin with, so that wasn't the best time
for me. But whenever I've done like let's say, sound
bath or something, you know, we will do a few
poses and it's always very gentle, and yeah, I feel
I feel that that is that's giving me something.
Speaker 6 (52:43):
Yeah, yeah, that's good. I'm so glad. Yeah, awesome. Okay,
so talk to you.
Speaker 4 (52:50):
But yeah, so one last question. If somebody is feeling
disconnected from themselves, like trapped in Shames second Survival survival mode,
what would you want them to hear today We've said
a lot, but what would be finding to leave them with?
Speaker 6 (53:08):
Just notice what you're feeling, Notice, notice the messages, notice
the behaviors with neutrality. Because so much of our work
to all of us and others is where we've we've
had the judgment message for so long that we can't
be aware without judgment. So that's the first piece of work,
(53:29):
is to notice these things, all the ruminations, all the thoughts,
all the feelings, all the behaviors with neutrality, and then
capture them, write them down, share them with somebody. And
then phase two is be curious and compassionate. Compassionate curiosity
is my favorite with those noticings, so not trying to fix,
(53:53):
not judging, but like, Okay, what's that about? What was
I feeling? What was I thinking there? And investigate yourself
with that with a trusted person hopefully, but you can
also trust yourself to investigate. So it's the neutral noticing
first and then the compassionate curiosity. Those are those are
(54:14):
my little phases that I need every day for myself.
Speaker 4 (54:19):
Yeah, I love that. My word of the Year last
year was curious and I didn't really I kind of
carried that over to this year because I feel like
it's such an ongoing process and that just means curious
about myself, you know, other people, instead of getting angry
at somebody like and curious about what's going on with him,
you know, those kinds of things. Yeah, but I think
(54:40):
I have to add neutrality to that because that is
so good, just reminding yourself to not view any of
this with judgment, but just you're being curious in a
neutral way, I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (55:00):
And then neutral noticing is so important because we pingulum
swing so a little tangent if I can. The body
positivity movement is a is a pendulum swing from my view,
because we want so bad to have value and worth
attached to our body images, and so we pingulum swing.
(55:23):
And I for me, it's body neutrality. Instead of forcing
everyone to believe that all bodies are beautiful, we're still
controlling how we feel about people's bodies. What about it's
just all bodies are neutral, that there's a body, there's
a body, there's a body. Yeah, and I just I
(55:45):
don't think we're designed to be neutral most of the time.
Speaker 4 (55:49):
That's such a good point though, Yeah, I never thought
about that. With a body positivity, there's a body, we're
still judging it. Yeah, it's still a judgment.
Speaker 6 (55:58):
Yeah, it's still a shift.
Speaker 4 (56:00):
You should see all.
Speaker 6 (56:03):
Sizes as beautiful and good. Well, what about personal preference?
What about your story, what about genetics, what about your relationships?
What about There's so many variables that go into how
someone exists in their bodies, and so it's still a shit.
It's still a control mechanism. Anyway, it's a little rant
(56:25):
for why you know, he feels so much better.
Speaker 4 (56:28):
Yeah, I feel like that's really missed, so thank you
for pointing that out. Yeah, okay, Well, can you let
people know where they can find you?
Speaker 6 (56:39):
Of course, thank you so much, and I will share
I will share this with my network. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (56:45):
Yeah, so you have a website, right, I do so, okay.
Speaker 6 (56:49):
Forshall Wilkerson dot com and after the Aftermath Agency dot com.
Speaker 4 (56:54):
Okay, and that's Tricia t r I s h A.
Speaker 6 (56:57):
Will Krison dot com.
Speaker 4 (56:59):
Yet okay, well we'll put that in the in the
notes too though.
Speaker 6 (57:03):
It's so good to get to know you guys a
little better. Wow. Yeah, is so great.
Speaker 4 (57:07):
I could talk about this all day me too.
Speaker 6 (57:10):
Let's let's let's yeah, we could do a whole other
podcast just for this.
Speaker 4 (57:16):
I know. When yes, yeah, if you would like to
for sure, seriously, because I do want to get out
of this. Doesn't have to be on the pod anymore.
But like I do want to step away from not
entirely only talking about you know, individuals cult experiences, like
(57:39):
I want to talk about the aftermath and what you
do about it and how you reconnect with yourself and
some of the just the impacts that we don't really
even realize were from that. I'm still like uncovering, unearthing
things for sure.
Speaker 6 (57:55):
The recovery work, Yeah, yeah, I recovery language is interesting
now in that it's so in you know, addict addiction spaces.
But yeah, I feel like I'm recovering from religious trauma,
and I'm recovering from abuse, and I'm recovering you know.
So there's so many things that I'm recovering from and
it's going to be forever that I'm recovering.
Speaker 4 (58:19):
So yeah, that on one hand, sometimes that has felt
a little bit heavy, knowing Okay, well there's no finish line,
but you know, I can see progress every year and
that's encouraging. That is encouraging, Yeah a lot. I feel
like as long as we're growing, then we're on the
(58:40):
right track.
Speaker 6 (58:42):
Yeah, And there's that connection piece, like we need each other.
So your listeners as they connect to YouTube and your guests,
like they're finding connection like that that's the big remedy
right to all this.
Speaker 4 (58:56):
Yes, yes, because I think we're both just it kind
of especially in the South and the Midwest. Connection is
so often found in religious spaces, and so just to
have alternatives to that. There are other ways to find
community and connect with people outside of a religious ideology,
(59:19):
you know. And I know our podcast is like a
little small drop in the bucket to that. But if
that helps anybody, you know, feel a sense of community,
then like, I'm so happy.
Speaker 6 (59:31):
That's good. That's really the best we can do is
offering safe spaces for people to connect.
Speaker 4 (59:40):
Yeah, okay, thank you so much.
Speaker 6 (59:46):
Thank you for doing both do and being bright lights
in these dark places seriously, and.
Speaker 4 (59:56):
Yeah it feels like it's getting darker all the time
to yeah, awesome, you know in the world, Yes it is.
Speaker 5 (01:00:04):
If you like this episode, please go leave us a
five star rating and review wherever that is, if it's Apple,
Spotify or another service. It's really helpful. And don't forget
to subscribe so that you can get notified to when
we have new episodes and updates and things like that. Thanks,
and we'll talk to you all again next week.
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